Ground Control

Darkness slowly turned into light once more. Blinding, red, fiery light. At first it was amazing, the sun rising to greet his vision, warming his bones. Just as everything else since the accident though, it was a false warmth, a false feeling of hope.

Let go.

Sure the first couple times he managed to turn his head to view the Earth he was filled with the hope that he would be brought back, that somehow his comrades would find him and bring him home. Now, he's glad that they didn't. It would have meant their end.

You can return home.

It somehow tuned in to the radio too. Over the years he heard a constant stream of broadcasts from his home, oh what the world had become. That was probably just to lure him in though, get him to fall. But he wouldn't, not now, not ever.

They want you home, look how they try…

He wasn't sure exactly how it happened, or exactly what it was. One day he was on a shuttle, a secret flight into space, and the next…Well he was where he is now, and this Presence was with him.

You can't hold out much longer…

At first he just thought it a figment of his imagination. A way to keep himself sane in the cold void of space. But as he began to drift towards the Earth he began to realize, he wasn't drifting. He was being pulled, and the closer he got, the stronger the Presence was, and it felt….wrong.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

So he stopped it. He's not sure how he did this either. He stopped himself, stopped his unnatural inertia. Caught himself in the Earth's orbit. Oh, how the Presence raged…But what he didn't expect was for it to defend itself so well.

Can't stop…Weak, pitiful thing.

It wrapped itself around him and his suit, not something solid, just a Presence. And it was that Presence that made him unstoppable. Anything he touched broke before his velocity and density. Even those who were sent up to collect him could do nothing but fail and die. But you know what…

You will fall.

I stopped it. I saved my comrades, I saved us. Or rather just halted what was inevitable. But I'm not going to let go. Even though I'm trapped in this body, in this suit, I won't let go. Sometimes I even gain control, I smash my visor. To expose it to the vacuum of space when it was engrained so deeply in me would kill us both. But it's too smart for that. Too old, and too smart. So I will continue to hold. I will continue to be the harbinger of death whose blade hovers above the throat of the Earth. And on the day that this son of a bitch dies, on the day this Presence realizes it can't beat us…I'll finally come home.

Home.