Skin in the Game

Eight months in a tin can. Two lonely scouts. One malfunction that strips away everything but skin. Commander Kira Lin and Navigator Wolfgang DuBois have spent their tour in the Explorer Corps maintaining a careful, professional distance. Their emails are clipped, their cockpit conversation is all telemetry, and their pasts are locked away. They are the desperate, the broken, the ones who fled the Core worlds to the edge of the galaxy.
When a catastrophic suit failure forces them to crash-land on an unmapped alien world, the emergency leaves them naked, burned, and with a grim medical directive: no clothing for 48 hours. Their backup suits are fried, the replicator can't print fabric, and the only way to repair their ship is to work side-by-side in the open air of a purple-ochre planet, with nothing left to hide behind. As they weld, calibrate, and cook ration paste under twin suns, the armour of rank and uniform dissolves.
The shared labour becomes a slow, inevitable collision of skin, sweat, and the terrifying freedom of being truly seen. Skin in the Game is a slow-burn science fiction romance about two survivors who learn that the most dangerous variable isn't the atmosphere or the gravity - it's the human heart. Includes: Explicit verbal and non-verbal consent, neurodivergent-friendly sensory detail, forced proximity, body positivity (ordinary, un-airbrushed bodies), trauma backstories (exploitation, healing), and a love story that saves the ship.
No protocols out here. Wordcount: 15, 910