Page 139 of Reaper Said Mine

Skahar’s eyes narrow with approval. Vakka studies the floor.

I look through the viewport at the storm-lit dark. The Badlands beyond Guyver Station are beautiful from this distance, but beauty is often only danger with manners. Lightning crawls through violet cloud bands. Ships pass in disciplined lanes near our defense perimeter. Every blinking light out there belongs to lives under my protection, people who did not ask to become pieces in the galaxy’s favorite game of border teeth and moral theater.

“If I hide her,” I say, “I tell them she is shame.”

Ursa’s breath catches.

“If I deny what she is to me, I teach my enemies exactly which threat reaches bone. If I send her away from my side for optics, I become another man moving her like a symbol because rooms full of cowards prefer it.”

Her voice softens. “I’m not asking you to hide me.”

“No. You are asking me to think.”

“I have a habit.”

“And I am thinking.” I turn back to her. “I will not parade you for their amusement. I will not make declarations for every open channel. I will not drag our bond onto a negotiation table like a weapon unless someone else puts it there first. But I will not pretend there is nothing between us.”

Skahar’s broken mouth curves. “Better.”

Ursa studies me with careful eyes. “That sounded almost reasonable.”

“I hated it.”

“I could tell.”

Vakka lifts a hand. “Unfortunately, reason will not stop Theryki.”

The projection shifts to a diplomatic transcript caught from a Coalition aide’s private dictation. The aide’s voice plays low and nervous in the room.

“Ambassador reassessing. Human bond appears genuine, not merely performative. Recommend pressure recalibration. Direct romantic scandal unlikely to sever influence. Explore conflict between journalistic independence and station loyalty. Potential: frame Ramone as destabilizing foreign actor or compromised witness.”

Ursa’s mouth goes tight.

My vision sharpens at the edges.

Vakka ends the playback. “Theryki knows the bond is serious. She is changing approach.”

Skahar leans on his cane, watching me as if I am still the hungry boy who learned to count knives before food. “She will not attack the bond where it is strongest. She will attack where it makes questions. Ursa’s work. Your judgment. The independence of both.”

“Let her try,” I say.

“She is trying now.”

Ursa folds her arms and steps closer to the projection. “She’ll push for formal conflict-of-interest disclosures. Not because she cares, but because it creates a record. If I report anything damaging, she calls me compromised. If I hold back, Dawson and every rival outlet say I’m protecting you. Either way, my credibility becomes the battlefield.”

“And mine,” I say. “If I reject her pressure, she says I am led by personal attachment. If I accept, she says the Coalition restored order to a compromised station.”

Vakka exhales. “I hate politics.”

Skahar grunts. “Politics hates the honest first.”

“Zune will enjoy this too,” Ursa says quietly.

Every eye shifts to her.

She taps one thread on the rumor map. “Combine-linked chatter is leaning hard into captive correspondent language. That is not random. They want human audiences picturing me as controlled or endangered. If the story becomes a human woman trapped by Reaper obsession, the Combine gets moral cover for intervention or sabotage framed as rescue.”

The room goes cold around my heart.