Manuela was an astronaut; Alyosha, a cosmonaut. She was too headstrong; he, too cautious. She routinely dismissed all of his worries. He always mansplained her every opinion. She had stolen his position as Mission Commander; he’d stolen the love of her life.
After that last betrayal, their enmity knew no bounds.
After six months aboard the International Space Station, Manuela dreamed of loosening the air valve on Alyosha’s suit when they were out on a spacewalk. A month before, he’d played with the idea of tampering with the latch of Manuela’s safety harness so that—not if, but when—she lost her grip on the station, she’d float into the vastness of space.
But they kept their murderous minds under wraps, lest they cause an international incident.
They needn’t have worried. Their countries managed that on their own, starting an all-out war that erupted back on Earth not two months later.
As Commander, Manuela had to stay behind. She would have preferred for anyone else to stay with her, but protocol dictated otherwise—Alyosha was the Flight Engineer, after all.
But they’d made do. The success of the mission came first, even with war between them and their countries.
They set to work, waiting to see if Earth would fall, hoping there would still be something left to fight for down there after the war.
As the weeks sped by, Manuela lost track of the many mushroom clouds of single photon bombs exploding in the atmosphere, as news of Earth arrived less on schedule and more as a matter of someone’s afterthought. The two went through the motions, cleaning a filter head, resealing a loose valve, keeping themselves busy to no avail. How to think of anything else but the impossibility of stopping a war that had gotten out of control too many miles below them?
She wondered if her people wouldn’t have been safer in the ISS than in the toxic atmosphere taking hold of their beautiful planet.
Then the last communication arrived.
General Sandoval ordered Manuela to kill the cosmonaut. Alyosha’s Marshal Volkov commanded the same for the astronaut.
Once communications went dead, the silence inside the ISS was quieter than the vacuum of space. Manuela turned to Alyosha, heart threatening to burst through her chest. His eyes were unreadable.
Neither of them had ever thought they would receive orders like these.
Ones so tempting.
They made their last stand at the 360° view of the observation deck.
Alyosha could have put on his gear and flooded the cabin with toxic liquid ammonia. Manuela could have stabbed him with her Randall knife.
They looked into each other’s eyes, and the thrill was gone.
He would be just another casualty of the war. She would be a statistic in the annals of history.
It wouldn’t be their war.
Manuela extended her hands. Alyosha took them and shook them.
Once.
This was their offer of peace. They would leave their personal problems for later, for when the war ended.
Then they got back to work.
