Chen Jian had barely finished explaining why the group needed one person to coordinate their efforts when Elara Voss stepped in front of him.
“We don’t need to vote on this,” she said. “Aetheris chartered the ship. Most of you work for the company or are here because of it. I’m responsible for you, and I’ll organize the search.”
A few people seemed relieved to hear something decisive. Others looked at the covered bodies near the rocks and said nothing.
Chen adjusted his cracked glasses. “You can organize people. That isn’t the same as knowing what they need to do.”
Elara’s eyes narrowed, though she kept her voice level. “Then tell me what you would do differently.”
“Start with the things we can’t do without. Water, food, dry fuel and somewhere to get out of the wind. Put people on jobs according to what they can actually do. Keep track of what comes back. If we don’t do that, we’ll spend the day carrying junk around and arguing over it.”
“Fine. And who decides what happens to the supplies?” Elara asked. “Who settles it when two people claim the same thing? Who makes sure the injured get water before someone who’s perfectly healthy? Who stops a stronger person from taking another person’s share?”
Chen glanced at the faces around them. Several survivors were already looking past him toward the beach, as if the next useful thing might turn up there without anyone having to settle the argument.
“That needs rules,” he said. “Not just a person who can shout loudest.”
“Rules only work if someone can enforce them.”
“Then choose someone who can do both.”
The exchange had drawn a small crowd. Kael Rainer noticed it from behind a boulder and came striding over, his mouth set in a scowl. He had spent the better part of the morning trying to recover the authority he’d lost when Kai refused to hand over his supplies. Elara’s position was the only thing he could still lean on, and he wasn’t about to let Chen weaken it in public.
“What’s all this?” he demanded. “We’ve got people dead on the beach and you two are squabbling over a job title?”
“No one’s squabbling,” Chen said. “We’re trying to decide how not to lose more people.”
Kael turned on a younger employee from Administration, Zhou Min, who had muttered something to the man beside him. “You have something to add?”
Zhou raised both hands. “No, Kael. I was only saying—”
“Then don’t say it behind people’s backs.” Kael seized his collar and yanked him forward. Zhou stumbled, trying not to fall on the uneven ground.
“Let go of him,” Chen said.
Kael gave Zhou a sharp slap. The younger man’s head snapped to one side, and he pressed a hand to his cheek, stunned enough that he forgot to defend himself.
Kael released him with a shove. “Anyone else want to explain leadership to Ms. Voss?”
Nobody volunteered. Zhou moved behind a crate, his eyes wet with anger he was too frightened to show openly.
Chen was still looking at him when Kael stepped close. “You think you can make speeches and get people to follow you?”
“I think we should stop hitting people for talking.”
“Then you should have kept your mouth shut.” Kael drove his shoe into Chen’s injured shin.
Pain shot up Chen’s leg. He caught himself with one hand on the sand, his glasses slipping down his nose. Wang Lan hurried over and grabbed his arm before he could try to stand.
“Chen—don’t,” she whispered, more frightened than angry. She had seen what Kael did to people who made him feel small.
Chen’s face had gone pale. He swallowed, pushed his glasses back into place and got to his feet with Wang Lan’s help. He looked at Kael as if he wanted to say something far worse than what had come out of his mouth before, then thought better of it.
Elara had watched the whole thing. The violence visibly unsettled her; she looked away from Chen’s leg for a moment, and when she spoke her voice was thinner than she intended.
“That’s enough, Kael.”
He stepped back at once, his anger folding itself into a respectful expression. “Of course, Ms. Voss. I was just keeping order.”
She could have told him that order didn’t mean kicking a man who was already injured. The words were there, ready. But the crowd had gone quiet, and for the first time since the wreck, everyone was waiting to see whether she could make the silence hold.
So she let the matter drop.
“Chen,” she said, walking toward him. “Your knowledge is useful. No one is disputing that. But we also need someone to coordinate supplies and keep people working together.”
Chen brushed sand from his palm. “I’m not asking to be in charge of everyone.”
“Good. Because I’m not handing over final decisions.” Elara turned so the group could hear her. “I’ll coordinate people and distribution. Chen will advise on finding water, making fire and choosing shelter. Every recovered supply comes to a central point and gets recorded before it’s handed out. We’ll make decisions based on what we have, not on whoever happens to be holding something.”
“That sounds reasonable,” Chen said, though he didn’t sound convinced.
“Then we agree.”
“No. We agree on the jobs. Not on who has the right to overrule everyone else.”
Elara’s expression hardened. “When we’re back in the city, I’ll be the one responsible for compensation, medical care and getting you all home. That matters to people, whether you like it or not.”
It mattered because they wanted to believe her. They had buried five colleagues that morning, and most of them had no idea how they’d survive another night. A promised job or a sum of money was something solid enough to picture. A source of water was not.
Kael seized the opening. “You heard Ms. Voss. She’s the one who can get us home. We need to stop acting like a committee and start working.”
This time, no one challenged him.
Elara assigned the men to two search groups and asked the women to sort the wreckage that had washed above the tide line. Chen was to lead the technical search for water and dry branches, while Kael would supervise the lists and deal with anyone who refused an assignment. The arrangement was practical on paper. In practice, everyone could see that Kael had been given a loose leash and Chen a job with no authority to protect him.
As people began to disperse, Elara caught Kael by the elbow and spoke quietly. “Have Zhang Tao keep an eye on Chen. If he finds anything useful, I want to know before it disappears.”
Kael’s gaze followed Chen as he limped away with Wang Lan beside him. “I’ll make sure of it.”
“And Kael?” Elara added. “No more scenes like that unless someone gives you no choice.”
He nodded with a solemnity he didn’t feel. “Understood.”
When he left to find Zhang Tao, Elara stayed where she was for a moment, staring toward the tree line. She had regained control of the group, but she knew how fragile that control was. It depended on a promise of rescue she could no longer verify and on a man she had just watched hurt someone because he could.
A woman approached with a torn sleeve wrapped around her hand. “Ms. Voss, do we really have to hand over everything we find? I’ve got a little jewelry from the wreck. My mother gave me one of the rings.”
“If it can help you survive, keep it,” Elara said, then realized the answer would undo the rule she had just announced. “No. I mean—anything useful for survival goes on the list. Jewelry can stay with you.”
The woman nodded, though the hesitation in her face suggested that she’d heard the correction as clearly as the first answer. Elara could already see how the rule would be tested: someone would find food and call it personal property; someone else would hide water because they didn’t trust the person distributing it. If she let the arrangement collapse on the first day, there would be nothing left to manage except the loudest argument.
She called a nearby employee over and asked him to mark a clean section of tarp as the collection point. It was a small job, but it gave the group something concrete to do while the search teams formed. When she looked up, Chen was limping toward the trees, with Wang Lan half a step behind him. He didn’t glance back at her.
Neither was a foundation she would have accepted in a boardroom. Here, they were what she had.