The message arrived after the window had already closed and her name pulsed on the screen like a mistake that could not be undone so I stared at it until my reflection replaced it and even then I did not move. The lab was quiet except for the low thrum of containment fields and my hands were shaking in a way that felt delayed as if my body had learned the truth before my mind agreed to it. I pressed play knowing it was already too late and her voice filled the room thin and altered by distance. She was breathing hard. There was light behind her so bright it…

The door sealed with a soft breath and her name left my mouth a second too late so it fell to the floor between us unheard and useless. My hand was still lifted toward the narrowing gap when the metal met metal and the warmth that had been hers disappeared as if it had never learned me. The corridor lights shifted to night cycle and the quiet pressed close enough to bruise. I stood there longer than the protocol allowed because movement felt like agreement with what had already happened. The station hummed around me a living thing continuing without pause and I understood that loss did not require witnesses.…

The last transmission ended with his breath caught mid word and the screen went dark before I could answer so I kept speaking into the silence until my voice learned there would be no reply. The room smelled of warm circuits and dust and my fingers hovered above the console like they could pull him back if they stayed long enough. Somewhere beyond the dome the tide lamps dimmed and the city slipped into night without noticing what it had taken from me. I sat there until the ache in my chest softened into something heavier and more permanent. Loss did not arrive with drama. It settled like a second…

The orbital habitat named Meridian Halo circled a blue white planet whose storms never touched the surface. From space the planet looked calm almost inviting but its atmosphere tore apart anything that entered without permission. Meridian Halo existed to watch from a safe distance. It was a ring of glass and alloy slow spinning artificial gravity whispering through its corridors. People who lived there learned patience or left. Iria Nox had learned patience the hard way. She stood in the botanical ring where engineered trees curved overhead their leaves translucent and faintly luminous. The air smelled of mineral water and living things carefully maintained. Iria came here when the rest…

The research habitat called Helior Nest floated above a gas giant whose clouds shifted in slow deliberate colors like thoughts forming and dissolving. The habitat was not large. It did not need to be. It existed for listening rather than expansion. Circular corridors curved gently inward as if encouraging reflection. Light panels adjusted automatically to human circadian rhythms even though most of the scientists working there had long since lost any real connection to planetary days. Elian Moore stood alone in the central observation dome watching the planet below breathe. He had been assigned to Helior Nest because of his temperament. Calm. Patient. Unlikely to panic when instruments whispered of…

The city of Lathis rose from the desert like a patient thought that refused to vanish. Its towers were grown rather than built, pale structures coaxed upward by molecular architects that shaped stone and metal into smooth organic curves. At dawn the city reflected the sun in soft gradients, never sharp enough to blind, never dull enough to disappear. Arin Solace stood on the transit platform and watched the light change, feeling the familiar tension between anticipation and restraint tighten inside her chest. She was a predictive systems analyst, trained to observe probability streams and model likely futures. Her work did not decide what would happen. It mapped what could.…

The station called Aurelion Span was built where three trade routes curved past one another without ever fully crossing. It existed in a pocket of relative calm, a place ships passed through slowly, adjusting trajectories and expectations alike. From the outside it looked almost unfinished, asymmetrical modules added over decades as need dictated rather than design. Inside, the corridors carried the soft echo of lives in transit. Mara Edevane walked those corridors every day and still felt as though she were listening to someone else footsteps. She was a deep field acoustician, one of the few specialists trained to study interstellar silence. Not the absence of sound, but the subtle…

The station known as Persephone Drift rested in the shadow of a dead star, its fractured light scattering softly across the hull like memory that could not fully disappear. The star had collapsed centuries earlier, leaving behind a dense remnant that bent space and time in subtle, persistent ways. Persephone Drift existed here by intention, anchored to a place most travelers avoided. Inside the station, the light was dim and warm, designed to counter the quiet gravity of its surroundings. Kira Solen walked slowly through the memory wing, her steps measured, her breath steady, as if the space itself required reverence. Kira was a temporal archivist, one of the few…

The station called Halcyon Verge drifted in a slow figure through the dark, positioned between two stable orbits that never touched. From the outside it looked undecided, a ring of habitation and research modules suspended between destinations. Inside the station, the light was warm by design, meant to counter the psychological weight of never fully arriving anywhere. Junia Hale stood in the central atrium, watching simulated sunlight slide across the curved floor. She had learned the timing of the light shifts by heart, though she pretended not to care. Junia was a trajectory analyst, responsible for plotting safe passages between distant systems. She understood movement better than most people understood…

The station called Meridian Hollow drifted at the edge of a nebula whose colors never settled into a single truth. From one angle it burned violet and gold. From another it faded into gray mist. The station architects had designed wide viewing corridors so crews could remind themselves where they were, or perhaps why they had come. Arin Solace stood in one such corridor, hands resting against the glass, watching light scatter and reform. He had been on Meridian Hollow for eight months and still felt like a visitor in his own life. He was a stellar cartographer, mapping gravitational distortions inside the nebula. The work was slow, methodical, and…