Page 117 of Reaper Said Mine

GNASH

Quiet investigations are never quiet to the people who know how stations breathe.

Guyver tells me when something is wrong. The deck plates carry different vibrations when workers hurry through corridors they usually stroll. Air recyclers taste sharper when maintenance crews divert flow around sealed sections. Security doors close with a different rhythm when officers stop trusting routine access and begin watching hands. Deep inside the command spine, where the walls sweat heat from bundled power conduits and the floor hums with the station’s ancient stubborn heart, I stand over a tactical table and follow Ursa’s numbers until they become faces, corridors, and places a knife might enter.

The room smells of old metal, bitter caf, and the sour fear of men who know they have found trouble but have not yet found enough of it. Vakka stands to my right with a bruise blooming beneath one eye and grease smeared along her jaw. Krell hovers near the lower display bank with three data wafers clutched in his hands like offerings to a god that might bite. Skahar sits with his cane angled against his shoulder, still enough that half the room forgets he is listening until his implant clicks softly in the quiet.

Ursa is not here.

That is deliberate.

It is also irritating.

She is in the press alcove outside the negotiation chamber, reviewing clean copies of the evidence chain and pretending the two guards I assigned to the corridor are merely decorative. She thinks I do not know she convinced one of them to fetch her food from the lower market by arguing that hungry journalists become workplace hazards. She is correct that hungry journalists are hazardous. She is wrong if she thinks that makes me feel better.

Vakka flicks a financial overlay into the center of the table. “Halcyon Resource Arbitration has fingers in six docking payments, three catering contracts, two temporary labor assignments, and one emergency coolant inspection that was requested by a company that stopped existing nine years ago.”

“Coolant inspection?” I ask.

“Lower diplomatic ring, west junction. Scheduled for tomorrow night cycle. The authorization looked dull enough to die of shame, which is why it passed through the first queue.”

Krell winces. “I approved that queue.”

Vakka turns on him. “You approved a queue. You did not personally lick every seal.”

He looks miserable. “No.”

“Then stop making that face before I decide you are volunteering to lick seals next shift.”

Skahar’s cane taps once. “The coolant junction connects to the negotiation chamber’s environmental controls.”

I stare at the map. “And to the private access corridor used by high-ranking delegates.”

Vakka nods, all humor gone now. “Yes.”

The financial web Ursa found has become a physical map across my station. Money touches debt. Debt touches labor. Labor touches access. Access touches infrastructure. The Combine does not need a fleet to begin a war if it can buy the right frightened hands and place them near the right sealed panels. That is the difference between raiders and corporate men. Raiders break doors and take what they can carry. Corporate men purchase the hinge manufacturer, underfund maintenance, bribe the inspector, and act offended when the door falls on someone else’s child.

My claws press into the table edge. “Show me the diplomatic personnel connections.”

Krell swipes one shaky hand through the display. “Three service workers attached to Theryki’s extended delegation had debts transferred through the same pool. Two have been located and detained quietly. Both claim they were asked to deliver sealed packets without knowing contents. One packet contained an inert receiver filament. The other contained powdered sensor-dampening resin.”

“Claims,” Vakka says.

“I said claims.”

“You said it like you wanted to believe them.”

“I do want to believe them.”

Vakka looks at him, then grunts. “Fine. That is less stupid than wanting them guilty.”

Skahar leans forward. “And the missing worker?”

“Vara Vell has not been found,” Krell says. “Her last confirmed access was near the diplomatic service lift. After that, her badge appears in three places at once.”

“Cloned,” I say.

“Yes, lord.”