With his hard hat removed, the computer tech aims its light at the panel inside the vent to better be able to see what he is working on with light from a better angle. The panel opens when he keys in the combination.

Markos feels the jolt of electricity through his wrist when he plugs the diagnostic device into the panel. His short hair lifts off his scalp. The little device flickers on and off and on again.

Shaken, he pulls his hand away quickly, and backs out of the vent. His entire arm feels numb, and he’s sure he didn’t lick an old copper wire, but it certainly tastes like it.

Tiphanie and Amina swap elaborate congratulatory high-fives, with multiple extra steps.

Adah marks the task complete in the their ticket system. Their current ticket count stands at one. That’s a decent start on their very long list.

Tsim grins down at where Markos is still sitting, and then looks very concerned passed him. The computer technician tries desperately to flatten his hair, not making much progress at the attempt. Markos appears to have taken some amount of electrostatic discharge to somewhere vital. He’s not looking too great. But that isn’t what’s caught the plumber’s attention.

Tsim points into the vent, his eyes as wide as pumpkins.

Markos feels the heat just before the fire alarm begins to sound its siren call overhead. Scorch marks crawl away from the diagnostic tool. Small flames devour the detritus that litters the bottom of the vent. They escape and begin work on the fallen leaves and brittle plastic around the tree. The tops of the little flames point sharply away from the spin direction, an artifact of the gravity generation.

“Fire!” the two men shout at once. Tsim pulls Markos away from the flames before his clothing can catch. His hard hat is a lost cause. The fire’s heat cracks the glass of the head lamp’s lens, scattering the light pointed at the initial source of the flames.

Thinking quickly, Amina puts her shoulder into the swing, and her hammer smashes through the window of the pizza shop. She climbs through the crumbled safety glass, and forces her way into the restaurant. Paint cans and construction tools sit in the path between herself and the kitchen. She darts around them, moving as quickly as she can into the cramped space.

Inside the kitchen, tarps hang over the cooking equipment. It’s a crowded space, with a narrow available room to maneuver. Amina rips the tarps away, searching desperately through the abandoned cooking area.

Beneath the edge of the stove she locates her target. A small fire extinguisher hangs on a hook below the control knobs of the induction cooktop.

Refusing to let panic disorder her thoughts, she snatches the handheld extinguisher and throws herself back out of the room. Her shoulder recoils off of the cabinetry as she bounces her way through the tight space.

The sirens sing their furious chant in the tram station outside the little restaurant. The fire threatens to catch the tree itself, growing by the second. It is one of the single most dangerous things on the station.

Amina doesn’t see Tsim immediately, as she is completely focused on the task at hand.

“Remain calm and evacuate this sector.” The overhead speakers begin the prerecorded emergency statements. “You have thirty seconds to evacuate this sector.” The androgynous voice is not something Amina would consider calming. She wonders if the voice belongs to anyone in particular, and if so, whether they ever have difficulties when they’re recognized in public. She would certainly like to strangle its owner right about now.

The carpenter skids to a halt on the now melting plastic pieces around the overgrown tree. She has to chant the acronym in her head to recall the necessary steps, but it’s in there somewhere. She pulls the pin out of the extinguisher, squeezes its trigger, aims it right at the base of the fire, and attempts to pass back and forth over the flames. Centuries of progress in the development of spaceflight, faster-than-light travel, and quantum mechanics, but the humble kitchen fire extinguisher has barely changed.

The extinguisher fails to actually respond as expected. A small amount of foam fizzles from the nozzle and plops onto the floor in pathetic, depressing drips pointing a line away from where she stands.

Amina releases the trigger, shakes it as hard as she can, and then tries again. This time there is no response at all.

Now, she feels is the time to actually panic. Their 30 seconds have expired.

The floor shudders violently beneath them.

“Sector 32 has been isolated.” The androgynous voice intones. “Proceed to emergency vacuum stations. Sector 32 will be decompressed in 5 minutes.” Massive doors have closed off either end of the sector, all the way from floor 3 up above to floor 10 down in the spin. There is no longer an evacuation route to anywhere but the void of space itself. And that’s an emptiness not to be entered in a canvas work suit, no matter how stylish the blouse you wear under the coveralls may be.

Overhead, the fire suppression system engages. The tiny nozzles pop down from the inward ceiling and do nothing.

Tsim stands on the ladder, bracing himself and holding a ceiling tile as a shield between himself and appears more surprised by the absence of pressure against his makeshift shield than anything else. The station’s fire suppression system is working exactly as well as the expired canister extinguisher.

Undeterred by this setback, he passes the removed tile down to Tiphanie below. She catches it so that nobody is hit over the head with falling debris. The fire grows up the side of the tree. Tiphanie steadies the ladder when the transfer is complete.

Adah grabs Markos by an elbow and takes off at a dead run. Emergency suits should be stored in the lockers on either end of the tram station. With the luck they’ve had there will be holes in all of them, but action is much better than explosive decompression.

Fire in space is one of its greater dangers. Should the station be compromised, and the gate disrupted, the explosion involved would destroy both of the far-distant systems it connects. And Anzion is host to a second gate. A ripple effect of one gate disaster could threaten the entire network. For this reason, fires are always treated with utmost seriousness. And the cold calculus of quantifying the sum of human lives affected puts this team on the lighter side of the balance. They all know it.

The project manager skids to a halt, breaking her charge by crashing directly into the lockers holding their best possible chance at surviving the station’s fire suppression failsafe. If the reporting systems sensors do not detect that the fire has been put out within the time limit, all oxygen will be removed. There is no other choice. Their lives are not worth risking the deaths of so many millions of others.

All this she can know, academically, while still wanting very desperately to have her chance to survive perhaps given a little more hope than five minutes. The locker is built into the bulkhead. Next to its precious door, the sturdy and completely sealed wall between this sector and its neighbor prevents any easy escape.

Tenants caught in a disaster such as this would be expected to have their own emergency suits stored in easy to reach places. But said suits are not cheap. They would not have been left behind. There is no time to hunt for one either way.

Adah keys the default code, and thanks the lucky stars that it has not been changed in the last several decades. The locker pops open with a sigh.

There are three suits. There should be dozens.

Adah mentally adds a safety compliance ticket to the work list.

Tsim is busy, possibly, hopefully, desperately trying to make the terrible choice unnecessary. Adah hands one of the three to Markos. The computer technician has some of the most precious skill in the crew. He will be hardest for the station to replace if their desperate attempt fails. The mental math of who to save and who to sacrifice is a cold one, and it has to be done faster than an eye blink.

She grabs the other two suits and runs full tilt back toward the fire. Tiphanie. One of them is for the electrician. She’ll decide who else when she gets there. There is still plenty of time. This hasn’t taken very long. Adah promises herself there will be time. There has to be.

“Sector 32 will be decompressed in 1 minute.”

Tiphanie accepts the emergency suit. Markos has already donned his. Tsim, Adah decides, should get the last one. Tsim, however, cannot be deterred from his task.

The floor underneath the fire crumbles downward into the spin.

Tiphanie stops short of slipping the emergency hood over her hard hat to grab the unsteady ladder. The weakened floor support leans sharply toward the hole that’s just a few meters away. Markos forces the hood of the suit still in Adah’s hands onto the project manager’s head. Amina leaps over the fire and grabs the other side of the ladder to assist in supporting the plumber.

Adah fastens the loose suit over Tiphanie’s shoulders and pushes the hood onto her employee’s head. With this complete, she accepts Markos’ help into her own emergency vacuum suit.

A countdown from 30 seconds begins ticking from the overhead speakers. The inward, upward technicians on the critical gate components have probably long since blessed their separate closed compartment. Adah does not envy them right now. The whole sector and those next to it receive the warning alarms.

It must be awful to have to watch someone else die without being able to act in their defense at all. Amina locks eyes with her project manager across the unstable ladder.