28. Gnash
GNASH
Guyver Station shakes like an old beast refusing to die.
The first impact rolls through the armored spine before dawn-cycle, hard enough to rattle loose tools from the engineering racks and send a tremor through the command table beneath my hands.
The air in the command center tastes of scorched insulation, emergency coolant, blood from someone’s split lip, and the bitter caf abandoned in mugs when the alarms began screaming.
Red light pulses over every face in the tactical pit, turning warriors, technicians, clerks, and runners into ghosts carved from heat and exhaustion while the walls carry the deep metallic groan of a station absorbing punishment it was never meant to survive politely.
Outside the viewport, the Badlands twist in bruised violet and black, but the beauty is half-hidden behind defense flare and weapons fire.
Guyver’s outer shield grid flickers in overlapping arcs as incoming fire strikes, disperses, and strikes again.
One of our converted gunships burns near Dock Nine, venting atmosphere in a glittering white plume while emergency tugs drag it away from the traffic lanes.
Beyond it, hostile signatures appear and vanish through debris fields, radiation pockets, and the dirty little tricks cowards use when they wish to murder civilians while preserving legal ambiguity.
“Report,” I say.
Vakka answers from the weapons station without looking away from her display.
A strip of blood runs from her temple down the side of her face, but she has ignored worse wounds for smaller insults.
“Outer defense grid absorbed the first volley. Sector Twelve took partial hull breach near coolant exchange. Dock Nine lost pressure in two service compartments. Fire suppression is active, but damage control requests more bodies.”
“Send whoever can hold a torch and understand shouting.”
“Already done.”
Krell stands two stations over with dark circles under his eyes and both hands moving across the compad as if he can hold the station together by speed alone.
“Civilian shelters are sealing across market ring, school ring, refugee barracks, and lower hydroponics. Med-bay reports ninety-seven injured from the first impact wave, mostly decompression trauma and burns.”
The number punches through me, but I keep my face still because every eye in this room steals part of its courage from mine.
“Dead?”
“Six confirmed so far.”
So far.
I hate that phrase more than most prayers.
Another blast hits the shield grid. The command center lights flicker, and the deck tilts hard enough that one of the younger runners slams into a console.
He catches himself, bares his teeth at the console as if it offended him personally, and keeps moving with a sealed packet clutched in one hand.
Skahar stands beside the command table, one hand braced on his cane and the other gripping the table edge.
His old body sways with the station’s movement, but his cloudy eye remains fixed on the tactical map.
He looks less like an adviser and more like a monument dragged out of a graveyard to insult history for being repetitive.
“Cowards are testing the shield seams,” he says. “They are not trying to crack us open yet.”
“They will,” I say.
“Yes.”
His agreement gives me no comfort.
Vakka expands the threat display. “Three hostile clusters. One near the old Helios beacon line, one masking inside Ash-Maw radiation, one cutting through the shattered moon debris above the southern approach. Hull profiles remain inconsistent. Some Combine heavy cutters, some private escorts, two probable Alliance ghosts.”
“Probable,” Skahar mutters. “The favorite word of people who wish to shoot you and deny handwriting the bullet.”
“Coalition support?” I ask.
Krell’s mouth tightens. “Two fighter wings already engaged near the southern approach. Theryki’s command requests broader pursuit authority inside our inner defensive envelope.”
Every attack drags the Coalition deeper into my blood.
Every life saved sharpens the hook.
Another report flashes across the table before I can answer.
Sector Twelve’s internal feed opens without my permission because some frightened engineer must have punched emergency broadcast. Smoke fills a corridor crowded with civilians moving toward shelter doors.
Reaper emergency crews in patchwork armor carry children, old ones, wounded merchants, and one stunned Alzhon with blood streaming over his yellow robes.
Sprinklers hiss white vapor across the ceiling.
Somewhere in the feed, a child screams for a mother who does not answer fast enough.
My hand closes around the table edge until metal bends.
“Authorize Coalition pursuit for the southern approach only,” I say. “No access to inner command relays. No automated targeting links. Manual coordination through Vakka.”
Vakka glances at me. “That will slow them.”
“It will keep them from owning my guns.”
She shows her teeth once. “Good.”
Krell sends the authorization.
A moment later, Theryki’s voice enters over a private command channel. “Lord Gnash, partial authority endangers our pilots.”
“So does fighting near my station.”
“You cannot ask us to defend your civilians while denying the tools that defense requires.”
I stare at the tactical map, watching blue Coalition icons fold into our defensive arcs. “I can and just did.”
Her voice sharpens. “This is not the hour for pride.”
“No, ambassador. This is the hour for memory. My people have long memories when strangers ask to place their hands on our throats for our benefit.”
“Your people also have children in shelters beneath active bombardment.”
The words strike exactly where she means them to strike.
Skahar watches me from the side, silent for once.
I imagine Ursa in her rented office on Earth, digging through evidence while public feeds try to turn our dead into arguments. I imagine her reading every clause and every casualty report, understanding the trap from a distance while I stand inside it with alarms screaming through my bones.
“Manual coordination remains,” I say. “If your pilots cannot fight without owning my station, send better pilots.”
Theryki inhales slowly over the channel. When she replies, her voice is cold enough to freeze oil. “Understood.”
The line closes.
Skahar’s cane taps once.
“Do not start,” I growl.
“I had not spoken.”
“You were preparing to.”
“At my age preparation is half the pleasure.”
“I will throw your cane into the reactor.”
“You would have to carry me afterward, and I would describe your posture as inadequate the entire way.”
Despite the alarms and blood and smoke, a harsh sound leaves me. Around us, two officers almost smile. It reminds the room that we are still alive enough to be irritated.
Then Sector Twelve’s feed flashes again.
The shelter door jams.
The child screaming for his mother is visible now, a small human boy with dust in his black hair and both hands pressed over his ears. A Reaper emergency worker rips open a wall panel, trying to access the manual release. Another impact shakes the corridor, and the ceiling splits above them.
I turn toward the lower pit. “Why is that door not open?”
A technician answers, voice shaking. “Power relay severed. Manual release is fused.”
“Send a breach team.”
“They are three decks away.”
I look at the map. Three decks is too far when ceilings fall.
Skahar follows my gaze to the feed. “Go.”
Every officer near us turns.
I do not ask who will command in my absence because they all know. Vakka has weapons. Krell has comms. Skahar has the room because age and malice make fine authority when mixed correctly.
I seize a breather mask and a shoulder shield from the emergency rack. “Hold the grid.”
Vakka calls after me, “Try not to die in a corridor, lord. It would be inconvenient paperwork.”
“I live to spare you forms.”
“You had better.”
The doors open, and smoke rolls in from the hallway.
The station outside the command center is chaos with discipline stitched through it.
Emergency lights paint the corridors red and white.
Reaper crews sprint past with cutters, sealant rigs, med-kits, and weapon slings bouncing against their chests.
Civilians move along marked routes with shelter marshals shouting instructions in three languages.
The floor vibrates under each new impact, and the walls answer with groans that make my teeth ache.
I run.
My feet strike the deck hard enough to rattle loose plating. The breather mask hangs unused around my neck because the smoke does not yet deserve the insult of slowing me. Two young technicians flatten themselves against the wall as I pass. One starts to bow like a fool.
“Move your ass,” I roar.
He moves.
Good.
The lift shafts are locked for emergency control, so I take the maintenance stairs three at a time.
Heat thickens as I descend. The air grows harsh with chemical fire suppression and burnt plastic.
Someone sobs behind a sealed bulkhead. Someone else yells for pressure foam.
Through the deck beneath me, I feel the heavy thump of counterfire as Guyver’s batteries answer the attackers.
At the Sector Twelve junction, a service pipe has ruptured and sprays hot vapor across the corridor.
Two emergency workers crouch behind an overturned grav-cart, trying to reach the shelter door while sparks spit from the wall panel.
The boy from the feed is still there, clutched now by a Reaper woman with one arm hanging at an unnatural angle.
Around them, fifteen or twenty civilians huddle against the smoke, trapped between the jammed door and a sealed firebreak.
The ceiling cracks again.
“Down!” I bellow.
Most obey by instinct. One elderly merchant freezes, eyes wide.
I hit him with my shoulder hard enough to knock him beneath the shelter awning as a support strut tears free overhead. It crashes where he stood, showering the corridor in molten fragments.