by T. E. Aydelott
Port Mercy was built to survive far from anyone who cared whether it lived.Generations of families made their homes inside the old mining colony, raising children between dock shifts, market queues, failing systems, and tunnels that still killed people when the rock shifted wrong. Frost kept the station warm, kept ships moving, kept clinics running, and kept families from freezing in rooms they could barely afford.Then the rules changed.Station Twelve began tightening its grip with inspections, seizures, permits, penalties, and taxes dressed in cleaner language. To the Authority, Port Mercy was a disorderly colony that needed control. To the families who lived there, it was home.Sera knows the cost of that difference. She has run Frost through old tunnels, trusted damaged machines, raised children on short money, and learned when to pull out before a rich seam turns into a grave. But as Station Twelve presses harder and Port Mercy’s old mines grow more dangerous, survival becomes harder to separate from rebellion.Brokers profit. Crews take risks. Families fracture. Markets turn violent. And somewhere beneath the colony, the old workings keep their own account of everything people have taken.Frost is a working-class science fiction serial about a mining colony fighting to survive distant rule, dangerous ground, and the choices families make when there is no safe way forward. — AI disclosure: Frost began as my original manuscript — my world, characters, narrator, and story. AI tools were used as editing and revision support for structure, flow, formatting, and chapter breaks. The final choices, story direction, and voice are mine.
