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

by Zen DiPietro

  “Always has been. Well, until I ditch you for some hot guy, anyway.” He paused. “Or woman. Whatever.”

  Which made her wonder about her own hookups. “Don’t I ever ditch you for someone?”

  His expression became calculating, as if he was measuring his answer. “Not often. You tend to be more long-term about that sort of thing.”

  That was interesting to know. “Do you think that’s why I got married?”

  His answer was immediate. “I sure as shit don’t know what you were thinking by getting married. I keep hoping it was a tactical move, not a personal one, though that seems unlikely at this point. Truth is, when I think about it too hard, it makes me want to smack you around a little. I mean, what the hell?”

  He did, in fact, look irate, as if her choosing to marry while on an extended assignment had been a personal slight to him. Or perhaps to Avian Unit as a whole. If she’d known why she’d done it, she’d have said so, but thus far she’d been unable to unravel that bit of her recent past.

  “If it makes you feel any better, she dumped me hard when she realized she didn’t even know my real name.” Fallon shrugged. “And it’s not like any vows I took could be an actually legal thing—given that a BlackOp agent doesn’t technically exist, outside of highly classified files within Blackout.”

  She reached for her glass, but he caught her hand, staying it. He stared hard into her eyes. “You made a commitment, though, and that means something. That gives you a responsibility to someone. Which puts the rest of us at risk because you, Raptor, Per, and I are a no-matter-what scenario. Whatever you take on, we take on. So if you marry, essentially, all of us do.” He let go of her hand. “If you don’t remember anything else, remember that.”

  Which was kind of a mean dig at her memory loss, but she didn’t mind. She much preferred the straight, brutal truth over tactful inferences or polite restraint.

  She thought about her partners in Avian Unit, and their rejection of serious relationships. “Well, like I said. We’re done. She packed up and ditched me. I didn’t even say goodbye to her when I left Dragonfire Station.”

  His fingers played over the rim of his glass. “Because you wanted to keep her at a distance, right? Better if she hates you. Keeps her safer.”

  “She doesn’t hate me,” she argued. Then she had to admit, “But yeah. Better for her if she’s not involved with me. Better for all of us.”

  He nodded. She began to understand why Hawk was her drinking buddy. He was deeper and more perceptive than she’d realized.

  “Still love her?” he asked.

  “She’s…special.” She couldn’t quite meet his eyes, instead looking off to his right, where a pair of crew sat, eating their dinner.

  “Must be, if you married her, however legal it was or wasn’t.” He sighed. “I’m sorry. It must suck.”

  “What do you mean? Her leaving me? Like I said, she’s better off.” Fallon picked up her glass and took a long drink. The spicy burn shocked her palate, but settled down to a warm, smooth finish. Mm. Zerellian ale. Her instincts had guided her true on that choice, as they usually did.

  “Right, she’s safer. But the first sign of trouble and she ditches? She’s not like us. Her commitment is something that she can take back. And she did.”

  Putting it that way made her feel like shit. “Thanks,” she muttered, gripping her glass.

  “I’m just saying put it in perspective. Use that perspective to cauterize anything that’s still bleeding.” He fell silent, watching her in a tough-love sort of way that felt oddly comforting.

  “Right. Thanks.” This time, she said it without the sarcasm.

  “Talk to Raptor about it.”

  Her hackles went up. “Why Raptor?” She already had questions about her past with him, and intended to find the answers very soon.

  She couldn’t read anything from Hawk’s expression. He looked cool and unconcerned as he met her gaze. “You two have always been close, ever since the academy. And you’ll be more likely to find him during the long, lonely nights ahead.” He winked at her.

  “Fine. Whatever.” She finished off her glass and waved for another. So far, no buzz. Maybe she needed to dedicate herself more completely to the cause. The more they talked, the more she could use a nice tipsy haze.

  But with the heavy topics out of the way, the tone of their conversation shifted. Hawk began telling somewhat-sanitized-in-case-of-curious-ears versions of some of their previous exploits. She wondered if certain details might be exaggerated, but he had her laughing and holding her stomach with his descriptions of both near misses and bang-on successes.

  She stopped counting their drinks, but when she felt just beyond buzzed, she made a slashing hand gesture toward the barkeep, then closed out their tab on the menuboard. Hawk protested, but without enthusiasm. More for the principle of it, she guessed.

  They finished the drinks they had, and Fallon decided it was time for them to go before they made asses of themselves by getting too loud. The bar had filled up considerably, with plenty of people standing about, waiting for a table or stool.

  “Let’s get out of here,” she said. “I’ll walk you home.” She grabbed the menuboard, verified the expenses, and held it up for Hawk to authenticate. He was paying, after all. She slid off the stool to follow him.

  The doors whooshed open and she failed to completely clear the opening, awkwardly brushing against it with her hip. He pulled her to his side to steady her, and she returned the favor by tightening her arm around his waist when he stumbled over some invisible obstacle on the deck plate. They had it under control by the time they strolled into his quarters, but she was tired. As if the few minutes of walking had sapped all of her energy, bleeding it off into frigid space.

  His quarters were a mirror of her own. No kitchenette, just a bed, a small living area, and an adjoining necessary. He led her right to the bed, where he began unzipping his jumpsuit. Oddly, she felt perfectly at ease with that development.

  “I guess you’re sleeping over?” He pulled his undershirt over his head and dropped it to the floor, exposing a wide expanse of very hairy chest.

  “Why, is that normal for us?” she asked through a yawn. It would certainly be convenient. The short walk back to her quarters seemed longer than it should.

  “Yeah. And don’t worry, I’ve seen your panties before.” He was too tired to even affect one of his bogus leers, which she never believed. The two of them had as much sexual chemistry as a chopstick and a teacup.

  So she peeled off her own black jumpsuit and got into bed beside him wearing her undershirt and panties. “You don’t snore, do you?”

  “No. But you do.” He turned his back to her, adjusted the blankets, and let out a long sigh.

  “Do not.” Wren would have told her so, if she did.

  “Only when you’re really drunk.” His voice was muffled.

  “Shut up and go to sleep.”

  “You first.” He sounded exhausted, but amused.

  They fell silent, and Fallon stretched her leg out, touching the back of his knee with her toe. “Hey, Hawk?”

  He half turned his head to look back at her. “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  He settled back into his pillow. “It’s nothing. You’ve done the same for me.”

  She smiled into the dark and closed her eyes.

  The door chimed, jolting Fallon out of a pleasant sleep. She felt Hawk leaping lightly to his feet and moving away. For such a huge dude, the guy could move like a dancer. With him gone, she was free to sprawl out in the middle of the bed and appropriate his pillow, too. Ahh.

  “On your feet, soldier. We have company.” Hawk’s voice broke into her doze.

  Sighing, she kicked off the blankets and sat up. She ran her fingers through her haphazard hair and hauled herself out of bed.

  “I see you two have picked up right where you left off.” Raptor’s wry smirk failed to bother her. His little eyebrow lift at her undershirt-an
d-panties combo didn’t, either. Her team didn’t get too precious about inconsequential things like nudity. Just as well, since these small quarters didn’t have separate bedrooms.

  She grabbed her jumpsuit from the floor. “I’m taking a shower. Whatever you want, it’s too early for it.” She shot Raptor a sour look. “We’re not exactly on the clock here.”

  “Aw, well, I guess I just missed you guys.” Raptor made a smoochy face at her and Hawk. Hawk punched him on the shoulder before sitting on the edge of the bed, not bothering to get dressed. Raptor staggered back a step, but didn’t stop grinning.

  “We’ll wait for you.” Hawk made a dismissive gesture toward the necessary.

  Fallon was on her feet before he could change his mind, letting the door swish shut behind her. She shoved her clothes into the processor and stepped into the cramped shower. No water. Only a sonic pulse. She sighed. Four months without a hot, steamy shower would feel like a very long time. But at least she could still get clean. If sonic showers were her only complaint, she’d be doing incredibly well.

  The lack of water made the shower more of a rugged necessity than a pleasant indulgence, though, and she got done before her clothing did. A quick inventory of the room’s contents did not reveal a bathrobe. After a moment of debate, she wrapped a towel around herself and tucked it, turning it into an unfashionable tube dress that went down to her knees. At least the towel was big. And soft.

  She wet her hair down in the sink and used a smaller moisture-wicking towel to dry it. Short hair had turned out to be more work than she’d expected, but the asymmetrical style suited her well. It gave her an edge that her somewhat plain, Japanese face didn’t have all on its own.

  She stepped into the small living area. “My clothes will be a few more minutes. Your turn?” she asked Hawk, who stood at the voicecom with Raptor.

  “Yeah. Per’s not answering. But she doesn’t usually get up before noon unless she’s on the job. We’ll catch up with her later.”

  Hawk strode to the necessary and the door closed behind him, leaving Fallon alone with Raptor.

  “You okay?” Raptor studied her.

  “I’m fine. Why?”

  “Just checking.” He stepped away from the voicecom and sat on the small couch.

  She joined him, settling on the other half. Her conversation with Hawk drifted up from her thoughts, along with a comment or two that Peregrine had made.

  “What’s our relationship?” she asked. “Something between the two of us is different than the dynamics among the rest of us.”

  He didn’t seem surprised by the question. “I’m not sure I have a definitive answer to that. We’ve never fit into a tidy category.”

  “Were we a couple before I was assigned to Dragonfire?”

  “A couple of what?” he asked. The words should have made him sound like a smartass, but he seemed genuinely frustrated.

  “A romantic couple.”

  He made a sound of profound suffering. “Can’t I just punch you in the head and see if that knocks some memories loose?”

  “You tried that already, the night you broke into my quarters on Dragonfire.”

  “Oh. Right.” He looked wistful, as if recalling good times long gone.

  She snapped her fingers to get him focused on her actual question. “Romantic couple. Were we?”

  “No.” He leaned back and put his feet up on the small table.

  She could have done worse. Raptor was a good-looking guy, with light-brown hair that seemed to want to go wavy, and big brown eyes fringed with thick lashes that she envied. There was nothing feminine about him though. He had wide shoulders and a narrow waist. Nothing like Hawk’s hulking muscularity, but toned and defined in a way that most guys never achieved. If she had to, she’d admit that she found him very hot. But not while he was listening.

  “Have we ever been a romantic couple?” she persisted.

  His face did a squinchy thing that gave her an answer before he found the right words. “You and I found each other soon after starting academy. By the time we were halfway through, we were sharing a dorm.”

  She wanted to be clear on the details. “So we were what, in love? Best pals? Just enjoying a bountiful sex life?”

  He smiled reluctantly. “All of those. We had everything in common, so we just fit together.”

  “What happened to change that?”

  “Before we left the academy, we found out we’d been tagged for Blackout. We got our unit assignment and our new names. It changed everything.”

  “Ah.” He didn’t need to explain that for her. Of course Blackout had changed things. They were meant to bond together as a group of four. Having a couple among them would be a distraction and a shift of power dynamics. Never mind that being on an elite squad tasked with literally unspeakable things would be hard on a relationship.

  He nodded at the understanding he saw on her face. “Yeah. Being together while belonging to the same unit wouldn’t have been smart, or safe, or fair to the rest of our team. When given the choice between us or Blackout, we both chose Blackout.”

  “I see.”

  That explained some things. It also meant he knew a whole lot more about her than she’d realized. Intimate things that she used to know about him, too.

  “Is my lack of memory hard for you?” she asked.

  He looked surprised. “I hadn’t thought about it that way. But…no. We’re past all that. Don’t worry. You’re not going to get any tortured crap from me about you getting married.”

  Oh, and there was that, too. She hadn’t even gotten around to considering that part yet.

  “Well, good.” She had a lot to re-learn about him, but she knew she would. She took great comfort in knowing that he, along with Hawk and Peregrine, would stick with her no matter what.

  “We’re going to figure everything out.” His voice was reassuring, as if he thought she needed it. “Your memory, and who’s pulling the strings to try to bring down Blackout. Or whatever they’re doing.”

  That caught her attention. “You think someone’s trying to dismantle Blackout? From the inside?”

  He pressed his hands out in front of him, as if trying to distance himself from what he’d just said. “I don’t know. Maybe. I think it’s either that, or someone’s trying to get control of something that no one person should have control of. I don’t think it’s a simple power play within the organization.”

  Hawk rejoined them, clean and mostly dressed. He hadn’t zipped his jumpsuit up above his waist, instead letting the top hang down over his hips. “What did I miss?”

  She straightened to her full height. “Raptor was telling me about our sordid past, and previously very inventive sex life.”

  Raptor snorted, but Hawk nodded appreciatively. “Good. Glad I don’t have to dodge that topic anymore.”

  Fallon had to laugh about the part of her statement he’d found noteworthy.

  Hawk looked puzzled. “What?”

  “Nothing. How about we get some breakfast while we wait for Per to wake up? If we have time, we can visit the infirmary.” The sooner Hawk had a clean bill of health, the better, as far as Fallon was concerned.

  “Why? You feeling sick? Can’t handle a couple drinks anymore?” Hawk sat on the arm of the couch and nudged her with his elbow.

  “Hah. Try me.”

  “Oh, you don’t want to say that.” Hawk nudged her again and she slapped at his beefy arm.

  Raptor let out a long-suffering sigh. “If I didn’t know that Fallon had a big hole in her head, I’d never guess it by the way you two behave together.”

  Fallon fixed him with a pointed look. “About that hole in my head. Since there are things I should know but don’t, I was hoping you could give me some details. Starting with the size of your—”

  “Gosh, I’m starved, let’s go!” Raptor declared, bolting out of the room so fast that the doors almost didn’t open in time.

  She and Hawk followed at a much more sedate pace,
laughing.

  Peregrine joined them at midday, looking well rested. Hawk had received a clean bill of health from Jerin, which relieved both him and Fallon. Now they were ready to make plans for their long journey.

  Avian Unit sat together in Hawk’s quarters. The space was tight for four people, but they made it work.

  “So what’s the plan?” Peregrine asked. Fallon had learned to appreciate her abruptness.

  Raptor and Hawk glanced briefly at Fallon, and she again felt the oddness of them continuing to defer to her as the unit leader. As far as her memory was concerned, she hadn’t known any of them just a couple weeks ago. Why should they accept her authority? But Hawk, Per, and Raptor had insisted that was the way Avian Unit worked. So, fine. She’d lead.

  “Long-term plan remains the same,” she answered. “We lay low on the Onari and let our trail go cold. After four months, Blackout will have no idea where to even start looking for us.”

  She got three nods in response.

  Fallon continued, “Raptor will be pulling whatever data he can along the way, though some of the planets we’ll visit only receive basic communications with no access to the major datastreams. Those certainly won’t have any chance of intercepting point-to-point transmissions, so we may not turn up much. Once we arrive at Earth, we infiltrate the PAC intelligence base in Tokyo. Its setup and public areas make it the perfect target for us. If we do it right, we should have the information we need to figure out who tried to kill us. Once we know that, we can determine how we approach PAC command at headquarters.”

  Fallon focused her attention on Peregrine. She could never decide if Peregrine’s hair was honey blonde or light brown. Her brown eyes and thin, often-frowning lips were pretty, in a strong way. Fallon envied Peregrine’s thick, but still feminine, physique. Peregrine was all kinds of muscular, in ways that Fallon’s body could never be. “Per, you and Raptor will run the infiltration. There’s no way he can slip into a PAC base’s high-security area unnoticed without you fronting him. You two will have a lot of time to work out your strategy.”

  Peregrine nodded. “A clean mission?” Meaning that their presence at the base would remain undetected, even after they got out.