The Last Kindling
At 0447, a surge hits the upper decks of Lior Ember-1, three seconds behind schedule, and the first light the passenger tier has seen in two years. The Curator has spent eleven months wrestling a dying power grid back from entropy, trading wattage for time itself. But the warmth she coaxes back into the walls exposes a secret the command staff has buried beneath years of quiet rationing: the blackout was never a necessity. It was a policy. Kael Voss has felt that policy in the slow starvation of his people. Tova Ren has documented every unannounced quota cut. In the lower decks, Maren Holt keeps the logistics of scarcity running on schedule while Yara Senn maps the fractures spreading through the corridors below. Drex Marsh walks the line between factions, and Colonel Alistar Venn commands the security forces whose job is to keep the peace, no matter the cost. When an unexpected cascade tears through the grid and the last reserves begin to fail, the Curator stands at the console where she has won every small victory. She can reroute power to preserve command, or she can reroute the truth and let the passengers decide their own fate. On a vessel balanced on the edge of a single spark, every decision burns, and the kindling that remains is almost spent.