Chapter Twelve

Ludwig snapped back to consciousness, his body gasping instinctively for air. Panic crashed over him—his every thought, his entire being focused on the desperate need to breathe. His fingers grasped reflexively at his neck, as if willing his lungs to work properly. Theoretically, the planet’s atmosphere contained some oxygen, but at dangerously low levels—far too thin to sustain him. The mix of mostly nitrogen and carbon dioxide would only delay the inevitable.

Ludwig searched frantically for his helmet, feeling grateful he’d been too tired to take his pressure suit off last night. He found it quickly, grabbing it with shaking hands and fumbling slightly with the latch. It wasn’t until his helmet was on and the visor’s screen booted up that he saw the large crack running along the glass. Still, these helmets were strong—the millions of fiberoptic fibers woven together to form the visor could usually withstand a few cracks.

As soon as he started the pressurization process in his suit, a sharp hiss escaped from the crack—growing louder as his suit struggled to equalize. Apparently, being blasted out of the pod like a projectile and slamming into the cavern wall had been too much for his helmet’s integrity.

His panic deepened, his ragged breathing only making it worse. He yanked off his helmet and tried to think, but his thoughts were slowing, fogging over. Confusion was already setting in.

If he wanted to survive the next few minutes, he needed to act—now. Struggling for clarity through the panic and confusion, his training finally kicked in. He forced himself to focus, grounding himself by noting aspects of his environment.

Ludwig spotted his crumpled-up cot, half-buried beneath large rubber storage bins against the far cavern wall. That was strange. His sluggish mind struggled to piece it together. What had happened again?

He pressed a trembling hand to his chest as his heart stuttered—a sudden, unnatural skip. Palpitations. Not good. The second thing he registered was the airlock—a twisted heap of metal, crumpled like a soda can.

Next to it sat a red rubber bin.

Wait. That’s where their emergency supplies would be. Where the FLUX masks should be.

Ludwig rushed to the bin. It lay upside down, its lid half-buried in debris. He reached to turn it over but hesitated—a jagged shard of plastic caught his eye, fractures spreading through it like a spider’s web. He picked it up, frowning. It was strangely dusty, brittle, like an old food storage container left in the sun.

Was this what remained of their pod’s FluxSeal walls?

Ludwig flexed the material absently in his hands. His panic had settled, his short, shallow breaths finding a fragile rhythm in the thin air. But then, lightheadedness hit him hard—a sudden, crushing wave.

Right. The red bin.

He flipped the bin over and ripped off the lid, digging through bandages and medication packs. Finally—the FLUX masks.

His vision blurred, seeing darkness at the edges.

Tunnel vision. Soon, confusion would set in—then dizziness, then unconsciousness. Then suffocation.

Fighting through the haze, Ludwig tore open the packaging and yanked out the FLUX mask—a loop of flexible rubber with a mouthpiece and tube attached. At the end of the tube, the square housing held the air filter.

Ludwig knew he had been trained on how to use these. But in his oxygen-starved delirium, he needed the visual instructions. Shaky hands looped the mask around his neck. He bit down on the mouthpiece, pulling the tube at the same time. A mechanism clicked into place, sealing the O-ring and activating the device. The necklace oozed a ring of FluxSeal, which instantly expanded around his head—forming a nearly transparent, airtight bubble.

Once the seal fully expanded and locked into place, another mechanism clicked inside the filter, triggering the pressurization process. The bubble shifted, molding to the contours of his head. His ears popped, and for a moment, it felt like his eyes might be sucked from their sockets. But as the pressure stabilized, a rush of cool oxygen flowed in through the tube.

He gasped for the pure oxygen, sucking in deep, desperate breaths. His lungs burned from the last few minutes of slow suffocation. As oxygen flooded back into his bloodstream, his mind sharpened.

But his thoughts were still hazy as the memories pieced themselves together—Djawadi forcing the airlock to reboot, their fight, the catastrophic depressurization.

Djawadi.

Ludwig scanned the wreckage—Djawadi lay unconscious by the crumpled airlock. He rushed to his side and checked his pulse—faint, but steady. He started to retrieve a FLUX mask but froze. His mind was clearing, logic setting in. Djawadi had just tried to kill him. If he was going to revive him, he needed to subdue him first.

It didn’t take long to find a couple of thick, coiled power cords in the wreckage. He grabbed them, along with a FLUX mask, and rushed back to Djawadi. Working quickly, he lashed Djawadi’s hands behind his back, tightening the knot until he was sure it would hold. Feeling more secure, he tore open the FLUX mask’s packaging.

As Ludwig looped the oxygen mask around Djawadi’s neck, his partner stirred. Djawadi’s eyes fluttered open, locking onto him with a dazed but wary gaze.

“Here. Bite down,” Ludwig said, pressing the FLUX mask’s mouthpiece toward him.       “No,” Djawadi gasped, turning his face away. “Just let me die.”

Ludwig ignored him, forcing the mask closer.

“Stop,” Djawadi snarled through clenched teeth. “If you do this, I’ll kill you.”

Ludwig hesitated. At first, it sounded like a threat. But now, he realized—it was a warning.

They didn’t have time for this. “Fuck you,” Ludwig muttered, just loud enough for Djawadi to hear. “If you want to kill me, you’re gonna have to try harder next time.”

Before Djawadi could respond, Ludwig grabbed a fistful of his hair and forced the mouthpiece between his teeth, pinning it in place as his partner thrashed.

With Djawadi now tied up, there was no way he could overpower Ludwig again. Holding the mouthpiece firmly against Djawadi’s face with one hand, Ludwig yanked the tube with the other, activating the seal.

He kept his grip firm on the mouthpiece, afraid Djawadi’s thrashing might disrupt the expanding seal. But as soon as the oxygen started flowing, the fight drained from him. His survival instincts overpowered his resistance, and he gasped greedily for air.

With Djawadi subdued, Ludwig grabbed the other power cord and bound his ankles. For good measure, he looped the long end back up to Djawadi’s wrists, securing him in a makeshift hog-tie. Djawadi didn’t protest.

With the immediate danger over, Ludwig exhaled and leaned against the cavern wall, finally able to catch his breath. But out of the corner of his eye, he saw Djawadi watching him.

Ludwig didn’t want to look at him—but the longer he avoided it, the more it felt like a challenge. Like Djawadi was daring him to meet his gaze. Against his better judgment, Ludwig finally looked. He expected to see hatred. Instead, he saw… nothing. His partner’s eyes, vacant and unreadable, reminded him of a shark’s. Emotionless, yet unmistakably predatory.

Ludwig knew this wouldn’t be the last time Djawadi tried to kill him. The thought didn’t scare him anymore. It just pissed him off. Djawadi could hate him all he wanted—Ludwig didn’t care. He wasn’t about to let him jeopardize the mission. Though, given their current situation, that mission was already hanging by a thread.

But for now, they had breathable air—and that was enough. The rest of the problems could wait until morning.

Ludwig dragged his feet to his crumpled-up cot and yanked his thin foam pad free. Two utility knives tumbled out onto the ground. Only two. Ludwig’s stomach tightened—Djawadi had stolen one back without him noticing. 

As if on cue, pain flared along Ludwig’s belly—the cut from Djawadi’s blade finally making itself known. He’d forgotten about it in the chaos. Even if his helmet had been intact, the tear in his suit would have stopped it from pressurizing properly anyway.

Ludwig picked up the two remaining utility knives and tossed them into the wreckage of their pod. As they clattered away, something caught his eye.

One of the overturned bins was leaking a strange purple liquid. Ludwig frowned. What the hell was that?

He flipped the bin upright and yanked off the lid. Inside lay the remains of their air filters.

There were dozens inside the bin—enough for another two months, just in case. Normally, these filters were packed tightly to prevent damage, even if the bin was dropped or knocked over.

Each air filter housed delicate internal machinery essential to its function. To ensure reliability, a small glass bulb filled with purple dye was embedded inside—designed to rupture if the silicon chips sustained damage, rendering the filter useless.

The purple dye had soaked through the bin, pooling at the bottom. Air filters were always stored outside the pod for this exact reason—sudden pressure changes could destroy their delicate internals. But their exterior storage clearly hadn’t survived the explosion either.

Ludwig’s hands trembled as he carefully pulled out the air filters, checking each one. One after another, he confirmed they were all useless.

Dread filled him as the implications sank in—stacking on top of the panic already reeling from the airlock breach. He checked his wrist pad, pulling up the readout for his suit’s air filter. How much time did he have left before he’d need to replace it?

Ten hours.

He stared at the reading in disbelief. Thirty hours left in the mission. How the hell was he supposed to survive twenty of them without breathable air?

What about the FLUX masks? Could they stretch the window to cover the full thirty hours? Ludwig considered breaking one open to check if the emergency filters matched the ones in their suits—but he didn’t dare risk it. What if it ruined one of the masks entirely?

He checked the packaging details. Five hours. That’s how long the filters were rated to last. Not great, but not nothing. There were four masks left—enough to buy them each ten extra hours.

Ludwig knew these ratings were conservative—a way for the manufacturer to cover their ass. If they claimed the filters lasted seven or eight hours, but some failed at five, they’d be liable. So if they were rated for five, Ludwig hoped they could squeeze six or seven. Maybe eight, if they were lucky.

Thirty hours left in the mission. Ten hours left in his current air filter. Another ten to fifteen hours with the oxygen masks. That still left at least five hours without air—probably longer. And that was assuming the transfer crew picking them up for reassignment arrived on schedule. Under normal circumstances, they would. But with the colony struggling, there was a good chance they’d be waiting well past the thirty-hour mark.

In that moment, Ludwig understood the truth. Surviving the airlock breach hadn’t saved him—it had only delayed the inevitable. He had thought Djawadi had failed again. But no, Djawadi had succeeded. He had killed them both. They just weren’t dead yet.

Exhaustion hit Ludwig like a truck. It was still the middle of the night, and he hadn’t slept well in over a week. Nearly suffocating a few minutes ago hadn’t helped. His thoughts were sluggish, his body heavier than it had ever felt. He knew it was foolish not to come up with a plan—not to at least consider how to protect himself if Djawadi broke free. But he simply didn’t have the energy to care.

Instead, he stumbled away from the useless air filters, forcing himself to stand and head back to his crumpled-up cot. When he reached it, he sighed and pulled out his blanket. He laid his pad against the cavern wall and rolled his blanket into a makeshift pillow. Pushing away any thoughts of surviving the night, Ludwig lay down on the cavern floor.

Despite the danger, despite everything Djawadi had done, Ludwig turned onto his side, facing away from him. He adjusted his head against the blanket, trying to find a comfortable position beneath the FLUX mask. And in that moment, he realized—he hated Djawadi too.

“Oh, so we’re not going to talk about this?” Djawadi scoffed. “After all the talking we’ve done every other goddamn time, now you just ignore me?”

“I think we should get some sleep,” Ludwig said calmly.

He had a hunch—Djawadi was baiting him, trying to drag him into another fight. Ludwig hoped ignoring him would be enough. It wasn’t.

“I just tried to kill you!”

You did kill me, Ludwig thought bitterly.

“You’re not worried I’ll try again?”

Ludwig snorted at the irony of his question and closed his eyes.

Djawadi didn’t try goading him again. As Ludwig drifted toward sleep, a dark realization settled over him. He was going to die in the next twenty hours. And to his surprise, that thought didn’t terrify him. It relieved him.

Of course, Ludwig didn’t want to die. But there was relief in knowing he no longer had to wonder if Djawadi would succeed. As he drifted toward sleep, his thoughts turned to his fellow colonists. A dozen or so men and women were already awake, working to ensure the colony’s survival. But over a hundred more remained in hibernation, waiting for their turn. Waiting for the mission to be ready for them. He wanted so badly for all of them to succeed. They had all worked so hard at LunaU to get here.

LunaU. Memories surfaced, unbidden. The classes he took, the dormmates he had, the stories they shared late into the night. They drifted through his mind as sleep crept closer. Stories of older siblings who had gone through the program, of ex-boyfriends and girlfriends, of where people hoped to end up. Stories of home. But Ludwig’s favorites had always been the tall tales—the ones about LunaU alumni and the crazy things that had supposedly happened to them. Legends that had grown out of their time together.

Most of these legends were likely embellished beyond reason, but everyone had heard them in some form or another. The details shifted over time, changing with each retelling, but the people in them had achieved a strange kind of immortality—passed down through the alumni like folklore.

As he thought of those LunaU stories, a final thought settled in before sleep took him—when their mission logs were discovered, his story would get out. He, too, might become one of those tall tales. Remembered forever as the first man to die in pursuit of the mission. Buried deep beneath the planet’s crust, trapped with a cohesion partner who had finally succeeded after multiple attempts.

Of course, that would only happen if the colony didn’t collapse. If they survived long enough for their story to reach home. If they succeeded. Becoming immortalized in the legends of LunaU—his name passed down for generations—wasn’t much, but it was something.

No, he didn’t want to die. But at least they’d tell stories about him.