Critical Mass

In the last installment of Critical Mass…

Into the Void

They froze.

The House of ThorneR. Adrian Thorne

The ship was still, save for the quiet whir of vent fans and the intermittent click of relays syncing through their scheduled cycles. In the glow of the diagnostics panel, Elias sat cross-legged on the floor of Systems Deck 2, a thermal tablet balanced on his knee, stylus tapping out one last input code.

“All venting subroutines green,” he muttered, half to himself, half to the ship. “O₂ recycling stable. Thermal equalization holding.”

“CO₂ saturation?” Jace’s voice filtered down from above the maintenance hatch, where he was perched on his stomach, half inside an overhead panel like some barefoot mechanic monk.

“Eleven percent buffer,” Elias replied. “We’ve got room.”

Jace grunted. “Barely.”

“We’re still in margin.”

“Mm-hmm.” Another soft clank overhead, a twist of metal. “You said the same thing when we were at fourteen. Now we’re at eleven.”

“And we’re docked at survival, not luxury,” Elias said, closing the screen with a final tap. “So eleven’s the new green.”

Jace slid down from the panel, landing on his feet beside him with a soft thud. His hair was damp from a scrub-wipe shower, and his gray ship tee clung to his lower back with the kind of sweat that came from crawling through vents for two hours.

“I miss cryo,” he said, stretching his arms overhead. “At least the bed was consistent.”

Elias snorted. “You mean the giant freezer coffin with lumbar hell and no privacy?”

Jace shrugged. “Yeah, but the dreams were nice.”

They stood there for a second, silent. The tablet hummed quietly as it synced to the master grid.

Outside the sealed walls, stars shifted. They were no longer in direct solar range, not since the asteroid drift had nudged them off arc. Which meant every inch of power was being micromanaged now. Argus had recalibrated heating cycles by the hour, meal rations by the gram, and yet—the ship was holding.

Just barely.

Jace sat down beside Elias, arms resting on his knees. “Still weird being the only ones awake.”

“Technically, Cryo Bay B is fine.”

“Yeah, but it’s not awake awake.” Jace scratched absently at his neck. “I walked past the observation window last night. Got that… weird feeling again. Like they’re all just watching us.”

“They’re frozen.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not creepy.”

Elias let that hang. He knew what Jace meant.

They’d run the numbers the morning after the breach—Argus had done the projections. With Cryo Bay A sealed and Bay B operating within pressure norms, the ship’s life support could sustain two awake bodies for roughly five more weeks. Just enough time to complete their orbital phase, patch the worst of the damage, and rendezvous with The Providence—the long-term station vessel already in stable orbit above the terraforming site.

They were going to make it. Probably.

But it meant staying awake.

No cryo return. No second shift rotation. Just them—alive, alert, together—for the duration.

Jace leaned back against the wall, head tilted toward Elias. “When’s the last time you slept more than four hours?”

Elias gave a dry laugh. “What is sleep.”

“I’ll take that as a no.”

They sat in silence for a few beats. Somewhere above them, a relay clicked over to standby. The air had that recycled, over-filtered taste—the kind you only noticed when the room went quiet enough to notice everything.

“You ever think about what it’s gonna feel like?” Jace asked eventually.

“What what’s gonna feel like?”

“Waking up on The Providence. Knowing the planet’s right below us. That we actually got through this.”

Elias was quiet a second too long.

Then: “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Jace didn’t press. He knew better than anyone—some things you only let yourself imagine once they’re real.

Instead, he stood, rubbed a hand through his hair, and reached down to offer Elias a hand. “C’mon. You’ve been cross-legged too long. Your knees are gonna lock up.”

Elias took it, let himself be pulled up. Their hands lingered for a beat longer than necessary. Jace didn’t let go right away. Neither did Elias.

But neither said anything about it.

Not yet.

The water hissed to life with its usual recycled sharpness, warm enough to soothe muscle, not warm enough to lull. It poured from the nozzle in a tight, precise stream, pulsing gently against Elias’s back as he braced both hands on the metal wall. Steam curled off his shoulders, clinging to the close air in soft plumes that blurred the harshness of the room.

He hadn’t meant to get in without Jace. But he’d needed a minute. Alone.

Just to stand still. Just to feel the water slide over his skin and rinse away everything clinging to him from the last shift—the dried sweat, the coolant, the pressure he couldn’t name but couldn’t put down.

The door hissed open.

He didn’t have to look to know who it was.

Bare feet padded across the slick tile. A towel dropped to the floor with a damp thwack. Then the soft sound of a second nozzle activating, followed by a low exhale as Jace stepped under the stream.

They stood like that for a moment. Not touching. Not speaking.

Just breathing steam together.

“You always start without me?” Jace’s voice was low, quieter than usual.

Elias didn’t turn around. “Didn’t think I’d be good company.”

A pause. Then: “You don’t have to be good. You just have to be here.”

The words hit him harder than he expected.

He finally turned.

Jace was already watching him, one hand braced against the tile, water running in clean lines down his chest and over the trail of hair disappearing below his waist. His skin glowed under the overheads, slick and flushed, muscles loose from the heat but eyes sharp. Unblinking.

And Elias?

He looked wrecked.

Tired, yes. But stripped bare in a different way. The kind of vulnerability that didn’t come from being naked—but from being seen while naked, and still not turning away.

They stepped into each other’s space at the same time.

There was no hunger to it. Not like last time. No firestorm.

Just closeness.

Elias slid his hands to Jace’s hips and let his forehead rest against Jace’s shoulder, lips brushing the damp skin near his collarbone.

Jace’s arms came around him, strong and steady. He didn’t pull—he held. His cheek pressed to Elias’s temple, eyes falling shut.