The storm crosses the void. Systems respond. Between red light and measured voices, time fractures and reforms, teaching a man how to stay oriented.
For the full vibe, listen to Hurricane by The Asteroids Galaxy Tour; this story was freely inspired by its sound and spirit.
Red.
A red flash.
A red flash of light.
A red flash of light that sparkles.
For a moment, it does not make sense. A flash should vanish. Sparkles should dance. This does neither. It hangs. It stretches. It smears itself across his vision, as if time itself has thickened.
The red is everywhere and nowhere at once. It does not pulse. It does not blink. It seeps.
The light breaks apart as it reaches him. Not into rays, but into grains. Fine suspended points that catch and scatter it, each one bending the red just enough to blur its edges without dimming its intensity. The result is neither clear nor opaque. It is a glowing haze, dense and luminous, like looking through deep water lit from above.
He tries to focus. A disorientation that does not belong entirely to now.
The sparkles move slowly, trailing behind themselves. When something shifts within the red, it arrives late, stretched, distorted.
The world outside is lagging behind its own cause.
And suddenly it is no longer outside.
He is small. A child.
The ground is too close to his face. Or the ceiling may be too far. He cannot tell. Everything is moving when it should not be, or perhaps it is he who arrived too late. His body is heavy and light at the same time, pulled and released without warning. Sound arrives bent, as if it has to push through fog before reaching him.
Red again. Not everywhere. Just at the edges. Flashes that bloom and fade when he tries to move his eyes. The center of his vision is pale and unfocused, the periphery alive with color.
He does not know what happened. Only that he stepped where the world was already in motion.
Air fills his lungs unevenly. His heart feels loud. His limbs refuse precision. The world tilts without moving.
A voice reaches him.
“Alethon.”
Not close. Not far. Somewhere above.
“Alethon, Alethon…”
The name is repeated with care, as if saying it might hold him in place. The voice is old. Familiar. Anchored. It pulls him gently back toward coherence.
The red begins to recede. The fog thins. Shapes sharpen at the edges first, then reluctantly at the center. Gravity remembers how to behave. His grandfather appears. The carousel ceiling stops drifting.
“Alethon.”
The voice changes.
It is closer now. Too close to belong to memory.
“Alethon,” Hestia says.
The childhood scene dissolves without resistance, as if it had been waiting for permission to leave.
“The solar particle event is declining. The estimated remaining duration is fourteen minutes and twenty seconds. All cocoon parameters are nominal. Please remain still.”
The red is still there.
But now it has a source.
The ceiling resolves into a plane. Flat. Engineered. Known. The lighting, steady and unwavering, filtered through something thick between him and the room.
The haze becomes a medium, not a hallucination. Particles suspended in a protective liquid scatter the light with intention. The sparkles are no longer strange. They are designed. Dense shielding compounds do their quiet work. A viscous gel holds radiation at bay.
The red is not inside him.
It is around him.
The sound returns as a low continuous presence, carried through structure and stone. Air moves across his face. A gentle, deliberate flow from above, cool and clean. It brushes his skin and guides his breath, preventing the air from going stale. Each inhale feels supported, each exhale quietly taken away.
The sense of misalignment fades.
The cocoon is closed. Not pressing, not restrictive, but unmistakably present. The airflow makes the distance readable, bearable. The space around his head is intentionally small, designed to be inhabited for a few hours without strain.
Now he knows where he is.
11-Amor.
Hestia Asterobase.
His quarters.
The bed-cocoon.
The storm.
What had felt like falling is now held. What had felt like fear is now protocol. The airflow cooled the sweat in his palms, steady and deliberate. The memory withdraws, leaving behind its shape, not its weight.
Outside, the solar hurricane rages through space.
Inside, Hestia keeps time.
And Alethon waits, the thread of awareness restored, his mind slipping back deliberately to hours earlier.
Earlier in the morning.
The music was already there when he surfaced.
At first, it was only sound. A presence. Something woven into the air of the room rather than played. The notes reached him before thought did, slipping past the thin membrane of sleep.
Words existed, but they refused to assemble.
Something about stars.
Something about falling.
Then consciousness sharpened, just enough.
He had chosen the song the evening before. Something about a fate etched into the stars. Something about coming apart.
The words landed without context, heavy and unfinished, as if they were not remembered but had found him anyway.
Alethon exhaled and opened his eyes.
“HSA3,” he murmured, voice still rough. “Stop… the music… stop the notification.”
The music dissolved instantly, leaving the room almost too quiet.
“Incoming call from Hestia,” HSA3 said, already shifting tone. “Would you like me to route it?”
“Yes,” Alethon answered, pushing himself upright.
The light in the room adjusted subtly, losing its night softness.
“Alethon,” Hestia said.
The voice was steady, close, without urgency.
“During your rest cycle, a high-energy solar event was recorded. The associated particle front is exceptionally fast and intense. Standard mitigation procedures will be applied today.”
Alethon listened, still half wrapped in the residue of sleep.
“The peak exposure window will require localized shielding,” Hestia continued. “The cocoon protocol in your quarters will be activated. You will receive advance notification before any restrictive phase begins.”
There was no drama in her words. Only sequence.
“Breakfast and exercise routines remain active, with minor adjustments,” Hestia added. “No immediate action is required from you, other than preparing for the day.”
“Understood,” he said, moving the warm blanket aside.
The call ended.
Alethon sat for a moment, letting the information settle. His mouth felt dry, a faint metallic taste lingering at the back of his tongue. The song lingered faintly in his mind, stripped of melody, reduced to meaning.
Etched into the stars.
He dressed and stepped into the airlock.
The kitchen smelled warm when he entered. Not food exactly, but heat and water and something faintly vegetal carried over from the greenhouse airlock nearby. Monty was already there, mug in hand, posture relaxed, the kind that only looks careless.
“Morning,” she said, without turning.
“Morning,” Alethon replied. “Did you…”
“Hestia already called you,” Monty cut in. “Yeah. Storm.”
Alethon poured himself something hot. “Do we need to worry?”
Monty shrugged. “About the storm? Not really. About the schedule? Always.”
He hesitated. “Where’s Hermes?”
Monty finally looked at him. “Working. Been busy all night.”
She gestured vaguely upward, meaning everywhere and nowhere at once.
“Hermes rotated the whole rock while we were asleep,” she said. “The carousel’s spin axis is parallel to the orbital plane now. Cuts exposure during the peak.”
Alethon blinked. “Hermes tilted 11-Amor.”
“Gently,” Monty said. “With thrusters. Without fuss. No pinball tilt engaged.”
“Confirmed,” Hestia replied immediately. “The rotational adjustment was completed during your rest cycle within expected bounds. Commander Hermes is currently in the Command Room. Post-event reorientation is scheduled.”
Hermes’ voice joined them, filtered through the room speakers.
“Good morning, crew. The maneuver was successful. All systems remain within expected tolerances. After the storm, the asteroid will be returned to nominal configuration.”
There was no pride in the tone. Purely informational.
“Thanks,” Alethon said, not entirely sure why.
The morning continued.
Exercise came and went faster than usual. Muscles warmed, breath steadied. Routine did its work. Halfway through, Hestia’s voice returned.
“Due to incoming conditions, today’s exercise cycle will conclude early.”
Monty grinned, already slowing. “Blessed solar storm.”
“There will be an additional thirty minutes scheduled before the evening meal,” Hestia replied.
Monty snorted.
Afterward, the base began to tighten.
The first alert announcement was gentle. The doors shifted state, from green to amber. Guidance became a suggestion. Alethon and Monty were already on the way back to the quarters, following routine rather than urgency.
The farewell at Airlock 3 came and went without ceremony. The same place they had stood the night before. The same gestures, stripped to essentials.
“See you on the other side,” Monty said.
Alethon nodded. “Yeah.”
Back in his quarters, the routine turned deliberate.
Shower. Wet. Directed.
The stall sealed around him before the water began. Nothing escaped. In moon gravity, water moved, but not obediently. A warm sheet slid across his skin, driven as much by air as by weight. Droplets skimmed sideways, guided and reclaimed before they could wander. The airflow blew through the stall, shaping the water’s path, striking his skin with a force that felt less like rain and more like weather.
Alethon hummed at first, then let the words form, quiet and offhand. They were about an incoming hurricane, about rain and wind destined to sweep through everything and carry even the singer away.
Water and air answered, pressing and releasing.
For a moment, he let it.
Clothes. Dry. Familiar.
Then the tone changed.
The second alert arrived without drama, final, precise. The base sealed around him, not against him.
Lights deepened, red.
Movement became instruction.
Doors were no longer asking.
He lay down and placed his hands where he had been instructed. The bed acknowledged him with a soft mechanical response.
Stillness.
Hestia’s voice arrived once more, closer now.
Hestia’s voice arrived once more, closer now.
“Please remain still while the cocoon is being deployed.”
The bed began to change beneath him.
The supports retracted in pairs, one set releasing while the others remained in contact, the surface never quite letting go of his weight. There was no moment of drift; only transfer.
Behind him, the cocoon advanced.
An open cylindrical shell slid forward from the wall, already curved, already complete, moving on rails he could not see. It passed over the bed from head to foot, enclosing him above and below in a single continuous motion.
As the shell passed around him, the bed responded again. The supports redeployed in sequence, extending until they met the inner surface below on guided contacts, taking his weight without friction.
A final panel lifted from the floor and sealed the enclosure.
The cocoon was no longer approaching. It was there.
From within the cocoon’s walls, fluid began to move.
The room light remained white.
As the liquid medium filled the cylinder’s interspace, it absorbed the light and changed its color. Brightness fractured as it passed through the suspended matter, breaking apart, softening. Deeper tones surfaced gradually. Reds didn’t come from the room itself, but from the light that remained after passing through the cocoon, filtered and diffused by the boron-bound gel now surrounding him. Together with the tungsten and titanium grains dispersed through it, the medium was tuned to catch what the stone above could not. What little radiation still threaded its way through the asteroid was slowed, scattered, absorbed, its energy bled away as heat before it could reach him.
The room beyond softened, its edges losing definition.
By the time the system finished sealing, Alethon was already settling into the quiet.
The cocoon locked. At its next opening, red would never be just a color again.
Becoming Spacepolitans 