19. Ursa #3
The question is quiet.
It is also enormous.
I am twenty-four years old, exhausted, possibly unemployed, standing in a locked briefing room on a Reaper station with a warlord who loves me and a file that might prove multiple factions are steering us toward another civilian catastrophe.
I should not be the person anyone asks. I should not have the answer.
But Horus IV taught me what happens when everyone waits for someone more qualified to tell the truth.
“I would stop reacting to each faction separately,” I say. “That is what they want. Theryki wants to keep the conversation legal. Gobold wants it military. Zune wants it hidden in money and sabotage. You need to move the battlefield.”
Gnash steps closer. “How?”
“Expose the pattern enough to force all of them into the same room under record.”
His eyes narrow. “Accuse them publicly.”
“Not accuse without proof. Present verified facts. The assassin components from multiple sources. The debt transfers. The cloned badge. The infrastructure sabotage. The communications fragments, with caveats about routing and authenticity. Make it clear you have evidence of coordinated instability, even if coordination between factions is not proven.”
“Theryki will deny.”
“Good.”
“Gobold will threaten.”
“Better.”
“Zune will hide.”
“Then make hiding look like confession.”
Gnash’s mouth curves slowly, but the expression is grim. “You have become bloodthirsty.”
“I learned from numbers.”
He considers me, eyes hot and intent. “And you? Where do you stand when this happens?”
I know what he is asking. Not physically. Not only that.
“My reporting goes out,” I say.
“Dawson will interfere.”
“I won’t send it through Dawson first.”
That costs me more to say than I expect. IHC-Now was the ladder, the leash, the machine I hated and needed in equal measure. Bypassing them is not merely rebellion. It is a professional line I may not uncross.
Gnash hears that cost.
“You are certain?”
“No.”
He looks surprised, and that almost makes me smile.
I press on. “I am scared. I am furious. I am probably about to hand Dawson the weapon he needs to gut my career. But if I wait for permission, the story dies in brand strategy while people start shooting.”
His voice lowers. “Then we do it together.”
The words are simple, and maybe from anyone else they would feel like a slogan. From Gnash, they feel like something hammered into metal.
I move closer until I have to tilt my head back to hold his gaze. “This cannot be about protecting me from consequences.”
“It is about facing consequences with you.”
My throat tightens.
“That was also much too good an answer,” I say.
“I am improving.”
“You’re going to be unbearable.”
“I already was.”
“Yes, but now you’ll have evidence.”
He reaches for me, not rushed, not demanding. His hand settles along my jaw, thumb careful near the sealed cut at my temple. The bond warms between us, not erasing fear, but giving it somewhere to rest.
“We confront the threat,” he says.
“Yes.”
“No more allowing each faction to move in shadows.”
“No.”
“No more pretending the talks remain clean because everyone washed their hands before entering the room.”
“That might be your best diplomatic metaphor yet.”
“I dislike how much diplomacy I am learning.”
“You’re doing great. Terrible people hate it.”
His smile flashes, brief and fierce. Then his expression sobers. “If war comes, Ursa?—”
“When,” I correct, hating the word as I say it. “If we do nothing, it’s when. If we move first, maybe it stays if.”
He nods once. “Then we move first.”
I step back and pull up my compad, opening a fresh file. My hands are steadier now. Not because the fear is gone. Because the fear has become direction.
“I need Vakka’s authenticated logs, Skahar’s review of the component evidence, your formal statement on the assassination attempt, and access to station traffic records from the last seventy-two hours.”
“You ask like a commander.”
“I ask like a reporter who has run out of patience.”
“I will give you everything I can.”
“And I will make clear what is proven, what is probable, and what remains unverified.”
He inclines his head. “Truth with teeth.”
“Exactly.”
The briefing room door chimes with Vakka’s code before sliding open. She steps inside without waiting, looks between us, then at the projection still glowing over the table.
“I assume from the deathly mood and lack of broken furniture that the news is bad but actionable.”
Gnash looks at me.
I look at him.
Then I turn to Vakka. “We need to force every faction into the light.”
Her grin spreads slowly, sharp and delighted. “Finally. A briefing worth attending.”
Outside the sealed room, the gallery continues murmuring with gossip, ambition, and poisoned courtesy.
Theryki is recalculating. Gobold is probably complaining about something loud enough to dent a wall.
Wilcox is watching for the first sign of collapse.
Zune’s people are somewhere in the station or just beyond it, moving money through dead channels and hoping war remains a useful abstraction.
They are all about to be disappointed.
I came to Guyver Station for an interview no one else could get.
Now I have a bigger story, a warlord beside me, and proof that the galaxy’s most dangerous people are once again treating civilian lives like acceptable math.
This time, I am not twelve years old with a compad and no one to help lift the concrete.
This time, when the walls start shaking, I am going to make damn sure everyone sees who pushed.