“This wasn’t a standard form,” I said. “It cleared the path for an external microwave transceiver to bypass the firewall.”

Turner looked away, his eyes scanning the floor.

“We had an inspection coming up,” Turner said, his voice dropping.

“What does that have to do with this?” Hayes asked.

“The system integrity reports had to be green,” Turner said.

He stepped closer to me, his tone suddenly urgent.

“If I reported a systemic vulnerability in the junction array, the command review would have flagged the entire base,” Turner said.

“You covered it up,” I said.

“I cleared a backlog,” Turner said. “I didn’t know someone was using it to beam data to a boat.”

“You risked the safety of the entire submarine program for a clean review,” I said.

“You don’t understand how the Navy works, Doctor,” Turner said, his face reddening. “My promotion board meets in three weeks.”

“I understand how data works,” I said. “And right now, your promotion is sailing into international waters.”

The tablet beeped twice.

The progress bar reached ninety percent.

“The destination IP is shifting,” I said.