Within seconds of being woken by the distress alarm, Kwon Mu-Hak was in a cold sweat. Heart thumping in his chest, he pulled himself to the cockpit. As he strapped himself into the pilot seat, he took in the monocolor displays flashing around him.

A ship—small, G-type, like his—broadcasting an eighty-two-hour-old distress call. Bearing, 58 degrees; carom, 132 degrees. Almost thirteen million klicks. NATO-Cathay ID number G-1138, designated [i]Einsam[/i].

With butterflies in his stomach, Mu-Hak tapped the touch screen icon to hail them. Then he realized that he forgot his headset.

She was already talking by the time he got the earpiece on.

“—electrical fire, complete failure of primary and secondary life support systems,” said the voice in a nearly panicked rapid-fire. “Tertiary systems were depleted almost six hours ago. I repeat, service vessel [i]Einsam[/i] declaring emergency. Crew of one in need of immediate assistance.”

“[i]Eins[/i]—” Mu-Hak coughed. His voice was coarse and dry from disuse. And his English sounded secondhand, even to his own ears. “[i]Einsam[/i], I read you. I’m forty-two light-ticks away. Do you require me to approach?”

There was the transmission lag, that Mu-Hak counted with too-fast heartbeats.

“Yes! I need to dock. I am… I am out of air.”

Mu-Hak had heard urban legends of metch dealers hijacking small boats with a falsified distress signal. But they were just stories, he decided.

“[i]Einsam[/i], I’m coming,” he said, as he keyed in an approach vector. The engines pivoted and lurched, their momentum pushing him against his seat as they burned. “My ETA to a relative zero V-prime position is twelve-point-two hours.”

“I read you. But… who is this? The fire killed my transponder receiver.”

A wave of embarrassment. He should have introduced himself.

“This is courier vessel, G-2267, designated [i]Beloved[/i]. Crew of one. No EVA suits on board.”

“Mine was lost in the fire. What are your docking protocols, [i]Beloved[/i]?”

“Transtech-spec G-type standard. No secondaries.”

“Shit. I have a funnel, but I think the fire got a piece of it,” said [i]Einsam[/i]. “I… I don’t know if we can dock.”

“We can try,” said Mu-Hak.

“Yes, we can.” She sounded drained.

“Can… I provide assistance in any other way?” Mu-Hak didn’t know what else to say.

“Yeah,” said the lonely voice. “Can you talk… talk to me? While you approach?”

Mu-Hak almost wanted to say no. He almost wanted to tell her to conserve her oxygen. And his throat was already getting very sore from speech.

“Yes,” he finally said. “If you want, we can talk.”

[hr]

“Mah… Hack? Am I saying that right?”

“Yes, that’s close enough.”

“Oh, gosh, I messed up, didn’t I?”

“Not really. I would still answer to it, I think.”

“No, you need to tell me how to say it right. Because I used to care a lot about my name. When I was little, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“My name’s Caroline. But I'd let my friends call me Lina. Only my friends, though. I was picky about it.”

“Well, Caroline, my name’s [i]Mu-Hak[/i]. ‘Mu’ like a cow, ‘Hak’ like hockey.”

“Nice to meet you, [i]Mu-Hak[/i].”

"And nice to meet you, Lina."

"Ha, I'll let you get away with that. Just... this one... one time, though."

"Caroline, can you breathe?"

"Yeah. Yes. I'm okay, Mu-Hak."

[hr]

Mu-Hak watched as the speck in his dinner-plate-sized viewport grew into a shape. Though the distance between them closed, [i]Einsam[/i]’s voice became fainter, and pauses more frequent.

He tried to tell a funny story to cheer her up—the story of how his boat was named. And for a second, when she laughed, he smiled, because her laugh was like music.

But when she struggled to catch her breath moments later, his guilt redoubled.

Even when [i]Einsam[/i] was close enough for Mu-Hak to read the markings on the hull, it was still an agonizing hour before their ships precisely matched velocities.

“[i]Einsam[/i],” he said, when the time was finally right. “I’m here. Deploy your funnel.”

There was no response on the coms. For several creeping seconds, Mu-Hak waited.

“[i]Einsam[/i], can you deploy your funnel?”

For a minute that felt like an hour, Mu-Hak watched through his viewport, waiting to see [i]Einsam[/i] begin docking.

“[i]Eins[/i]—” Mu-Hak coughed. His voice was hoarse from overuse. “Caroline, are you there?”

His eyes were glued to [i]Einsam’s[/i] docking capillary, waiting for it to extend. Mu-Hak knew it would be silent, but still his ears strained for any sound, reflexively.

“We can still try. Deploy your funnel, Lina.”

She never did.