Romy blinked in disbelief as they rolled beneath Orbito One and past it. As she watched, the station became smaller and smaller.

“No, no, no!” Elara cried. “The thrusters won’t turn on!” She was jabbing buttons and flicking switches in a blur of her suited hands.

They needed to go back!

Phobos was trying his best to calm her. “It’s okay, Ellie. We’ll just orbit until we get picked up.”

But Romy was busy watching their declining altitude towards Earth. The battler would only stay in orbit above a certain height. Thrym’s last action with the thrusters was to jet them downwards. Given enough distance they would eventually lose the added velocity and get caught up in orbit.

But. . . .

“What’s the lowest height we can go to before we exit orbit and plummet to Earth?” Romy whispered, not daring to take her eyes off the altitude gauge—currently showing 248 kilometres.

“One hundred sixty kilometres, and then air resistance will override orbital velocity,” Phobos replied, tone grim. He was already following Romy’s thought process.

“And then?”

“Then we get pulled into Earth’s atmosphere, possibly disintegrate, and die,” he finished.

“That’s what I was afraid of.” She swallowed a dry lump in her throat. “Thrym, what’s our velocity?”

He didn’t have to reply because everyone was looking through the window and knew the battler was moving fast. Too fast.

“One hundred ninety five kilometres,” Deimos said. “We ain’t stopping in time, guys. Let’s run Earth Protocol. Wait, is this thing even capable of entering the atmospheric layer?”

“Yes,” responded Elara instantly. “We’re equipped with parachutes. But we sustained enough damage to cause thruster failure. I don’t know what other damages we might have incurred. If there is any external damage to the wings, gas could make its way in. . . .”

“And?” he asked.

“And we die,” she shouted into our helmets. “What do you think, Deimos? How am I supposed to do any damn protocol with a broken ship? We’re supposed to contact the Orbitos and, and then coast along in orbit until we’re picked up.” She muttered her way through the protocol. “And if we fall, then we . . . we drop any extra load.”

“Please don’t throw me out,” Deimos begged.

“. . . brace and open the chutes before landing, using the landing engines to do the rest,” Elara declared triumphantly. She stared at the controls for a few seconds. “We don’t have any landing engines!”

Phobos attempted to soothe her from his position behind Romy.

She ignored them, unable to take her eyes from panel above her. 172 kilometres. She was frozen, unable to take her gaze from the gauge, barely able to breathe as various forces decided their fate—to die, or to live.

“Velocity is dropping fast.” Thrym flicked a series of switches. “We just need one damn thruster to work.”

“I’ve tried everything I can think of.” Elara fell into a panic.