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Far off, the dimly lit outline of a hydrogen nebula rapidly approaching; close up, the multiple urgently flashing red lights on the main dashboard. Each one demanding his attention, each telling him that their process was the most important one, and that they had failed. He ignored them all and focused only on the oxygen readout. The digital green bar had slowly been decreasing, pixel by pixel, for what felt like an eternity. He had no way of telling time, the clock had lost connection and was presenting the time as 88:88 and 88 seconds. The calendar had de-synced, the di-vocal connector had disconnected, everything had failed. They were not designed to operate without professional maintenance for this long. After a very long time even the engines themselves had failed, and he was left with nothing but the generators. He looked out the thick quartz windscreen. In the beginning, he had panicked, but with enough time that had faded to quiet acceptance. There was nothing he could do. He just hoped to Senh that nobody stumbled across him. He looked behind him, at the silent, powerless door, and broke out into a cold sweat once more, as he had every time.

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