Okafor checked the permit, authorized the guard removal, and moved to supervise. Russell crouched beside the engine and felt a familiar pull of concentration. The noise from the spectators overhead became distant. He could hear his own breathing, the soft scrape of a tool being placed on a magnetic tray, and the low auxiliary hum he had been listening to from the service lane.
The sensor bracket showed slight movement at a mounting point. It was not loose enough to fall off, only loose enough to shift under repeated vibration and send unstable position information to the controller. Russell indicated the polished wear mark to Elena, who shone a light across the surface. "There," he said. "It's been moving. Not far, but far enough."
The technician checked the physical condition and approved a temporary securing adjustment for the controlled demonstration. Russell used an approved small wrench from the service cart, steadied the bracket, and restored the mounting position to its documented reference. He did not pretend that tightening a fastener completed a long-term repair. "This needs a new locking component, an alignment check, and a review of why it wasn't caught," he told Elena. "But it should stop lying to the controller for the next test."
The timer above deck showed one minute and twenty-nine seconds elapsed when he moved on. Professor Webb narrated what the camera could see without turning the moment into a miracle. He explained that Russell had connected an irregular feedback pattern with physical evidence of a shifting sensor mount, something that had remained inaccessible or overlooked in the earlier timed rounds. Daniel Mercer watched from the screen and nodded grimly. He remembered asking about that same guard during his allotted time.
Thornton watched too, but his attention had turned inward. The sensor bracket was part of the quarterly vibration inspection, and he remembered the checklist where its condition had been marked acceptable. He could not remember the last time he had personally watched anyone perform that inspection. He told himself it meant nothing, that machinery worked loose under normal conditions, that a young man finding an accessible fastener hardly proved anything about the maintenance department.
Russell went to the exhaust side next. His suspicion had come from a restricted, muffled quality in the start attempts, but the evidence now lay in the fault history Elena displayed. Differential pressure had been creeping upward over several weeks. Earlier entries had been acknowledged and cleared with notes describing them as transient sensor irregularities. Russell studied the trend and felt the quiet unease of a problem that had been repeatedly told to go away without ever being understood.
"This has been happening a long time," he said.
Elena's jaw tightened. "I wrote a note about it."
Russell looked at her. "Did anybody open the exhaust-side bypass assembly?"
"I requested it. Maintenance closed the work order after a software check."
He did not ask who closed it. Time was moving, and the answer could wait until the engine had been made safe. Okafor verified the line's condition and allowed inspection of an accessible external linkage away from the hot core. The linkage should have returned smoothly to its specified position, but when the technician checked it, the movement was restricted and uneven.