An empty orbit remained where Mujin had erased the lines.
Darae watched the little point on the display. The cylinder said to contain twenty-three people was moving away from the main habitat. Nothing seemed to be pushing it, but the velocity it had gained on separation would not go away by itself.
“Hold Narae’s departure preparations.”
The port attendant read the order back. Darae tightened her grip on the handover terminal. Holding preparations sounded like holding the rescue. She had to live with the difference until Mujin spoke again.
“Change the target to S-6. Recalculate through the return flight.”
Seo began by checking Haeseong’s location again.
“All twenty-three of you, including the person speaking, are inside that module?”
“Yes. The adults divided up the count. We haven’t sent every name yet.”
Darae wrote: all residents reported evacuated. One voice she could hear and twenty-two people she had not seen went inside the same circle.
The safety officer asked when they had left the main habitat.
Haeseong paused to find his notes. Adhesive tape peeled somewhere beyond the microphone. Perhaps he kept his paper on the wall.
“We moved because the main habitat was getting hotter. Once everyone was in S-6, we closed the connecting passage. The separation warning came after that.”
“Did you initiate separation?”
“No. The emergency separation indicator came on. I photographed the fault code.”
A short packet arrived. Under each instrument photograph was a time Haeseong had written down. The instruments did not all share a clock. The Safety Office selected the entries that could be compared with the communications record.
The evacuation had happened after they sent out the faulty cartridge. As heat rejection from the main habitat fell further, they had moved into the service module. Separation had occurred during the recent gap in communications. They could not align the sequence to the second, but S-6 had not been drifting separately for days.
Darae remembered the warm insulation around 7-B. While that warmth lingered, the home at the other end of its journey had kept changing.
“Can we tell why it separated?” she asked Seo quietly.
“There’s an indication that a protection system activated. Whether a sensor was right, or a coupling failed, we’ll have to inspect up close.”
He gave Haeseong the same explanation. He did not keep the conclusions among the people who already understood the equipment.
Mujin asked whether they could reduce their rotation.
“Only small attitude corrections. We’re short of power.”
“Don’t maneuver for now. We’ll observe your present motion.”
Darae watched the point brighten and fade. Earlier it had looked like a window turning toward them. It might still be a window, but brightness alone would not give them a rotation rate.
Maru took over the channel.
“Should I send a mark every time the window frame comes around?”
Mujin checked before asking for anything.
“Can you do that without moving to the window?”
“I’m secured at the table. I can use the screen beside me.”
An adult confirmed the position. Maru sent the data, and the observation officer compared it with the external brightness changes. The module rotated more slowly than the flashing light suggested. Two surfaces reflected in turn, making the period appear half as long.
“Two flashes don’t mean two turns,” Darae said.
Mujin nodded.
“Addresses aren’t the only things that mislead.”
His hands moved over the new plan. It used the position S-6 would occupy when Narae arrived, and counted the fuel needed to match its velocity after catching up. Narae could not simply start spinning with it because the module happened to rotate.
Darae changed the destination on her cargo sheet.
She kept Sai’s main habitat in the revision history. New destination: service module S-6. Purpose: emergency life-support assistance. Final connection method: being assessed.
Changing a line took almost no time. Making a new path to the place it named took much longer.
The port attendant told her loading was on hold. She secured the cartridge box to the stopping rail. A box waiting for permission must not wait in the middle of everyone else’s work.
A small piece of sponge came out of Seo’s tool pouch. He attached it to the wall while receiving photographs of the cartridge fitting. When Darae glanced at it, he explained.
“For coolant. In space, if you wait until it’s on the floor to look for a cloth, you’ve left it too late.”
“I haven’t mentioned floors once today.”
“You’re doing well.”
Even through the joke, his eyes stayed on the specifications. Darae was glad he could smile briefly. A room full of frightened faces would not make the plan come together faster.
Jingyeong opened a fresh rescue authorization. She checked whose name would stand behind the decision to change targets. Permission to approach an unregistered habitat did not automatically extend to a detached module. The Safety Office reviewed the observations and updated the rescue target.
“Could the people go into the authorization first?” Darae asked. “The object number keeps changing.”
Jingyeong looked at the target field, then made a separate entry.
Reported persons: 23. Awaiting on-site verification. Reported location: service module S-6.
“We’ll keep both.”
They still did not know twenty-three names. At least the people would no longer disappear when someone corrected a module number.
A new call appeared on the port schedule. Bae Giwan, the interconnection transport manager. He did not ask for the whole rescue plan. He wanted to know how long Narae’s berth needed to remain vacant.
“If the return time changes, the next cargo has to wait too. We can’t tie up an empty slot indefinitely.”
Mujin looked at the screen from the pilot’s station.
“Having somewhere to dock when we return is part of the rescue plan.”
“Understood. Give me an estimated window so I can rearrange things.”
Darae stopped herself from deciding that Giwan had come to obstruct them. Other cargo might really be waiting. That did not make a rescue vessel’s return berth something to fit into a spare moment.
Jingyeong sent the return window and named the person responsible for reporting a delay. Giwan requested a record of the contractual schedule change. She said she would record only what could presently be confirmed. Paperwork must not block the rescue, but the other schedules could not be made to vanish either.
A brief interior video appeared beside the communications display. Folded blankets were tied behind Haeseong. Below them was nowhere to plant a foot. A pair of small shoes hung from a handhold, swaying slowly. The lives missing from Darae’s head-count sheet arrived first at the edge of the picture.
“We’re keeping movement down,” Haeseong said.
“Everyone must be feeling cooped up.”
“They are. But our communications apprentice reads out what’s happening.”
Beside him, Maru clearly repeated the next observation time. Giving someone a useful task was different from making them carry the risk. Watching an adult check Maru’s restraint, Darae found she could bear another unresolved box on her cargo sheet.
The second set of observations arrived. S-6’s relative motion was better constrained. Narae could not follow the route planned for the main habitat, but the module was within reach.
Mujin sent his fuel plan to the Safety Office.
Departure and approach. Relative-velocity adjustment. Withdrawal if connection failed. Return to Raon. A separate reserve.
Darae looked at the final entry.
“If we reduce the reserve, can we get there faster?”
He looked at her before answering.
“If you can promise everything will go to plan, whatever happens.”
“I can’t promise that.”
“That’s why we keep it.”
She understood that her own place aboard depended on that reserve too. They might fail to reach the module, or reach it and fail to connect. Burn their way home and they would add more people who needed help.
Seo made separate equipment lists for working inside S-6 and for delivering cargo without docking. Neither option was settled. He asked Haeseong for photographs of the interface, but did not send Maru outside. They used the drawings available indoors and whatever could be seen through a window.
A gray cover filled the photograph. One corner lay in shadow. Enlarging it did not reveal the entire fitting.
At the office, things often refused to become clear all at once. Finding an owner could wait. Here, people used air while she waited.
She opened the cargo decision deadline, then closed it again. That number could not soothe her impatience. She had kept her promise to preserve the faulty part. They had yet to measure the time its senders had left.
Haeseong sent the attitude-control consumption log. Mujin ruled out forcing the rotation to a stop. Seo explained that using more power now might reduce ventilation inside.
“Even staying still takes work,” Darae said.
“It means deciding what conditions let them keep going.”
Beyond the port window, Narae’s shield moved. The new plan was reaching the cockpit. Departure preparations resumed, but the staff did not simply pick up where they had stopped. They read back the target, expected mass, and return conditions.
Jingyeong checked Darae’s handover terminal.
“Your mass is included again. Same duties: cargo identification, restraint, and handover support. Flight decisions remain with the pilot and the Safety Office.”
“Our office insurer would be surprised to find the intake clerk flying a spacecraft.”
“Jokes are not an authorization category.”
Jingyeong sounded as she always did, but this time she turned the display toward Darae first. Conditions felt a little less cold when no one hid them until the end.
The revised plan received conditional approval. Departure would be held if uncertainty in the rotation grew again or the relative-motion observations failed to agree. The same abort conditions applied during approach.
Darae lingered over the blank life-support field. Permission to fly did not mean the people would be able to hold on until they arrived.
The communications window was nearing its end. Maru read the next scheduled transmission. Seo placed the pressure readings beside the backup sorbent canister display. One used a percentage; the units on the other number had not been confirmed.
He took the microphone.
“Next time, show us the instrument units as well as the canister reading. We’ll check the cabin air directly too.”
Before Haeseong could answer, a short warning sounded behind him.
Darae began to rise. Mujin held up a palm: wait.
Haeseong asked someone a question. When he returned, his voice was low and clear.
“It isn’t a pressure warning. The backup sorbent display just dropped by one bar.”