2. Gnash #3
That finally strips the silk from the blade. Her aides go rigid. My warriors lower their chins. The command center fills with the quiet before violence, a silence made of breath held too carefully and fingers resting too close to weapons.
Theryki inclines her head, just enough to acknowledge the strike. "Then I will choose my words with greater care."
"See that you do."
She turns without asking dismissal, robes whispering over the deck. Her aides follow too quickly to look dignified. When the doors close behind them, the command center releases itself in low mutters, dark laughter, and the clatter of work resuming with deliberate aggression.
Skahar watches the closed doors. "She is dangerous."
"I noticed."
"No, you enjoyed it."
"That too."
He shifts his weight, and the implant in his eye whirs faintly. "She cut close with the patience remark."
"I know."
"You showed too much."
"I showed exactly enough."
"You always think that until someone aims at the exposed part."
I growl, but it lacks force because the old bastard is right often enough to make contradiction feel lazy.
I turn back to the trade display and drag the Combine market analysis into the center of the table.
The red lines have worsened since morning.
Good. Let them lose sleep. Let them call emergency meetings in clean rooms with expensive air while my station takes in the people they classify as tools.
A communications officer climbs the steps from the lower pit. "Lord Gnash."
"If this is another message from Gobold, delete it and tell him the Badlands ate it."
"It is from docking liaison. A human correspondent arrives tomorrow on the Ceres Relay transfer route. IHC-Now credentials. Name is Ursa Ramone."
The name stirs something in the room before it reaches me.
Several officers glance up. One of the younger warriors whispers to another, and Skahar’s expression changes with the faint recognition of an old story pulled from ash.
"Repeat the name," I say.
"Ursa Ramone," the officer says. "Age twenty-four. Human. Reporter."
I straighten slowly. "Why do I know that name?"
Skahar answers before the officer can. "Horus IV."
The command center sounds fade behind the words.
Horus IV.
I remember the broadcast. Everyone old enough to understand war remembers some piece of it.
A child’s voice over shaking footage. Streets full of smoke.
Soldiers firing across a civilian avenue while people crawled beneath shattered vendor stalls.
Flames reflecting in broken windows. A small girl narrating what adults tried to bury beneath flags, operational necessity, and all the other language cowards use to perfume slaughter.
The girl did not scream. That was what made it worse.
She spoke clearly, describing insignias, units, bodies, directions of fire, the things she could see and the things she could not understand. The galaxy listened because it is difficult to dismiss a child calmly telling you where the dead are lying.
"That Ursa Ramone?" I ask.
The officer checks his compad. "Yes, lord. Records confirm."
Skahar leans on his cane with both hands. "I thought she vanished into the media machine."
"Apparently the machine is sending her here," the officer says. "Standard request for interview access attached. Docking liaison prepared the usual denial."
"No."
The officer freezes with one claw hovering over his compad. "No denial?"
Skahar looks at me sharply.
I take the compad from the officer and study the credential packet.
The image attached shows a human woman with red hair pulled back, green eyes steady on the camera, and a face arranged into professional calm.
She is small, but most humans are. Nothing about her expression begs, flatters, or poses.
She looks at the lens as if it has disappointed her before and will likely do so again.
I like that more than I should.
"Do you intend to grant the interview?" Skahar asks.
"No."
"Then why not deny it?"
I scroll through her file. Journalism degree.
Conflict reporting. Civilian accountability segments.
Corporate malfeasance investigations. Too many memorial retrospectives, likely forced on her by bosses who prefer grief when it comes prepackaged.
Several reprimands for unauthorized questioning during live feeds.
One suspension for refusing to identify a refugee source to network legal.
My mouth curves.
"She caused trouble," I say.
Skahar peers at the file. "She survived trouble first."
"Those are often related."
The communications officer shifts uncertainly. "Lord, what response should docking liaison send?"
I keep looking at Ursa Ramone’s eyes. Human eyes should not hold that much stillness unless life has tried very hard to shake it loose and failed.
"Send nothing yet," I say.
The officer blinks. "Nothing?"
"Let her arrive. Let her request. Let the others see her ignored like the rest. I want to know who speaks to her, who avoids her, and who tries to use her."
Skahar makes a skeptical sound. "You are setting bait."
"She may be bait already."
"Or she may simply be a reporter."
"On Guyver Station, there is no simply anything."
The officer lowers his head and retreats with his instructions. Skahar remains beside me, radiating disapproval with the persistence of a coolant leak.
"What?" I ask.
"You looked interested."
"I am interested in all potential complications."
"You looked personally interested."
"I have never been personally interested in a reporter."
"That is why I noticed."
I hand the compad back toward the table, but the image remains in my thoughts a moment too long.
Ursa Ramone, the girl from Horus IV, coming to my station to ask questions no one else has been brave enough to ask me.
The idea should annoy me. Instead, it settles under my skin with the curious heat of a challenge.
"Find me everything public on her," I say.
Skahar’s broken horn catches the tactical light as he turns toward me. "You just said you were not granting the interview."
"I am not."
"Then why gather information?"
I look back at the Coalition proposal, at the Combine market lines, at the Alliance scouts creeping near my borders, and at the docking feeds full of ships that depend on my ability to remain more dangerous than every predator circling this station.
"Because everyone else came here wanting my answer," I say. "I want to know what question she is carrying."
Skahar is quiet for several seconds. Then he laughs under his breath, and the sound is older than mockery, older than warning. "Ah, Gnash. There are the famous last words of every fool who ever invited truth into his house."
I smile at the red ruin of the Combine market feed and keep Ursa Ramone’s name in my mouth like the first taste of a storm.
"Then let her dock."