by Zen DiPietro
His face drew up tight. “Our official names were given to us by Blackout command. Assigned. The others, we use just for us. It’s hard to explain but when you rely on each other to live, and know your teammates as well as you know yourself… Well, it’s not like typical relationships. It’s similar to family, but more intense. So we like to keep something personal, just for us, that command didn’t assign to us. You’ll see.”
She’d rather remember than relearn, but she’d have to take what she could get. “Okay. So what’s my specialty?
“Information and espionage. There are none better.” His eyes softened before narrowing back into a hard look. “You’re the leader of our unit. We thought it was crazy for you to be put on special assignment, with us not even knowing where you were. But we were good soldiers, and received our own orders. We accepted that it all must be for a good reason, because that’s our job. But it’s gone on too long. Something’s wrong. Units don’t get split up like this, and leaders of units don’t disappear to do solitary fieldwork. So I disobeyed my orders to find you.” His eyes softened again, and she knew he must feel quite fond of her.
He’d made a crack about them sleeping together. Did that just mean training and missions, or something else? She wasn’t about to ask. If it was something more, she sincerely did not want to know. Her life was complicated enough already.
“What do we do next?” she asked instead.
“You tell me. That’s your expertise.”
“I have a hole in my head,” she pointed out. “Which you might have made worse by whacking my already-damaged brain.”
He shrugged. “You’re a pain in the ass too, but you always get the job done.”
Somehow, his insult touched her, when his fond look had only made her uncomfortable. She sensed that he and she had a very odd dynamic.
“When do you have to leave?”
He glanced at his comport. “I have to leave in forty-two minutes exactly. If I don’t, I might not make it off Dragonfire without detection.”
“How will you get out? Do you have a ship?”
He gave her a cocky grin that didn’t annoy her as much as she knew it should. “Trade secret. I’ll tell you about it next time I see you, if it works. If not… Well, if you look out the starport and see an unusual cloud of dust…” He fell silent, then snickered.
She barked out a laugh, surprising herself. “You’re impossible.”
He stood from the table and came over to chuck her gently under the chin with his fist. “Never thought I’d be so glad to hear you say that again. I like the hairstyle, by the way. Reminds me of security school.”
He sat on the couch beside her. “Now, in the time we have, let’s get through as much info as we can.”
Fallon woke up alone. No Wren, no Raptor. She sat up at the edge of her bed and dropped her head into her hands for a moment. Her life had taken a strange turn, and now she was surrounded with bird names. A curious coincidence.
After her tussle with Raptor, she didn’t feel great about going for her morning run, but she needed to keep up her normal routine for whoever might be paying attention. Besides, a good rest in the regen-bed would take care of the bruise on her temple, and might ease the pounding in her head. So off she went.
As luck would have it, she got the track to herself that morning, and the recuperative help of the regen-bed did indeed ease the pain in her head. She’d have to check in with Brak about that, all the same. Just in case Raptor had scrambled her brain into even worse shape.
After making herself shipshape in her uniform, she visited her office to apprise herself of the night shift’s activities. Then she went to ops control for her morning report.
“I need to see you in my annex,” Captain Nevitt announced as soon as she arrived, barely sparing Fallon a glance.
Once seated in Nevitt’s sanctum, she wondered if she’d be meeting another ship full of ambassadors. The captain quickly disabused her of the notion.
She fixed Fallon with a hard look. “I need to know what’s going on.”
“Sir?” Fallon asked. Like most female PAC officers, Nevitt preferred “sir” over the matronly sounding “ma’am.” Fallon did as well, though most people just called her “Chief,” which was even better.
Nevitt squinted just one eye, which gave her a knowing, rueful look. “Come on, Chief. I haven’t gotten where I am by not knowing something’s going on under my own nose.”
“I’m not sure what you mean, Captain.”
Nevitt let out a long, slow breath, as if releasing a great deal of pressure. She sank back into her chair, and her casual posture looked so foreign on her that Fallon found it alarming. “Fine, I’ll spell it out. I know you weren’t put here just to serve as security chief. There’s a reason you were forced on me. A reason far above the heads of anyone I have a connection to. Which means it came from very high, indeed.” She leaned back in her chair, looking sly. Fallon suspected her estimation of Nevitt was due for a sudden and significant upgrade.
Nevitt continued, “I’ve been waiting it out. Waiting for you to be recalled to wherever you’re really from, and waiting to get my chance to place my own officer. But you’re still here. And now this thing with your head. As well as this feeling I have that something just isn’t right.”
Nevitt steepled her fingers and pressed them to her lips. “Whoever you are, you’re in trouble. Am I right?”
What else could she say? “I believe I may be.”
Nevitt pursed her lips, looking both thoughtful and satisfied. “I thought so,” she intoned in a low voice. Then she stood abruptly and leaned over her desk. “Right! So I’ll tell you what. I may not have chosen you, but you’re one of mine, nonetheless. My responsibility. What can I do to help?”
Fallon could only stare at her.
“Close your mouth,” Nevitt instructed wryly.
Fallon did.
Nevitt smirked. “Surprised you, didn’t I? Well, good. I’m not the heartless career climber you think I am. Well, scratch that. I am. Just not for the reasons you think. See, I got sick of seeing the universe the way it is and decided that it was up to me to make things fair. Get help to people who need it. But the only way I can do that is to get to the top, where I can have the power to get things done. In the meantime, I spend every minute of my day pushing hard to get to where I need to be.”
“I’m…sorry. Captain Nevitt.” Fallon had completely misjudged the woman. Nevitt had fooled her completely.
Nevitt made a slashing gesture with her arm. “You saw what I wanted you to see. You had no reason to suspect anything else. You, though. What are you?”
Fallon shook her head slowly. “It’s better for you not to know. Getting mixed up in this will not get you where you need to go.”
“And yet. Here I am.”
Fair enough. Fallon chose her words carefully. “My memory loss is real. I don’t know exactly what I’m up against. I know that it goes all the way up, though. Something is very, very wrong.” She paused, thinking. “And I know that whoever I really am, wherever I’m really from, I’m on the side of what’s right. Ethical, if that’s a term that can be used for what I do. I don’t know the facts of what’s happening, but I know that about who I really am. I feel it.” She took a breath, watching Nevitt weigh and measure her. “So if I’m good, then that means that whatever is working against me is not. And I need to stop that.”
Yeah. Hearing herself describe the situation that way, out loud, made something click into place inside her, as if she’d put a piece of her puzzle where it belonged.
Nevitt smiled, and Fallon found herself staring again. Nevitt had struck her as regal the first time she’d seen her. Never mind that she ruled from a chair like any other on the station, behind a standard-issue desk.
Nevitt broke the silence. “So I’ll ask again. How can I help?”
Fallon felt as though the ground had solidified beneath her feet. Not literally. The deck plates in her office remained the same a
s they’d ever been. But existentially, she’d been rooted into her place in the universe. She had a purpose. And comrades.
Now that she had her team, as well as Brak and Nevitt, on her side, Fallon second-guessed her decision to let Arin and Endra in on her secrets. That might prove dangerous to them, as well as herself. She’d chosen to pit herself against a colossus. She didn’t want them to get caught in between.
She grimaced at the thought of Wren. It was now lunchtime the night after Wren’s failure to return home, and Fallon still hadn’t heard from her. Maybe their relationship was over. Wren might have decided that Fallon wasn’t the person she’d married. She’d be right. She wasn’t Em. She wasn’t a station’s security chief. She was a game piece in a galactic chess match.
With a shake of her head, she pushed the thought of Wren away. Brooding would get her nowhere. Wren had to choose what was right for her.
After her stunning meeting with Nevitt, Fallon spent the rest of the morning handling some details. The captain had given her permission to make it far easier for Raptor to let himself onto the station without detection. Their first order of business would be finding the other two members of their unit.
The alterations she’d made to Dragonfire’s security wouldn’t help anyone but Raptor. She’d keyed in his handprint and retina scan, as well as a DNA sample. Ghosting all of that data to an innocuous falsified trader identification had been no effort at all. But he’d be able to enter and exit every part of the station, outside of ops control and crisis ops, without any effort, and she’d programmed all cameras to fail to register him.
Of course, if he wanted to break into the ops stations he surely could. He was Ghost, after all, and he’d been the one to teach her everything she knew about programming and coding. Under his guidance, she’d engaged in a quick refresher course the night before, and was amazed at how much she’d forgotten she knew. Which was still far less than Raptor. He had a gift for what he did.
As did she, apparently, as well as her two other comrades, whom she didn’t even remember. She’d been close with Peregrine and Hawk, Raptor had said. Closer than coworkers, closer than family. Blood and bone. That’s what their motto was, he’d said. Before he’d left her quarters to depart the station, he’d taken her head in his hands, touched their foreheads together, and sworn, “Blood and bone, Fallon.” She’d said the same, and it had felt right.
She felt buoyant, even though she should be feeling daunted. Terrified, even. She’d pitted herself against whoever was at the top of PAC intelligence. People who could make entire towns just disappear. Maybe even entire planets, if they wanted to. But energy zinged through her veins. Everything Raptor said had rung true. Maybe it even jibed with some vestiges of memory, if she had any. She believed everything he’d said, and knowing that part of herself, at least, had made her feel like a whole person again.
She built the communications relay and sent a heavily coded message to Raptor to let him know about her security changes. She’d even assigned him quarters, to give him a place to duck into if he needed. He’d be back in a few days. Or whenever he got the information he needed. Their first priority was to find Peregrine and Hawk. Once the four of them were reunited, then they could begin.
She dismantled the relay and pushed her chair back from her desk. She spun in a slow circle and her thoughts returned to Wren. Though the idea made her feel like a class-six shuttle had landed on her chest, she knew it would be better for Wren if Em broke things off with her. Annulled their marriage. Moved on with her life, away from all of this cloak-and-dagger shit.
Because the truth was, Fallon knew that she lived and breathed for all of that cloak-and-dagger shit. She’d never felt as alive as when fighting for her life in the middle of the night. Or even now, forcing her mind through patterns and filters, creating decision trees for whatever might or might not happen in the fight against Blackout. Fallon didn’t want Wren getting caught up in all that. What had she been thinking, getting married?
She wished she knew. Though she hadn’t experienced any side effects from the previous day’s surgery, she hadn’t recovered any memories either.
Which reminded her that she needed to let Brak know about that crack in the head she’d gotten. She called Brak’s guest quarters and left a message. No telling when she’d receive it. Being on shore leave, no doubt Brak was out enjoying some recreation. Fallon could only imagine how little free time the Onari crew usually got.
In two more days, the Onari would depart. Even though that would calm things down on Dragonfire and make her day-to-day work easier, Fallon would miss the crew. Particularly Brak and Jerin. Though she quite liked Kellis as well. Arin had certainly talked about her a good bit during their daily meetings. Wren no doubt would miss her dear friend Endra. Particularly so with the state of Wren and Fallon’s marriage being what it was.
She needed to stop circling back to Wren. It was time for her Deck One rounds, anyway, which ought to keep her occupied.
Fallon found it curious to go through the regular routine, with so much now changed for her. The boardwalk had all the same smells, sounds, and activity. She nodded and said hello to people, and stopped to chat here and there. She checked in with shopkeeps to ensure they’d had no issues with any patrons.
No one had any idea she had become something entirely different. Well, actually, she’d always been something different than what they’d thought. She just hadn’t been aware of that until Raptor showed up. So really, she’d simply resumed being the duplicitous person they’d always known. It was kind of trippy, thinking of it that way.
Nix and Robert rose from a table on the food court as she meandered by.
“Hi, Chief!” they said almost in unison, approaching too fast and coming to stutter-stops in front of her.
“Hey, Nix. Robert. How are you two?”
“Good,” Robert said, just as Nix said, “Fine.” They giggled, a little out of breath from their short sprint. She knew she should caution them against running on the boardwalk, but chose not to. Youth was youth. Let them have it while they could.
“We heard you fought the Briveen yesterday,” Robert said in a rush, his eyes glowing with excitement.
Ah. That. “Yes. I do like a challenge. Brak was a very worthy one.”
“Who won?” he asked. “I heard she did.”
Nix cut in. “No, I heard the chief did! You did, right?”
“It was just a sparring match.” They needn’t know about all of her very real bruises. “No one won.”
They groaned with disappointment. Fallon supposed she should have guessed that the match would become a hot topic.
“What’s it like to get hit by those arms?” Robert asked eagerly. Nix made a sound of disapproval and nudged him.
Fallon couldn’t help smiling. The two of them were so cute. Innocent, eager, with a whole universe of stars in their eyes. She tried to imagine herself being like them, long ago, and just couldn’t.
“Like getting whacked with a pneumatic hammer at full power,” she admitted. “Hurts like crazy.”
“Then why do it?” Nix asked, her face scrunched up in distaste.
Fallon shrugged. “Some people just live to fight. I’m one of those.”
Nix shook her head. “I’d like to learn, but I don’t think I’d do it just for fun.”
“Learn to do all the school things first. Fighting will wait,” Fallon advised. She’d rather see these two happily employed as engineers, scientists, or PAC officers. She didn’t like to think of Robert growing up to take a job like her true occupation. She wanted the stars to stay in his eyes for as long as they could.
Nix nodded. “I’ll get top marks. I want to do that internship you promised.”
Robert’s eyebrows raised, so it seemed Nix hadn’t mentioned it to him. Given Fallon’s uncertain future, she didn’t want to discuss the internship. Instead, she employed misdirection.
“Want to walk with me? I’m headed this direction.” She flicked a
finger to indicate her travel path.
They beamed and fell into step with her, peppering her with questions about fighting, security, and whatever else occurred to them.
She always enjoyed her rounds, but she took particular pleasure in them today. It felt good to be with people who were only exactly what they seemed to be.
Fallon worked late that day, not wanting to sit in her empty quarters and watch every minute tick by, wondering if Wren would come home.
She accepted an invitation to dinner with Brak and Jerin. She and Brak met briefly beforehand so that Brak could check her physical condition. Brak was none too pleased about Fallon’s blow to the head, but after a thorough exam with a hand scanner, she concluded that she didn’t see any damage.
Brak clicked her teeth in dismay nonetheless. “I’d like to see you in the infirmary tomorrow for a more thorough exam,” she said in a tone that sounded more like decree than suggestion.
“Won’t that seem suspicious?” Fallon didn’t want to do anything that might seem strange to Brannin, Jerin, or the rest of the medical staff.
“Not really. Brannin probably expects it. Forty-eight hours is the perfect time to take a look after brain surgery.”
“All right, then.”
Fallon caught a faint hint of musky satisfaction, but it disappeared when Brak asked, “No memories have surfaced?”
“Nothing. But I did get some information about my past.”
Fallon told Brak about Raptor. Brak said little, only bobbing or tilting her head occasionally. A faint hint of anise communicated her concern, though. Fallon appreciated that, but she had no doubts about Raptor or their plans. She only hoped involving Brak wouldn’t cause trouble for the doctor. Fallon had begun to think of her as a friend.
Fallon and Jerin enjoyed bowls of hearty Bennite stew while trying to ignore the scent of Brak’s mandren meat. If Fallon hadn’t liked Brak so well, she’d have characterized the gamey odor as a bona fide stench. But the cyberneticist looked so supremely pleased as she ripped into her meal that Fallon bravely carried on.
