The Last Manifest

Breakwater is in pieces in a yard when Sarah Bishop inherits a problem that will not wait for repairs.

Two fused wrecks are drifting toward the approach that supplies water to nine thousand people. The clean solution needs two hulls. She has one. The other captain is entitled to say no, and does.

That is only the beginning. Across the surviving network, routes are tightening, projects are stopping and settlements are learning what it means when off-world support becomes a promise nobody can honestly make. On Westmere, a four-sheet manifest decides what leaves on ground that may not see another ordinary shipment. Under ice, work continues because stopping carries its own cost.

The final decisions of Closed Sky are not about saving everything. They are about deciding what can still be kept connected, what has to stand alone, and how to tell people the truth before the road closes.