Devi Dies on the Second Spacewalk

Devi’s death during Aether’s second spacewalk turns a carefully planned repair into an irreversible loss. The failure of a carbon-dioxide scrubber leaves her without enough oxygen to return to the airlock, while Sully remains beside her, holding the communications dish in place. The task continues after Devi dies: Sully follows the crew’s instructions, secures the dish, and lets her friend drift away. In the days that follow, the unfinished repair becomes both a practical duty and the focus around which Sully’s grief begins to move.

Causes and Setup

The spacewalk’s purpose is to install a replacement communications dish on Aether. Sully and Devi work together at the ship’s aft installation site, tethering themselves and the dish before arranging the loose wiring. Devi handles the wiring, splitting and splicing it to fit the new system; Sully supplies tools and controls the dish’s movement. The operation is demanding and still has hours of work ahead, but Sully feels capable and prepared. When the dish is brought into position, the two women lower it toward the hull and prepare to secure it with bolts.

Their partnership carries an emotional history into the repair. In an earlier conversation, Devi had described a recurring dream of family meals in her mother’s kitchen in Kolkata, with her parents and brothers together. The dream’s comfort always gives way to the knowledge that they are gone and that she is alone. Sully had listened beside her in the dark, offering quiet physical closeness rather than reassurance she could not honestly give. That earlier disclosure makes the crisis on the spacewalk more than a sudden technical emergency: Sully is watching a close crewmate, already marked by loneliness and loss, become unreachable in front of her.

The Scrubber Failure

The installation appears nearly complete when Sully lays a gloved hand on Devi’s shoulder and receives no response. A transmission from inside Aether then reports a carbon-dioxide problem in Devi’s suit and a sharp fall in its oxygen level. Sully moves closer and sees that Devi is dazed and struggling to remain alert. Devi identifies the cause as a failed lithium hydroxide cartridge in the suit’s scrubber. She says she did not notice the failure in time; there is not enough oxygen for her to recover by returning to the airlock.

Harper urges Devi to head back, but Devi believes there is no time. Her movements become involuntary, and the tool she has been holding slips away into space. She loses consciousness while still tethered near Sully. The crew checks her vital signs from inside the ship, and Thebes confirms that she is dead. Sully remains fixed at the dish’s mast, unable at first to respond to the emergency around her. The repair site, the failed suit system, and the tether that holds Devi in place leave the crew with a stark limit: they can recognize what has happened, but they cannot reverse it.

Completing the Repair and Letting Go

After the death is confirmed, Sully still has to secure the dish. Harper guides her through the next steps, reminding her to proceed one bolt at a time and explaining that the first two will be difficult while she keeps hold of the mast. Sully follows the rehearsed procedure. When the dish is secured, she detaches Devi from her tether without asking permission. She believes it is what Devi—and any of the crew—would have wanted.

Sully watches Devi drift farther away until she disappears from sight. Her thoughts turn to Voyager and its journey beyond the solar system, and she hopes, without certainty, that Devi’s body might continue on an immense journey through space. She stays looking into the darkness for a long time. The release of the tether does not resolve her grief; it gives the loss a final, visible form, as her friend recedes beyond reach while the work they began remains attached to the ship.

Aftermath Among the Crew

The next morning, Sully wakes in terror with the image of Devi drifting away recurring in her mind. She imagines alternative outcomes—getting Devi to the airlock in time, or noticing the scrubber’s failure earlier—but cannot find comfort in those imagined versions. She returns to the airlock and then to her compartment, withdrawing from the other crewmembers. When they visit, Harper and Thebes look in on her, but Sully can only tell them that she needs to get through the day. Her withdrawal is not indifference: she is overwhelmed by the fact that the spacewalk remains present in memory and that the vacuum surrounds the crew’s home and workplace.

The following day, Sully gets up and returns to the dish. She and Thebes work together on the communications system without discussing the spacewalk; concentrating on the task is what she can manage. At lunch, she recognizes that the death belongs to the whole crew, not just to her: the others watched Devi’s final moments through helmet cameras. The remaining crewmembers share a meal of shepherd’s pie in silence, and Ivanov takes Tal’s and Harper’s hands before the others join them. Their quiet gathering acknowledges a shared loss without requiring Sully to explain or overcome it.

Restoring Contact

Sully and Thebes continue calibrating the new system, testing its gain and adjusting its squelch until the reception is as clear as they can make it. The equipment that had brought Sully and Devi together in a dangerous repair is now the means by which the crew can listen for anyone trying to contact them. After Thebes leaves, Sully stays to listen. She does not mistake the functioning system for a connection already made; rather, she feels less alone because the crew has done what it can to make contact possible.

The death therefore alters the meaning of the repair without cancelling its purpose. The dish is completed through a sequence Sully must carry out after Devi is gone, and its eventual calibration gives the surviving crew a concrete task in the midst of grief. Sully’s recovery is not presented as a clean passage beyond loss: the memory continues to trouble her, even as she returns to work and prepares to hear what may come. By extending the possibility of communication beyond Aether, the completed system links mourning to continued attention—to the crew’s shared effort, and to a future response they cannot yet know will arrive.