The concrete floor of the generator bay bounced beneath Julian’s boots.
The twin Caterpillar 3512 diesel engines were choking to death.
Their sixteen-cylinder engine blocks, each the size of a delivery van, lurched against their heavy rubber vibration dampers. Amber warning strobes flashed through clouds of acrid, unburned fuel vapor. On the wall-mounted gauge panel, the mechanical tachometer needles were trembling downward:
1,180 RPM... 1,140 RPM... 1,110 RPM...
If those engines dropped below nine hundred revolutions per minute, the automatic centrifugal governors would slam the intake air-shutters shut. The fifty-thousand-watt Continental 816R transmitter on the cliff above would lose its plate voltage.
Ten seconds of dead air. That was all the Night Covenant required to forfeit the station license to emergency maritime salvage.
“Lin Mei, hold the intake bypass lever!” Julian shouted over the thunderous mechanical racket.
Lin Mei threw her whole weight against the five-foot steel bar, her sneakers slipping on the greasy concrete. Her knuckles went white.
