The first step is always the one that takes you away from home.

---

(not pictured:  Tube at the front of the ship looking at the stars, eager to get off of this God-forsaken rock at last)

This is a pivotal moment in a long-running story I had with  Tube (as Rane) and  Jakebe (as Arroyo) which started off as a fantasy adventure and ended up becoming more science fiction.

Spitfire hatched and grew up on Earth: our Earth. Apart from being another species, he was and is in every way a creature of Earth. He knew nothing of his origins. His mother kept them as a fiercely-guarded secret, and took them to her grave.

It never mattered -- until his own people found him, and he was presented with the choice of turning his back on his origins forever, or going with them and leaving his adopted world behind. And, with prodding from Rane, he goes. But as he's in the transport, lifting off, he takes one hard look back at the ruins of the mountain citadel that has been his home.

What must he be thinking, what must he be feeling, as he watches the ruins fade from sight, and then the mountain, and then the planet? In these last moments when he could call it off, tell them to take him back and drop him off and forget all about it, what is going through his head and his heart?

Völlig Losgelöst is German for "totally disconnected," and is the name of a song by Peter Schilling. You may be more familiar with the English version, "Major Tom," in which an intrepid astronaut successfully leaves the Earth to head to the stars beyond, but at some point, all contact with him is lost. The implication is that Major Tom perishes, and his ultimate destination is the afterlife, but the songs never actually say that. We just get Major Tom's last words heard on Earth: "This is my home. I'm coming home."

Totally disconnected from his old life, now, Spitfire is coming home too.

Art by the incomparable  loculi.