by Zen DiPietro
“Right.” She tried to sound convinced.
“We will. Blackout can’t exist as a corrupt entity. Simple as that. We’ll either clean it up or wipe it out. There can’t be any other outcome.”
His certainty reassured her, but she still felt daunted by the enormity of the task. She really needed to not focus on odds of success. She had to maintain a massively abundant ego to make all this work. A minor god complex definitely would help.
She had just started to say something to that effect when Raptor leaned forward and gave her a chaste little kiss. She leaned away from him. “What was that for?” She waffled between patiently awaiting an answer and being annoyed.
He smiled. “No good reason, really. Just that I’ve rarely seen you sad or worried, and it reminded me of something.”
She hated guessing games. She raised her eyebrows at him, waiting for more.
“Graduating the academy,” he said. “When you realized Hawk would take top honors in combat for our graduating class. You’d been determined to have that spot for yourself, to make your dad proud.”
“I told you that?” Her mind flashed back to the images she’d seen of her father teaching her to fight. Telling Raptor about wanting to please Hiro seemed like an awfully personal thing to do.
“It was clear to me that you had some reason to be so driven. When you told me that making your father proud was part of it, I felt like I’d really connected with you. We hadn’t shared a lot of deeply personal information. Anyway, when you told me, I kissed you.”
“So you thought you’d do it again, for old times’ sake?” She fixed him with a dubious look.
“Yup.”
It didn’t justify his presumption, but what the hell. If it had been Hawk or Peregrine, she wouldn’t have thought a thing about a little peck. Her past with Raptor made her more sensitive about that sort of thing with him.
The door chime sounded. Fallon didn’t mind the opportunity to end the conversation. Hawk stepped into her cozy white parlor. A few minutes later, Peregrine joined them.
Together again, as four, Fallon felt reassured. There was just something about them as a team that made her feel like they could actually do all the crap they had planned.
She and Raptor filled them in on the message from Whelkin and asked what they thought.
Peregrine didn’t hesitate. “We make contact with him. No question about it.” She looked to Hawk, who nodded agreement.
“He could be the perfect way for Blackout to get us to stick our necks out,” Raptor reminded them.
“Yes,” agreed Hawk. “But if that’s the case, then every rope has two ends. We can yank on Whelkin and see what’s on the other side.”
Fallon smiled. She liked that imagery. “Then let’s start planning.”
Fallon didn’t mind spending two weeks lazing about on Zerellus. She used the time to exercise like a fiend and brush up on her language skills, just to be sure she could speak all thirteen languages her records said she could. Her records proved correct. After putting in a good day’s work, she stretched out on the cushy white furniture and stuffed her face with delicacies and sweets. And did it gloriously.
Repairs to the Nefarious proceeded right along, and Fallon was pleased to get their weapons restocked as well. She added twenty-five percent to the weapon stores, exceeding normal protocol and pushing weight capacity. With the Outlaw on board, they didn’t have a great deal of variance left, but as far as she was concerned, the munitions were non-negotiable.
Thanks to Hawk’s network of friends, sensor blockers like the ones the pirate ships had used to sneak up on them would now be put into use on the Nefarious. If the PAC caught them with tech like that there’d be major penalties, but since Blackout had already tried to kill them, there seemed no particular downside. The PAC couldn’t execute them and imprison them for owning contraband.
Raptor sent out a vague coded message for Whelkin, but did not receive a response from their former instructor. If he’d been on the run for eight weeks, there was a high likelihood of him being dead. Fallon and her team couldn’t afford to wait on a message that might never come. Instead, she’d have to forge ahead with the possibility of Brak helping to regain her memories.
Which meant meeting up with the Onari again.
As they departed Zerellus, Fallon had to admire Peregrine’s almost-smile. The woman looked practically chipper. Fallon didn’t mention it, but she knew that Peregrine had scored some supplies that made her very, very happy. Fallon didn’t yet know what they were, but she hoped she would at some point.
As Fallon set their course and destination coordinates, excitement shot down her spine. They’d arranged to meet up with the Onari at Dragonfire Station. That would be a very interesting homecoming for her.
Given the Onari’s current position, Fallon knew Jerin and Demitri had to be pushing the engines to tolerance in order to make the rendezvous. Probably beyond. Fallon would make sure she took care of any ship repairs they might need, and would handle the vastly increased fuel cost.
Fallon sat back in her seat, watching the atmospheric data roll across the screen. She’d charted a slow, roundabout path to Dragonfire. The Onari wouldn’t make it for two weeks yet, which left Fallon with time to kill. Flush with supplies, weapons, and a freshly refurbished ship, she and her team needed only to bide their time.
In the meantime, perhaps they’d hear from Whelkin. She also wanted to find a way to make contact with Admiral Colb. While she couldn’t remember him as the kindly uncle-type her father had described, Hiro trusted Colb, and had vouched for him. That didn’t mean she was ready to trust him, but it gave Colb the greatest likelihood of trustworthiness of anyone within Blackout. Besides the possibly dead Whelkin, of course.
Fallon had argued for remaining longer on Zerellus. She’d enjoyed the five-star accommodations and the genuine sunlight and fresh air tremendously. Security wasn’t much of an issue either, so long as they laid low.
But Raptor had argued—correctly, damn him— that he’d be more likely to pick up rogue message streams outside of a planetary atmosphere.
Which left her with plenty of time to plan her return to Dragonfire. The station provided the perfect opportunity to gather all her allies in one place she knew she could defend. She also liked the irony of fighting Blackout from a PAC station. Not that she planned to stay there long.
Defensible location, check. Allies, check. Now they just needed a plan of action. If she wasn’t going to be pampered in Zerellian style, she might as well be stabbing the bad guys through the heart. And the eye. And the crotch.
“Doing okay?” Peregrine had come up to the bridge to give Fallon a meal break.
“Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”
Peregrine sat in the co-pilot’s seat. “Returning to Dragonfire might bother me, if I were you. And waiting for Raptor to find info we can use is frustrating for us all.”
“Nothing I can do about it.” Sure, Fallon was impatient, but she’d become accustomed to these drawn-out periods of inactivity, which seemed to exist only to be shattered by sudden action. “At least Raptor found some info that might mean Whelkin is legit.”
The academy had reported him missing eight weeks ago, which corresponded with his message. The PAC had almost immediately removed that classification and listed him as on special assignment. Which seemed awfully similar to Avian Unit’s own official status.
Peregrine didn’t look directly at her, instead focusing on readouts from the external scanners. “He always seemed like a really good guy.”
“It’d be nice for that to actually be true, wouldn’t it?”
“Always nice when people don’t surprise you by being an asshole,” Peregrine agreed. “And having him as an ally would be good too.”
After Fallon’s meal break, she slept for a few hours, then returned to the bridge to relieve Hawk. He, she, and Peregrine handled the bridge duty shifts so that Raptor could devote himself to shoveling through the data he’d col
lected. Fallon wished that she could be helpful with that, but then again, the idea of charting, cross-checking, and generally going blind nearly made her suicidal. And that was if she could even decipher all the lines of code, which she couldn’t. So, yeah, better Raptor handled that while she took care of the ship.
The days rolled by. Nothing noteworthy happened, which was good. But in the darkness of space, time curled out in infinite swirls of ambiguity. Fallon had nothing to do but wait, and wonder about all the things she didn’t yet know.
Fallon felt her energy build the closer they got to Dragonfire. Finally, they quietly docked, with the Onari doing the same shortly after. The Onari’s return would be met with great fanfare, while Fallon and her team would go all but unnoticed.
Avian Unit had moved into two executive suites, side by side on Deck Four. One accommodation for Fallon and Peregrine, and one for Hawk and Raptor. Each small suite had room for both an official and an assistant. Though “small” was a relative concept. After several months of living on ships, Fallon found Dragonfire’s accommodations perfectly comfortable, albeit nothing like the luxury on Zerellus.
Captain Nevitt paid them a visit soon after they arrived. Or more specifically, she paid Fallon a visit while her teammates made themselves scarce.
“Captain.” As Nevitt entered the suite, Fallon gave the proper bow of respect for a superior PAC officer.
“Chief.” Nevitt returned the bow, slightly shallower, befitting a captain to her second officer. Which was, in itself, a show of respect. Nevitt hadn’t replaced Fallon as chief of security. She should have, of course, but Fallon understood that the captain was playing a very long game.
“I trust your operations are progressing?” Captain Nevitt asked. “It’s been quite some time.” She remained statuesque and mildly intimidating in a fine-edged way. Her dark brown skin and eyes complemented her hair, arranged around her head in short, textured twists.
Nevitt lifted a demanding eyebrow. Damn, Fallon admired her nerve.
“Yes. We have goals, we have targets. We just need some…collaboration.”
“I see.” Nevitt folded her hands behind her back and paced the suite’s parlor. “And when do you expect to complete your goals?”
“Uncertain. Too many factors in the mix to pin things down. Could be weeks. Could be months.”
Nevitt paused, narrowed her eyes slightly, then resumed her pacing. “Is there anything you can tell me at this point?”
Not about Blackout, to be certain. But she could give Nevitt some personal information.
“I’ve had some limited success with reacquainting myself with my memories. Some vicariously, as told to me by people who experienced the same things with me. Others from my own mind, but in a one-dimensional way. Brak’s going to be helping me with that.”
“I see. I trust you’ll keep me apprised.” Nevitt dipped her chin, then locked her eyes on Fallon’s. “In the meantime, I have a matter for you to attend to.”
“Security?”
“No. Morale. My lead mechanic has been depressed for, oh, six or seven months now. I want you to see her before you leave again. Un-depress her.”
Fallon froze. “I don’t think—”
Nevitt cut her off. “I’m not interested in what you think. You left some fallout in your wake—fallout that is affecting the function of my station. I expect you to fix it.”
The idea of seeing Wren made the backs of Fallon’s thighs feel like bugs were crawling on them. But she owed Nevitt. Owed her big. And Nevitt knew it.
“I’ll go see her. I can’t promise she won’t feel worse afterward,” Fallon warned.
Nevitt smiled. A self-satisfied smile that Fallon would have to practice in the mirror for her own future use, because Prelin’s ass was it ever annoying. “I trust you to make her feel better. Not worse.”
Fallon gritted her teeth. “I’ll do what I can.”
“I know you will.” Nevitt’s tone remained brisk. “If there’s anything I can do to assist you, let me know. Otherwise, I’m leaving it to you to keep my station safe. If your activities here bring any harm—”
Fallon held her hands up in a staying gesture. “I know. I’m on it.”
“Very well then. Call me if you need anything, keep me posted, and…” Nevitt paused on her way out the door. “Good luck.”
She hadn’t even bothered with a bow. That captain of hers proved to be more and more interesting all the time.
“So you see doors in your mind, and the memories stay behind them?” Brak asked. She sat in a straight-backed chair near the porthole in Fallon’s suite. The rest of Avian Unit looked on while Jerin sat quietly on the couch, hands folded in her lap as she listened.
“Yes. Why? Is that not right?”
Brak tilted her head. “There is no ‘right’ and ‘not right.’ There’s just whatever you’re experiencing. I’ve never heard of such an organized dichotomy between memory storage and conscious thought. It’s fascinating.”
“But is that good? Or am I just some test specimen that has shown unusual properties? I’m looking for value judgments here.” She smiled wryly to make sure Brak knew she was kidding. Sort of.
Brak chose her words carefully. “I’d say it’s good, in that such organization bodes well for what I’ve designed for you.”
“Oh, good. I was hoping you had something awesome planned.”
Brak ignored her pseudo-humor. “I’ve devised an implant. Nothing like what must have been in your head previously. This is almost the reverse of that. Instead of holding information and pushing it out through your brain tissue, what I’ve devised will induct the memories. Serve as a synapse between them and your awareness.”
“If it works, will I be able to experience memories as actual memories? Or will they still be like objects that I look at?”
“My hope is to restore your normal cognitive function. So ideally, this would return you to your normal self. The same as you were before all of this happened.”
The way Fallon had been when she first went undercover to investigate Wren.
“You need to know that there are risks.” Jerin’s lovely voice belied the seriousness of her statement.
“Okay. Tell me.”
“First, this might not work at all. You might endure surgery for no benefit. The expected side effects of the surgery are similar to the procedure that Brak performed on you before. Headache, nausea, balance problems. If things go wrong, those problems could be permanent. Worse, we might end up damaging the memories that you already have. You need to think about this very carefully.”
She saw her teammates exchanging glances with one another, but she ignored them.
“So you’re saying that I could end up waking up with no memory of myself all over again? And have to start from scratch?” Fallon looked from Jerin to Brak.
“Yes,” Brak answered. “It’s a possibility.”
Fallon then looked at Peregrine, Hawk, and Raptor in turn. They all returned her gaze, saying nothing.
At least if things went wrong, she’d have her team to get her on track right from the beginning.
“When can we get started?”
14
Fragments Chapter 9
Brak began with tests. Fallon spent the morning submitting to those, then went to handle the matter Nevitt had foisted upon her. If she had to deal with Wren, she might as well do it while she still had all of her current memories intact.
Raptor might be the Ghost, but Fallon was not without skills of her own. After ensuring that Wren had left work, she made her way up to Wren’s quarters. Which happened to be the ones they had shared, back in their married days. Well, that ought to make this extra fun.
She touched the chime and let time tick by as she waited. When the doors whisked open and they saw each other face-to-face, Wren sucked in a loud breath. A momentary silence fell as they stared at one another.
Wren looked the same. Lovely, with her icy blue eyes and pale pink hair up in a messy b
un. She hadn’t yet pulled it down after her day of work.
“Can I come in?” Fallon asked.
Wren stepped back wordlessly, then gestured toward the sitting area of the living room. The doors closed behind them.
“Mind if I…” Fallon gestured vaguely at the quarters, asking permission to give it a security once-over to ensure no listening devices had been planted.
Wren made an impatient gesture, then crossed her arms and leaned against the wall.
Fallon made a quick physical check, but primarily used the small device she kept on her belt for just this purpose. Standard Blackout issue, with a few Peregrine modifications. It took up very little space alongside her comport and stinger.
When Fallon had finished, Wren just eyed her, still leaning against the wall. Okay, fine. Clearly she didn’t want to make this easy. Fallon sat on the edge of the couch, folding her hands over her knees.
“This wasn’t my idea. Nevitt insisted.” She decided to get straight to the point. Making pithy remarks about how she hoped Wren had been well would only piss off her former wife.
“Why?” The single word came out sharp.
“She says your work performance has been less than satisfactory.” That wiped the wary, vaguely hostile look off Wren’s face. Fallon wasn’t sure indignation was an improvement, but at least it was a change.
“I’ve gotten all my work done on time. That’s ridiculous.” Wren pushed away from the wall and flopped down into the chair alongside the couch.
“Nonetheless. I’ve been sent to straighten you out.” Fallon lifted her chin slightly. A challenge. Wren had once been able to read her. She was willing to bet she still could.
Wren’s eyes narrowed. “You’re just about the last person who could help.” At least she’d moved on to open anger. That was more productive.
“Since it’s my fault to begin with, right?”
“Exactly.” Wren took a breath and straightened, sitting up taller.
Fallon leaned forward, her hands still on her knees. “I’m very sorry for any unhappiness I’ve caused you, Wren. I really am.”
