# Chapter 35: Thirty-Six Hours

**36 hours until keyhole crossing**

Automatic alignment failed with thirty-six hours left.

No explosion. No dramatic siren. A column on Hana's display moved from green to red, and the room understood that years of redundancy had met the one failure it could not route around.

The Wanderer's tumble had shifted after a mass-driver rail collapse. The final standoff devices could still fire. They could still move the body. But the sequence had to be adjusted continuously from a control position too near the thermal and radiation bloom for survival.

Jonas opened the manual case.

Mira did not ask what it was. They had been married too long for that kind of theater.

"How many can remain?" she asked.

"Two," Jonas said. "One to fly alignment. One to manage firing logic."

"Can it be remote?"

"Not with the data delay and corrupted node network."

Hana's voice broke for the first time anyone could remember. "I am still looking."

"Keep looking," Mira said.

Evacuation math filled the ship. Crew transfers. Surface teams recalled. Ilyon ordered off The Wanderer and argued until Mira used command voice. Liora refused to leave until Kael, from the valley, told her Kharos needed witnesses more than martyrs.

At hour thirty-four, Hana stopped looking.

No one said goodbye yet.

Goodbye would make the decision real before the work required it.