Robert straightened his sleeve, a small practice gesture, and said the flight was too important to disrupt over a component that had already cleared ground testing. "Ground testing isn't flight," Nathan said. "You know that better than anyone. " For a moment, neither man spoke, and the hanger seemed to hold its breath. The noise of the crowd outside muffled behind steel walls. Robert asked Austin to step away, and once the two men stood alone beneath the fuselage, his tone shifted from calm to something colder.
You had a quiet life, he said. Why come back today of all days? Nathan told him plainly that he had not come back for Robert's sake. He had simply taken a job at a facility that happened to be servicing the aircraft. Robert suggested that Nathan had deliberately maneuvered his way close to the Stratos program again.
Nathan asked, "If you believed that, why let me anywhere near it? " Robert answered that no one imagined a contract mechanic could pose any threat to a program of this scale. The remark revealed something different from Audrey's dismissal earlier that morning. Robert did not underestimate Nathan's ability. He underestimated how much power Nathan had left. Nathan asked him again directly to ground the flight and replace the faulty control unit.
Robert refused, insisting the part had cleared every ground test and the flight itself would last less than 40 minutes. Nathan reminded him that failure only had to happen once. Robert answered with the kind of language Nathan remembered from years earlier. The language of program reviews and cost committees. Every technical decision in this industry is a balance between cost and risk.
You won't be sitting in that cockpit, Nathan said. You don't get to choose how much risk someone else carries. Robert's response turned toward threat. He reminded Nathan of the old accusation still buried in his personnel file, the claim that he had once taken proprietary data when he left the program. If Nathan caused a disruption today, Robert said, Northstar could easily have the airfield terminate his contract and revoke his maintenance credentials permanently.
Nathan understood exactly what Robert was doing. It was the same maneuver that had ended his career the first time. Dressed in new language for a new morning. Nathan asked to speak with Audrey Hayes directly. Robert refused and instead instructed the head of airfield security to remove Nathan from the technical zone, describing him to the guards as a disgruntled contractor attempting to disrupt the event.
Two security staff approached and asked Nathan to step outside the restricted perimeter. He didn't resist. He understood that any physical struggle would strip away whatever credibility his warning still carried. As they walked him toward the perimeter fence, Nathan noticed a side door leading from the hanger directly toward the staging area where Audrey had just stepped up to the podium. Her voice carried faintly through the open door, describing the Stratos S12 as the product of the finest engineering minds in the country.