We were sitting in the suit room, waiting for the technicians to finish assembling our suits.

"How does the suit feel?" Asked one of the techs.
"All too familiar. Feels great."

I sat back down, and watched them start the pressurization tests. I looked up at the TV and saw a feed of the rocket sitting on the pad in the middle of the day. Pretty sight.

"Alright, that should do it. Good luck." Said one of the technicians...

"Houston, we're at five meters." I adjusted the camera. I glanced over at Will, watching him nudge the controls.

"Docking Probe." Ordered Will.
"Docking probe is extending."

I flipped a switch, and watched the indicator turn to gray.

"Probe is extended. Three meters." I reported.
"Dead center. Recycle hydro."
"Hydros recycling." I replied.

I pushed two buttons...

Note: I wanna thank Scav for letting me use some characters from SEP in the story. Thanks!

"We roger. Next manoever is T minus forty five minutes. How copy?"
"Solid copy control."

I leaned back in my chair, rubbing my face. Nine solid hours on console, doing nothing. Spaceflight was boring on the ground. One hour to go. Thank god.

Jack Baren tapped me on the shoulder, and I muted my mic and turned around.

"What's...

The capsule was shaking violently. I could barely see straight. About that time, the master alarm went off. A warning light, simply labeled 'Parachute Pyro' lit up, followed by a overheat warning. I silently cursed my luck and cleared the master alarm, and waited to either burn up, or regain signal any moment. About a minute later, I heard a pop, and air whooshing. The external air vent had opened, which meant I was through the worst. Or so I thought.

"Houston, this is Explorer,...

Oh god...my head...
Nothing but pitch black.
Arrgh. What happened...
Still nothing but darkness.
I floated motionless in the cabin for what only felt like a few seconds. I slowly regained conciousness, and had trouble regaining my bearings. Blacking out in space was very hard on my body.

"Explorer, this is Ken, goddamnit, can you hear me?"
"Y-y-yes." I replied weakly.
"Oh thank god, we thought we lost you there. We're...