The artificial gravity field cut with the dull, ringing snap of a high-tension cable parting in an enclosed well.
One instant, Arthur’s magnetic soles were locked against the diamond-tread steel of Staging Corridor Nine. The next, the station’s outward-pulling gyro stuttered under the moving impact of a second bio-pod, and three thousand tons of sky-high stonework entered free fall. Dust motes, discarded high-pressure washers, and droplets of amber high-pressure fluid lifted off the decking like a cloud of frozen midges. It drifted in suspended orbits between the overhead channel trays and the deck.
In the sudden absence of gravity load, Arthur felt the immediate body shift. Blood pooled toward his chest cavity and head, warming his cheeks and creating that distinct, heavy pressure behind the bridge of his nose known to every sky-high flight surgeon as cephalic fluid redistribution. Without Earth’s gravity to pull dark blood toward the lower hands and feet, the neck-artery baroreceptors registered an artificial hypertension, prompting his resting pulse to dip slightly before compensating.
“Inertial stabilizers offline in Sector Four!” the intercom barked through bursts of solar static. “Backup gyros failing! Station is rolling twelve degrees per second along the main axis!”
Arthur didn’t fight the shift. Fighting microgravity was the quickest way for a frontline tamer to tear an anterior cruciate joint cord or send themselves spinning helplessly into a high-voltage channel. He allowed his knees to flex. He took in the upward drift. Then he reached out with his left gauntlet to clamp a…
