Page 74 of Reaper Said Mine

“Then be clear.”

I activate the recording field. A pale ring of light rises from the compad, catches the edges of his face, and throws faint illumination across the bone spurs along his jaw. “This is Ursa Ramone for IHC-Now, recording aboard Guyver Station with Gnash, warlord of Guyver Station, fleet commander, and central figure in the ongoing protectorate negotiations. Gnash, do you consent to this interview being recorded, transmitted, edited for length only with full contextual archive preserved, and used as part of my reporting?”

“Yes,” he says. “On one condition.”

My stomach tightens. “Name it.”

“You do not edit my words to make me seem softer.”

I blink. “That is your concern?”

“I have many enemies willing to call me a monster. I do not need a friendly lie turning me into a misunderstood pet.”

The answer lands with enough weight that I forget whatever sharp reply I had ready. “I don’t do friendly lies.”

“No,” he says, studying me with unsettling focus. “I begin to suspect you do not.”

I swallow and pretend my throat has not gone dry. “Then we have an agreement.”

He gestures toward a heavy table near the viewport. It has been built from old hull plating and polished until the scars in the metal shine. Two chairs wait beside it, one clearly made for a Reaper and one probably dragged in from some diplomatic storehouse at the last minute. I sit in the smaller one, set my compad between us, and try not to feel absurdly human in a room shaped by his body, his history, and his command.

Outside the viewport, Guyver Station’s inner docking spine curves below us in a blaze of amber work lights and moving ships. Cargo haulers crawl through assigned lanes. Small patrol craft pivot in disciplined arcs. Farther out, the Badlands shimmer in violent ribbons of purple and blue, a beautiful wound across the black.

Gnash notices where I am looking. “Most outsiders expect chaos.”

“I was one of them,” I admit. “Before I started reading the traffic reports.”

“And now?”

“Now I think chaos is bad branding for what you’ve built. Convenient branding, maybe, but inaccurate.”

He sits across from me, and even the large chair complains softly beneath him. “That is the first question?”

“No. That’s an observation. The first question is why.”

“Why what?”

“Why build this?” I gesture toward the viewport. “You could have kept raiding. You could have vanished into the Badlands whenever the pressure increased. Instead, you took a station, established tariffs, created ledgers, enforced traffic lanes, sheltered refugees, and invited ambassadors to eat meat under conditions apparently designed to traumatize etiquette officers. Why?”

For several seconds, he does not answer. The silence is not empty, though. It has machinery in it, distant voices through the walls, the faint hum of the viewport field, and the low rasp of his breathing. He looks past me toward the station beyond the glass, and his size does not feel like the most dangerous thing about him.

“Because raiding keeps people alive until the next raid,” he says. “It does not give children a place to sleep without counting exits.”

My fingers still over the compad.

He continues, voice low. “Reapers are very good at surviving the next hour. We became excellent at it because the galaxy made anything longer seem like vanity. Ships break. Crews splinter. Captains die. A strong warrior takes command, gathers enough bodies around him to become feared, and then he spends his life proving he deserves that fear. It is a small way to exist.”

“That’s not how most governments describe Reaper culture.”

“Most governments describe Reaper culture from behind guns.”

“Are they wrong?”

His eyes return to mine. “No.”

The honesty is blunt enough to knock me off balance. I expected defense, deflection, some polished warlord version of everyone misunderstands us. Instead, he gives me the uglier answer without flinching.

I adjust my question. “No?”