The capsule twisted to the side with a sudden jerk. Reilly dangled off the side of his chair. The shoulder straps chaffed his shoulders and as he tried to right himself, he was jerked in the opposite direction. The floor bucked and for just a second, Reilly thought the capsule’s chute had snapped.

“It’s the winds,” Chapel shouted. “We’re falling into a storm.”

“Is there anything you can do?” Reilly yelled as the capsule jerked again.

“We need power to stabilize and fire the retros,” Chapel yelled back. “If we make it through the winds and the retros don’t fire before we land-”

The capsule jerked back to the side, knocking the words out of Chapel’s mouth and filling the cabin with the heavy silence of implication.

If we’re lucky and land on something soft, Reilly thought. We might get out of this with a sore back and not a broken one.

“Borsh, do we know what kind of terrain we’re landing on?”

But Borsh didn’t answer. The technician didn’t even hear the question. His fingers fumbled with the console, doing his best to unscrew the computer from the bulkhead. He opened the housing just as the capsule bucked another time. Wires spilled onto his console as if Borsh had disemboweled the computer. His hands fluttered through through a mass of wire, seeking but not finding any of the power cables.

He turned to Reilly, face bleached white, arms trembling. “I can’t find any power connections.”

“Jesus Christ,” Chapel said. The clouds broke for a second showing an almost black sky underneath the heavy canopy of the clouds. The capsule’s windshield was pelted with snow that looked like confetti mixed with cement. A flash of lightning illuminated a distance mountain peak on the horizon.

“The good news,” Chapel said. “Is I don’t think we’ll need the retros.”

“And the bad?” Reilly asked, feeling his mouth grow dry.

“I don’t think this capsule is equipped with cold weather gear.”

Reilly nodded, admiring the simplicity of their options. A slow freeze on the inside. A quick freeze on the outside.

“Borsh, find us some power.”

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