Behind them, the Astra ’s airlock cycled open. Quitterie’s annoyed voice echoed over the comms: “Are you two having a moment ? Because the atmospheric processor is beeping, and Luca burned the rehydrated eggs again .”
They were lost. But they were lost together . -DB- Kanata no Astra
She flinched. Kanata’s voice, clear and warm as a terrestrial summer, cut through the suit’s comms. She looked up. He was floating twenty meters to her port side, untethered, his silhouette sharp against the banded rings of a gas giant in the distance. Behind them, the Astra ’s airlock cycled open
She looked past him, at the endless black sewn with distant, cold stars. It was not the void that defined them. It was the small, fragile arc of light—the Astra —and the nine hearts beating inside it. But they were lost together
“You’re thinking too loud,” he said. “I can hear your brain grinding from here.”
“Then we’ll find a bigger truth,” he said. “That’s the deal. We don’t leave anyone behind. Not in space. Not in the past.”