Page 78 of Reaper Said Mine

Gnash notices them noticing.

“She is not prey,” he says without turning.

One of the guards thumps his fist against his chest. “No, lord.”

I look up at him. “Was that necessary?”

“Yes.”

“I can handle being stared at.”

“I know.”

“Then why say it?”

“Because they can handle being corrected.”

That answer burrows under my skin more effectively than any possessive growl would have. I have spent years being expected to endure disrespect because challenging it would make me difficult. Gnash does not ask whether I can endure it. He asks whether they have the right to offer it.

The command center opens before us in a roar of light, sound, and organized pressure. Holo-displays arc over a stepped tactical pit. Reaper officers, human techs, Alzhon clerks, and at least one scarred Grolgath dockmaster move through their stations with urgent precision. Nobody stops working when Gnash enters, but everyone becomes sharper. Spines straighten. Voices clarify. A young Reaper near navigation looks so intensely focused he may actually be forgetting to blink.

The viewport beyond the central pit frames the Badlands in violent color. A storm front writhes in the distance, throwing pale lightning through clouds of charged dust. Guyver Station hangs before it like an ugly miracle.

“This,” Gnash says, “is where the monster counts water filters.”

I look at him.

He gestures toward the displays. “Oxygen. Food stores. Docking queues. Defense readiness. Refugee intake. Waste reclamation. Ammunition. Medical nanites. School assignments. Tariff disputes. If you wish to destroy a reputation for terror, make the public watch governance.”

“That may be the most honest thing any ruler has ever said.”

“I am not a ruler.”

Half the command pit pretends not to hear him.

I arch an eyebrow. “You might want to inform your station.”

A woman at the logistics station mutters, “Please don’t.”

Gnash turns his head. “Vakka.”

The dockmaster does not look especially repentant. “Lord, if you tell the merchants you are not ruling them, they will start voting on tariffs, and then I will have to kill myself.”

A few people cough down laughter.

I point my compad toward her. “May I quote that?”

“No,” Gnash says.

Vakka says, “Yes.”

I look between them. “Now I definitely have to quote it.”

Gnash sighs with the long-suffering patience of a man who has somehow conquered a station but not his own staff. “This is what leadership becomes, Ursa. You begin by taking territory with guns, and then one day you are arguing about whether children require two schoolrooms or three while your dockmaster insults you in front of foreign press.”

“Three,” Vakka calls out. “They require three.”

“They require two and rotating use of the old customs office.”