Things were ramping up around the offices. People were in overdrive. NASA was quiet about the SEP flight, there was a instrumentation glitch that required half the CM panel to be ripped to shreds, and put back together. The Sun was still very active, five more flares had erupted over the past day and a half, thankfully all away from Earth. I had practically moved into my office, though the cot in the corner got little use.

One day, I got a call stating that an ad-hoc conference call...