Green Worlds

        After ten minutes of pitch darkness, amber emergency lighting glowed into sullen life.

Internal comms were dead too. That meant a trek through the Hammercross’s cluttered living space so he could complain to Admin, or at least explain why he wasn’t getting his assigned tasks done.

        The trip gave him plenty more to worry about. The main corridor, once a gleaming wonder of polished metal and information screens, was a slum now. All the walls had been opened up. Some of them were active repair sites, oil-stained crews squirrelling into the ark’s inner world to repair vital systems or salvage for parts. Elsewhere, gaps were covered over with cloth awnings and families lived in the cramped spaces behind. No matter how many people the Colonel shipped down to the world below, there were always too many scraping a living in the Hammercross’s deteriorating spaces.