Sam was never supposed to survive IY98k.
The Commonwealth says the battle was a total loss. Every soldier dead. Casualties processed, death benefits paid, families notified. On a toxic moon orbiting a gas giant, the war machine moved on without looking back. But Sam wakes alone in a trench full of bodies, his armor cracked, his air running out, and his only companion an AI that is far too honest about their chances.
Raised on a station owned by a corporation that charged his family for air, water, food, and the privilege of staying alive, Sam enlisted to buy them a way out. The Commonwealth promised real credits and a future not measured in company scrip. What it delivered was a battlefield where command failed, systems lied, and survival meant stripping the dead and making choices no one would ever thank him for.
As Sam searches for supplies and a way off IY98k, he learns that being written off as dead has consequences far beyond the battlefield. Back home, his parents grieve and rebuild. A new child is born in his absence. A life continues without him. And Sam must decide who he is when the institutions that owned his body, his labor, and his death no longer have a claim on him.
Surviving IY98k is a cyberpunk noir military science fiction story about institutional cruelty, economic traps, and the slow, hard work of becoming human after the system has already cashed you out.