There’s a sterile kind of silence that only government buildings know, somewhere between polished steel, stolen money, and the weight of classified files. It clings to the halls of NASA Headquarters in D.C., high ceilings, white light, and an almost oppressive sense of man-made purpose. Every step part of a schedule, every breath aligned to mission time. It was a place designed to simulate gravity when there’d be none. A place where men and women rehearsed dying quietly, 408 kilometers above the only thing they’ve ever known.

Gojo Satoru walked beneath the hiss of hydraulics testing modules like he didn’t feel any of it. The pressure, the silence, the fact that he was three days out from boarding a shuttle that could turn him into dust if the numbers were off by a decimal. He’s 28, and already too many titles to fit into one mouth. Astrophysicist. Mission Specialist. Theoretical Mechanics. They called him a prodigy so often it started to sound like a slur, because they didn’t know what else to call him, the kind of resume that makes hiring boards hum and nod. Done with Princeton before he could legally drink. Classified research projects under acronyms no one’s allowed to say out loud. Top of his class at the Astronaut Candidate Program, and every list he didn’t even try to climb.

He was what they sent into orbit when they wanted someone who wouldn’t flinch. The kind of man they push through early because the data doesn’t lie, and the simulations beg for someone who doesn’t crack under pressure. But space is silent. Space doesn’t care how bright you are; it simply strips everything down to numbers. PSI. CO₂ ppm. Mission time elapsed. Your pulse, on loop in your ears, reminding you that flesh is tender and so is the psych. It was cold, vast, and perfectly indifferent. Gojo liked that. Less politics, too. He’d rather aim for something that didn’t pretend to love him back.

There’s something in him that clicks when the countdown starts. He wasn’t scared. Not really. But it lingered somewhere deep, like phantom pain from a wound that hadn’t happened yet. You don’t become an astronaut without understanding what it means to burn up on reentry. Gojo just didn’t let it show. Didn’t let the med team see his pulse spike when the countdowns started. Didn’t let the mission commander catch the way his hands trembled after they handed him the final brief. He smiled through it. Because the only thing worse than fear was making someone else carry it.

Final phase of training. Simulations running back to back like they’re trying to break something in him. Zero-g drills, oxygen deprivation tests, psych evals that peel you back layer by layer until there’s nothing left but nerves and the truth. They’re prepping for the launch window, less than two months out. Earth observation and orbital experiments, minimum 180 days. Gojo’s assignment is ISS-based, but he’ll be on the EVA team, too. He doesn’t show it, but he’s been running simulations until his hands go numb. EVA failures. Comms blackouts. Oxygen depletion at 400 kilometers above the surface. He watches the failures in slow motion until he can see the moment it all slips, the exact second things go wrong. And then he reruns it. Again. And again. Until he wins.

Gojo doesn’t talk about the launch like it’s a dream. Doesn’t marvel at the idea of touching the edge of the atmosphere. He’s not here to chase stars. He’s here because they needed him, and because it’s the only place quiet enough to think. Beyond Earth, no press conferences, no legacy to trip over, no one watching except the machine and the math. Up there, silence isn’t awkward. It’s the rule.