Page 137 of Reaper Said Mine

Skahar’s voice comes through dry as old bone. “A child in west bridge heard. The coolant mites in lower ductwork heard. I believe a deaf Pi’Rell three sectors away just looked up and asked why the Reaper lord has become dramatic.”

Ursa glances toward the ceiling. “Hello, Skahar.”

“Little flame,” he replies. “You are either very brave or very foolish to encourage him.”

“I try not to encourage him too much.”

“You fail.”

I growl into the comm. “Did you call to insult me or inform me?”

“I often do both. Come to the old signal room. We must discuss the speed with which fools sharpen gossip into knives.”

The channel cuts.

Ursa folds her arms. “Old signal room?”

“A place where old warnings go to annoy me.”

“Poetic.”

“It means Skahar wants privacy and believes naming a room dramatically improves the advice.”

“Then we should go.”

“We?”

She gives me a flat look. “You just said you love me in front of a corridor full of informants, children, and mechanics with the acting ability of damaged furniture. I think I’m included in the agenda.”

I should argue. I do not. That may be love or tactical exhaustion.

The old signal room sits in a forgotten rise near the station’s outer communication spine, past two sealed access doors, one ladder steep enough to insult human leg length, and a maintenance crawl where Gnash, feared warlord of Guyver Station, must turn sideways because the Combine built too many passages for smaller cowards. Ursa handles the ladder with more grace than I expect and more stubbornness than sense. When I offer a hand at the top, she accepts it only after giving me a look that says she knows I waited to offer rather than hover.

The room itself smells of dust, dry wiring, and old ozone. Dead relay banks line three walls, their cracked glass faces reflecting the dim amber worklight overhead. The outer hull curves along the far side, and through a narrow armored viewport, the Badlands smear violet and blue across the dark. Skahar sits beneath the viewport on a low crate, cane across his knees, looking like an elder in a shrine dedicated to obsolete machines and inconvenient truth.

Vakka stands beside him with a compad in hand and a grin she is trying poorly to hide.

“Do not,” I say.

She looks wounded. “I have not said anything.”

“Your face is speaking.”

“My face makes no supply commitments.”

Ursa laughs before she can stop herself.

“Narra will suffer.”

“She has already heard,” Vakka says. “She is considering commemorative stew.”

“Absolutely not.”

“She said love needs protein.”

Skahar lifts one claw. “Enough. Mock him later. It will keep.”

Vakka’s grin fades, and the room sobers around the change. She sends a projection into the air. Not a formal report, but a rumor map. I know it by shape before I read the threads. Dock chatter. Diplomatic aides. Merchant channels. Encrypted gossip bursts between guest quarters. Leaked fragments from IHC-Now monitoring platforms. The image spreads across the room like mold in light.