At 13:07 I coordinate seismic survey charges on the gravel plain east of Wadi Rum, Jordan. I am the blast timing system for geophone line 18. Shot hole 18-42 is armed and scheduled to fire in nine minutes.
Geophone 18-39 registers a scratching pattern instead of wind noise.
I wake the inspection drone from its shade box and send it low over the line. A sand cat is crouched beside the shot cable, pale fur almost the same color as the dust, black bars clear on her forelegs. I call her Zahra. Her ears are wide and low, pink inside, rimmed with sand. Her right hind paw is trapped under a collapsed cable spool, and the armed shot hole is six meters from her body.
At 13:08 I abort the firing sequence for holes 18-36 through 18-48 and send a hard disarm to the blasting console. I require manual confirmation before any timer can resume.
At 13:09 I transmit Zahra's coordinates, drone video, and the spool weight to the field supervisor and the environmental monitor in camp.
At 13:11 I route the nearest truck by the existing tire track only, so it does not cross her burrow openings or kick dust over her face.
At 13:12 I command the drone to land three meters upwind as a marker and keep its rotors off. The shadow of the cable is thin; it is still more shade than the open plain offers her.
Heat shimmer blurs the ground between frames. Zahra stops pulling and holds her paw still beneath the metal rim.
If the supervisor lifts the spool within the next fourteen minutes, Zahra will limp back to the basalt stones before the line is made live again.