Victoria stood so abruptly the flashlight beam jumped away from the panel. Damn him. Caleb reached up, grabbed her wrist, and guided the light back. His grip was firm but careful, warm, even through the cold. "Stay with me," he said.
"Right now, this plane matters more than his theater. " Victoria looked at his hand on her wrist at the oil streaking her skin, at how strange it felt not to be obeyed, but steadied. She lowered herself again. Tell me what you need. I need the maintenance tablet unlocked. Mara.
Mara handed it over. Caleb connected a diagnostic cable. His fingers moving with sudden speed. Lines of code and system logs scrolled across the tablet. The first device spoofed sensor failures that forced a no-fly decision without damaging visible hardware.
Clean. Deniable. And the second, Victoria asked. Caleb did not answer. He kept scrolling his brow, furrowing deeper.
Someone deleted the last three maintenance access entries. Mara leaned in. Can you recover them? Maybe from the cache if the device didn't overwrite it. He entered a command.
The tablet froze. For 3 seconds, no one breathed. Then a file opened. Timestamped entries, partial but readable. Caleb's face sharpened.
11:18 p.m. Executive override used Victoria asked. Caleb enlarged the line. The name field was corrupted, but the authorization tier remained intact. Mara inhaled.
That's not maintenance. That's suite access. Victoria stared at the screen, feeling a door inside her mind unlock onto something she did not want to see. Derek. Caleb did not confirm it.
He did not need to. Then the cockpit lights flickered hard once, twice, and the green device began blinking faster from inside the panel. Captain Reed shouted from the stairs, "We just lost auxiliary bus stability. " Caleb lunged under the fuselage voice suddenly sharp. Everybody away from the aircraft except Victoria. Mara grabbed the tablet and backed up.
Victoria did not move. Caleb looked at her. You still holding steady? Her heart pounded so hard it felt like another alarm. Yes.
Good, because this isn't the grounding device anymore. He reached toward the green pulse, his face turning pale as the diagnostic tone dropped into a low, deadly hum. This one was waiting for us to find the first. The green blinking device was not connected to the alarm system. It was connected to the flight control backup line.