Page 248 of Reaper Said Mine

But I can choose what happens next.

The command center calls before I am ready, because readiness is another luxury war does not provide. Vakka reports new movements near the Trask Fold. Krell needs authorization for another evacuation escort. Theryki requests a strategy conference with three fleet commanders who have never had to smell the inside of my shelters. Alliance white icons continue drifting toward the map like frost.

I turn from the alcove.

Skahar falls into step beside me, cane striking the deck in slow, stubborn rhythm.

“What will you do?” he asks.

I walk toward the command center through smoke, song, and the murmuring life of civilians who deserve more than my rage.

“I will stop chasing the Combine into every fire they light,” I say. “I will make them answer for the fires. There is a difference.”

Skahar grunts. “There may be hope for you yet.”

“Do not grow sentimental.”

“I would rather swallow my cane.”

We enter the command center as another wave of reports blooms red across the map. Coalition blue surrounds Guyver like armor and threat. Alliance white gathers beyond contested lines. Combine gray threads through trade routes, colonies, and stations where ordinary people are still trying to survive the ambitions of monsters in clean rooms.

Once, I would have looked at that map and searched for where to strike hardest.

Now I look for where civilians can escape.

The change does not feel noble.

It feels like grief learning discipline.

I take my place at the table.

“Send Bravax and Dakkor packets to Ursa,” I say. “All raw feeds. No polish. No propaganda.”

Krell nods. “Yes, lord.”

“Vakka, defensive posture around civilian corridors remains absolute. No pursuit beyond evacuation cover without my direct command.”

“Understood.”

“Open a channel to Theryki and the fleet commanders,” I say. “If their capital ships are in my territory, then they can hear my terms from my mouth.”

Skahar’s cane taps once beside me.

The map glows, the station breathes, and the war continues spreading beyond every line the negotiations were supposed to protect.

I stand in the center of it with revenge turning to ash behind my teeth and the living demanding everything in front of me.

I let the ash stay ash.

CHAPTER 31

URSA

Storm runoff streaks the glass canopy overhead at thespaceport beneath New Boston’s western dome, turning the landing lights into smeared halos of amber and white while armed port security moves through the departure concourse in pairs, their boots squeaking against polished composite flooring. Every public screen carries some version of the same crisis map: Coalition blue pressing into the Badlands, Alliance white gathering along intervention corridors, Combine gray appearing wherever plausible deniability needs a uniform, and Guyver Station pulsing at the center like a wound the galaxy cannot stop touching.

I stand beneath Gate C-19 with a battered travel case at my feet, an encrypted drive sewn into the lining of my jacket, a second hidden inside the false bottom of my boot, and a third copy of the evidence broken into fragments across six deadman relays that will publish if I miss too many check-ins. My mouth tastes like stale caf and nerves. My eyes burn from the legal packets, committee sessions, emergency interviews, and military restrictions that have tightened around Earth space since the protectorate announcement. Somewhere behind the security barriers, a child cries because his family’s colony transit has been canceled, and his mother keeps whispering that everything will be fine in the careful voice adults use when they have run out of truth.

Bellamy stands beside me with his hair uncombed, his coat buttoned wrong, and three compads balanced against one hip. He looks like a man assembled out of caffeine, spite, and poor posture.