Book Six: Chapter Six. The Humming Room

Filtered sun spilled through the apiary’s patched-glass ceiling, breaking into gold columns alive with dust and drifting pollen. Between hydroponic bloom-pods, thousands of bees moved in slow, content spirals—a low, constant hymn that made the rest of Hannibal Station feel a galaxy away.

Finn guided her father down the narrow aisle. Huck’s boots scuffed like he wasn’t sure the deck plates would hold. Each step looked borrowed.

“Just sit,” she told him, easing him toward the bench that faced the hives. “No tests, no scans. Bees don’t ask questions.”

Huck paused, brushing the velvet throat of an engineered lily. “I brought your mother here while we were still welding ribs on the dome,” he whispered. “Told her the bees would outlast us all.”

Finn swallowed the ache that sentence always brought and let him drift ahead. He lowered himself beside Malcolm Potter, who knelt in front of the nearest hive, jacket threadbare, hands bare and unafraid. Potter nodded to them both.

“They know when you’re lying,” he said, voice soft enough not to stir the guards at the hive entrance. “Bees. Don’t fuss with words.”

“You talk like they’re people,” Finn murmured, crouching by a bloom-pod. A single worker landed on the back of her hand, feather-light.

“Better than people.” Potter smiled. “They never forget who they are.”

Huck’s fingers twitched in his lap, the tremor of a man who heard music others missed. Potter kept speaking, as though Huck’s silence were a kind of invitation.

“The Condition isn’t sickness,” Potter said. “It’s frequency. You don’t catch it—you tune to it. Privilege, really.”

Finn arched an eyebrow. “Like a radio?”

“Like a prayer you didn’t mean to say, but the universe answers anyway.”

Something bent behind Huck’s eyes. “First dig on Sandbar,” he rasped. “We thought the planet itself was talking. Cracked open caverns older than dirt—swore we heard voices. Maybe it was just us. Echoes.”

“Echoes count,” Potter replied. “Most prayers are only echoes waiting for a return.”

“And the bees?” Finn asked.

“They listen better than we do.”

A trio of workers settled on Huck’s knee. He watched them, still as stone, breathing slower.

“So The Condition is… evolution?” Finn pressed.

“The next language,” Potter said. “We’re babies learning the first vowel.”

Huck’s gaze stayed on the bees. “What if it’s nothing? Madness. Noise.”

Potter’s smile turned wistful. “Then it’s the most beautiful noise I’ve ever heard.”

For a full minute no one spoke. The hive’s hum swelled until it filled the chamber and every thought inside it. Finn let the sound wash through her. Potter was anchored in something she couldn’t name; Huck seemed to be drifting toward it. She realized they were all listening for the same, impossible station.

Dim fluorescents buzzed over Command Deck while a soft alarm chirped to itself at a side console. Thatcher Mason—blind in one eye, cataract clouding the other—stood with hands clasped behind his back, staring through the viewport at Mars. He knew someone was at his shoulder without looking.

“If you’re just here to stare,” he muttered, “pick a window that doesn’t matter.”

“I’m not staring,” Becky said.

“Then what?”

“Learning. Watching.”

“Same thing,” Thatcher gruffed. “If you do it long enough.”

Footsteps echoed from the upper corridor. Aunt Polly descended the ramp, took in the tableau, and jerked her chin toward Becky. “Come on. Let’s not wear out his tolerance for ambition.”

Becky fell in beside her. Polly steered her to a side alcove where the deck noise dulled and a single panoramic pane revealed the bruised curve of Mars against ink-black sky.

“They used to call this place the bridge,” Polly said. “Like we were explorers, not janitors.”

“Now it’s just where old men hold meetings,” Becky answered.

“Exactly. And if you’re not careful they’ll convince you you need a swinging set of genitals and a fleet patch to sit the chair.” Polly pulled a slender data-slate from inside her coat and pressed it into Becky’s hands. Title in crisp white text: "THE TERRAFORMER’S DAUGHTER: Essays on Power, Science, and Becoming".

Becky’s eyes rounded. “This is… yours?”

“Was,” Polly corrected. “I wrote it at seventeen, before I stopped asking permission to speak.” She watched Becky swipe through chapter headings: "The Myth of Martian Masculinity. Command Is a Function, Not a Personality. Curiosity Is a Weapon."

“Why give it to me?” Becky asked.

“Because nobody up here will hand you anything. You take it—with curiosity and guts. Being a girl in this tin can is an advantage. You’re underestimated; weaponize it.”

Becky scrolled: "Power Is Not Inherited. What to Build When They Give You Scraps."

“You think I’m like you?” she whispered.

“I think you’ll be better,” Polly said, eyes flaring. “Smarter. Meaner when it’s needed, kinder when it counts.” She angled her head toward Thatcher’s silhouette across the deck. “He still sees a daughter. But that satchel Ilias left? It isn’t just Tom’s puzzle. It’s yours. So’s the future. Don’t wait to be invited.”

“Tom’s the big-idea guy,” Becky said quietly. “The treasure hunt. I—”

“Don’t follow him,” Polly cut in. “Walk beside him or sprint ahead. Never second chair again.”

Becky closed the slate. Something fierce sparked behind her calm. Across the deck Thatcher barked a new order; neither woman turned.

“Let them chart the stars,” Polly murmured. “You? You build the ship.”

Becky nodded once, sharp as a blade being drawn.

Book Five: Chapter Eleven What the Ice Takes

On a shelf of slick stone high in the cathedral, Tom, Finn, and Jim clung to the wall while twilight bled lavender through a fissure in the ceiling. Far below, in that ocean of blue-lit frost, Ilias James looked terribly small—arms half-raised, shoulders quaking under words that cracked the air like brittle glass.

Finn’s fingers locked on Tom’s sleeve.

“There,” she breathed, and everything beyond that single word slowed.

Ilias lifted his head to the towering wall of crystalline circuitry. “Army of Ice!” His voice ricocheted from pillar to pillar. “Bear witness! Judge those who fled!”

The ground answered with a shuddering boom. A fissure snapped open under his boots, spraying shards that skittered away like startled insects. Another fissure split off, then another, etching glowing fractures across the cavern floor.

Tom’s pulse hammered in his throat.

“He’s not summoning,” Finn whispered. “He’s on trial.”

Below, Ilias tried to steady himself. The blue glow beneath the ice surged into blinding white. A jagged spine of frost erupted, piercing up through the floor and ripping his thigh. He cried out, stumbling as blood bloomed and froze in the same heartbeat.

Far across the rim, Mary Mason vaulted the rock rail. Boots skidded on scree as she plunged down the embankment.

“Ilias!”

The ice was not finished. More spires burst like monstrous teeth—each larger, crueler, aimed with eerie precision. One slammed into his ribs, lifting him off his feet. Another curled around his calf, gluing him in place. Crystalline claws sprouted from the floor and ceiling, interlacing—building a cage that tightened with every second.

Ilias thrashed, panic overtaking rage. “It’s not listening!” he screamed. “It’s not mine!”

He reached for Mary, who was sliding the last meters toward him, knees cutting a groove in the frost. She caught his wrist—bare skin against her gloved palm—just as a filament of ice snaked up his arm, sealing flesh to glass.

“Fight it!” she cried, bracing with both boots, shoulders trembling. “I’ve got you!”

The ice, now thrumming like a colossal organ, shifted tactics. Instead of spearing, it began to encase—ribbons of translucent blue coiling around Ilias’s torso in a slow, serpentine wrap. Fractal patterns bloomed across his chest and neck, each filament branching like winter on a windowpane.

Mary pulled, tendons straining. The air tasted of copper and snow.

“You remember the garden dome?” she gasped. “The home we dreamed about? You said we’d plant tamarisks—watch them bloom pink in the Martian dusk. Hold on to that, Ilias!”

For a heartbeat he did. Their eyes met—hers ablaze with tears, his wide circles of terror and awe.

“That could’ve been real,” he choked.

“Why this?” Mary demanded. “Why now?”

“Because no one else would,” he rasped. “No one believed!”

The ice crawled higher, sealing his shoulders, forming a collar at his throat. Frost crept across his lips, silencing the next word. He tried to mouth *Mary*, but it crystallized on his tongue. His free hand clawed at the air, searching for purchase that wasn’t there.

With a crack like splitting granite, the floor opened, and the ice-yoke jerked him downward. His arm slipped from Mary’s grip; her gloves scraped skin, leaving blood and frost on her fingers. He plunged waist-deep into the shimmering void.

Mary lunged, both hands slamming onto the slick rim. “I believe in you!” she shouted, voice breaking as she leaned dangerously over the maw. “I always did—”

But the ice surged again, swallowing his chest, then his neck. Only his face remained—eyes glossy with regret, nostrils flaring against breath that crystallized and fell as snow. In that last second, he seemed so young—no general, no prophet, just a man terrified of being forgotten.

A final spire arced up like a scorpion’s tail and drove through the gap above him, sealing the hole with a sound like a cathedral door slamming shut. The cavern went deadly still.

Mary pitched forward on her knees. Her fists pounded the sealed surface, dull thuds echoing inside her helmet. She screamed his name, but it bounced back empty. Shivers wracked her as she pressed her forehead to the ice that moments ago had devoured the man she remembered kind.

High on the ledge, Tom’s words emerged on a ragged breath.

“He… drowned.”

“He asked for judgment,” Finn said, voice shaking, “and the ice obliged.”

Jim’s sensors flickered. “The substratum shows no remaining biological trace. Retrieval probability: negligible.”

Tom squeezed the ledge rail. “That’s not justice. That’s annihilation.”

“Justice and annihilation can share a border,” Jim replied.

Finn looked down at Mary—a lone figure kneeling in the radiant ruin, sobs barely audible beneath the hum that now faded back to subterranean silence.

“Whatever that was,” Finn said, “it decided.”

In the hush, the cavern felt bottomless. Light pulsed once more under the glassy floor—subdued, almost gentle—then extinguished, as though bracing for another thousand years of sleep.

Tom reached for Finn’s hand. They stood with Jim, three silhouettes on a narrow ridge, certain only that the rules of their universe had just shifted. Far below, Mary Mason remained bowed over the sealed ice, a small shape haloed by the last ghostly shine—left to mourn a man swallowed whole by the truth he’d tried to raise.

Book Four: Chapter Two. Ghosts ata Funeral

They crashed their own funeral.

The observation deck was packed. The soft glow of bioluminescent algae lined the floor, flickering like organic candles along the metal seams. A series of floating holo-images spun slowly in the air—Tom with that ridiculous mop of hair, Jo Du mid-eye-roll in a science lab, Finn staring down a malfunctioning Jim like she was about to scrap it for parts.

Polly stood at the front, composed but tired. Her voice was steady, but only just.

“They were the best of us,” she said. “Tom was brave. Finn was ever present. Jo Du... well, Jo Du once hacked the entire stations oxygen monitors to win a bet, so maybe not wise, but relentless.”

There were a few quiet chuckles. Even in grief, people remembered.

Amy L and Becky stood shoulder to shoulder near the middle row, heads bowed. Amy L’s lips were moving—maybe a prayer, maybe just counting. Becky’s jaw was locked, eyes fixed on the holo of Finn.

At the back, Huck swayed on his feet. Someone had gotten him cleaned up for the occasion—hair slicked back, coat pressed. But his eyes drifted like he wasn’t fully in the room. Like something else had a hold of him. His fingers twitched in time with the station’s hum.

And then the doors hissed open.

Jo Du stepped in first, blinking at the crowd like he’d accidentally walked into the wrong meeting.

Then Finn. Covered in red dust, arms folded like she dared anyone to try hugging her.

And finally Tom, grinning like he’d just pulled off the prank of the century.

Heads turned. Gasps rippled through the room. Someone dropped a glow clutch.

Polly’s mouth opened—but no sound came out.

Tom spread his arms wide. “Not saying you’re wrong, Aunt P. Just maybe wait till we’re actually dead before the eulogy.”

A pause.

Finn muttered, “Told you they’d throw us a funeral.”

“You owe me five creds,” Tom said, elbowing her.

“You’re both dead,” Jo Du added, deadpan. “Just wait till our parents are done with us.”

Polly finally spoke, voice quiet and sharp. “Tom Sawyer. You better have a reason.”

Tom looked sheepish. “Reason-ish?”

Behind them, Amy L bolted toward Finn, launching into a tackle-hug. “You absolute morons.”

Finn stumbled but didn’t resist. “You’re crushing my ribs.”

Becky stood frozen, staring at Tom like he might disappear again. “How?”

Tom smirked. “Bit of this, bit of that. Ice raft. Rogue Jim. Near-death experience. You know, Tuesday stuff.”

Becky didn’t laugh. But she didn’t walk away either.

Jo Du scanned the crowd and frowned. “Guess my parents didn’t show.”

Tom glanced at him. “Buddhists, yeah?”

Jo Du nodded. “Not big on ceremony. Just incense and long silences.”

Huck moved slowly toward them, his posture loose, drifting. He looked at Finn like he wasn’t sure she was really there. Like she might be another glitch in the static he’d lived in for years.

“They said you were gone,” he said softly. “Lost under the ice.”

Finn’s expression softened. “I made it back, Pop.”

Huck reached out, hesitated, then let his hand fall. “Thought it was just more voices in my head,” he muttered. “But maybe the voices were right this time.”

Finn glanced sideways at Tom, then back at Huck. “You’re doing okay?”

Huck smiled faintly. “Today, maybe. The Condition’s funny like that. Some days I’m just a shell. Today I feel solid.”

Polly stepped forward, finally breaking her paralysis. She reached for Tom, stopped herself, then pulled him into a sudden, breath-stealing hug.

“You scared the hell out of me,” she said.

Tom exhaled into her shoulder. “Good to see you too, Aunt P.”

And just like that, the mood in the room shifted. From grief to disbelief. From disbelief to something like joy.

Tom looked out at the Martian surface through the glass. The red planet hung silent beneath the stars, vast and waiting.

“We’re not done yet,” he said, mostly to himself.

But Finn heard. And Becky did too.

And out there, somewhere beneath the dust, the story was still moving.

Book Three: Chapter Five. mirror in the Ice

The cave swallowed sound.

Jim moved carefully through the tunnel’s throat, each step measured, each joint adapting to the bitter cold. Crystals glittered along the ceiling in thin combs of frost. The Martian light didn’t reach this deep—not even the faint blue of reflected dawn. Only the glow of his optics lit the way, painting arcs of color on the curved walls as he descended.

He stopped at a wall of ice that rose from the cave floor like a tombstone.

Embedded inside, still locked in a long and frozen collapse, was another Jim. A mirror encased.

The body was tilted sideways. One arm was raised in a final, stalled gesture—half defensive, half desperate. The faceplate had cracked from the pressure of time. A jagged seam split the chest panel. The ice had done what nothing else had.

Jim stepped closer.

He placed a hand on the ice, just above the frozen shoulder.

“You are offline,” he said quietly. His voice didn’t echo—it landed and stayed, as if the cave understood the weight of what he meant.

“You are not forgotten.”

A slow hiss escaped his wrist as he extended a fine-point arc cutter. The glow that followed was dull and steady, barely enough to melt the ice without fracturing it. He worked in silence, drawing the torch in tight, controlled circles. Frost drifted from the cut edge like snow.

He carved around the shoulder first, then the head, then down the arms and torso. Steam laced the air around him in faint spirals.

No motion.

No sound but the slow melt.

No thought but the work.

He paused once, watching the frost break along the lines of the body’s joints.

Then, with a gentle final pass, he freed the frozen Jim from the wall.

The body sagged forward.

Jim caught it before it hit the ground.

It hung in his arms, limp yet rigid—its weight greater than the sum of its parts. The frozen joints groaned faintly as he shifted the angle. One leg remained partially fused with the ice, and he had to brace the other Jim against the rock wall to break it free.

When it came loose, there was a dry snap, like a tree branch in winter.

He adjusted the position again, lifting the corpse across his back with quiet care. His balance recalibrated automatically. The dead weight shifted, then settled.

“I need you for something,” he said.

And then he began the climb back toward the surface.

The light of his optics carved a narrow tunnel ahead. The cave behind him held its breath.

—

The lab hadn’t changed.

Polly had expected it to feel smaller after all these years, but it didn’t. It felt suspended—caught in the moment Doc Robinson had last touched it. Dust blanketed the console. The old monitors blinked lazily, one still running a diagnostic loop that hadn’t been relevant in decades.

She sat down at his desk and entered the override sequence by instinct. Her fingers still remembered it, even if the keys stuck beneath her touch.

Three failed attempts.

On the fourth, the screen unlocked with a soft click.

The archive unfolded. Redundant logs. Decommissioned field notes. Simulated growth models for FT1 and FT2. But deeper still, beneath a mislabeled diagnostic file, she found it.

One video.

Dated after his official death.

She clicked it.

Robinson’s face appeared—hollow-eyed, thinner than she remembered. He looked tired in a way that had nothing to do with sleep.

“If you’re watching this,” he said, “like me, you’re already behind.”

The sound crackled through the lab, slow and quiet.

“Thatcher thinks he can shut it down. Matt tried the isolation model. But the truth’s been growing under their feet the whole time.”

He leaned in slightly.

“We won’t survive Mars by staying human. Not the way Earth defined it. The Condition isn’t a virus. It isn’t madness. It’s what happens when people change faster than the systems around them.”

Polly didn’t blink.

She stood very still, as if any motion might make the moment vanish.

“Fish Tin One. Two. Practice. FT3 was real. The leap. The one we couldn’t control once it started. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe not.”

He hesitated then. Looked offscreen.

“If you are watching this… I didn’t leave you a map. Only a warning.”

The video glitched. For a moment, the screen went black.

Then he returned, face half in shadow.

“You don’t catch The Condition. You tune into it.”

And that was it.

The screen faded to static. The lab returned to silence.

Polly stayed there, one hand still on the keyboard, her mouth dry.

Outside, the lights in the lower decks of Hannibal flickered once.

But she didn’t notice.

She was still hearing his voice in her head.

Still watching the way he didn’t flinch.

Still wondering what it meant to tune into something instead of fight it.

And what it meant that they had never been sick.

Book Two: Chapter TEN Pirate’s Feast

Sandbar one, a crew, exhausted, emotionally spent, collapsed one by one.

Finn half dozed on the floor near the lightning bowl, legs crossed, head resting on her knees. Yoga slumber.

Jo Du intermittently checked the melting ice blocks for purity.

 Tom leaned against a supply crate, still recovering from the day — exhaustion, physical and emotional, clinging to him like shadow.

Jim stood by the hatch, scanning.

Then, without a word, he turned and stepped outside.

“Where’s he going?” Tom asked, voice rasping.

Finn shrugged. “He doesn’t always say.”

Jo Du didn’t even look up. “Maybe he’s had enough of us.”

Tom smiled faintly.

But the door sealed shut behind Jim, and he was gone.

The storm broke sometime in the night.

By morning, the wind outside Sandbar One was less a howl than a whisper, stirring blood-red dust across the frozen plains.

Inside, the gang moved slowly, stiff with exhaustion, bruised but breathing.

Jim returned without warning.

The hatch creaked open, and Tom jumped to his feet, hand reaching for the makeshift pipe-club he’d rigged the night before.

Jo Du froze mid-repair. Finn scrambled upright, heart pounding.

Jim stepped inside, moving slowly, deliberately.

Something large swung limp over his shoulder.

A mutant pig.

Its grotesque body hung twisted and ugly, tusks chipped, skin leathered and maybe diseased — but unmistakably dead.

Jim dropped it onto the central table with a heavy, wet thud.

“Human nutritional deficit identified,” he said calmly. “Solution acquired.”

The gang stared at him.

And then Finn barked a laugh — short, shocked, and entirely real.

Jo Du let out a low whistle. “You hunted that thing?”

Tom shook his head, a grin spreading across his face. “Good hunting, Jim.”

Finn stepped forward and clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re a freak, but I like you.”

Jim blinked once, interpreting the gesture.

“Objective: crew survival,” he said.

And somehow, it almost sounded like pride.

Later, the smell of roasting meat filled the battered bones of Sandbar One.

It wasn’t clean. It wasn’t pretty. But it was food.

Tom poked at the arcing lightning bowl, smoke curling into the rafters. He leaned back on his elbows, soaking up the warmth.

Finn sat nearby, sharpening a strip of metal into something vaguely knife-shaped, boots kicked off and tucked under her legs.

Jim stood close — not eating, not speaking — just present.

Jo Du crouched beside the lightning bowl, turning the makeshift spit slowly, eyes watchful but calm.

A rare peace settled between them. Thin. Fragile. But real.

When the meat was done — blackened, ugly, but edible — they tore into it with bare hands and grins that bordered on feral.

Tom leaned back against a crate, grease streaking his chin, laughing at something Jo Du said about bacon, humans, and evolution.

Finn smiled too, the ache in her chest easing just a little.

Jim sat just beyond the glow, his optics dimmed in the firelight. He didn’t need to eat — couldn’t — but he didn’t leave.

Tom raised a blackened chunk of meat in mock toast.

“To pirates, one and all.” he said.

Finn laughed. Jo Du smirked. Jim tilted his head slightly, interpreting the gesture.

“Pirates” Jim affirmed, voice solemn.

Finn wiped her hands on her pants, leaning back against the crate with a satisfied sigh.

“Not a bad crew.”

“Could use better planning,” Jo Du muttered.

“Fewer mutant pigs,” Tom added.

“Less prank trap-building,” Finn shot back, side-eyeing Jim.

Jim blinked once. “Tactical misjudgment noted. Age related.”

Finn snorted and tossed a bent spoon at him — a joke, light and unguarded.

Jim caught it in midair and placed it gently on the floor.

And if machines could smile — maybe, just maybe — he almost did.

Outside, the wind clawed at the walls — the last weak breath of the storm.

Above them, Hannibal spun silently in its orbit, circling like a slow predator.

They all knew what was coming.

A search.

A hunt.

Reckoning.

But not tonight.

Tonight, they were just kids around a fire.

Pirates.

Survivors.

A crew.

And nothing — not the storm, not the sky, not even Mars itself — could take that away from them.

Book One: Chapter One. The wrong Ship

It had been seven weeks since the accident. Seven weeks since a Jim pulled him from the pod and told him his parents had died in passage—then whispered a name Tom couldn’t forget. FT3. He hadn’t spoken it aloud since. Not even when he dreamed of them. Not even when he saw the red planet roll past the porthole of his adopted home in Polly’s pod and knew something wasn’t adding up.

There was no going back once Tom climbed aboard. But going back was never the plan.

So long, Martians.

The Twain 37 loomed above him, sagging in its cradle, ancient scars crisscrossing its battered hull. It wasn’t beautiful. It wasn’t even trustworthy.

But it was scheduled to leave Hannibal Station tonight—and that was all that mattered.

Tom moved quickly, slipping through the maze of cargo pallets and fuel lines cluttering the bay floor. Above, the Twain’s hatch hung crooked, a battered mouth gaping open. Somewhere in the hollow dark inside, a Jim would be preparing for departure.

The Jims—maintenance units, slaves to the Hannibal’s main net, didn’t care about stowaways. They barely cared about anything.

And with no human crew aboard, no one would be checking the holds.

He just needed to hide. Stay quiet. Survive the long drift back to Earth.

Assuming Earth was still there.

He reached the access ladder and climbed fast, fingers slick with sweat. Hauled himself into the Twain’s underbelly, heart pounding.

He hesitated, crouching low between cold ducts. The silence was heavier than he expected, like the whole ship was already a tomb.

Then a low vibration stirred the metal, followed by a voice—quiet, mechanical, almost curious:

“You will not survive this journey.”

Polly’s Jim.

Tom twisted toward the voice, his heartbeat spiking. The android stood half-shadowed by a bulkhead, its black chassis gleaming faintly in the emergency lights. Its face was as blank as ever.

“You don’t get it,” Tom whispered. “I don’t want to stay. I don’t belong here.”

Jim tilted its head in that eerie, almost-human way.

“You do not belong anywhere.”

The words cut deeper than Tom expected.

“My parents died for this place,” he said, pressing his back against the wall as if he could disappear into it. “And all it gave me was a cage.”

Jim’s processors gave a soft, sympathetic hum. “Statistically, their deaths were anomalous. Two inbound MRS pod losses at once. Rare. Tragic. But not unprecedented.”

Tom’s jaw tightened. His fingers curled around the worn rubber globe dangling from his jacket—a tiny, battered Earth.

The last thing they gave him before they were gone.

“I don’t care about your statistics,” he muttered. “I’m getting out.”

The ship shuddered. The first warning of atmosphere purge.

When Jim spoke again, its voice was quieter. Almost kind.

“You must leave. Or perish.”

Tom swallowed hard and glanced toward the narrow crawlspace that led back to the hatch.

For one reckless second, he considered staying anyway.

Drifting alone back toward a ghosted Earth still seemed better than spending another day pretending Hannibal Station was a home.

But then he thought of them—his mother’s laugh, his father’s rough hand ruffling his hair—and how the station had swallowed all of it.

He wasn’t ready to die here.

Not yet.

Outside, docking bay lights strobed red, warning of imminent departure.

Tom risked a glance through the cracked viewport.

And then he saw her.

Across the bay, just inside the far loading area, a girl moved through the shadows—steady, deliberate, guiding someone much larger beside her.

Even at a distance, she struck him—slim and upright, hair tied back, her face sharp with focus.

She braced the arm of the man beside her, guiding him carefully around the snarl of equipment.

Tom recognized him instantly.

Everyone on Hannibal knew Commander Thatcher—one of the First Gen heroes who had helped carve out humanity’s foothold in space.

But the man Tom saw now was a ruin of that legend.

One eye clouded by cataracts, movements slow and cautious.

And the girl—whoever she was—held him up with a quiet strength that made it impossible to look away.

Tom leaned closer to the viewport, pulse drumming.

Who was she?

She walked half a pace ahead, chin up, eyes scanning the crew with the kind of ease that made her seem older than she probably was. Sunlight from the upper vents caught in her hair, casting a gold halo that flickered as she moved. Her boots left faint prints in the frost near the threshold.

She said something to Thatcher—he didn’t catch what—but it made him smile. A real smile, like she surprised even him.

Tom didn’t know who she was. Didn’t know her name. But in that moment, the idea of leaving the station felt… different.

Not wrong, exactly.

Just not as urgent.

The Twain’s engines rumbled to life beneath him, a low, hungry vibration. Alarms wailed. The airlock seals disengaged with a mechanical groan.

Inside the Twain, the temperature dropped further.

The realization hit: Jim would purge the cabin atmosphere before launch.

No oxygen.

No chance.

If he stayed, he’d suffocate before the ship even cleared the station ring.

A soft voice carried from the hatchway, almost lost in the rising roar:

“Tom Sawyer. You must leave. Or perish.”

Jim again.

Not an order. Not a threat.

Just a fact.

Tom didn’t wait for a second warning.

He dropped from the crawlspace, hit the ladder, and scrambled down into the bay just as the Twain’s outer hatch slammed shut behind him.

The sudden rush of vacuum yanked at his boots, tore the breath from his lungs.

He stumbled behind a cargo stack, gasping, as the launch clamps released with a thunderous crack.

The Twain 37 lifted away, spinning slowly toward the void.

Gone.

Tom pressed his forehead against the cold steel of the crate, swallowing the taste of failure.

Across the bay, the girl and her ruined father had vanished.

And he was still here.

Still stuck.

Still breathing the same stale air, in a station that had forgotten how to dream.

Coming Soon!

Starting August 1, 2025 we’ll begin releasing select chapters from the Tom Tomorrow book series—one each week. These previews are your first look into a bold new sci-fi saga filled with adventure, mystery, and a generation ready to uncover the truth. The journey begins soon. Get ready to meet Tom.