25. Ursa
URSA
The shuttle glides through Earth’s inner approach lanes so smoothly it barely feels like movement at all.
Everything around me gleams. The seats. The bulkheads.
The polished trim along the viewport. It looks like the sort of transport designed to reassure people that civilization is functioning exactly as intended.
Beyond the glass, Earth hangs below in luminous blue and white, wrapped in orbital platforms, traffic beacons, diplomatic stations, and defense arrays that make order seem effortless from a distance.
My hands rest in my lap, but my fingers keep drifting toward the encrypted drive hidden beneath my jacket.
It contains Gnash’s raw data from the fabricated distress call, my cross-referenced Combine financial records, independent shipping reports, Alliance movement estimates, partial Coalition compact language, and every ugly little thread I have managed to pull free before someone decides to cut the whole cloth apart.
I have three backups, two deadman uploads, one packet buried in Bellamy’s private queue, and a headache that feels like someone has driven a thin metal spike behind my left eye.
None of that makes me feel safer.
Across from me, an Alzhon businessman watches the holofeed above the aisle as another commentator explains how “Reaper aggression” threatens regional stability.
His mouth tightens at every image of Guyver Station.
The feed shows old footage of Gnash tearing through Combine security in a docking tunnel, because of course it does.
Nobody uses the clip of him ordering medical supplies released to refugees.
Nobody uses the market footage of Reaper children laughing under patched banners.
Monsters are easier to sell when they never hold anyone gently.
My compad vibrates against my thigh.
Gnash.
Heat rushes through the bond. My throat constricts. I answer before the second vibration finishes.
His image appears in miniature above my palm, distorted slightly by security encryption and the shuttle’s civilian relay lag.
He stands in the command center, half-lit by red tactical glow, silver hair pulled back from his face, bone spurs catching the light along his shoulders.
He looks enormous even through a hand-sized projection, and exhaustion sits on him in ways most people would never recognize.
I see it in the stillness around his eyes, in the restraint of his mouth, in the controlled set of his shoulders.
“You reached Earth space,” he says.
“I did.”
“Were you followed?”
“Probably by every government, corporation, and bored conspiracy hobbyist with a receiver dish.”
His mouth shifts toward a smile and stops halfway there. “That sounds inconvenient.”
“It is, but I’ve been inconvenienced professionally for years, so I’m in familiar territory.”
A rough exhale leaves him. It might be amusement if the galaxy were less determined to ruin our lives.
Behind him, someone calls out a status update I can’t quite understand. Gnash glances aside, answers in clipped Reaper, then looks back at me with that fierce attention that always makes everything around us seem thinner.
“Come back if Dawson blocks you,” he says.
Something twists low in my chest.
“I can’t.”
His expression changes immediately. “You can.”
“No, Gnash. I mean I physically can, yes, assuming nobody arrests me on the way, but I can’t do that and still make this matter.”
“You matter.”
“So do the people on your station.”
His eyes darken.
I lean closer to the compad, lowering my voice even though every passenger around me is absorbed in feeds, naps, or private calls.
“If this evidence stays inside Guyver’s information channels, they’ll call it propaganda.
If it comes from me, through Earth-based analysts, journalists, and politicians who don’t have a bone-spurred warlord standing behind them, it has a chance. ”
“You say that as if I would stand behind them politely.”
“You would absolutely loom.”
“I loom with dignity.”
“You loom like a threat someone taught to use doors.”
His teeth show briefly, and the sight of that almost-smile makes the distance between us worse. I want to touch him so badly my palm aches. I want the command center’s hot metal air, the rough pressure of his hand at my back, the deep rumble of his voice without relay lag carving holes through it.
Instead, I sit above the safest planet in human space and feel more exposed than I ever did in the Badlands.
Gnash’s amusement fades. “Theryki is pressing the compact.”
“I figured she would.”
“Skahar is pressing my patience.”
“That also tracks.”
“My outer captains want permission to retaliate.”
My stomach drops.
“Tell me you said no.”
“I said no.”
“Good.”
“They think restraint makes us look weak.”
“Then tell them truth makes liars nervous, and nervous liars make mistakes.”
He pauses for a moment.
“You have been gone less than a day, and already you give orders to my captains.”
“I’m not giving orders. I’m making persuasive observations from a safe distance.”
“Nothing about you is a safe distance, little reporter.”
The softness in his voice leaves me staring at the viewport for a second longer than necessary.
The shuttle begins its descent toward the Neo Boston orbital port.
Artificial gravity shifts subtly beneath my feet, and the viewport brightens with reflected sunlight off the platform’s silver hull.
Around me, passengers gather their bags and straighten their jackets as if returning to normal life is something that can be accomplished through posture.
“I have to go,” I say.
Gnash’s jaw shifts. “Call when you finish with Dawson.”
“If I survive Dawson.”
“I have killed men for less than he has said to you.”
“That is weirdly romantic and legally unhelpful.”
“Ursa.”
“I’ll call.”
His gaze holds mine through the flickering image. “Do not let them make you small.”
My fingers tighten around the compad.
“They’ve been trying since I was twelve,” I say. “They still suck at it.”
The connection closes, and the empty space it leaves behind feels immediate.
By the time we dock, I have locked my expression into something calm enough for cameras and sharp enough to warn off fools.
Unfortunately, fools are professionally persistent.
IHC-Now’s Neo Boston headquarters looks exactly as I left it and nothing like it should after everything I have seen.
The lobby rises five stories in polished glass, black stone, and tasteful arrogance.
Holo-banners drift overhead, advertising award-winning coverage, investigative excellence, journalistic courage, and all the other virtues corporations praise most loudly when they intend to practice them least.
Bellamy meets me near reception with two compads under one arm, a stylus behind his ear, and the haunted expression of a man who has consumed too much caffeine and not enough hope.
“You look alive,” he says.
“Barely.”
“I’ll take it.”
He pulls me into a quick hug before I can brace for it. I stand stiffly for half a second, then let myself lean into him because the last twenty-four hours have scraped me raw and Bellamy, irritatingly, is one of the few people who knows where not to press.
He releases me and steps back.
“You have the files?”
“Yes.”
“Dawson knows?”
“He knows I arrived. He doesn’t know everything I brought.”
Bellamy winces. “He’s in rare form.”
“When is he not?”
“Today he used the phrase ‘brand liability’ before nine in the morning.”
“I am going to commit a workplace incident.”
“Please don’t. Legal already hates you, and I’m too pretty for prison.”
“You are medium-pretty for journalism.”
“Cruel but motivating.”
We move toward the elevators. A few producers glance up as I pass.
Recognition ripples across the lobby, followed by whispers.
The Girl from Horus IV. The reporter who got Gnash.
The woman whose lover killed a Combine executive in front of half the diplomatic corps.
I feel every version of myself they have invented clinging to my skin like dust.
Bellamy keeps his voice low. “I have three analysts waiting off-site. One military logistics, one corporate finance, one former diplomatic counsel who drinks like a ruined poet but knows treaty language better than anyone I’ve ever met.”
“Good.”
“I also reached out to Senator Vale’s office.”
I stop walking.
Bellamy looks back.
“What?” he asks.
“Senator Vale hates IHC-Now.”
“Exactly. If she backs the evidence, Dawson can’t claim this is an internal network stunt.”
I stare at him for a second longer than necessary.
“You did good.”
His expression softens.
“Don’t sound so shocked. I’m capable of usefulness under sustained emotional threat.”
The elevator doors open, and we step inside.
The ride up feels too fast.
Dawson’s office occupies the top editorial floor, where the walls are transparent, the furniture is obscene, and every screen is tuned to a different measure of public appetite.
Views. Shares. Sentiment. Demographic retention.
Casualty interest curves. He stands near a wall display showing my face beside Gnash’s beneath the headline: HUMAN REPORTER AT CENTER OF BADLANDS CRISIS.
Ted Dawson turns as we enter.
He wears a charcoal suit cut perfectly enough to make me despise the tailor on principle. His silver hair is immaculate. His smile has the polished cruelty of a man who thinks being right and being powerful are the same thing.
“Ursa,” he says. “Our runaway star returns.”
I set my bag on the floor. “I brought evidence.”
“You brought a crisis.”
“I didn’t kill Zune.”
“No, but you attached yourself romantically to the man who did, which complicates the optics just a hair.”
Bellamy mutters, “Here we go.”
Dawson points at him without looking away from me. “You can be replaced by someone quieter.”
“Not with my cheekbones,” Bellamy says.