Chapter 4: Dilema

The Hesperia groaned.

Not the usual creaks of old steel or the muttered complaints of an aging freighter. This was deeper. Structural. The kind of groan a ship makes when it’s giving up.

On the bridge, Torres felt it in his spine before he heard it in the bulkheads. A moment later, the overhead lights dimmed further, flickered, and then died altogether. Only the faint emergency glowstrips held steady, painting everyone in the dull orange of imminent failure.

Mara’s voice cut through the silence. “Fuel tank’s bone dry. Pressure’s at zero. We’re not even burning fumes.”

Torres didn’t answer right away. He stared at the main display—now a powerless, empty square—then reached up and flicked the comm toggle anyway. Dead. He gave it a second try. Still dead.

“Of course,” he muttered.

They had known the leak was bad. But they’d hoped for something, anything—a few drops clinging to the pipes, some residue in the reserve chamber. Instead, they had nothing.

The link with Orion was gone.

“Okay,” Torres said, breath tight. “We go manual. Jax?”

“Already suiting up,” came the reply over the internal channel. Jax sounded unbothered, like he was heading out to scrub a window. “I’ll go patch the tank. Not that there’s anything in it, but if we get lucky…”

“Good.” Torres turned to Mara. “You still remember Morse?”

“From flight school. Barely.”

“You’re up. Light signals only. Pulse the docking array. Keep it simple—no time for nuance.”

Mara nodded and got to work, re-routing power to the exterior LEDs and tapping out a message with all the precision she could manage.

⸻

Aboard the Orion, the crew had already noticed.

The Hesperia had gone dim, drifting like a dead fish in black water. Every sensor reading told the same story—zero thrust, zero power output. A corpse in orbit.

Astrid stood with her arms folded, jaw tight.

Tarek squinted at the flickers on the scope. “We’re getting a signal. Someone’s blinking their floodlights.”

Anika leaned in. “Seriously?”

“I’m not joking.” He tapped a few keys, then cracked a grin. “It’s Morse. Pretty sloppy, though. I think someone’s winging it.”

“What’s it say?” Astrid asked.

Tarek stared at the stream, translating aloud. “OFFER FUEL TRADE. OUR FUEL FOR YOUR OXYGEN. REPEAT. OFFER FUEL TRADE.”

Astrid exhaled. “They’re out of options.”

“So are we,” Graham muttered.

Anika brought up the internal AI. “Let’s model it. Give them half our fuel, get half their oxygen. What does that give us?”

The display lit up, running scenarios at blistering speed. The AI’s response arrived in milliseconds:

“TRADE PROPOSED. RESOURCE EXCHANGE YIELDS 76.4% SURVIVAL PROBABILITY.”

No one said anything. Not at first.

Tarek broke the silence. “Seventy-six percent isn’t bad.”

“Better than zero,” Astrid replied.

After the AI showed the survival odds for a fair trade, she did the math herself.

Ran the numbers in her head, against her better judgment.

What if they kept their oxygen … and took the fuel?

It'd be nearly 100% survival.

The calculation came with a flicker of guilt. But she couldn’t help it.

All they had to do was lie.

She exhaled sharply and forced the thought away.

⸻

Back aboard the Hesperia, Jax floated just above the hull, magnetic boots locked down as he applied patch after patch. His voice crackled over the suit channel. “Tank’s sealed, more or less. If we get juice, she’ll hold.”

Inside, Mara sat cross-legged beside the control panel, eyes scanning the looped signal she was still sending. Torres paced behind her.

She looked up. “Think they’ll go for it?”

Torres rubbed the back of his neck. “They’re not idiots. They’ll run the numbers. Same as we did.”

“Seventy-four, seventy-five percent odds if we trade.”

“Yeah.”

They locked eyes for a moment. And both knew what the other was thinking.

Mara said it first. “But if we cheat—send an empty payload—keep our oxygen and take their fuel…”

“Probably something like …ninety-nine percent survival,” Torres finished. “But ff they do the same, we’re both dead.”

Silence settled over the bridge, heavy as gravity.

Torres lowered himself into the pilot’s chair, the old leather creaking under him. He didn’t say anything. Just stared out the viewplate, where the Orion shimmered faintly in the distance, a sliver of light in a sea of black.

Two ships. One decision.

No margin for trust.