An astronaut floating in space

"Echo of the Stars"

When Commander Siyakimi Michael drifted away from the ISS-Perseus during a solar flare malfunction in 2075, Mission Control mourned him as lost. His last transmission—“Tell my daughter I saw the stars up close”—became a tragic legend.

But in 2125, the orbital scanners of Earth’s newly constructed Dyson Array picked up an anomaly: a space pod with human vitals—unchanged, untouched by time.

Siyakimi was recovered, still 38, preserved in a temporal stasis field triggered by unknown cosmic radiation. To him, it had been moments. To Earth, half a century.

He stepped onto Earth’s surface, unchanged, while the world had moved on—skyscrapers pierced clouds higher than ever, languages had evolved, and his daughter was now 78, waiting in a wheelchair, tears in her eyes.

“Dad?” she whispered.

Siyakimi knelt before her, staring into eyes that mirrored his own.

“I came back,” he said. “You told me to fight for life.”

And though the stars had held him still, it was love—and time—that finally brought him home.