Lock Nine

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Four percent short. Eleven lives by morning. One lock, and two people who refuse to round.

The count was wrong before the siren.

Kael Riss is twenty-eight, Mars-born, and the lock lead for the south ring of a charter colony that averages its air. Nia Calder is the Earth oxygen auditor who walks into Lock Nine with the raw count: four percent short, eleven lives by morning. When the charter moves to seal forty-two residents into the service trench, she asks him which dog to turn so she can be in breach with him, not behind him.

One night in a lock three paces by two becomes an oxygen riot, a stack fire, and a choice no one should have to make. The charter calls it an acceptable loss. Nia has nine sols before Earth recalls her, a paper trail that leads to her own director, and a lock lead she was never supposed to want.

A hopeful, hard-edged prequel novella about grief, paper records, and people who refuse to be rounded. Both leads are adults. One consensual on-page love scene. Happy for now.

Lock Nine can be read before or after Dustbound, Red Covenant Book 1.