Read Chapter 24: The Divide Widens

The common room had become a pressure vessel of its own, and Élise felt the seams groan every time she walked through it. Crew members who had once traded jokes over recycled coffee now sat in tight clusters, eyes darting toward her whenever she passed. The countdown on the main display—58 hours, 14 minutes—glowed like an accusation.

She stood at the base of the habitation ring, where the corridor split toward the dormitories and the airlock bay. Osei had rigged a secondary monitor there, patched into the shuttle’s navigation feed. The approaching vessel, the *Helios Dawn*, was a bright dot on the schematic, still four hundred thousand kilometers out but closing fast.

“Fifty-eight hours,” Callum said, stepping up beside her. He had his tablet tucked under one arm, a fresh scuff of grease across his jaw. “That’s assuming the beacon’s math holds. If they decelerate early, we could be looking at sixty-five, seventy.”

“Then we stretch the rations further,” Élise said.

“We’re already at half portions. The hydroponics can’t keep up.”

“Then we stretch them again.”

Callum didn’t argue. He had learned the tone in her voice by now. But he lingered, and that told her more than any complaint would have.

“What is it?”

“Duval,” he said, lowering his voice. “He’s been talking to the section leads in Gamma. Not about engineering. About the mutiny.”

Élise turned to face him fully. “I gave him a rifle.”

“And he’s grateful. But he’s also scared. He—” Callum hesitated, then pushed through. “He thinks you’re going to fire on the rescue vessel. That the corporation won’t send help, they’ll send soldiers, and that your plan is to fight them to the last bolt.”

“I never said that.”

“You didn’t have to. Deprez handed out those rifles, and you confiscated them. To the crew, that looks like you’re preparing for a siege, not a rescue.”

Élise pressed her palm against the corridor wall, feeling the faint hum of the life support system beneath the metal. “What do you think?”

“I think you’re doing the only thing you can,” Callum said. “But that doesn’t matter. What matters is what Duval thinks, and what he’s telling the others.”

The lights flickered—a brief brownout that had become routine over the past two days—and then steadied. Élise watched a droplet of condensation crawl down a pipe near the ceiling. The base was dying around them, system by system, and she had asked these people to hold it together for three more days.

“Where is he now?” she asked.

“Airlock maintenance bay. He’s on the rotation to check the seals.”

Élise was already moving. Callum fell in beside her, his long stride matching hers.

The maintenance bay was a cramped, low-ceilinged space wedged between the primary airlock and the exterior hatch. It smelled of ozone and stale sweat. Duval stood at the far end, a diagnostic tool in one hand, his back to the door. Two other crew members—a hydraulics tech named Singh and a junior systems operator whose name Élise couldn’t recall—flanked him.

“Duval,” she said.

He didn’t turn. “I was wondering when you’d come.”

“We need to talk.”

“No,” Duval said, and now he did turn, the diagnostic tool hanging loose at his side. “You need to listen.”

His face was flushed, the vein in his temple visible. He had the look of a man who had rehearsed this conversation a dozen times and was determined to see it through.

“You’ve got us pointing weapons at the sky,” Duval said, “waiting for a ship that might be full of corporate enforcers. And you’ve got us on half rations for three days, when we could just open the airlock and welcome them inside.”

“Welcoming them means turning ourselves over for arrest,” Élise said. “Or worse.”

“That’s assuming we get caught. It’s a rescue vessel, Élise. A private charter. The corporation registered it for recovery operations.”

“Registered by Helios,” Callum interjected. “Not by us. And it’s military-grade.”

Duval gestured at the display screen on the far wall, showing the *Helios Dawn*’s approach vector. “It’s the closest thing to a way home we’ve got. And you want to hold it at gunpoint.”

“I want to verify its intentions before I let it dock,” Élise said. “That’s not unreasonable.”

“It is when you’re hoarding the weapons.” Duval’s jaw tightened. “You gave me a rifle and then told me to use it only if ordered. You think I don’t know what that means? You’re expecting a fight.”

“I’m expecting the worst.”

“Then you’ll get it.” Duval stepped forward, closing the distance between them. Singh and the other crew member shifted behind him, like shadows. “Listen to me. There’s a faction in Gamma section. It’s not just me. We’ve been talking, and we’ve reached a consensus.”

“Is that right?”

“We open the airlock when the vessel arrives,” Duval said. “No weapons. No confrontation. We put our hands up and hope the corporation treats us as hostages, not mutineers. It’s a better bet than a firefight.”

Élise studied his face. She had known Duval for four years—a competent engineer, meticulous in his work, loyal to the systems he maintained. But he was not a soldier, and he was not a survivor in the way that she was. He had never watched the airlock cycle close on a ship full of colleagues he couldn’t save.

“And if I refuse?” she asked quietly.

Duval’s hand drifted toward the tool belt at his waist. It was a small gesture, almost unconscious, but Élise noticed it. “Then we’ll take matters into our own hands. There are ways to compromise an airlock seal without triggering the alarm. I don’t want to do that.”

“But you will.”

“If you force me to.” His voice cracked on the last word, and she saw the fear beneath the bravado. He wasn’t threatening her because he wanted to. He was threatening her because he believed she was leading them all to their deaths.

“The airlock’s integrity is all that’s keeping the dust from killing us,” Élise said. “Sabotage it, and you’re not just ending the mutiny. You’re ending this base.”

“I know,” Duval said. “And I’m telling you that if that’s what it takes to stop you, I’m prepared to do it.”

The words hung in the recycled air. Singled out, they would have been a bluff—an overstressed engineer’s idle threat. But the flicker of the lights, the low growl of the life support pumps, the desperate silence behind his eyes—all of it gave the threat weight.

Élise took a long breath. She could feel Callum tensing beside her, ready to intervene. She could feel the two crew members behind Duval waiting for a signal.

“I understand,” she said. “You’re afraid, and you have every right to be. But hurting this base to prove a point isn’t going to get you home. It’s going to get you killed.”

Duval’s jaw worked. “You’re not listening.”

“I am. And I’m telling you that if you try to open that airlock on your own, the vacuum will be the least of your problems.” She let the words settle, then softened her voice. “But I’m also telling you that I’m not going to shoot first. I want the same thing you do. A way home. If that vessel is truly a rescue, I’ll welcome it like a brother. But I need to be sure.”

Duval’s hand drifted back to his side. He glanced at Singh, then at the other crew member. Some silent communication passed between them.

“Twenty-four hours,” Duval said. “You have that long to prove to us that opening the airlock isn’t a death sentence. If you can’t, I’m doing it anyway. With or without your permission.”

He turned and walked past her toward the exit. Singh followed, and then the other crew member, leaving Élise and Callum alone in the cramped bay.

Callum let out a breath he had been holding. “You should have let me quarantine Gamma,” he said. “Lock them out of the airlock controls.”

“That would have pushed them further,” Élise said. “Duval isn’t stupid. If he’s serious, he’ll have already found ways around any lockdown I put in place.”

“So what do we do?”

Élise looked at the diagnostic screen Duval had been using. The airlock pressure readings were steady, but she noticed a small log entry marked with a timestamp from three hours prior. A manual override test on the inner seal.

He had been planning this for a while.

“We don’t have twenty-four hours,” she said. “We don’t even have twelve. If Duval is willing to sabotage the airlock, he’s already past the point of no return.”

“Then we move on him now?”

“No.” Élise shook her head. “We find out who else is with him. Because if I act against Duval alone, I’ll split this crew in half. But if I can show them that I’m not the enemy—that I’m the only one who can get them home—then he’ll have no support left to threaten me with.”

“You’re gambling on their trust.”

“I’m gambling on their fear of dying in a vacuum,” she said. “It’s a stronger motivator.”

She turned and headed back toward the main corridor, but as she passed the door to the airlock bay, she paused. The outer hatch readout showed a low-pressure anomaly on the far side of the base—something scraping against the exterior hull.

“Callum,” she said. “What is that?”

He leaned over her shoulder, squinting at the display. “There’s a service crawlspace near the auxiliary power conduit,” he said. “It’s been showing minor fluctuations for the last hour. I thought it was thermal.”

“It’s not thermal,” Élise said. The scrape was rhythmic, almost deliberate. Like something moving.

Or someone.

She pulled up the exterior camera feed for that section of the hull. The image was grainy, lit only by the pale wash of Earth-light reflecting off the regolith. At first, she saw nothing but dust and shadows. Then the feed flickered, and for a single frame, she caught a shape—a human silhouette in an EVA suit, without a tether, moving along the hull toward the shuttle.

“Get me Deprez,” she said, her voice low and steady. “Right now.”