Page 228 of Reaper Said Mine

Guyver was hit. We held. I am evacuating outer civilians inward and giving up exposed holds if necessary. Some will call it weakness.

Her reply does not come immediately. The relays are slow, and she is far away. I stare at the screen anyway until the command center’s red light blurs faintly at the edges.

When the message finally arrives, it is short.

Let them. The living will know better.

I close my hand around the compad.

Across the room, officers issue orders that will change the shape of my territory. Ships will move before the next dawn-cycle. Captains will rage. Civilians will flee through corridors lit by emergency strips and trust that my warriors can keep the dark behind them. The Combine will claim victory over abandoned holds. The Coalition will offer more help. The Alliance will watch for weakness. Every faction will interpret mercy as strategy if that makes it easier for them to understand.

Let them.

I look at the casualty roll one more time.

Then I look at the shelter map.

The difficult decision no longer feels like defeat. It feels like grief given direction.

“Send the order,” I say.

Krell sends it.

Guyver Station shudders beneath another distant impact against the outer shield, but this time no one flinches. Around me, the command center moves with exhausted purpose, and through the viewport the Badlands keep burning in all their deadly color.

I once thought protecting my people meant making the galaxy fear what I would destroy.

Now, as evacuation routes bloom across the map like fragile veins carrying life away from danger, I begin to understand that destruction was the simple part.

The harder work is choosing what must live, even when pride screams for everything else.

CHAPTER 29

URSA

The news breaks while rain claws down the windows of Senator Vale’s annex office.

New Boston looks blurred and ghostly beyond the glass, its towers smeared into columns of silver and gold by the storm rolling in from the Atlantic reclamation belt. Thunder mutters somewhere above the city, low enough to tremble through the reinforced panes, while the room around me hums with overworked processors, encrypted servers, stale caf, and the faint ozone bite of too many holo-displays running at once. My shirt clings damply between my shoulders from the walk across the security courtyard, my hair has escaped its knot in frizzy red strands, and every nerve in my body feels sanded raw from three days of evidence, threats, committee briefings, and waiting for the next disaster to announce itself.

When the alert blooms across every screen in the room, I know before I read it that something has gone wrong.

Bellamy sees it first.

“Oh, shit,” he says.

The words come out soft, which makes them worse.

I turn from the wall display where we have been arranging the third evidence packet and follow his gaze to the central feed. A Coalition seal rotates in formal blue and gold beside a live image from Guyver Station’s diplomatic hall. Theryki stands at one side of a long black table. Gnash stands at the other, enormous and severe in dark armor, his silver hair drawn back from a face carved into something unreadable.

My breath stops.

The headline completes its crawl beneath them.

GNASH OF GUYVER STATION SIGNS PROTECTORATE AGREEMENT WITH ATAXIAN COALITION

For several seconds, the room disappears.

The rain, the servers, Bellamy’s voice, Senator Vale’s aides whispering near the door, Milton swearing into his cup, Commander Pelt demanding verification over a secure channel—all of it recedes behind the sight of Gnash pressing his clawed hand to the treaty surface while Theryki’s golden eyes remain fixed on the cameras.