Irina whispered. "Three… two… one."
"Bull. Shit."
"Try being married to the station,” Bianca said. “It’s lonely up here." zishy 24 08 16 bianca bell and irina dyvyn very top
The hum of the orbital station’s engines was a familiar rhythm to Captain Bianca Bell and Dr. Irina Dyvyn, but today, it buzzed with urgency. Their mission: to calibrate the newly deployed satellite, mankind’s most sophisticated quantum relay for deep-space communication. The launch had been flawless, but the data transmission anomaly was growing by the hour. If it wasn’t fixed before the 24-hour window closed at exactly 16:00 UTC, Earth’s connection to Mars colonies—and the first human expedition to Europa—would collapse.
Irina’s breath fogged her visor. "We were supposed to trust each other!" Irina whispered
A glitch in the system. A gap in their prep. Irina’s jaw clenched. "The anomaly’s not the satellite. It’s the relay code. Someone… tampered with it."
"Who’s the only person with access to the pre-launch protocols?" Bianca asked. “It’s lonely up here
For ten minutes, hands moved in tandem: Bianca steadied the station, her body moving like a dancer above the event horizon. Irina dissected the encrypted breach, her mind a surgeon’s scalpel. Together, they found it—a single corrupted line masking an energy drain in the relay’s core.