Iron Tide Reckoning

Callum Vasek wakes from cryo-sleep with blood on his tongue and a dead ship screaming around him. The Kotrom Kazarov is bleeding atmosphere, its corridors lit by emergency amber and the flash of gunfire. Somewhere on the observation deck, his crew is hunting each other, Soraya Ainsworth rallying the loyalists, Drey Vennick cutting comms and power, Deckhand Pell Onarra hiding in the lower decks with blood on his hands. The log files are corrupted, the AI is stuttering fragments of a name it won't repeat, and Callum's cousin Edrik Vasek is missing from his pod. The deeper Callum digs, the clearer the horror becomes: whatever rode the iron tide in with them didn't stay frozen. It woke early, and it's been wearing familiar faces ever since. Mirelle Dastun claims she can reroute life support, but only if Callum holds a corridor alone against Vennick's armed faction. Kell Ironside offers firepower at a price Callum isn't sure he can pay. Tressa Koyne insists the thing stalking the vents isn't human anymore, and Sira Volken keeps watching Callum like she's waiting for him to remember something he never lived through. With decompression imminent and the hull splitting seam by seam, Callum must choose who to trust, who to seal behind airlocks, and whether the thing that rode in with them can be killed, or only fed. The tide is coming in. The reckoning is now.