The choice looked simple on a map. Keep full power on the inner planets and delay the outer repairs, or send scarce crews and parts forty astronomical units out and accept brownouts at home.
Austin put the choice in front of the public grid council. He did not hide it in a maintenance order.
“Homes, hospitals, water pumps, and heat stay first,” he said. “Factories take the cuts. If we lose another outer feeder, the reserve banks can carry the habitats for six hours. After that, we start making harder choices.”
The council approved the repair plan by one vote. The independent inspection board approved it only after adding a second inspector and a public log of every captured worker’s assignment.
That was how Sera found herself on Substation Rim-01, almost four billion miles from home, wearing a gray repair suit instead of prison restraints. Two guards watched the airlock. Tie Kuang watched her hands. Inspector Dara Voss, who answered to the planetary councils rather than Austin, watched them all.
Austin braced his boots against a steel flange and tightened a jumper collar.
“Sixteen hundred foot-pounds,” he said.
Tie Kuang checked the meter.
