Page 83 of Reaper Said Mine

“Nothing yet. It was empty and dormant, but it was built to receive close-range bursts from inside the station.” She sends the technical readout across the table. “Small enough to hide in diplomatic cargo, shielded enough to pass lazy inspection, and tuned to frequencies used by Combine commercial drones.”

Skahar opens his good eye fully. “Theryki brings the needle. Zune provides the hand to fill it.”

“Or Theryki wants us to think that,” I say, enlarging the frequency profile. “She benefits if I believe the Combine has penetrated her delegation. Zune benefits if I believe Theryki is careless or compromised. Gobold benefits if the room catches fire before any agreement can be signed. Wilcox benefits if she can prove everyone else is dirty while keeping her own hands visible.”

Vakka snorts. “So everyone benefits except us.”

“That is diplomacy.”

“That is a sewer with better clothes.”

Skahar nods approvingly. “Now she understands politics.”

I lean over the table and separate the reports by faction. Coalition courier anomalies. Alliance guard rotations. Helios-backed merchant complaints. Two bribed dockhands, one missing kitchen worker assigned to the diplomatic feast, three altered access logs near the guest communications hub, and one intercepted message from an unnamed broker offering payment for “clarifying pressure” against the human journalist.

The last one makes the room narrow.

Vakka notices before I speak. Her eyes follow mine to the line item, and the humor drops from her face. “We have not identified the broker.”

“Find him.”

“We are trying.”

“Try with knives.”

She straightens. “Alive?”

“For the first round of questions.”

Skahar leans forward. “There he is.”

I turn my head slowly. “Choose your next words with fondness for your remaining teeth.”

“Threatening Vakka makes sense. Threatening a broker makes sense. Tightening every muscle in your body because some fool has noticed the woman you carried from a feast is something else.”

Vakka glances toward the door with the tactical instincts of a warrior who knows when a family argument may require witnesses or distance. “I will go find the broker.”

“You will stay,” I say.

“I would rather wrestle a coolant leak.”

“Stay.”

She stays, though her expression suggests she plans to complain about it later to every living creature in the docking authority.

Skahar studies me in that old, terrible way of his. “Your enemies were always going to target her.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

The question tastes too much like Ursa. Precise. Unmoved by my temper. A blade placed exactly where armor does not reach. I growl at him because he has earned worse and survived better.

“I know she is a political liability,” I say.

“Ah. A liability. How soft and tender you sound.”

Vakka makes a choking noise and turns it into a cough too late.