CHAPTER 1: DECISION

The moment the thrusters died, Captain Elias Vance knew he was no longer flying the Icarus. He was falling.
The asteroid came out of nowhere—small, fast, a fragment of some ancient collision. The impact wasn’t a direct hit, but it was enough. It sheared through the port stabilizers, tore open two fuel lines, and sent him into a slow, sickening tumble. The engines flickered, sputtered, then died completely.
Cruel fate. Nothing more. He hadn’t been reckless. He hadn’t miscalculated. He’d done everything right, and still, here he was—locked in motion, drifting forward at an unchangeable trajectory.
The nav screen updated, and his stomach twisted.
Ahead—directly in his path—was Ark-12, the colony ship. Five thousand souls, frozen in their pods, waiting to wake up in a new world. His velocity wasn’t high enough to obliterate them on impact, but it was enough to rupture the hull. A glancing hit would be a disaster; a direct one would be extinction.
He checked, rechecked, ran the numbers again. No way out.
Unless—
A flashing yellow indicator caught his eye. RESERVE MANEUVERING FUEL: 2% REMAINING.
His breath caught.
He still had one burn left. A last chance.
He reached for his stylus, then hesitated. No. This wasn’t something he could leave to the ship’s failing nav system. He unclipped his notepad, flipped to a blank page, and started scribbling.
Thrust angle. Relative momentum. Escape corridor.
His hand worked fast, numbers spilling across the paper, fueled by a desperate, impossible hope. He blocked out everything else—the alarms, the faint crackling of dying systems, even the rising panic clawing at his throat. This was pure physics. Just forces and motion.
He started with his current trajectory—velocity vector, relative drift, impact time. The Icarus was already in motion, locked on course, a bullet with no guidance. His only tool was his maneuvering thruster, and the question wasn’t whether he could avoid Ark-12—it was how far he could push himself before he ran dry.
He scribbled a quick equation, solving for delta-V. ΔV = Isp × g₀ × ln(m₀/m₁). His specific impulse was garbage—these weren’t main engines, just emergency jets meant for minor course corrections. He estimated burn efficiency, ran a back-of-the-envelope calculation on fuel mass versus ship mass. 2% reserve fuel. Not enough to stop. Not enough to reverse.
But enough to nudge.
His pulse spiked. If he could change his trajectory by just a few degrees—just three, maybe even two—he could miss Ark-12. Avoid the impact completely. He scratched out a quick estimate of required thrust duration, recalculated the force needed to offset his current drift.
His chest heaved. That was it. That was his way out.
Then he checked his final trajectory.
He ran the numbers three times, just to be sure.
The pencil slowed in his grip.
Odyssey-4.
He stared at the figures, willing them to change. They didn’t. The thruster burn wouldn’t just move him away from Ark-12—it would push him toward the Odyssey-4. At his current velocity, he couldn’t simply “veer off into space.” He was moving too fast, and the change in vector would put him on a collision course with the research vessel.
Twenty people. Not asleep. Awake. Alive.
They wouldn’t have time to move. No escape, no last-second maneuver. The warning would come, and then—ten seconds. That’s all. Ten seconds before impact.
He thought of them. Thought of her. Lina.
His hands clenched into fists.
Pressing the button ignites the thrusters. Pressing the button saves five thousand. Pressing the button kills twenty.
Doing nothing kills more.
His breath shuddered. His fingers hovered over the ignition. If he fired, he would die. If he didn’t, he would die. The only difference was how many he took with him.
A tremor ran through his arm. He flexed his fingers, trying to stop the shaking. His body rejected the choice, his mind screaming for an answer that wasn’t there.
The Ark-12 loomed larger.
His throat tightened. His heart ached.
Ten seconds.
Nine.
Lina.
Eight.
His hand wouldn’t move.
Seven.
He was still hoping for a way out.
Six.
There wasn’t one.
Five.
Pressing the button ignites the thrusters.
Four.
Pressing the button saves five thousand.
Three.
Pressing the button kills twenty.
Two.
Doing nothing kills more.
One.
Elias pressed the button.