Page 262 of Reaper Said Mine

The seal bears the mark of the school ring.

My claws pause at the edge.

Then I open it.

Four names.

No, not names.

Children.

Two Reaper. One human. One Alzhon.

All died from injuries sustained during the prior shield impact, after med-bay overflow forced triage into the market shelter. I read their ages. I read the treatment notes. I read the small personal identifiers included by a teacher who had the cruel wisdom to know that dead children should not arrive as statistics.

Lassa liked engine models.

Timo bit three medics while being treated.

Eri had learned two Reaper curse words and used both correctly.

Mavel kept asking whether his father’s ship had docked.

My vision narrows around the page.

The room waits, pretending not to.

I fold the packet and place it beside the casualty roll.

“What are their families being told?” I ask.

Krell’s voice is quiet. “School ring marshal is notifying them now.”

“No,” I say.

He looks up.

“I will tell them.”

Skahar turns toward me. “Later.”

I meet his eye.

He does not soften. “Later, boy. If you leave now, three corridors lose command resolution while you offer four families grief that will still be there when the shields hold. Leadership is an ugly host. It does not release you because the heart asks politely.”

My first instinct is anger.

It dies before it reaches my mouth.

He is right.

I hate him for it.

“Record that I will come,” I say. “Not a clerk. Not a marshal. Me.”

Krell nods. “Yes, lord.”

The runners leave, and I remain at the command table with four children’s details folded beneath my palm. The old Gnash would have taken that grief and sharpened it into a raid. He would have found the nearest Combine asset and painted a docking bay with men who had never met those children, then called the symmetry justice because revenge enjoys loose definitions.