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Before the convoy departed, the camps fought over who would be saved first. Hallow had forty-three confirmed prisoners. The available carriers could move twenty-six without crossing the same exposed road twice. The observer system would detect a second trip. Children and critical patients accounted for nineteen places. Evidence cases, food, and medical equipment competed for the rest. Rath wanted weapons loaded before archives. Elara wanted every Helix record removed even if adults walked. Nara wanted three seats kept empty until her children were physically found.

Jessa wanted scouts carried because the return route crossed predator territory. Dreven listened until every person had spoken, then looked at Kesta. “Medical priority?” She hated the question because there was no answer that did not decide whose suffering counted most.

“Children first. Ventilator-dependent patients second. Anyone with an active command port third because the next pulse may turn them into weapons. Evidence is copied and split across carriers. No single case gets a seat a living person needs.”

Elara’s face hardened. “Without the original authorizations, the empire calls the copies fabricated.”

“Then carry the smallest originals on your body.”

“And if I die?”

“Pela has the duplicates.”

“If she is compromised?”

“Lina has sealed copies. Red Basin has another set. We stop building single points of failure.”

Elara looked at Dreven. “She has become dangerous.”

“She was dangerous on the transport,” he said. “The rest of us were slow to notice.”

The argument ended without satisfaction. That was becoming the shape of honest government: not harmony, but decisions no one could disguise as inevitable. Kesta found Nara near the final carrier, checking the same three restraints again and again.

“They will hold,” Kesta said.

Nara did not look up. “That is what they said before they moved us to Hallow.” Kesta crouched beside her. “What would make this different?”

“Nothing.”

It was not refusal. It was trauma refusing the burden of hope.

“Then you do not have to believe us yet. Tell me what you need for the next ten minutes.”

Nara considered. “No closed doors. My children where I can see them. No sedative unless I ask.” Kesta repeated the terms to Sera and wrote them across Nara’s transport tag. Olin volunteered for the exposed rear carrier. Lina objected. “Restitution is not execution.”

“I know the condenser routes I compromised.”

“That makes you useful, not disposable.”

The words visibly struck him. He accepted a place beside Keth with two witnesses and no weapon until contact began. Pela gave him a relay slate that recorded every route change. Trust was not restored. It was being rebuilt in auditable pieces.

At the front of the convoy, Dreven checked the horizon. He wore no claim insignia. Kesta’s visible band was gone. The camp had nevertheless arranged itself around their divided authority, as if habit could become law before anyone noticed. Kesta stepped beside him. “We alternate final decisions.” His brow lifted. “By category?”

“Medical and survivor movement, mine. Battle positioning, yours. If one decision crosses both, we stop and state the conflict aloud.”

“In front of everyone?”

“Especially in front of everyone.”

A slow, fierce approval entered his eyes. “Agreed.” Rath overheard. “This will be intolerably educational.”

“Try to survive it,” Kesta said.

The column divided at the next junction, and the separation exposed every weakness in the alliance. Keth wanted the fastest fighters with him. Sera wanted anyone with stable hands assigned to stretchers. Rath refused to let his people take orders from an Ash lieutenant whose brother had once raided Red Basin stores. The argument consumed forty seconds they did not have. Kesta took the slate from Keth and rewrote the teams by function rather than camp.

“You,” she said to the Red Basin archer, “can carry and shoot. You go with Sera. Jessa, you know old imperial locks. You go with Rath’s scout. Keth, keep the people who can recognize command activation before it spreads.”

Rath looked at the new roster. “You have split every loyalty pair.”