Episode 00 — No Oxygen, No Problem
“Most days, the Drift’s just black and quiet — ‘cept for the idiots who think it’s home.
We ain’t heroes, saints, or even honest smugglers.
We’re the crew of the Wayward Sun — which means if something’s breakin’, we’re fixin’ it too late.”
— Captain Ryker Skot
The Drift had a way of swallowing noise.
Outside the hull of the Wayward Sun, silence reigned—black, infinite, and patient. There was no up or down, no wind, no stars that stayed in one place long enough to guide by. Just a slow crawl through ancient wreckage and magnetic ghosts.
Inside, the ship was dying. Again.
Red emergency lights pulsed down the narrow corridor, casting harsh, arterial shadows across the walls. Every second pulse brought another hiss of venting pressure, a metallic groan from somewhere deeper in the ship's ribs. It sounded like something alive and pissed off.
Juno Kestrel was already waist-deep in the main scrubber housing, a wrench clenched between her teeth and her arms buried in a tangle of corroded pipes.
“Captain!” she shouted over the din, voice hoarse. “Scrubber’s down again! CO₂ levels are climbing faster than Cassian’s nerves!”
From the bridge, a voice fired back—sharp and defensive.
“My nerves are perfectly—okay, that’s fair.”
Juno didn’t bother to smirk. Her breath was getting tight in her chest, and the air had started to taste like pennies.
Captain Ryker Skot stumbled onto the bridge, half-dressed and already exhausted. His boots were unlaced, his flight jacket thrown over a shoulder like a half-forgotten memory. He carried a dented tin coffee mug that proudly read WORLD’S BEST MISTAKE, sloshing lukewarm brown sludge as he moved.
His hair stood up in wild black spikes. His eyes were sharp, tired, and too used to disappointment.
“MAV,” he said, voice dry and quiet.
“Oxygen reclamation at nineteen percent efficiency. Air composition trending toward nostalgia.”
Ryker blinked. “Meaning?”
“You will shortly be remembering how nice breathing used to be.”
He sipped his coffee. It tasted like carbon scoring and regret.
Outside the viewport, the Drift spread wide and formless. A scattered graveyard of failed empires and forgotten wars. The Wayward Sun moved through it like a scavenger on its last leg—engines humming irregularly, hull patched with mismatched plating and welded-on luck.
In the engine bay, Juno cursed, shoved a rusted panel aside, and yanked a thin pipe free with a hiss and a metallic clank.
“Found the problem!” she yelled.
Ryker tapped the intercom. “Can you fix it?”
Juno spat out the wrench. “If I had the part.”
“You don’t have the part.”
She glared at the scrubber like she could punch it into compliance. “Not yet.”
Without hesitation, she reached for the nearest vaguely cylindrical object—a thermos half-buried beneath a coil of wire.
Cassian’s voice floated in again, skeptical. “Is that my—”
“Not anymore,” she muttered, and jammed it into place.
“Captain, pressure levels stabilizing. Marginally.”
Ryker raised an eyebrow. “Define marginally.”
“In the sense that they are not currently getting worse.”
The hum of the ship had changed. Subtle, but wrong.
“MAV, run diagnostics.”
“Running. Preliminary result: you are correct, Captain.”
“I hate it when you sound surprised.”
Cassian glanced up from the console. “Captain, something’s trailing us.”
“Pirates?”
“No heat sig. No transponder.”
“Correction: fragmented metal mass, approximately six hundred meters in length. Composition… unknown. Non-human manufacture.”
“Null wreck?” Juno asked quietly through comms.
The bridge fell into silence.
The Null
Whispers in the dark. Derelict fleets from an old war—AI constructs left to rot, still trying to fulfill a mandate no one remembered. In the Drift, they were legends told through cold teeth: killers, guardians, and scavengers that didn’t know they were dead.
“Distance?” Ryker asked.
“Two klicks and closing. No active power signature, but they are emitting scan bursts consistent with biosignature sweeps.”
“Then we’re not here,” Ryker said. “Kill all lights. MAV, silence the transponder. Juno, shut the bleed valves.”
“I will pretend we do not exist. It’s one of my better impressions.”
The ship died. And drifted.
The Null ship passed close — a jagged shape cobbled from lost battleships and derelict stations. Its skin shimmered with blue glyphs that didn’t blink — they watched. A searchlight beamed out, bright and slow.
It swept across the Wayward Sun. Hung there.
Then moved on.
Cassian exhaled. “We’re good?”
“If we’re talking alive,” Ryker said, “sure.”
Juno: “If we’re talking lucky, we just used all of it.”
“Repressurization at forty-three percent. I recommend gratitude.”
“Add it to the list,” Ryker muttered. “Somewhere below caffeine.”
Juno patched the duct. “Next time, we replace the filters before flirting with death.”
Ryker grinned. “Can’t. Death flirts back better.”
“You think anyone else is as unlucky as us?” Cassian asked.
“If they were,” Ryker said, “they’re not around to brag.”
Galley Deck — 02:36 Standard Drift Time
The coffee tasted like someone reused the filters six times too many. But it was hot. It helped.
Cassian leaned against the wall. “That wasn’t pirates.”
Juno: “Way worse.”
“Worse has personality,” Ryker said. “Keeps things interesting.”
“Captain,” MAV said quietly. “Might I suggest a motto for our continued operations?”
Ryker sipped. “Let’s hear it.”
“No oxygen, no problem.”
Ryker laughed. “Fine. Paint it on the hull.”
Mugs clinked together in toast.
Outside, the Drift swallowed the ship’s light. Somewhere, deep in the static, something listened.
Add a closing hook or “Next time…” teaser here if you like.