She removed a pen from her pocket and scribbled a mark on the punch down. "Someone cross connect that over to the temp rack please."

"Right on that ma'am." A tech was already routing wires from the other side of the room.

Ken looked around at Kerry. "Is she serious, ma'am?"

"Absolutely," Kerry answered immediately. "She never promises anything she won't deliver on." She waited for her partner to come back over and bump her lightly, stopping next to her instead of going back to the hairball. "Dar, if we've got basic comms back, I think we should let these folks take a break and get some sleep. "

"You think so, huh?" Dar rested her elbow on Kerry's shoulder.

"I do," Kerry said. "I know it's just a drop in the bucket, but you all can't keep this up all night and expect to also keep working again tomorrow. Which we have to do," she reminded her partner.

Dar slowly looked around the room. Three of the techs were busy running cables and making connections to the thick panel that then ran out of the room and around the corner, ending at the satellite rig Mark had set up.

The rest were sitting quietly, just watching her and waiting. Everyone would continue working if she said to, and Dar knew that. They were nowhere near in the clear, and stopping now would probably be a mistake, and certainly would lose them time they could not afford.

However.

"I think you're right," Dar said, after a pause.

"Moving the management traffic off the sat will get me enough wiggle room to work with. We can take a break."

She could see the utter relief on everyone's faces. A glance to her right showed a similar expression on Kerry's face, and the shoulder she was resting her arm on relaxed. "Let's go hijack one of those SUVs." She turned to the rest of the techs. "Take a break, people. Get some rest. You all did great work here tonight, and it'll make tomorrow a lot easier.

"Back at you boss," Mark said. "I've got two or three guys in reserve, bunking out waiting for the rack truck to get here. Should be any time, so it's a good deal we're gonna take a break to get out of their way."

Dar nodded. "Let's go." She slipped her arm around Kerry's shoulders and steered her toward the door. "C'mon, Dad. Time to go back to that scandalous hotel of ours."

Andrew had his hands in his pockets, and was nodding slowly. "Been a damn long day," he agreed, as he joined them in leaving the room. "Ah will be glad to wave bye to this here rock pile for today."

"Me too," Dar exhaled, as they exited the door and walked outside into the night air. It was much quieter now, though work was going on at the impact site as they passed it, cranes removing debris, and people moving in and out, there was a hush over everything that let them hear the flutter of the big American flag draped over the building with startling clarity.

A cluster of motion drew their attention, and they turned their heads to watch a group of six people leading dogs fanning out to enter the destroyed area.

"Are those search dogs?" Kerry asked.

"Looks like it." Dar stifled a yawn. "Guess it's safe enough for them to go in now," she added. "So no luck with the Telco vendors?"

"Ugh."

Dar gave her shoulders a squeeze. "Don't stress over it. They really can't do any more than we're doing, Ker. At least we can prioritize what circuits come up if we're the ones punching them down."

Andrew grunted, and waggled his head back and forth. "Them people should be helping though," he disagreed. "Not right for you all to be doing their work."

"Exactly," Kerry said. "I know we can do it. The point is we shouldn't have to. Dar shouldn't have to be standing there for what--eight, ten hours sorting through that mess."

Dar chuckled. "Eh." She shrugged. "At least it was doing something productive. I'm about out of options relieving all the throttle points until we relieve some of the congestion in Newark. There's just too much routing that way."

"Ugh," Kerry repeated. "You know, I gave that guy such a hard time too, about sending everyone to New York. But we're going to have to do that too, Dar. I don't know how we're going to do all that work there, and still get stuff here all going."

They stepped over the dividers into the parking area and headed for the bus. This late, most of the activity had settled down, but still there were techs gathered around the satellite rig, and two unfamiliar ones at the work tables setting up cable rigs. "Good morning all," Kerry called out, as they arrived.

The techs at the table looked up, then went still, their eyes widening as they recognized the figures appearing out of the darkness. "Oh, hell. It's the big cheezes!"

"Big mangos," Dar disagreed, with a wry grin. "You folks getting ready to cut some traffic over? We got one link up in that hell hole in there."

The techs around the sat hurried over. "That's what we heard," one said. "Mark called us on the radio. A T1 he said? That's going to be a lot better than the rig here. We're so maxed on it we can barely get management traffic through."

The door to the RV opened, and two more techs climbed out, rubbing their eyes. "Hey, what's the scoop out here?" one asked. "Anything interesting--oh. Hi Ms. Roberts."

"Ah will go get that car," Andrew decided. "Be right back." He ambled off disappearing between the RV and the bus before they could stop him.

"Guess he figures we'll never get loose of here given our own devices." Kerry whispered. "Want a cup of coffee?"

"Nah." Dar waited for the new techs to join them. "Randy, the most interesting thing that happened is that after ten hours of cable wrangling we got one circuit up. They're moving traffic off the sat."

"Hot damn," Randy stretched. "We're waiting for the rack truck. Mark said it should be here any time. We'll get them in and constructed and the power distribution units in and, hopefully, tomorrow morning the gear will get here."

Dar checked her watch. "Sounds right," she said. "Should be about twelve, fourteen hours from there to here. So we're right on track." She turned to Kerry. "Remind me to talk to Mariana about bonus packages for everyone here, will you?"

"Sure will." Kerry didn't miss the veritable forest of pricked ears suddenly around her. "Even though I know everyone's pitching in because that's the kind of people we have, we need to reward the really spectacular performance we've seen the last few days."

"Yup." Dar looked around, nodding in satisfaction. "We're on the right track here for sure. I think we can schedule ourselves to move on to New York tomorrow. I hope we're as lucky there in terms of staffing."

The moonlight shone down on a small group of smiling faces, as the techs enjoyed the praise. "You know," Randy said, "we don't usually get a chance to really make a difference like this. It's kind of cool."

The techs nodded. "Yeah," another one said. "It sucks big time that this happened, but coming here, and doing this stuff--it makes me feel good. My parents are all excited back home that I'm here, helping the country out."

"Better than being stuck in the configuration room in Miami?" Kerry smiled warmly at them.

"Heck yeah. Plus the bus is here," Randy said, with a rakish grin. "We don't get brownies made for us back home."

Everyone laughed, and both Dar and Kerry joined in. "We'll have to look at that when we get back." Kerry mused. "And those fresh cookies were pretty good too."

"Fresh cookies," Randy said. "Where? In the bus? Man, let's go get some and some coffee before that truck shows up and we've got to hump all that tonnage inside." He trotted toward the bus with his partner chasing after him. "Thanks Ms. Stuart!"

"Anytime," Kerry called after him.

A low rumble caught their attention, and they turned to see one of the company SUVs trundling its way toward them. "Our chariot," Dar said, with a sigh. "Damn, I'm so tired I actually don't mind my father driving it."

A cheer went up from the sat rig. "Circuit's up! Yeah! I'm seeing frames from our net!" One of the techs almost yodeled his excitement. "Boy is it great to see that router again!!"

Dar unwound her arm from Kerry's shoulder and walked over to them, peering over their shoulders at the laptop propped up on one end of the sat rig. "That's ours, all right," she commented. "Good."

"We did it." The tech shook his head a little. "On tin cans and strings and a lot of duct tape, but man, we did it."

Standing there, in the fluorescent lit glare, in the shadows of so much destruction, Kerry knew a moment of relieved triumph. They had done it. No one would ever probably know they'd done anything, no one would probably care, save those few people who had worked with them, but here in the chill of an early morning she knew they'd surmounted a lot of odds in a single facet of the total disaster.

One small step. One small achievement, but in all the chaos and all the grief surrounding them it felt good.

"Hey, Ms. Stuart!"

Kerry turned, to see Billy approaching. "Well, hello there," she greeted the captain.

"My guys told me something just happened," Billy said. "All of a sudden, our stuff's moving."

Kerry indicated the sat rig. "We got one of our circuits up," she said. "Only one, but it's a start." She smiled as the techs all started cheering, and doing a little nerd dance around the rig. "I think they're as excited as your guys are."

The captain had been talking into a mouthpiece, a cable trailing down from his ear to a radio rig clipped to his shoulder. "That is one fantastic piece of news." He put his hands on his hips and exhaled. "We've been feeling a little like second class citizens around here. Everyone's focused on New York."