Earth

     "What the hell is going on up there?" NASA Flight Director Daniel Peters gruffly ordered, running his fingers through his thinning grey hair.

     "We're diagnosing the problem as we speak," a worker responded from his desk in the midst of frantically scribbling down math equations.

     "Diagnose it faster!" Peters ordered. "A multi-billion-dollar piece of metal doesn't just stop sending transmissions! How long until we get a visual?"

     "Visuals are streaming in right...now," a freckled woman with brown, wavy, hair answered, pulling up telescopic images of the station.

     Daniel Peters turned, his thickly-rimmed glasses gleaming in the dim light. He ran another hand through his thinning hair before briskly walking over toward the monitor. For thirty years he had worked at NASA, but never before had something of this magnitude ever occurred. The Above Orbital Space Station, a 15 billion dollar investment, had just been compromised. Peters nervously straightened his tie, journeying over to his assistant's desk.

     The visual was horrifying.

     Thousands of glittering pieces of metal littered the scene like miniature stars. Entire sections of the station had been crushed, and the odds of survival looked incredibly bleak.

     "What happened?" demanded Peters.

     The woman, Tracey Reed, shook her head, "I don't know. We've got scientists analyzing every possible scenario, but the damage looks...extraterrestrial."

     "A meteor shower?" Peters asked.

     Tracey nodded, "Reports indicate the shower was shrouded in an energy field that made it undetectable to our sensors. The astronauts barely had enough time to prepare themselves before impact."

     "Have you established communications?" Peters asked, rubbing his lined face.

     Tracey nodded, "We've been trying, but so far no response. There is a possibility that their communications array is down, or maybe they're--"

     "Stop there Reed," Peters ordered, pressing his earpiece. "Houston, this is Flight Director Daniel Peters issuing a Code Yellow. I repeat, this is a Code Yellow. I want every available personnel trying to establish contact with the A.O.S.S. do you hear me?" he paused, listening to the response. "Yes that means you too! Get the hell down here!"

     The Flight Director turned around and looked at the sprawling screen filled with diagrams, numbers, and visual representations of the current status of the station. Peters swallowed and straightened his spectacles nervously.

**

A.O.S.S.

     Ellie pushed Gabriel's body through the damaged interior of the station. Lights flickered and grinding noises could be felt throughout the compartment as the station continued to break apart. She knew the schematics of the station better than the layout of her own apartment. Through the winding corridors, according to her memories, were the emergency escape pods. Each one was self-sustaining, so hopefully they hadn't been compromised by the collapse of the electrical grid.

     Accidentally, Gabriel's head bumped into a wall.

     "Sorry," Ellie whispered, straightening him out and continuing to push.

     Within a few minutes she was near the pods. Carefully, she activated one of the nearest panels and initiated a pod departure. While the system initialized the sequence, there was a sudden boom throughout the corridors as the space station split apart further. The lights went black for a moment, and the panel immediately showed red.

     The pod had been compromised.

     Ellie couldn't send an activation signal because the arrays were in such terrible shape. The lights flickered once more, the reality of the situation dragging her morale down. She was alone, in space, trapped in a collapsing space station, with almost no hope of survival. The fear began to set in as Ellie's breaths came in short gasps.

     There was no hope.

     She was going to die.

**

Earth

     "Sir!" an assistant exclaimed.

     Peters turned around, sipping his coffee, and walked over to one of the assistant's computer terminals, "What's your name son?"

     "Howard," the assistant, a twenty-something with messy hair, answered nervously. "Howard Greyson. There's been an indication that one of the escape shuttles had an attempted activation."

     "Attempted activation?" Peters whispered. "Then that means..."

     "There are survivors," Greyson continued. "But the failed activation indicates that the electrical components of the station are toast. Whoever's up there is in big trouble."

     "How long do they have?" Peters asked.

     "Oxygen levels are depleting, and life-support systems are on their last legs," Tracey responded from across the room. "I'd say they have...minutes."

     "I want immediate re-establishment of communications!" Peters demanded, slamming his coffee mug on the table. "And whoever comes up to me one more time and says that it's not possible is fired! Greyson, is there a way to manually release the pod?"

     Howard Greyson shook his head, typing strings of code onto his computer screen, "There might be an emergency release....let me check."

     Daniel Peters sighed; time was running out.

**

A.O.S.S.

     Red lights weakly flickered throughout the destroyed station while Ellie quickly looked around for a manual release. She had known from briefing after briefing that the red lights could only mean one thing: life support systems were failing.

     Ellie hit the wall in frustration. There was nothing she could do.

     Things began to go dark, each light shutting off like the last. Everything was failing as Ellie turned her head and looked down at Gabriel's unconscious body.

     If she couldn't get them out of there for herself, she was going to have to get them out for him.

     Ellie had always secretly loved Gabriel Monroe, from the first second she had seen him. His charisma, intelligence, and friendliness toward her had always been baffling. Something deep inside of Ellie awoke, and the adrenaline was released into her system.

     Ellie closed her eyes, the last light flickered off, and life-support failed. All that was left to live was the air in front of her face and the power to survive in her heart. The ability within her, the ability that had been given to her by fate, bubbled and lashed out. Ellie's eyes glazed over, her subconscious interfacing with the technology around her. She interlaced herself into the intricate circuitry and physically felt the escape pod activate.

     Ellie opened the doors and pushed Gabriel's unconscious body into the compartment. She pushed herself in, alongside him, and strapped herself into the seat. More grinding noises vibrated around her while the A.O.S.S. took its last breath. Ellie Jobs was no longer in control as she raised her hand and ordered the pod to come to life. Lights illuminated themselves along the control panels, the doors behind her shut, and the safety latches released themselves.

     The pod was ejected from the station before it died.

**

Earth

     "Now what's going on?!" Peters screamed, evidence of the pod's release suddenly reaching mission control.

     "They did it!" Howard Greyson exclaimed. "They escaped!"

     "With an escape pod?" Peters asked. "Calculate the trajectory. I want to know exactly where they're going to land."

     "Already on it sir," another assistant stated before starting meticulous math on their computer terminal.

     Peters watched pictures of the pod's ejection unfold on screen. He leaned on the wall and rubbed his eyes. If it had not been for the astronauts' quick-thinking, they would have died. He knew, as well as everyone else, that mission control had been helpless to save them.

     They had been helpless.