The radiator doors open with a polite clunk you feel more than hear. Infrared has no sound. The bay temperature stops its climb, thinks, and eases. KILO sounds no different, which is the point of not cooking your calculator.

“Thermal stable enough,” Okonkwo says. “You may now find out where we actually are. Not where the plan said. The plan died when the engine aborted and the thermosphere puffed.”

Mira pulls the last good state vector—position and speed at the moment KILO froze—and the IMU’s account of every shove since. Time, plus those numbers, is a new orbit if you are patient.

Jax holds up the high-gain antenna page. “We could also point the dish and ask Earth. Comms have been hash because we were a tumble dryer. Hash means the radio is a blender. A pointed antenna is a conversation. Conversations still take light-time, and the storm still eats some of the words.”