FC

Junction-node ground authentication array: a directional head on a shed with its own fuel cell and thermal loop, behind a fence on the rise east of Main Base, on a buried line that shares nothing with the ward grid

The Array — ground authentication post

A shed on a rise east of Main Base, behind a fence, with its own fuel cell and its own thermal loop, because a node authentication that drops when a settlement transformer trips is a node authentication nobody offworld will ever accept again. On its roof a directional head tracks the high-orbit station across the sky and holds it for as long as the geometry allows; under its floor a buried line runs two kilometres into the command pit under Main Base and shares nothing with the ward grid. When the pit was abandoned at twelve minutes past one on the Monday morning of terminal black the far end of that line went with it, and for three and a half days Hart could not talk to eighteen people in orbit. The answer was not to move the cable, because you cannot move a buried cable. It was to go and sit at the far end of it: fifty minutes for the door, twenty for the terminal set, and then it worked, because it had been designed by people who assumed that one day everything else would be gone. From that Thursday the post cost two people and a vehicle slot every day, and it was the most expensive standing commitment on the ground. This sheet draws the shed. The pulse plant of One Road Out is another building — bay two at Launch Spine — and is not on it.

Operator
Route and Node – Lieutenant Commander Liu; Sarah Bishop's estate. The post: two people and a vehicle slot, every day from 24 March 2349
Registry
P10
Series
The Chosen Dark
Drawn as
As the shed stood at 18:18 on Thursday 24 March 2349 — the door got at 17:00 after fifty minutes, the terminal set up since 17:20, two of Liu's people at the bench, the cell running, the head on the station as it comes over the rise, and 'Eighteen aboard. All eighteen' the first thing down the line. The SITE sheet carries the post's whole life as dated lines: the 2348 inspections, Friday 18 March, the pit abandoned at 01:12 on the Monday, the reopening, April on the link, and the closing on 18 May.
Sheet 1 General arrangement — profile, looking to port 10.0 m overall · 10 frames at 1000 mm
HEAD SHED Directional head and mount — The head — on the roof · frames 7–10 · published AR-HEAD The door — The shed · frames 1–2 · published The bench — terminal set, lamp, connectors — The shed · frames 2–6 · published AR-POST Terminations — where the buried line leaves — The shed · frames 2–6 · published AR-TERM Fuel cell — The shed · frames 6–8 · published Thermal loop — The shed · frames 6–8 · published Head base — The shed · frames 8–10 · fixed THE BURIED LINE — leaves here for the command pit under Main Base, two kilometres, sharing nothing with the ward grid. 'You can't move a buried cable. You can go and sit at the far end of it.' THE DOOR — fifty minutes. Shut since Friday with a fuel cell running inside; the shed built its own weather round the frame. THE HEAD — tracks the station across the sky and holds it for as long as the geometry allows. The thermometer that read minus thirty-nine is on it. THE FENCE — 'out on the rise east of Main Base behind a fence'. Route and Node owned it. 1 FRAME
Sheet 2 Deck plans — 2 decks, looking down 5.0 m maximum beam

The array. A directional head that tracks the high-orbit station across the sky and holds it for as long as the geometry allows, on local power. It carries the thermometer that gave Hart its exterior temperature for the first two days of the black.

Directional head and mount · frames 7–10 · published · Terminal Black, chapter 3 — 'It had a directional head that tracked the high-orbit station across the sky and held it for as long as the geometry allowed, on local power, over a buried line that shared nothing with the ward grid'; ch10:53 — 'That's a certified head on its own supply' 1 PORT STBD
  1. AR-HEAD Directional head and mount Fr 7–10 published Terminal Black, chapter 3 — 'It had a directional head that tracked the high-orbit station across the sky and held it for as long as the geometry allowed, on local power, over a buried line that shared nothing with the ward grid'; ch10:53 — 'That's a certified head on its own supply'

    ⭐ THE ARRAY. The head is published; its form (dish, mast, plate) is not, and its place on the roof is the drawing's (2026-09-21). Windows are what the geometry allows — 'came over the rise at eleven and stayed up for as long as the geometry allowed, which was not long' (Terminal Black, chapter 4); 'The window ran for another four minutes' (ch18:239); the voice 'half a second behind itself' (One Road Out, chapter 1). The thermometer is on it: nine degrees at four on the Friday afternoon, minus nine at eight (Terminal Black, chapter 3); minus twenty-two at midnight, minus thirty-nine at three on the Saturday afternoon, read down the line by Liu herself (ch10:53).

Key

  • Command
  • Engineering
  • Power
  • Life support
  • Access
  • Communications

Grade of every figure on these sheets

  • published Stated in the books. If a drawing disagrees, the drawing is wrong.
  • derived Arithmetic on published facts; the working is given.
  • fixed Canon was silent here and the drawing decided.

Principal figures

Each figure carries its grade: published (the books state it), derived (arithmetic on what they state) or fixed (the sheet's own decision, bounded by what the books rule out).

  • Length overall

    10 m

    fixedspec ruling 2026-09-21; Terminal Black, chapter 12 — 'The shed's got its own cell and its own loop and it's warm, and it'll take a terminal set and two people'

    ⚠ NOT CANON. 'A shed' is all the prose gives, and a shed that takes a terminal set and two people is not forty metres. Ten frames at a metre: a door, four metres of bench, the cell and the loop, and the head's mount at the far end.

  • Beam

    5 m

    fixedspec ruling 2026-09-21

    Port (−1) is the bench side; starboard (+1) the terminations side. Which way the door faces the settlement is never said.

Systems

The link

published

A buried line that shares nothing with the ward grid

  • RunTwo kilometres, buried, from the shed into the command pit under Main Base — 'onto a rack four metres from where I'm standing' (Terminal Black, chapter 12); 'the array's buried line ran into that room and would still be there' (ch03:249)
  • Isolation'over a buried line that shared nothing with the ward grid' (ch03:93) — 'talking to eighteen people all night without once going through the settlement network' (ch09:135)
  • Lost01:12, Monday 21 March 2349 — the pit abandoned; 'the array link lost with them, which was why the station had had nothing off Hart for four days' (ch18:233)
  • Far end'You can't move a buried cable. You can go and sit at the far end of it' (ch12:97) — the post, from 24 March
  • RelayBy April the pit end is a relay: 'Commander Redding and Miss Brooks are on the relay at Main Base' (One Road Out, chapter 1)
  • The windowAs long as the geometry allows; 'half a second behind itself' (One Road Out, chapter 1); 'Link's good. Better than Monday. Don't ask me why, I've changed nothing' (One Road Out, chapter 1)

Terminal Black, chapter 3,:249; ch12:87,:97; ch18:233; One Road Out, chapter 1,:181,:189

The array post

published

Two people and a vehicle slot, every day

  • Went dark01:12, Monday 21 March 2349 — 'Dark since one o'clock Monday morning and nobody in it since' (ch18:129); the minute is Liu's own list, 'everything Hart had stopped being able to see at twelve minutes past one' (ch12:267)
  • ReopenedThursday 24 March — 'Liu's two people got into the array shed at ten past four in the afternoon' (ch18:217); fifty minutes for the door, twenty for the set
  • First window18:18 — 'Eighteen aboard. All eighteen.' (ch18:221–225). Then the count, in order, with the sources, and nothing added
  • Staffing'The array post is two people and a vehicle slot and it starts today' (ch18:137); 'the only reason Hart could talk to eighteen people in orbit' (ch27:311); service, not occupancy — 'The array shed, two people and a vehicle slot' (ch27:357)
  • The slot'the array post's vehicle slot could go at half past nine instead of eleven' (ch29:79); 'the most expensive standing commitment on the ground and which everyone had stopped mentioning' (One Road Out, chapter 1)
  • ⚠ Closed18 May 2349 — '*array post — closed*. Every day since the twenty-fourth of March, so that the ground could talk to the sky. There was nothing up there to talk to now' (One Road Out, chapter 3). Paper, connectors and lamp boxed at the old works 'since the twentieth' (One Road Out, chapter 7)

Terminal Black, chapter 18–145,:217–225; ch27:311,:357; ch29:79; One Road Out, chapter 1; ch03:173; ch07:233

The thermometer

published

A certified head on its own supply

  • Fri 18 Mar 16:00Nine degrees — 'The rise east of Main Base had been nine degrees at four in the afternoon' (ch03:225)
  • Fri 18 Mar 20:00Minus nine (ch03:225) — 'exterior loss exceeds loss of sunlight, unexplained' goes on the board (ch03:245)
  • Sat 19 Mar 00:00Minus twenty-two (ch10:53)
  • Sat 19 Mar 15:00Minus thirty-nine — 'Liu read it down the line to me herself. That's a certified head on its own supply and I trust it' (ch10:53)
  • Why it counts'The exterior number came off the array, because the array had a thermometer, its own power and a line Sarah trusted' (ch03:223)

Terminal Black, chapter 3–225; ch10:53

What was checked

The books state distances aboard this ship. The drawing has to produce the same ones or it is wrong — so it is made to, and the working is shown. These run again on every build; a compartment moved by a metre fails them.

  • “The door, the set and the station: 16:10, 17:00, 17:20, 18:18 on Thursday 24 March 2349” Terminal Black, chapter 18 — 'Liu's two people got into the array shed at ten past four in the afternoon'; ch18:219 — 'fifty minutes to get the door … and another twenty to bring the terminal set up'; ch18:221 — 'The station came over the rise at eighteen minutes past six'

    16:10 + 50 min = 17:00 for the door; + 20 min = 17:20 for the set; the station's window at 18:18 is 58 minutes later, which is what a window that comes 'as long as the geometry allowed' costs in waiting. AR-DOOR at frame 1–2 and AR-POST at 2–6 are the two things those seventy minutes were spent on, in that order. Pass.

  • “Three and a half days dark on the ground; 'four days' from orbit” Terminal Black, chapter 12 — 'everything Hart had stopped being able to see at twelve minutes past one'; ch18:129 — 'Dark since one o'clock Monday morning'; ch18:225 — 'I've had four days of not knowing'; ch18:233 — 'nothing off Hart for four days'

    01:12 Monday 21 March to 18:18 Thursday 24 March is 3 days 17 h 06 min. Okonjo counts Sunday's last window through Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday as four days of not knowing; Sarah's readout says the same. The two are one gap. The link the sheet draws leaving at frame 1 is the thing that was cut at the pit end, not here — the shed itself never failed. Pass.

  • “The shed takes a terminal set and two people” Terminal Black, chapter 12 — 'it'll take a terminal set and two people'; ch18:137 — 'The array post is two people and a vehicle slot'

    AR-POST spans frames 2–6: 4 frames at 1000 mm = 4 m of bench on the port side, with the terminations opposite. Two people and a set fit; nothing on the sheet is sized for more. The forty-metre hall of the 2026-09-14 ruling is gone. Pass.

  • “The post ran every day from 24 March to 18 May 2349” One Road Out, chapter 1 — 'two people and a vehicle slot in it every day since the twenty-fourth of March'; ch03:173 — 'array post — closed. Every day since the twenty-fourth of March'

    24 March to 18 May: 7 (to 31 March) + 30 (April) + 18 (May) = 55 days after the opening day, 56 vehicle slots inclusive. Sarah's line on 18 May is the day the station lands on the North Flats (One Road Out, chapter 3–9), which is the day there is nothing up there to talk to. Pass.

  • “The pulse plant of One Road Out is not in this shed” One Road Out, chapter 27 — 'It was the people in that service bay talking to each other over a machine'; ch17:37 — 'The far end of the bay … a drum against Response Two's nose leg'; ch17:47 — 'It's a flight plant. It lights, and it runs, and it's rated to put this machine off a planet'; ch26:243 — 'Bay two's running'; ch03:173 — the array post closed on 18 May

    The plant, the chain, the interface, the bar, the rejection side, the distribution room and the cabinet of One Road Out, chapter 26–27 are in bay two of the service bays at Launch Spine, four months after this post closed. None of them is drawn here. Pass.

Service history

Compiled from

  • The Surveyors — ch01; ch05 Hart (the refused day at the array); ch06; ch22 Two Terms
  • Terminal Black — ch03 Black (the array described: the rise, the fence, the cell and loop, the head, the buried line, the thermometer); ch04 The Drop; ch09; ch10 Seven Warm Metres (minus thirty-nine); ch12 The Pit (the rack four metres away; the terminal set carried out; the far end of a buried cable); ch18 Keep It Running (the post opened; the door; 18:18); ch27 The Footprint; ch29
  • One Road Out — ch01 Thirty-Three Days (Falzon on the link); ch03 Eighteen More (array post — closed); ch07 Orbital Half (the shed's paper); ch17, ch26, ch27 read only to establish that the Fire shed is bay two at Launch Spine and not this building
  • (P10 Orbital/Array Site)