Adrift

The silence woke Ethan Cole before the emergency lights did.

He opened his eyes to darkness, one hand clenched around the edge of his harness, the other reaching for the comm panel beside his bunk. His fingers found cold metal and a smear of condensation. He pressed the call key.

“Elana?”

Only static answered - thin, granular, endless.

He pushed free of the bunk. The ship had lost gravity, and his body drifted sideways into the cabin wall. Somewhere beyond the bulkhead, something struck a vent with a slow, irregular clack. The air smelled of scorched insulation and copper.

“Elana.” He tried the channel again. “Report.”

Nothing.

His pulse kicked harder. Not from the tumble. From the absence of her voice.

He caught the handrail and pulled himself into the corridor. Emergency strips flickered along the floor, turning the passage into broken red segments. A loose tablet floated past his face, its screen black. He shoved it aside and headed for the comms bay.

The ship, the Asterion, rolled without correction. Every few seconds, the deck became a wall and the wall became a ceiling. Ethan moved by grips and rails, boots pushing off only when he could judge the spin. His shoulder clipped a hatch frame. Pain flashed down his arm.

He ignored it.

The comms bay door had jammed half-open. He wedged his fingers into the gap and hauled. The motor gave a weak whine, then died. Ethan forced himself through.

Three bodies drifted inside.

For one suspended second, he did not understand what he was seeing. The emergency lights caught pale faces, open eyes, blood beaded into globes against the ceiling. One of the bodies wore the comms technician’s blue collar. Another had a burn mark across his throat. The third rotated slowly, a hand still hooked through a restraint loop.

Ethan swallowed against the taste of metal.

“Damn it.”

He reached for the nearest body and pulled it toward the wall, securing the suit with a strap. The man’s head rolled against the padding. No response. No breath fogged the visor.

Ethan turned away before recognition could settle.

He had been the commanding pilot for six years. He knew how to land ships with dead engines, how to make decisions while alarms screamed and people waited for him to be right. None of that helped with three bodies floating in a room that should have been full of voices.

He activated the comm console.

The display crawled to life, lines of corrupted symbols sliding over one another. He keyed the emergency beacon. The transmitter clicked, warmed, and emitted a burst of static so violent it rattled the loose panels.

“Come on,” he muttered. “Give me anything.”

He rerouted power from the survey scanners. The ship shuddered as another system went dark. A warning appeared: LIFE SUPPORT RESERVE - 31 HOURS.

He stared at the number.

Thirty-one hours for two people, if the circulation fans held. Less if the scrubbers failed. Less if the anomaly had damaged the reserve tanks the way it had damaged everything else.

A sharp voice came through the open hatch.

“Ethan.”

He turned too quickly and struck the console with his hip.

Dr. Elana Voss floated in the doorway, one hand gripping the frame. Her dark hair had escaped its tie and drifted around her face. A cut marked her temple, dried blood tracking toward her eyebrow. She wore a torn science jacket over a thermal shirt, and one sleeve was blackened near the shoulder.

She looked alive.

The relief was so fierce it embarrassed him.

“You’re hurt,” he said.

“So are you.”

“I’m fine.”

“That’s a command, not an assessment.”

Even exhausted, she could make the words precise. Ethan had spent two years listening to Elana dismantle his assumptions in mission briefings, each correction delivered in that low, measured voice. Usually, he had enjoyed the challenge. Today, the familiar edge made his chest tighten.

He reached toward her. “Let me see your arm.”

She glanced at his hand, then at his face. “You can see it from there.”

“Voss.”

“Cole.”

The names hung between them, stripped of rank and courtesy.

A tremor passed through the ship. Elana’s grip slipped. Ethan caught her wrist before she struck the hatch. Her skin was cold. Her eyes lifted to his, startled by the contact, and for a moment neither of them moved.

Then she pulled free.

“Don’t make a habit of that,” she said.

“Keeping you from cracking your skull?”

“Touching me like you’re afraid I’ll disappear.”

The words landed harder than they should have. Ethan turned back to the console.

“Three dead in here,” he said. “How many in the science ring?”

Her expression changed. The sharpness went first. What remained was worse.

“I found six,” she said. “Maybe more. The internal network is down, and the doors won’t cycle consistently.”

“Any survivors?”

“I checked the medical deck. No.”

The static continued behind him, a dry whisper filling every gap in the room.

Ethan forced his hands to steady. “I’m bringing the emergency transmitter online.”

...