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.