Page 281 of Reaper Said Mine

“It is.”

Her eyes sharpen.

I show my teeth. “That does not make Ursa less aboard that ship.”

“No. It does not.”

“Hold my station.”

“I will hold the civilian corridors,” she says.

That distinction matters.

I nod once. “Then we understand each other.”

The channel closes.

Skahar follows as I stride toward the command center doors. “You understand this may be the image they want. The warlord leaving command for his human mate. The Reaper choosing passion over strategy.”

“I am leaving command in hands I trust, with standing orders built around civilian survival. That is strategy.”

“It is also love.”

I stop at the doors and look back.

The command center glows red behind me. Vakka at weapons. Krell at comms. Officers at their stations. Casualty packets beside the table. Children alive in shelters because I did not chase bait into darkness.

“Yes,” I say. “It is.”

Skahar’s old face stills.

I continue before he can wrap the moment in insults. “I am not choosing love over them. I am choosing not to let my enemies teach me that protecting one life requires abandoning all others. Hold me to that while I am gone.”

His cloudy eye gleams. “Gladly. I have waited years for you to invite criticism.”

“You have never waited.”

“No, but politeness is a disease I avoided successfully.”

I grip his shoulder once, hard enough to say everything neither of us would tolerate in words.

Then I run.

The path from command to Dock Three is a blur of emergency light and motion. Civilians press against shelter walls as crews guide them toward safer sectors. Reaper warriors haul ammunition sleds in one direction and wounded children in the other. Coalition medics step aside as I pass, then hurry after their own orders. The station smells of burned metal, antiseptic, sweat, and too many bodies trusting hull plating to remain merciful.

At Dock Three, the Black Mercy waits in launch clamps.

She is not a beautiful ship. She is a converted gunship with armor plates from five dead vessels, engine housings too large for her frame, and forward cannons that have been illegally modified so many times that her maintenance file reads like a confession. Her crew loves her with the unreasonable devotion Reapers reserve for dangerous things that should not function and do anyway.

Captain Drokk meets me at the ramp, black skin streaked with grease, spurs polished, grin savage. “Heard your woman got herself boarded.”

“She dislikes boredom.”

“Good. We hate boredom.”

“You will hate dying more, so fly well.”

Drokk thumps one fist against his chest. “Black Mercy flies like a knife thrown by an angry god.”