The astronaut has personally walked the current **Dock Mouth → R-3 Approach → Clinical Abort Vestibule → R-3 Ward** route (R01→R11→R12→R13): one exposed junction, one counted vestibule and the refuge door. The player has passed travel air through the existing equipment sleeve and watched Yeva connect it herself. The canister competes with equipment and salvage before handover; the ward supplies no refill.

Through the glass, Yeva points past the player rather than at the door. Grease-pencil dates record which pressure fittings stopped holding and when. She will leave, but she wants the wall captured first: it is her only proof that the failures happened in an order.

The player has a concrete choice:

- **Frame the wall now.** Capturing runs in live time. The astronaut spends position and oxygen while pressure still approaches R11, but the full dated wall becomes a persistent record.

- **Signal movement now.** Yeva still comes. The uncaptured wall remains in R13 if the room can be reached later, but only the dates Yeva personally remembers become available aboard. There is no hidden loyalty penalty and no main-path gate.

Yeva also chooses the moment. She watches the R12 gauge and her suit flow, ignores the astronaut's first signal, and waits for the Presser formation to break around R11's bollard. When the ship-side lane clears, she says she can make the gap. The astronaut may accept her timing or wait while the remaining stage is cleared or sealed.

This proposal changes one local E04 rule. Transfer may begin at a **visible break window**, not only after complete quiet. The existing quarantine-wing allocation of perhaps 25–50 Pressers is divided into two warned pressure bands without adding bodies or a source. The Flanker pack and first Presser band create the approach fight. When that band breaks, the R12→R11 footprint is momentarily clear while the second band is still visible behind the existing quarantine-wing grille or moving down its leg. That is the window Yeva can judge.

If the player has already dogged the grille shut, the uncommitted band is prevented. If they have fully cleared every committed arrival, the crossing is quiet. Neither case produces replacement enemies, reduced rewards or a surprise source. The player earned the safer rescue and keeps it. A powerful build may erase the second band quickly; the population never scales up to manufacture drama.

Accepting the break window instead makes the remaining ordinary crowd the rescue pressure. Yeva cycles R13, crosses R12 under her own power and waits at its shipward control until the astronaut has a lane through R11. She advances without follow-distance steering. At the bollard, the player chooses between holding the R01 mouth as a funnel, taking the exploration leg to intercept Flankers, or reaching the grille wheel before more Pressers cross. Yeva moves when she can see the next threshold and may call an abort; the player may call one too.

Existing combat answers remain enough. Sensor→Projector fires at visible targets; Manual→Barrier faces a locked Flanker line; the bollard and worn cutter support the baseline. A later Nozzle can peel the Presser lane aside. Temporary power already earned gets a vivid use because clearance becomes a human step toward the ship. Each E04 band can pay its ordinary Break Mark at most once under [Combat Rules](/Hold%20The%20Flood/Combat%20Rules); the rescue grants no extra growth or major transformation.

The target from R13 opening to the ship airlock closing is roughly **45–90 seconds**, explicitly untested, and prior sealing, clearing or a strong build may shorten it. If the lane becomes unreadable, Yeva holds at the last closed door or calls the current failure approach; she never teleports or walks an unseen route.

**Sent** commits only when Yeva is physically aboard and the ship airlock closes. The horde music falls away with the outer door. She does not thank the astronaut. She asks for a working light and sits beside the ship recorder without taking off one glove.

If the wall was captured, she reads its entries aloud, then starts naming the people who stopped returning on those dates. If it was left behind, she records only the R13 entries she remembers and says, “There were more.” The first branch gives broader dated evidence; the second leaves a reason to revisit without making her useless or filling the missing record. Her existing packing-bench contribution remains a separate player-invoked scene, not an automatic reward.

Excitement comes from turning a build toward bodies so another person can move. Care comes from Yeva's disagreement and timing; relief from the closed airlock. Her technical list becoming a list of absences changes a record's meaning without answering the station's mysteries.

Compare both approaches at one exact instant: Yeva has left R12 and entered R11, the second band reaches the bollard, and the astronaut dies before either person reaches R01.

| Local approach | Where Yeva is after the death transaction | What the player knows on revival | What persists; what is lost or delayed | How play continues after the shift |

|---|---|---|---|---|

| **Protected retreat — current proposal** | Hostiles and active hazards cannot act during a limited pre-shift window. Yeva uses the already armed line and reserved return margin to walk back into counted R12, closes its door, and is alive and unsent when the shift moves that room with its group. | The astronaut knows only that Yeva was last seen in R11 and that the retreat was armed. R12's closure tell is local; no result is transmitted aboard. Her present state stays unconfirmed. | The wall capture, completed grille work and object locations persist. Travel air used on retreat and staged reserve already committed remain spent. The astronaut loses position and temporary power; the old route becomes historical. | Find stable R12 again, observe Yeva and the local tell, then bring fresh travel air, restock that vestibule and personally walk a new eligible short route. If no such route exists, rescue waits. |

| **Autonomous finish — simpler alternative** | This explicit alternative drops the abort-room stock, full-attempt return mark, retreat line and local closure tell. Once Yeva accepts the canister and starts, the death transaction closes the old encounter before the shift; she physically continues along the already walked R11→R01 leg, operates the ship airlock herself and becomes Sent before geometry changes. She is aboard on revival. | The player learns the outcome by directly seeing Yeva aboard and hearing her account, not by remote station knowledge. | The same world work and record persist; consumed gas stays spent, and the astronaut still loses position and temporary power. Rescue progress is not delayed. | No rescue retry is needed. The next expedition begins from the ship with renewed combat and the post-death arrangement. |

I recommend **protected retreat** unless the owner wants death to finish a rescue. It preserves costly failure and a discoverable retry without selecting survivor mortality. Its accepted price is extra stocked air, a marked return margin, survivor-operable controls, a local tell and an artificial hostile-free window. The scene must present readiness through Yeva's actions and physical objects, not a mission-panel checklist.

Autonomous finish is cleaner, but dying can become the fastest completion, Yeva receives a unique safe run after the astronaut falls, and the shift waits for her. Those are explicit proposed exceptions, not current rules.

| Item | Existing support | Proposed change or cost |

|---|---|---|

| **Place and population** | Counted R01, R11, R12 and R13; E04's Flankers, quarantine-wing grille and 25–50 Presser allocation. | Split the same finite E04 allocation into two visible bands and add the local break-window eligibility. No room, source, route, survivor or population increase. Encounter and Room owners would need to replace E04's full-quiet-only line if accepted. |

| **Human behavior** | Yeva's wall choice, flow confirmation, self-propelled crossing and recorder scene already exist. | Add visible gap judgment, door-to-door movement and abort behavior. The home beat is a tighter presentation of her existing arrival, not a new cast scene. |

| **Failure** | Protected retreat is pending owner decision; first survivor and global mortality remain open. | Select one of the two local approaches above before integrating this scene. Neither choice here settles post-Sent mortality or makes Yeva the first survivor. |

The scene could still fail. The wall capture may feel like an obvious “good” choice rather than a real risk. Splitting E04 may look authored for a reward beat instead of physical pressure. A strong build or prior seal may make the crossing emotionally brief, while the protected-retreat preparation may still dominate everything before it. Later authorized layout and play observation would need to test those possibilities; this design pass establishes only a readable proposal.

**Owner question:** when the astronaut dies at the bollard after Yeva enters R11, should she use the prepared hostile-free retreat to R12 and require a shifted-route retry, or physically finish the already walked route and be aboard on revival? I recommend the retreat despite its checklist cost, because death should not become a rescue shortcut and global survivor loss remains undecided.