The door did not hold before the metal-on-metal impact, allowing my exit into the sky. The suits administered stabilising microbursts, and I watched the burning shuttle slowly fall away.

I sent the confirmation for reactor criticality, causing the reaction to become uncontrolled nearly instantly. The nickel-superalloy reactor casing held just long enough to direct the initial blast down the ejection tubes, ripping the precariously balanced escape pods from their hydraulic clamps. They were thrown clear milliseconds before the casing yielded and a blue-white blast tore the failing airframe apart in a thunder of overpressure and thousand-degree heat.

The blast wave took me and threw me out into the sky, stress warnings and turbulence indicators spinning across visualisation. Drone Four recovered first and, as the best-fuelled unit, swung onto an intercept course for the second shuttle.

Below but rising relative to my trajectory, a small number of terribly fragile-looking parachutes bloomed.