5 Months Previously

     "Check this out," Gabriel proclaimed, sliding a tattered newspaper across the table towards Ellie. "We're famous."

     "What is it?" Ellie asked, looking up from the paperwork she was filling out.

     "New York Times has us on the front page," Gabriel explained. "Do you think they got my good side?"

     Ellie picked up the newspaper and gingerly read the headline: "HISTORY MADE TODAY: ASTRONAUTS IN THE FINAL FRONTIER!" She flipped through the newspaper, browsing through the other articles. Reporters those days were always trying to get the latest information, even if it was totally false at times. Recently, it had become exceedingly more difficult to separate fact from fiction.

     Gabriel reached over and snatched the paper away, "But try not to get too invested in that crap. They'll do anything to get their audience up in a fritz."

     Ellie waved her hand in dismissal and went back to writing, "Stop distracting me."

     Gabriel raised his eyebrows as he sat forward, "What are you even doing?"

     "Paperwork," Ellie murmured.

     Gabriel sat forward and tugged the sheet away so he could get a better look.

     "It's..." Ellie started.

     "Is this a will?" Gabriel asked as he scanned the list of items.

     Ellie averted his gaze, "It's so...well, you know...just in case..."

     "Is this your sister getting to you?" asked Gabriel, squinting his eyes at the paper. "You can't be serious about this..."

     Ellie snatched the paper back, feeling embarrassed by the action,"It's just a precaution. Things go awry in space all the time; you never know what could end up happening."

     Gabriel sighed and casually leaned back in his chair, "Ellie, you're going to be fine. This is just a standard launch to a scientific facility that just-so-happens to be...out of town."

     "Tell that to my sister," Ellie whispered while finishing writing the document. "You know, all my life I've dreamed of doing something like this. Ever since I was a little girl, I'd look up into the sky and just think....that maybe there was something more. Do you get what I'm saying?"

     "Are you having an existential crisis or something?" Gabriel teased. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that it's alright to be normal? Normalcy is the only illusion that keeps humanity from flying apart in a million directions."

     Ellie looked up at the ceiling as she sat back, "I don't know. There's just been this hole inside of me my whole life. When I got this job of working at the A.O.S.S. it felt like...for the first time...the hole was being filled up. I mean, can you blame me?"

     Gabriel picked at the corner of the table, "No, I don't. But I can assure you that you're not the first person to feel that way."

     Ellie looked to her left and rolled her eyes, "And then my sister had to come and rain on everything. She's so...cynical."

     "She just wants to protect you," Gabriel consoled, a note of experience lingering on his words. "You'll always be her little sister."

     Ellie stared back at Gabriel, "Look, it's fine by me if she just wants to sleep, eat, make money, and try not to bump into the walls of life too much. But I can't live like that! I need more, I just need something...substantial."

     "And you'll get that," Gabriel reassured her, simultaneously checking his watch. "But first, we've got to get back to the facility. We've got a training exercise in half an hour."

     "You go on," nodded Ellie. "I'll meet you there later."

     Gabriel left the room and Ellie sat in silence. She pushed the will to the center of the table and stretched her back. Her sister would have to wait.

     Fate was calling.

**

Present Day

     Ellie's scream echoed throughout the tightly-enclosed chamber. Gabriel's face stared in through the window, his skin iced over with crystals. His eyes had a vacant look, but there was somehow an inkling of life left in them. Weakly, he banged on the window of the station as Ellie pushed herself farther away from the zombie-like figure.

     She bumped into the other end of the wall, breathing heavily. Books, pens, and electrical equipment floated around her in an interstellar mess. Ellie shook her head, beginning to deny what was before her very eyes. There was no way that Gabriel could be alive; he had been exposed to the vacuum-like environment of space for far too long.

     But there he was, defying all explanation, staring through the window.

     Ellie's mind raced, her rationale taking over despite the unreality of everything: if he was really alive, she could open up a hatch the would allow Gabriel to re-enter the station. But most of the electrical grid had been compromised, meaning that the hatch might not even have enough power to open itself. 

     Ellie continued to push her feelings of anxiety away, her months of training continuing to take the place of fear. For long hours, back before the launch, she had had psycho-analyzations of her mental well-being. She would never have been sent if she couldn't respond to situations of high-stress.

     Ellie cautiously approached the window with Gabriel still on the other side. She gently placed her hand up against the cool glass, and Gabriel mimicked the movement. There was no denying it: he was alive. Ellie immediately pushed herself away from the window, after motioning for Gabriel to do the same, and made her way to an emergency airlock. Her blood pumped through her ears as she came to the control panel. Much to her initial expectations, most of everything had been fried by the accident.

     She fiddled with the instruments but there was no response from the main computers. Ellie looked back and could see Gabriel helplessly drifting out in space. His hair was floating around him like he was underwater. The look in his eyes was a mixture of pain and awe.

     Ellie's skin got goosebumps from the sight as she turned back to the panel. She reached out her hand to power up the systems using the auxiliary generators. Ellie licked her lips, her heart rate increasing and the blood in her veins pumping even harder. The rhythmic thumping sounded like drums in her ears, the seconds ticking by.

     When her hand slowly, cautiously, and gently made contact with the crusted surface of the console, a shock-wave of power coursed through her body. Ellie yelped, trying to pull her hand away but quickly realized she couldn't. The power came in waves, like shocks of electricity, and her sense of consciousness became distorted. She was no longer in one, singular, body but instead spread out over a multitude of different components. Every injured section, every destroyed system, and every inch of the power grid became as real to her as her own two hands. Somewhere, faded and far off, there was a ping of hesitation that was quickly blotted out like a dying spark. Instinct replaced will, and natural fear became nullified.

     Ellie, herself, wasn't sure what was happening. Upon connecting with the electronic interface, her consciousness became subdued and her subconscious took over. Within seconds, power converters were being relayed back to the closed hatch, wires welded themselves together, and grid power was reconnected. Precious energy, dwindling like the rest of the station, rushed through the walls like a burst dam. It fueled the door that became activated and opened.

     An exterior camera watched Gabriel push himself into the hatch. As soon as his entire body was safely enclosed, the door shut and the decompression began. Ellie saw everything as if she was the station, or as if the station was her. The cameras were her eyes, the energy was her power, and the crippled station was her body. When the decompression sequence completed, the link between machine and woman was severed.

     Ellie gasped, her senses returning to normal. Instinctively, she pulled her hand from the console and looked at the skin. She wasn't injured, and the skin didn't appear to have been harmed in any way. She floated in astonishment, trying to comprehend everything once more, when the hatch behind her opened. Ellie turned, a frozen Gabriel drifting into the interior of the space station.

     "Gabriel?" Ellie asked, wrapping her arms around his withered body. "Gabriel?"

     There was no response, and Gabriel seemed to be in a state of unconsciousness. His eyes were closed, making him appear as if he were in a deep sleep. Ellie pulled him further into the station, desperately trying to resuscitate her comrade. Gabriel had been her closest friend for months and there he floated in a state between life and death.

     Ellie ignored her rational mind, tears running down her face. She could handle a damaged space station or facing the possibility of death in the unknown. But to see her friend in a comatose state after being extracted from the hostile environment of space was too overwhelming.

     Emotion began to cloud her will for survival.