Page 74 of Ravaged By the Reaper

The Alliance ambassador snorts. “And accountability?”

I raise a hand. “One fire at a time. The first step is not shooting. The rest comes after.”

Panaka speaks last, voice silk-wrapped steel. “And if someone cheats?”

“Then I die,” I say plainly. “Because I’ll be the first target.”

It lands hard.

I see it in their eyes. The calculation. The doubt. The flicker of something close to respect.

This isn’t over. Not by a long shot. But I’ve bought us time. A breath. A beginning.

And beside me, just beyond the war room’s glow, a Reaper waits in silence.

Not to rescue.

But tostand.

CHAPTER 21

HAKTRON

The upper decks are quiet, too quiet for a station still half-bleeding from battle. No alarms. No screaming. Just the low thrum of stressed engines and the occasional clink of a passing maintenance drone. It’s the silence before the kill—too taut, too clean. It grates on me worse than screaming ever could.

I prowl the corridors like a caged beast, boots heavy on plasteel flooring, every turn bringing another viewport to the madness outside. Coalition ships hang just beyond the station’s reach—silent, predatory, close enough to taste. Their hulls gleam like polished bone, insignias painted in crimson and ash. Vultures, circling the wounded.

My fingers twitch.

It’d be easy to blast them out of orbit. One volley. One glorious, screaming finale.

But this isn’t my war.

Not today.

This is Amara’s fight now. Her stage. Her strategy.

I lean against the cold steel of a bulkhead and let my forehead rest against the frame of a viewport. The ships drift in silence, and beneath my feet, Gamma breathes through damaged lungs.The station’s AI pings another set of damage reports. I ignore them.

War has rules. And right now, the rule iswait.

I hate waiting.

Always have.

It’s the illusion of control, the pretense that stillness is safer than motion. It’s a lie. But she believes in it. Amara believes in the strength of her voice, in the weight of her ideals. I’ve seen her talk angry bureaucrats into truce, make pirate warlords weep into their whiskey. But this?

This is different.

This is standing in the eye of a hurricane and daring it to blink.

And she’s doing it alone.

No. Not alone. I’m here. Just not where I’m used to being. I’m not leading the charge or tearing through hulls. I’m the blade sheathed at her hip, silent and deadly. Waiting to be drawn—not if she fails, but only if she asks.

It’s… unsettling.

To not be needed for my violence.