Commander Vela had exactly four minutes to prevent the end of everything.
The oxygen readings were grim — scanty reserves remained in the damaged sector, barely enough to sustain the three survivors huddled behind the collapsed bulkhead. The asteroid collision had torn through decks five and six like paper, and now the station groaned around them, venting precious atmosphere into the void.
She opened a channel to Mission Control on Earth, knowing the eighteen-minute signal delay made real conversation impossible. Every transmission had to count. Vela had always admired brevity in a crisis — no wasted words, no emotional decoration. Just facts, just action.
"Sector seven breach. Three survivors. Initiating emergency seal protocol."
She didn't wait for a response that wouldn't arrive in time anyway.
The seal gun felt heavy in her gloved hands as she moved through the flickering corridor. If the atmospheric processor failed before she reached the junction panel, the cascading pressure loss would become a disaster that no amount of training could reverse — the station would implode, and with it, six years of humanity's most ambitious deep-space research.
Vela reached the panel with ninety seconds to spare.
Her fingers found the sequence by memory alone, the lights having died completely now. A mechanical thud echoed through the hull. Then another. The groaning slowed, then stopped.
Somewhere behind the bulkhead, someone began to cry.
Vela pressed her helmet against the cold metal wall and allowed herself three seconds of relief before moving back toward the survivors. There was still so much work to do before dawn broke over the distant, beautiful, impossibly far Earth.