Lira files Kael's beacon time before Veyr Exchange can contest the claim. Cyra Vest allows a hearing but questions...
Juno Pax was still bleeding from one knuckle when she shoved the beacon telemetry into Iron Hallow's evidence buoy and slapped the launch stud. The buoy kicked away from the maintenance blister, tumbling through Ashgate grit with the pirate rack's green claim light mirrored on its shell. Behind it, Redledger's broken launcher spun toward the debris lane, and the claim clock on Juno's wrist counted down from eleven minutes and forty seconds.
"Buoy away," she said. "If Freeport sees the timestamp before Veyr's contest packet, the rack is ours to argue over."
"Not ours to spend," Tavia Renn warned from the bridge speaker. "Claimed is not paid."
Kael Veyr stood with one hand braced against a bulkhead that throbbed each time the reopened port fracture flexed. "Lira, tell me you are already awake."
Lira Cast's face appeared on the cracked legal screen, hair pinned badly and eyes sharp. "I was awake when your first barrel made half of Freeport's insurance board sit up. Send raw combat logs now."
"Raw logs include crew voice channels," Tavia said.
Lira did not blink. "Then send them under compact seal. If you trim them, Veyr will call the whole engagement staged."
The first Veyr objection arrived before the buoy cleared relay range: unauthenticated pirate hardware, illegal weapons activation, questionable distress identification. Damen's name was not on it. Of course it was not. The packet came from a polite insurance advocate who had never smelled missile propellant.
Juno's wrist chimed ten minutes.
Kael opened the shared bridge channel. "Lira gets raw logs under crew compact custody. No edits. Tavia marks access."
"You do not order custody after battle," Tavia said. "You request it."
He heard the tired anger under her precision. The crew had voted through fire. Now their voices were evidence someone else wanted to own.
"Then I request it," he said. "And I accept the log seal even if it makes me look worse."
Tavia studied him through the bridge camera. "Say why."
Kael looked at the fracture warning crawling across the lower screen, the fuel margin, the convoy witnesses waiting for permission to leave. "Because if captain pride can edit the record, no mechanic should crawl into Frame Twelve for me."
That earned silence first. Then Tavia said, "Compact seal granted. Lira receives read access, not custody."
"Good enough," Lira said. "Now give me the clock."
She filed with Freeport Registry at nine minutes and six seconds. The hearing opened in a remote civil channel before Iron Hallow had finished clearing the convoy from the danger arc. Admiral Cyra Vest presided from Freeport Registry Hall, uniform collar unfastened, expression colder than the static between feeds.
"Kael Veyr," Cyra said, "your condemned carrier drew pirate contact on its first escort route."
"Yes, Admiral."
"That is either bad luck, bait, or private war."
Lira leaned into her camera. "Which is why we filed the rack before the insurer could erase it as derelict debris."
The Veyr advocate appeared beside Cyra's feed, smooth and gray. "Freeport should reject the claim. Iron Hallow fired an uncertified weapon."
Orin Vale's voice rumbled from the bridge before Kael could stop him. "Uncertified barrel, certified missile inside the defense cone."
Cyra's eyes moved. "Identify speaker."
"Orin Vale," he said. "Manual gunner under compact authorization."
The advocate smiled. "Court-martialed Vale? Fascinating witness."
The bridge stiffened. Orin's hand tightened on the dead weapons rail.
Kael stepped closer to the legal screen. "His commission is gone. His geometry is not. The missile crossed our logged defense cone and targeted a hazard-ore barge. The barrel fired after that crossing."
"Your own log will prove it?" Cyra asked.
Tavia answered instead. "The crew log will prove or disprove it. Kael Veyr does not hold sole custody."
Cyra's expression changed by a fraction. "That was not in the objection."
"Veyr Exchange objects to inconvenient things last," Lira said.
The advocate tried to recover. "Crew custody does not cure motive. Why would pirates strike a worthless carrier unless the captain invited conflict to manufacture salvage?"
Juno's voice shook, but it carried. "Because the false distress core used a stolen registry checksum. I have the spoof trace. Redledger was already there."
"Apprentice speculation," the advocate said.
Juno lifted her injured hand into the camera. "My drone tagged your disputed hardware while the tether was failing. The beacon's contact scar matches the rack feed. That is not speculation."
The claim clock hit zero. Lira sent the final packet.
Cyra read for a long few seconds while Iron Hallow's hull alarms muttered in the background. "Preliminary salvage claim accepted into escrow. Hardware will be held pending proof of lawful defensive fire. Veyr Exchange objection preserved."
"Escrow?" Tavia asked. "Meaning no repair money."
"Meaning no one buries it either," Lira said.
Cyra fixed Kael through the feed. "You have forty-eight hours to produce clean combat logs, unedited chain of custody, and testimony from the ore convoy. If those logs show first fire or tampering, I ground Iron Hallow and refer the matter for private-war inquiry."
Kael glanced toward the damage display. Forty-eight hours was enough time for the fracture to worsen, the bank to circle, and Damen to polish a story.
"Understood," he said.
The hearing channel closed. The bridge exhaled in pieces.
Then Lira's private line flashed red. "Kael, one more thing. Cyra is right to ask why Redledger found you so fast. Someone sold your Ashgate departure window before you left dock."