— 22 Hours Remain —
“So you really almost fell into space?” Two asked, cuddled up close to Five on her bed, who had finally just awoken from her exhaustion to recount her tale. Two didn’t want to let the larger girl go ever again after she had been presumed dead for a full day. The girls were sealed back into the physics lab, their contained fragile atmosphere hopefully not too damaged by the brief excursion to the hallway.
“Don’t remind me.” Five mumbled, a haunted expression on her face as she relived her near-death experience once again. “I never want to see space again. I’m so glad we’re going to be on Earth in a day. Can’t happen soon enough. Sorry about life support by the way.”
“Did that happen while you were out too?” Three asked, checking the bandages she’d put on Five’s hands. She had bruised and cut up the appendages more than a little bit in her frantic power tool building frenzy.
“Must have. My best guess is the snapped cable whipped into it.” she sighed, closing her eyes and looking down grimly “I should’ve been more careful, kept better track of my tether.”
“It’s okay. We figured it out. We have enough air to get us there now.” Two reassured her, even though she was pretty uncertain how much breathable air they had left herself. “I’m just glad you’re safe. I thought you were really gone, you know?”
“Told you I’d make it back no matter what.” Five smiled triumphantly “I’m not about to let something like suffocation make a liar out of me.”
“Haha, shut up.” Two laughed, her eyes tearing up, overjoyed to have her friend back.
“Explains our ‘leak’ too.” Three noted “I was accounting for three people on the station, not four. We ran out of air faster because Five was still here.”
“There’s probably some more pressurized atmosphere mix trapped in the pipes.” Five noted “It would have sealed itself off from life support when the leak started. Might let us hold out a little longer if we break into it. Won’t be hard.”
“That’s good, because I’m not sure if our homemade stuff would work for all of us until landing.” Three said as she looked over to the last of the cannisters from EVA sitting by the hatch. She figured it was about time to open it, and she stood up to do so “It’s going to be close. We might come out of this gasping for what is hopefully clean air on the surface, but we should be able to make it.”
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“You mean if we survive crashing into the land?” Five muttered “And don’t get crushed by the station itself?”
“Or land in water.” Two added “I doubt this place is made to float.”
“Drowning would be pretty ironic if we came this far.” Five scoffed “Do we have any idea on what sort of environment we’re landing in?”
“No idea. We haven’t been to the helm in awhile, so none of us checked the terminal.” Three admitted.
Five realized then why her distress signal was never picked up “Girls, you could just patch into it with the slate, it’s all part of the same system.”
Two and Three looked at each other with surprised expressions and then back to Five “I… hadn’t thought of that.” Three admitted.
“We’ve been busy…” Two spouted out for her excuse.
“Glad you won’t miss the fire.” Seven muttered as she crawled up next to Five.
Five looked down at the girl with pity “She hasn’t started feeling better yet, has she?”
Three shook her head “I’m not sure if she’s ever going to.” she sighed as she pulled her slate out, handing it to Five “Here, you can use mine.”
Five took the slate and started to click around at it before it started to glow red just like the helm terminal. “Eugh… I forgot how few details were in this. Can’t really predict our landing anyway I guess. I guess they just took a guess. There’s no way they’d know the topography of the planet this far into the future.”
“It’s not like we could change our course anyway.” Two shrugged “Wherever we land is where we’re going to land.”
“And be reborn.” Seven concluded.
—
— 4 Hours Remain —
The girls had spent their last day aboard the space station reminiscing about their adventures together on the Last Stand. They relived the good and the bad and tried to keep each other in good spirits as the appointed hour drew closer and closer. Five had punctured a hole in a pipe in the access hatch, letting the trapped oxygen mix spill out into their room, giving them the much needed last burst of air they would be getting. The bottom of the hatch was filled with the hastily discarded gas cannisters. They had to go somewhere where they wouldn’t barrel around and possibly hit them during the descent, after all.
The preparations were done. They’d done everything that they could, and they were still there, mostly whole, and most importantly, together.
Seven had already managed to strap herself into the bed somehow, and when Three went to look her over, she had done it completely right. Seven simply commented that it was comfortable, so the others left her to do as she wished.
They had all slept at least a little bit, and were awake enough to be alert for the descent. It wouldn’t be long until they either died a horrible fiery death at the hands of gravity or by some miracle arrived safely on the planet’s surface.