Outside, the violet sky turned to black as the Great Red moved back over the sun, and the world began to scream once more.
Kaelen looked at the monitors. The iridium stitches were glowing, vibrating, but holding firm against the infinite tide. He wiped a smear of static-charged soot from his sleeve. Outside, the violet sky turned to black as
Kaelen was a "Static-Stitcher." His job was to crawl onto the outer hull of the Aegis Colony during the Eye-Winters—the rare, twenty-minute windows when the winds dropped below two hundred kilometers per hour. He didn't fix machines; he "sewed" the magnetic dampeners that kept the colony from being ripped off its tectonic moorings. He wiped a smear of static-charged soot from his sleeve
He jammed the final anchor into place and slammed the "Lock" button. The dampener hummed to life, creating a shimmering blue veil of force over the colony's weakest sector. The Piercer hit a second later. He jammed the final anchor into place and
Then, the airlock cycled. Mara’s hands were on his shoulders, pulling him into the pressurized warmth of the airlock.
"For today," he whispered. "The storm lets us stay for today."
Kaelen looked left. A funnel, thin as a needle and glowing with a haunting cerulean light, was dropping from the atmosphere. It moved with impossible speed, carving a trench into the metallic soil of the planet below.