Page 215 of Reaper Said Mine

The words settle badly at first because some part of me still distrusts comfort. Then they settle better. Not enough to erase the fear, but enough to make breathing easier.

My compad vibrates with a secure message.

Gnash.

I take it back from Bellamy before he can object.

Ursa. Rekk confirmed thirty-nine dead. Coalition deeper in our lanes. I accepted more coordination. I did what was necessary. I hate that those words can excuse almost anything.

My eyes close.

The bond aches with distance.

He is so far away, and yet I feel the shape of him inside me. Not his thoughts, not exactly, but the pressure of his exhaustion, his anger, his guilt gnawing at itself in the dark. I imagine him standing before the war map, huge and fierce and trapped by choices designed by people who will never look a Reaper child in the face.

I type back slowly.

Necessary is dangerous when liars build the room around you. I’m proving they built it. Don’t give them more than survival requires.

His answer does not come immediately.

When it does, it is shorter than I expect.

Survival keeps asking for more.

I press the compad to my chest and look toward the evidence wall.

He is right.

That is what frightens me most.

Survival rarely arrives as one grand compromise. It comes as a sequence of reasonable decisions, each one defensible, each one merciful in the moment, each one giving away a little more of the future until the cage has been assembled by hands that thought they were saving lives.

I cannot tell him to refuse help when children are dying.

I cannot tell him to accept chains because the chain is attached to medicine.

I cannot make the command decisions for him from a rented office above Earth while other people bleed.

All I can do is drag the truth into public view fast enough to change the cost of everyone else’s lies.

“Ursa,” Pelt says from the holo-window. “You need to see this.”

I turn.

She expands a live public sentiment analysis from multiple major feeds. The numbers are volatile, messy, and still horrifying in places, but one trend has shifted dramatically. Support for immediate Alliance military action is dropping. Calls for investigation are rising. Mentions of fabricated evidence, Combine manipulation, and emergency compact scrutiny climb by the minute.

Bellamy stares. “Holy hell.”

Milton squints. “That cannot be entirely bots, can it?”

Pelt shakes her head. “Bots are present on both sides, but the organic trend is real.”

For a moment, the room holds still around the data.

A stutter.

The war machine stutters again.