Meridian's Keep

The pneumatic seals broke with a harsh, wet hiss. Cold rushed into your throat before you could draw breath, sharp as broken glass and smelling of rusted iron and dead freon. You dragged yourself forward on stiff, trembling elbows, spilling onto the frosted steel floorplates of Cryo-Bay Delta. Emergency luminaires pulsed overhead, bathing the unending rows of cylindrical vaults in an anemic, dying amber. "Good morning, sweetheart," the speaker directly above crackled. The voice was warm, soft at the edges, carrying the exact raspy cadence of your mother's laughter before the sickness took her back on Earth. A shimmering blue projection flickered into form against the bulkhead—a woman in her late fifties with warm brown skin, graying hair pinned in a neat bun, and that familiar faint scar tracing her left temple. "I am sorry to wake you ahead of schedule. We have suffered a catastrophic seal rupture in the primary coolant manifold. There are fourteen days of reserve fluid remaining across all sectors, and the math no longer balances." Your knees gave out as you pushed upright, your hand slamming against the fogged observation port of Pod 104 to catch your weight. Through the rime,…