Jason felt the barrier network collapse as if someone had cut a taut string inside his chest.
The sensation was immediate and unmistakable. Every layered working he had anchored across the settlement and its approaches—containment lines, early-warning lattices, residual suppression fields—went slack at once.
The extreme freezing habitat the higher ice presence had imposed earlier had not merely damaged the structure. It had erased the environmental conditions the barrier required to remain coherent. In a single spreading wave, months of careful preparation in this sector ceased to exist.
Urgency spiked hard.
