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Chapter one
Elian awoke to darkness.
For a moment, he was still lost in the hazy world of dreams, half-remembered images slipping through his fingers.
Then reality slammed into him, hard enough to make his head spin.
With a groan, he sat up in his cryopod, the restraints automatically unfurling and sliding away at his command. The thick, reinforced glass of the pod's lid was already open, the thick, hot air of the ship filling his lungs.
He coughed, shaking himself awake. Hot air? The generation ship's air was usually cool, filtered, clean.
What was happening?
Elian looked around for someone else. His pod was the last of the row, furthest to the back. As everyone had been getting into their pods, he'd joked about having the worst seat on this trip.
From his position, he could look out over the long rows of cryopods.
They weren't opening. Their lids were closed firmly, their screens blank. The rest of the cryobay was dark, lit only by the frantic, pulsing flash of emergency lights.
The silence was absolute, the kind of deep, profound quiet that was almost its own presence. There were no hums of machinery, no distant echoes of human voices — nothing.
The ship was dead.
Elian's heart began to race. He'd been told that the journey to his new home would be a long one, but he'd be asleep for the entire trip. He'd been told that he'd wake up to find his new life on the colony planet ready and waiting for him.
A place to belong, waiting to accept him. A place to finally call home. He'd counted down every day until launch.
But now something was wrong.
Elian winced as a shower of sparks rained down from a ruptured ceiling panel. The acrid stench of burnt circuitry stung his nostrils, setting his eyes watering. Red emergency lights flickered and strobed, casting the corridor in an apocalyptic glow.
He had to move. He stumbled to his feet, still clumsy from his long sleep.
Just… just get to the control room. You can open the pods from there. Wake the others.
The thoughts pounded in his head, drilled into him by training. He tried to remember all of those training lectures and information packets, running over those In Case of Emergency… procedures as a mantra to focus his mind against the growing sense of panic fluttering in his chest.
He staggered out of the cryobay, desperately heading toward the command center. It was… around here, right, down the hallway — hot, why was everything so hot?— and then you followed the emergency lighting…
Elian rounded a corner. The corridor opened up into a gaping void, the path ahead reduced to twisted and shredded metal.
The hull had been torn open.
They'd crashed.
Smoke billowed. The ship was burning. Elian coughed, waving a hand before his face as his eyes streamed. He fumbled for his shirt, yanking the thin fabric up to cover his mouth and nose.
This was insane. He was just a passenger, a nobody. He was supposed to be a colonist on a new planet, building quarters, planting food, securing safe water.
Not this. Nothing like this.
What the hell was he supposed to do if the others didn't wake up?
There! Through the smoke, he could see the door to the control center, illuminated by flashing emergency lights. There was just enough of the corridor remaining for him to get to it.
Gritting his teeth, Elian clambered over debris, shards of metal biting into his palms. When he brushed against some, squeezing past, it burnt, making him hiss with pain. An alarm blared, the piercing shriek setting his teeth on edge. Warning lights flickered erratically, painting the smoke in lurid shades of crimson.
Just a little farther. He had to wake everyone else. He had to…
