Firstclass Pov Direct

Saito. Status.

And then I seal the outer hatch behind me, and the hiss of pressurization fills my ears, and I unclip my helmet, and the station air smells like metal and sweat and recycled failure. Reyes is waiting in the inner chamber, her face blank, professional. She hands me a rehydration pouch.

I’ve done this exact repair twenty-three times. I could do it blindfolded, which is good, because the sun keeps sliding in and out of my peripheral vision like a migraine waiting to happen. The station’s rotation means I get sixty seconds of blazing light, then sixty seconds of absolute black. Like a celestial interrogation lamp. firstclass pov

Commander Reyes. She’s been on the station for eleven months. She has a husband in Houston and a daughter who just learned to say “mama” over video calls. I’ve watched Reyes cry exactly once—when she missed her daughter’s first steps by three hours because a solar flare scrambled the transmission.

Home.

“Good work, Saito.”

That was six years ago.

Outside, the universe keeps spinning. The scorch mark keeps fading. And somewhere, three hundred miles down, my mother is doing a downward dog in what used to be my bedroom.