by livmorgenstern
A burned-out soldier. A sentient AI they've come to delete. One rusting station falling into a gas giant — and forty-five minutes to keep them both alive. Sam Callahan took a dead-end posting on the edge of the system to forget the squad he lost. All he has left is the quiet, a custom kinetic shotgun, and ARIA — the station's AI, cold, clever, and slowly becoming something her makers never authorised. Then an unmarked ship seals onto the airlock, the feeds go dark, and a corporate strike team starts clearing Aegis-7 room by room. Their contract: strip ARIA's core, erase every witness, and burn the station down as an accident. They brought twenty-three operators for one tired man and a machine. It won't be enough.
