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

by Zen DiPietro

  As she dropped her arm, she caught a glimpse of pink hair disappearing around the exit doors. Before she could be sure of what she’d seen, it was gone. The incident poked a hole into the balloon of her ebullience and she felt it slowly leaking out.

  She paused on her way to the locker room to give thanks in return for compliments or pats on the back. Em was amused to note that Brak had earned herself a fan club. A group of officers ringed her, peppering her with praise and questions. Brak seemed surprised but pleased. Smiling, Em ducked into the locker room.

  She took a very long hydro-shower, dialing the water up to nearly scalding and letting it work on her tight muscles. The physical activity had helped. She felt more at ease, in spite of being a bit battered. Her mind felt clearer too, as if opening herself up to her physical abilities had loosened a cork and let her thoughts flow, releasing pressure.

  By the time she turned off the water, her body had begun to ache. Purple and magenta bruises mottled her shoulders, upper arms, chest, and ribs. The marks of a job well done, as far as she was concerned. But they’d only fester if she left them.

  With her towel wrapped around her, she forayed deeper into the locker room, where she almost never went. A single regen-bed occupied the back room. Similar to a techbed in looks, it was sort of a watered-down version of one. It could run an auto-cycle to check for broken bones, dehydration, electrolyte imbalances, concussions, and the like. It would correct the minor conditions, and would alert the infirmary of the more serious ones.

  Em dropped her towel and slid herself onto the bed. Her bare legs glided over the slightly sticky surface, but she didn’t feel cold. The regen-bed had already adjusted itself to her body temperature. She closed her eyes and let it do its work. It gave her audio updates of its progress and findings. Other than what it considered to be significant bruising, the regen-bed deemed her healthy. She lay peacefully while it soothed away the bruises.

  “Feeling better?” Brak’s voice sliced into her.

  Em sucked in a breath and opened her eyes. She’d almost fallen asleep. The regen-bed had long since completed its work. It felt warm, though, and entirely soothing.

  Em stood and retrieved her towel. “Yes. All fixed up. Thanks for the fight.”

  Brak bobbed her head. “Thank you, as well. I found it quite stimulating.”

  “What took you so long out there? I’ve been in here probably an hour.”

  “I talked with people for several minutes, then took a run on the track.”

  Em shook her head ruefully. “A run, after that fight? You’re a machine.”

  Brak lifted her arms slightly. “Only partly.”

  “Oh. I didn’t mean…it’s an expression.”

  Brak laughed, a soft, chortling growl. “I know. I was joking. Gotcha.”

  Em laughed as she walked back to the locker area. She pressed her palm to her designated compartment and it unlocked with a soft floomf of depressurization. She swung the door open and grabbed her clothes. Dropping her towel onto a bench, she began to dress with quick, efficient movements.

  Behind her, Brak had opened a guest locker and rummaged around, then closed it again. As Em smoothed out the shoulders of her uniform, ensuring her insignia was properly displayed, Brak excused herself to the showers. They said casual goodbyes and Em was struck once again by how different Brak was from other Briveen.

  Since the end of the day shift remained hours away, Em decided to go to her quarters and plan a nice meal for Wren. Maybe that would help thaw the ice between them and allow them to get on better footing. She hoped so.

  Em put away Wren’s uneaten dinner and cleaned the dishes. Wren hadn’t come home after work. Em tamped down her concern for Wren’s safety, knowing that she must be in need of some time to adjust to what Em had told her. It was a normal thing. She kept telling herself that.

  The quarters felt too still, too quiet without Wren’s voice and laughter. All the familiar elements of home remained, but without Wren, the quarters echoed hollow. They didn’t feel like home without her. Em wandered listlessly from the kitchenette to the couch, then around the living area in a lazy circle.

  She finally sat, fiddling with the holo-projector. She didn’t really want to watch anything, so she moved to the voicecom display instead. She made sure nothing work related had come up, built the relay to check for a signal, then found herself at a loss. What did she normally do when Wren was occupied? She didn’t need a workout. She didn’t want to work. The idea of socializing wasn’t worth entertaining.

  She went to her bedroom closet and pulled out her knife collection, setting it at the foot of the bed. Meticulously, she polished and oiled each weapon, admiring the fine curves and sharp edges. When that was done, she prowled the quarters again. Her eyes fell on the doorway between the bedroom and the living area. Now that she was thinking in Blackout ways, that sure looked like the perfect place for a slip—a place to hide something. Surely a BlackOp would stash some things here and there, in case of emergencies.

  She retrieved a mech kit from Wren’s side of the closet. Inside, it held a trove of tools, far more than the average resident would keep on hand. Perfect.

  She removed the panel that ran along the inside of the door track, where it slid in and out. It wasn’t easy. She gritted her teeth as she worked in the narrow space. This wasn’t meant to be done with the door still in place. Which was exactly what made it a good hiding spot.

  “Scrap!” Her index finger caught on a sharp edge, slicing a small cut across her fingerprint. With her other fingers, she teased away an access port and found success.

  A flat case, not much bigger than an identity card, had been wedged into the tiny space. She fished it out and laid it on the bed on her way to the necessary. She retrieved a towel to wipe the thin line of blood from her finger, then opened the small case.

  Three identity cards, complete with bio-info chips. All with her face. Three different names, hairstyles, and planets of origin. So she could hop onto a ship and disappear into the ether, with just a moment’s notice.

  After memorizing the information on the cards, she returned them to the case, then placed them back into the door and closed it up like nothing had happened. She retrieved the first-aid kit from the necessary and painted dermacare over the cut on her finger. If she didn’t get it healed in the infirmary, the dermacare would take care of such a small wound in less than a day.

  If she’d had any doubts about being a BlackOp, finding the identity cards would have killed them. No one else would have false documents like those. Standard PAC intelligence didn’t work that way. Em would have spotted a forgery within seconds, even the most sophisticated. No, each of those identities had been official. Legitimately issued in every way, other than the fact that they contained false information.

  She went back to prowling the quarters, turning her situation over in her mind. The hour grew late and Wren still did not return. Em fought the urge to go searching for her. No doubt she’d turn her up with little effort, but if Wren had wanted to let Em know where she was, she would have done so. Instead, Em called on Arin and asked him to subtly find out where Wren was and verify her safety. She didn’t ask to be told where Wren was, only whether she was safe. Arin didn’t ask questions, but his voice conveyed sympathy.

  He called her back while she was in the shower. She hadn’t needed another shower, but she didn’t know what else to do with her time, and the hot water soothed her disquiet. She shut off the flow and stood dripping while Arin assured her of Wren’s safety. She thanked him and promised to talk to him the next day.

  She toweled her hair off, then her body, pausing to trace the odd tattoo on her stomach, as she always did. Slowly, as if swimming through a vat of industrial coolant gel, she dressed in soft lounge clothes. Every movement got progressively more difficult.

  Brannin had predicted she’d feel tired by day’s end, and she did. She slid into bed, refusing to look over at Wren’s empty spot. She faced the wall. As soon a
s she let her body rest, her mind went sandy and her thoughts stuck together like wet paper. She sank gratefully into sleep.

  She snapped awake. She moved nothing but her eyelids, allowing her eyes to adjust in the dark. She kept her breathing slow and steady, even as her heart rate increased. Someone was near. She knew it. The sensation of not being alone screamed in the back of her mind.

  Wren? Had Wren come home?

  But Wren would have turned on the lights.

  Em stayed still, opening her senses as her flesh crawled with the knowledge that she was too vulnerable. Too exposed. But if she moved, she’d alert the intruder to her awareness.

  There. It wasn’t a sound or a movement or anything she could describe. It was a sense, an awareness of an anomaly. Her belt and stinger lay out of reach, in the wrong direction. It didn’t matter.

  In one movement she threw off the covers and leaped across the bed to land on the floor. She grabbed the knife she kept on the nightstand and slipped it into her waistband. Three running steps had her outside the door of the bedroom, almost smacking into the door as it retracted a little too slowly for her speed.

  She clasped her hands together and swung them like a wrecking ball at the mass she sensed. The impact was solid and she heard an exhalation of breath. Good. Chest hit. That gave her a mental map of the person’s orientation in the dark space around them.

  Something hit her temple hard, and would have skewed her vision if there’d been anything to see. Close contact now. The other body closed in on her. Bigger than her. Stronger. Fast, too, and extremely skilled. No chance to evade. Her only hope was to take him out immediately.

  She threw herself into her opponent, taking them both to the ground. While she had that advantage, she reached to the back of her waist and pulled a knife.

  A crushing blow to her wrist made her entire hand go numb and the blade fell to the floor. That was it. She’d lost her advantage and knew unconsciousness or death would come before she could even lift her other hand.

  She felt herself shifted and pinned beneath the body instead.

  “Lights!” a male voice called.

  Daytime illumination flooded the quarters and Em squinted at the man pinning her. She glimpsed dark hair and possibly human features.

  “Prelin’s ass, Fallon. You nearly took my head off.”

  He released her and stood, offering a hand. She ignored it, leaping to her feet on her own.

  “Oh, don’t be like that. If I hadn’t known you sleep with knives, you’d have had me.” He sounded amused. Placating.

  Her eyes adjusted in time to see his grin.

  “Good thing I used to sleep with you, right?” he added.

  He was good-looking. If you liked that muscular, confident, perfect-features sort of thing. And without a doubt, he knew her. Not just who she pretended to be. This guy knew who she really was. The way he looked at her said it all. As did everything else about him. He was a BlackOp, just like her.

  “Why are you here?” she asked. She sensed that he posed her no danger, but she felt wary. She moved away, putting the couch between them.

  “Something’s going on. Why haven’t you reported in?”

  “I have my orders.” She didn’t know exactly what they were, but surely she did have them. Who was this guy? Could she trust him?

  He looked hurt. “Are you part of it? We’ve never had secrets. Now I can’t find Hawk, and Peregrine has been off my radar for weeks. Something’s wrong.”

  “Your coming here might jeopardize us,” she warned. That was certainly true. She needed him to talk more. Help her figure things out.

  He threw his hands in the air. “What else was I supposed to do, Fallon? Our team has been separated. I can’t get answers from Krazinski, or even Simmons. We’ve never done separate assignments and now we’ve all been put on individual long-term gigs? I haven’t even heard from you on our frequency.” His voice rose. “What’s going on?”

  He was the one she’d been building the receiver for. A knot inside her came undone.

  “I don’t know. The truth is, I don’t even know who I am.”

  Raptor sat at her table, eating what would have been Wren’s dinner. She reclined on the couch with her feet up on the table. They were both trying hard to put together the facts they’d shared.

  “So your Blackout name is Raptor. But you’re also Ghost to the others of us within Avian Unit.”

  He finished chewing a bite and paused with another bite between his chopsticks. “Yup. You all named me that because I can get anywhere without being detected.”

  Which explained how he’d gotten not only on her station but into her quarters. That irritated her tremendously, but she put it aside for now.

  “We also have Peregrine, a.k.a. Masquerade, who specializes in impersonation.”

  “That’s understating it, but yeah. Basically. She almost had me convinced once she was my mom.” He popped the chopsticks into his mouth and managed to chew while grinning at her. Was he joking, or serious?

  Whatever. Not important. “And then the fourth is Hawk, a.k.a. the Machine. He excels in extractions.” Meaning he could either get someone out of their circumstances, or make sure they disappeared without a trace.

  “Among other things. But yep. That’s us.”

  “You realize those names are mostly terms for the same kind of bird, right? Other than Hawk.”

  Raptor shrugged his broad shoulders. He didn’t have a massive build, but his well-honed physique had an enviable V-shape. It just wasn’t fair that type of physicality came so much more easily to men than to women. He also had brown eyes framed by thick lashes and shaggy light-brown hair. He was very good-looking, and no doubt he knew it.

  “At least they’re cool names. You could have been Secretarybird, or Vulture. I don’t think I’d make a good Owl.” He made a dismissive sound. “Blackout gives the names it wants to. Operatives don’t get a choice. Except for our alternate names, which we invented way back in OTS.”

  “We go that far back?” The idea surprised her.

  “Further. We got recruited as a group, and have always stayed that way. Makes us the best team there is.”

  “Is that your opinion or Blackout’s?” she asked.

  “Everyone’s.” He squinted at her. “None of this rings a bell?”

  “No. I told you. Memory loss. Brain surgery. Thanks a lot for that punch in the head, by the way. I’m sure that will help.” She rubbed her temple, which ached dully.

  “Hey, you were trying to knife me.”

  “That’s what you get for sneaking up on me.”

  He shrugged again. “Only way to get to you without notice. Lucky break for me that your mark stayed out. Thought I’d have to drug her or something.”

  She bristled at the characterization of Wren, but she said nothing. He could be right, for all she knew. She might have made a huge mistake falling for Wren.

  “So why am I Fallon instead of Falcon?”

  He grinned. “Administrative misprint. They fixed it, but by then the mistake had stuck. So they made it official.”

  She wasn’t really Emé Fallon, then. That didn’t surprise her, but she did wonder about her true identity.

  “When was the last time you heard from the others?” she asked.

  “Over six months ago, just like you. We were all put on special assignments and told not to communicate.” He snorted.

  “Did we?” she ventured.

  “Well, I tried like hell. But none of you checked in, so I had to hunt you down. I’m kind of pissed about that, actually.”

  “Where are you supposed to be?”

  He frowned at his chopsticks. “Long story. Let’s get to that later. When I got a lead on you, I started trying to find Peregrine and Hawk.”

  Also known as Masquerade and Machine. Got it. “Nothing?”

  His face darkened. “No. And that’s not good. I know that they’d answer, if they possibly could. Would risk their lives to answer. Our unit…�
� He trailed off, stirring his chopsticks around in his beef and noodles. “We learned early on that we’re all we’d ever have. We’re family. Above all else. Even above Blackout.”

  She stared at him in shock. You didn’t become a member of a nearly mythical clandestine department without being fully, completely, all in. Saying anything was above it was blasphemous. Yet she believed him. What he said made more sense than anything she’d heard since waking up in the infirmary with a freshly busted head.

  He noticed her surprise and stood up, his hands going to the zipper on the front of his jumpsuit.

  She took a step back. “Uh, what are you…”

  But he’d already opened the suit and pulled up his undershirt, revealing a tattoo, just like hers, on the left side of his abs.

  After staring for longer than was polite, she dragged her gaze back up to his face. She thought he might laugh at her for her confusion, but he didn’t. He looked deadly serious. “We’re close, the two of us. We go all the way back. All four of us have these, but you and I got them in the same spot. Avian Unit is a family, and no one comes between us. Not the PAC, not even Blackout.”

  He stared her down hard. She looked right back, not wanting him to think her less than whatever she’d been before. She didn’t feel comfortable, but she did it. Finally, his stance shifted, became less aggressive. He smoothed his undershirt, but left the top half of his jumpsuit to hang at his waist. He sat down and went right back to eating, as if he’d never paused.

  She had so many questions she barely knew where to start. “So you’re Raptor/Ghost, but what’s my other name?”

  He smiled. “Fury. We wanted to go with Brainstorm, but you weren’t having it, so we settled on Fury.”

  “Sounds kind of angry.” She wasn’t sure she liked the name, but it was way better than Brainstorm.

  “Eh.” He shrugged. “We meant the ancient Greek meaning. You know, a punisher of crimes. But it works either way.” He smirked.

  She fought the urge to roll her eyes, guessing that it would only encourage him. “And why do we have a second set of code names? It seems a little redundant.”