As he fades into the shards around him, and the specks of stars behind, she taps a button on the instrument panel of her suit. The panel contains many functions within the suit, including medical indicators such as: an oxygen level, heartrate and stress level monitor. There is additionally, a stardate indicator, proximity alert, location indicator, and suit condition display. Another function is an SOS beacon, and that is what she has now activated. As well as the intermittent blip on her suit, the small computer within also records the coordinates at which she presently resides, and the last known location of the one who had propelled her away. The one that now seems to merge with their sprinkled backdrop. It is her hope that once she is at last extracted from this void, by that very ship which now seems too distant, that she will return to him. To bring him home.

'I'll come back for you.'

And within moments, he is gone, entirely concealed by the dark void that surrounds them both. Wrought with the pain of what might become of him, she begins to quietly weep in the confines of her suit.

'I promise.'

ooo

How long might she remain here, hopelessly adrift in such a dark and cold void? How long must she await the arrival of her comrades? Her new family aboard that fine vessel they all call home? How long before she, too, faces suffocation?

Will she suffer the same fate that may well take him from her?

For all these questions that try their damndest to cloud her thoughts, to break her perseverance, she must quell them. Silence them before they consume her. It may be hours until she can truly break free from the metallic shards that block her signal, her unseen lifeline to an escape. Yet, with her oxygen tank below one-third capacity, hours may not be what she can afford.

ooo

As time passes by her, ever so slowly it goes, she continues to activate her SOS beacon. Intermittently, with regular intervals counted by her, she leaves the signals like crumbs on a bleak floor. This will point the way for her, guide both her and her rescuers back to him. Well, that is what she hopes, and she clings to that hope as if a child were to hold taut a beloved comforter. And like a child, she is near helpless, sans the unseeable crumbs she now leaves behind. And as for the one who left her behind, his own predicament makes him much of the same.

ooo

Whilst her gaze had remained upon him, so in turn do his remain on her, and nothing more can be done except to watch as they drift further and further from each other. Even as oxygen deprivation begins to take him, still his eyes are fixed onto her. And soon she too becomes a mere speck in the endless void behind her, and as her form disappears, so does his grasp on consciousness. One final word is spoken, one last gasp as his eyes roll backward and darkness overcomes him. And it may just be his last.

"Nyota..."