Kendra did not defend Diana's relay from inside the maintenance building. She left the front door visible, the roof ladder unsecured, and the cable alley open enough that a careless team would call it a mistake.
The real relay console had been moved into the basement archive room beneath two reinforced floor plates. Diana remained upstairs with a mobile transmitter and the four operators who had chosen to stay, because the live feed needed someone visible enough to make the bounty teams commit.
"You are the bait," Kendra said as she checked the last barrier marker.
"I am the reason they came, and there is a difference," Diana replied.
Kendra accepted that answer. She had put three Citadel squads where the attackers could not see them: one under the cable alley, one in the roof-access stairwell, and one across the abandoned tram cut behind the building.
