They hadn't been lovers, exactly. They were good friends, though, in spite of that little incident years ago when they both thought they were in love, and the end had been disastrous, as is so often the case. They'd worked through all that, and for two years and some they'd been the best insertion team on the station. They'd often joke about having to do their job less well, or they'd be transferred to the galaxy core as scouts. But they both knew that they were way too valuable here for anyone to want to move them. He'd saved her life a few times, and she'd saved his. And now she'd failed to save his this last time.

He'd obviously thought the whole thing through, and was serious about it, as no one had noticed anything out of the ordinary, until they all got his delayed messages over the neural net, and rushed to his little cabin in the former Soyuz capsule that now formed part of the station. He'd always liked it there, he said it reminded him of his origins, though he was born on a distant planet, many millions of miles away from Russia, where the capsule was once made. They'd all been too late, of course. His plan, as his plans always were, had been perfect down to the last detail. They all had enhanced brains and bodies, and could override several mental blocks and just wish themselves dead, and they'd die. The ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy, you might say. But he hadn't. Perhaps he hadn't been sure he'd have the guts to go through with it that way, perhaps he just wanted to make doubly sure nothing went wrong.

Sandy, the short, blonde bodybuilder, had taken a poison pill, so strong that even his enhanced glands hadn't managed to clear his veins of it in time. No one knew where he'd gotten it, or if he'd made it himself, and more importantly, no one knew why.

As Shamiram watched the coffin shoot out of the burial tube, headed for the sun in a lazy orbit that'd terminate in that fiery hell long after they were all gone, she didn't cry. She only read his last message, sent out over the net just after he died, again. It was very short, only one sentence; "I'm bored of all this."