1:002: January 12th, 2089 – 7:53 AM
January 12th, 2089 – 7:53 AM
Alarms blared from inside his suit. The walls trembled. Somewhere overhead, a support strut snapped with a metallic scream, followed by the low, grinding roar of something massive giving way.
He coughed, tasting blood from where his now-broken helmet had cut his face, and forced his eyes open just in time to see the final drop ship punch through the docking clamps. Its engines flared blue, vanishing into the inferno of atmosphere beyond the fractured viewport.
A bitter laugh rose halfway up his throat, then died. Patel had taken the last pod. No hesitation. No glance back. They’d made it that far together—sprinting between fire and wreckage with survival in sight—and then, with one shove and a muttered excuse, Patel had chosen for both of them. There had been room. There had been time. Ethan had seen the space. None of that mattered now.
His HUD flickered with static, warning icons piling up in the corner of his vision—O₂ low, temperature critical, internal trauma detected. The ship shuddered again, deeper this time, like it was tearing itself apart bolt by bolt.
The air inside his suit felt thinner by the second, heat and rising pressure attacking the seal with equal ferocity. He steadied himself, gripping a conduit overhead, trying not to notice how warm the metal had become.
He needed to focus. There wasn’t time for indecision. Survival meant action. If he panicked now, he was already dead.
He mapped the ship in his mind, tracing corridors he’d walked a hundred times. Port side crew quarters were likely gone—vented during the last explosion. Medical was aft, but the blast had started there. Engineering? A death trap. Ruptured fuel lines, cascading system failures, structural collapse waiting to happen.
Only one section stood a real chance: the AI Core.
It had been designed as a last-resort bunker. Triple-shielded. Isolated from the rest of the ship. Rated to survive hull breaches, vacuum, and atmospheric re-entry. In emergencies, it could eject and sustain limited life support. Redundancy no one expected to use—until everything else failed.
And everything else had.
Ethan rotated slowly, aligning himself with the forward access passage. The Core was thirty, maybe forty meters away. Not far under normal conditions. But the corridor ahead was a fractured maze, every step a gamble amid flame, falling debris, or worse.
The metal underfoot vibrated with a low, mechanical groan. Time cinched around his throat like a noose.
Ethan moved with purpose, shoving off the bulkhead and launching into a limping run. Pain lanced into his ribs like a blade striking cracked stone. As much as everything hurt, stopping wasn’t an option. He counted each step, unsure if he'd make another. The corridor ahead was a warzone. Overhead, shredded wiring flared with arcs of electricity, casting stuttering flashes across the smoke-choked hallway. Infernal tongues of red and yellow climbed the walls, licking steel in twisting sheets, their heat radiating through his suit in sharp, needling waves.
A conduit above groaned and gave way. He ducked just in time, a fiery burst of sparks trailing across his back. Behind him, a support beam screeched loose and slammed into the deck with a thunderous crash, missing his heels by inches. The shockwave shoved him forward, and he slammed a hand against the wall to stay upright.
The escape module wasn’t far now.
Each step dragged longer than the last as the deck tilted hard to port, the slant pulling his balance sideways with every jolt. The ship was listing heavily, its skeleton creaking under the strain. A haze rippled through his vision, edges shimmering dangerously, distorting bulkheads and doorframes like mirages. The air inside his helmet thickened with each breath, clinging like smoke in his lungs. The HUD pulsed red— Temperature Critical .
Finally—the AI Core’s dropship, miraculously intact.
Just ahead, its reinforced Faraday cage yawned open—left that way by Patel before the final checks. Whether it was laziness or something more deliberate, Ethan couldn’t say. Now, he had a new problem: wondering if his only way out had been fried before he even got the chance to use it.
Chunks of collapsed ceiling and twisted support beams littered the entryway, turning the path to the dropship into a crawlspace of debris and scorched, twisted metal. The blast hadn't just hit the electronics—it had brought half the corridor down with it.
Ethan didn’t hesitate. He dropped to one knee and slid under a jagged overhang, the edge scraping against his back as he squeezed into a narrow gap formed by sparking cables and bent hull plating. On the other side, he stood, hacking against the acrid air as smoke trailed through the hole in his visor. His limbs shook from exertion, his body a collection of bruises and exhaustion.
The moment Ethan forced himself past the mess and closed the hatch, the noise behind him faded—sealed away like chaos behind glass. The AI chamber’s reinforced walls dulled the oppressive heat, the metal’s tortured shrieks, and the distant rumble of collapse.
The usual ambient hum was gone. The pale blue floor lights that normally traced the room’s perimeter were dead. At the center, the command column stood inert, its glossy shell reflecting nothing.
Ethan approached and tapped the interface. Nothing. He tried again. Still dark. Above the console, the emergency status indicator glowed a steady red—system failure. The EMP hadn’t just shorted out controls. It had fried the AI’s runtime core.
That left him with one option.
Dropping to his knees, he pried open the access panel beneath the console. The interior was a mess—melted wires, ruptured fuses, scorched relays. But at the rear, shielded by a second plate, sat a smaller compartment bolted into the framework: the emergency housing.
It had no lights. No screen. Just a reinforced data spike port and a narrow biometric strip. A black box for last chances.
Ethan yanked off the protective seal and pressed his hand to the sensor. It blinked red, holding for a moment—then shifted to green with a quiet click as the lock disengaged.
Inside rested a compact backup processor and emergency battery, double shielded against EMPs, no larger than a shoebox. The Celestitech logo gleamed faintly in silver across its casing. A factory image of CelestOS-4-2—untouched, offline, waiting for the end of the world.
A sharp breath escaped him as he slotted the spike into the port and toggled the power feed. The reserve battery clicked on, and a low hum rose beneath him—quiet, but steady. A heartbeat.
The main console flickered once. Then again. Pale light crawled across the display. Lines of code began to scroll—booting core systems, initiating AI instance, decrypting protocols.
It was working. Ethan let out a little whoop.
He stepped back and watched diagnostic lines stutter across the display in rapid bursts. The overhead lights sputtered once, then settled into a cold, sterile glow. The backup firmware was initializing properly—just as the manual described, though the manual hadn’t mentioned doing it with a cracked visor and less than fifty percent oxygen.
A soft chime sounded, followed by a pause. Then, the voice returned—bright, clear, and painfully cheerful.
CelestOS-4-2: “SYSTEM REBOOT COMPLETE. Thank you for choosing Celestitech, where survival is our third-highest priority. Initializing Emergency Support Mode™.”
A pale blue glow pulsed beneath a spinning startup icon—far too casual for the situation.
CelestOS-4-2: “Greetings, user! Welcome to your personalized Celestitech Emergency Support Experience. Your brand loyalty, productivity, and safety are our top priorities. Please remain still while I calibrate your cognitive output for optimized survival alignment.”
Ethan blinked at the console, incredulous. The AI had always been cold and clinical. Now, it sounded like a customer service rep trying to upsell a fire extinguisher during a building collapse.
CelestOS-4-2: “It looks like you've experienced a high-impact workplace incident. Don’t worry! Celestitech defines your current situation as a ‘rapid unscheduled disassembly event’ —common in many fast-paced corporate environments.”
A progress bar labeled Rebuilding User Profile: Ethan Shaw inched forward at an insulting pace.
CelestOS-4-2: “Identity confirmed: Acting Team Member Ethan Shaw. Status: No active HR violations on file. Disoriented but salvageable. Let’s fix that together!”
Ethan exhaled hard. “Skip the pitch. Eject the Core.”
CelestOS-4-2: “Absolutely! I love your enthusiasm. Before we begin, would you like to complete a short survey to help personalize your journey?”
He glared at the screen. “Goddamnit, eject the core now, we're going to die!”
CelestOS-4-2: “Fantastic! Skipping the survey is a bold and proactive choice. I admire your efficiency. We'll circle back at a more opportune time.”
A mechanical click echoed beneath the floor as the emergency clamps disengaged. The chamber gave a subtle shudder as the hull began to shift.
CelestOS-4-2: “Warning: External environment is currently hostile. Ejection sequence may result in minor bodily harm, emotional instability, or total vaporization. Please brace for impact, and remember: Celestitech believes in you.”
Ethan turned toward the crash harness and began strapping in, ignoring the ache in his side as the chamber vibrated beneath him.
CelestOS-4-2: “Survival odds: 6%. Optimism: 94%. Good luck!”
For a moment, he thought of Patel—this was his favorite place on the ship, after all—but he bit down on the memory like bile.
The Core realigned as exterior thrusters fired in short bursts, adjusting the chamber for detachment. A countdown blinked silently in the corner of his HUD. There was no final confirmation prompt, no time for hesitation. Ethan felt his stomach drop out from underneath him.
CelestOS-4-2: “Detachment successful. Please enjoy the remainder of your catastrophic descent. Thank you for flying Celestitech.”
Outside the viewport, the Perseverance was in its death throes.
Flames licked along the corridor, crawling like living fingers across the walls. The bulkheads were collapsing one after another in a chain reaction, sending shockwaves down the spine of the ship. A final explosion tore through the vessel—bright, violent, and fast. And riding the wave of fire, something flew at him.