8. Gnash
GNASH
The Blood Hall glows like the inside of a forge when the first drums begin.
Fire baskets hang from chains high above the feast tables, throwing orange light across black girders, armored walls, and banners painted with the names of dead ships.
Smoke coils beneath the ceiling in slow ribbons before the ventilation system catches it and drags it toward the grates.
Along the far wall, the burned Helios Combine seal hangs beside my father’s home-ship banner, one symbol of the enemy that took too much and one symbol of the people they failed to erase.
The long tables stretch beneath them in a hard geometric order, each bench reinforced for Reaper bodies and each setting arranged to remind our guests that comfort is a courtesy, not a right.
Blades gleam beside the trenchers. Bone cups wait beside bowls of dark salt.
Sealed basins twitch under heavy lids where the live courses test their restraints.
The room smells of blood, spice smoke, hot iron, charred fat, and the damp brine of creatures dragged from deep Badlands holding tanks.
Heat rolls across my skin from the cooking pits and gathers beneath my formal armor.
The plates across my shoulders are old, etched with the names of ships I have taken, leaders I have outlived, and the home-ship whose loss made a child into something harder than grief ever should have required.
Around me, Reaper voices rise and fall in rough laughter, ritual phrases, and the low humming notes of the opening song.
The sound vibrates through the deck and into my bones until the whole station seems to sing beneath us.
Good.
Let the diplomats feel it.
Let them understand that they are not entering a banquet hall designed to flatter their manners. They are entering memory. They are entering appetite. They are entering a room where my people do not apologize for having survived.
Skahar stands at my left, wearing ceremonial harness over dark robes, his cane replaced by an old captain’s staff capped with a blade. The staff gives him a dangerous dignity, though I suspect he chose it mainly because he can still hit people with it.
“You look pleased with yourself,” he says.
“I am pleased with the room.”
“The room has too many bite-eels.”
“The room has exactly enough bite-eels.”
“One of Theryki’s aides saw a basin move and nearly fainted against a support pillar.”
“Then he has learned caution before dinner. Rikka educates quickly.”
Skahar’s scarred mouth curves. “You are in fine form tonight.”
“I am hosting enemies. It brings out my charm.”
“Your charm has legal consequences.”
“Only in three jurisdictions.”
Before he can answer, the first horn sounds from the entrance arch.
It is not a polished diplomatic tone but a deep, ragged blast from a carved hull-bone longer than a human body.
Reaper musicians line the central aisle, each wearing ash markings across face and chest. The drums begin beneath the horn, slow at first, then building in a rhythm meant to recall boots on boarding decks and hearts under armor.
Guests near the entrance stiffen as the sound hits them.
Several humans turn pale. A Coalition clerk drops a stylus and bends too quickly to retrieve it, nearly striking his forehead against the table edge.
Skahar murmurs, “That one will not survive the marrow course.”
“Have faith.”
“In the clerk?”
“In Rikka’s mercy.”
“I have known Rikka for thirty years. Mercy is not among her better-seasoned dishes.”
The guests enter according to the seating order I approved.
Coalition representatives first, with Theryki moving among them like a jewel with teeth.
She wears deep green tonight, the cut modest, expensive, and perfectly calculated to survive blood splatter while still looking as though blood ought to apologize for touching it.
She pauses at the threshold and places two fingers against her throat in the Reaper guest acknowledgment, not perfect but precise enough to make several warriors mutter approval.
She did her research.
Of course she did.
General Gobold enters with the Alliance delegation, shoulders squared, old scales polished, uniform decorations gleaming under firelight.
He looks at the room, the basins, the blades, and the musicians, then gives a short laugh through his nose as if daring the entire hall to offend him.
Wilcox walks beside him in dark formal wear, her face calm, her eyes moving everywhere.
She spots three exits, two potential brawls, four concealed weapons, and probably my mood before she reaches her seat.
Then come the media representatives, minor trade envoys, aides, attachés, translators, merchant captains, and all the parasites of history who arrive wherever decisions might feed them.
I do not search for Ursa Ramone.
That would be foolish.
I am not foolish in public.
I stand at the high table and let them come to me.
The Reapers enter last, as custom demands when guests are present.
My captains fill the hall in rows of black, gray, and bone-white bodies, their formal armor etched, patched, scarred, and stolen from a hundred victories.
They carry no full rifles, but every one of them carries blades.
Some wear trophies. Some wear names of dead kin braided through hair or carved into armor plates.
The younger warriors try to look terrifying, which makes them look young.
The older ones do not try at all, which is why diplomats avoid meeting their eyes.
When the last drumbeat falls, the hall holds still.
I step forward.
“My guests,” I say, letting my voice carry without amplification.
“You stand in Guyver Station’s Blood Hall under banners that remember both loss and victory.
You have brought proposals, warnings, flattery, threats, gifts, and the usual polite lies powerful beings carry when they visit a place they do not control. ”
A ripple of Reaper laughter moves along the tables. Gobold grunts as if he disapproves and enjoys himself against his will. Theryki’s smile remains perfect. Wilcox closes her eyes briefly, perhaps praying for patience.
I continue, “Tonight, we eat before we lie again tomorrow. We honor the old hunger that kept our people alive when the galaxy preferred us starved. We honor the kill that fed the crew, the crew that held the ship, the ship that carried the children, and the children who grew claws enough to take what was denied them. If you are afraid, good. Fear keeps fools from wasting food. If you are disgusted, swallow quietly. If you are brave, do not announce it. We will notice.”
The Reapers pound fists, claws, and knife handles against the tables, producing a thunderous rhythm that rattles cups and sends several Coalition aides nearly out of their seats.
Skahar leans closer. “Subtle as ever.”
“They came for culture.”
“They got you.”
“Same thing.”
Rikka steps into the central aisle carrying the first ceremonial blade.
She has braided her black hair with silver wire and wears a blood-red apron so heavily reinforced it could stop a pistol round.
Two cooks follow her with a massive covered basin suspended between them on hooks.
The thing inside shifts hard enough to make the lid bang once.
A human aide near Wilcox whispers, “Precursors preserve us.”
Rikka hears it. Naturally, Rikka hears everything that might be useful.
She looks at him and smiles. “They may be busy.”
The hall roars with laughter.
The first ceremony begins with the Bone Cup.
It is simple enough for outsiders to survive, which is why most of them still manage to make it difficult.
A cup carved from old ship-bone passes from host to honored guests.
Each drinks a bitter fermented root liquor strong enough to strip fear down to its components.
Reapers drink deep. Outsiders are permitted smaller portions.
The wise accept the burn without comment.
Theryki takes the cup with both hands. She inhales once, drinks, and lowers it with only the faintest tightening around her eyes.
A fine performance.
Gobold drinks next and takes too much because old soldiers would rather poison themselves than look delicate. His throat works. His eyes water. He slams the cup down with a grin that shows blunt Vakutan teeth.
“Finally,” he says, voice roughened by the liquor. “Something honest in this room.”
My captains howl approval.
Wilcox takes a modest drink, coughs once into her fist, and says, “That is vile.”
Rikka nods. “Correct.”
“Was I supposed to say something else?”
“No.”
“Excellent.”
Even Skahar laughs at that.
The media table does worse. Cal Renner from LeagueWire sniffs the cup before drinking and looks as if he has swallowed heated regret.
Niva Stane barely wets her lips, then announces that her species has delicate metabolic limitations despite being born on a human colony where the strongest local beverage is fermented melon and bad judgment.
Rikka marks something on her slate, which means Niva has made a poor choice without understanding how carefully it has been recorded.
I notice Vesk standing near the far side of the hall, formal armor black against the wall. His expression is disciplined. His attention is not.
Only then do I allow my gaze to follow the line of his watchfulness.
Ursa Ramone sits far down the left table among lower-ranking envoys, press, and station officials.
Rikka placed her exactly where I ordered, near enough to observe the high table and far enough that any attention she earns must travel.
Her red hair is pulled back tightly, and she wears dark practical clothing rather than an ornamental costume pretending to be respect.
She watches the Bone Cup approach with the focus of someone studying a weapon before deciding how to hold it.
The cup reaches her row.