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“Pre-descent preparation,” he said.

Lysa stood. “What are those?”

“Surface survival identifiers.”

The guard caught her arm. Kesta rose. “What’s in the injector?”

“Sedative, anti-radiation compound, clotting support.”

“Dose by mass?”

“Standard human dose.”

“There is no standard human dose without weight and medical history.”

The guard smiled. “You are no longer medical personnel.” He injected Mira first. She gasped and sagged against the wall. Kesta caught her before her head struck metal. Mira’s pulse raced under Kesta’s fingers—far too fast for a sedative.

“What did you give her?”

“Preparation.”

Mira began to convulse. Lysa swore and helped lower her to the deck. Kesta rolled Mira onto her side. “She’s reacting. I need an airway and antihistamine.” The guards did not move.

“She may stabilize,” one said.

“May?”

A rash climbed Mira’s throat beneath the collar. Kesta seized the medical cart. The guard struck her across the shoulder with a shock baton. Pain locked every muscle in her body. She fell beside Mira, unable to draw breath. Lysa lunged. The second guard drove her into the wall. Mira’s convulsions stopped. For one hopeful instant, she lay still. Then Kesta saw the absence of movement in her chest.

“No.”

Her body obeyed again in fragments. Kesta dragged herself closer, opened Mira’s airway, and began compressions. The guards watched.

“Help me!”

“Subject viability is assessed at deployment.”

“She is dying now.”

“She has already been declared dead.”

Kesta’s hands faltered. Of course she had. They all had. Lysa knelt opposite and breathed for Mira while Kesta compressed. They worked until sweat ran into Kesta’s eyes and the ship’s launch alarm began to pulse. No heartbeat returned. The guards finally pulled them away. Mira remained on the floor, copper-brown eyes open toward the ceiling.

“She was afraid,” Lysa said.

One guard shrugged. “Fear is common in transit.” Kesta looked at his face and memorized it. She did not expect justice. Remembering was the only burial she could give Mira Orr. Before the bands, the guards brought a scanner over Mira’s body.

Her designation changed from H-26 ACTIVE to H-26 NONVIABLE without a name ever appearing on the screen. The system reassigned her drop coordinates within seconds. Kesta watched the transaction complete.

“Her name was Mira Orr.”

The guard did not look up. “Names are not used after civil death.”

“Then why does mine still appear on your tablet?”

He glanced at the display and turned it away. Lysa saw it too. Not every dead prisoner had been stripped of identity in the same way. Kesta stored the detail beside everything else she did not yet understand. A sanitation drone entered to clean the blood from the deck. It bumped Mira’s bare foot and kept moving. Kesta caught the machine and shoved it back so hard it struck the wall. The guard raised his baton. Lysa stepped between them. “She is preserving the body for transfer.”

It was not true, but it was language the machinery recognized. The guard lowered the weapon. Lysa crouched and retied the strip of cloth around Mira’s wrist. “Someone should know which dead are ours.” Kesta helped smooth the gray shift over Mira’s knees. They had known her less than an hour. It was still more care than the empire had given her. They fitted the wider bands around Kesta and Lysa’s wrists. The material tightened until it found their pulse. The guard scanned Kesta’s band. “Subject H-24. Ash grid.”