My new favorite place became the space center. I was present for every launch, every return trip, and I would bring home books from the center’s library, technical diagrams of spacecraft and our star system, and bury myself in them for days. I didn’t have any friends, but I didn’t need them. All I needed were my books, and the obsession even enabled my father to convince me to attend schooling. My lack of a social life helped; I mastered physics and mathematics, and I spent every minute of my spare time in the library. This was something I was good at.

The moment I graduated, I immediately began volunteer work at the space center. It essentially became my new home, and after Father and Grandmother passed, nothing held me back. The space program was my life. Administrator Teyin took me under, personally, earning me the nickname Teyin’s Girl. I dedicated my life to the cause, even as the space program drew ridicule. Protests were not uncommon, and politicians frequently threatened to slash funding; and sometimes, they did. What we were doing was not particularly popular– the money could be used elsewhere, was the common complaint. With how shaky funding was, we were only able to do what we did thanks to the leftover missiles and antimatter bombs from before the war. The technology to repurpose them into launch vehicles kept the program afloat for those tumultuous years, until asteroid mining was achieved, and at last we could achieve some modicum of self-sufficiency.

It was around this time that the old Hope probes’ transmissions reached us. For the first time that I could recall, there was public enthusiasm for space travel. When it was announced that a fleet of crewed ships would depart for this planet, we were met with support, and even extensive funding from the governments. We used everything we had learned, and the technology that had been used to ravage our world was now being used to create the most powerful engines to ever be built, rivalling even what came before the war. Something that could propel a crewed spacecraft to more than a quarter of the speed of light; and I helped to build it.

/////

Commander Riys was determined to save the ship, 3 dead engines or not. 6 hours had passed since our craft became dead in the water, and Riys had gathered every lead engineer to discuss what could be done to save the mission.

"Aiyin, your mass report?"

The structure engineer spoke, "As you know, three engines are not enough to decelerate us with the mass we are carrying; however, that doesn't mean we can't do anything to save this."

"Go on, you have our attention," Riys told him.

"Right well, we can shed weight. The heaviest parts of the ship are the reactors and the cargo. One reactor is dead weight anyway, so removing that is obvious. As for our cargo-"

"You can't mean…," the HabSys engineer, Ujinke interjected. "We need that cargo for the surface operations! We can't dump that, the crew needs shelter and a pressurized environment to ensure a safe medical transition to the planet's biosphere, we can't just slither out onto the planet without-"

"Ujinke, if we don't drop that cargo, we won't be getting to the planet at all. It accounts for nearly 15% of the ship's total weight, if we remove that we'll be light enough to perform the engine burn at this lower engine capacity!"

"No we won't…" I spoke up. Everyone started looking at me.

"Yunda? You're the Reactor Engineer, do you have something to add?"

I swallowed a lump in my throat. "I… went over the engine and reactor data that was recorded just before it blew. There's a flaw in the engine design, something we never caught."

"You know why it went out?"

"I… I think so, yes. Reactor 2 is situated behind Reactor 1, because of its position, pipes from R1 have to go around its tank to reach the engines, and the thermal insulation there is thinner as a result."

The others seemed to catch on to what I was saying.

"Just before the reactor blew, the engines increased their thrust for a few moments, before they shut off," I continued. "I think… I think that after years of inadequate shielding, thermal cycling allowed for the engine fuel valves to expand, allowing more fuel than safely acceptable into the engines. That caused the increase in thrust… and the subsequent pressure overload in the reactor."

"That's… good to know, but why does that mean the ship won't be light enough?"

I answered him, "as it stands now, the remaining engines are still functional, with minimal damage. However… attempting to fire them at full power, for the several months an orbital insertion burn would take…"

"Would risk another breakdown," Riys finished.

"Exactly… and we absolutely cannot afford to lose another engine."

Riys turned back to Aiyin, "is there any more mass we can lose?"

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"Not without significant risks to structural stability and crew safety. The only remaining things would be the shuttles and satellites, and those don't weigh enough to justify removing them…"

"Remove them anyway, and keep only one shuttle. We'll ferry it back and forth to get everyone off the ship."

"S-sir! The satellites I understand but… if anything happens to that shuttle, we'll be stranded in orbit! Please reconsider!"

"... drop everything but the two shuttles. The moment we need to drop more weight, one of the shuttles is getting jettisoned. Do you understand?"

"Yes sir…"

"Good. Is there anything else we can do?"

"I have something, Commander," answered Ginil, the Navigator.

"Well, what is it?"

"Currently, our flight plan has us flying within range of the outermost gas planet in this star system. I believe… we could perform a gravity assist."

"Is that alone enough to reduce our velocity?"

"No… but that's not all."

He laid out a large paper sheet with the star system mapped out, including the individual planets' positions and orbital paths. “I’ve… been mapping something out.” He pointed to the 8th and outermost planet.

"This planet… we'll call it Little Blue, it would only take a small maneuvering burn to enter its gravity well. We wouldn't be anywhere near slow enough to enter orbit, and it isn't massive enough to slow our velocity to safe levels, but…"

He drew a line from our current path, to Little Blue where it caused the line to curve, and continue very close to another planet. The 5th one.

"It could change our direction, and put us on a path to the largest planet in the system. We'll call it Big Brown. Combined with a burn at periapsis, it would slow us down significantly."

"What are you talking about?" Objected Aiyin. "Sure, it'd slow us down, but a gravity assist still wouldn't be anywhere near enough to-"

"When did I say it would just be a gravity assist?" Ginil replied.

Just about everyone looked at him, puzzled.

"No… you don't mean…"

"We'd aerobrake."

"Out of the question!" I shouted. "The engines are fragile enough as it is! What do you think passing them through a planet's atmosphere will do to them!?"

"We'll only skim the atmosphere. Big Brown is huge, easily the largest planet here. Even just along the upper edges of its atmosphere, We'd be there long enough for it to take a significant amount of our speed without putting too much strain on the ship. Combined with an engine burn, I believe it would slow us down enough to make a safe coast to our destination."

I hated this idea. These things are fragile! But… if this was the only way…

"Ginil…," I shakily spoke. "You know, that if the remaining engines break, even just one of them, that everyone on this ship is doomed."

"I know."

"Do you… do you really think this is the only way?"

"Unless you want to push the engines past what they can handle, and risk another breakdown, then yes. This is the only way."

I swallowed.

"Okay."

"It's settled then," announced Riys. "First order of business is removing Reactor 2 and powering Reactor 1 back online so we have power. Then we need to scavenge any useful materials we can from the cargo before we jettison it."

"We could take the canvas used for the inflatable habs to cover the exposed sections of reactor and engines!" Shouted Ujinke.

"There's one more thing too," Aiyin added. "During our structural EVA examination, we found that the long range antenna had been heavily damaged, and repair is unlikely. However, we believe we could remove the surface habitats antenna array and use that; it's still stowed away in the cargo vehicles. We could install it to the ship's hull since we won't be needing the habs anymore."

"Good ideas, both of you. From there we will determine the best way to handle our maneuvering burns. Get ready to suit up, you'll be pre-breathing this time, you're going to be out there for a while."

/////

The bright light of the cutting torch disappeared as I closed the valve shut for the final time, clipping the tool to my backpack.

"Starboard truss connections are fully severed," I said over the radio.

"Copy. B team?"

"Thermal blankets are installed on Reactor 1. All connections to and from Reactor 2 have been sealed or rerouted, and Surface Hab Antenna has been installed to the zenith exterior."

"C team?"

"Separator motors are installed on Reactor 2's housing. We are ready for R2 and cargo jettison."

"All teams ingress now."

Interstellar space had a certain unnerving quality to it. In a star system, the light of the sun would dominate the surroundings with its unfiltered rays. But here, the destination star was still small, and barely provided any illumination, most of which was blocked by the ship itself. The result was total darkness, and an endless expanse of stars. One of them was our home sun, too small, too weak, and too far to even be visible. Perhaps it was poetic; we were leaving behind our birthplace, forever, to embrace a new home, and never look back. I shook the melancholy from my mind, and made my way to the airlock, my helmet lights keeping the path illuminated.

About half the current shift of crew had been outside, ensuring a quick and successful operation, and it took us several hours to get back inside and take off our suits. With the hatches sealed, I slipped out of the rear entry. We had been outside for so long that I had felt sores from a poorly fitted part of the suit, and I would need a shower.

Once we were all inside, me and the rest of the team leaders entered the ship's command center. The software team readied themselves and began. "Jettisoning R2 now,” one said.

A series of switches were flipped, and a light thud could be heard as the separator motors ignited. "Separation confirmed. No debris. Powering on R1 now."

There was a delay, but the slow hum of the reactor filled the vessel, and finally the bright white lights of the ship returned as primary power returned.

Celebration permeated the whole ship, shouts of joy as the operation had worked. Our ship had power again.

/////

The centrifuge was still powered down, leaving us without gravity. It was decided that it would be safer for the ship to have as few moving parts as possible until we entered orbit, the commander didn't want to risk any further problems. I understood that, but it didn't make trying to clean oneself in zero-gravity any less annoying. I had gotten accustomed to gravity, be it through the engine or by the centrifuge, and a sponge bath is simply not the same as a proper shower.

As I scrubbed my scales of oils and lubricant, my mind began to wander again. Even with the successful removal of our ship’s dead weight, we were a severely crippled ship coasting through space in an alien star system. By now the cargo had been removed as well, and our ship was 30% lighter, and all we could do was hope that Ginin's aerobrake maneuver wouldn't get us all killed.

I could not help but feel a pang of guilt. I helped design those engines… I was the primary technician for my crew group; I should have foreseen this, or at least paid closer attention to their performance. If there was any sign, any at all, that could have warned to this…

The small mirror in the bunk reflected my viasage at me, and for a moment, I saw just a child. A girl who loved space and went in too deep, desperate to prove herself, not just… Teyin's Girl. Those yellow and white scales, full of ambition, but also…

Fear. Fear of messing up, of losing the trust of those I cared about, the people relying on me pulling my weight out here.

What matters is how we move forward. There wasn’t anything you could have done…

I looked out the window, and saw the blue gas giant, Little Blue. We'd soon be entering its gravity well. There was no turning back now.