12. Gnash
GNASH
The security reports smell of lies before I even open them.
That is not a metaphor. Lies have a scent aboard Guyver Station because they travel through bodies before they reach my desk.
Fear sweats through uniforms. Bribes leave chemical traces from polished fingers, expensive oils, imported inks, and the nervous sweetness of people who believe wealth can disguise rot.
The command annex is warm from overloaded processors and wall conduits patched too many times by engineers who swear each repair is temporary until it outlives three arguments, two alarms, and at least one attempted assassination.
Holo-displays crowd the air above my table, throwing blue, red, and green light over maps of docking lanes, coded communications intercepts, crew rosters, tariff ledgers, oxygen reports, and the latest list of guests pretending diplomacy has anything to do with peace.
Beyond the armored viewport, the Badlands churn in bruised color, violet storm bands rolling through black like spilled blood under starlight.
Guyver Station groans around me with all the grace of an old beast refusing to die.
Pipes knock in the walls. Docking clamps scream somewhere far below.
A ship’s engine coughs hard enough to send a vibration through the deck beneath my bare feet.
Vakka stands across from me with her arms folded and a split in her lower lip that has already healed at the edges.
She has not bothered wiping the dried blood from her chin, which means she wants me to ask.
I do not ask.
She grows irritated first, as expected. “You are looking at the reports like they insulted your mother.”
“My mother would have insulted them first.”
“That is fair. These reports are ugly.”
“Most reports are ugly. That is why cowards call them briefings.”
Skahar sits to my left, cane across his knees, one cloudy eye half closed while the implant in the other whirs softly.
He appears half asleep to anyone foolish enough to believe age makes him dull.
I have seen him gut a man from that exact posture.
The envoys outside these rooms think of him as my relic, my old advisor, my sentimental indulgence.
They do not understand that Skahar remains alive because death has not yet earned him.
He taps one claw against the head of his cane. “Read the dock report again.”
“I read it twice.”
“Read it aloud. It will irritate Vakka, and that may reveal useful truth.”
Vakka shows her teeth. “Old bone-sniffer.”
“See?” Skahar says. “Already useful.”
I pull the report into the central holo and enlarge the relevant entry.
“A registered Coalition courier vessel requested emergency medical docking at berth seven. Manifest declared diplomatic packets, ceremonial wines, and two injured aides from Ambassador Theryki’s delegation.
The scan found no weapons beyond permitted personal blades, no explosives, no unregistered military signalers, and no biological hazards. ”
Vakka’s lip curls. “Because the scan was clean.”
“No scan is clean. Scans are less dirty than usual.”
“Fine. Less dirty than usual. My inspectors still found a relay needle hidden inside a wine seal after I ordered physical inspection.”
Skahar’s broken mouth curves with satisfaction. “And why did you order physical inspection when the scan showed nothing?”
Vakka looks from him to me, suspicious. “Because the courier captain’s left hand shook when he said ceremonial wines.”
“Fear?” I ask.
“No. He looked bored when I asked about the injured aides, annoyed when I checked his papers, and frightened when I touched the wine case. That is not fear of me. That is fear of being caught where the lie lives.”
“Good,” I say. “What did the relay needle contain?”
“Nothing yet. It was empty and dormant, but it was built to receive close-range bursts from inside the station.” She sends the technical readout across the table.
“Small enough to hide in diplomatic cargo, shielded enough to pass lazy inspection, and tuned to frequencies used by Combine commercial drones.”
Skahar opens his good eye fully. “Theryki brings the needle. Zune provides the hand to fill it.”
“Or Theryki wants us to think that,” I say, enlarging the frequency profile.
“She benefits if I believe the Combine has penetrated her delegation. Zune benefits if I believe Theryki is careless or compromised. Gobold benefits if the room catches fire before any agreement can be signed. Wilcox benefits if she can prove everyone else is dirty while keeping her own hands visible.”
Vakka snorts. “So everyone benefits except us.”
“That is diplomacy.”
“That is a sewer with better clothes.”
Skahar nods approvingly. “Now she understands politics.”
I lean over the table and separate the reports by faction.
Coalition courier anomalies. Alliance guard rotations.
Helios-backed merchant complaints. Two bribed dockhands, one missing kitchen worker assigned to the diplomatic feast, three altered access logs near the guest communications hub, and one intercepted message from an unnamed broker offering payment for “clarifying pressure” against the human journalist.
The last one makes the room narrow.
Vakka notices before I speak. Her eyes follow mine to the line item, and the humor drops from her face. “We have not identified the broker.”
“Find him.”
“We are trying.”
“Try with knives.”
She straightens. “Alive?”
“For the first round of questions.”
Skahar leans forward. “There he is.”
I turn my head slowly. “Choose your next words with fondness for your remaining teeth.”
“Threatening Vakka makes sense. Threatening a broker makes sense. Tightening every muscle in your body because some fool has noticed the woman you carried from a feast is something else.”
Vakka glances toward the door with the tactical instincts of a warrior who knows when a family argument may require witnesses or distance. “I will go find the broker.”
“You will stay,” I say.
“I would rather wrestle a coolant leak.”
“Stay.”
She stays, though her expression suggests she plans to complain about it later to every living creature in the docking authority.
Skahar studies me in that old, terrible way of his. “Your enemies were always going to target her.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
The question tastes too much like Ursa. Precise. Unmoved by my temper. A blade placed exactly where armor does not reach. I growl at him because he has earned worse and survived better.
“I know she is a political liability,” I say.
“Ah. A liability. How soft and tender you sound.”
Vakka makes a choking noise and turns it into a cough too late.
I point one claw at her. “You have work.”
“I was ordered to stay.”
“Now you are ordered to work while staying.”
“Very clear, lord. Leadership like poetry.”
Skahar chuckles, and the sound drags across the room like bone over stone. I should be angry. I am angry. I am also aware, with irritating clarity, that every person in this room is less afraid of me than outsiders assume, and much more loyal because of it.
Ursa would notice that.
The thought appears without permission.
She would notice the dried blood on Vakka’s chin and the way Skahar pretends weakness to make others underestimate him.
She would notice the missing kitchen worker and ask why nobody had connected that disappearance to the altered access logs.
She would notice how quickly my temper gathered around the broker’s message and refuse to let me call it strategy if it was fear.
My claws curl against the table.
Vakka sees that too. “You want the human brought under closer guard.”
“Yes.”
“Will she accept that?”
“No.”
Skahar’s smile becomes unbearable. “You have learned something.”
“She will argue,” I say.
“She may also be correct.”
“She is in danger.”
“She was in danger before she met you. She came here anyway.”
“That does not make her safe.”
“No,” Skahar says. “It makes her Ursa.”
Her name in his mouth should not warm me. It does. This is becoming a problem with teeth, and not the kind I can solve by biting first.
The command annex door opens before I can respond, and Krell steps inside with a compad clutched in both hands. The young warrior looks from me to Skahar to Vakka, recognizes the air in the room, and clearly regrets every choice that led him here.
“Speak,” I say.
Krell lowers his head. “Ambassador Theryki requests a private meeting before the afternoon negotiating session. She says it concerns mutual security interests.”
Vakka mutters, “Of course it does.”
“General Gobold has also requested additional patrol visibility near Alliance quarters,” Krell continues. “His aide says Coalition personnel have been observed lingering near their secure wing.”
“His aide means Gobold wants more guards so he can claim he is being threatened,” Skahar says.
Krell swallows. “Ambassador Wilcox sent a note asking whether IHC-Now correspondent Ursa Ramone will be allowed continued access to command-level areas.”
My growl rises before I shape it into words.
Krell goes rigid.
I breathe once through my nose, tasting his sudden fear and hating the reason for it. “And Zune?”
“Nothing official from Helios,” Krell says. “Unofficially, two Combine commercial representatives have requested early departure clearance.”
“No,” I say.
Vakka’s eyes brighten. “No?”
“No departure until the relay needle investigation concludes.”
“That will upset them.”
“I hope so.”
Krell shifts his weight. “Lord, if we hold merchant craft too long, Zune may claim unlawful detention under neutral trade protocols.”
“Then he can file a complaint with whatever court is brave enough to deliver it.”
Skahar lifts his cane slightly. “Better. Make the delay procedural. Safety inspection. Emergency calibration fault in berth controls. Nothing openly punitive. If Zune wants to protest, force him to argue against station safety.”
I hate when he is right while correcting me.