Page 111 of Reaper Said Mine

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.

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.