They were so beautiful.

Yellow and white and pink. The pink ones were his favorites: white flowers with splotches of pink dots running together, like pointillisme. But there were others that were shaded pink, or deep magenta. Petals burst from slender stems, arcing from broad leaves and hungry tendrils that reached for nutrients. They were captivating, but their color wasn’t keeping him alive. The leaves were.

It had been two weeks since his engines died. Days since the main reactor failed. With the reactor down, he now relied on solar energy for survival, like the orchids. And while water filtration was active, the atmospheric scrubbers were not. That meant he needed the plants. He needed them, they needed him.

Now, the tropical orchids in his cargo module were the most precious cargo he’d ever carried. Each day, he drifted into the aeroponics module first thing. He checked the sprays, monitored nutrient flow, carefully inspected the leaves, the stalks, the roots. The health of each plant was painstakingly monitored. After all, a single loss could imperil his survival. He couldn’t afford so much as one.

With main power down, he had no idea where he was. He’d dropped out of FTL in free space, and now his ship was adrift, at the mercy of the void. Lighting levels were low; most of his days he worked, ate, and slept by the ambient light of the cosmos. But in the aeroponics bay, there was still light, and warmth. The orchids needed light to grow, warmth and humidity to survive. So each day, when he entered to tend his garden, he was greeted by bright light and a sea of color. It was his favorite time of day.

Soon, the air from the plants was all he had. He’d moved his sleeping berth, and taken up residence in aeroponics. It was cramped; row upon row of aeroponics drums, bursting with tropical plants whose leaves thirsted for the light. His sleeping cabin seemed like a penthouse by comparison. But there, in his garden, he would survive, in hopes that someone would read his beacon. Someone would come.

They would. They would come.

As time went on, it lost all meaning. He never left the aeroponics bay, never saw the stars. The only light he was afforded came from grow lamps: the same light that nourished his plants nourished him. He breathed, they breathed. He shared what little water he had with them. They nourished him with their fruit. He repaid them with his waste. Every ounce of everything was crucial. But despite everything, they survived. Him, and his plants.

By the time the hatch opened, he hadn’t shaved in weeks. The glaring blue light of their flashlights hurt his eyes, and he raised his hands to cover his face. He had been missing for almost two months, they told him, as they carefully floated him out of the aeroponics bay, out of his ship, and onto a waiting rescue vehicle. As the rescue ship slowly pulled away, he looked back at the remnants of his. There were dark, gaping holes along the engine module. It was worse than he’d feared. Yet all he could think of was his plants. What would become of them? They’d kept him alive, kept him fed and breathing. Now, at last, he could go home. But they remained, likely lost to the void.

Looking back on it all, one thing was certain: he never wanted to see another tropical orchid so long as he lived.