CHAPTER ONE
I knew the air was going bad before the indicator lights started complaining.
Ceres Station always smelled a little recycled, a little stale, but this morning it had that sharp metallic edge—like licking a wrench. The corridor fans were whining again, pulling too hard, not getting enough draw.
I muttered under my breath, "Not today, please… just hold a little."
The diagnostic pad blinked red across half its display.
Great. Cluster 12 again.
Nobody else slowed down. Belters pushed past each other, tired faces, half-slept eyes. Same as every day. Everyone saw the blinking hazard strip and pretended it was part of the décor.
That was how you lived long in the Belt: don't look too close, don't ask unnecessary questions, don't act like anything is your problem.
But for me, failing life-support was my problem.
I knelt and pulled off the access panel. Hot air hit my face. Something in the fan belly was grinding like teeth.
Behind me, someone clicked their tongue. "Eh, sasa… you always crouched in some hole."
I looked back. Sari stood there with her medbag, hair floating in the low-G, eyes tired but bright. She'd been on night shift—her shoulders were slumped in that "I've been listening to sick people breathe wrong all night" way.
"You fixin' that thing again?" she said.
"This thing feeds oxygen to five hundred people," I said. "If it dies, everybody gets a nice morning nap they don't wake up from."
"You always gotta make it dramatic."
"It really is dramatic," I said. "Anything that kills you quietly is dramatic."
She shrugged, rubbing her forehead. "Mm… fair point."
I tapped the screen again, frowning. "Okay, the primary coil is almost blown. Secondary's dead-dead. Someone patched it wrong. Wasn't me."
She leaned closer. "Could be some rookie tech. They keep hiring kids who don't know torque from torque wrench."
"They hired kids because all the experienced ones left for Ganymede last year."
I sighed. "And then Ganymede went to shit."
"Mm." Her mouth tightened.
We both went quiet.
Then—
BANG.
A metallic echo from down the corridor. Followed by a yelp, then muffled curses.
Sari straightened. "Tell me that's not trouble."
"That's trouble," I said.
"Cael—no, wait. Just… wait a second, okay? We can't keep running toward problems like we're superheroes. We're just—"
Another shout. Definitely not drunk dockers. Too sharp. Too angry.
"Yeah," I said. "We're going."
"Ahhhh… you're impossible." She jogged after me. "I swear one day your good heart gonna get me shot."
We turned the corner.
Two OPA toughs backed a skinny tech into the wall. Kid looked terrified, clutching a case of pressure valves like it was his little brother.
One of the men shoved him again. "Your boss say no payment, we take things. You understand, yeah?"
"Please," the kid said, voice cracking. "These supposed to go to hydroponics—if they don't get 'em—"
"Not my business," the OPA man muttered. "Move."
The other man raised his hand to slap him again.
"Enough," I said.
Sari muttered behind me, "Oh god, here we go."
Both enforcers turned.
The one with shaved sides let out a short laugh. "Kowltingé, who this now?"
"Nobody special," I said. "Just someone who knows those valves can't go missing. Take them and you break the whole cycle. Plants starve, people starve. You two starve."
The second man squinted at me. "You talk pretty for someone about to get slapped."
Sari whispered sharply, "Cael. Come on. Let's not do this."
I should've listened.
But the kid looked like he was about to cry. And I'd fixed hydroponics' regulators last week—they were already failing. Losing these valves would choke half a district.
"Hydroponics fails," I said quietly, "and you start a riot you can't eat your way out of."
Shaved Sides stepped up to me, close enough to smell his breath—stale beer and dried seaweed snacks. "This OPA territory. You not OPA."
"I'm not," I said. "But I breathe the same air. And I'd like everyone to keep doing that."
He grabbed my shoulder. Hard.
My pulse jumped. I wasn't a fighter. But my mind did that thing—when everything snaps into patterns, like I'm watching the moment from outside my own body. Angles, torque, pressure, reaction timing—it all lights up.
I rotated my arm, broke his grip, shoved him back half a step.
"Don't," I said.
"Ey! You wan' dance?" the second man shouted, pulling a knife from somewhere in his jacket.
Sari gasped. "What the hell—no, no, put that away!"
Knife Guy lunged.
My hand shot up on instinct. I grabbed a loose maintenance pipe hanging from the wall—rusted, barely attached—ripped it free with a shriek and swung low. Not pretty. Not elegant.
But it worked.
The metal clanged off his knee. He collapsed, swearing.
Shaved Sides cursed and reached into his jacket.
I saw the outline of a pistol.
My stomach dropped.
But before he could draw it, Sari charged in with her medbag like she suddenly remembered she had ancestors who fought with spears. She smacked him square in the face.
He went down.
She stood there panting. "I hate this place. I swear, Cael, I'm gonna kill you one day."
The kid whispered, "Thank you… thank you, thank you—"
"No time," I said. "Move."
We grabbed him and hurried out before the enforcers got themselves together.
---
Fan cluster 12's maintenance shaft was hot, cramped, and smelled exactly like sweat and burnt wiring. I'd crawled into this shaft more times than I wanted to count.
Sari sat outside the hatch, swinging her legs, occasionally checking the air levels. She looked exhausted. I felt guilty for dragging her into another mess.
"You know," she said, wiping sweat off her lip, "normal people run away when they hear trouble."
"Normal people don't breathe Ceres air. They breathe somewhere nice."
"Eh." She shrugged. "Fair."
I leaned deeper into the machinery. "Pass me the small spanner?"
"You mean this?" She held up the wrong one.
"No, the other small one."
She squinted. "They all small."
"Yes. That's the problem."
She snorted and handed me the right tool.
After a moment, she said, voice softer, "Why you always do this, ah? Fix everything. Jump into fights that ain't yours. You could mind your business like the rest of us."
"I don't know how," I said honestly.
She snorted, amused. "Honest man. Dangerous man."
"Not dangerous."
"You don't see yourself right."
The fan control sparked lightly. I jerked my hand back.
"Dammit—someone wired this backward. Who trained these people?"
"Nobody," she said. "They threw 'em in the job and said 'good luck, don't die.'"
"Explains a lot."
It took ten more minutes of adjustments, sweat stinging my eyes, and one very questionable weld, but then—
The fan roared to life.
Cool air washed over my face.
Sari raised her hands. "Oye! You did it."
I sat back, wiping my forehead. "Barely."
She studied me for a quiet moment.
Voice low, almost worried:
"You keep doing things like today… someone's gonna notice. Someone with guns, or money, or both."
"I'm not worth noticing," I said.
She shook her head slowly. "That's the thing, Cael. People like you… the world never ignores them for long."
I wanted to argue.
But the humming fan behind me made a promise I'd heard my whole life on Ceres:
Everything that works draws attention.
Everything that keeps people alive gets claimed by someone.
And nothing stays hidden forever