Lost Alliance (Dragonfire Station Books 1-3): A Galactic Empire series

by Zen DiPietro

  Lost Alliance

  Dragonfire Station Books 1-3

  Zen DiPietro

  Parallel Worlds Press

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dragonfire Station Universe

  I. Translucid (Book 1)

  1. Translucid Chapter 1

  2. Translucid Chapter 2

  3. Translucid Chapter 3

  4. Translucid Chapter 4

  5. Translucid Chapter 5

  II. Fragments (Book 2)

  6. Fragments Chapter 1

  7. Fragments Chapter 2

  8. Fragments Chapter 3

  9. Fragments Chapter 4

  10. Fragments Chapter 5

  11. Fragments Chapter 6

  12. Fragments Chapter 7

  13. Fragments Chapter 8

  14. Fragments Chapter 9

  15. Fragments Chapter 10

  III. Coalescence (Book 3)

  16. Coalescence Chapter 1

  17. Coalescence Chapter 2

  18. Coalescence Chapter 3

  19. Coalescence Chapter 4

  20. Coalescence Chapter 5

  21. Coalescence Chapter 6

  22. Coalescence Chapter 7

  23. Coalescence Chapter 8

  24. Coalescence Chapter 9

  25. Coalescence Chapter 10

  26. Coalescence Chapter 11

  About the Author

  Message from the Author

  Copyright

  LOST ALLIANCE (DRAGONFIRE STATION BOOKS 1-3)

  COPYRIGHT © 2017 BY ZEN DIPIETRO

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without express written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations for the purpose of review.

  Please purchase only authorized electronic editions. Distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law.

  ISBN: 1-943931-13-5

  Cover Art by Alexander Chau

  Published in the United States of America by Parallel Worlds Press

  Dragonfire Station Universe

  Dragonfire Station Book 1: Translucid

  Dragonfire Station Book 2:Fragments

  Dragonfire Station Book 3:Coalescence

  Intersections (Dragonfire Station Short Stories)

  Selling Out (Mercenary Warfare, Book 1)

  Blood Money (Mercenary Warfare, Book 2)

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  Part I

  Translucid (Book 1)

  1

  Translucid Chapter 1

  Drifting. Safe, wrapped in layers of gauze and dreams. Not quite aware, yet not fully oblivious either. Just tucked into a pleasant pocket of numb vagueness.

  Until sharp sounds and bright lights pierced her sanctuary. Disjointed assaults on her senses made her try to twist away, but she was too swaddled in the ether to move. She wished the barrage would just leave her alone. Beneath the tumult, an insistent sound repeated, catching her attention. The more she tried to ignore it, the more demanding the noise became. With a burst of irritation, she focused on the sound and followed it up, away from the pleasant gauze.

  “Em. Em. Em.”

  She lifted her eyelids and blinked, trying to clear her hazy vision. The voice stopped its litany. Pale blue eyes stared at her from less than eight inches above.

  She turned her head to look past the stranger. She saw medical equipment. Techbeds. Three nurses on the other side of the room, talking to patients. A doctor, watching her.

  Why was she in the infirmary? Was she sick? She didn’t remember being sick. She ran her hands down her chest and over her stomach. She didn’t feel any wounds. She clocked a single exit on the far side of the room and tried to estimate how long it would take her to get there. Hard to tell without knowing her physical condition.

  The doctor stepped closer and the blue eyes withdrew slightly, providing a better overall view of the pink-haired woman they belonged to. There wasn’t time enough to wonder about her, though, because the doctor spoke.

  “There you are. You had us worried. How do you feel?” He handed her a cup. She took it suspiciously, until she realized it was only biogel. Which suddenly sounded wonderful. Her mouth felt dry and her throat rasped.

  She took her time with slow swallows, giving herself a chance to assess the doctor. Olive-skinned Bennite with brown eyes. Cultured accent. Probably from a well-to-do family, though she’d never heard of a poor Bennite. Bennaris was one of the most prosperous members of the Planetary Alliance Cooperative. The doctor seemed reasonably athletic, in good physical condition as far as she could tell by looking. He was likely right-handed, given the scanner he held. She did not consider him a threat.

  She ran her tongue over her lips, buying time before her reply. What could she say to these people? She had no idea who they were or what their agenda might be. She’d need to be careful.

  “My head hurts a little. I’m confused. Not sure how I got here.” Bewilderment was a good tactic. Unfortunately, she was also telling the truth.

  The doctor nodded understandingly, while the blue-eyed woman’s eyebrows pulled down with concern. She wasn’t a nurse, so her purpose in this situation remained unclear. She didn’t look like an official. Her features and coloring marked her as a Sarkavian. She had the white-blonde hair nearly all of her people had, though she’d fashionably tinted it a pale shade of pink. Her overalls and calloused hands marked her as a mechanic or engineer of some sort.

  The doctor set the scanner down on a table and half-sat on a backless stool next to the techbed. “You got lucky. We almost didn’t get you back in time. A few more seconds and we’d have lost you, along with the shuttle.”

  “Shuttle?”

  The doctor paused. “The shuttle you took out to inspect the station.” When she didn’t respond, he asked, “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  Her gaze flickered between the two of them. Her first priority was to avoid telling them too much. On the other hand, she couldn’t think of anything to say. No memories came to mind.

  “I don’t know.”

  For the first time, the blue-eyed woman looked away from her, fixing her attention on the doctor. The anxiety in her expression and posture indicated a vested interest in the doctor’s assessment.

  The doctor didn’t acknowledge the woman, though. His lips compressed slightly before he asked, “Do you know where you are?”

  “An infirmary.”

  “Yes. You’re in my infirmary. Do you know what station we’re on?”

  She shook her head.

  “Do you recognize me?” he asked.

  She strongly suspected that by this point, she should. “No.”

  He had gone still, his manner grave. “Do you know your name?”

  She opened her mouth to answer, and nothing came out. No name rose from the quagmire of her brain. She closed her mouth.

  “I see,” he murmured. “Well!” His tone picked up, seeming more energetic. He squeezed the hand of the pink-haired woman, who now looked distraught. “I warned Wren here that the injury to the memory center of your b
rain might leave you with a few difficulties. It’s very likely that, as your brain adjusts, your memories will return. At least some of them, anyway.”

  “How long should that take?” she asked. She continued to ignore “Wren” and focused entirely on the doctor, as he had the answers she needed.

  He looked regretful. Not a good sign. “I’m afraid I can’t say. There’s no telling. A week. A month. Possibly longer.” He paused. “There’s also a small chance that your memory could be significantly impaired.”

  “Meaning I might not remember anything, ever?”

  “It’s possible.”

  The blue-eyed woman pressed a hand to her mouth.

  “Who are you?” she finally asked the woman. The presence of this emotional person was not helping.

  Stricken, the woman looked to the doctor.

  “Ah, well. Let’s start with you,” he interjected. “Your name is Emé Fallon. Em to your friends, which means most of the people here on Dragonfire Station. You’re the security chief and second in command.” He gave her a moment to consider that, and when she nodded, he continued. “I am Dr. Brannin Brash, chief medical officer on Dragonfire.”

  She nodded again and he paused, putting his arm gently around the pink-haired woman. Supportively. Clearly, her feelings mattered to him. “And this is Wren Orritz. Your wife.”

  Feigning fatigue accomplished her first objective, which was getting Wren Orritz out of the infirmary. The woman’s emotional state had begun to wear on her. Getting information was her only priority, and pussyfooting around a distraught wife’s feelings was the last thing she needed.

  Once the doctor had served a couple dozen platitudes to Wren and insisted that rest was the very best thing for the patient, he finally guided her from the infirmary, gently but firmly.

  Her eyes popped open and she sat up as soon as the infirmary doors closed behind Wren. She felt anything but tired. Adrenaline pulsed through her and she felt the need to run, move, to do something. She fought the urge and remained seated on the techbed. Instead, she took a slower visual tour of the infirmary. Large. Ideally equipped with all of the latest medical technology, as one would expect of a Planetary Alliance Cooperative station.

  Hm. Interesting. She seemed to have a detailed understanding of PAC bases and installations, as well as military structure. As she thought along these lines, information bubbled up, populating her thoughts almost mechanically. She felt a streak of relief wash through her. Apparently, in some respects, her memory was just fine. She had something to build on, as soon as she got a handle on her situation.

  For now, she needed to focus on her current, unfamiliar surroundings. The walls of the infirmary were lined with voicecom screens and removable infoboards, as well as various techbed accessories. At the far end of the infirmary she saw a large private area, which could be utilized as one bay or divided into individual private rooms. Two doctors and three nurses moved around the periphery of the infirmary, poking at screens and probably waiting impatiently for their patient appointments to resume. Dr. Brash would have to downgrade her official status before that could happen.

  She herself sat in the forward portion of the infirmary. The emergency area. At least that corroborated the doctor’s story of her having experienced a critical accident. It wasn’t much for her to go on, but it was something.

  “Emé Fallon.” She tried the words out, rolling the vowels off her tongue, testing them to see if they felt familiar. They didn’t. She felt like she should have some visceral connection to her own name. “Emé. Em. I’m Emé.” Nope. It didn’t click.

  “Fine,” she said decisively, focusing instead on Brannin Brash. “I need information, Doctor.”

  He didn’t seem surprised. If anything, his eyes conveyed understanding. “How can I help? And by the way, you’ve called me Brannin for quite some time, so you might as well continue.” He kept his voice soft, so that his words would not be overheard by the others.

  “Brannin, then. How long have I been the security chief of Dragonfire Station?”

  “A year.”

  “What happened to the previous chief?”

  “He requested a transfer to be closer to home.”

  “Who’s the captain of the station?”

  “Hesta Nevitt,” he answered promptly. “It’s her third year.”

  She turned sideways, letting her feet hang over the side of the techbed, then stood. Brannin didn’t object, so she began to walk around to see how her body felt. “What’s my physical condition?”

  “Excellent, other than your memory and some light swelling around the area of your brain that was injured. You had a few broken bones, some small lacerations and lots of bruising, but we took care of all that.”

  She felt fine. Great, actually. Her body was strong, lean but muscular, and brimming with energy. Judging by Brannin and the other medical staff, she appeared to be of medium height for a human or a Bennite. But was she either one of those? The tan skin of her hands didn’t offer any clues, as they could belong to someone from any number of worlds.

  “I need to see my personnel file.”

  He nodded, as if he’d expected that. He motioned her over to a voicecom terminal, touched it several times, then pushed a low-backed stool over for her.

  She sat and studied the file. Human. Female. Age twenty-eight. Born on Earth. Three-quarters Japanese, one-quarter unspecified. Meaning that whatever composed the final twenty-five percent, it was not enough of any one thing to bother with listing. She skimmed down the vital statistics of height, weight, and birth date before slowing at her service history. She’d entered the Planetary Alliance Cooperative’s academy at age seventeen and gone straight into security training in officer training school. Dragonfire Station was her eighth duty station, which was a lot for someone her age.

  After she’d gleaned all the information she could, she scrutinized the photo. She saw a woman who looked entirely Japanese. No visual evidence of that unspecified twenty-five percent. She had an oval face with longish black hair. Large brown eyes. Most importantly, she looked strong. Capable. The woman in the image wore a hard, closed look. She approved.

  She started to turn away from the terminal, then touched the screen several times in succession to bring up the specs for Dragonfire Station. She studied its elongated shape, noted that it existed near the edge of a red nebula. She’d known that, she realized. The colorful gas cloud had spawned the station’s name. Some dreamy PAC administrator must have thought that the nebula looked like what a fire-breathing dragon would exhale. To Em, it looked like a nebula. She didn’t need fiction to make it more interesting.

  When the publicly available all-access mechanical specs weren’t detailed enough, she mentally reached for a way to discover more. Data populated her brain and she input several codes, allowing her to pull up the security details without hesitation. Ah, that was more like it. Weapons. Defenses. Onboard monitoring system. The important things.

  The doctor quickly turned his back to the screen. “I’ll just give everyone an early lunch and occupy myself with some work. No one else here has clearance for those files.” She didn’t spare him a glance as he marched away, but felt the room emptying behind her. She heard Dr. Brash muttering something to himself about core memories.

  She quickly memorized the full measure of the station’s composition, then followed up by researching the PAC itself, though she seemed to have an excellent working knowledge of the cooperative.

  She then took a look at Dr. Brash’s service record just for good measure. Finally, and with less confidence, she studied Wren Orritz’s file.

  She was a twenty-six-year-old Sarkavian mechanic. An engineer, but a very hands-on sort of engineer. Also a citizen of a PAC planet and an employee of a PAC station, but not a member of the PAC military. That meant that either Wren wasn’t exceptional enough to be accepted into OTS, or she lacked enough ambition to apply. Em studied Wren’s face. A bit sharp-featured, but attractive in an interesting way. Pret
tier than Em’s own rather plain face, at least.

  According to the file, Wren had a gift for anything with moving parts. She didn’t even have a specialty, as mechanics normally did. The PAC had given her a superior rating for every category of mechanical work, from ship engines to space elevators. Exceptional indeed.

  On Dragonfire, Wren primarily worked on station mechanics and incoming ships that needed repairs, but she seemed to frequently help out with many other things as well, of her own volition. A small notation indicated a hobby of repairing kitchen appliances in her spare time.

  Was Em married to some sort of do-gooder grease monkey? She didn’t feel married. But then she didn’t feel like a lesbian either. Did that even feel like something? The doctor didn’t do anything for her in spite of being a handsome man just a few years older than her, so she didn’t feel particularly heterosexual, either. She imagined most women would be attracted to his dark good looks, and his kind brown eyes. She appreciated his smooth, accented voice, though, as it went up and down in the pleasing cadence unique to Bennites.

  She liked Brannin Brash. She felt in her gut that she could trust the doctor, and at the moment, all she had was her gut.

  When all her immediate questions had been answered, she twisted around on the stool to face outward, toward Brannin. “It seems I remember security protocols and how to access restricted information.”