Nathan stopped them. If the power cut while valves were still open, fuel would keep draining toward the tail with no way to monitor or reverse it. A board member asked what authority Nathan had to give orders at all. Audrey removed her executive access badge from around her neck and handed it to him. From this moment, Nathan has full technical authority.
Anyone who interferes with him answers directly to me. It was the first real act of her redemption, made not with words, but with a decision that placed her own standing on the line. An hour earlier, she had called him nothing more than a mechanic. Now, she was handing him the one thing a chief executive rarely gives away without a fight, control. Nathan pulled up telemetry data and told Daniel to hold a low altitude and avoid any sharp turn.
Daniel reported the coastline was only a few miles ahead. If the aircraft did not recover, he would need to steer it out over open water to avoid any populated area. Nathan refused to accept that as the only option. While everyone's attention remained fixed on the aircraft, Robert quietly slipped out of the control room. A security camera caught him walking toward the server room.
Audrey ordered security to track him without detaining him yet. Unwilling to interrupt the rescue effort, but unwilling to let him disappear either. Nathan calculated that the fuel accumulating in the tail would cross the point of no recovery in under 3 minutes. He kept his voice level as he relayed the number to the room, aware that panic would spread faster than any fault code if he let it show. He asked Daniel whether there was still a mechanical access cover behind the co-pilot's seat.
Daniel said the current documentation made no mention of one. I'm not asking about the documentation, Nathan said. I'm asking what you can see. Daniel searched and found the cover exactly where Nathan expected it to be. Behind it sat three unlabeled mechanical levers hidden from any current maintenance record, waiting for a pilot who understood them.
Nathan explained the three levers one at a time. The first would disconnect the automatic controller from the fuel valve. The second would lock the line feeding the rear tank. The third would open a gravity release path, sending fuel back toward the center tank. In the original prototype, the correct order was one, then two, then three.
Daniel pulled the first lever. Nothing changed. Nathan checked the electrical readings and realized the replacement controller had been wired to bypass the manual disconnect entirely. Daniel pulled the second lever. Fuel flow slowed but did not stop completely.