the narrative style here is interesting — it feels very terse, mostly a brief sentence at a time, but it also seems to work for what this story is doing. the narrative crams a lot of worldbuilding and development into a relatively short time, but if it were significantly longer, it could easily get lost in the weeds and detract from the real theme? i think you've hit a surprising sweet spot here
i admit i did some yelling at the screen every time eric's programming career allowed him to hack advanced alien technology or somesuch, but that's the kind of yelling i enjoy doing, so that works out honestly
but i enjoyed this! a brief jaunt through an unfamiliar universe, and high stakes that never take themselves too seriously.
PS: there seems to be a running theme wherein the background accidentally makes eric look three feet tall. i assume you're using stock photos here and have to kinda take what you can get, and also it's really funny, so please do not fix it