Surviving IY98k With Seven Minutes of Oxygen, An Augmented Soldier's Story
Sam was never supposed to survive IY98k.
The Commonwealth says the battle was a total loss. Every soldier dead. Casualties processed, death benefits paid, families notified. On a toxic moon orbiting a gas giant, the war machine moved on without looking back. But Sam wakes alone in a trench full of bodies, his armor cracked, his air running out, and his only companion an AI that is far too honest about their chances.
Raised on a station owned by a corporation that charged his family for air, water, food, and the privilege of staying alive, Sam enlisted to buy them a way out. The Commonwealth promised real credits and a future not measured in company scrip. What it delivered was a battlefield where command failed, systems lied, and survival meant stripping the dead and making choices no one would ever thank him for.
As Sam searches for supplies and a way off IY98k, he learns that being written off as dead has consequences far beyond the battlefield. Back home, his parents grieve and rebuild. A new child is born in his absence. A life continues without him. And Sam must decide who he is when the institutions that owned his body, his labor, and his death no longer have a claim on him.
Surviving IY98k is a cyberpunk noir military science fiction story about institutional cruelty, economic traps, and the slow, hard work of becoming human after the system has already cashed you out.
The Commonwealth says the battle was a total loss. Every soldier dead. Casualties processed, death benefits paid, families notified. On a toxic moon orbiting a gas giant, the war machine moved on without looking back. But Sam wakes alone in a trench full of bodies, his armor cracked, his air running out, and his only companion an AI that is far too honest about their chances.
Raised on a station owned by a corporation that charged his family for air, water, food, and the privilege of staying alive, Sam enlisted to buy them a way out. The Commonwealth promised real credits and a future not measured in company scrip. What it delivered was a battlefield where command failed, systems lied, and survival meant stripping the dead and making choices no one would ever thank him for.
As Sam searches for supplies and a way off IY98k, he learns that being written off as dead has consequences far beyond the battlefield. Back home, his parents grieve and rebuild. A new child is born in his absence. A life continues without him. And Sam must decide who he is when the institutions that owned his body, his labor, and his death no longer have a claim on him.
Surviving IY98k is a cyberpunk noir military science fiction story about institutional cruelty, economic traps, and the slow, hard work of becoming human after the system has already cashed you out.