Page 285 of Reaper Said Mine

Alive.

Barely.

“Prisoners,” I snarl at my warriors. “Names. Employers. Command chain.”

They hate the order.

They obey.

We move through the ship like judgment that has learned procedure. Two guards surrender when they realize Reapers are not killing the fallen. Three resist. We break bones instead of necks. Our slicer, patched into the assault channel, locks enemy bulkheads behind us and opens the route toward the boarding umbilical still connected to Hestia-Seven.

Rana’s voice crackles over a local channel suddenly punched open.

“Whoever just made those assholes scream, identify yourself before I shoot you too.”

Relief nearly knocks the strength from my legs.

I seize the comm. “Rana, this is Gnash.”

A harsh laugh bursts through the static. “About damn time. Your woman is alive and very cranky.”

The world returns all at once.

“Where?”

“Forward cabin. We have wounded. Boarders inside. Evidence intact, mostly. Hurry up, big guy.”

“Gladly.”

We hit the umbilical at full force.

The interior of Hestia-Seven is smoke, red light, torn metal, and bodies. Emergency fields shimmer weakly around the blown hatch. A dead boarder lies half in the aisle with foam from a medical extinguisher crusted across his visor. Another kneels with both hands raised while Dane, the cargo handler from Ursa’s file, holds an empty extinguisher like a club and looks deeply surprised by his own survival.

Rana stands near the rear compartment, bleeding from one eyebrow, pistol steady. “Left side, two more behind the cargo brace!”

My warriors move.

I move faster.

One boarder swings toward me.

I hit him hard enough to throw him into the ceiling.

Not dead.

Probably resentful.

The second sees me and wisely drops his weapon.

Then I see her.

Ursa is behind a row of bent seats, one arm wrapped around a cracked toolkit and the other pressed against her ribs. Blood streaks her cheek from a cut near her hairline. Her jacket is torn. Her eyes are too bright, furious, terrified, alive. The bond between us surges so violently that the damaged cabin, the smoke, the war, every watching warrior and enemy prisoner, all of it falls away for one impossible breath.

She stares at me.

“You came,” she says.

My voice does not work correctly. “You called.”