Kest pressed the release seal before the last hospital cart cleared the receiving corridor.
The anchor frame answered with a sound that ran through the floor rather than the air. Its silver lines dimmed, the hospital roots beneath them pulled tight, and the gate began shedding its load into every connection it had used.
Patients were still moving through the alley. The road was still carrying water, medics, and the last two Citadel fighters holding the corridor.
"Thirty seconds was generous. He is trying to collapse the geometry and the toll calculation together," Vasa said through the route crystal, her hands moving across the portable console as fast as ice could form under her fingers.
"Can you split them?" Nox asked.
"I can identify them. Splitting them needs a stable observed seam," she said.
