The engine bell is a throat at the back of the ship. You arm it because motion feels like a plan.

“Main engine enable,” KILO warns. “Vehicle rates not inside burn box.”

You push anyway. The shove is real: a giant palm, honest Newton. The palm does not care that your nose was still wandering. The burn writes a new orbit the way a spilled marker writes a signature.

Alarms stack. Fuel runs. The IMU tries to integrate a path that is a scribble. Jax’s laptop shows the oval of your orbit grow a weird shoulder, then a dent.

Mira cuts the engine with a word you will remember. The shove dies. Whatever you just bought, you bought it in a random store.

“We abort and rebuild attitude,” she says, very even, “or we leave that scribble on and meet it at the low point.”

Through the window, Earth’s limb looks closer. Or farther. That is the problem. You do not know.