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As Pirra left, Tred stared at the screen readouts. The system thought it was running an unmanned test and wouldn’t accept external inputs to tell it to shut off. Kress had disabled that option.
He could still manipulate the system that the man had thrown off, though. Normally a plasma coil alignment took hours and a team of six.
But that was procedure, and this was his specialty. He could not manually set the alignment, it was far too fine a work for a human to do.
He watched the stability rating of the generator. It was just starting, and while it was already beginning a dangerous oscillation, the magnetic fields were able to withstand it for now.
He knew some tricks that could help him speed this. He didn’t need to perfectly align it all right now – well, he needed it nearly perfect, but there was some wiggle room. At least enough to make it not destroy itself . . .
Some of the magnetic fields were set right. He just needed to give the others the appropriately mirrored settings. It wasn’t a procedure you should ever do, eyeball the numbers, flip them, and force the system to implement them. Normally you’d plot them all by calculations and then let the AI finagle the little details.
But the AI wasn’t working right now. He had no other way.
His hands shook as he put in the numbers. He did the math in his head; it wasn’t hard, but he’d never had to do it under pressure like this.
Even a glance told him that there were thirty-six of the magnetic field generators out of alignment.
And in some of them, Nalen Kress had anticipated his plan, he realized. Four of the most critical magnetic plates that mirrored each other were all out of alignment. He had no base numbers to work with to flip.
Quickly he finished the others. The oscillations in the system were still growing, and alarms were beginning to increase in number, but the more of the system he had functioning properly, the slower the problem would grow.
But those last four – he had no simple tricks to fix them. He was going to need to figure out a proper alignment to them that would function, with just a calculator.
Panic overtook him, and he froze. The instability readings increased, and he knew that soon it’d be too late. His problem would be solved by no longer mattering.
No one would ever even know he’d panicked. They’d just know he’d failed.
But he’d been trained well. He couldn’t think, but he could still act.
His fingers flew and input numbers. He couldn’t be sure where he was pulling them from – memory? He had looked at these numbers, and though the angles were absurdly precise, down to the twentieth decimal point, did he really remember them?
One more aligned. His mind felt like it was a blank again, and he was second-guessing his own numbers.
“Fusion reaction destabilizing,” the computer said. “Reactor breach imminent.”
“I know,” he muttered.
If he was wrong on his first number, then it would kill them. But inaction was a guaranteed failure. He just had to run with it.
The stress on the system was beginning to set off even more warnings. He had so little time left . . .
“Reactor breach in ten seconds,” the computer said.
“I know, I know!” he snapped.
Taking the number he’d just input, he adjusted the last three magnetic fields to match.
His eyes went to the readout. The oscillations wouldn’t immediately stop, but if he’d done his job anywhere close to right they’d begin to . . .
“Fusion reaction stabilizing,” the computer said.
“Oh thank god!” Tred burst out, his knees giving way.
Slumping against the console, he gave thanks to his teachers, both in mathematics and speed-typing, and whoever had made a keyboard that was proof against fat-fingered inputs.
“Simulation successfully completed,” the computer continued.
It still believed that it had only been a test. For a moment, Tred was worried that maybe it had been, that he’d gotten this scared over nothing.
He looked through the readouts again.
But it had been a real threat. He’d averted disaster.
“Computer,” he said, feeling exhausted. “Get communications back online.”
Other Terrestrial 