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“Now what are we supposed to do?”

Stanley looked at the instrument panel, now mostly dark with the exception of the few keypads for ship functions that were functional but useless to their situation. The library search engine would serve little purpose, as they were slowly starved to death inside this tomb, now hurtling through the dark desolation of the star-field around them.

Eileen shook her head and asked the question again. “I mean, what are we supposed to do?”

Stanley had no more of an answer than he had before, but he tried anyway, tried to let her down gently. “I don’t know what we can do at this point. We sent the transmission, but there’s no way to know if it was received by anyone. The drive isn’t getting any power, so short of drifting into dry dock, there’s no way we can repair the linkage.”

“But we have to be able to call for help, we can still broadcast.”

“But we can’t receive. So we’d have no way to know if anyone was hearing. Also, we drifted so far from District lines, there probably wouldn’t be anyone listening for transmissions originating from this sector. More than likely, we’d just be announcing our location for a smuggler to come by and—”

“Stop!” She leaned forward and placed her head down onto her hands. “How long can we last here like this?”

It was this punch line that he was both dreading and excited to deliver. “We’ve got enough power to keep environmental controls going, so at least we won’t suffocate. The problem is we’ll probably run out of food in about a week.”

That sank in for several minutes before she nodded, a look of resolution on her face. “Okay, then. So someone has to find us within a week.”

It was one of the more absurd ideas he had heard but he didn’t need her getting more despondent. He nodded, careful to avoid the eye contact that would verify that he believed none of what he said to her. “Yeah. A week, or less.”

“Someone has to find us eventually.”

Stanley nodded again. “Somebody has to.” He parroted her words, not having the ability to manufacture a lie any more convincing than that.

They had been on the return leg of a supply run to one of the outer listening posts. After his assigned partner had come down sick, Eileen had been volunteered to sit in on the trip. He didn’t know if she was desperate for work detail credits but it made no sense for her to want to come along. The fact that she barely associated with him on a day to day basis only served to underline how much she likely didn’t want to be here or be around him.

No matter. That would all change now that her options had just dwindled down to him or nothing. He had always admired her from afar but the self-imposed restrictions of social inadequacies always stopped him from doing anything about it. It was funny how being isolated in the outer reaches with someone like this could change your outlook and bring you around to seeing someone’s inherent merits.

She was crying.

Stanley snapped out of his train of thought and stutter-stepped towards her, forward and back again as his train of thought tripped over what he should do. Finally, he stepped forward to put an arm around her. She immediately leaned into him and buried her face into his shoulder, her body shaking from the force of her sobs. He hugged her and held her tight, feeling the elation of that moment of her finally needing him. No one else could have been more worthy.

Him.

It was inconceivable to him that in that moment, he could feel such need from her and an emotional connection from someone who had been so disconnected. Deep down, he had always been sure that it would just take the right circumstances for her to come around and clearly this was that very situation.

“No one’s going to find us,” she cried out, barely understandable. “We’re going to die out here, we’re going to…”

Her speech became impossible to understand and he tried to hold her with an intensity that matched her speech. She needed him and he would be there for her. After all, he had been able to take the time to prepare for this situation. This was all still fresh for her.

“How can you be so calm about this?” she asked, almost reading his mind in the process.

He recited the line he had been practicing in his head for the week he had spent planning this. “There comes a point where you just have to give yourself over to the destiny that brought you here.”

Her crying increased again in intensity and he smiled. This was going exactly as he had hoped when he had heard she would be coming with him on the flight. Actually, it was going slightly better than even he had hoped. They would have a week here together, “stranded” and lost with no one but each other. Whatever minimal chance of someone stumbling across their position would be mitigated by the false flight plan he had filed. If anyone was searching for them, it would be in the wrong place. At the last minute, he would execute the miraculous repair and save the day. Their salvation and his heroism would make her want him.

As her sobbing reached a crescendo in volume, his mind went to the small collection of microchips he had removed from the relay inside the control panel. They were stashed inside a toolbox so he could create the illusion he needed of their now joined fates within the depths of space.

It was only at the zenith of that perfect moment, within the wail of her sobs that he felt the tip of the knife press against his side before slipping in, through his ribs where it cleanly pierced his heart. He drew in a ragged, shocked breath of pain as he looked into those sweetly cold eyes, gazing at him as she spoke one last time.

“Now I can eat for two weeks.”

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