There were three ships, but only one arrow in the first picture.
Darae studied the heavy line through the plan's center: three vessels pulling the home in one direction. Han Mujin took the pen. Without erasing it, he wrote a small question beside it. Who stops, and when?
It was the morning eighteen days after all twenty-three residents' temporary handover at Raon. Narae's flight staff and those from two existing transport-network tugs had brought their information to the north tow port's joint review room. No ship departed or connected. Safety retained its requirement for fresh tracking while examining what could be planned.
The first tug could handle large loads but did not fit Sai's old connection directly. The second had compatible equipment, yet limited thermal margin for sustained output. Narae could be considered for approach, inspection and assistance, not towing the whole main habitat alone.
“Couldn't the three of them share it and pull hard?” an operations officer asked.
Mujin indicated the connection where three lines met. Adding the ships' force differed from the structure receiving it safely. Different directions or timing could cause rotation and connection loads. Structural and flight specialists had to determine roles and connection order together.
Darae brought the three cargo sheets. Her responsibility was the mass, securing and handover of connection equipment and test items, not thrust calculations or maneuver commands. Catalog could organize supplied information; it could not create missing fuel or fittings.
The first draft gave the main habitat to two vessels, with Narae inspecting S-6 afterward. Safety marked their separate motion again. Working on one did not make the other a nearby stop they could simply visit next.
Mujin bracketed approach preparation, relative-motion adjustment, failed-approach withdrawal and return on Narae's route. Visiting S-6 afterward required another plan. A column called spare time in one voyage contained no actual spare fuel.
Operations pulled the timetable forward. Using all three in one window could displace ordinary cargo. They had not simply found empty ships. Each operator's review scope was confirmed. Cargo not yet rescheduled would not be announced as already delayed; a concrete schedule change would need confirmed receipt.
Darae stopped at a picture of the rescue ring. Narae's equipment had returned to Narae. Follow-up vessels used their own certified equipment. She corrected a copied photograph that made the draft appear to load the same ring aboard all three.
“The objects have tripled too.”
Seo nodded. “I wish that feature would break. It only works in drawings.”
People laughed briefly. Then actual storage locations and compatibility data were needed again. Shortages did not go straight onto a shopping list. They first checked the uses and permissible testing scope of existing equipment. Each item still needed a real location and a confirmed purpose, even after the copied picture had been put right.
The morning ended with a communications exercise. Ships stayed still while staff received training scenarios at separate positions. Screens and calls were marked TEST, distinct from real flight instructions. They were checking whether everyone understood the first stop condition alike.
Safety sent the first signal: awaiting tracking update; hold approach. The first tug repeated it. The second answered, hold start of towing. Mujin understood that Narae must stop approach too. The same word, hold, had stopped different work.
Seo closed the cargo sheet. A difference one vessel could question and correct could endanger a simultaneous three-vessel plan. Darae recorded the instruction and actual readbacks, not a verdict on who had listened worst. The wording each person had actually received belonged beside the answer they had given. Otherwise a corrected record might conceal the difference that the exercise was meant to find.
In the next exercise, delivery order failed too. Another work call briefly occupied the second tug's contact desk. Narae confirmed receiving the hold but could not know whether that ship had stopped. Mujin did not count silence as agreement. The other two ships advanced no further either.
“Then nobody can go,” someone said.
“Good thing we're finding that out now.”
Mujin's answer was short, but he did not raise his voice as if angry with the person asking. Darae left Narae's little magnet still on the training plan. They could finish one failure in a room where no vessel had moved.
During the break, communications staff explained. Nearby radio messages might travel quickly, yet that did not give all three vessels and Safety a shared link at every moment. Line of sight, relay bookings and work communications resources differed. Light speed need not excuse long delays; an available connection still did not guarantee receipt.
One long command became staged confirmations. They established who coordinated progress, how each vessel reported stopping, and what the others must refrain from doing if one lost reception. Safety and pilots set the professional criteria. Darae linked their answers to cargo-handover waiting conditions.
Another failure scenario exposed a withdrawal route overlapping the waiting vessel's next approach zone. Both had looked empty on paper because they were outside the home. Mujin separated the magnets and redrew the routes.
Darae remembered chasing a meal pack and turning her own body. Cargo was not the only thing that moved. Moving a ship created a path and required room to stop. A waiting ship was no object that could be set down anywhere.
Communications staff asked everyone to show their hold screens. The first tug displayed approach; the second had opened post-connection tasks first. They had read the same signal at different stages. Darae found that cargo ready meant different things aboard each vessel too.
She separated packaging complete, vessel receipt and securing confirmed, reading them to the actual receiving staff. One vessel marked ready upon receiving a packaging photograph; another waited until the loading position was checked. The difference could make test equipment not yet at the port appear already loaded.
Staff confirmed their meanings and changed the stage labels. Rereading one altered line took time, delaying another afternoon review. Darae did not hide the cost of building the joint plan quickly. At the next handover, they still had to check whether today's agreed words meant actual receipt.
That afternoon they compared return margins for each role. Thermal management shortened the second tug's assigned portion. The first tug then needed longer preparation, pushing Narae's inspection later. More ships did not automatically shorten total time.
Giwan said replacing transport bookings would require a cost review. Staff kept the new plan's actual work costs separate from his company's investigated past invoice. New support could not be held hostage to avoiding old responsibility. Neither could an ongoing investigation make all present work automatically free.
Darae looked at an empty cargo column. Good intentions alone could not load the work after rescue aboard a ship. Professional time, delayed transport and test-equipment storage needed actual people responsible. Operations did not enter unresolved costs as zero.
Lunch ran late, crowding the eating space outside. Seo offered Darae one of his meal pack's restraints. Too short for both, it let one pack lift. Smiling, he took it back.
“Half a strap each doesn't secure two packs,” she said.
“I put two ships' reserve time into one box earlier.”
They secured separate supports. Unlike the calculations, lunch needed no repeated exercise. Once the packs stayed still, they ate.
Haeseong received the afternoon's limited summary. A three-vessel plan was under review; departure, docking and a final towing window remained unapproved. Further independent observation and structural and connection checks remained. No notice called it the date residents could return.
He asked whether a resident technician would have to board each ship. No such consent or assignment existed. Staff had to review professional staffing and the plan for work at an unoccupied facility. Maru's reading skill did not become a field communications assignment. Adults still received night notices.
“I understand we ought to help. It's our home,” Haeseong said.
Seo did not immediately nod. Giving useful explanations differed from qualification for hazardous work. Wanting a home could not become acceptance of flight duties nobody had yet explained. Haeseong rewrote his question: what must be learned, and who should undertake which work?
The final exercise before evening rechecked the earlier failure conditions. Stage readbacks matched. No reply meant no next stage. Revised withdrawal zones no longer overlapped. It remained a procedural exercise inside a room, proving neither actual link quality, connection loads nor successful flight.
Mujin wrote CONTINUE CONDITIONAL REVIEW on the flight sheet. Darae let herself feel relief. No vessel had departed, but they had actually discarded a plan in which all three could not stop safely. The next worker need not begin with that first picture.
Back at the office, she separated available authorized equipment from preserved evidence. Faulty 7-B, its original card and packaging would not become test parts. S-6's three support items remained in unoccupied positions. Raon's candidate cartridge and coolant pump stayed in specialist storage.
The duty clerk showed her the new joint-review asset list. The empty main habitat appeared as five units of retired construction cargo. Haeseong's dining space and long-term ventilation checks were living conditions on another sheet. The field for whoever would connect those sheets still lacked a name.
The operating cooperative had scheduled a limited hearing tomorrow on ledger classifications and actual residential use. A joint plan needed an explanation of what they were moving, under whose responsibility, as well as connection equipment.
Darae put the three ship magnets away. There were three hands to pull the home, but still no ledger field that could call it one. After finding conditions for stopping, they must ask for a classification that would not stop people's lives.