This is the breaking point. In the aftermath of the Deck 3 breach, the ship’s failing corridor forces Elias and Jace into an impossible equation: a nineteen-minute deficit between survival and total failure. Someone must enter the failing zone and attempt a manual patch.
Elias makes the choice for both of them.
Locked behind a sealed barrier, Jace can only watch as the man he has come to trust—come to love—fights to stabilize the final breach. Their last conversation unfolds through reinforced glass: grief, fury, confession, and the kind of honesty only spoken when time runs out.
Elias’s sacrifice buys the ship the minutes it needs.
But the cost is irreversible.
This episode is the emotional core of the Critical Mass arc—raw, intimate, and devastating. A story about love at the edge of vacuum, what we give for each other, and the price of keeping a ship—any ship—alive.
Themes:Sacrifice, final confessions, catastrophic failure, love under pressure, grief suspended in zero-gravity.
