Page 79 of Warrior’s Mate

Maelis opened a new registry protocol and added a family-link field that could survive transfers between shelters. Then she added an instruction requiring intake staff to record identifying details in structured fields rather than burying them in notes.

One of the volunteers leaned over. "You're redesigning the entire system."

"Only the parts that are failing."

"That's the entire system."

Maelis looked around the hall. "Then we should work quickly."

The volunteer laughed, but stayed.

Two hours later, a mother from the western district was reunited with her adult son because a medical transfer had preserved his clan mark but lost his surname. A farm worker discovered that his partner had been moved to a shelter three valleys away rather than captured. Three children remained unconnected to any surviving relative, and Maelis refused to let relief staff label them orphans while entire districts were still offline.

"Unaccompanied," she corrected for the fourth time.

"Registrar, their parents may be dead."

"May be. Until we know, they are unaccompanied."

The distinction was not optimism. It was discipline.

By the time Kaiven found her again, Maelis understood that the registry would outlive the emergency station. Whatever came next—searches, exchanges, rescues, burials—would depend on whether they could say who had been taken and who still had someone looking for them.

Kaiven returned near one in the morning. She knew from his face that whatever had happened in command had not been reassuring.

"How bad?" she asked.

He glanced at the volunteers around her.

Maelis understood. "Walk with me."

"Your knee—"

"The brace works. Walk slowly."

They moved toward the quieter end of the hall, where supply crates had been stacked against an exterior wall. Kaiven waited until they were away from the registry table.

"The attack was broader than Wasaytu," he said. "Much broader. Main Brigade forces were committed off-world, and nobody has a reliable arrival time for the returning dreadnoughts. Distress traffic was delayed and rerouted. Provisional command is trying to determine how much was failure and how much was deliberate interference."

"Consortium?"

"We don't know yet."

His tone told her what he suspected.

"Captives?"

"Thousands confirmed missing across the first districts reporting. Possibly far more."

Maelis leaned against a crate. Thousands. Her mind tried to turn the number into a shape and failed.

"Can we track the transports?"

"Some. Not enough."

"Then we start with the names."

Kaiven looked toward the registry tables. "Provisional command said the same thing. Every survivor. Every missing person. Every ship. Every family. We build a record before the chaos erases them and before the returning command has to decide where to begin looking."