So, I opened my own gate to the castle from inside.

The program she needs to load is a complicated string of computer language and she checks the connection, moving through the office computer’s now-breached firewall to the main NASA network, looping it around through a server to confuse where it came from.

Four minutes to go. That should be enough.

The code has to replicate over the course of at least a minute before inserting itself in the master program as a basic program patch. She takes a deep breath and hits the load button, then immediately shuts down the connection and races from the room, relieved to find the hallway empty. She returns to her assigned office and almost dives for her own office computer keyboard to type in a mundane search request, a routine act that will bear a date and time stamp and help prove that she was nowhere else when some “hacker” loaded the illicit code.

"Yes!"

The report from Griggs Hopewell is accompanied by a broad grin as he lowers the receiver and turns to the launch director, the report from his computer team still ringing victoriously in his ears. “Caught her red-handed monkeying with the program, and my guys stopped the program patch she tried to install.”

Cully Jones is nodding appreciatively but his eyes are on the countdown clock now ticking under two minutes while he presses his headset closer to his ear and motions Griggs to silence. “What? Which one?”

Cully leans into his screen as he triggers a series of entries before answering the reporting engineer somewhere in the room.

“Shit! I see it. Has it been steady up to now?”

Griggs punches into the same net and struggles his headset back on in time to hear the remainder of the response.

“…no problem I can see before, but it’s suddenly climbing into overpressure. The book says we’ve got a thirty-degree tolerance and we’re approaching it.”

“Go raw data and recheck it.”

“I can’t. This one doesn’t go through the same processor.”

“The readout is hardwired or telemetry?”

“That’s telemetry, Cully. Fifty psi to go and still climbing. I have a corresponding temperature rise and a pressure warning on the relief valve.”

Griggs flips through one of the manuals as fast as he can, conscious of the count reaching T minus one minute. A complicated wiring and transmission diagram opens before him and he goes directly to the circuit controlling the dangerous readings they’re discussing before turning to Jones.

“Cully, the readings go through a computer processor. Not the same one, but equally vulnerable.”

The auxiliary power units are already online and consuming the shuttle’s hydrazine fuel supplies, and there are mere moments left before the launch is committed. Although Jones’s voice is steady and controlled, the pressure he’s feeling is excruciating.

“I thought your guys stopped the interference?”

“They did,” Griggs says. “But something from before must have slipped through. Or this is a phantom.”

“We don’t know that. We can’t assume that. I’m going to have to call a hold.”

“Yes, we do know that!” Griggs’s voice is rising in intensity. They’re out of time for this argument, but the launch window is too small for a hold. “Cully, it’s through the same basic switching equipment and equally vulnerable and this happens just suddenly? I don’t think so.”

T minus fifty-eight seconds is flashing on the screen. Everyone in the room is aware that once the countdown reaches thirty seconds the debate is over. The launch can’t be stopped. Cully Jones has all but frozen in position, his eyes on the distant screen at the front of the room, his mind racing before triggering his interphone.

“Systems, what’s your recommendation?” he asks.

“It’s out of limits. No fly.”

Griggs leans farther toward Cully, knowing he’s mere seconds from a decision, outraged that somehow Geoff Shear is about to succeed.

“I vote for go. This is a phantom problem, Cully.”

“Hold the count,” Cully orders.

“No, goddammit!”

Jones is turning now, his eyes flashing anger. “Two words, Griggs. Challenger,and Columbia. We stay conservative. You object?”

Griggs stares into the resolve in Jones’s face and shakes his head.

“No. No objection.”

Cully triggers the interphone channel. “The count is holding at T minus forty-two seconds. We have thirty seconds to decide to scrub or resume the countdown. Systems, where are we?”

Griggs can see the man stand and turn from his console two rows away, his face reflecting genuine fear.

“Pressure is out of limits, temperature approaching out of limits, and I have a report from the gantry shelter of heavy venting. We need to get the crew out, now! This is real!”

“Then we’re scrubbed!” Cully barks.

Launch control explodes into action as the practiced team at the pad begins moving toward an emergency extraction of the two crew members while Cully Jones begins running through the checklist to purge the dangerously overpressurized tank before the contents can explode.

Griggs Hopewell sits quietly, watching and listening and slightly stunned.

My God, this one was real, and I led myself into the assumption that Sheehan did it.

If they had launched with a true overpressure, the remains of the shuttle and the two astronauts would probably be raining back on the launch pad right now.

Somehow, Geoff Shear is thinking, he’s going to need to do something really special for Dorothy Sheehan. Not that he’s given to overt displays of appreciation beyond NASA award dinners and other official stroking, but in this she’s succeeded against overwhelming odds.

Word that the launch went to a hold and was then scrubbed brings a smile to his face. He assumes the scrub was for being out of the launch window, but there’s the slightly puzzling news of fuel overpressure in one of the shuttle’s tanks—and the call for an emergency evacuation of the crew. But even those developments can’t dilute Geoff’s smug feeling of restored control.

His cell phone is vibrating in his pocket and he whips it out, expecting the female voice he hears to be his wife’s. But this voice is different. Frightened and tense. It takes him a few seconds to realize that he’s talking to Dorothy herself.

“Why are you calling?” he asks, puzzled. She knows better.

“I’m in trouble, sir. I think I’ve been discovered.”

“What did you say? I heard we just scrubbed down there. So, thanks for everything you were doing down there to keep us safe…”

“The fuel overpressure is real. It’s… unexpected.”

“Well, of course.”

Geoff feels his mind racing. How to deal with this? Any call could be monitored and if anyone should know that, it’s Sheehan, which means she’s seriously frightened, and dangerous.

“Where are you calling from?” he asks.

“I’m outside now, in my car, and getting out of here.”

“Why are you calling?”

“I… I guess I just need some coordination since my purpose here is done. All the safety checks and such.”

“Well, Dorothy, your assignment was clear. Double check to make certain we weren’t pushing safety limits. Just come home.”

Now he hears a telling hesitation.

“Well, sir,” she says, her tone hardening. “I got this call and I responded as requested.”

Five seconds of silence pass before she speaks again, her voice this time low and serious and no longer pleading. “You’re going to let me twist in the wind, aren’t you?”

“What does that mean? Dorothy, if you’ve… done something improper, then you need to tell security about it. I have to go. And this call never happened.”