There was no one inside the aircraft. Grant had worked through most of the previous night installing the sensor package himself. Three independent data recorders network to each other but completely isolated from the aircraft's own avionics, a mechanical fuel cut-off tethered to a hardened radio receiver on a separate frequency from anything the aircraft systems used and a set of strain gauges on the actuator housing that would capture any change in load profile from the first second of engine power. Nolan had the fuel cutoff transmitter in his hand from the moment the engines were started, and he had told Grant before they parted the previous evening that he would use it without hesitation and without waiting for instruction from anyone whose name appeared on an organizational chart. The ground run began at 8:14, the engines cycling through their startup sequence with the precise unhurried sound of a well-maintained turbofan that knows its job.
And then, at 8:16 and 43 seconds, the Apex flight management system logged an inbound command packet from an external source on a maintenance access frequency that should not have been active during an operational test. And the packet contained three sequential instructions. Advance throttle to 92% disengage ground brakes, and engage the autonomous takeoff protocol that had been embedded in the software as an engineering test function and never formally disabled. The aircraft began to move. The throttle response was immediate.
The brake release followed within 1 second, and Sterling One accelerated down the test runway with the particular purposeful momentum of a machine that has been told clearly and unambiguously what to do. Grant keyed the cutoff transmitter. The fuel shutoff valves closed. The engines spooled from operating power down to zero over 11 seconds, and the aircraft rolled out of its acceleration and came to rest on the grass overrun at the far end of the pavement, intact, unoccupied, with every data recorder still running, and every sensor intact, and with no one hurt. The independent recorders had captured the command packets source address.