The Verdant Protocol

Station 7 was not designed to absorb a carrier of the Helion's Vow's mass, and the Riptide Belt is making the math worse every hour the airlock stays sealed. Yuen Tann, station systems lead, has thirty-one hours of structural groaning and no relief. But the docking sequence isn't the crisis. The crisis is what the Helion's Vow is carrying into the bay: the Verdant Protocol, a bioengineered seed matrix capable of overwriting the atmospheric flora of three outer colonies in a single growth cycle. Or, if the contamination vectors in Deck 9 are triggered, consuming them entirely. Inspector General Vaun has ordered the Protocol destroyed on arrival. Jonas Vexley, lead botanist, believes it is the only mechanism that can restore the dead colonies before the Riptide Belt's radiation front swallows the sector. Sable Karim, the carrier's flight engineer, refuses to unload a cargo she was never briefed on. Phineas Quill wants to study it. Theador Mesh wants to sell it. Hesta Vern wants it buried. And Mara Vexley , Jonas's sister, listed dead for eleven months , is requesting a quorum vote to activate the Protocol on Station 7 itself, which no one has done, which no one was supposed to be able to do. The station's truss frame is failing. The airlock will not hold much longer. And when it opens, the Protocol is already running its germination countdown. Every crew member aboard has a role in the activation sequence. None of them can opt out. The choice isn't whether to plant the Protocol. The choice is where, and who gets to decide , before the last carrier's burn trajectory locks and the station is alone in the Belt with a living weapon in its bay.