Cover of Orbit of Small Mercies

Sci-Fi · Drama · Psychological

Orbit of Small Mercies

Ilya Renner

The station kept two hundred people alive and one secret.

A maintenance engineer on a decommissioned research station discovers that the life-support schedule has been rewritten to favour someone who is not on the manifest.

Reading time
6 h 32 min read
Pages
364
Language
English
Recommended
14+
4.4 · 611 readers
Watch preview Hardcover $40Digital $13
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Story world

Kestrel Station, in a decaying orbit above a planet nobody is permitted to name, ninety-one days from any help.

SurvivalBureaucracyCareSacrificeClaustrophobiaTendernessSuspense

Characters

  • Ada Moreau

    Maintenance engineer

    Knows every pipe by sound.

  • Commander Reyes

    Station lead

    Signed the rewritten schedule.

  • Passenger Zero

    Unlisted

    Consumes air for two.

Timeline

  1. Day 1

    Decommissioning begins.

  2. Day 44

    Ada notices the schedule drift.

  3. Day 91

    The last window for rescue closes.

Preview

A fifteen-second trailer, then the opening pages as they were first printed.

Trailer coming soon

The reading preview is below

Opening pages

Air is an argument you can only lose once.

Ada read the schedule three times before she let herself understand it.

End of preview

Soundtrack

  1. 01Slow Decay
  2. 02Ninety-One Days
  3. 03Small Mercies

Reader reviews

  • “Quiet science fiction that trusts its reader.”

    Kim H.

  • “The final decision wrecked me.”

    Tomas E.