Signal Lost / Season 1, Episode 8
Quarantine's Cold Divide
The hum of the quarantine wing’s air filtration system buzzed like a trapped insect in Ben Nakamura’s ears as he leaned forward, forearms braced on the cold metal table, his reflection a ghost in the polished surface. The glass wall between him and Commander Yara Osei was spotless, clinical, a barrier that did nothing to dull the weight of her gaze. She sat straight, hands folded in her lap, the gray streaks in her hair catching the fluorescent light like frost on asphalt. Her flight suit had been swapped for a drab quarantine jumpsuit, but she wore it like a uniform, shoulders squared, every movement deliberate. Seventeen days of silence, four years of aging—or whatever the hell it was—and she still looked like she could command a ship through a black hole. That was the problem. She looked too steady. Too untouched by whatever had carved those lines into her face. “Commander,” Ben said, his voice low, scraping against the dryness in his throat. He tapped the tablet in front of him, the screen glowing with rows of telemetry data—or the lack of it. “I’ve been over the flight logs we do have. Day 94, you reported a thermal spike near Europa’s south pole. Then nothing. Signal drops. Seventeen days later, you’re back, trajectory corrected like someone flipped a switch,...