Vanessa looks around. The doors make the shape of a capital I on the top of the payload bay, and when closed, they are held together with a total of thirty-two latches. Eight on the forward bulkhead, eight on the aft bulkhead, and sixteen down the centerline. First, she’s going to pull the forward bulkhead latches closed as best she can.

The left set of four have been closed electronically. So she moves to the right set, beginning with the one farthest from the center. The first has jammed, but she knows what to do. In almost any other scenario up here, this might even be Vanessa’s shining moment. This is what she’s here for. The mechanics.

She grabs the tool kit from behind the thermal blanket and floats back to the first latch. She takes out the ratchet wrench. There can be no rushing in space, really. And in this moment, she is grateful that she is forced to work through the problem methodically. She has trained for this moment. Back on Earth, she learned where to put her right hand, where to put her left hand, how to get into the foot restraints, and how to brace herself for maximum leverage. She gets into position and begins.

How is she going to be an astronaut without Steve? How is she going to get home without him? She can’t. She can’t do any of this. She’s going to fuck this up and they are all going to die. She can’t do this.

Vanessa inhales sharply.

Maybe rushing would be better. Maybe, if she didn’t have a moment to think, it would all be easier. Gravity is underrated. It gives us something to fight against.

She tries to clear her mind. She aligns the ratchet wrench to the gearbox and begins to turn.

Steve had told Vanessa, at one point, that even though he was the younger of two brothers, it felt like she was his little sister.

Vanessa had replied that she, too, felt like a little sister, always the focus of the attention between them, always asking too much of him. But Steve had corrected her. He said he got something out of it, too. “Talking to you, hearing what you’re going through, it makes me realize how far I’ve come since I was your age. And hell, I might be a great astronaut. But if all I’m doing with what I’ve learned is using it for myself, what kind of legacy is that?

“This way, I’ll help you, and you’ll help another ASCAN, and she’ll help another, and on it will go. And then one day, decades from now, when we get to Mars, I’ll be long gone. But I’ll still be a part of it.”