The defense captain refused the tripod before its feet were fully spread.
A litter was coming through the emergency lane, carried by two people who had already taken one patient to the wider road. The captain pointed at the gap the instrument would leave. Empty, it looked passable. With the litter’s handles and a medic walking beside the patient, the gap would force someone against the damaged wall.
“Fold it,” she said.
The district operator held the spare receiver against her chest. “We need the branch boundary.”
“You need another mounting point.”
Juno heard the exchange through the independent contact. The operator was two streets from the fixed instrument, close enough to compare the edge they had seen, if they could set the spare where the crossing signal would reach it without the receiver’s own placement manufacturing the result.
“Don’t narrow the lane,” Juno said.
The operator looked at the captain. “Could the fixed feed be disconnected briefly for calibration?”
