Ryan's shuttle, the peculiarly named Fighting Machine, still sat in the docking bay by Airlock-C. It was this that she used to make the journey to Mandala, now in a lower, more unstable orbit than the Arcadia after Valkyrie's station-keeping manoeuvres. Leanne, trying not to think of the wretched duty Ryan had to perform, kept to the cockpit, glued to the cameras which followed the Martian woman's progress.

The Fighting Machine's thrusters glimmered with a ghostly green in the void of space, contrasting with the scorched white of the shuttle. Ryan had explained that the vessel was as protected as any BASE equivalent, complete with heat-shield, internal guidance system and robust propulsion, but it still looked so vulnerable out there.

Leanne was worried for her, and that was something she did not think she would admit to.

"Ryan has successfully reached BESS Mandala," Valkyrie was saying. "The hatch is still open from your egress, Miss Ziegler, so she will not have to force entry."

Leanne could see that on the cameras mounted to the Fighting Machine. It seemed an age since she had left Mandala, but it was truly only forty hours or so. She regretted ever setting foot in that shuttle and in a perverse way, would be glad to see it bumped into a course that would end with its fiery destruction. She hoped her pain would ignite in a similar way.

"Ryan is exiting the Fighting Machine now," Valkyrie narrated. "I shall monitor her vital signs."

That was something Ryan had expressly requested. Leanne had offered but Ryan had insisted on Valkyrie. She had considered pressing the matter before swiftly shutting her mouth. She and Ryan had only just got onto a firmer footing and it would be foolish to ruin that. It was clear the BASE and Nerio were not sending reinforcements, so the two women had each other only.

And Valkyrie. Leanne was not sure how she felt about occupying the Arcadia alone with the AI again.

For now, she focused on Ryan. The woman, dressed in an EVA suit as red as her home planet, attached her tether to the pulley at the hatch of the Fighting Machine and made her first step out into the black gulf. Leanne's stomach dropped. Ryan had said she had performed EVAs but Leanne doubted that. The Nerio colonists tended to stick to their lower gravity ground. Still, Ryan did not seem to balk or hesitate. She calmly adjusted the pack on her back and manipulated the small thrusters. These glittered as green as the Fighting Machine's. Leanne obsessively followed their trail.

It took a mere few minutes for Ryan to approach Mandala. Holding herself steady, she reached out a hand and touched the hull of the shuttle. Leanne knew what a relief that would be: firm stability in an open abyss with no top and no bottom.

"Entering Mandala now," Ryan's voice said over the comms. She barely sounded strained. Just like Cliff, Leanne thought, so calm in the face of adversity.

Unlike on the Fighting Machine, there were no cameras attached to her suit. Leanne was glad. Though it meant she was cut off from the other woman, it also meant she would not have to risk seeing Cliff's terrible state. She simply had to trust that Ryan would act well. It was a shame they could not utilise Mandala again, but even with the Fighting Machine's complex tech, it could not manoeuvre Mandala back to the Arcadia and the shuttle had not been fitted with autopilot. And in any case, Mandala's functions had shut down before Leanne had left her.

She waited for Ryan to appear again. The Fighting Machine's cameras picked up subtle shifts in Mandala's trajectory; Ryan must have got the finicky thing back online, just as she had manipulated the systems of the Arcadia in her own way. Leanne knew she could not underestimate the Martians. Their technological genius was undeniable.

Cliff's tether was still attached to Mandala, but Leanne had not dared to look at his body, that vivid white spot against the blackness. As Mandala moved, destined for her new final course, Ryan re-emerged. She had taken control of Cliff's umbilical cord, clipping it to her own belt to avoid him being pulled down with Mandala. Leanne knew she would not have been capable of that. She had already failed Cliff. These last rites would have tasted like ash in her mouth.

"It is alright to feel angry and sad, Miss Ziegler," Valkyrie suddenly said.

Leanne did not feel like talking. Ryan was Valkyrie's golden child; she might as well keep her mouth shut around the AI.

"Rest assured that I shall locate the source of the rogue transmission that affected Phaethon and killed your commander," Valkyrie continued.

"It wasn't you then?" Leanne knew she shouldn't bite, certainly not with a statement she didn't think was true.

"I do not believe so."

"What do you mean? How can you be uncertain? You are a computer."

"I am. But my ethos is not to harm humans. It is to protect them."

Leanne frowned. She looked up at the ceiling and Valkyrie's omnipotent presence, suddenly feeling she was breathing down her neck. Protect humans? What on earth was she talking about? She had no humans to protect and those who had come into her vicinity, she had not helped. Leanne opened her mouth to ask more, when Ryan interrupted.

"I'm approaching Commander Buchanan now," she said.

The Fighting Machine had turned, under Ryan's instruction, to face her progress along Cliff's line. Leanne was grateful that the view did not stray too close; all she could see was Cliff's white suit and the back of Ryan's red one. He looked, she thought, as if he was slumbering in the embrace of the stars. She must think of it like that. He had loved the unknown and allure of the universe. It would forever be a part of him, as he would now be forever a part of it.

Leanne took a breath and squeezed her trembling hands. Ryan's serenity soothed her. She gently reached out and touched Cliff's body, turning him away from her. Leanne tried not to think of what he would look like: the effects of space would suffocate, freeze and eventually dissolve. He would return to the place they had all come from, somewhere out there.

"Fate has ordained," Ryan said softly, "that Commander Cliff Buchanan, who came to the stars to explore in peace, will now rest amongst the stars in peace. He laid down his life for this noble goal. Those who loved him will take comfort in how, when they look to the heavens, a part of him will always look down upon them."

Leanne's heart clenched. Those were the words of the BASE's burial in space, adapted from an old speech to be delivered if the Apollo astronauts had not returned home. Ryan spoke them with a soft, careful respect, something that Leanne had not expected of her. She bowed her head, trying to breathe through the overwhelming grief.

"We therefore commit his body to the deep," Ryan continued, "looking for the resurrection when the stars shall give up their dead."

She paused, waiting for the final statement of the ritual. Leanne realised she had to speak.

"From here," Leanne said, barely above a whisper, "the way leads to the stars."

It was the BASE's motto: a call-and-response to create community and show respect to the company, but moreover, the depths of the universe. Now, it remained unfinished, a symbol of an astronaut's passing beyond the ability to reply and complete the circle.

Silently, Ryan detached Cliff from his tether and gently pushed him into the arms of the blackness. His white form began to drift far, far away.

Ryan remained quiet as Leanne wept. She did not judge, did not comfort, only waited for Leanne to compose herself, sniffing and wiping away the tears on her cheeks. "Thank you, Ryan," she eventually managed. "You did know the procedure."

"Don't sound so surprised," Ryan teased gently. Leanne chuckled, throat still tight. "I'm coming back now. We'll work out the next steps when I get in."

"Sounds like a plan."

Leanne watched through the Fighting Machine's cameras as Ryan made her way back to safety. She wondered about pushing Valkyrie again, to try and find out what she meant by her alleged protection of humans, but she wanted Ryan to be here for that. The Martian woman would be able to probe Valkyrie far better than Leanne could – and she had promised to try and 'access' her, whatever that meant. Now Cliff had been buried, Leanne felt a weight slowly shifting from her shoulders. She could return to Joanne with a message of peace and not the horrible fate the man had suffered.

But then, "Shit."

Leanne's heart bounced at Ryan's curse. "What is it?"

"Did Wells station say they tried to move Mandala?"

"They did."

"There's debris here. A lot of it."

Leanne bent closer to the camera feed and with a shiver up her spine, saw specks of detritus against the black canvas. Even when a spot shot across the light radiating from Mars, she could not tell exactly what it was, but it was large enough to cause damage to equipment and people. At high speeds, even a flake of paint could penetrate a shield or window. Space junk had already become a dire problem for stations and astronauts.

"Be careful," she said to Ryan. "Move slowly and I will keep watch on the debris field."

"Roger that."

Ryan's red figure slowed as she obeyed Leanne's instructions and meticulously navigated the danger. The trails of her thrusters occasionally illuminated a halo of wreckage. It could have come from Mandala or any of the satellites in near orbit. Humans had a way of leaving their imprint wherever they went, and someone would always suffer for it.

"Is there a medbay onboard, Valkyrie?" Leanne asked, making sure Ryan did not hear her.

"Yes, Miss Ziegler."

"I hope we don't need it but..."

Ryan had closed in on the Fighting Machine. All the weight which had lifted from Leanne's shoulders had returned. She had not liked Ryan to begin with; she reminded herself it had only been a day or so since they had met, perhaps not even that. How much of that dislike had stemmed from general bad feeling between the BASE and Mars? Some of it, maybe, but then Ryan had not tried to endear herself to Leanne. Now, though, she could not face the idea of someone else being harmed. Whether she liked her or not, she needed the Martian woman.

"Nearly there," Ryan said. "Nearly— Damn!"

Her little figure jerked suddenly, one of her thrusters sputtering. Leanne jumped, reaching for controls that weren't there. She could not help her.

"Are you alright? Were you hit?"

"No. No, just a thruster. It's knocked it out. I can get back with one, but it'll be a trial."

But Ryan had not moved what seemed like another inch when she swore again, hand flying from the stick control of her pack. She slammed it to her side and groaned. "Okay, now I've been hit."

"What?" Leanne leapt from her seat. "Valkyrie..."

But what could Valkyrie do?

"It didn't feel that bad. I think I can still... Shit, the suit's been ruptured."

"Good God, get back to the craft!" Leanne ordered, panic seeping into her voice. "Valkyrie, show me her vital signs."

"Ryan expressly ordered me to—"

"Damn it, show me her vital signs!"

There was a brief pause and then a number of variables scrolled across the screen before Leanne. O2, BPM, body temperature, respiratory rate. Ryan flatlined on all of them.

"I'm coming out," Leanne gasped, already running from the cockpit. "If you can hear me, Ryan, I'm coming out!"

Once again, Leanne was watching Cliff struggle with Phaethon, its barbs squeezing him, slashing his throat. She could not do that again.

Word count: 2013
Overall: 19,281

Ryan's speech is an adaptation of the speech to be given by Nixon if the Apollo 11 astronauts did not return from the moon. I highly recommend looking up the speech, it's beautiful. I combined it with the traditional burial at sea ritual. And bonus points if you get the Fighting Machine reference!

This chapter's shoutout goes to EvelynHail whose Love, Dad is a gorgeous coming of age story which promises to be an amazing entry!