"We'd, uh…  have to find a functional aquarium first, which isn't likely. Then we'd have to find an aquarium and repair it, and probably care for the sea life," Ophelia muttered.

"Was that a yes?" Ellinor gave us all a wink before chuckling heartily and giving a thumbs up from behind her firebird suit's nanofiber right glove. "No worries, I know you cuties all have important things to do right now. I can wait," the firebird purred.

"Are… are firebirds all this unashamedly flirty?" Ophelia asked, looking towards Elli through her opaque helmet visor.

"Not at all, and I'd get NJPed to hell and back if I weren't technically on leave right now," Elli replied.

"L-let's try to spend as little time as possible getting distracted. You all have a station to save, don't you?" Acasta huffed, crossing her suited arms and trying very hard to suppress the heat on her face. It didn't work. Cute.

"Yeah, yeah, we do. Alright, we were… heading to the university and patching up any of the cabling we found," Ophelia replied, looking around and finding her bearings. "We should stay together."

"I'm just happy to have found other people alive," Elli replied, as Acasta and I simply nodded. An oxygen monitor notification beeped from my suit panel, but after running some quick calculations, I figured I had enough to make it to the university and find an emergency O2 storage thrice over. 

Ellinor took a moment to stretch in her suit, the soft whirring of servo motors and nanofiber artificial muscle relayed through her radio connection before she turned towards Ophelia, saying "I'll keep watch from up here. My maneuvering pack has plenty of fuel to spare, and I wouldn't forgive myself for letting such enthralling women be hurt, would I?" Bracing her smart rifle (recognizable as a CZ BREN 4 on closer inspection) in hand next to a name tag that read SKM ELLINOR STRAND, Ellinor flew upwards with a gentle burst of propellant from her backpack, coming to a rest about 30 meters above us with another moment of thruster fire to arrest her momentum before another trail of of spent propellant signaled her start forwards.

While the station's foot navigation guides were offline, we all knew the place well enough to find the university's main power line without much effort, even if Ophelia and I didn't tend to spend much time on this side of the ring. Nansen University's engineering department had enough expertise to fix the majority of the technical issues that popped up here on their own, and station staff were always happy to hand off the work, if possible. 

The walks I took outside during work breaks were usually pretty calming, if only because my mind was at rest cataloging every working and malfunctioning part I could see, mapping out the station's mechanical health issues one step at a time. When the station was working well, I was working well, and if it wasn't? Well, it was in my job description to fix it. A burnt out capacitor relay there, a fuel filter that was clogged up there, maybe even an entire burst cooling loop there, but nothing was ever catastrophic. 

As I looked around, I doubted that this place would ever hum with life again. Precious soil from Earth and intricately selected plant life floated in gentle, dead tumbles over bent aluminum bulkheads and gashes in the station's pressure hull that were hundreds of meters long.

The area we were passing through was once Adelaide Park, a common gathering place for Nansen University undergrads, and any shred of the vibrancy that pulsed through here on game nights or parade days was gone, eviscerated by what might as well have been the hand of God—not that anyone here believed in him. Even as I tried to note anything here that needed repair—which, really, was everything—the problem-solving part of my mind struggled to respond, as if a fog had descended on my head.

An elegant stone plaza off to my left was a popular event location—it was placed perfectly in front of a well-sized ring window panel, so the ring's simulated sky could be turned off to allow the starscape to shine through. Surrounded by deciduous trees handpicked from the American Northeast, the plaza was a sight to behold during the station's artificial autumn.

A titanic piece of reflective metallic debris, torn every which way, had crashed through it, towering upwards into the dark vacuum like an impromptu monument to the fallen. As hard as I tried, I couldn't stop myself from choking up as I noticed it. I always dreamed I would be married there, amid falling autumn leaves, hand in hand with a girl I loved and admired and adored. 

Now, I was incredibly lucky to even be alive, torn from the jaws of death by the small distance between my heart and whatever high-velocity debris took my right arm. Me being me, of course… more than a few tears followed. My breaths got faster and shorter, and my heartbeat quickened, and the tears kept coming, and I couldn't stop it.

Before I could notice or protest, Ophelia, the absolute angel she is, had her left arm curled around me as she walked at my side, her smart rifle stowed on her back. I couldn't muster the will to speak, and thankfully, Ophelia didn't ask me to. Before I could start spiraling any further, her calm breathing and touch, even through her suit, brought me back to the world… and to my current idiocy.

Not now, Chief Engineer Lyndal. This is not the time for grief. You have a responsibility, and a duty. You have problems. Find solutions. Fix the station. Your cascading mental breakdown can wait.

Repeating that mildly self-deprecating mantra to myself may have worked, but my crisis adrenaline was running lower by the hour, and I couldn't just prop myself up on exoskeleton emergency boosters—I was still riding out that crash, by the way. Feels like complete crap, and I would not recommend it. Sooner or later, I'd have to get to work fixing myself… or, at least, performing an emergency patch. People break, too, and I know from experience that I… well, I break easily.

As we continued our journey towards the university without incident, I found myself leaning towards Ophelia, and despite the fact that neither of us would feel anything but a faint pressure behind the skin of our pressure suits, it was nevertheless… weirdly comforting. I could tell by the way Ophelia began gently humming as we walked that it was at least a little enjoyable for her, too—I also noticed a tiny snicker from Acasta as she strolled behind us, but I pushed it out of my mind for the moment. This is nice. We should do this more. Why don't we do this more?

"Hey," I asked Ophelia quietly, opening up our private channel, "why don't we do this more?"

"Do… what more, honey?" Ophelia replied softly as we walked together.

"I-uh… hanging out, I suppose? I-uh-being with you is nice." Christ on a bike, Aspen, you're so charismatic. You'll probably make her disassociate from you forever after three days of this or less. Have fun.

"We already do that, Aspen," she chuckled.

"Yeah, but… y'know, as part of the group. I want to hang out with you more. You're nice. This is nice," I replied with a tinge of anxiety. No, scratch that, a buttload of anxiety. Help me.

"... I'd like that. Only after we defeat our imminent electromechanical doom, though, honey." she whispered, chuckling again lightly afterwards. Stars above, that sound is heavenly. What is happening to me? Why the hell is my colleague-friend-subordinate suddenly so pretty? Why am I blushing so hard? Do I have brain trauma? Actually, yeah, maybe. But… still!

"Oh, r-really? Thank you," I whispered back, resting my head further onto her shoulder as we strolled at that awkward magnetic boots pace. My half-hyperactive, half-struggling mind was running through a million thoughts per minute as I observed the wreck of my spaceborne home, but for the moment, it was all replaced by a degree of precious serenity. Me, Aspen, missing my right arm, leaning on Ophelia like she was my substitute crutch. Ophelia, walking beside me, her face invisible through her old-style opaque helmet visor, with her calm breathing transmitted through our radio link. Acasta, a few meters behind us, her ammo-less pistol holstered at her left thigh, her neutral face occasionally breaking into tiny smiles or deeply flustered expressions before she spoke into what I could only assume to be a private comms link. Ellinor, the firebird, trailing about 30 meters above us as we traveled, moving with the grace of a soldier (or a dancer) who knew how to fight when up and down were subjective, and when friction was a negligible factor. I idly wondered how Elli's hair even fit into her suit.

"Where will you go after all this? If we survive this, I mean… if there's a world for us to return to," I idly asked Ophelia, whispering.

The bunny engineer hummed for a moment before answering, replying "I'll probably head planetside and help with reconstruction… whatever happened down there, they'll need engineers and techs. Then again, I could always go wherever you go, honey… I am technically your apprentice for another year, after all. So, where will you go?"

"I'll try to stay on Nansen, I suppose. It's my home now, and I know the station inside and out, even if I'm not an all-seeing electrical warden like Amanda. I always dreamed I would spend my life here, spinning through space, inside one of the world's great marvels of engineering. This station was my dream. Nowadays… the memories might be too much for me to stay, and who knows if the ring is even salvageable. But, again, I'll try… I've got faith in the station. Nansen Ring's tough," I said quietly. 

"Mhmm," Ophelia hummed in response. "I'll always be there to help, honey."

Ugh, my heart feels like it's been shot out of a naval coilgun at two kilometers a second. I don't deserve her. My quickened heart rate might also be because of my still-ongoing emergency booster crash, but Ophelia definitely made it worse.

Noting that the main cable running on the ground towards the university was miraculously intact so far, I reopened the group comm channel, where Ellinor's microphone treated me to a half cut-off "darling," evidently aimed towards Acasta, who responded with a faint splutter before she noticed that I was back on the channel.

"I-uh, hi, Aspen…" the paramedic said, getting her voice under control rather quickly.

"Hei, darling. You didn't miss anything important," Ellinor said with a slight chuckle. "How's the cable looking down there?"

"Power lines are intact, which is great for us. We'd be able to patch any small holes or tears, but we don't have the material to replace a full cable segment, at least not until we reach the university," I sighed. "Maybe fate decided one thing would go well amidst the cataclysm of the past two days?"

"Fate let me meet three pretty, intelligent and utterly courageous ladies in the great expanse. That's a dream come true, darlings. Two things have gone well," Elli said playfully as she coasted through the space above us. Actually, looking at her closer, she was posed in a sleeping position, with her hands rested at her side—looking down at the ring surface as she floated in microgravity. Alright, now that's just flexing on everyone Earthside who can't fly.

"I'll think about that aquarium date, firebird," I giggled softly, speaking into my suit microphone. Ellinor was… certainly something. If anything, she was gay, and that was cool as hell.

"Glad to hear it, cutie," Elli replied in a happy, airy tone. How she was managing to stay so upbeat amidst all this was quite the mystery. "We can get drinks and little dolphin plushies… and who knows, maybe we'll fly together. A firebird's dance is always meant to be shared."

For some reason, Ophelia's arm tightened around my shoulder silently, and I chose to lean closer to her reassuringly without a word. This was nice. And to think, my old deadname self had thought she could be alone, friendless and loveless forever? Utterly preposterous. The absolute nerve of that girl. None of her dreams could possibly compare to mine now—yes, living on a space station was, of course, a dream, but it had been superseded in mental priority by the sheer intensity with which I loved the idea of love. I'm such a hopeless romantic, it isn't even funny, it's just slightly depressing. Sailing the stars is still my deepest desire, but I'd much rather do it with the love(s) of my life by my side… not that I've found her, yet. 

Adelaide Park gave way to another section of Downs Forest that blocked our view of the university with dense yet dead leaves—they'd probably fly away as dust within a few months once the leaf structures degraded, leaving Downs Forest as it appeared during the station's simulated mild winter. I could only hope that by that time, the station's life—roughly 18 thousand people, all with their own sparks to add to this landscape—would return to replace the dead leaves.

"We're nearing the university now. The place doesn't look good," the firebird said from her floating perch. Indeed, as the dead forest cleared, we were all given a view of the famous Nansen University, one of the greatest centers of higher learning in Earth orbit and beyond. If you were idealistic, dreams were made reality here—if you weren't, they died here. I tended to be the former.

Avon Hall, the neoclassical center of the campus, had indeed been torn through, a massive gash stretching through the front entrance and the main building, matching with entry and exit holes in the ring's aluminum oxynitride windows and the lower levels of habitation space below the university. The university hospital, a short distance spinward (towards the ring's rotation) of Avon Hall, was completely depowered, and large chunks of it looked depressurized—there wasn't any visible activity. A series of residential buildings trailward (opposite the ring's rotation) from Avon Hall had been devastated by debris and shrapnel, with pieces of the former station hull having crashed through the buildings every which way. 

Frozen bodies tumbled lifelessly through what had once been nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere, and was now hard vacuum. With nothing to arrest their motion, they were animated only by momentum, moving through space in a grim parody of the life that once sparked inside them.

"Fuck," I muttered, at the same time as Ellinor half-yelled "faen!" at no-one in particular. A few moments of cold silence followed as our collective eyes scanned over the campus for any good news—of which we found nil. From this distance, and observing with only our wetware eyes, Nansen University was dead.

"The power lines branch off here. Let's follow the hospital's line and figure out where the supply's been shut off so we can repair it," Ophelia said, her voice faintly cracking.

Acasta was nearly speechless behind us as we followed a magnetic path further into the devastated campus. "It got worse," she whispered.

Without really thinking, I slowed down to bring the paramedic beside me, on my left, and took her hand the same way I had taken Ophelia's… wait, I was holding hands with Ophelia? Think about that later, Aspen. Acasta didn't resist, and she even leaned towards me a little, which I interpreted as this terrible idea having in fact, been, a good idea. We all needed a bit of companionship right now.