12. Gnash #3
The Reaper woman laughs outright this time, then pretends to cough into her baby’s blanket. I shoot her a look. She bounces the baby and becomes fascinated by a ceiling pipe.
Ursa’s eyes glitter. “Your people like when someone argues with you.”
“My people like gambling with death in small amounts.”
“They like seeing you listen.”
That strikes harder than I expect.
I look out over the market, over the stalls, the patched lamps, the crowded walkways, the scarred species building a life inside a station everyone else calls lawless.
They do watch me. They always have. I know their fear, their pride, their suspicion, their hunger.
But since Ursa arrived, I have begun noticing another thing beneath it all, something I trained myself not to seek because wanting it made a leader vulnerable.
Hope is a dangerous scent. Once you recognize it, every room changes.
“I listen when people are worth hearing,” I say.
Ursa’s voice gentles. “That’s a good answer. Try using it in negotiations instead of threatening to mount someone’s spine over a docking bay.”
“That was one time.”
“Was it?”
“No.”
“At least you’re honest.”
“I am trying to impress you.”
She stills just enough to make my blood warm.
Then she recovers with admirable speed. “Politically unwise.”
“Frequently.”
“Flirtation during a security dispute?”
“Efficient.”
“Ridiculous.”
“Also true.”
Her laugh is softer this time, and for one stolen moment the market’s noise wraps around us like privacy.
I see the exhaustion under her eyes, the stubborn set of her mouth, the way she holds her compad like both shield and blade.
She came to my station hunting truth, and now truth is hunting us both through corridors lined with diplomats, spies, and old blood.
Skahar’s voice cuts through my comm before I can say more.
“Young fool,” he says, without greeting.
“If you are finished standing near your jalshagar in public like a moon-struck dockhand, Theryki has sent a second request. Gobold is making noise. Zune’s people are sweating.
Also, Vakka says the Mercy Adjustment code is vital accounting language and you can bite her. ”
Ursa’s eyebrows climb.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “You are on open channel.”
“Yes,” Skahar says. “I chose this.”
“I will kill you.”
“You have threatened that since you had milk teeth. Come to the negotiation annex before the ambassadors begin mating with their own schemes.”
The comm cuts.
Ursa presses her lips together, fighting laughter with more courage than most soldiers show under fire.
“Not a word,” I warn.
“I have several.”
“Bury them.”
“I don’t think journalism works that way.”
“It will today.”
“No promises.”
I signal the guards closer, then hold up a hand before Ursa can argue. “Not hovering. Not scaring sources. Two shadows at a respectful distance, rotating through plain market traffic instead of lurking behind soup like idiots.”
One guard looks wounded. The other wisely does not.
Ursa considers this compromise. “Respectful distance.”
“Yes.”
“No interrupting interviews.”
“Unless knives appear.”
“Visible knives or implied knives?”
“Do not become impossible.”
“I was born this way.”
The answer slips into me and stays there.
I nod to the guards, then turn back toward the corridor leading to the negotiation annex.
Duty waits there with clean clothes and filthy hands.
Theryki will smile. Gobold will snarl. Wilcox will measure every breath.
Zune will pretend absence means innocence.
All of them will want something, and none of them will say the wanting plainly.
Ursa walks beside me for the first several paces, matching her shorter stride to mine without hurrying.
The guards trail behind us at the agreed distance.
Around us, the market resumes its rhythm now that the warlord’s attention has moved on.
Bowls clatter. Vendors argue. A child shrieks with laughter.
Somewhere, someone begins singing an old Reaper work chant under their breath, low enough that most outsiders would miss the grief braided through the tune.
“You know,” Ursa says, “Skahar approves.”
I glance down at her. “He insults what he approves.”
“That must make you his favorite person in the galaxy.”
“He once called me the finest disaster he had ever failed to prevent.”
“That is weirdly sweet.”
“It was during a mutiny.”
“Still sweet.”
I feel my mouth twist into a smile despite myself. “You have strange standards.”
“I’m standing on a Reaper station after being publicly claimed as a soulmate by a warlord while investigating a multipolar diplomatic crisis. My standards are undergoing revisions.”
The corridor ahead narrows, and the warmer market air gives way to the cooler breath of administrative decks.
I should leave her here. I should return to the annex, let her continue her work under guard, and think of nothing except relay needles, departure holds, factional pressure, and the war waiting behind every polite message.
Instead, I stop at the threshold between market and corridor.
Ursa stops too. She looks up at me with that fearless, infuriating honesty, and I know exactly why every manipulation around me now feels more poisonous than it did before.
Theryki flatters. Gobold threatens. Zune hides behind money.
Wilcox calculates. Even my own people sometimes soften words because they know my temper and need my favor.
Ursa does none of that.
She tells me when I am wrong. She asks where grief has taken command. She looks at the monster and refuses to pretend the man beneath it is innocent merely because he is wounded.
That kind of honesty is rarer than mercy and twice as dangerous.
“I will be in negotiations for several hours,” I say.
“I figured.”
“Eat real food.”
“I had a bun.”
“That bun looked hostile.”
“It was fine.”
“It was smoking.”
“I like regional cuisine.”
“It hissed at you.”
“That was steam.”
“It had opinions.”
She smiles, and there is sunlight in it, though no sunlight reaches Guyver Station. “I’ll eat, Gnash.”
“Good.”
“And you should try not to let Theryki bait you into promising away your defense corridors.”
My eyes narrow. “You listened to yesterday’s access briefing.”
“I’m a journalist.”
“You accessed restricted briefing summaries.”
“I accessed poorly secured briefing summaries.”
“That is theft.”
“That is research.”
I stare at her for a long moment.
She stares back, entirely unrepentant.
A laugh rises in my chest, rough and low enough that both guards look startled. “You are a menace.”
“I am prepared.”
I step closer, careful to keep my hands at my sides. “Yes. You are.”
Her smile fades into something softer. The corridor hums around us, distant machines, muffled market calls, the endless vibration of a station held together by will, salvage, and threats.
For a breath, I allow myself only to look at her.
Red hair escaping its knot. Green eyes too sharp for safety.
Human softness wrapped around iron. My jalshagar, though I have no right yet to know what that word will make of us.
“After the session,” I say, “walk with me.”
“Through command?”
“Somewhere quieter.”
Her pulse flickers at the base of her throat. I hear it because my senses have become traitors. “Is that an order?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Is that a yes?”
She takes a moment, and I value her more because she takes it. “Yes.”
The word settles into me like a blade being sheathed.
I turn before wanting can make me foolish in front of witnesses. Skahar is waiting. The ambassadors are waiting. The reports are waiting. Threats gather in every corridor, and somewhere on my station, a broker has learned that Ursa Ramone matters enough to be used against me.
That should make me distance myself from her.
Instead, as I walk toward the negotiation annex with the taste of market spice still on my tongue and her honesty burning cleaner than any oath behind my ribs, I understand the truth Skahar saw before I did.
I am not becoming weaker. I am remembering what strength is for.