Derwein's Deception

Chapter 7: Derwein’s Deception

The air in the *Stardust Drifter*’s bridge was thick with the stench of ozone and something else, something coppery and cloying that had seeped into the very metal of the ship. Captain Eva Rostova, her face a mask of grim determination, gripped the command chair, her knuckles white. The station, or what was left of it, receded in the viewport, a skeletal ruin against the indifferent black. They had escaped. That much was true. But the triumph felt hollow, a victory snatched from the jaws of a maw that had nearly swallowed them whole.

“Status report, Sharma,” Eva’s voice was a low rasp, scraped raw by the terror she’d held at bay for hours.