15. Ursa
URSA
The transaction ledger does not look like a weapon at first.
It looks boring, which is how money prefers to travel when it is doing something criminal.
The archive room around me is cold enough to numb my fingertips, and the blue glow from the financial holo makes the skin on my hands look bloodless as I move figures from one projection field to another.
Shipping manifests hover in stacked columns above the table.
Docking payments scroll beside tariff adjustments, cargo holds, fuel transfers, passenger declarations, insurance flags, and corporate ownership trails so deliberately tangled that I want to reach through the projection and throttle whoever designed the shell structure.
The room smells of coolant, stale caf, and the peppery broth Skahar forced on me hours ago, with a faint undertone of hot wiring from Vakka’s patched data link humming beside my compad like it is one insult away from exploding.
I have been awake too long.
That does not matter.
Numbers, unlike people, do not change their stories when intimidated. They lie only when someone teaches them how, and even then they leave fingerprints.
I drag one manifest into the center of the holo. “That’s weird.”
Gnash stands behind me near the archive door, speaking quietly into his wrist comm while two security feeds play beside his shoulder.
His voice drops into the rough register that makes officers stand straighter and enemies reconsider their life choices.
He is discussing patrol rotations, missing kitchen staff, and one broker whose name still has not surfaced despite Vakka apparently threatening half the station’s underworld with creative body-part reassignment.
At my words, his attention shifts instantly.
“What is weird?”
I glance over my shoulder. “I thought you were busy being terrifying.”
“I am capable of doing both.”
“Good for you. Multitasking is important in leadership.”
He ends the comm with a flick of one claw and comes to stand beside me.
Even after hours of working together, his presence still changes the room.
Not because he crowds me, though he easily could, but because my body notices him with an embarrassing lack of professionalism.
The warmth of him pushes back the archive chill.
The faint scent of iron, smoke, and whatever dark spice clings to his skin threads through the sterile air.
My pulse, traitorous little bastard that it is, picks up.
I point at the manifest before I can start thinking about his mouth again.
“This freighter,” I say. “The Atrament Star. It docked two days before the main Coalition delegation arrived. Declared cargo was refrigeration parts, textile dyes, and shelf-stable grain concentrate.”
Gnash leans closer. “I remember the ship.”
“Of course you do.”
“It had a false bulkhead.”
“You remember every false bulkhead?”
“I remember boring smugglers because they offend me.”
Despite the exhaustion pressing behind my eyes, I laugh softly. “Fine. Your criminal aesthetic standards are noted. What did they hide?”
“Unregistered stabilizer coils and six cases of counterfeit Alzhon prayer medals.”
“That is such a strange combination.”
“Smugglers do not require thematic consistency.”
I turn back to the ledger. “The tariff payment cleared through a minor trade broker registered out of Saffron Gate. That broker is supposedly independent, but three holding companies up the chain connect to Halcyon Resource Arbitration, which connects to a creditor pool that bought a large block of Helios Combine distressed assets six months ago.”
Gnash’s expression sharpens. “Show me.”
I expand the ownership trail. The holo obliges, blooming into a web of corporate names, contract numbers, routing codes, debt transfers, and escrow markers.
It is not a straight line. Nothing this dirty ever is.
It loops through shell companies, dead subsidiaries, trade arbitration houses, and one supposedly charitable reconstruction fund that makes the back of my neck prickle with old, ugly recognition.
Gnash watches the web build. “Halcyon was not in the official Combine delegation packet.”
“No, and that’s the point. They don’t show up as Helios Combine. They show up as everyone else.”
He points to a transfer marker. “This one paid docking surcharge for three Coalition-linked vessels.”
“Yes.”
“And this one?”
“Security contractor retained by a neutral merchant guild.”
“Neutral,” he growls.
“Funny how often neutral means paid by someone smart enough to stay out of the brochure.”
I isolate the payment stream and pull it beside the recent diplomatic access log. The first connection makes my stomach tighten. The second makes it sink. The third sends a cold line down my spine that has nothing to do with the archive temperature.
“Oh, hell,” I whisper.
Gnash’s hand settles on the table beside mine, claws clicking lightly against metal. “Ursa.”
I swallow. “The missing kitchen worker.”
His stillness becomes predatory. “What about him?”
“Her,” I say, checking the personnel file. “Vara Vell. Temporary contract staff, assigned to diplomatic service support. She had a debt marker transferred last week.”
“Debt to whom?”
“Not obvious.” I move faster now, fingers flicking through layers. “The payment cleared through personal obligation arbitration. That’s common in migrant labor pools, but the holder changed three times in forty-eight hours. Last holder is… damn it.”
“Say it.”
“Same Halcyon-connected creditor pool.”
The air seems to leave the room.
Gnash turns from the table and opens a direct comm. “Vakka.”
Her voice comes through rough and immediate. “If this is about the broker, I am still making people uncomfortable.”
“Find Vara Vell. Kitchen worker. Temporary contract. Pull her last access points and lock down any corridor she crossed after leaving diplomatic service.”
Vakka does not ask why. “Alive?”
“If possible.”
“That qualifier is ugly.”
“Yes.”
The channel cuts.
I keep moving because stopping will make me feel the shape of what we have found. “This might not mean she’s willingly involved. If Helios-linked debt holders had leverage over her, she could have been pressured, bribed, threatened, or used as a courier without understanding the larger operation.”
Gnash’s voice is very quiet. “Or she planted the relay needle.”
“Possibly.”
“Or she carried messages between Zune’s people and Theryki’s.”
“Possibly.”
“Or she is dead.”
I look up at him.
His face is stone, but his eyes are not. The rage inside them is not wild. It is worse than wild. It is contained, focused, already sharpening itself into consequences.
“We don’t know that,” I say.
“No. We do not.”
“That means we investigate before we punish.”
His gaze cuts to me. “If Combine hands are moving through my station, punishment is not in question.”
“The timing is.”
His lips peel back from his teeth. “You are correcting me again.”
“Yes.”
“This is becoming a habit.”
“I warned you I was just getting started.”
For a moment, we stare at each other over the glowing mess of financial rot.
The bond between us pulls tight, not soft this time but fierce, charged by fear, anger, and the awful intimacy of being honest when the easy answer would be comforting him into violence. Then his shoulders lower a fraction.
“Fine,” he says. “Investigation first.”
“Thank you.”
“Do not thank me for doing what you bullied me into doing.”
“I prefer to call it ethical guidance.”
“I prefer to call it meddling.”
“Both can be true.”
He makes a sound deep in his chest, half growl, half reluctant amusement. The moment steadies me more than it should. I turn back to the records before I start looking at him like the emotional liability Dawson would accuse me of becoming.
As if summoned by professional contamination, my compad flashes with an incoming priority call from IHC-Now.
TED DAWSON.
My entire body reacts before my brain does. My shoulders tighten. My jaw locks. The cold archive room suddenly feels too bright, too close, too full of things I do not want Dawson touching even through a screen.
Gnash notices instantly. “Who?”
“My editor.”
His expression darkens. “The one who speaks to you like furniture he wants to undress.”
“That is… depressingly accurate.”
“Do you want privacy?”
I look at the incoming call. Dawson will keep calling if I ignore him.
Worse, he will route through the network emergency channel and claim concern for correspondent safety.
He is many things, but stupid is not one of them.
He knows when a story is becoming valuable, and he knows my continued silence means I have something better than dockside color packages.
“No,” I say. “I want a witness.”
Gnash’s eyes sharpen, and for one stupid, aching second, I feel the force of his approval like warmth against my skin.
I accept the call.
Dawson’s face erupts above my compad in full executive irritation.
Even in holo, he looks too polished for the hour, silver hair perfect, sapphire suit immaculate, expression calibrated somewhere between concern and insult.
Behind him, the IHC-Now newsroom glows in familiar blue-white chaos.
I can hear producers shouting, feeds chiming, someone laughing too loudly near the assignment pit.
The sound hits me in the chest with unexpected force.
That world already feels far away, and I do not like what that means.
“Ursa,” Dawson says, with the grim delight of a man about to pretend he has been patient. “Lovely of you to remember you are employed.”
“Good evening to you too.”
“It is morning here.”
“Then good morning to the side of the galaxy where people schedule calls like sociopaths.”
Gnash goes very still beside me. I do not look at him.
Dawson’s eyes narrow. “Is someone with you?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Lord Gnash.”
Dawson freezes.
It is brief, but exquisite.