As the Arctic-Freezer slowly drifted through space, Winter did her very best to bring as many of the damaged ships systems back online as possible. running through the damaged systems and gathering information on what was working and what wasn't. Luckily there were still a few escape pods left inside the ship, aswell as a few working generators. Unfortunately that wouldn't matter if she couldn't get the few maneuvering thrusters that were still attached to the ship to function, because if she cant make them work, the ship will fall into the atmosphere. Turns out the alien survivor/intruder hit its head hard, although the fact that it was super weak for some reason didn't help its case.

Minutes turned to hours, as the ship drifted towards the planet Winter began to panic a little. If the creature didn't wake up soon they wouldn't be able to abandon ship in time. If the creature didn't wake up in time their only chance was the maneuvering thrusters that STILL refused to function. Suddenly she was pinged by the sensor array that she had ordered to scan the planet, thankfully the planet had a survivable atmosphere. but that was the only good news, The day and night cycle was perfect, to perfect. It was as if something on the ground was controlling the sun and moon, which was physically impossible, granted the UNSC has come across many things that seemed physically impossible. One such instance was their arrival here in the first place, the star system and the constellations around it seemed to constantly be changing, never staying one way or another. It defied all logic and yet it seemed so graceful, either way their location didn't match ANY of her star charts.

After she finished scanning over the information from the Sensor Array, Winter returned to restoring as many systems as possible. Eventually after minutes of combing over the Systems she had managed to completely restore the life support systems, Pressurizing most areas in the ship. But just than something happened that filled her core with dread, with a loud POP one of the 2 remaining generators exploded into a shower of blue sparks and red flames, quickly venting the room to put out the fires and keep the little oxygen they had from burning away Winter was filled with dread as the few remaining systems lost power. Turns out the load on the 2 little generators were too much for them to handle. quickly shutting down everything accept life support, door controls, and her own systems, Winter managed to reduce the load on the remaining generator to something it can handle, but only barely.

Winter relocated her floating crystal form back to the console in the Cryobay, and in a panicked voice she called out to the creature " wake up fluffball, we're running out of time, and fast! come on! we need to get out of here!" on the outside of the ship the Arctic-Freezer was completely dark, having had almost all of its systems shut down it floated ominously towards the planet, Slowly building up momentum the ship soon reached terminal velocity for something of that size. at this speed even if they didn't fall apart in the atmosphere the collision with the ground would be the end of them. "wake up fluffball! we just ran out of time!" but it was no use. the creature remained still.

"wow you sleep through anything don't you? shit this is bad." Winter quickly decided that they only had 2 options, one, the creature wakes up and puts on a suit, takes her AI chip and boards an escape pod and leaves. OR if she could charge the power-cells enough she could fire what was left of the maneuvering thrusters and push them into orbit. diverting what little excess energy the generator produced that wasn't powering the life support systems and her AI core, she began to charge the power-cells and bring the few maneuvering thrusters that were left undamaged back online.

A few minutes went by and the impact alert began to sound in the back of her mind, calculating their speed, location, and distance from the planet, she began a countdown timer. Starting now she had 30 minutes and twelve seconds until they hit the atmosphere. Opting to keep charging the power-cells for the first fifteen minutes she began scanning the inventory for something that could ever hope to possibly fit the creature she found a box that wasn't in the ships inventory. The box had a note attached to it though, it read, give this to the fox. Scanning its contents she was surprised to find a suit that looked like it could fit the creature aswell as a light blue scarf the same length as the creatures entire body.

Strangely enough it was in the Storage room nearest to the escape pods. Opting that it got there the same way the creature did, she made a note of the location and once again returned to the exterior camera. 16 minutes left on the timer, one minute until she put everything on the line to try and save both her and the creature, she performed the AI equivalent of taking a deep breath, and letting it out. The clock hit fifteen, "welp, hold on sleeping beauty. we're going for a ride." manipulating the maneuvering thrusters into an angle that will blast them in the right direction she quickly diverted all of the stored up power into the thrusters, and fired.

On the outside of the Arctic-Freezer the thrusters lit up the void as they fired, only for about half of them to EXPLODE in a blaze of glory, while the rest kept on pushing. while it managed to slow they're decent it wasn't enough to push them into orbit. it had bought them time, but that was it. Recalculating the timer she settled on the fact that she had only bought them a few minutes, the timer now gave a readout that said, 21 minutes remaining until impact. But that's only IF the thrusters keep firing, which they wont. Her only hope was now the fox that was unconscious on the deck of the cryobay, though the change in momentum had rolled him onto his back there were no other changes in his breathing, and he remained still. "well fluffball, guess that's it huh? if you can hear me wake up. please. both of our lives depend on you now."

Author's Note

Sorry again for the short chapter! couldn't figure out how to extend this anymore, the events following feel like they'd be best if they happen in a different chapter. Thanks for reading! I promise i will try to make the next chapter longer.