You let go of the controller as if it had a temperature. The jets quit. The ship keeps whatever extra spin you gifted it, but at least the gift has stopped growing.

“Better,” Mira says. “Worse than this morning. Better than your sequel.”

You still need a direction. Without a reference, “up” is a rumor. KILO—if KILO is even up—cannot turn a wheel until it knows where the Sun is, or where the gyros think you have been.

Jax taps two dead tiles. “Sun sensors are dumb and honest. Star tracker is smart and currently a liar. IMU is the counting-in-the-dark one.”

A proton pop makes a sparkle in the corner of a still-live camera thumbnail. It looks like a star. It is a particle punching a pixel.

The hand controller drifts on its cord, innocent. You do not take it. You take a breath that still has a job to do.