by Zen DiPietro
“Highly preferable, if we can manage it. We don’t want to give Blackout a beacon to bring them right to us, after all that time spent getting them off our trail.”
“Right.”
“What about the short-term plan?” asked Raptor. “What are we going to do here for months on end? We need to train to keep our skills up, and there’s no gym or targeting room here. Something to pass the time would be great, too.”
“We also need to resupply,” Hawk added. “We’re going to need casual clothes and equipment.”
Fallon looked toward him. “I’ll need to talk to Jerin. Hawk, if you and Per can figure out what supplies we need and where along our flight path we can get them, I’ll see what I can do to arrange a stop.” She hesitated. “Going back to the long plan. There’s another thing I’d like to do.”
Three pairs of eyes watched her expectantly.
“One of the things I’d like to grab from PAC intelligence is my birth identity.”
Peregrine’s mouth pursed thoughtfully, while Raptor and Hawk frowned. “How’s that going to help?” Raptor asked. “Whoever you were back then, you haven’t been that person for a decade.”
She’d expected some puzzlement, if not outright resistance to the idea. “It could jog my memory. But even if it doesn’t, reconstructing my past would at least help me better understand who I am.”
“Does ancient history really matter?” Raptor pressed. “You haven’t changed—you’re the same exact person you were before. Why go digging into a past that hasn’t been relevant to you in years?”
His comment stung, for some reason, but she replied calmly. “The first fifteen years or so of your life might feel irrelevant to you, but that’s because you have the luxury of taking them for granted. It’s all just a big blank spot to me, and somehow that makes it very relevant. I can’t describe what it’s like to lose your past, so you’ll have to take it on faith that it matters.”
His expression softened, and he looked contrite.
“It’s a side detail, though. If there’s time and opportunity, only. If it jeopardizes us or our mission, it’s off the table. The primary objective is getting what we need to figure out who we’re fighting.” She searched their faces, trying to read their thoughts. Did her interest in her past make them doubt her decisions?
Peregrine leaned forward and touched Fallon’s elbow. “We want your memories back, too. Whatever might help, we’ll give it our best.”
“Thanks, Per.” Knowing her team would back her up eased a pressure on her she hadn’t realized she’d felt. “I’m also going to try hypnotherapy with Jerin and Brak. We’ll be giving it a shot in about an hour, actually.”
“Why didn’t you try it on Dragonfire? They had a therapist, right?” Raptor asked.
“They did. But at first, he didn’t think it would be helpful. And when I realized that my head is full of classified info, I knew I couldn’t talk to him about any of it, anyway. Jerin and Brak already know parts of what’s happened to me. Brak’s even got top-secret clearance for the work she’s done for the PAC, so she knows the risks. I know we can trust them.”
“Is there any risk to you in doing hypnotherapy?” Hawk asked the question, but the same concern showed on Raptor’s and Peregrine’s faces. “Like, it’s not going to convince you that you’re a mime or something, will it? I mean…nobody likes a mime.”
The tension broke and they all chuckled or smirked.
“No,” she answered. “Jerin said it either helps or it doesn’t. It won’t harm my big, dumb brain.”
“Good,” Hawk said. “All that flailing around and walking down invisible stairs would get annoying. Besides, if we’re going to pull this mission off, we need our Fury.”
She shook her head, wrinkling her nose at her private code name within Avian Unit. In ancient Greek literature, a Fury was a spirit of punishment. That struck Fallon as overly fanciful, and she preferred to think of the name as simply meaning intensity. Actually, she’d have preferred to ditch the secondary code names entirely, but the others seemed quite attached to them. Some bonding sort of thing. Whatever.
As for her teammates, Raptor was Ghost, for his ability to hack into systems and get in and out of places unnoticed. He had certainly made short work of her security system on Dragonfire, which still irritated her to no end. He also had some impressive field-medic skills. He’d practically brought Hawk back from the dead after extracting him from the moon that Blackout had exiled him to.
She particularly liked Hawk’s second code name: The Machine, for his strength and great fortitude. Now that was a cool name, and fitting for an extraction expert. Perhaps if he’d been the one getting himself off that Zerellian moon, things would have gone better. But any escape you survive is a good one, so Raptor had ultimately done okay.
As well as being the extraction expert, Hawk had the dubious distinction of having contacts in unexpected places. Raptor teased him sometimes about missing his calling as a Rescan trader, but his connections would prove useful in getting the supplies they needed.
Finally, Peregrine had earned the name Masquerade in honor of her talent for disguises and impersonation. Fallon had experienced that skill set firsthand while extracting Peregrine from Sarkan. Peregrine had quickly and convincingly changed their identities more than once on their race off the planet. Peregrine was also an expert with surveillance technology and “spy gadgets,” as Hawk liked to call them. Per wasn’t a mechanic or an engineer by any stretch, but she was damn good at using tech to give them an edge, and they could certainly use any advantage they could get.
“Right. Fury.” She didn’t like the name, but didn’t hate it either. Fortunately they didn’t normally use them. Her own secondary skill was piloting. Of course, she had a third duty as well. As their leader, she was also responsible for the lives of these three. It was a lot to live up to.
“We could change it to Brainstorm, which I always thought was better, if you’d rather,” Hawk offered helpfully.
“Uh, no.” That was way worse. She shook her head, but his comment had broken her somber train of thought. Which had no doubt been Hawk’s intent.
“So what do we do tomorrow? And the next day? We have a lot of hours ahead of us,” Hawk pointed out.
She gave him a squint. “Mostly we just keep our heads down and stay out of trouble. The crew thinks we’re here for long-term medical treatment while on our way to Earth. Jerin says her people will mind their own business. Of course some of them know me from Dragonfire, so they might be curious, but Jerin assured me that confidentiality is sacrosanct here. We don’t appear on any travel manifests or records, and no one will mention us in any communications.”
Peregrine looked skeptical. “How can we be sure?”
Fallon had asked the same thing, prone as she was to suspicion. “We can’t, really, but Jerin was adamant. Her crew either adheres to the standard operating procedure for a hospi-ship, or they get dumped at the nearest outpost, however wretched, and blackballed from ever working in any healthcare position involving the PAC or Bennaris.”
“You buy that?” Hawk asked.
Fallon lifted a shoulder noncommittally. “Frankly, she was pretty scary when she said it. I liked that. Made me feel more confident in her ability to properly intimidate her people.”
Raptor said, “We’ll keep our eye on things, just to be sure.” Then he looked from Fallon to Peregrine to Hawk. “So which one of us is supposedly being treated? It’s Hawk, right? For his massive ego complex?”
“No, it’s you, for your severely kicked ass,” Hawk retorted.
Fallon ignored them both. “The official story is that Peregrine is the daughter of a high-ranking official, and suffers from a chronic illness. The three of us are here to ensure her safety, which is of diplomatic importance.”
“Ah. Good story.” Hawk squinted at Raptor. “I’ll still kick your ass, though.”
Raptor grinned. “You’re always welcome to try.”
Peregrine closed her eyes, looking like a long-suffering mother. “Shut up, or I’ll kick both your asses.”
The men smiled, but shut up.
Fallon had to marvel at her change of circumstances. Two weeks ago she’d been married and living aboard Dragonfire as the chief of security and second in command of the station. A straight-arrow PAC officer, right out of the recruitment vids. Now she led this group of rogue BlackOps. A group that someone at Blackout wanted dead, and that spent as much time teasing each other as they did talking actual strategy.
As much as she missed Dragonfire, it still seemed like a pretty good trade.
7
Fragments Chapter 2
Fallon left Hawk’s quarters as her teammates began working up a shopping list. She had more time than she needed to get to the infirmary for her appointment, but she welcomed the chance to get out of the tight space.
As she stepped out, she saw Brak down the corridor at the door of Fallon’s own quarters. She joined the Briveen, who had become a good friend back on Dragonfire, when Fallon had been struggling to reconcile her sense of self with her false identity.
Brak shifted to face her. “I was just on my way to the infirmary and thought I’d see if you’d like to walk down together. I can give you a quick tour along the way.”
In just a short time, Fallon had come to think of Brak as something of a kindred spirit. They both struggled with unique circumstances. Not only did Brak shun the lengthy rituals the dinosaur-descended Briveen were known for, she had run away from her home planet to become a cybernetics doctor. Fallon hadn’t asked too many questions about that, knowing it to be a highly sensitive subject, but she’d gathered that Brak’s caste did not allow for a scientific career.
“I’d love a guided tour, thank you. I memorized the ship’s schematics to orient myself, but that’s nothing like the real thing.”
Brak clicked her teeth with amusement, and her blue-green scales glinted in the daylight brightness of the corridor. “Right, that eidetic memory of yours.”
Fallon fell into step next to Brak as they walked away from the aft of the ship, where Fallon and her team were housed in empty crew quarters. Being so near the engines, these were the least desirable quarters, but Fallon found the constant hum of the machinery comforting rather than grating. She slept better when she couldn’t hear every tiny sound.
“Not eidetic,” Fallon corrected. “I do forget stuff. But I remember most things, especially if I specifically make note of them.”
“Sounds handy,” Brak remarked as they walked down the golden-cream-colored corridor of Deck Two, with its evenly spaced doors.
“Sometimes,” Fallon agreed. “The irony never escapes me though, given…” She pretended to rap on her head with her knuckles.
Fallon smelled the warm baked-bread scent of agreement. She appreciated the eloquence of Briveen scent communication.
“Of course, Jerin and I will do whatever we can to help with that,” Brak answered. She pointed to a break in the uniformity between the doors. “This is where the family quarters begin. They’re larger than those for singletons.”
When they reached the bow of the ship, Brak gestured at the areas contained there. “Here you can see maintenance conduit entryways, the lift down to Deck One, and the stairs. Since the lift is below at the moment, do you want to take the stairs?”
“Sure.” As they started down, Fallon thought that “stairs” might be overstating the steep descent. She recalled that ancient sailors had called stairways on ships “ladders.” Sure, that she could remember. Pointless minutiae.
Instead of dwelling on her shortcomings, she said, “I’ll have to revisit the stairs for some exercise later.”
“You can use the therapy rooms to work out after hours, but the physical therapists work a wide range of schedules and it can be tricky to arrange.” Brak gracefully picked her way down the narrow stairs ahead of Fallon.
When she got to Deck One, Fallon took a hard look at the doors leading to systems ops and ops control. She ignored the nearby nursery—diapers and rattles were of no use to her.
“I can show you around the crew-only areas later, or someone else can,” Brak offered as they began walking away from the nose of the ship. She pointed out the different types of therapy rooms, as well as her own cybernetics lab.
Deck Two had been simple and fairly unadorned, but a tasteful effort had been made on Deck One to create a comfortable atmosphere. The walls of the corridor were the same warm, golden-cream color, but artwork hung here and there to enliven the space. Fallon didn’t recall having been on a hospi-ship before, and was a little surprised by the lack of the efficient sterility she’d unconsciously expected.
But then other hospi-ships might be completely different. The Onari could be as unique in its décor as it was in its philanthropic mission. Other Bennite ships worked solely for the profit of Bennaris, whose entire industry was rooted in healthcare. Maybe those vessels would be blandly institutional inside.
“And here’s the infirmary,” Brak concluded when they reached the doorway.
Beyond it, Fallon saw guest quarters, and beyond those, she knew she would find the airlock and the double-level cargo bays. She’d survey them later. Right now, she had her uncooperative brain to deal with.
She’d already seen the infirmary, so she had no need to take stock of the wide space, full of techbeds and apparatus she couldn’t even identify. She’d made a point of memorizing the details of everyone on board, and therefore recognized both of the current patients. One was a man who had very recently endured back surgery and would need a couple more days for recovery and physical therapy. He didn’t even seem to notice Fallon as he thanked the nurse and gingerly walked out.
The other patient was a crew member. Griggs. Zerellian male, ops control. He appeared to have a burn on his arm. A nurse slowly moved a dermal regenerator back and forth over the wound.
Next to him, Dr. Jorrid Yomalu frowned at the techbed controls. Fallon had only seen him in passing thus far, but people spoke highly of him. Word had it that he had a love for thrill sports. She’d never known an adrenaline-junkie doctor, but he certainly sounded like an interesting guy.
Dr. Jerin Remay had watched Fallon and Brak enter, and moved to intercept them. She double-teamed Fallon with questions immediately. “Have you and your team settled in nicely? Do you need anything?”
“We’re doing well, thank you. Your ship is pleasantly homey, and well equipped.”
Jerin’s pride in her ship was evident in her smile. With her glossy black hair, golden-tan skin, and green eyes, the doctor was quite attractive. The red-jeweled stud on one side of her dainty nose suggested a certain aristocracy, though Jerin’s attitude was always forthright and genuine.
“Should we get to work?” Jerin asked, and Fallon nodded.
“We’ve prepared a private room.” Brak indicated one of the enclosed spaces with an elegant wave of her cybernetic arm.
Fallon took the cue and led the way. “Since you asked,” she remarked to Jerin, “there are a couple things we’re hoping you could help with.”
“Oh?”
“First, we need some supplies. Hawk will let me know where we could get them without going off course.”
They stepped into the room and Jerin secured the door behind them before answering. “There are some places we prefer not to dock, but if you let me know the destination, I’ll do what I can. What’s the second item?”
Fallon stepped back to let Jerin move past her. “Thank you. The other issue is that there’s no place to exercise here, unless you count the stairs, or maybe the physical therapy rooms. But those already have intended purposes, so they’re hardly ideal.”
“That’s true.” Jerin’s words came slowly, as she thought something through. “Actually, that’s been a problem I’ve been meaning to handle for some time. I just haven’t had the brute strength to get it done.” A smile spread across Jerin’s face. “But it seems that now I do.”
/>
“Uh-oh. What have I stepped in?”
Jerin laughed lightly. “Nothing too terrible. Hospi-ships are usually assigned to a much smaller region of space and spend as much time docked as they do traveling. That’s why they aren’t usually designed with a gym. But my crew’s been making do with the physical therapy rooms for too long. I’ve been wanting to convert Cargo Bay Two into an exercise and rec area. It’s not large enough for a track, but it could accommodate several treadmills and other equipment. Perhaps a climbing wall. I’ll leave it up to you all to design something that makes the best use of space.”
Fallon smelled a rush of fresh strawberries, causing her to glance at the source. Brak didn’t show much outward pleasure, but the strong fragrance communicated her enthusiasm.
“Would you be interested in helping us with that?” Fallon asked her. “If you have time, I mean.”
“I’d be delighted to help in my free time.” Brak smiled, which Fallon appreciated, knowing it wasn’t a natural gesture for her. “I’ve been wishing for something like that since I arrived.”
“Kellis can assist you with anything mechanical you need,” Jerin said. “She’ll be the one to do any structural adaptations. She’s well versed in all the PAC overhaul and upgrade codes.”
“That’s great.” Fallon hadn’t gotten to know Kellis very well yet. She did know that her legate of security on Dragonfire, Arin, had taken quite a liking to her. They were both Atalan refugees, so they had a lot in common.
“This will be Kellis’ final project, which will earn her the necessary credits to complete her degree.”
Fallon hadn’t known that Kellis had not yet received her credentials. Fallon had heard many raves about Kellis’ skills though, and had more than once wished that Avian Unit had a member with her kind of mechanical experience.
“Is there anything else you need?” Jerin asked. She seemed ready to finish their conversation and get to work.
