Chapter Thirteen

When Ludwig awoke, he felt like a changed man.

Like the soldiers of the nineteenth century, forever changed after surviving their first battle. Or the sailors who returned from months at sea, no longer the same men who had left. They had crossed a spiritual threshold, something woven into humanity’s very genes—a catalyst for change that left no way back. Like the first ancient human who ventured alone into the wilderness, chasing the edge of the Milky Way he believed lay on the horizon. He never found it. Instead, he found something else—a death of sorts. A transformation. And when he returned to his tribe, he was no longer the same. Some cultures called it enlightenment. Some called it the passage from boyhood to manhood. Some called it rebirth.

Ludwig wasn’t sure what it was, other than he felt he’d somehow let go of some of the burdens he had always carried. He felt released from worries he’d long wrestled with, expectations he felt others had for him, the person he was expected to be. And above all, the ever-present shame that had lived in his core, whispering that he had never quite become the man he wanted to be—was gone.

But none of that mattered anymore.

Yes, he still had regrets. If only he had faced his fears. If only he hadn’t been so self-indulgent—so eager to let past failures punish him for not becoming the man he thought he should be. But now, he felt something different. Not shame. Not anger. Just pity. Pity for the man he had been—so afraid of failure that he had hidden behind the rules like a safety blanket. A light in the darkness that had never truly kept him safe.

The secret found in this transformation is one that must be earned—when you cross the boundary of light into the darkness of the unknown, your find that your eyes adjust. And you realize—the light you clung to wasn’t guiding you at all. It was only blinding you. Keeping you from seeing the horizon. From seeing how vast the world truly was.

Ludwig wondered if this was the clarity astronauts of old had felt when they faced the impossible—and did it anyway. It was time to finish the mission, their certain doom didn’t complicate that. Even if they were dead, the colony still had a chance, and Ludwig wouldn’t let his fate complicate theirs if he could help it. To do that, they had to take it one step at a time.

Of course, newfound clarity aside, he still had a partner who had made multiple attempts on his life—and would almost certainly try again. But that was somewhere around step two hundred. Right now, they were at step one.

Step one was assess the damage and make sure their mission-critical equipment had survived the blast. Ludwig got to work, taking a quick inventory.

The aftermath of the depressurization was a mess. Some storage cases that had been airtight were now crushed like aluminum cans. Others had burst open, scattering their contents across the cavern floor. Ludwig sifted through the wreckage, stacking anything salvageable against the cavern wall. Mission-critical supplies went to the left, non-essentials to the right.

He even found Djawadi’s helmet in the mess. It looked undamaged—as far as he could tell. As he stared at it, Ludwig became aware of something else. Djawadi was watching him.

Now that Djawadi was awake, Ludwig walked over and checked his restraints, making sure he hadn’t somehow slipped free during the night. Satisfied that he was still securely bound, Ludwig set his helmet down beside him—close enough to see, but just out of reach. Then he went back to work.

Neither of them spoke in those early hours, which was fine by Ludwig. When he finished gathering everything they needed and confirming it was still usable, he stepped over to the four remaining FLUX masks. Squatting down, he packed them one by one into the bag he would keep on him for the remainder of the mission. He wanted them close—just in case.

As he picked up the last mask, a thought struck him. Four FLUX masks weren’t enough for both of them. But four masks for one person? That would be more than enough.

He quietly put the last mask in his bag, pushing the thought aside. Even if he wanted to, Ludwig wasn’t sure he could just refuse to share with Djawadi. Still, he wondered how he’d feel about that choice when he was on the verge of suffocation.

With everything they needed now gathered, Ludwig stood and walked over to Djawadi, still hog-tied in thick power cables.

He met Djawadi’s eyes, his expression grim. “You ready?”

Djawadi looked both skeptical and surprised, as if he still couldn’t understand why Ludwig was bothering to finish the mission.

But before they could finish, they needed their helmets. The FLUX masks had saved their lives last night, but they wouldn’t last long in the corrosive gases ahead. Thankfully, their suit filters still had enough time left to see them through.

Ludwig squatted in front of Djawadi, who looked up at him defiantly. He didn’t wait for him to protest, complain, or threaten—whatever he had planned. Instead, Ludwig yanked the FLUX mask’s tube, ripping it from Djawadi’s face. The filter was already failing—the small red LED blinking in warning.

He felt less satisfaction than he expected watching Djawadi’s defiance turn to fear. But Ludwig didn’t linger. He grabbed Djawadi’s helmet, latched it into place, and secured the seal.

He grabbed his own cracked helmet and put it on. A few strips of gray tape were enough to seal the air leak in his suit and the crack in the helmet, letting his suit pressurize. But with the fiber optics destroyed, his visor’s display was useless. It still lit up, but the HUD was garbled and warped.

Ludwig spared a thought to what the water pressure in the shaft below might do to his already-compromised visor. He’d just have to cross that bridge when he got to it. For now, he hoped the only issue he’d face was his left-side vision being half-obscured by gray tape.

With grim determination, Ludwig walked back to Djawadi, grabbed him by the wrists, and dragged him toward the edge of the shaft. Securing his ties to the pulley system took effort—he had to be sure they wouldn’t interfere with its function. Once Djawadi was strapped in, Ludwig held off on activating the system. He wanted to get to Site Alpha first and bring him down after. That meant pulling himself along the depths below manually.

Not wanting to waste any time, he grabbed the rope and stepped over the edge.

A few minutes later, Ludwig hauled himself up into Site Alpha—for the last time. He struggled to catch his breath, but it wasn’t just the strain of fighting the water’s pull. He had been taking shallow breaths, instinctively rationing his air. It wouldn’t make a difference to the air filter, but his body didn’t seem to know that.

He forced himself to take a few deep, calming breaths before getting to work.

He was grateful they had taken the extra time yesterday to assemble the fabricator’s framework. Now, the drill rig was all that remained before they could start drilling.        

Ludwig readied himself to bring Djawadi over. Admittedly, Ludwig didn’t actually want his partner down here with him. He even tried reasoning through how he might finish the mission alone. But even under normal circumstances, drilling was a two-man job.

With any machinery used for drilling into rock, heat and pressure were always critical factors. If the machinery overheated, it could melt down entirely. Add in the pressure that would build up while drilling—if it wasn’t monitored constantly for sudden spikes, the whole rig could blow.

Since Ludwig’s visor display wasn’t working, he had no way to monitor the drill’s heat and pressure levels himself. But even if he could, drilling at roughly fifty meters per hour—the speed they needed to finish before their air filters ran out—required too much precision. He couldn’t keep track of the drill’s operation, pressure spikes, and heat fluctuations all at once, even with a working visor.

There was no way around it—he needed Djawadi. Even if they had more time, without one of them constantly monitoring the levels, an explosion was almost inevitable.

Given the slow death he was already facing, Ludwig chuckled grimly at the thought that an explosion might actually be the better way to go. More immediate, certainly. But to fail the mission after coming this far? Mere hours from the finish line? No. If he was going to die on this mission, he’d make damn sure he finished it first.

Ludwig sighed, then remotely activated the pulley system from his wrist pad. His only regret was that he wouldn’t get to watch Djawadi be yanked along the bottom of the shaft toward Site Alpha.

It took a few minutes, but finally, Djawadi emerged from the water, suspended as the pulley system hauled him into the cavern. Ludwig stopped the mechanism, leaving Djawadi dangling awkwardly from the line.

“Can you get me off this thing?” Djawadi groaned.

Not wanting to humiliate him further—he still needed his help—Ludwig pulled him into the cavern and unhooked him.

He dropped to the cavern floor, and Ludwig got to work, setting up the plasma drill and prepping everything they’d need for the next few hours. Djawadi watched in silence. The tension between them lingered, and Ludwig couldn’t help but wonder if his partner was sitting there, plotting his next attempt on his life.

Not that it mattered. Ludwig ignored the tension and kept working.

An hour after arriving at Site Alpha, with the plasma drill in place, Ludwig double-checked the coolant levels. Everything was set. All systems were green and ready to go.

Ludwig walked over to Djawadi, still bound on the cavern floor. Taking a deep breath, he grabbed a utility knife and sliced through the ties. Then, without a word, he used his wrist pad to share the drill monitoring software.

“Really?” Djawadi asked, pushing himself up against the cavern wall. He recognized the software, of course. He wasn’t an engineer, but as a geologist, he had definitely operated one of these before—or at least assisted during training.

“Aren’t these controls on the drill? Why do you need me?”

Ludwig nodded, tapping the gray tape on his visor. “My view is busted. I can’t monitor and operate the drill at the same time. Even if I could, with the pressure and heat we’re dealing with, no one should run this thing alone.”

“Oh, so it’s in the rule book?” Djawadi asked, voice dripping with scorn.

Ludwig rolled his eyes. “No, but it’s in the manual, and personally, I’d rather not blow up today.”

“Still time for that if you change your mind,” Djawadi muttered dryly.

Ludwig ignored him. “You’ve used one of these before?”

“Not one this big,” Djawadi admitted. “I’m just surprised you’re trusting me. Seems like an easy way to finish the job.”

“Shut up,” Ludwig snapped. “Just shut up. I’m already dead. You killed me—killed us both. You really want to add a hundred more bodies to that list? Because that’s what happens to the colony if we don’t finish this.”

Djawadi frowned, “What do you mean, we’re both dead?”

Ludwig shook his head, chuckling at the sheer absurdity of it. He gestured on his wrist pad, sending Djawadi the computer’s grim calculations on how long they had left. “When you blew up our base, you destroyed all of our extra air filters. We’re already dead—we just haven’t stopped breathing yet.”

Ludwig watched as Djawadi absorbed the information. Seeing the despair in Djawadi’s eyes, Ludwig felt something close to satisfaction.

Tomorrow morning, their mission would officially be over—but their air filters wouldn’t last nearly that long. By 1600 hours today, they’d be completely saturated, eighteen hours before extraction. And that wasn’t even the worst of it. Since neither of them had charged their suits the night before, their power cells would drain a few hours before midnight, shutting down their life support and leaving them exposed to the elements.

But even if they somehow survived that, they’d still have ten long, airless hours before pickup.

Ludwig kept quiet about the four FLUX masks in his pack. He wouldn’t risk Djawadi trying to steal them. Breathable air was now the most precious resource on the planet, and he wasn’t about to tempt the man who’d already tried to kill him once.

If he had to die, his partner sure as hell would too. But the question gnawed at him—when it came down to it, gasping for breath in the thinning air, would he still share with the man who put them here?

Ludwig sighed. That was a problem for later. “Look, I’m going to start drilling. Do you see the two gauges on your display?”

Djawadi stayed silent.

“The one on the left is the pressure reading. If it hits the red, start the emergency shutdown. The right one is temperature. If that spikes—”

“Shut it down?” Djawadi cut in.
“No. Inject more coolant. You see the option for that?”

Djawadi hesitated.

“Do you see it or not?” Ludwig pressed.

“I see it,” Djawadi muttered.

“If it stays in the red for more than five seconds after you inject coolant, then you hit the emergency shutdown. Simple, right? Just four things—pressure reading on the left, temp on the right, coolant injection toggle, and emergency shut off, got it?”

Djawadi met his eyes, unreadable. Ludwig had no idea what he’d do next.

Ludwig clenched his jaw and shook his head. “I’m taking a leap of faith here, because I don’t think this is really you. We all knew the risks coming here, what it might do to us. I can’t pretend to understand what’s happening in your head, but I have to believe this isn’t you. The Doctor Djawadi—”

Ludwig sighed. “The Pavitra I met in the first few days of this mission isn’t the man I’m looking at now. I have to believe the scientist who must have worked harder than any other geologist on Luna to stand here is still in there, beneath all the bullshit. No one on this planet got here without believing in what we’re doing. Believing in this mission. That’s what I’m choosing to trust.”

“You want to spend the last few hours of your life hating me? Or do you want to work the problem and finish the damn mission?”

Ludwig let his words hang for a moment before turning and walking back toward the drill rigging. He didn’t wait for a response—he had no idea if his speech had worked. In fact, as he climbed onto the drill platform, he felt a little stupid. Had that all been trite bullshit? How do you talk a killer into being reasonable?

It didn’t matter now. Whatever happened next was out of his hands. Ludwig took a deep breath and started up the drill. The hum of the machinery grew louder as he strapped himself in, securing the shoulder harness to steady the rig. The vibrations rumbled through his suit, the rising whine of the drill filling the cavern until it was near deafening—even through his helmet’s hearing protection.

With a sudden high-pitched squeal, the plasma shot out of the rig in a rippling column of white and violet light—almost liquid in appearance. As the super-heated plasma bored into the ground, Ludwig piloted its angle and trajectory. All he could do now was focus on his part and hope Djawadi did his. But even with that hope, now that he was drilling, knowing how tenuous this all was, he couldn’t deny the fear settling deep in his bones.

His hands shook as he operated the drill. Time dragged, each second stretching endlessly. Ludwig fixated on every detail of the process, searching for any sign that the heat or pressure was nearing critical levels.

Ludwig glanced at Djawadi, but the plasma’s glare washed over his visor, obscuring his face entirely.

He was flying blind.

Part of him wanted to pause the drill intermittently and run the coolant, letting the machinery cool and relieving some of the pressure on the rock beneath them. But he knew the drill’s efficiency depended on maintaining the right heat levels. Every coolant cycle meant a loss in speed and efficiency—the drill running slower until it warmed back up.

They had to drill five hundred meters down. At peak efficiency, they could manage fifty meters per hour. Any slower, and they’d still be at Site Alpha when their air filters failed—when the corrosive gases would begin seeping into their lungs.

No matter how he rationalized it, Ludwig knew pausing too soon would cost them. The gases here were too corrosive—asphyxiation would come fast. He couldn’t afford anything less than peak efficiency, or he might not live to see the mission through.

Even knowing this, the uncertainty of whether Djawadi would actually help was becoming unbearable. Ludwig wasn’t sure how much time had passed since he started drilling, but the heat had to be building—right? He flinched at every shift in the machine’s gears, every sudden pop from a superheated rock below. Each sound sent his heart hammering, convinced the drill was about to blow. Every time he spared a glance at Djawadi, all he saw was the plasma’s glare reflected in his visor, his expression hidden.

He suddenly felt like a fool for ever letting Djawadi have a role in this. The man had tried to kill him hours ago, and now he was trusting him with their survival?

Any second now, the drill would explode. When it did, molten rock and plasma would take him out instantly—a painless death for him, but not for the colonists that would be doomed to a much slower death with the eventual collapse of their colony.

Ludwig’s gaze kept darting to the large red emergency shut-off button—his hand itching to slam it. He tried to ignore it, tried to push past the fear. But even when he focused on the machinery, the button’s soft LED glowed in his peripheral vision. How? Next to the plasma’s blinding light, it shouldn’t stand out. And yet, it called to him.

Just push it.

If you don’t, then you’re dead.

He tried to ignore the frantic thoughts, but failed.

Are you willing to doom the colony?

The button’s light seemed to grow brighter, pulsing at the edge of his vision.

You were such an idiot to trust Djawadi.

Why the hell would you do that?

Ludwig fought through the rising panic, forcing himself to believe Djawadi understood how crucial this was. Yes, it was irrational—but what else could he do?

But Ludwig had seen the hatred in Djawadi’s eyes—the cold, predatory stare of a man ready to kill. It was stupid to think he’d help now, especially after that trite, desperate speech. Wouldn’t that be the perfect revenge? Letting Ludwig believe they’d finish the mission, only to let it all fail at the last second?

Ludwig swore he could feel the heat through his suit. Couldn’t be imagining that—right? It was definitely hotter than before.

No way. No way the heat wasn’t too high. How long had he been drilling? Surely the pressure was spiking.

He glanced at Djawadi again—no movement, no sign of anything beyond the glare of plasma on his visor.

He should have said something by now. Should have warned him if the pressure was too high.

The emergency button was right there. So close. He could shut it down and restart—no harm, right? What was the bigger risk? Efficiency? Or their lives?

Shut it down.

Now.

Ludwig flinched as Djawadi’s voice crackled through his comms. “Pressure’s in the red.”

Ludwig slammed the emergency shut-off, his body acting before his mind could catch up. But he didn’t need to—Djawadi had already done it. He felt it in the drill’s response, the plasma flow slowing, stabilizing. Djawadi had done his job.

Feeling how tense he was, Ludwig forced himself to stretch, rolling his shoulders, loosening his grip on the controls. It didn’t help much. His legs shook. Had he locked his knees? That would have been bad. He exhaled sharply—he’d been holding his breath. Now, the air rushed in, shaky and uneven, relief flooding him like coolant through the drill.

“We’re back in the green,” Djawadi reported.

Ludwig restarted the drill, adjusting the pitch to stay on course. His eyes burned—when had he started sweating this much?

Ludwig stole a glance at Djawadi, who flashed a thumbs up. He smirked, nodding back.

Then Djawadi flipped him off.

Ludwig barked out a laugh, surprised at how normal it felt.

As the drill roared on, Ludwig had never felt this much relief. Even knowing he was doomed, it felt good to work—to build something, even at the end. For the first time in days, they weren’t fighting. They were just two men finishing what they started. An unlikely Cohesion, deep beneath an alien world.