His mind raced as he hurtled down the corridor, watching the timer on the remote in his hand. This was the first time he had willed a timer to go faster.

3:14

3:13

3:12

He had been plummeting for almost two minutes, and it was only by good fortune he spotted the hatch in time. He did everything in his power to slow down, kicking off one wall to rattle back and forth between the walls, scraping his hands against the smooth surface, the remote shoved back into his pack. He stopped a few feet from the hatch’s entrance, after a herculean effort. He was battered but alive. More alive than he’d ever been in his life.

Cade pushed himself out the hatch, knocking the ship gently in the process. The thing moved, drifting into space.

Panicking, Cade leaped after it, passing in through the back before it drifted out of reach. He slammed into the ceiling and set the thing spinning.

Dizzied, Cade shoved off the wall of the rotating ship, his fingertips hooking onto the chair. He managed to take a seat, looping his arms through the belt there.

The ship was dead. He knew it as soon as he sat down. The console in front of him was bereft of the dancing lights he had seen before, just plain black glass.

He tentatively pressed at it with his fingers, then his palms, then slammed his fists down in an attempt to do … something. Anything.

But instead, the ship drifted on. And shook.

Slowly at first, then more and more, until Cade’s teeth rattled in his head. Was this to be his end? Drifting into oblivion until his oxygen ran out?

It almost didn’t matter. All that mattered was that the timer hit zero. He sat there, one hand clutching the timer, another still prodding desperately along the console of the ship.

2:11

2:10

2:09

The ship shuddered, and Cade looked up. The spinning stopped, and the outside of the cockpit was flaring orange.

He had reentered the atmosphere.

Flames erupted outside the ship, flaring along the dark glassy material of the cockpit. His body pressed into the seat, at first gently, then harder and harder. His vision was filled with fire outside the ship, and he could hear a roaring that reverberated in his chest.

The pressure ramped up higher and higher, until Cade could hardly breathe. He counted down from ten. And passed out at eight.

Cade woke up falling. Still strapped into his seat, the world spinning and flipping. Blue, then yellow, blue, then yellow.

The ship was flipping, over and over. Dropping, fast. By some miracle, the Gray ship’s exterior had acted as a heat shield. He was alive. Half-dead, but alive.

But he wouldn’t be if he crashed into the ground, and they were now in the atmosphere.

Cade looked up, if you could call it that, and saw the back of the ship was still open. He undid the strap … and leaped.