"Kori. Kori! Look at the readout."
The machine was still winding down when Kori stepped off the platform, and the noise it made doing it was not a noise it was usually supposed to make — just a thin metallic whine somewhere in the drive housing, climbing and falling, the sound of components that had been asked for more than they had.
Mina stood at the console with both hands flat on the desk.
"Four consecutive sets at maximum. Maximum, Kori. This thing can get you eleven minutes at maximum and then it needs a forty-minute cooldown. You have been running this thing for an an hour and a half!" She jabbed a finger at a column of figures. "The bearings are at ninety-four degrees. Do you know what happens to the bearings at a hundred and ten?"
"They melt?"
"Yes. They melt."
"Then I'll just buy you new bearings, no biggie." Kori pulled a towel off the rail and dragged it across the back of her neck. "How was Ukai?"
