I was nearby, wringing out my mop into the yellow bucket. I tried to make myself small, but I couldn’t help looking. I knew that machine. Not that specific one, but the anatomy of it. I’d spent ten years fixing rotors in sandstorms and freezing rain. I knew how they breathed.
I saw the open panel near the rotor housing. I saw the way the coupling was seated. It wasn’t a computer error. It was mechanical. It was off by a hair—literally millimeters.
Without thinking, I stepped a little closer. “It’s the coupling alignment,” I whispered, mostly to myself.
But the hangar was dead silent, and my voice carried.
Veronica spun around. Her heels clicked sharply on the concrete as she marched toward me. The engineers looked at me like I was a bug they had forgotten to squash.
