Satellites and Other Miscalculations

“Did anyone remember to plug in the mainframe?” Carla’s voice cut through the room like a misplaced chainsaw in a library.

The five of them froze, their faces lit by the icy blue glow of flickering monitors. The countdown was still on the screen—T-minus 1:27:15—but they all knew the number meant nothing if the system’s heart wasn’t beating.

“Wasn’t that Gary’s job?” whispered Lyle, adjusting his tie even though no one cared anymore.

Gary, the team’s unofficial historian and definite oldest employee, stared at the terminal like it had personally betrayed him. “I delegated. To... the intern.”

All eyes shifted to Beth, who blinked slowly like a deer being asked to explain quantum mechanics mid-car crash. “I thought the mainframe was just a metaphor,” she offered.

It wasn’t.

**

Welcome to OrboSat Dynamics, a private satellite communications company operating out of a retrofitted Cold War bunker and held together with duct tape, outdated software, and a mysterious lack of audits.

Their latest project? Launching a communications satellite for a paying client that still thought they were reputable. The catch? The control system was analog, the power grid was split across two unstable generators, and HR had dissolved sometime in 2019.

The coffee machine, however, still worked—though it only dispensed hot brown regret.

**

Tensions flared, systems beeped, and the room smelled faintly of burnt plastic and panic. Carla took over. She always did. Her father had built OrboSat from scratch, back when engineers were chain-smoking problem-solvers and paperwork was optional. Now, all she wanted was to keep the company’s reputation intact long enough to make rent.

Lyle recalibrated the orbit model with a broken mouse. Beth rerouted power using a cafeteria tray and two spare fuses. Theo tried to troubleshoot by blowing on things, which, in his defense, had fixed three issues that month. Gary, determined to prove he still mattered, found the original launch sequence—on floppy disks.

“Guys,” said Theo, the cocky aerospace dropout with perfect hair, “if this works, we go down as legends. Or at least a good Reddit thread.”

They launched. The satellite wobbled, briefly spun like a drunk ballerina, then stabilized.

Cheering erupted. Beth cried. Lyle kissed Carla’s cheek without meaning to. Gary raised a mug of cold coffee like it was champagne.

Then the monitors blinked out.

Every system. Dead. Silence.

The backup kicked in a full minute later. Turns out, they’d been plugged into the vending machine’s circuit.

**

They didn’t get sued.

The satellite worked—barely—but the client never noticed. They were too busy promoting their “cutting-edge innovation” in press releases.

OrboSat didn’t collapse, not that week. Carla managed to hire a new electrical tech. Gary retired, but not before leaving a full printed manual taped to the ceiling. Beth stayed, grew confident, and started a podcast. Lyle quit to open a bar called “Countdown.”

As for Theo?

He went viral the next day—caught on CCTV, dancing in the server room, wearing nothing but a headset and a fire blanket. The video was titled “Mission Control Loses Control.”

To this day, they call it a successful launch. And depending on how you measure success, they’re not entirely wrong.

**

Later, when they spoke about it over drinks or department reunions, it was always framed as more than a job. More than a blunder. It was the moment they each figured out what they were capable of under pressure—and how bizarrely far one journey could go without ever leaving the building. It wasn’t miles that made it memorable, but the sheer distance between who they were at the start and who they’d become by the end.