Kiri Don's third trench support stood fourteen meters beyond the road limb.
The support was a steel fork set into red soil. Its top could carry the pale plate over forty-three people.
Nothing connected the fork to the plate.
The jointed frame kept one road segment between them and pressed harder whenever Kiri moved her cutting tool.
Asha Venn remained strapped inside the bridge booth above that pressure.
Hesh's charged landing waited beside her corridor.
Jori Neh could drop it, but its concrete would hit Asha and Basalt Mile's occupied rooms before it reached the frame.
Caleb offered force from the foundry floor.
Sela listed what remained available.
One human-scale brace.
No serviceable press.
Three open holes at Caleb's retained hip.
A flattened right chest plate.
No current relation to Kiri's fork.
"I cannot touch that support without making the occupied plate my route," Caleb said.
Kiri received the statement through signs scratched in soil.
