[ Falling asleep is a lot more like waking up. Mace blinks and it’s like he’s been here all along, the hallway stretching down in front of him as familiar to him as the back of his hand. In fact, he never left — of course he didn't. They’re still on-board the Icarus II, they’d heard Harvey’s retrieval of the Icarus I’s mayday signal and had elected, thank fuck, to ignore it. Just space music, in the end.

The trajectory was still on track, and they'd be on schedule for the payload drop. He’d missed his chance to send a message back home, but that was okay, because Ian had —

In the passage headed toward the flight deck, every part of his body goes instantly still when he hears Icarus’s voice call out his name into the emptiness around him: cold, impersonal, computerized. Detached. She doesn’t care.

And Mace knows with a sudden, horrible feeling exactly what she’s going to say next, and why.

Anomaly detected in airlock. Pressure levels rising at exponential rate. Countdown to automatic ejection. ]

Icarus, stop! [ He’s going full tilt down the corridor, panic lending to his speed as he takes the ladder downstairs two rungs at a time. He has to get to the airlock. He has to get to Ian. He has to — Negative, Mace. Automatic ejection required to restore pressure levels. ]

Override. James Mace taking manual control, Icarus! [ The airlock is just up ahead, and through the glass he can make out the man inside. The man trapped inside, unless he fucking gets this thing open the right way, and Mace slams into the door with a grunt, slapping his palm against the panel to get Ian's attention.

Desperate and, for the first time in a long time, afraid. ]

Ian! I'm going to break the manual seal to the airlock, hold on —