CHAPTER 2 — Pressure Fractures
Damian didn't remember falling asleep, but he remembered waking up.
The apartment lights flickered again—three short pulses—followed by the dull groan of stressed metal somewhere deeper in the station. He rubbed his face and sat up. The room felt colder than usual. Ceres didn't do "cold" on purpose. It meant something was off with the thermal regulators again.
"Great," he muttered, pulling on his boots.
His comm buzzed on the table, screen cracked but functional enough. A message blinked across it:
Kella: "Dami, station say water gonna be tight today. Be careful if ya go out."
He snorted. Be careful on Ceres usually meant watch out for idiots with knives or avoid the riot that's starting in Section Twelve. He typed back a quick thanks, grabbed the structural scanner from his desk, and stepped out into the corridor.
The hallway was crowded already. Belters, mostly. Thin bodies, long limbs. Kids running barefoot between recycled plastic crates. A couple arguing quietly about ration levels. Someone's music drifting from an open door—old rock mixed with static.
Ceres always felt alive, but this morning it felt tense. Too many angry faces. Too many people listening for announcements instead of going about their routines.
Damian moved down the stairs, shoulders brushing past others, the air warm and stale. He'd gotten used to it, but the engineer in him still hated how loudly the supports creaked whenever someone heavy walked down the hall.
He stopped at the first junction and unlaced the scanner from its holster. The screen flickered, tried to start, glitched. He hit the casing with the heel of his hand.
"Come on," he murmured. "Don't be dead."
The device finally warmed up, screen stabilizing. A thin line traced the nearby wall. Yellow zones flashed—pressure stress, mild. One spot pulsed orange—seal fatigue.
"Figures," he muttered. "This whole section's a patch job."
A voice behind him spoke in rough Belter creole. "Ya see somethin', mang?"
Damian turned. A big belter man with a shaved head and a neck tattoo leaned against the wall, arms crossed. A maintenance worker, judging by the belt of tools wrapped awkwardly around his waist.
"Just checking a new piece of gear," Damian said.
"Ya fix things?"
Damian nodded. "Sometimes."
The man jerked his chin toward the corridor. "Come. I show ya somethin'. Station security ain't comin' for hours."
Damian hesitated, then followed. Engineers didn't ignore possible failures in a pressurized environment. That was how people died.
They walked to a narrow maintenance hatch near the recyclers. The man pointed at it. "Won't open all the way. Been stickin' for days. Airflow bad in here. Kids sick last night."
Damian inspected the panel. Someone had welded the hinges unevenly years ago. Age and heat cycles had twisted the frame.
He slipped his fingers under the edge and braced his foot. "Push when I say."
He said it like someone who had given that order a thousand times under far worse conditions.
The big man noticed, but said nothing.
Damian counted down. "Three… two… one."
They pushed together. Metal shrieked—loud enough to make nearby kids cover their ears. The panel gave way halfway and jammed again.
Damian reached into his backpack and pulled out a small improvised pry tool—a cutter head strapped to a carbon handle. He wedged it into the joint and leaned his weight into the frame.
The hinge snapped clean.
The hatch swung open with a rush of hot air. The man blinked.
"Bosmang… ya strong for skinny guy."
Damian shrugged. "Bad hinge. Not me."
Inside, the filter fans spun weakly, coated in so much dust he could barely see the blades. Ceres-grade maintenance—ignore it until something breaks, then blame the nearest mechanic.
"Ya can fix?" the man asked hopefully.
Damian checked the wiring, found a half-burnt connector, and twisted it back into place. The fan whined, caught, and then started spinning steadily.
"It'll hold for now," he said. "But you need to replace the hinge, or this panel is going to crack all the way through."
The man nodded gratefully. "Ya good, mang. Name?"
"Damian."
"Kojo," the man replied, offering a fist bump. "I owe ya drink."
Damian smirked. "Everyone on this station keeps offering drinks."
Kojo laughed. "Only way we pay, ya?"
The moment they stepped back into the corridor, station lighting shifted from white to yellow. The speakers crackled overhead.
A bored-sounding announcer spoke:
"Attention Ceres residents. Due to resource constraints and shipping delays, water ration levels will be temporarily reduced. Please comply with updated distribution schedules."
Belters around them started shouting immediately.
"Always same bullshit!"
"Shipping delays my ass!"
"Corporate make more profit, ya?"
Damian felt something heavy settle in his chest.
The Canterbury.
It had to be the Canterbury.
Not destroyed yet—but late. Late enough for Ceres to panic.
Kella suddenly appeared around the corner, waving both arms.
"Dami! Kojo!" she called. "Come, ya gotta see this."
They followed her into a small diner tucked between two hydroponic outlets. A crowd had gathered around an old broadcast screen mounted crookedly on the wall.
The news feed wasn't stable—signal distortion, pixelation—but the headline was clear enough:
"OUTER PLANETS HAULERS REPORT DELAYS. CANTERBURY MISSING CHECK-IN."
Kella whispered under her breath. "If Can't ain't comin' in… we in trouble."
"Corporate gonna say sabotage," Kojo muttered darkly. "Always blame Belters."
Damian didn't speak. He watched the flickering image of an MCRN spokesperson dodging questions.
A sinking feeling spread through him.
He knew exactly how this ended.
He didn't want to change anything. Interference was dangerous. But he also knew what came next for Ceres—riots, shortages, anger, people disappearing into the cracks between corporate rules and local desperation.
He felt Kella leaning close to him. "Dami… ya okay?"
He forced a steady breath. "Yeah. Just… thinking."
"Stop thinking so hard," she said softly. "Ya start looking like ya gonna break somethin'."
He huffed a quiet laugh. "Not this time."
But he already felt the shift inside him—the part of him that planned ahead, prepared for collateral damage, and saw danger hours or days before everyone else.
Combat engineers weren't built for peace.
They were built for moments just like this.
Kella tugged his sleeve. "Come. We talk in warehouse. Not safe out here."
He nodded, shoulders tightening.
Ceres Station creaked again—long and low.
And the storm he'd hoped to avoid was finally beginning.