Convoys, raiding and the Wanted mark
Freight flies the lanes on a timetable; in a sector it can be robbed, and robbing it puts your name in a Compact's ledger.
Each Compact moves freight along fixed lanes between its stations, on a timetable. Nobody drives a convoy; it is where it should be whether or not anyone is watching. The label says whose road it is: the Registry numbers a sailing (Carriage 6-114), the Kindred names a run for a dead cutter (Maren's Bearing), the Concern tickets a lot (Lot AS-441).
Four hulls carry: the Collier (bulk, slow, the prize), the Packet (crews, post, and the seals), the Tender (short hops) and the Sounder (a probe, rarely worth it).
Where a convoy can be robbed
Only in a sector, and only another Compact’s road. In a belt or a home a convoy is scenery and cannot be shot. In a sector the first hit on a foreign run turns it into a live hull with a shield and a manifest - fixed by the run’s own seed before you fired, so there is nothing to fish for.
A hit run never returns to the schedule. Pinned to that zone, it either reaches the far side and arrives, or dies and spills its manifest as salvage for whoever scoops it. A damaged arrival is still an arrival. A convoy kill pays in cargo, not experience.
What a lost run costs
The destination counts runs delivered and lost; lose enough on a lane and its rare shelf empties - the Arms wing drops to a quarter of its seals. A raided lane is read off an empty shelf, not a price tag. Every resolved run also moves the zone’s weekly score - siege and the Tithe.
Escorting
At either end of a lane the board posts an escort writ: it binds you to the next sailing, which then flies the whole road as a live hull. Paid on arrival - a base plus a bonus for the damage it took - and only if you flew beside it for at least half the run.
Wanted
Robbing a Compact’s roads runs up a debt with it, in proportion to what you destroyed. Past a threshold you are Wanted there: its Arms wings and shipyards refuse you; its Trade ports and Mining posts still take your money. The mark shows only to that Compact’s pilots, in its own space.
It comes down three ways: a share lapses every week; a pilot sworn to that Compact kills you and collects a bounty from its purse, which forgives half; or you pay restitution at one of its Trade ports - a little more than you took, never past the threshold. There is no permanent exile.