The black knuckle crossed the west rail and struck Palla's boot hard enough to turn her ankle.
She caught the cage fiber before it wound around her leg. The line passed through the dead bone, entered the fourth desk's keeper cup, and pulled both toward the cargo seam beneath the tram.
Palla had sent one held pull followed by two. Nessa's answer should have come back as three separate cutter strikes.
The fiber gave her one continuous drag.
Davi braced his rifle across the desk legs. "Did Captain Cord answer the return check before this started?"
"Her answer requires one strike followed by two more against the rail."
Fenn wrapped the broken keg hook around a tram bolt and leaned against it. "I heard the desk eating our street, but no cutter answered."
The Meren plate shifted inside the brass carriage. Its lower edge disappeared beneath the hand socket, where the cargo teeth had already bitten a groove into the nearest rail tie.
