Page 276 of Reaper Said Mine

A burst of weapons fire rattles the ship so hard the ceiling panels clatter.

Rana looks at me.

I nod. “Right. Being precious seems less relevant during murder.”

She points to the damaged panel. “Beacon interface is fried, but the carrier pulse still exists. We can piggyback a compressed signal if we route through the medical telemetry array.”

Sera blinks. “The medical what?”

“The system that tells ports your cargo temperature and contamination status,” Rana says.

Dane laughs once. “We’re sending a distress call through the space fridge?”

“Basically.”

“Outstanding.”

I plug the damaged drive into my compad and begin selecting files. I cannot send everything. The carrier pulse is too narrow, too unstable. I need enough to identify the ship, prove the route attack, attach the Dakkor and Bravax packets, link them to my chain-of-custody seal, and trigger the public deadman without dumping unprotected source names into open space.

My fingers move fast.

Not fast enough.

The ship tilts again.

Rana braces both feet against the wall, one hand buried in the panel. “We have maybe two minutes.”

“Then stop wasting one of them with updates.”

“Bossy.”

“Alive.”

“For now.”

I build the packet.

Distress coordinates.

Vessel ID.

Attack profile.

Visual capture from the viewport.

Evidence hash.

Dakkor sample.

Bravax sample.

Protectorate clause timestamp.

Alliance intervention draft marker.

Combine shell-freighter registry fragment.

My voice recording.