Forty-six hours wasn’t enough time.

  I knew it the moment RIKU said it. Knew it in my bones, in the ache of my shoulders, in the way the numbers refused to add up no matter how I calculated.

  But I also knew I didn’t have a choice.

  So I didn’t sleep.

  I worked.

  Hour one through six: reinforcement.

  The structural supports went up fast—titanium beams bolted into anchor points I’d drilled during excavation. Cross-bracing. Diagonal supports. Overhead reinforcement to prevent ceiling collapse under stress.

  The sealant compound came in tubes the size of my forearm. I loaded them into an applicator gun and worked methodically along every seam, every gap, every place water or wind could force entry.

  The compound set fast. Within minutes of application, it hardened into a polymer seal that bonded to the rock like it had always been there.

  RIKU guided me through structural calculations.

  “Increase cross-bracing at section four. Load distribution is suboptimal.”

  I added bracing.

  “Seal the ceiling junction at section seven. Water intrusion risk is elevated.”

  I sealed it.

  By hour six, the hangar’s skeleton was complete.

  Not beautiful. Not perfect.

  But solid.

  Hour seven through twelve: the door.

  This was the part I’d been dreading.

  The entrance was four meters wide and three meters high. I needed something that could seal against sustained winds over a hundred miles per hour, prevent water intrusion, maintain atmospheric pressure differential, and—critically—allow ventilation so we didn’t suffocate.

  I couldn’t fabricate a proper door in the time I had.

  But I could improvise.

  Container thirty-two held bulkhead panels—modular sections designed for habitat construction. Each panel was two meters by one meter, reinforced composite, rated for pressure differentials and impact resistance.

  I pulled six panels.

  Laid them out.

  Started cutting and fitting.

  The fabricator printed mounting brackets while I worked—custom pieces that would anchor the panels to the rock face and allow them to swing on heavy-duty hinges.

  RIKU calculated stress points.

  “Panel junction at upper-left requires additional reinforcement. Wind load will exceed tolerance.”

  I added a support strut.

  “Seal integrity at lower-right is insufficient. Recommend secondary gasket layer.”

  I installed it.

  The ventilation was trickier.

  I couldn’t just cut holes—that would compromise structural integrity. Instead, I fabricated a series of baffled vents that could allow airflow while preventing direct wind penetration.

  Each vent was a small maze—air could move through it, but momentum couldn’t build. Wind would hit the baffles and dissipate.

  I mounted them at strategic points across the door panels.

  Tested the airflow.

  It worked.

  By hour twelve, I had a door.

  Crude. Heavy. Functional.

  I test-fit it to the entrance.

  It sealed.

  Not perfectly. But close enough.

  “RIKU,” I said, breathing hard. “Will this hold?”

  “Structural analysis suggests eighty-seven percent probability of survival under projected storm conditions.”

  “That’s not a hundred.”

  “Nothing is. But it is acceptable.”

  I nodded.

  Good enough.

  Hour thirteen through twenty: moving supplies.

  This was a puzzle.

  I had forty-two containers, two vehicles, one aircraft, livestock, and equipment scattered across the bowl.

  All of it had to fit inside a space that was twenty meters wide, fifteen meters deep, and twelve meters high.

  I started with the Windwalker.

  The aircraft was the most fragile, the most valuable, and the hardest to replace. It went in first.

  I drove the hybrid utility vehicle into the hangar, positioned it against the back wall, then carefully—very carefully—maneuvered the Windwalker inside using the wrecker’s crane.

  The clearance was tight. Maybe six inches on each side.

  I set it down gently, secured it with tie-downs anchored directly into the rock, and backed the hybrid out.

  Next: the wrecker itself.

  The big vehicle barely fit through the entrance. I had to angle it, fold the crane arm, and take it slow.

  But it fit.

  Parked beside the Windwalker, it took up a third of the available floor space.

  That left containers.

  I stacked them along the walls—three high in places, using the racks I’d fabricated earlier to maximize vertical space.

  POWER. TOOLS. FOOD. MEDICAL. FABRICATION.

  Each container weighed between five hundred and two thousand pounds.

  I moved them with the wrecker’s crane. Lifted. Positioned. Secured.

  It was like playing Tetris with shipping containers while wearing a pressure suit and racing a clock.

  By hour eighteen, I’d moved thirty-eight containers inside.

  Four remained outside because there was simply no room.

  “RIKU,” I said. “The last four won’t fit.”

  “Acknowledged. Prioritize contents over containers. Transfer critical items individually.”

  Right.

  I cracked the four remaining containers and started hauling.

  Fabrication feedstock. Spare parts. Tools. Anything irreplaceable went inside, packed into gaps between containers, wedged into corners, strapped to walls.

  The containers themselves—empty metal boxes—stayed outside.

  They’d survive or they wouldn’t.

  Hour twenty-one: the animals.

  The chickens went first.

  I carried their coop inside and set it in the corner farthest from the door. They squawked the entire time but settled once they realized the space was warmer and calmer than outside.

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  The goats were harder.

  Problem head-butted me twice before I got her into the hangar. The other two followed reluctantly, suspicious of the enclosed space, testing every surface with their noses.

  I set up their pen against the north wall, reinforced it with spare panels, and filled their feeder.

  Problem immediately tried to disassemble the feeder to see how it worked.

  “I respect the curiosity,” I muttered. “But now’s not the time.”

  She ignored me.

  Hour twenty-four: the weather changed.

  I felt it before RIKU said anything.

  The wind picked up. Not dramatically. Just… shifted. The steady forty-mile-per-hour background noise that had been constant since arrival increased to fifty. Sixty.

  The temperature dropped five degrees in an hour.

  The sky darkened.

  “Taylor,” RIKU said quietly. “Barometric pressure is now nine hundred sixty-two millibars.”

  “How fast is it dropping?”

  “Four millibars per hour. Accelerating.”

  I looked at the entrance.

  At the door panels leaning against the rock, ready to install but not yet mounted.

  At the supplies still scattered outside—tarps, equipment, small items I’d been planning to grab in the final hours.

  “RIKU. How much time?”

  “Twenty hours until storm arrival. Possibly less.”

  Less than a day.

  I grabbed a ration bar, ate it while walking, and got back to work.

  Hour twenty-five through thirty: door installation.

  The panels were heavy. Each one weighed over two hundred pounds.

  I couldn’t lift them alone.

  I used the wrecker’s crane. Positioned each panel carefully at the entrance. Lined up the mounting brackets. Bolted them to the anchors I’d drilled into the rock.

  One panel. Two panels. Three.

  The door took shape—a composite wall that sealed the entrance, broken only by the baffled vents that would keep us breathing.

  The hinges were massive. Industrial. The kind designed for bulkhead doors on starships.

  I mounted them on the left side of the entrance, attached the door panels, and tested the swing.

  It moved. Heavy. Resistant. But it moved.

  I installed the locking mechanism—a series of heavy bolts that would slide into sockets drilled into the rock face and floor. Once engaged, the door wouldn’t open unless I released them from inside.

  By hour thirty, the door was functional.

  I swung it open. Swung it closed. Tested the seal.

  Air hissed slightly through gaps. Not much. But enough that I spent another hour applying sealant compound to every junction, every seam, every place the fit wasn’t perfect.

  “RIKU,” I said. “Test the seal.”

  She ran diagnostics.

  “Atmospheric integrity is ninety-four percent. Acceptable for sustained storm exposure.”

  “Good enough?”

  “Yes.”

  I stepped back and looked at it.

  A door.

  Crude. Heavy. Improvised from parts that were never meant to be a door.

  But it was real.

  And it would hold.

  Hour thirty-one: the storm arrived early.

  Not by much. Just enough to matter.

  I was outside grabbing the last few items—tarps, tie-downs, tools I’d left scattered during the scramble—when the wind jumped from sixty miles per hour to eighty in the span of ten minutes.

  The air pressure changed. My ears popped.

  The ocean went from rolling swells to chaos—white caps everywhere, waves breaking over the lower rocks, spray climbing a hundred feet into the air.

  “Taylor,” RIKU said, voice sharp. “You need to get inside. Now.”

  “I’m almost done—”

  “NOW.”

  A gust hit me hard enough that I staggered. Ninety miles per hour. Maybe more.

  I grabbed the tarp I’d been folding, left everything else, and ran for the hangar.

  The wind fought me every step.

  A piece of debris—I didn’t see what—flew past my head close enough that I felt the displacement.

  I made it to the entrance.

  Turned.

  One of the empty containers I’d left outside was moving. Not rolling. Sliding. Pushed by wind that had gone from eighty to a hundred miles per hour in the time it took me to cross the bowl.

  “RIKU—”

  “Leave it. Get inside.”

  Another gust. Hundred and ten. Maybe hundred and twenty.

  The container flipped. Tumbled. Slammed into the rock wall and crumpled like aluminum foil.

  I ducked inside the hangar.

  Turned.

  The door was still open.

  I grabbed the handle and pulled.

  It resisted—the wind was pushing against it, trying to keep it open, trying to force its way inside.

  I braced my feet and hauled.

  The door moved. Inch by inch.

  The wind screamed.

  I pulled harder.

  The door swung closed.

  I slammed the locking bolts home—one, two, three, four—metal sliding into rock with solid, final clicks.

  The sound of the wind changed.

  Muffled now. Distant. Blocked by three meters of stone and a door that weighed half a ton.

  I stood there, breathing hard, hands shaking, suit covered in dust and grime.

  Inside, the hangar was quiet.

  The vehicles sat secure. The containers were stacked and strapped. The animals were penned and calm.

  RIKU’s voice came through soft.

  “Storm onset confirmed. Sustained winds now exceeding one hundred thirty miles per hour. Gusts to one hundred sixty. This is a category four event.”

  I slid down the wall and sat on the floor.

  “We made it.”

  “Yes.”

  “We actually made it.”

  “Yes.”

  I closed my eyes.

  Outside, the storm raged.

  Inside, we were safe.