Elias let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. The VID-2 was battered, scorched, and low on oxygen, but she was still flying.
He pushed the thruster lever forward. The VID-2 groaned, its landing struts retracting with a series of heavy mechanical thuds. As the ship lifted, a sudden tremor shook the cabin. A jagged plume of lunar dust erupted from a nearby fissure—a moonquake. VID-2_mp4
"Systems check," he muttered, his voice raspy from hours of silence. Elias let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding
With a final, violent jolt, the ship broke free of the dust cloud and surged into the blackness of the upper atmosphere. Below, the cratered ground became a distant map. Ahead, the tiny, glowing lights of New Hope Base appeared on the horizon—a lone campfire in a desert of stars. The VID-2 groaned, its landing struts retracting with