They flew together. The asteroid broke apart at the last second, and their ship emerged from the debris field, dented but alive. Kosimok looked at her—her face streaked with coolant, her hands shaking, her smile defiant.
Their final test came when the Venture’s Wake was ordered on a suicide mission to divert a rogue asteroid from a colony world. Kosimok prepared to go alone, programming an autopilot to return Elara to safety.
“It’s not a debate,” he growled.
Kosimok found her pod drifting through a field of frozen hydrogen crystals. She was small, with sharp eyes that assessed him immediately—not with fear, but with curiosity. He hauled her onto his ship, grunting, “You have ten minutes to explain before I jettison your pod for scrap.”
The voice was calm, almost melodic, cutting through the static of a collapsing nebula. “This is Dr. Elara Voss of the research vessel Odyssey . Life support failing. Requesting immediate assistance.”
“No,” she said softly. “It’s the only thing that’s real.”
The turning point came when a solar flare knocked out their main comms. Stranded for weeks, they played cards, argued about ship protocols, and once, when a hull breach sent them tumbling into each other in the corridor, she grabbed his arm and laughed.
And for the first time in his life, Kosimok didn’t mind being wrong.