Cognitive Recalibration

Who: Jamie & Ghostly hallucinations
Where: Engine room on the Gas Station (See what I did there?)
When: Three Minutes after the 10 minute "death imminent" warning.

OOC: Sorry, it's a bit of a long one... Gives you a few places to fill in your own blanks though!

"Come on, come on." Jamie said, hanging around the control panel for the exhaust systems. They had about Seven minutes until the station fell too far into the Gas Giants gravity well to be able to escape. The Station was old, it's engines were old and no good. It had barely been keeping itself in orbit before Queeg screwed it up.

"Just give in. The escape pod is still there, it'll get you out of here!" Said a ghostly voice behind him. Psychiatrists everywhere would have a field day with these hallucinations. They would read into it like his subconcious wanted to leave everyone behind.

"I'm not leaving everyone here! I believe decisions of my earlier life to be correct. I'm Also sure I'm correct now." He said out loud. Anyone watching in would definitely believe he had gone crazy.

The station lurched. A maneuvering thruster kicked in, then died again.

"That's it!" Jamie said, shrugging off the knock as the sudden movement pushed him into the wall. He hit one of the buttons on the panel, turning on the communications up to the bridge. Age had made the button brittle, and it had now broken in the "on" position.

"These are the only humans I've had contact with in TEN YEARS." Jamie said, unknowing that his voice was being broadcast to everyone on the bridge. "The Hercules was dead. Even if the reactor hadn't blown, the Hymenoptera would have destroyed it in moments." He complained at the hallucinations.

"But you're still a coward for running away." (No one else can hear the hallucinations, obviously)

"I'm not a coward!" Jamie yelled. "Maybe I did run away when I could have done something. Maybe I'm not as good an engineer as I think I am, and Yes, Maybe this plan of mine isn't going to work. I won't know that unless I try!" Jamie said, looking back to the control panel for the exhausts. The pressure in them was rising. The closer he opened them to the point of no return meant more force would be expelled to put them back in a safe orbit.

"You're just going to kill them all. You might as well escape and leave them to it."

"NO!" he screamed back again. "I'm not leaving them. I have a chance for a proper human life again. The Ssala are great and all, but they didn't get humour, they don't get human companionship. I don't want to spend the rest of my life on a jungle planet without ever seeing a human woman, I don't want to wake up every day just to have to fight to survive. I want to Live. I want to see Earth again, I want to-" He said, getting into a big speech, the only listeners, as far as he was concerned, was a hallucination.

"Uhh, You do know the communications to the bridge are on, right?" The hallucination interrupted.

"Smeg." Jamie said, turning to see the lights that indicated transmitting. "Uhh... Ignore me..." he said. He was cut off from anything else as another warning blared over the speakers all over the station.

"Five Minutes until Terminal Temperatures."

The atmospheric resistance was increasing, burning up the outer hull. Time was running out.

"I need more thrusters!" he said, although no one could respond to him. It was stuck on transmit, not receive.

Another burst, spinning the station. Jamie withstood the sudden movement this time.

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"I wonder what this does..." Jaxx said, pushing a button on the remote.

"The thrusters are back!" Katrina said, hitting the controls again. A third burst spun them closer to Jamie's target.

Jaxx pushed the button again. "It's like, broken." Jaxx said, pushing the button again.

"They're gone again!" came another cry from the others. The thrusters were out.

Jaxx tossed the controller over his shoulder, and it landed with a thunk on the metal floor. Fortunately, it pushed the button again on impact.

"They're back!"

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"That's it! Five more degrees!" Jamie said into the comms, watching the station spin on the panels screen.

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"You can't win." Queeg said, standing up again from his prone position. He winced as movement made his nether regions pulse with pain. He had picked up the controller again, and pushed the button once more.

"The thrusters are out!" Katrina said, jabbing the buttons, hoping they would come back.

"It's no use." Queeg said. "I've hooked them into this, and you're never getting it back." He said, opening the back and pulling out the batteries. "There's no more time. You've failed."

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Jamie grinned as the station stopped spinning exactly where it needed to be. Momentum from the bursts of thrusters had done it, and just in time.

"NOW!" he said, opening the exhausts.

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The sudden release of pressure from the station burst towards the planet. Explosive decompression of the exhaust systems blew them into a higher orbit, like a rocket engine. Everyone onboard was thrown against a wall, or console, or off their chairs. For the most part, everyone was ok. A couple of scratches, bumps and bruises. Jade's unconcious position meant she just slid across the deck a couple of feet, coming to a halt in much the same position.

Queeg on the other hand, wasn't used to such movements in a human body. In his head, Phil screamed out "Hahaha, Take THIS!" and maneuvered his head towards the large metal console in front of them. Instead of flying over it like anyone else would have, it looked like he was aiming for it, and smashed his head on the side panel, knocking him out cold.

"Now you have only my company." Phil said, with a mental grin.

"NOOOOOOOOOOO!" screamed Queeg.