Page 56 of Warrior’s Mate

They reached the pump room to find one technician pinned beneath a fallen brace and another trying to keep a ruptured coolant manifold from flooding the chamber. Maelis dropped beside the control pedestal while Kaiven crossed to the injured technician.

"Do not close that valve," she told the standing worker.

"It's leaking coolant everywhere."

"And if you close it, pressure backs into the primary exchanger and ruptures the relay core. Open the secondary return instead."

"Secondary is offline."

"Not mechanically."

She ripped the access cover from the pedestal and reached inside. Kaiven glanced at her from where he was levering the brace off the trapped man's leg. "Please tell me you know what you're doing."

"I know exactly what I'm doing."

"That was not the reassuring answer I expected."

"Then your expectations remain the problem."

He gave a short sound that might have been a laugh and returned to the injured technician.

Maelis found the manual actuator by touch. The mechanism resisted. She braced one foot against the pedestal, pulled harder, and felt it begin to shift.

The lights went red.

"Maelis."

"I see it."

"You have thirty seconds before something very expensive happens."

"That is not helping."

"Twenty-eight."

"Kaiven."

"I am distracting you from the possibility of death."

"You are doing a poor job."

The actuator gave. Coolant roared through the secondary pipe. The pressure indicator dropped from red to amber, stalled, then continued into yellow.

The alarm stopped. For two heartbeats, the pump room was almost silent. Then everyone moved again.

Kaiven and the standing technician lifted the injured man onto an emergency board. Maelis restored enough control to keep the relay functioning at reduced capacity, then rerouted agricultural automation away from the damaged node. Irrigation pumps went dark one district at a time, sacrificing crops to preserve communications and emergency power.

Her family had spent three generations building some of those systems. She shut them down without hesitation.

Kaiven watched her do it. He said nothing until they were back in the tunnel with the injured technician between them.

"How much did you just lose?"

"We lost pumps."

"That wasn't what I asked."

Maelis kept her eyes on the path. "Enough." He did not press.