Page 223 of Reaper Said Mine

“Yes.”

“Terrible order.”

“Carry it out.”

She grins despite the smoke. “Yes, lord.”

The shelter is crowded, hot, and loud with frightened breathing. Children huddle beneath thermal blankets. Merchants sit with hands pressed over wounds. A Pi’Rell woman whispers comfort to an Alzhon child in a language I do not know. The air smells of antiseptic foam, sweat, burned cloth, and the sharp mineral tang of emergency water rations. Every face turns toward me.

That is the burden, more than the map, more than the fleets.

Faces.

People who need me to be larger than fear because my name is what stands between them and the dark.

Tomas pushes free of the injured woman and runs to a human female near the back of the shelter. His mother, I assume, from the way she makes a broken sound and crushes him to her chest. The sight lands in me harder than the door did.

The mother looks over his head.

“Thank you,” she says.

I nod because words are dangerous in that moment.

My comm crackles.

Skahar’s voice fills my ear. “If you have finished making dramatic entrances, the station remains under attack.”

I touch the comm. “Your concern warms me.”

“My concern curdled decades ago. Return before Vakka decides command suits her.”

“She would be efficient.”

“She would paint the walls with officers who annoy her, and then we would have decorating concerns.”

I look once more around the shelter.

Then I step back into the corridor.

By the time I return to the command center, the second attack wave has been repelled and the third has begun.

The room smells worse than before. More smoke. More blood. More bodies packed into too little air. A medic tapes a sealant strip across Vakka’s temple while she snarls coordinates through clenched teeth. Krell’s voice has gone hoarse. Skahar stands exactly where I left him, but the old hand on his cane is white-knuckled beneath the dark skin.

“Report,” I say.

Vakka does not bother looking impressed by my arrival. “Sector Twelve breach contained. Dock Nine fire suppressed. Southern approach clear after Coalition pursuit. Ash-Maw cluster withdrew. Debris-field attackers remain active and have launched two boarding pods toward the old refinery arm.”

“Intercept?”

“Batteries disabled one. The other slipped through.”

My rage flares. “Where?”

“Service spine near civilian storage.”

Of course.

They do not strike command. They do not strike weapons. They strike where frightened people hide food, blankets, personal keepsakes, and the little luxuries that make survival feel less like waiting to die.