Page 261 of Reaper Said Mine

“Yes.”

Vakka glances at me. “That gives the Alliance our route.”

“It gives everyone the route,” I say. “Let the galaxy watch who shoots at med-runners.”

Skahar’s cane taps once.

Approval.

I no longer chase enemies into the dark.

I light the corridor and dare them to become what they are in front of witnesses.

Krell sends the order. “Medical corridor public.”

“Send the same to Ursa,” I add. “Raw feed, route authorization, casualty numbers, and my order.”

His eyes flick toward me, but he does not question it. “Yes, lord.”

The bond shifts in my chest at her name, a warmth threaded through dread. She is somewhere between Earth and me, moving through tightening routes with evidence hidden around her like knives. I know because my threat monitors lit around her projected path less than an hour ago, and the knowledge has been chewing at my discipline ever since.

She should not be coming.

She is coming anyway.

Both truths sit inside me, arguing with no intention of resolving themselves.

“Lord Gnash,” Theryki says over the coalition command line, her voice crisp beneath the layered static of fleet traffic. “First Shield Fleet confirms your public corridor broadcast. We recommend encryption rather than open publication.”

“You recommend secrecy when secrecy has fed half this war?”

“We recommend operational security when hostile vessels are nearby.”

“I recommend not letting hostile vessels decide whether civilians die unseen.”

Her silence is not long, but it carries irritation and calculation. “Coalition medical units will honor the open corridor.”

“Good.”

“Alliance observers will exploit any error.”

“Then do not make one.”

Skahar murmurs, “He grows charming under strain.”

Theryki hears him. “I would hate to see what he becomes under leisure.”

“A menace with more time.”

“I suspect you are correct.”

Their exchange would have amused me on another day. Today, it barely touches the surface.

The command center’s main doors open, and two emergency runners push in carrying a sealed casualty packet from the lower shelters. They are young, both smeared with soot, both trying to stand like warriors while grief leaks through their posture. One has a bandage wrapped around his forearm. The other clutches the packet so tightly his knuckles show gray beneath dark skin.

I hold out my hand.

He gives it to me.