• One... Two... Three...

    I could live with red lights. A red light meant something could be fixed, that some part, some section of the system was operational, if only to inform me that it was broken. It was the cold, dead panels that made my heart flutter in my chest. I couldn't afford the higher pulse, the higher respiration, so I chose to inventory those hopeful, glittering little red lights. Navigation, the initial electrical surge had burnt out the higher functions. It wouldn't have mattered, the engine panel was a dark sea of deadly panic.

    Twenty-One... Twenty-Two... Twenty-Three...

    Communications, I had the parts on hand to fix the high frequency radios. There was no one in range. The low frequency antennas were located over the engine casing, and now they were gone. There are situations you plan for, a thousand minor emergencies that I had checklists for dealing with. I kept them in a metal binder. I'd sealed one of the hull breaches with it, the pressure differential had been keeping it in place. At the moment, I had my left hand stretched out to do so.

    Forty-One... Forty-Two... Forty-Three...

    You always hear about the debris; old satellites, rocket parts and dropped tools. We shot enough shrapnel into orbit to dissuade any invasion, purely because we didn't know any better. It's easy to ignore, particularly when percentages are thrown around. You have a 75% chance of being struck by debris, but only a 1% chance of it causing any sort of damage. Not a problem when you're flying under a hundred missions, the chance are astronomical. Unfortunately, so are the missions.

    Sixty-One... Sixty-Two... Sixty-Three...

    The banshee's shriek of metal on metal was almost comforting, in those first few moments. Sound won't carry through a vacuum, or so they tell me. It was the persistent hiss that was a problem, hidden until I'd silenced a chorus of urgent alarms. I don't know how much air I lost in that frantic search, it was before I realized the severity of the situation. The binder was the first rigid item I could find. The appropriateness struck me after I started conserving, the bold red letters on the spine suggesting 'In Event of Emergency'

    Eighty-One... Eighty-Two... Eighty-Three...

    One of the engine cowlings drifted by the front viewport, floating serenely as the momentum of the explosion kept it rotating. There was little to no resistance out here, it would pirouette until another force eventually acted upon it. I could see the pitted marks of a dozen minor impacts across the exterior metal, each a potentially lethal situation that had been avoided by sheer dumb luck. A little more force, a slightly different angle, and I could have been here so much sooner.

    One Hundred... One-Oh-One... One-Oh-Two...

    I had a handful of green lights, their optimistic emerald hue informing me of everything I should be thankful for. The CO2 scrubbers were still operational, dutifully on guard against the a threat that had became woefully moot. I could open and close the cargo doors, and even extend the landing gear if I was so inclined. I didn't waste the energy.

    One-Twenty... One-Twenty-One...One-Twenty-Two...

    Beyond the taunting of the broken engine, Earth filled the viewport. Only at the very terminus of the glass could I see the curve of the horizon. The last time I had checked the mission timer, I was a few hours out from re-entry. The simple digital read-out was broken now, the display cracked and lifeless. My watch was analog, the second hand ticking away.

    One-Forty... One-Forty-One... One-Forty-Two...

    I counted in my head, as I surveyed the panels in front of me. It gave me something to occupy my mind, pointless busy work that calmed my pulse and gave me a steady rhythm. At first, I had used them to time my breathing. Fifteen seconds in, and fifteen seconds out. It allowed me to concentrate on trying to patch the holes, try to solve the problem.

    One-Sixty... One-Sixty-One... One-Sixty-Two...

    There's an old survival rule, the Rule of Three. You can survive three weeks without food and three days without water. Those were the two you generally had to remember. I was in no danger of running out of food, the stores survived the impact. At least one of the water tanks was intact, so that was certainly no issue. The third bit, the part that is usually added for completeness, is that you can survive three minutes without air.

    One-Seventy-Eight... One-Seventy-Nine...