The lifting frame caught Kellan across the shoulder at the pier turn.
He stopped before the load drove him against the rail. Behind him, the medic carrying the contact kit halted too, trapped in the frame’s sweep. The timed carry had advanced less than a third of the way from staging to the entrance.
“Down on the supports,” Kellan said.
The Aegis carrier at the other end obeyed. Together they lowered the frame onto the prepared pads. Nobody hung its weight from the rail while arguing about the result.
The extraction specialist looked at the narrow space between the harbor stores and the fixed barrier.
“We can take it single file.”
“Not with her behind this end,” Kellan said. “If I turn, it closes her path. If she goes ahead, we can’t reach the medical load without putting this down.”
“The return window is narrow. We need the extraction equipment.”
