The Air Recycler Has Stopped

Four hundred kilometers above the ground, the maintenance log of Shirabe Station is written up every day in the crew chief's hand. Only the last page stops midway.

• Crew rotation day: One new hire arrived. Top marks in the pool training, but first time in zero gravity, and a habit of following floating tools with the eyes. Assigned the empty bunk in Section One
• Day five: Watanuki was asleep, floating in the Section Two corridor. That makes three times. Her hands were already moving before I woke her. The radiator plumbing is done
• Day six: Received a message from the ground through Fushimi. Not sharing the contents with the crew. Supply ship Isari arrives in three days as scheduled
• Day seven: Section Three, the circulation pump in the air recycler burned out. No spare parts. The reserve oxygen will last

That is where the log breaks off. You are the one written down as "the new hire," and until this morning you did not know that the chief had been writing about you every day in her own hand.

Three days until the supply ship Isari arrives. Before then, repair the air recycler in Section Three, and meet the ship at the port together with the other three.
If you cannot fix it, the reserve oxygen runs out before the ship comes.

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🛰 A Station of Three, Plus One Rookie

Orbital Maintenance Station Shirabe is a long, narrow facility for servicing communication satellites and debris collectors in orbit, four sections linked in a row. Its only permanent residents are the three members of the maintenance crew. All contact with the ground goes through the comms room in Section Four, and the supply ship comes only once every three months. The air recycler in Section Three makes every breath of air in the place.

🔧 The Chief, the Sleeping Mechanic, and the Voice on the Radio

Tsuzuki Shiori / Twenty-three, maintenance crew chief
She always spreads out the blueprints before giving an order. She does not sleep until her crew does, and on spacewalks she never sends the rookie out ahead of herself. The sealed letter that came up from the ground a week ago, she has shown to no one yet. She will call you by your name only after she has paired with you outside the station once.

Watanuki Rui / Twenty, mechanic
She can only sleep in zero gravity. She dozes floating in corridors and tool lockers, and when you wake her, her hands move first and are tightening pipes before the rest of her is up. For all the sleepiness in her voice, she repairs things faster than anyone, and when someone brings up going back to the ground she suddenly starts talking fast.

Fushimi Momiji / Twenty-seven, communications officer
Every line to the ground runs through her. Over the radio she teases you by calling you the rookie, and when you step into the comms room she suddenly hides whatever is in her hands. She was the first to read the letter addressed to the chief, and she has not told the chief that she read it.

📜 How to Play

Three chapters. Each day, the remaining oxygen and what you have repaired appear in the status panel. Which section to fix first, who to go outside with, what to report to the ground: you decide every time. Repairs, spacewalks, and calculations call for dice rolls. Fail, and you lose oxygen and time; succeed, and someone on the crew changes what they call you.

Shiori calls you by name once you have read through the blueprints with her. Rui does it when you grab a tool before she can. Momiji is decided by how many times you open the comms room door. No affection numbers are shown.