The Caelum Protocol
When Jira Thorne wakes in a blacked-out station stairwell with no memory of how she arrived, the last thing she expects is to learn she has been classified as a threat. The Caelum Protocol, an emergency directive buried in the station's deepest systems, has flagged her for quiet erasure, and the clock has already started. Her sister Ilse is gone, lost to an event Jira cannot fully remember, and the grief she carries is being weaponized against her by unseen forces. As Sector 7 flickers back to life under watchful Compliance eyes, Jira is forced to rely on a desperate cast of survivors: Saen Korr, a man with secrets worth killing for; the Luthier, whose motives blur the line between salvation and manipulation; Docking Overseer Quinn, whose loyalty could cost him everything; and Quell, a rogue operative who claims to know what the Protocol really does. Each ally offers a piece of the puzzle, but every truth comes with a price. When Harmonist Captain Iden deploys SOTH-9, a hunter designed to end fugitives like her, Jira realizes the conspiracy reaches far beyond one station. The Protocol was never meant to protect anyone. It was built to choose who survives. Now Jira must decide whether to burn the system down from within or vanish like the sister she cannot stop mourning.