Page 165 of Reaper Said Mine

“That’s all? Maybe?”

“Yes. Maybe I am. But I know what the worse mistake is. It’s letting people with fleets and balance sheets walk a civilian population toward war while journalists debate brand positioning.”

His eyes flicker. Some part of him hears Horus IV in that. Some part of him hates that he does.

“You always did know how to make martyrdom sound practical,” he says.

“No. I know what happens when practical people let the dead be narrated by whoever has the cleanest podium.”

The call ends because I cut it off before Dawson can.

My hand trembles afterward, but less than it did last time.

The archive room holds its breath around me.

Then Vakka says, “I would like permission to send him a box of teeth.”

I laugh once, too hard and too sharp, and press my hand over my mouth.

Gnash turns toward Vakka. “Denied.”

“A small box?”

“No.”

“One symbolic tooth?”

“Vakka.”

She sighs. “You have become less fun since love made you strategic.”

Skahar’s mouth twitches. “He was always less fun than advertised.”

I sink back into the chair, adrenaline draining so quickly that the room seems to tilt at the edges. Gnash is at my side immediately, not touching until I look up and nod. Then his hand settles over the back of my chair, a wall of heat and quiet fury.

“You should rest,” he says.

“I will throw this compad at your head.”

“It would break.”

“The compad or your head?”

“Yes.”

I smile despite myself, then turn back to the feeds. “There will be more.”

There is, and the next hour becomes a storm.

Coalition channels accuse me of destabilizing talks with irresponsible implications. Alliance hardliners claim the report proves Guyver Station cannot secure diplomatic personnel without military oversight. Earth commentators split between calling me brave, compromised, reckless, manipulated, or secretly brilliant, depending on which panel pays them to breathe. Independent shipping unions begin demanding answers from Halcyon Resource Arbitration. Refugee advocacy groups seize on the debt-transfer evidence and ask why Coalition-aligned contractors appear in the chain. Combine market value drops three percent, then recovers half of it after a reassuring statement from Zune.

His name appears an hour and seventeen minutes after publication.

It does not arrive in a direct message. Instead, it appears in a recorded public comment outside a Helios shareholder briefing.

Jonathon Zune looks smaller on holo than I expected, but polished in the way rich men often are when they know whole systems bend around their comfort. Middle-aged, human, silver at the temples, tailored suit dark enough to seem restrained while quietly announcing money. His smile is paternal, and that makes my skin crawl before he speaks.

“Ms. Ramone has a compelling personal history,” he says to a cluster of reporters. “No one questions the courage she showed as a child on Horus IV. However, childhood trauma does not make one immune to manipulation, nor does proximity to a violent Reaper faction create expertise in complex commercial affairs.”