Thin Air

Lieutenant Caius Dray and Chief Engineer Voss Ackermann have not spoken in seven years—not since Voss filed the report that ended Caius's flight career. Now their deep-space survey vessel is debris, and both men are trapped in a single escape pod designed for one. Voss is bleeding from an abdominal wound, his hands too damaged to suture himself, and Caius is the only one with steady fingers. As the pod drifts away from the rescue corridor with microfractures bleeding atmosphere and oxygen dwindling, they must navigate the excruciating intimacy of field medicine in a space barely large enough to breathe. Every old accusation, every unanswered question, and the classified test flight that Caius sabotaged to protect Voss from a lethal design flaw press in from the thinning air. With one dose of painkillers left and a rescue window closing, they must tear open seven years of silence, choose who survives, and decide whether what remains between them is worth the oxygen it takes to forgive. The story ends not with salvation but with a new institutional threat: the same design flaw that Caius tried to bury is still being built into fleet vessels, and someone in command will do anything to keep that secret.