Page 20 of Reaper Said Mine

"IHC-Now."

He snorts. "Tell Earth we have plumbing."

"I will make that the headline."

"Better than the last bastard. He called this place a den of feral raiders while standing next to a sanitation crew that had been up nineteen hours fixing water reclamation for Dock Five."

"What should he have called it?"

The man shifts a crate against his hip and looks around the market. He is human, maybe late forties, with tired eyes and a scar disappearing beneath his collar. "Home, if he had any damn sense."

The answer lands harder than it should.

Before I can ask his name, the crowd pulls him away.

I stand there with my compad warm in my hand and the station alive around me. Home. That word has weight in any mouth, but on Guyver Station it feels like contraband. Every official briefing described territory, asset control, strategic leverage, piracy, and warlord influence. None of them mentioned home. None of them mentioned children chasing one another around a repurposed engine fountain while armed patrols watched the crowd for actual threats instead of easy victims.

"Ramone," I say softly to my own recording file. "Arrival observation. Public areas contradict dominant external characterization. Initial evidence suggests mixed civilian population, functioning trade regulation, visible security discipline, and resident identification with station community. Further verification required."

"Talking to yourself already?"

The voice comes from behind me, female, clipped, and amused.

I turn to find Ambassador Sharmel Wilcox watching me from beside a tea stall, a cup held between both hands. She is middle-aged, human, with close-cropped brown hair threaded with silver and the posture of someone who still remembers how to stand inspection even if she has traded uniform for diplomatic tailoring. Her jacket is dark blue, expensive without being ostentatious, and cut to conceal a sidearm badly enough that I suspect she wants certain people to notice.

"Ambassador Wilcox," I say.

Her brows lift. "You know me."

"I do my homework."

"Then you know I hate being ambushed by reporters in markets."

"I was here first."

She glances at my compad. "Recording?"

"Passive environmental only. I can turn it off for conversation."

"Do it."

I do.

She watches the indicator fade before taking another sip. "You are the Horus IV girl."

"I am Ursa Ramone."

"That was not meant as an insult."

"It usually isn't. That has never improved it."

Her mouth pulls to one side, and I catch the first trace of real interest in her eyes. "Fair enough. Ursa Ramone, then. What brings IHC-Now’s most inconvenient survivor to Guyver Station?"

"Professional ambition and terrible judgment, depending on who you ask."

"Ask me after you have been here forty-eight hours. I may vote for both." She nods toward the upper concourse, where a group of Coalition aides glide past in coordinated robes. "You picked a lively week."

"I understand General Gobold is here under Alliance authority."