"Don't open the door!" Rez commanded, his avatar sprinting toward the external manual shut-off. "The pressure differential will rip the suit right off you. I’m venting the room to the vacuum."
They spent the next three hours hunched over a small computer terminal. While Alex calculated the molar ratios needed for the perfect breathing mix, Rez soldered new cables. It was tedious, complex, and high-stakes—the kind of cooperation that only happens when one wrong line of code means both players wake up in respawn clones with their base in ruins.
A pipe had burst in the atmospheric room. The pressure gauge on the wall was spinning wildly into the red. On Europa, a ruptured pipe wasn't just a maintenance issue; it was a bomb.
"Oxygen at 21%," Alex said, leaning back in his chair. "Temperature a steady 20 degrees Celsius."