15. Ursa #2
Then his broadcast instincts recover. His smile snaps into place with enough force to qualify as structural reinforcement. “Lord Gnash. What an unexpected privilege.”
Gnash steps into the edge of the holo field, massive and silent, and lets Dawson experience scale.
“Editor,” Gnash says.
Dawson’s smile flickers. “Ted Dawson, editor in chief of IHC-Now.”
“I know.”
Those two words do more damage than a paragraph would have.
Dawson clears his throat and redirects his attention to me. “Ursa, perhaps this conversation should be private.”
“You called my field compad during an active hostile assignment. Assume nothing is private.”
His eyes sharpen with annoyance. “Fine. I will be direct. What the hell are you doing?”
“Investigating.”
“No, what you are doing is sitting on the biggest human-interest explosion in the sector while filing cautious little fragments about tariffs and diplomatic language.”
My fingers tighten around the compad. “The tariff language is the story.”
“The public does not care about tariff language.”
“The public cares when tariff language becomes a mechanism for occupation.”
Dawson waves that away with visible impatience. “They will care eventually, perhaps, after we hire three analysts to explain it with animated arrows. Right now they care that the girl from Horus IV has been claimed as some kind of pirate soulmate by the most feared Reaper in the galaxy.”
Heat crawls up my neck.
Gnash’s claws scrape softly against the table.
I keep my eyes on Dawson. “Careful.”
“No, you be careful,” Dawson snaps. “You wanted the assignment. You got it. You wanted access. You got more access than anyone in the galaxy. And what do I have? No full interview package, no personal exclusive, no emotional reaction segment, no clear footage of the two of you together, and a mountain of unusable procedural nonsense about creditor pools.”
“It is not unusable.”
“It is if nobody clicks it.”
“There it is.”
He leans closer to his camera. “Do not take that tone with me from a pirate station while you are sitting beside the pirate.”
Gnash smiles.
It is not a comforting expression.
Dawson sees enough of it to swallow, but vanity drives him forward.
“The network needs a headline by end cycle. The angle is obvious. Survivor journalist wins access to monstrous warlord, discovers forbidden bond, risks career and safety for the interview no one else could get. We build from there.”
“No.”
Dawson blinks. “Excuse me?”
“No.”
“Ursa, I am not asking.”
“I’m aware. That’s why I’m refusing.”
His face flushes. In the newsroom behind him, someone moves out of frame quickly, as if they have sensed incoming shrapnel. “You will file the personal angle.”
“I will file verified reporting on the negotiations, the political pressures surrounding Guyver Station, and evidence of covert financial interference once that evidence is corroborated.”
“God save me from earnest little martyrs with compads,” he mutters. “You have no idea what you’re throwing away.”
“I know exactly what I’m refusing to manufacture.”
“Manufacture?” he says, voice rising. “The man publicly claimed you.”
“The event happened. It can be reported with context. It is not a license to turn a diplomatic crisis into a romance scandal for engagement metrics.”
His eyes cut toward Gnash, then back to me. “Are you compromised?”
The word lands differently because it is not entirely unfair.
I breathe through the hit. “My relationship to the subject will be disclosed transparently.”
“Relationship,” Dawson repeats, pouncing. “Good. Excellent. Say that again on camera with softer lighting.”
“No.”
“You are making this difficult because you enjoy being difficult.”
“I am making this difficult because the truth is difficult, and you keep trying to put glitter on it.”
His mouth hardens. “Let me explain your situation since proximity to bone spurs has apparently damaged your judgment. You work for me. Your access, your upload privileges, your hazard pay, your legal cover, and your ability to call yourself an IHC correspondent all pass through my desk. If you bury the most marketable part of this story under a pile of financial records, I will pull you from the assignment.”
The room goes silent except for the hum of data cores.
Gnash shifts beside me, one controlled movement that feels like a storm front reaching the horizon.
I hold up a hand without looking at him.
To his credit, he stops.
The fact that he stops nearly breaks my composure.
I look at Dawson and feel, with startling clarity, how tired I am of men mistaking employment for ownership.
He has had my career in his hands for years.
He has squeezed it when convenient, fed it when profitable, and patted it like a dog whenever my trauma tested well.
I have swallowed it because the work mattered.
Because access mattered. Because if I endured enough condescension, maybe one day the story would outweigh the leash.
Now, staring at his polished face from a frozen archive room aboard Guyver Station, I finally understand something that should have been obvious sooner.
A leash does not become freedom because it is attached to a press credential.
“No,” I say again.
Dawson’s face goes still. “Think very carefully.”
“I am.”
“If you defy editorial direction, there will be consequences.”
“I know.”
“You think he can protect you from those?” Dawson gestures toward Gnash. “You think the warlord gives you a future in journalism? The second you stop being useful to him, you are another pretty human anecdote with bad judgment.”
Gnash’s growl shakes the table.
Dawson flinches despite the distance.
My voice comes out colder than I expected. “You do not get to pretend concern after spending twelve years mining my dead family for quarterly engagement spikes.”
For once, Dawson has no immediate answer.
I continue because stopping now would be cowardice.
“You sent me here expecting failure. I got access. You wanted an interview. I got it. You wanted a headline. I found a conspiracy that may involve covert Combine interference in active protectorate negotiations. That is the story. Not my face. Not my bond. Not whatever soft-focus package lets viewers feel morally brave while learning nothing that threatens anyone powerful.”
His nostrils flare. “You self-righteous little?—”
“Finish that sentence carefully,” Gnash says.
His voice is quiet, and that makes it worse.
Dawson turns a brittle smile toward him. “Lord Gnash, this is an internal network matter.”
“No.”
Dawson stiffens. “Pardon?”
“She is a journalist conducting an investigation aboard my station. You have attempted to compromise that investigation by ordering distortion of facts for spectacle. That makes it my matter.”
“This is absurd. She is my employee.”
“She is not your property.”
The words cut through the room with such brutal simplicity that my throat tightens.
Dawson’s eyes flicker. He knows he cannot win a dominance contest with Gnash, even across a holo connection. He also knows I am watching him realize it.
He retreats to the weapon he understands best. “Ursa, final warning. File the package I requested, or I reassign the story.”
I look at him, really look, and the fear is there.
Of course it is. I am not fearless. My career matters.
My work matters. The girl from Horus IV clawed her way through grief, pity, training, and humiliation for the right to sit in rooms like this and ask questions that make powerful people sweat.
Dawson can hurt me. He can discredit me.
He can turn every professional rival into a committee of smug little vultures picking over the word compromised.
But he cannot make the truth less true.
“No,” I say.
His expression goes flat. “Then enjoy your little rebellion.”
The call cuts.
For several seconds, I do not move.
The holo collapses, leaving behind the cold archive light, the glowing financial records, and the sound of my own pulse beating hard enough to make my ears ring. My hands shake. I hate that they shake. I set the compad down before I drop it.
Gnash says nothing.
That is what nearly undoes me.
He does not rush in with comfort I did not ask for.
He does not make some grand declaration about vengeance against Dawson, though I can feel the violence in him held tight behind his stillness.
He waits, because somehow this Reaper warlord with blood on his reputation understands that if he turns my choice into his rescue, he will steal part of it from me.
Well,” I say. “That went about as expected.”
Gnash’s voice is low. “You are injured.”
I laugh once, sharp and humorless. “Professionally or emotionally?”
“Yes.”
That should not make me smile. It does, barely.
“I’m all right.”
“No.”
I look at him.
He steps closer, careful and slow. “You are standing. That is not the same.”
The words slip under my defenses because they are true in the exact wrong place. I rub my palms against my trousers, trying to push the tremor out through friction. “I knew he would do this eventually.”
“Knowing a blade is coming does not make the cut painless.”