Page 221 of Reaper Said Mine

I look at the map. Three decks is too far when ceilings fall.

Skahar follows my gaze to the feed. “Go.”

Every officer near us turns.

I do not ask who will command in my absence because they all know. Vakka has weapons. Krell has comms. Skahar has the room because age and malice make fine authority when mixed correctly.

I seize a breather mask and a shoulder shield from the emergency rack. “Hold the grid.”

Vakka calls after me, “Try not to die in a corridor, lord. It would be inconvenient paperwork.”

“I live to spare you forms.”

“You had better.”

The doors open, and smoke rolls in from the hallway.

The station outside the command center is chaos with discipline stitched through it. Emergency lights paint the corridors red and white. Reaper crews sprint past with cutters, sealant rigs, med-kits, and weapon slings bouncing against their chests. Civilians move along marked routes with shelter marshals shouting instructions in three languages. The floor vibrates under each new impact, and the walls answer with groans that make my teeth ache.

I run.

My feet strike the deck hard enough to rattle loose plating. The breather mask hangs unused around my neck because the smoke does not yet deserve the insult of slowing me. Two young technicians flatten themselves against the wall as I pass. One starts to bow like a fool.

“Move your ass,” I roar.

He moves.

Good.

The lift shafts are locked for emergency control, so I take the maintenance stairs three at a time. Heat thickens as I descend. The air grows harsh with chemical fire suppression and burnt plastic. Someone sobs behind a sealed bulkhead. Someone else yells for pressure foam. Through the deck beneath me, I feel the heavy thump of counterfire as Guyver’s batteries answer the attackers.

At the Sector Twelve junction, a service pipe has ruptured and sprays hot vapor across the corridor. Two emergency workers crouch behind an overturned grav-cart, trying to reach the shelter door while sparks spit from the wall panel. The boy from the feed is still there, clutched now by a Reaper woman with one arm hanging at an unnatural angle. Around them, fifteen or twenty civilians huddle against the smoke, trapped between the jammed door and a sealed firebreak.

The ceiling cracks again.

“Down!” I bellow.

Most obey by instinct. One elderly merchant freezes, eyes wide.

I hit him with my shoulder hard enough to knock him beneath the shelter awning as a support strut tears free overhead. It crashes where he stood, showering the corridor in molten fragments.

The merchant stares up at me from the floor. “My thanks, Lord Gnash.”

“Thank me by crawling.”

He crawls.

I reach the door panel and tear away the fused cover with one hand. Heat bites into my palm. The manual mechanism beneath is slagged nearly solid.

The injured Reaper woman looks at me through smoke-reddened eyes. “Lord, the children.”

“I see them.”

The human boy clings to her good arm. His face is wet with tears and gray with dust. He cannot be more than five or six. Too small for this. Every child is too small for this, but some truths become sharper when they have a face.

“What is your name?” I ask him.

His mouth trembles. “Tomas.”