Contingency

Holm found her in the generator room.

Nadia had been standing at the workbench for five minutes, the main power schematic from Eriksson's station documentation spread across it, making notes. She didn't look up when the door opened. She had learned, in eleven years of investigation, to use the moment before someone interrupted her to finish the thought.

"You're planning to cut the central module power," Holm said.

"Yes."

"Veld will notice."

"He'll notice when the emitters go offline. I have a twenty-second window before he can get to the breaker manually." Nadia made a final note. "I need you to not be in the central module when I do it."

Holm was quiet. Nadia looked up.

The other woman's face was professionally composed and underneath that, she could see the same calculation she'd been running herself. Holm had been contracted by the military. She had technical expertise in exactly the relevant field. She was not, from everything Nadia had observed in the last two hours, someone who had known what she was being sent to authorize.

"The survey data," Nadia said. "You had it before tonight."

"I had it since they first detected the anomaly. I've been running analysis for fourteen days." Holm set her tablet down on the workbench. "I submitted a report nine days ago recommending non-intervention. I recommended a passive observation approach and further acoustic analysis before any deterrence deployment." A pause. "The report was flagged for review."

"Which means they read it and went ahead anyway."

"Which means they deployed the emitter protocol before my review was complete." Her jaw was tight. "I was told the deterrence was already in place and I was being brought to assess outcomes. I didn't know the emitter had been running for thirty days."

Nadia looked at her.

"I know what it looks like," Holm said.

"It looks like you were brought in to provide institutional cover for a decision that had already been made," Nadia said. "That's not the same as participating in the decision."

"That distinction won't help either of us if we cut the central module power."

"No. It won't." Nadia folded the schematic. "I'm cutting it anyway. Your decision is your own."

Holm picked up her tablet.

"The twenty-second window," she said. "You'll need a longer one. The secondary emitter in the generator room will still be online. Veld will reroute the signal."

"I know."

"The generator room breaker is on the same circuit as the primary lighting for the sub-basement access." Holm set the tablet down again, open to the station's electrical schematic — the full one, not the one Eriksson had shown her. "If you cut both simultaneously, the total window extends to approximately ninety seconds before the backup generator engages."

Nadia looked at her.

Holm met her eyes. "I'm not being in the central module," she said. "I'm going to be reviewing my data in the sub-basement."

She left.

Nadia stood in the generator room with both schematics and thought about what ninety seconds bought you.

Enough, she decided.

It was enough.