The download bar crawled. 5.2 GB. At 300 KB/s, it would take five hours. They had six before the observation window for the next flyby closed.

“It’s over,” Lena said, slumping into a chair. “We should write the failure report.”

/public/OS/Windows10_22H2_x64.iso

Aris didn’t panic. He had been a systems architect before he became an astrophysicist. He slid a brand-new SSD from his desk drawer and turned to his old, ruggedized laptop—the one that ran on spite and stubbornness.