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

by Zen DiPietro

  Instead, she bowed low, indicating deep respect. Jerin matched the gesture, returning the honor.

  “Well, then,” Fallon said to Kellis, gesturing to the airlock. “After you.”

  It should seem odd, Fallon thought, to travel with her team, along with an engineer asset, wearing disguises that made her team look like strangers. All so that they could infiltrate the security of the government that they backed, for the purpose of committing treason. But it didn’t. It felt like being alive. Like taking her life back.

  The five of them traveled across the docking station together, all but Kellis laden with their possessions.

  Spirited debate among Avian Unit as to whether or not Kellis should be permitted to join them had continued up until that very morning. In the end, practicality won. They were better off with her than without her, and Kellis knew, more or less, what she was getting into. Peregrine had already begun singing Kellis’ praises as a collaborator on Per’s little tech devices. The two of them had gibbered a bunch of stuff that had started out sounding like real words and concepts, and quickly degenerated into technobabble that had gone right over Fallon’s head. Whatever. They could handle their end of things and Fallon would handle hers.

  Hawk led them to the docking bay that held their new ride. Fallon’s breath caught when she got a good look at it. A sturdy little race car of a ship kitted out with all of the best technology. Fast engines, atmospheric landing capability, and long-range sensors. Fallon had to admit that Hawk’s associate had really come through for them. She couldn’t wait to get her hands on the controls. To that end, she pushed ahead of the others so she could dash to the cockpit and get to know her new darling. She paused only to drop her gear in the storage room. She’d take care of all that later.

  The others filtered in while she familiarized herself with the ship. They stationed themselves here or there, waiting for her verdict.

  “Gorgeous,” she pronounced. “Everything we need, and a full complement of weapons, too.” She looked to Hawk. “Your associate really nailed it.”

  He smiled. Very smugly.

  Fallon had to laugh inwardly, though she kept her face blank. The Machine had come through for them. Of course he had.

  She did a quick rundown of the plan and the expected timing, then nodded to Peregrine, who opened a pocket on her cargo pants and fished out a pair of pendants hanging from cords. She handed one to Raptor, then held the other up for him to see.

  “Kellis helped me design this.” She pulled on the pendant, causing it to separate into two parts. The piece in her hand resembled a data chip. “Insert this into each voicecom terminal as you pass. It will lock it down and make it a dumb terminal. Security will only be able to access it by standing right in front of it. That means that if something goes wrong, it’ll buy you some time in getting out.”

  Raptor arched an eyebrow. “And if I actually manage to not screw it all up?”

  “Repeat the process on the way out. Those terminals will be restored, and we’ll have a clean operation.” Peregrine handed the pendant to Kellis, who curled her fingers around it tightly. Their new asset looked pale.

  “You sure you’re up for this?” Hawk asked her. “You can back out now, no harm done.”

  Kellis shook her head. “Raptor said I’d be the most useful to have inside. If we’re detected, brute force won’t get us out. We’ll need a more…creative escape.” She blinked under their combined scrutiny, her mouth tightening. “I can do this.”

  Could she? Infiltrating a PAC base was a far cry from anything the refugee-turned-engineer had done in her life. Then again, attacking the very thing Fallon had devoted her life to had to be even more diametrically opposed. So hey. Screw the past.

  Fallon turned to the controls. “Then let’s get it done.”

  Getting to the PAC station wasn’t hard. All PAC stations had public common areas. Only as a person went farther into the labyrinthine building did security get increasingly tight.

  The team took their time getting onto the grounds. First Fallon and Hawk went in, politely submitting to the retina scans and fingerprints that kept track of visitors. Of course, they wore lenses on their eyes and synthetic skin fused to the pads of their fingers, applied by Peregrine and linked by Raptor to bogus citizen records. Tremendously illegal devices to have inside the PAC zone, to be sure, but standard issue for Masquerade’s specialty. The trouble was, Blackout knew that, which meant the team had to be prepared for things to go bad, fast. A shame their weaponry was so limited, but security checkpoints ruled out anything conventional. Which left them with only the simple items designed to be undetectable. Between what they’d each brought with them and what Hawk had gotten from his unsavory associate, hopefully they had enough to get them out of a bad situation.

  She and Hawk would wander along, enjoying the grounds. Nothing suspicious about that—many people did so every day. Tokyo had been the site of the very first PAC administrative building, and though it was no longer the headquarters, it retained a special place of honor. It remained a busy, high-profile facility, but also served as a global monument to the past. To progress. To a civility that Fallon knew was in danger of being annihilated.

  Hawk carried a picnic basket over his arm as they strolled, pretending to delight in the architecture, the grounds, the fresh breeze. The long hair Peregrine had given him blew in his face every now and then, making Fallon want to laugh. For the moment, they had the easy job. They chose a spot and set up their picnic. Far too full of adrenaline to eat, Fallon did her best to pretend convincingly.

  In a half hour, Peregrine would arrive and enter the building. Just the public area, low security. That would put two layers of backup nearby in case Kellis and Raptor ran into trouble. Those two would arrive fifteen minutes after Peregrine, then proceed immediately into the secured-access area, forcing their way right into the data core so that Raptor could rip records right out without having to wait for a system reset. He needed wide-open access for the extensive range of highly classified documents they were after.

  If they were lucky, no one would notice the data breach. They shouldn’t, since Raptor was the best at what he did—and since they were all incognito, because Peregrine was the best at what she did. But then Blackout would be on the lookout for something like this. They’d know that Raptor could do this. Which made everything a roll of the dice.

  Kellis was Raptor’s backup weapon, just in case everything went to shit. She’d studied the building and tech schematics Raptor had given her, and would be able to help him get out of the building in a number of unconventional ways. She also happened to be completely off the PAC’s radar, since she wasn’t a citizen. In the event of a forced interaction, she could do the talking while Raptor laid low. Hopefully, anyway. There was no telling whether luck would be their friend or their enemy today. Perhaps they’d waltz right in and out as planned, leaving them all feeling a little unsettled by how easy it had been. That was Fallon’s hope.

  The Onari should have broken orbit already, heading to the next outpost on its schedule. Even as Fallon made inconsequential small talk with Hawk for the sake of their cover, she felt relief at the crew’s having gotten away before anything could throw suspicion on them. She would miss her friends, but better they stay safe. Besides, she’d have to rendezvous with the Onari to return Kellis to them, so she’d be seeing them again in the near future.

  Hawk said something insipid about what a lovely day it was, and she agreed warmly. They packed up their picnic and began a slow walking tour of the tree- and flower-laden grounds. Peregrine would be in position now, and Raptor and Kellis would soon begin. The team had agreed on a communications blackout unless an emergency occurred. PAC intelligence knew everything they did about secured channels, and would likely hack into any communication Avian Unit attempted right there under the PAC’s nose. Better to stay silent.

  If they were lucky, Fallon would hear nothing until Raptor’s check-in that he and Kellis had cleared the
building on their way out. If the tiny earpiece Peregrine had inserted directly in her ear canal made noise before that, it would be bad news.

  She and Hawk stopped to admire a huge maple tree with its branches lifted high to the sky. She made a comment about maple syrup and they talked about their preferences and what dishes they liked it on. Highly scintillating conversation.

  Casually, they made it around the building, ending up near an emergency exit just about the time Raptor and Kellis should be breaching the data core. Hawk led her by the hand to a bench and they sat with his arm around her, slightly awkward in that new-relationship sort of way.

  Her earpiece burst to life. “Bad news,” Raptor’s voice murmured, his words terse. “I got the data, but it had stickers on it. Alerts are going up now. We’ll be coming out hot.”

  She and Hawk remained seated, but their eyes met. She pinched the pendant on her necklace, as if fidgeting with it, to activate the voice circuit. “We’re ready.”

  Peregrine’s voice echoed, “Ready,” in her ear.

  Two minutes. Three. Four. Fallon started to get worried. The longer Raptor and Kellis took, the less likely they’d get out. She didn’t want to risk entering the building unless she knew they couldn’t escape on their own.

  She and Hawk continued to pose as lovers, even as her hands hovered within reach of her knives. Just as she was about to make the call to go in after Raptor and Kellis, she felt her bracelet vibrate, indicating that they were moving in her direction. Within seconds, Peregrine, Kellis, and Raptor flew out of the emergency exit.

  Fallon felt her adrenaline spike as her teammates sprinted toward her. Action time. Normally that would be good. She liked action time. Just not when she and her friends were in such a vulnerable position.

  Raptor slammed the door shut behind them as he ran, in an attempt to buy them a little time. Fallon wished she had a stinger to fry the door, which would have afforded them a few extra seconds.

  The door burst open, impacting the wall next to it with a heavy, metallic bang. One security guard came running out, followed by another. And three more. Prelin’s ass, they’d been fast. They all had weapons on their hips, too. A distinct advantage over Avian Unit.

  They didn’t have time. Those guards would draw their weapons any second, as soon as they realized they were dealing with professionals. They’d have drawn them already if they’d known what Raptor had been up to when the alarms sounded. The exits from the base would already be locking down, with the perimeter closing in around them. Damn. She went to Plan B.

  She grabbed the small, polymechrine knives that had been undetectable to the scanners and flung them into the wrists of the security team. It didn’t matter if those stingers were set to lethal blasts or not. Getting caught would be as good as getting dead.

  “Cover me,” she said to Hawk, who nodded and took up position in front of her, shielding her with his body. They hadn’t been able to wear armor or stinger dissipaters, since those devices would have been detected. So her only protection was her big meat brick of a partner. None of them could afford for Fallon to get hit before she’d brought in their transportation.

  Raptor shoved Kellis behind Hawk before turning his attention to the security officers with a small dagger in his hand. But Fallon barely had time to notice the fierce fight that Peregrine, Raptor, and Hawk launched.

  Fallon pulled a pair of goggles from the picnic basket, as well as a remote control. She pulled their ship out of sightseeing cruise mode at its low altitude, and set in a direct-route vector, at the maximum speed she could attain while being able to remote land the thing without smashing it into the dirt.

  She engaged in an evasive flight plan, designed to avoid the anti-aircraft weapons that no doubt aimed right at her new flying darling. Like hell she’d let the PAC punch holes in their ride. In her favor was the knowledge that the base’s personnel would be assuming an attack on the building. Her manipulation of PAC defensive protocols let her bring the ship toward the ground with only minor laser burns on the hull.

  She adjusted the pitch and roll, and cut the propulsion way later than she normally would. Dangerously late. Their new ship hit the ground harder than spec, but it landed true and solid.

  “Go!” she yelled. She felt Hawk’s arm around her waist, practically carrying her to the ship she couldn’t see with her own eyes because she was too busy operating the ship from the inside. She released the hatch and began reversing everything she’d just done to land the ship so that she could get it right off the ground again. Definitely not a spec-approved maneuver, even for a ship like this.

  She heard Peregrine yell, “All in! Take off!”

  Fallon didn’t even have time to remove the VR gear. Pinging sounds indicated they were under fire, as did the flashing sensors in her peripheral vision. She plopped down on the deck plate just inside the hatch, flying the ship while jacked directly into its ops control.

  No time for inertial stabilizers. She shut off several safety systems and launched the ship directly up into the air. She heard groans and scuffling around her even as her own stomach dropped. The ship stopped registering new damage.

  “Up…up…up…” she muttered through gritted teeth. She had to get them out of the atmosphere before the PAC could scramble a ship to follow them. Or conscript one that was already out. She’d based their entire plan on the element of surprise and her intimate knowledge of PAC base security, and a firefight would significantly decrease their chances of success.

  As soon as she had enough altitude to clear them from weapons on the ground, she adjusted her pitch and aimed for the window to get out of Earth’s atmosphere. Few ships had both interstellar and atmospheric capabilities, which was an edge she had over the PAC ships that would be available to pursue them.

  It didn’t make for a fun ride, though. G-forces shoved her down, pressing her head back too hard for her neck to overcome. She went limp, letting her body be pinned flat against the deck plate. No point in trying to fight that kind of pressure.

  She got a read on the nearby ships. Two PAC vessels docked at the orbital elevator and in good order. They could be on her tail in ten minutes. She wished she could take the time to disable them, but they were far enough away that it was a bad risk.

  Once she got out of Earth’s atmosphere, she burned hard on a trajectory to take her behind the moon. The PAC would have a harder time finding her with a moon between them. She also started dumping clasiratate, which would eradicate their trail within seconds. Only direct satellite surveillance would see them, and she happened to know just where those satellites were.

  Anxiously, she checked for enemy combatants, but she detected no close pursuit. Prelin’s ass. They might have pulled it off.

  She pulled off the goggles and rubbed her face, even as she took a look at her new ship. The outer hull might be pockmarked with burns, but she saw no signs of internal damage.

  Flying VR was all well and good, but she’d do a better job the old-fashioned way. The others followed her up to the cockpit, and Hawk was the first to speak when they got there. He punched a fist in the air. “Whoo! Now that’s an escape! Another one for the storybooks.”

  Peregrine smirked.

  “We’re not clear yet,” Fallon reminded him.

  Raptor turned to Kellis. The engineer looked pale and shell-shocked. “Are you okay?”

  She licked her lips. “You tell me. Are we safe?” Her wide eyes sought Fallon.

  Fallon squinted at the console’s readout, ensuring there was still nothing to worry about. Well, there were those two ships closing in, and those were definitely going to become a problem. She could outrun them in the short term, but those large vessels would eventually overtake her when she had to stop to refuel. A definite logistics issue. But her team wasn’t in danger at the moment, and she had other things to deal with in the meantime.

  “Reasonably. For the moment.” Fallon looked from Kellis to Raptor. “What happened in there?”

  Rapt
or ran a hand over his cheek. “They were waiting for us. No doubt they knew we would come to one PAC base or another. They must have booby-trapped all of them. I got in just fine. But after I downloaded what I needed, I got hit with a bunch of stickers. They’re the data equivalent of grappling hooks. Every one of them provided a tether from the PAC to my equipment.”

  “So, what, you’re infected? Do we need to jettison anything?” Fallon didn’t like the idea of the PAC having even a glimpse of where they might be. Well, sure, they’d just blown the last three months of anonymity all to hell, but as long as the PAC didn’t have any hooks in them, they could get that back.

  Raptor rubbed at his jaw. “No. I had to lose the gear. A shame. That was good stuff and will be hard to replace. But I’d prepared for that, and was able to strip and extract only the data chip. As of right now, I have no way of reading it, but once I get the right equipment, I’ll be able to decrypt it. They’ll know I got away with information, but they won’t know what.”

  So good news and bad news, then. No, mostly good news. They’d gotten the data. Now she just needed to make sure she didn’t let those big PAC ships overtake them. She checked them again, saw them closing at a slow and steady rate. Yep, that was the PAC method, all around. Not flashy, no unnecessary risks, but inexorable, like a spider eyeing the bug in its web.

  “I wouldn’t have gotten out of there if not for Kellis,” Raptor said.

  They all looked at the engineer, who only now seemed to be shaking off the experience, blinking and looking around at the ship as if she’d just noticed it.

  “Oh?” Hawk asked.

  “We got pinned down. No hope to get out. She knew exactly where the bulkhead was weak enough to slice through with a laser-cutter, while skillfully not frying us crispy on our way through. She was great.” Raptor smiled at Kellis, who smiled weakly back.

  “I didn’t do much. You fought those people off.” Kellis smoothed her hands over her forearms.