Chapter One: Tomorrow in the Wheel

Orange meant shutting down the agricultural ring and sealing the surface gates. It did not mean death, yet Han looked anything but relieved. “Can the dome hold?” Lin asked. “Against the wind. Not the charge. Black Tide will push the external potential past six hundred million volts. Surface heat exchangers will burn first. Backup oxygen lasts forty-eight hours.” “Then the coordinates—” “Might be a shelter. Might be a hole that’s waited eight years to swallow us.” Lin uncovered the wheel. The timestamp lodged in her mind like a nail. Eighteen-forty in seven days was the predicted peak of the storm. R-17 could not know the future unless the fractures had formed there—or someone had always known the storm would come and sent the rover home today.