You take the hand controller. Newton’s third law is not a suggestion: push gas one way, the ship is pushed the other. You tap what feels like “down.”

The corridor stands on its head. A new axis of spin joins the old one, like adding a second hula hoop. Jax makes a noise that is not a word. A water packet becomes a comet.

“Rates increasing,” Mira says, which is adult for you made the blender faster. “You have no attitude reference. You are drawing circles with a pen you cannot see.”

Fuel ticks down in impolite little bites. Reaction wheels, the spinning disks that usually turn the ship quietly, are still unpowered; you just spent the loud fuel instead.

The controller hums in your palm, eager. Stopping feels like quitting. Quitting feels like the first smart idea you have had in a minute.

Jax, upside down again: “We can dead-stick the jets and go find a sensor. Or we can keep ‘flying it’ until the tanks are souvenirs.”