“Pull the switch!” I shouted, “I need this hand!”
“Ok Thane, I Got It!” my partner Ben shouted into his microphone.
“That was close Ben; I could have lost my hand, but I guess a shade of red on the station would have looked pretty good.”
Ben chuckled a little and said, “Yeah, I guess so.”
I got a good laugh out of that, not just because of the joke, but mainly remembering when Ben and I would make jokes like that as kids. We had spent our entire lives together, and we were friends before I could remember. Ben was very shy as a kid, and it took a long time for people to get to know him. I can remember trying to get him to try different things, like foods, and he would just refuse. He was also deathly afraid of heights and wouldn’t dare go near a rollercoaster. He would always say I had a death wish, but I would just laugh at this. The really surprising thing was that he ended up joining the F.B.I. before World War 3, and had to go skydiving. That is something that I have always wanted to do.
Outside the ship I was in critical position now, and the ship needed fixed fast. Outside the space station there was a hole in the solar panel shaft and, if I couldn’t fix it then, we might have lost power.
“Send out the metal fuser Ben,” I shouted, “And hurry!”
“Ok, sending it out, is that all you need?” Ben said back.
“Yes, I believe so.”
I took the metal fuser and moved toward the solar panel. I had to be very careful when doing this or I could break the shaft. Also if I didn’t fix it fast enough, then I could get hit by floating debris. It was a very critical operation.
“How is it going Thane?” shouted Ben randomly in the middle of the fixing operation.
“Wow, you startled me Ben. I could have slipped and messed up… Oh and it is going well.”
“Sorry, but you really need to hurry!”
“… Ok, its done. Now get me back in.”
“Ok, the door is opened, ready for you to come back in.”
Once I was back in the ship we all decided that after a hard operation, we could take  a break. Ben and I were the captains of the small crew. There were other members also like Shawn who was a very loud and obnoxious but always smiled and made everyone laugh. Shyann, the get it done girl, was never procrastinating, and was always working hard. If it weren’t for her, our entire crew wound be dead in space right now. Finally, in our five-person crew, there was Daisy, also known as the wild one. I doubt she ever learned the word fear because it was not a word in her dictionary. She faced death all the time and never blinked an eye, but instead said she says it's fun!
As Ben and I were coming back into the main area of the space station, which we called the living room, we decided that some 3D printed pizza sounded really good after fixing the main power source.
“Where have you guys been?” asked Shawn in a tired voice.
“We were out fixing the power source, which is why you are able to sit on that heating chair,” I said with an annoyed voice.
“You guys went without me again; I haven’t been on a space walk in like a month,” Daisy almost yelled.
“You were asleep, besides there was nothing for you to do.”
“I could have at least helped.”
“Can you help me by acting twenty-five years old instead of acting three years old.”
“Sure, and by the way I’m twenty-four.”
As she left to go to her room, which was actually a tiny pod like room that we all had to sleep in, I went over to the window to look down at the destroyed, but still very beautiful, Earth.
  “Well I guess being stuck in a space station for four years really does make people go crazy,” Shawn said.
I laughed and said, “Yeah… I guess so.”
Shyann came over to the window where I was standing and said, “I know you want to go back Thane, but after the war, there is nothing on the Earth to go back to.
“I know,” I said, “but I just wish someday I could go back there and sit on a beautiful beach once again. I would give anything just to lie down on the grainy sand while the salty air floats around me, and watch the amazing red, orange, and yellow sun drift away into the horizon.”
“Don’t we all,” Shyann said quietly.
“Yeah,” I said, “but it just won’t happen.”
CRASH! BOOM! CRACK!
As I ran to the window to figure out what the giant explosion was coming from the power went out, and I knew it could have been only one thing. As I looked out the small window I saw the solar panel float by and drift into space only to join an orbit of other junk.
Shawn came out yelling, “OK, WHAT IS GOING ON?”
“Ok, everyone just calm down. A piece of space trash hit the solar panel, that’s all,” I said, trying to hide the fear in my voice.
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT’S ALL?!” Shawn yelled, “NOW WE ARE WITHOUT POWER!”
“Stop yelling,” I said trying not to yell back, “I will go turn on the backup generator. It should keep us going for several days.”
“And then what, we DIE?!”
By this point everyone was watching the conversation Shawn and I were having, but I was glad that they were not also panicking like Shawn.
“I’ll go out and fix it soon, but we need to calm down and stop worrying.”
Shyann said to me, “Ben, Daisy, and I will go get started on fixing the solar panel.”
“Ok, I’ll go turn on the backup generator,” I said.
As they left to go find the spare solar panel that was given to us for emergencies like this, Shawn and I went to find the generator which was either in the storage unit or the engine room. When we found it in the engine room, we tried to turn the generator on, but it wouldn’t start at first. Shawn was tired of me trying to start it, so he kicked it, and it started perfectly. When the lights first came on, I was very surprised that his idea of kicking the generator would work.
“Well, that just happened,” I said surprised.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Shawn said with surprise in his voice also.
We then went to find the rest of the crew and found them in the storage unit.
“Have you found the extra panel yet?” I asked.
“Not yet,” Ben said from across the room.
CRASH!
“What was that?” I almost yelled.
“I don’t know, but we better go find out!” Ben yelled back.
As we ran to the main room there was gas leaking into the air.
“I think another orbit of trash hit us and damaged the oxygen generator,” Ben said.
“If that gets damaged, then we can’t fix it. It was supposed to be durable enough to not be damaged,” I said back.
At this point I could see the fear in everyone’s eyes. So I went to go check on the oxygen generator and something in the trash orbit was strong enough to break it. There was nothing we could do.
“I’m sorry guys, but there is nothing we can do,” I said slowly
No one said anything until Shyann had a genius idea.
“What if we went back down to Earth? There is still a breathable atmosphere,” she said with confidence in her voice.
“That could work,” I said, “but we have to go now!”
We all ran to the c***pit, and I shut down the oxygen generator so that it wouldn’t explode. I turned on the engine and the rockets started to rumble.
“Ok, let’s do this I said,” I said.
As the engine started to thrust slowly towards Earth, we braced ourselves for the ride. We got in our capsules, and waited to start our descend. Everything was shaking, and I was almost ready to close my eyes and just wait it out, but I knew it was up to me to land the capsules right. As we entered the atmosphere, I let the capsules go and the old space station fell into the world below. When we got near to the ground, I let the parachutes go and we slowly got close to the ground.
Once we got out of our capsules, Shawn said, “Am I still alive?”
“I guess so,” I said.
As I was looking around I noticed that we were stranded in the middle of the ocean. We were stuck with little food and water and there was nothing we could do.
After about three days later while being stranded, we saw a small island and drifted upon it. We were just about out of water, so it was a miracle that we found the island when we did. Once we set foot on the island we realized that this was no ordinary island. There was luscious green all around us and fresh grass growing on the soil.
"I haven't seen a tree since I was a kid," Ben said in aww.
"It's beautiful," Daisy remarked.
As we kept moving, we found out that trees and grass were not the only amazing thing to be found on this island. After several days of hiking, we found a small village of post World War 3 humans, who must have survived the nuclear war. After interacting with the people for several days we became very acquainted with them. On one of those peaceful nights on that island, I remember sitting in the grainy sand, smelling the salty air by the ocean, and watching the beautiful red, orange, and yellow sun fade into the distance.