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On Titan’s methane ocean, engineer Noor Al‑Basri races to recover a stolen IsoMat core before her floating city freezes. With a veteran outpost keeper and a chirping drone as allies, she faces smugglers, storms, and corporate inertia. Precision, courage, and community become the tools that bring heat—and change—home.
The handrail tasted faintly of frost as Noor Al‑Basri pulled herself along the maintenance spine toward the condenser deck. Titan’s air seeped through the gasket of her mask with a sweet, solvent chill, the scent of hydrocarbons clinging to her tongue. Outside the viewport, an orange haze pressed against the glass like fogged resin. Below, the sea spread out in wrinkled sheets the color of tea with milk, and the floating city of Kayaan creaked and hummed on its lattice of basalt fiber and foamed composites.
Inside, heat coursed through the spine, a steady pulse from the reactors tied deep under the waterline. Noor slipped her gloves off and set her bare fingers on the IsoMat array. It vibrated gently, like the throat of a sleeping animal. The ceramic tiles held their temperature even under Titan’s riot of cold, and her skin read the tiny misalignments the way a musician hears a sour note.
“Two microns off,” she murmured. “You’re a stubborn grid.”
A nearby tech, broad‑shouldered with oil on his cheek, grinned around a chewstick. “You talk to machines more than you talk to people, Noor.”
“They listen,” she said, tightening the bracket and feeling the imperceptible click through her fingertips. The grid’s tone shifted a half‑shade. “See?”
She ran the diagnostic one more time. The numbers rippled across her wristpad in cool blues and greens. Good. The condenser would keep coaxing tholin from the air, collecting a slow amber snow on the vanes. It built up in sticky sheets, valuable feedstock for plastics, insulation, even flavorings for the canteen’s experimental candies. Every gram mattered.
“Shift’s done,” the tech said. “You coming topside? Clear weather. The sky’s got that copper glow.”
Noor hesitated, watching the condensation bead on the viewport. Habit pulled her back to the monitors. Duty tugged too. Then she imagined Sami waiting in the canteen, his foot tapping fast, a tray full of yeast buns growing cold. She sealed the panel and clipped her gloves to her belt.
“Clear weather it is,” she said. The corridor opened into a broad hub where gravity felt light and easy, the station’s rotation barely enough to ground a step. People drifted more than walked, shoulders brushing with quick smiles. A child in a wool cap shot past, laughing, trailing a ribbon of diagnostic tape that stuck to Noor’s boot. She peeled it away and stuck it to a pipe. It flapped like a silvery leaf.
A low moan rolled through the floor. The sea answered in long vowels, the kind of sound that made you think of distance. Noor paused and set her palm on the bulkhead again, as if she might feel a reply. Then she shook it off and headed toward the lift.