We’re falling toward the moon—a two-woman crew delivering several thousand metric tons of salt to New Berlin. The engines have shut down, having reached maximum velocity, and the lack of acceleration has left us weightless. No sooner have the thrusters kicked off than my partner, Cori, is out of her pressure suit, stuffing the bulky thing in a locker, then floating back to me clad in only her skin-tight environmental suit. I stay strapped in and fully suited up. It’s only a seven-hour flight, but I’m conservative about safety. Cori sees me parked at the command station and pouts. She wants a quickie. I want to stay alive. She drifts about, rotating slowly, showing me all the things her environmental suit is so tightly wrapped around. She then anchors herself to me, somehow getting her hands in my pressure suit and under my environmental skin.

Cori gives the best hand jobs in the local system, and I begin to relent. I lift my arm to remove my glove and hear a sharp crack. We both look to the four-inch observation portal near the pilot’s station and see a spiderweb of cracks radiate out from a pinhole. I look at my arm and see a bright jet of blood streaking out along the micrometeorite path, plus a tiny black pockmark where it has made a small crater in the hull. The puncture in my forearm is strangely painless. As I scramble to seal up again, Cori launches herself from me toward the locker where her suit is, but it’s too late. The portal fails, creating a hurricane of wind that sucks Cori back toward the opening.

I hear her tailbone crack as the pressure of the atmosphere pushes her backside through the small aperture. Neither of us screams. I finished sealing up and lock my helmet on. I go to unstrap to pull her from the relentless crushing force, but Cori says no. I hear her pelvis fracture, and a strange fold appears across her hips. As she looks at me with terror, her arms and legs shake with the stress of keeping from being pulled in. But it is a losing battle. Something inside her ruptures and bursts out her back. I see her face turn pale. The vacuum is sucking out her internals. I tell myself she has to be dead, but her eyes keep staring at me. On the external monitors, I can see blood and viscera spraying along that side of the ship, freezing as they do. One of her legs snaps and disappears out the portal. It goes fast after that. Her remaining leg is crushed and forced through the hole, followed by her hips. The mass of her abdomen momentarily plugs the opening, but it too is emptied and sucked into space. What is left in her chest cavity follows, then her ribs, neck, and skull. Cori is gone less than thirty seconds after the micrometeorite hits us. I wait for the air to escape from the cabin. The wind and howling die down. I unstrap and seal the portal, then strap back in. I radio to let New Berlin control know there has been an accident. I keep my suit on and remain strapped in for the rest of the trip. I want to stay alive.