The needle crossed the line at six minutes past the second watch.
Denn saw it first. He was at the monitoring station, the same station he had manned for eleven years, the same chair, the same calibration knobs worn smooth by his hands. The primary gauge twitched. The needle, which had spent its entire operational life in the green, crept upward and touched the red.
He did not shout. He rechecked the calibration. He turned the left knob three degrees counter-clockwise, held it, and turned it back. The needle held. He checked the secondary gauge. It confirmed. He checked the tertiary. The backup gauge was the one he tested every morning at the start of his shift because the manual said to.
It confirmed.
Denn's face changed. The expression was not panic. Corporal Denn never panicked. It was the expression of a man who had trusted a number for eleven years and just watched the number break its promise.
"Commander."
