Chapter 3

The ballroom still held air, though the station’s ribs were beginning to remember vacuum. Between the cracked crystal fixtures and the dead chandeliers, the ancient AI kept the lights low and the music thin—something slow, brass and strings, recorded when the station still had passengers who cared about the difference between waltzes and the slow rotation of planets.

Lira drifted in first, magnetic soles clicking once on the deck before she killed them. Her suit was already open at the collar, helmet clipped to her hip, the faint silver scar along her jaw catching the last working lumen-strip. She carried a single power cell in a padded case, prize enough for the day, but not why she’d come back.

Marek arrived minutes later through the service lock, suit scuffed at the knees, one glove missing its outer layer. He stopped just inside the arch, watching the slow turn of her shoulders as she examined the old bar. Neither spoke until the music swelled and the AI, lonely for company, added a soft sub-bass that vibrated the soles of their boots.

“You’re early,” he said.

Lira didn’t turn. “You’re predictable. Same corridor, same time. If I wanted your cell I could have taken it yesterday.”

He smiled without teeth. “You tried. I liked the part where you left the note on my lock instead.”

She finally looked at him. The scar at her jaw tightened when she smiled back. “Keeps things interesting.”

They met at the center of the floor where the grav plating still functioned, weak but enough to give their bodies weight. Lira set the power cell down; it hummed against the deck. Marek produced a flask from an inner pocket, unscrewed it, offered it without ceremony. She took a swallow—sharp, metallic, filtered through the same recycler that kept the ballroom’s air breathable—and handed it back.

“Station’s rotating faster,” she said. “The outer ring’s already shedding mass. We’ve got maybe three more days before the whole thing starts tearing.”

Marek nodded toward the ceiling, where a constellation of warning glyphs flickered red and amber. “I pulled the nav logs. The AI’s been trying to stabilize with the last of the attitude thrusters. It’s burning the final reserves just to keep this room level.”

The music shifted—an old Earth recording, piano and distant brass—something neither of them recognized but both felt in the chest. Lira stepped closer, not quite touching. “Why do you think it keeps the lights on for us?”

“Because we’re the only ones left who still listen,” Marek said.

She studied his face—older than the last time they’d met like this, new lines at the corners of his eyes, the kind that came from staring too long at dead consoles. He studied her back: the way her suit hung open at the throat, the faint pulse at the hollow there, the way she never quite relaxed even when the music asked her to.

Lira reached for the flask again. Their fingers brushed. The contact lingered half a second longer than necessary. Marek didn’t pull away.

“You ever think about stopping?” she asked.

“Salvage?”

“Rivals. This game. Meeting in rooms that are already dying.”

He exhaled, the sound soft in the filtered air. “Every time I leave. Then the next contract comes in and the station has your name on the manifest and I remember the music.”

The AI dimmed the chandeliers another fraction. A single emergency strip failed with a soft pop. The piano kept playing.

Lira set the flask down beside the power cell. “I found the original manifest. This ballroom used to host diplomatic envoys. Last song before the evacuation was something called ‘Low Orbit, Slow Dance.’ The AI’s been looping it for thirty years.”

Marek’s hand found the small of her back, light, asking. She didn’t move away. They began to turn, slow, magnetic soles still active so the motion felt deliberate rather than weightless. The music filled the spaces between their suits where skin could not touch.

“You could have taken the aft docking ring yesterday,” she said against his shoulder.

“You could have taken my thruster packs.”

“I needed a reason to come back.”

His fingers tightened, not possessive, only steady. “Same.”

They moved through two full rotations of the floor before the first tremor reached them—distant, structural, the kind that meant another section of the station had finally given up its air. The music didn’t falter. The AI compensated by boosting the volume, as if volume could substitute for structural integrity.

Lira lifted her head. “If we both leave now we might still make orbit before the next cascade.”

Marek didn’t let go. “If we both leave now we’ll never know what the AI does when the last song ends.”

Another tremor, closer. A crystal fixture cracked and shed a rain of glittering dust that caught the light like slow-motion stars. Lira’s hand slid from his shoulder to the back of his neck, gloved fingers finding the warm strip of skin above his collar.

“I’m not leaving without the manifest core,” she said.

“I’m not leaving without you.”

The words hung between them, heavier than the failing gravity. She searched his face for the lie and found none. The music swelled again—strings rising, brass answering—then settled into the same patient rhythm.

They danced until the next warning tone sounded, until the pressure differential alarms began their polite countdown in the distance. When they finally stepped apart, the air tasted thinner. Lira retrieved the power cell. Marek took the flask. Neither offered the other the manifest core.

At the service lock Lira paused. “Next shift. Same room. Bring the nav logs. I want to see how long the AI can keep us dancing.”

Marek nodded once. “Don’t be late.”

She vanished into the corridor. He waited until her boots no longer echoed, then keyed the lock. The music followed him one corridor length before the AI, sensing solitude, dropped the volume to a whisper.

In the ballroom the last working lumen-strip flickered, then steadied. The piano kept time with the station’s slow, dying rotation. Somewhere deeper in the dying structure, metal groaned and seals failed. The AI did not stop the song.