The Glasswake Circuit
Five inhabited systems share a network that has begun receiving tomorrow’s distress calls.
The Circuit is a transport agreement rather than an empire. Every participating habitat maintains its own laws, but ships crossing a relay must be offered rescue, breathable air and an honest departure estimate. The Relay Assembly cannot command a planet; it can close a dangerous route and require its members to share the cost of getting stranded people home.
Now the Glasswake Relay receives distress calls eleven hours before the ships named in them depart. The predictions are specific enough to save lives and inconsistent enough to ruin them. Mara Sen wants a public experiment. The Continuity Office wants the relay isolated. Both proposals require consent from communities that depend on the next supply ship.
A council empowered to maintain passage, never to own it.
A terraced ocean city whose public transport timetable doubles as its constitution.
A new district learning to negotiate with a city that calls it temporary.
An industrial city beneath shielding ribs on a mineral-rich frontier world.
A high-rise port where observatory towers stand above a city of night workers.
Archivists who certify which version of a message actually arrived.