Page 38 of Reaper Said Mine

"And now?"

"I grew tired of watching you ask everyone else."

That is not the whole truth, but it is close enough to kindness that I do not insult it by naming it.

The shipyard observation deck is hotter than the market and loud enough that Vesk hands me ear dampeners before the door opens. The deck overlooks three repair berths and one construction cradle where the skeletal cruiser I saw from the diplomatic lounge is slowly being skinned in scavenged plating. Workers move across it in harnesses and mag-boots, their bodies haloed by welding light. The view is stunning in the ugliest possible way, all sparks, smoke, hard labor, shouted warnings, and machinery heavy enough to crush a transport into decorative scrap. Vibrations travel up through the soles of my boots and into my knees.

A Reaper foreman named Hakk meets us by the rail. He is pale gray, bald, and missing two fingers from one hand. He gives me ten seconds of contempt, then begins talking because Vesk tells him I have been less idiotic than expected.

"That cruiser ever going to fly?" I ask.

Hakk looks offended. "She already wants to."

"That is not an engineering answer."

"It is the only one that matters."

Vesk leans on the rail beside me. "Hakk believes ships have souls."

"Ships do have souls," Hakk snaps. "Some are lazy. Some are vain. Some are cursed because fools installed second-rate thrust harmonics and expected gratitude."

I look at the exposed ribs of the cruiser. "What is hers?"

Hakk’s expression changes. Pride softens the brutality of his face. "Hungry."

That, I understand.

He explains the shipyard in blunt, technical bursts, but the picture that emerges is political, economic, and deeply human in the broader sense of the word. Gnash seized not only a station but the means to keep one alive. Repair capacity brings merchants. Merchants bring tariffs. Tariffs fund security, med-bays, schools, and patrol fuel. Patrols reduce raids. Reduced raids bring more trade. It is a loop built from stolen metal, fear, hard competence, and a vision no official profile bothered to describe.

By the time I leave the observation deck, I have enough material for six segments and none of them answer the question Dawson sent me here to fail at.

Gnash remains absent.

His staff keeps denying me with almost artistic consistency.

Yet everywhere I go, his decisions are visible.

Late that evening, I attend a small diplomatic mixer because sleep has become theoretical and because political creatures often say stupid things near expensive alcohol. The lounge is quieter than the market, lit in amber and blue, with soft music threading beneath conversations calibrated for plausible deniability. My clothes still carry faint shipyard smoke despite my best attempt to clean them in the lodging unit, and my hair refuses to stay entirely in its tie.

Theryki finds me near a display of preserved Badlands minerals.

"Ms. Ramone," she says, golden eyes traveling from my scuffed boots to the small burn mark on my sleeve. "You have been busy."

"I prefer useful."

"How refreshingly unfashionable."

"You've been tracking my movements."

"Everyone has been tracking your movements. You ask questions the way a starving person eats."

"I hope that means thoroughly."

"It means without sufficient concern for manners."

"That may be why I am still hungry."

Her smile appears, precise and dangerous. "You have spoken with merchants, refugees, dockworkers, medics, school staff, and security. You have not filed a major broadcast."