Adrift

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.”

“You’re draining the survey grid.”

“The transmitter is our only chance.”

“The transmitter is feeding back through the anomaly residue.”

He looked at her. “You know that how?”

“Because I watched the signal bend.”

“Signals don’t bend.”

“Not in normal space.”

She pushed into the bay, using the handholds with careful, economical movements. Elana always moved as if gravity were a negotiable inconvenience. Now her left arm stayed close to her ribs.

Ethan caught it. “You need treatment.”

“I need you to stop burning power through a system that’s broadcasting into nothing.”

“Unless you have another option - ”

“I do.” She pointed to the diagnostic panel. “The array isn’t dead. It’s misaligned.”

The screen flashed. A skeletal diagram of the Asterion appeared, the comm array rotating in red beyond the hull.

“By how much?” Ethan asked.

“Enough that the transmitter is shouting past every receiver in the sector.”

“Can you correct it?”

“Not from here.”

He looked at the diagram, then at the sealed exterior access route. “The array controls are outside the pressure hull.”

“Yes.”

“That section is spinning.”

“Yes.”

“And the stabilizers are gone.”

“Yes.”

Her agreement was calm enough to make him angry.

“You’re not going out there.”

“I didn’t say I was.”

“You were thinking it.”

“I was calculating it.”

“Same thing with you.”

Elana’s gaze moved to the bodies secured along the wall. Her face tightened, but she did not look away.

“Who were they?” she asked.

Ethan gave her the names. One by one. Each name made the room smaller.

When he finished, she pressed her lips together. Her eyes shone, but no tears escaped. Elana had always treated grief like a specimen: something to examine without allowing it to contaminate her hands.

Ethan knew that habit. He had one of his own.

The console chimed.

A new warning replaced the power readout. LIFE SUPPORT RESERVE - 29 HOURS.

Elana saw it.

“You have to shut down nonessential systems,” she said.

“I know.”

“Navigation?”

“Already gone.”

“Heat in the lower decks?”

“Minimal.”

“Then the transmitter is not essential if it kills us before anyone hears it.”

He turned on her. “You want to sit here and wait?”

“I want a plan that doesn’t depend on you pretending the ship will obey because you’re its commander.”

The words struck close enough to truth that he felt them as heat.

“I’m not pretending anything.”

“You are issuing orders to dead equipment.”

“And you’re refusing to admit we need speed.”

“I’m refusing to let panic dress itself up as command.”

For a moment, the only sound was the low vibration of failing fans.

Ethan released the console and pushed toward the hatch. “Fine. Show me the misalignment.”

She caught the rail beside him. “Where are you going?”

“To the external control junction.”

“You can’t access it alone.”

“I can.”

“That wasn’t what I said.”

He stopped.

Elana’s fingers tightened around the rail. Her face had gone pale beneath the blood at her temple.

“I need you to understand something,” she said. “The anomaly didn’t just damage the ship. It altered the local field. Every time the Asterion rotates, the array shifts against it. If you go outside without a tether correction, you won’t come back to the same hull.”

“I know how to use a tether.”

“You know how to fly a ship. That’s not the same as surviving a rotating surface with no gravity reference.”

“Then come with me.”

The answer escaped before he could weigh it.

Her eyes flicked to his mouth, then away. “That’s your solution?”

“It’s the fastest one.”

“No. It’s the one where you don’t have to be alone.”

The truth of it moved through him, quiet and undeniable. He had woken in the dark reaching for her voice. He had crossed half a dead ship because he needed proof she still existed. Now he wanted her beside him where the hull could spin them into space.

He lowered his voice. “I don’t want to lose anyone else.”

Elana studied him.

The admission seemed to alter the air between them more than the failing ventilation. Her expression softened, but not into forgiveness.

“You already have,” she said.

He looked toward the floating bodies.

“Yes.”

“And you’re trying to turn that into something you can control.”

“I’m trying to keep you alive.”

“That isn’t the same as trusting me.”

Ethan had no answer. He had trusted Elana with readings, calculations, mission decisions made under pressure. He had never trusted her with the fear beneath them.

She pushed herself toward the equipment locker. “Give me the tether.”

“Your arm - ”

“Still attached.”

“Elana.”

She turned. “If you want me to stay, say it plainly. Don’t hide behind my injury.”

His throat tightened.

The ship rolled. Red light swept across her face, then vanished, leaving her features in shadow.

“Stay with me,” he said.

Her breath caught, almost too softly to hear.

“That’s not the same as staying behind.”

“No.” He moved closer, careful not to touch her. “It isn’t.”

For several seconds, she held his gaze. Then she opened the locker and took out a tether harness.

“Get the array controls ready,” she said. “I’ll align the field.”

He wanted to argue. Instead, he secured the harness around her waist, fingers working over the buckles while she held herself still. The proximity was unbearable in its simplicity. Her warmth reached him through the thin layers of her clothing. A strand of hair brushed his cheek.

“Too tight?” he asked.

“No.”

“Tell me if it is.”

“I will.”

His knuckles grazed her hip as he checked the final clasp. Her breath changed. So did his.

They were not lovers. They had never even kissed. But in the ruined comms bay, with the ship tumbling around them and the dead drifting behind her, the space between their bodies felt like a decision neither of them had made yet.

Elana lifted her hand and pressed two fingers against the cut at his brow.

“You’re bleeding.”

“So are you.”

“I noticed.”

Her touch lingered for one second longer than necessary. Then she withdrew.

“Open the outer hatch,” she said.

He turned to the controls. “On my count.”

The hatch cycled with a grinding shriek. Air tore through the bay, dragging loose cables and flecks of insulation toward the opening. Ethan anchored himself and locked Elana’s tether to the guide track.

“Ready?”

“No,” she said. “Do it anyway.”

The outer door opened.

Stars spun across the aperture. The Asterion rolled beneath them, its hull flashing silver, the dead array jutting from the spine like a broken limb. Elana pushed off.

Her tether snapped taut.

Ethan kept one hand on the reel, watching her crawl across the hull as the ship turned. She moved slowly, calculating each reach. The planetless dark gave no sense of up or down. Only the cable connected her to him.

“Almost there,” she said over the suit channel.

Static fractured her voice.

“Elana?”

“I’m here.”

The array rotated. Her body swung wide, tether screaming through the reel.

“Hold!” Ethan shouted.

“I’m holding.”

“No, you’re not - ”

The line jerked. Her shoulder struck the hull.

“Elana!”

A breath hissed over the channel. “I’m fine.”

He closed his eyes for half a second. “You keep saying that.”

“Because you keep asking.”

She reached the junction. The diagnostic screen in the comms bay flickered as she opened the panel.

“Ethan, the control logic is inverted.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means the array is tracking the anomaly, not us.”

“Can you reverse it?”

“Possibly.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the one I have.”

The power warning pulsed again. LIFE SUPPORT RESERVE - 24 HOURS.

Ethan stared at the number while Elana worked outside.

“Ethan,” she said. Her voice had lost its edge. “I need the transmitter live.”

“If the field spikes - ”

“I know.”

“It could tear the array loose.”

“I know.”

He looked through the hatch at her small figure against the rotating hull. She was alone out there, trusting a cable he controlled and a ship that had already betrayed them.

“Say when,” he told her.

A pause.

“Now.”

Ethan engaged the transmitter.

The Asterion bucked. The comms bay filled with white light. Every loose object slammed against the walls. The three bodies spun against their restraints.

Elana cried out over the channel.

Ethan killed the power, but the console continued to glow.

A tone emerged from the static.

Not a message. Not a voice.

A carrier.

Faint, wavering, and impossibly distant, it threaded through the speakers like a pulse beneath ice.

Ethan brought the receiver online. The frequency display filled with numbers, then erased them. It settled on a band no human transmitter had used, shifting every few seconds.

“Do you hear that?” he asked.

“I hear it.”

“Can you lock on?”

“I’m trying.”

The carrier strengthened, then thinned. He adjusted the gain. Elana called out corrections from the hull, her voice breaking apart between bursts of interference.

“Three degrees starboard.”

“There is no starboard reference.”

“You’re the pilot.”

“Not out here.”

A laugh escaped her, breathless and startled. It disappeared into static.

He found the signal again.

The receiver displayed: CARRIER PRESENT. SOURCE UNKNOWN.

Ethan opened the return channel. “This is exploration vessel Asterion. We have survivors. Repeat, we have survivors. Respond.”

The carrier remained silent.

He transmitted again.

Nothing.

Behind him, the life-support warning changed.

LIFE SUPPORT RESERVE - 23 HOURS.

The carrier held, fragile and nonresponsive, refusing every frequency they gave it.

Elana’s voice came through at last, softer than before. “Ethan.”

“I know.”

“What do we do now?”

He watched the signal tremble across the screen. He thought of her tether in his hand, of the way she had touched his brow, of the question neither of them had dared to ask.

“We keep it alive,” he said.

The carrier flickered.

He tightened his grip on the controls, while outside, Elana waited in the dark for him to bring her home.

End of chapter one. 7 more chapters in the full book.