The injured man by the service wall still held the broken latch tool.
Sera asked him to open his hand before the medic knelt beside him. He stared at her as if the request belonged to the fight and he had not yet decided whether it was over. Blood ran from his scalp into the dust at his temple. The tool’s jagged end rested across his palm.
“Set it down where you can see it,” she said. “Then she can reach you.”
He lowered it slowly. A defender moved the weapon clear without dragging it across the place it had fallen. The medic put a pad against the wound and asked the man his name. He gave it, then said he had only wanted the anchor protected.
“Keep still,” the medic told him. “We can hear that after I stop the bleeding.”
Beyond them, the local commander separated the people who could walk from those who needed carriers. Two defenders were injured. So were several of the people who had tried to enter. The available supplies did not divide themselves according to the side of the barrier on which the injuries had begun.
Sera asked the commander to preserve the service approach for investigators once the wounded were clear. The commander assigned a worker who had not taken part in the fight to note where the fragments and discarded equipment lay. It was not a substitute for an investigation. It would keep the first cleanup from destroying everything the later…
