Coalescence (Dragonfire Station Book 3)

by Zen DiPietro

  “Right.”

  “Anything else?” Fallon asked, looking from one to the other, but they both shook their heads, looking determined.

  “Good. I’m off to the cargo bay to get ready.”

  “Can I walk you there?” Wren asked.

  She remembered what Raptor had told her, and nodded. “That’d be great.”

  It felt strange yet nice to walk with Wren down the corridors of the Nefarious. Wren was finally seeing who Fallon truly was.

  Fallon was proud of her ship, her partners, and the rest of her crew. She wasn’t glad that Wren would be mixed up in whatever was about to happen, but she was very glad to know she could rely on the best engineer in any galaxy to handle whatever the station would throw at them.

  In the cargo bay, Fallon ran a hand over the flank of her little race-car ship. “This is it. Gets some amazing speed and maneuvers like a dream.”

  Wren laughed. “It’s funny to see you so excited about flying. I didn’t know that about you.”

  “There’s still a lot you don’t know. Sorry you ever asked me out?”

  Wren elbowed her. “Absolutely not. Best thing I ever did.”

  Wren faced her full-on, and Fallon braced herself for a teary farewell.

  Wren leaned forward, gently pinching Fallon’s nose. “Beep.”

  Fallon laughed. “I’m flying off to save the universe and you beep my nose?”

  Wren grinned. “Not the universe, just a bunch of galaxies. And I know you don’t want an emotional scene. So a beep seemed the safest course of action.”

  “I like it. Thanks.” She wrapped her arms around Wren for a hug. Wren returned the hug tightly, belying her flippant words.

  Fallon looked into her eyes. “Wren.”

  “No.” Wren stepped back, holding a hand up in front of her. “Nope. Say it when you get back. You’ve already done the ‘dire circumstances’ goodbye. No sense in repeating yourself.”

  “Are circumstances dire? You just said it’s only some galaxies to save. I mean…pfff…no problem.”

  “Good. You remember that. Now up you go. Strap in nice and safe, and I’ll see you when you get home.” She turned and sauntered out as if she hadn’t a care in the world.

  Fallon was still smiling as she went through her pre-launch checklist.

  “Fallon, are you seeing this?” Ross’ voice filled the Outlaw’s small cockpit. She rested now, attached to the outside of the bigger ship, waiting for her moment. They’d practiced these maneuvers and she knew they were ready to do them for real.

  “Yep.” As they neared Jamestown, she saw five ships. Two were small, no match for the Nefarious. One was a mid-sized wild card—no telling if it was a real threat. Of the remaining two, both were worth a good portion of concern. The larger was a much older model than the Nefarious but clearly in excellent condition.

  “Ross, you’re going to take on the big guy. While you’re working on that, I’ll keep the others busy. See if I can get the little ones out of the way.”

  “Okay, but watch yourself. You won’t be any use to us if you get yourself burned crispy like last time.”

  “Understood. Good luck, Nefarious.”

  “Back at you, Outlaw.”

  She wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone, but she liked being called “Outlaw.”

  She watched her viewscreen, even as she felt the Nefarious shift almost imperceptibly. They dove in beneath the lead ship, and her team unleashed the standard weapons attacks and evasive patterns. Well, standard for a highly trained military team. Ross had improved greatly during the drills they’d done, and she had faith in him. She had to have faith, because she had her own job to do and it depended entirely on him doing his.

  While the Nefarious angled its belly away from the other ships, Fallon detached the Outlaw from its hull and hid behind Ross’ sensor shadow as long as she could. With the Nefarious occupying the lead ship, she streaked around it and unloaded some firepower at its aft section, where the life-support systems would be. Anything she could do to slow it down or disable it would give Ross a big advantage.

  She sailed on by the lead ship, ignoring the two small vessels to focus on the second large one. If she let it get position on the Nefarious, the smaller ships could help at pinning Ross in, and it would only be a matter of time until their concerted efforts took him down.

  Can’t have that.

  She came in fast—too fast, technically speaking. If she anticipated her target’s movements incorrectly, or was too slow to correct her own craft, she’d ram the Outlaw right into it. She had no intentions of a suicide mission, but flying a little beyond tolerance was kind of her thing. Engineers always calculated tolerance conservatively.

  Her target shifted slightly on its axis, protecting its aft belly from her. Just as it should.

  The Outlaw wasn’t big enough for torpedoes, but Wren and Kellis had created a little something special for her, retrofitted for the Outlaw’s rescue beacon. Sure, she had no beacon now, but if she ended up in the shit, it wouldn’t be of any help anyway.

  She made another pass, scraping close to the ship and launching the beacon. Except it wasn’t a beacon that flew toward the other ship and lodged itself right on that tender spot on the belly. The device sat there, and within seconds the ship went dark.

  She whooped with delight. Cabot probably hadn’t expected her to use his electrical-killing “ancient good luck charm” this way, but it had sure worked. The ship was still a threat, but its crew would be occupied with restoring its oxygen flow and inertial dampening systems for the next, oh, fifteen minutes or so. Which was fine. She didn’t need to destroy these ships—and would prefer not to. They were only mercenaries. Criminals, sure, but not the kind who deserved an instant death sentence without a trial. All she needed was time to get on board Jamestown. She needed to disable the small ships to pave her way, and that of the Nefarious, assuming it took out the lead ship. She’d circle back if necessary.

  As she made for the wild-card ship, her voicecom came to life on an open channel. “Outlaw, this is the Stinth. I can handle these two small birds.”

  Fallon adjusted her trajectory, swooping out and around the ship. “That wouldn’t be Arlen Stinth, would it?”

  “You got it, Chief. Cabot Layne called in a favor, so I’m here to assist.”

  Fallon laughed. Now that was unexpected. Someone who had once gotten into a fight with two buffoons on Dragonfire’s boardwalk was coming to her aid. Every now and then, the universe was funny like that.

  “Understood, Stinth. I’ll go help the Nefarious, and hopefully we’ll manage to get our asses on Jamestown.”

  “Understood, Chief. Good luck.”

  Fallon closed the channel. As she circled back to the Nefarious she saw a new ship appear on her sensors, closing on their location.

  That was good news though. The call sign of the P.A.C.S. Roosevelt was broadcast loud and clear. The military flagship would flush out the mercenaries with relative ease.

  “Outlaw to Nefarious and Roosevelt. The Stinth is on our side, so please take care of it. I’m preparing to board Jamestown.”

  “See you there, Outlaw.” Ross sounded entirely professional, but that didn’t mean the ship had suffered no damage. She could only hope for the best.

  “We’ll keep you covered, Outlaw.” The voice from the Roosevelt wasn’t familiar, but there was no reason it should be.

  “Grateful for that, Roosevelt. I’m your new biggest fan. Outlaw out.”

  She’d already maneuvered her ship wide of the melee, out of weapons range. No sense in getting taken out by a potshot now. She focused on what she’d come to do—end this madness once and for all.

  The docks were locked down. She’d expected that. Raptor had written a handy little program to gain access. The airlock pressurization had been disabled, but she’d come prepared, wearing a pressure suit.

  She needed only a few minutes to force the airlock to open. Once on the other side, she had to put
it into emergency containment mode so it would close itself again.

  Her first discovery was finding that this part of the station had been repressurized. She wondered how much of Jamestown had been. The lights were on, in emergency mode to conserve energy. As she moved through the station, lights turned off behind her when they sensed an unoccupied area. It was an odd thing, the lights snapping to life ahead of her and clicking off behind. She existed in a small radius of light that adjusted itself to her as she made her way toward the heart of Jamestown.

  As the first on board, her job was to get to engineering and assess the station’s situation. Once the single-channel comport in her ear let her know her team had arrived, she’d switch tactics and head to crisis ops control. Colb was almost certainly hiding out there. It was where she’d be in his position—the most protected place on the station.

  She was glad he’d pressurized it. It would make her work easier. It was chilly though. Temperature bled off quickly in space, only to be regained by time and great effort. In another ten degrees it would be comfortably livable.

  Being on the empty station was eerie, but no more than during her first visit. At least it was more hospitable to life now. She was surprised when she made it to engineering with no issues. She’d expected to encounter resistance, but no one had blocked her way, and Colb apparently hadn’t wanted to booby-trap the thing he was trying to repair.

  She shed her pressure suit and replaced it with her stinger dissipator. Now she was ready for a fight.

  A survey of the station’s systems showed that the place remained a husk. No communications, no information systems. But Colb wouldn’t have needed much more time to lock out the other PAC officials. Which would give him the upper hand with the PAC, allowing him to establish himself as the de facto leader of the entire alliance.

  She’d been worried that she was already too late, but now she’d made it aboard and she wasn’t leaving without him.

  She studied the engineering readouts, trying to figure out what all he’d done and how she could thwart him. Lock him out somehow. But she was a fighter and a pilot, not an engineer. Security systems were nothing like systems operations. She needed an engineer.

  Her earpiece came to life with Raptor’s voice. “Docking now. Expect to receive Wren to engineering in ten minutes. Krazinski and I are headed to crisis ops.”

  She touched the broadcasting mechanism at the top of her ear. “Docking bays aren’t pressurized, but the rest of the station is. Cold but tolerable without a pressure suit. Minimal but sufficient lighting.”

  “Understood. See you soon.”

  Colb would know the docking bays had been accessed. He wouldn’t know where she and the others were, though, or how many. And he wouldn’t be able to pick up their transmissions.

  So far, she’d found no evidence of anyone being on the station. She’d expected to meet resistance in the form of some mercenaries or perhaps a team of subverted BlackOps once she got through the airlock. Either he was keeping his protection closer to his actual location, or he hadn’t trusted even his own flunkies to board Jamestown.

  Peregrine and Hawk arrived with Wren. They quickly peeled off their pressure suits.

  “You all in good shape?”

  Hawk grinned. “No problem. The Roosevelt came in and gave us the royal treatment. Kind of nice, for a change. You?”

  “Not even a little crispy.”

  “You must be getting better.”

  Wren ignored their byplay, going immediately to the systems displays when she got her suit off. Her hands flew over the controls, and for a few minutes, the rest of them could do little but wait. Fallon had never seen such take-charge intensity in Wren before.

  Finally Wren twisted around to face them. “Colb has managed to get the station into lockdown mode, which reroutes all commands, even engineering, to crisis ops. I can’t make any changes from here.”

  “Can you do it from another location?” Peregrine asked.

  “Yes. Any mechanized system has moving parts that I can physically alter. I just have to get to them.”

  Raptor’s voice came over the comport again, quieter this time. “He’s in lockdown mode. Crisis ops is like a fortress. Is there anything Wren can do?”

  Fallon looked to her. Wren nodded, her mouth set in a determined line.

  “We’re on our way,” Fallon said.

  “Hand me the decoupler.” A minute later, Wren added, “Now the laser torch.”

  Fallon waited in silence, encased in a small service conduit. As the smallest of the team, she’d been selected to serve as Wren’s assistant while the others scouted out the rest of the station. So far they hadn’t turned up a single person working for Colb. Unless he had someone locked inside crisis ops with him, he must have been too paranoid to trust anyone. Which was probably wise. Colb had as much interest as she did in preventing the public at large from finding out about the true state of affairs.

  On the other hand, if he had no one to cover him, that worked just fine for Fallon.

  “Think you could do something like when you busted Colb out of the brig?” Fallon asked Wren.

  “Wow, thanks for reminding me about that. But unfortunately no. The Dragonfire brig was meant for keeping people from breaking out. We’ve got the opposite situation here.” Wren’s voice grew muffled halfway through.

  Fallon knew that, but she’d hoped Wren could work some engineering magic for her. Plus, she’d grown tired of lying in a conduit listening to various scrapings and scufflings while Wren worked.

  Wren grunted, and her feet shifted. “I can’t get it. Do you think you can squeeze up here and help me?”

  “Maybe. I’ll have to crawl up over you. Probably won’t be comfortable for you.”

  “Try it. I’ll be as flat as I can.”

  Fallon turned onto her stomach and dragged herself up the conduit. Whoever had designed these things had not expected them to be accessed, it seemed. The security conduits on Dragonfire were cramped, but nothing like this.

  She tried not to hurt Wren as she dragged herself over, then carefully lay on her. “Can you breathe?”

  “Yes. You’re not that heavy.”

  “This reminds me of going sledding with my brother when we were kids. I’d tickle you, but you’d probably thrash around and hurt us both.” Fallon spoke softly. Sound was already too loud in such a small space, and her mouth was right behind Wren’s head.

  “Do you joke around this much when you’re on a mission with your team?”

  “Yes, actually. It cuts the tension. Peregrine doesn’t joke as much as we do, but she’s…” She didn’t know how to finish that sentence in a way that wasn’t unflattering to Per.

  “As much fun as a bag of dead kittens?” Wren supplied.

  “Definitely more fun than that. So what am I supposed to be doing here? Or did you just want to get all horizontal with me?”

  She felt Wren sigh in exasperation.

  “See this?” Wren wrapped her fingers around an air-intake grate above her.

  “Yep.”

  “Help me pull it out.”

  Air supply seemed like a dicey thing to tinker with. “Assuming we get it out, will we still be able to breathe?”

  “Yes. For about two minutes. We need to get out of here and hit the emergency stop in the containment tank before the system detects contamination.”

  Fallon kind of hated to ask the next question. “What happens if we don’t?”

  “The system will recognize that the intake has been polluted and begin a decontamination cycle. Unfortunately that’d be pretty deadly for us, with the acid gas and all.” Wren seemed a little too chipper about explaining that.

  “So let’s definitely not do that,” Fallon said.

  “Agreed. Ready? On three. One…two…three.”

  They pulled. It was difficult to get much strength behind the pull from a prone position reaching ahead of them. Fallon gave it everything she had and all at once the grate gave way, com
ing at them so fast it hit them both in the face. But there was no time to rub her smarting nose or her elbows where they’d smacked into unforgiving conduit. She scrambled over Wren into the tank, which was probably the last place she ever wanted to be on a space station.

  Fallon had no choice but to slide down the wall of the tank on her stomach. She was sure she left a layer of skin on the hard metal as she went. On the bright side, it was crazy cold, which soothed the ouch a little.

  The tank was too deep for her to save Wren from the same fate, so she had to stand by and watch her slide down the same way, groaning as she went.

  “How does maintenance on this stuff usually get done?” Fallon helped Wren up so they were both standing in a metal tank the size of a large house.

  “Bots. Now we need to run!”

  Fallon chased after Wren to the other side of the tank, where a red emergency button was next to an access ladder. She didn’t know how much of the two minutes they had left when Wren smacked it, but she doubted it was much.

  “There! Easy!” Wren said through gasps for breath. She wasn’t much of an athlete.

  “Now what?” Fallon eyed the ladder.

  Sure enough, Wren pointed to it, too winded to talk.

  “I’m guessing there’s a time element involved with that too.”

  Wren nodded, waving at the ladder.

  “Nope,” Fallon answered. “You’re going first.”

  Wren stepped onto the ladder and hauled herself up.

  “You need to work out more. Hurry up, or I’ll start poking your ass with my harpoon gun.”

  Finally they reached the top and stepped up onto a walkway. A small maintenance door stood between them and safety from whatever inhospitable reaction was about to occur in the tank.

  Wren tried to activate the door but it remained closed. “Locked,” she gasped.

  Fallon stepped in and looked at it. The door wasn’t exceptionally reinforced, and it had only a basic code unlock. “It’s low security. I can probably crack it, but it may take more time than we have.”