hundred pods, all ruptured. Two hundred colonist souls, flash-boiled in their suspended sleep.

I stumbled forward, coughing up thick, metallic phlegm that tasted of copper and burning

Emergency strobes bathed the ruin in rhythmic, sickening crimson. Through the swirling soot, the cryo-bays looked like an open graveyard of shattered glass and blackened metal. Two

I dragged myself upright, using the bulkhead seam for leverage. Every movement felt like tearing wet paper, my blistered flesh sticking painfully to the scorched synth-cloth of my suit. Emergency strobes

...only sound remaining was the frantic, raspy wheeze of my own lungs and the sizzle of my melting boots against the Deck-3 grating.

I dragged myself upright

inferno roared like an angry deity, a tide of localized starfire consuming everything—and everyone—in the cryo-bays.

Silence descended slowly, heavy and toxic. The