Fixing The Flicker In Bay Three

Bay Three has always been the quiet corner of the station, tucked past the cargo lockers where the light comes in low and amber. Sometime last week one of its console panels started flickering — nothing dramatic, just a faint stutter every few seconds you'd only notice if you were staring at it mid-round.

Our robot spotted it before any of us did, actually. It logged the flicker pattern overnight and left a little note pinned to the console the next morning, which is either impressively diligent or slightly unsettling depending on how you look at it. We went with diligent.

Tracing it back took longer than expected. It wasn't the panel itself but a loose connector behind the porthole trim, the kind of thing that only shows up once you've pulled half the housing apart and put it back twice. Small station, small problems, but they still eat a whole afternoon.

What struck me while we had the panel open was how much of the light in that bay comes from the stars outside rather than the console itself. With the panel dark, Bay Three was still perfectly playable by porthole light alone, which says more about the view than the wiring.

It's fixed now, steady amber glow and all. If you noticed the flicker before, it's gone; if you didn't, well, now you know Bay Three a little better than you did.