Page 46 of Reaper Said Mine

The blast that follows is distant enough not to shake the camera much. That makes it worse. Smoke rolls across the intersection. People vanish into it. Ursa makes a sound so small that for one stupid moment I want to reach through twelve years and a thousand systems to put my body between the child and the street.

She does not run out.

She does not throw the compad aside.

She stays low, sobbing through clenched teeth, and keeps filming the direction the troops moved.

"My mother was near the east shelter," she says after a long, ragged breath. "I cannot see her now. Alliance fire continues from the roof. Coalition forces are returning fire from the transit entrance. Civilians are between them."

The recording continues for another forty-two minutes.

I watch all of it.

When the final segment ends, the chamber feels colder than before. The station still hums beneath me. Ships still dock. Workers still shout through comms. Somewhere below, cooks prepare the feast that will make ambassadors sweat and Reapers laugh. The world has continued, as worlds always do after devouring the people inside them.

I close the archive and bring up her adult profile again.

Ursa Ramone looks back at me with that same steady gaze, older now, sharpened instead of broken. The girl from the footage survived, and the galaxy did what it always does with survivors. It turned her pain into a symbol because symbols are easier to consume than people.

I know something about that.

My door chimes.

"Enter," I say.

Skahar steps inside without waiting for the door to open fully. He takes one look at my face and stops several paces from the desk.

"You watched it."

"Yes."

"All of it?"

"Yes."

His cane taps once against the floor. "And?"

I look through the viewport toward the docking lanes. A freighter drifts past under escort, its hull lights flickering like small, stubborn stars. "She did not stop."

"No."

"She was terrified."

"Of course."

"She did not stop."

Skahar comes closer, slower now. "That is why the broadcast mattered."

"That is why she matters," I blurt.

Skahar’s old face tightens with something that might be warning, pity, or memory. "Careful."

"I have done nothing."

"Interest is not nothing."

I turn from the viewport. "I am curious. That is all."