At Nora’s desk, Kellan laid out the rescue cap he had found on the provisional score sheet. Eli placed the restored-time ruling beside it.
They had already separated the two questions: what the panel owed earlier rescuers, and what the next round should reward. Now they needed evidence precise enough to survive the answer Kellan expected—that everyone had entered under the same published rule.
The time restored after the obstacle-course appeal appeared in the corrected column, and the judge’s initials matched the ruling. The value of stopping for the people the broken mechanism had put in danger remained constrained by the cap.
Rescue credit stopped where combat credit could continue. A team could protect several people, spend its remaining time helping them reach medical care, and still earn less than a team that passed the casualties and completed another attack station.
The rule had been there before they entered.
Kellan read it twice, then put the sheet beside the account of the withdrawal the independent observer had just supported. The observer’s contact remained posted outside. A hunter could leave now without begging a captain to carry the request. That did not mean the rest of the contestants were rewarded for helping them get out.
