Robert claimed Nathan had been removed from the program years earlier for a security violation. Nathan asked Audrey to check who had signed the original investigation report. The name on the signature line was Robert Vance. At that exact moment, the fifth fault code appeared on the display. What made it frightening was that the aircraft's engines had not even started yet.
It proved the replacement controller was already sending false commands while the jet sat still on the ground. Audrey ordered the flight paused. Robert did not object outright. Instead, he drew a careful distinction between pausing takeoff and cancelling the entire demonstration, proposing a low-speed taxi run while the technical team completed its inspection. Audrey agreed to the low-speed run with no clearance for takeoff under any circumstance.
Nathan warned that the system was unsafe at any speed if the faulty sensor activated. Audrey was beginning to listen until Robert produced a fresh report claiming the signal wire had already been isolated. A document that could not possibly have been generated so quickly unless it had been prepared in advance. While the ground crew prepared for the low-speed run, Audrey asked Nathan to explain what had actually happens 6 years earlier. He did not answer with complaint in his voice.
He told her he had joined the program very young when Robert served as his mentor, giving him early opportunities and defending his ideas in front of the board. Nathan had developed the fuel balance architecture so the aircraft could fly farther without increasing wing size. During testing, Robert proposed replacing the certified controller with a cheaper unit supplied by a company called Meridian Control Systems. Nathan discovered that Meridian held a financial relationship with a holding company Robert quietly controlled. He refused to approve the substitution.
Before he could bring the evidence to the board, his wife died unexpectedly, and Nathan requested a leave of several months to care for Emma, who was still very young at the time. Robert used that absence to revoke Nathan's access, transfer ownership of the design files to Northstar, alter the version history to list himself as lead architect, and manufacture a report accusing Nathan of copying proprietary data. He pressured Nathan into signing a non-disclosure settlement to avoid a lawsuit that could have bankrupted him. Nathan told Audrey he had once believed the truth would surface on its own. Years passed and no one ever went looking for it.
Audrey asked why he never approached her once she became chief executive. People with impressive titles took everything I had. He said, "I stopped believing another impressive title would give it back. " The remark landed harder than Nathan intended. Audrey realized her own words on the podium moments earlier had repeated the exact mechanism that once destroyed him. She had looked at his coveralls and assumed they told the entire story of what he was capable of, the same way a board of directors once looked at a young engineer's absence and assumed it told the entire story of his loyalty.
She wanted to ask more, but a sound from outside the operations trailer pulled her attention away. Outside, the Stratos S12 began rolling forward. Audrey asked for confirmation that this was only the approved low-speed taxi. Her assistant checked and reported that the clearance sent to the tower read full demonstration flight, not a taxi run. Audrey said she had approved no such thing.