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

by Zen DiPietro

  She dragged herself out onto the cool deck plate of the cargo bay. She’d thought it would make her feel better but it didn’t. Her lungs were on fire. Breach gas, then. Her lungs had been scorched from the inside by the very thing designed to keep her ship from bursting into flames and exploding.

  She appreciated the irony as she sank into darkness.

  A tiny door appeared in the gloom. The tall rectangle of orange seemed lit from within as it hovered in the haze.

  She reached out for it, only to find she had no hands. No, wait, she did. She could feel the fingers of one of them on the opposite arm. But she couldn’t see them because they were as dark and hazy as the shadows around her.

  She emerged in a room, though she hadn’t taken any steps. She’d simply materialized there, standing in what looked like a dorm. Or an efficiency apartment, maybe.

  “That’s stupid.” She heard her own voice and turned toward the sound. She saw a young version of herself perched on the edge of a bed, hands curled into fists in her lap. “Why would we settle for less? I want to be the best.”

  A teenage Raptor sat next to her, taking her hand and prying it open, then pressing his palm to hers and entwining their fingers. “It wouldn’t be less if we were together,” he argued. “And we might even live to see old age. Does that not sound at all good to you?”

  She started to pull away, then sighed and leaned into him instead. He wrapped his arm around her.

  Fallon was struck by the tortured expression on his face as he held the earlier version of her. Realization dropped into her stomach like a ton of hot slag. He loved her. Really loved her.

  Judging by the conflict on her own younger face, she loved him too. Prelin’s ass. That certainly complicated things. Why had he lied? No, she knew why. To keep things between them less complicated. Because complication sucked.

  She stepped closer, studying the young couple. They looked strong and healthy, though he was much more attractive than her. Even this young, Raptor had a rakish charm, along with an appealing earnestness.

  “I’ve aimed my whole life at being the best,” she watched herself say. “As much as I care about you, I can’t forget about that. If I missed my opportunity, I might grow to resent you. Maybe even hate you.”

  He rubbed her hand between both of his, hope morphing into grim acceptance. “I guess that’s it, then.”

  “I’m sorry. This is just the way I’m made.” Her eyes pleaded with him to understand. To not be hurt by her refusal. But Fallon could see the loss already taking the glow from him.

  “I know. I always knew that.” He nudged her and smiled. “I just thought it was worth a try. To be sure. Now we know.”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “After graduation, we’ll have to find a way to be just partners.”

  Even then, they’d known the parameters of the job they’d be taking on. Maintaining a deep tie would compromise both of them in too many ways.

  “I know.” Young Fallon raised her hands to cup his face. She leaned in and kissed him tenderly. “That’s three weeks away though. For now, we can just…” She trailed off, sliding into his lap and running her hands under his shirt. Raptor didn’t argue with her plan.

  Fallon felt torn about remaining. The memory rightfully belonged to her, and Raptor had the same images in his head. But watching it from the outside still gave her a creepy feeling of voyeurism, and that was so not her thing. So she turned away, leaving the past to be swallowed again by the shadows.

  She woke up to agony slicing its way across her back. She groaned, only to find her lungs sore. She coughed on the roughness of her own breath.

  “Easy.” The dim illumination increased and she saw Raptor next to her. She lay in the tiny infirmary, on a basic version of a techbed. Enough to get the job done, but without the comfort of a full-sized one.

  “How’s my ship?” she croaked, trying to sit up.

  Raptor laughed as he adjusted the techbed controls, bringing the bed to a moderate incline. “In about the same shape as you. Shitty, but surviving.” He handed her a cup of biogel.

  Drinking it didn’t quench the soreness in her lungs, but it eased her throat. “And the rest of you?” She looked him over, but other than fatigue, he looked okay.

  “A little banged up, but fine.”

  “My diagnosis?” Each word hurt, so she opted for brevity.

  “Third-degree burns down your back. Chemical burns in your lungs. But you’re on the mend, and you’ll feel much better in a day or two.”

  “Repairs?” She had no idea how much damage the Nefarious had taken.

  “We’ll make it to Dragonfire, as long as we don’t get any more company. By the time we arrive, you’ll be feeling better. I wish we could deliver you to their infirmary sooner, but if we try to push the engines harder, we might lose them.”

  Yeah, no one wanted to sit in a fireball. She’d given that a whirl, and it wasn’t that great.

  She handed the empty cup back to him. “Thanks.” Not just for the biogel, but for taking care of her, and updating her on the ship. Everything. She knew that he understood.

  “Sure. Now settle down and rest. I want to keep you here for the rest of the day, and if you remain stable, I’ll release you to your berth. I’ll continue to monitor you there.”

  She nodded and lay back. She was tired. As long as no more ships showed up, she wouldn’t mind just resting for a while.

  She re-evaluated her priorities when nestled in a tight little berth with Raptor hovering over her, probably counting her respirations. The pain in her lungs had eased, though her back still felt completely raw. That was to be expected, after all of the flesh had been regenerated from the muscles up. She’d been lucky it hadn’t been worse. Though when every movement brought a new wave of pain, she didn’t feel so lucky.

  “Hungry?” Raptor asked once she’d settled onto a stool in her berth. A backless seat felt far more comfortable than the techbed had. She’d tried to insist on going to the bridge but he’d shut her down cold. When it came to medical decisions, Raptor had the final say.

  “No.” The idea of food made her stomach go sideways.

  “Maybe a smoothie? Would get some nutrition into you and should feel good on your throat.”

  That sounded nice, actually. “All right.”

  He smiled. “I’ll be right back.”

  She felt relieved when he left. Her memory of them together replayed itself in her head. Whether or not he still harbored any such feelings for her, he once had, and it made her feel squicky about him sharing her quarters. She knew the only way to exorcise it all would be to talk to him about it, but that seemed like a really crappy conversation that she didn’t want to have.

  So when he returned and handed her the smoothie, she took a sip and delved right in. “You lied.”

  His face creased with puzzlement. “About what?”

  “Us. You said we mutually agreed that our jobs precluded a relationship.”

  “No. That’s true.”

  She took another sip of the smoothie, which was creamy, laden with tart tango fruit, and actually quite tasty. She shook her head at him. “Yeah, it’s true, but it’s not the whole story. I saw us talking about it. In a dorm room.”

  His face went still. “Oh.”

  She sipped her smoothie, feeling a little ridiculous about doing so during this particular conversation—but darn if the thing wasn’t delicious, and she found she’d actually been quite hungry after all.

  “So…what do you want me to say?” he asked.

  She felt horribly tired, suddenly. She was tired of not knowing her past, not knowing her future, not knowing anything at all. She wanted at least to know where she stood with him.

  “Are you in love with me?”

  Raptor grimaced. “It isn’t that easy. You and I are like emergency ballistics foam. Nonreactive most of the time, but in a crisis situation, we go straight to basic chemistry. An explosive reaction that fills in all the gaps and m
akes everything solid.”

  She pressed on. “You said before that we’ve hooked up. After our breakup at the academy.”

  He rubbed his chin. “Yeah. On rare occasion. When things have been dicey and we’re jumping out of our skin with adrenaline and the fact that we’re still breathing. It’s not like we have romantic dinners and take long walks while holding hands.”

  “But are you in love with me?”

  He sighed. “Fallon…”

  “It’s a yes or no question.”

  His expression tightened, angry. “It really isn’t. You’re reducing something complicated into a toggle switch, and life doesn’t work that way. You used to know that.”

  It was an unkind thing to say, but she refused to be sidetracked. “Fine. Were you ever in love with me?” She’d seen it in the memory and already knew the answer, but she wanted to hear it from him.

  His anger drained away and his shoulders slumped. “Before we joined Blackout, I’d have said yes. But this life we lead, it’s not like other people’s lives. It changed things. Changed how we are.”

  “So you’re over it, then.”

  He shifted restlessly, trying to pace but coming up short in the tight space. “Dammit, Fallon. I’m not someone who buys a house and comes home from work every day. I don’t expect to live to see old age, much less to have someone to grow old with. I intend to keep going out into the abyss, doing my job, until one day I don’t come back. There’s no future there. We decided that, years ago.”

  She could just let it go. Just sidestep the situation. Tiptoe around it. But that wasn’t her thing. She wanted all the truth about her past, not assumptions and innuendos. “That’s a lot of words that aren’t a straight answer.”

  And the anger returned. His face flushed. “What do you want? You want me to say that you’re the love of my life, whatever that means? That when I die, I hope it’s your arms I bleed out into?” His voice had been rising steadily, and at this point he was shouting at her. “Fine! But it doesn’t mean anything! It’s just…sentimentality. The stuff that sneaks up on you in the dark when you see the time on your counter about to reach zero. That’s it.”

  His voice softened, returning to a normal volume. “You used to understand all that.”

  She still did. She understood it perfectly, and that might make him the perfect match for her, in all their broken ways. If she wanted a match. Which she didn’t.

  “Life’s more complicated than it seems,” she admitted. Her smoothie had lost its appeal and she set it on the tiny side table.

  He leaned against the bulkhead. “Avian Unit is all we need. The four of us have nearly died for one another a bunch of times. That’s what we do.”

  “What’s wrong with us that made us choose this life?” She felt almost philosophical about it, wondering what made her so different from all of her friends back at Dragonfire Station. Whatever it was, Raptor had it too.

  He lifted a careless shoulder. “There’s nothing wrong with being what we are. We use it for the benefit of other people. If we did it the other way…yeah, we’d be monsters.”

  “A fine line, then.”

  He ignored her amusement. “I don’t need to soul search to justify my place in the universe.”

  Her amusement disappeared. “Because you already did that, and came to your conclusion. But I’m doing my reckoning right now.”

  He blinked, suddenly looking contrite. “Damn. You’re right. I’m sorry. You’re just figuring it out again and I’m yelling at you.” He sighed, sinking onto the bottom bunk. “Ask me whatever you want, if it helps to get you back to where you were. I’ll answer. Without yelling.”

  She couldn’t think what else to say. His sudden submission brought her up short. But the truth was, he couldn’t give her the answers she wanted. Only she could figure herself out.

  A wicked look gleamed in his eyes. “I could tell you about how you’ve always liked it when I—”

  She sensed a lascivious comment coming on. Ignoring the pain in her back, she stood to bend at the waist to cut off whatever stupid thing he was about to say with a kiss.

  He wrapped his arms around her and returned the kiss, standing and crowding her space until she was forced to step back. The bulkhead pressed against her spine, which hurt like hell, but reminded her that she was alive.

  “Don’t start something with me just to see if you can,” he warned, giving her a hard look. She was tired of him knowing her better than she knew herself. Maybe it was time to change the rules on him.

  She wound her fingers into his hair and pulled his head back down to her.

  Fallon felt squished. Her shoulder ached. She tried to roll over, only to tumble off the bunk and land on her back, which flared with pain. She sucked in a breath and let loose a string of curses.

  Raptor roused, sitting up on the bunk with a deep, sleepy breath. Then he saw her and moved to help. “You okay?”

  “My back.”

  He carefully helped her up without touching her most hurty places.

  “Wait, are you smiling?” she demanded. “I’m in pain here.”

  His smile grew into a grin. “Yeah. Bare-assed and previously burned to a crisp, now flopping around on the floor like a fish out of water. It’s funny.”

  She pushed him away. “You were a lot nicer and more sympathetic in the infirmary.”

  “You were my patient then. Now you’re— ” he gestured at their mutual nudity, “—not.”

  “You treat patients better than lovers?” She didn’t bother to cover up. She had a strong, healthy body and nothing to hide.

  “Seems like it.” He continued to grin. “Maybe you made a bad choice.”

  No. No, she really hadn’t. That could work just fine for her, actually. “Could you at least check my back and make sure I haven’t done something to make it worse?”

  His gentle hands turned her around, then trailed slowly over her skin and down her spine. Her newly regenerated flesh tingled, still painful, but now something else too. She backed up, closing the space between them. She felt his chest against her backbone and his thighs against hers. She rested her head in the junction between his shoulder and throat as his arm curled around her waist, which pinched her skin against her receiver bracelet.

  “This is a mistake, you know,” he breathed in her ear. “Really stupid of us.”

  She turned in his arms, letting her hands slide up his stomach to his chest. “Definitely. But I’m writing my own rules from now on.”

  In spite of Raptor’s frequent reminders of their enormous folly, Fallon still didn’t feel bad about it when they docked at Dragonfire. He hadn’t moved out of her berth, either. That would change when Fallon returned to the executive suite she shared with Peregrine. She wondered if that would change things between her and Raptor.

  Her back and lungs both felt better, and she was greatly relieved to know that her darling Nefarious would also soon be better, under the tender mercies of Wren’s prodigious mechanical skills.

  And did Fallon feel bad about her own crossed wires and complicated relationships? Not a damn bit. Actually, she felt pretty good about it. She’d finally taken over the pilot’s seat of her own life. The status quo had gotten them all into this situation to begin with. She’d make it all up as she went along, from here on out.

  Practice, she thought. For the work ahead of us.

  The airlock pressurized, and she gave the pilot’s chair of the Nefarious an affectionate pat before disembarking.

  Peregrine went with Raptor to deliver the tech and scientific data they’d stolen from the lab to Brak. That allowed Fallon and Nevitt to have a long-overdue conversation.

  Fallon laid it all out for Nevitt. All of the need-to-know information she’d previously withheld now pertained to the captain, and Nevitt listened to everything with a grim but open expression.

  “So,” the captain said, primly settling herself on the couch in Fallon’s suite. “What now?”

  “Brak’s look
ing at what we took from the lab. Raptor and Ross are also scouring the data. We’re sure it has what we need.”

  Nevitt shifted, resting one arm along the back of the couch in a much more casual posture. “And if I decide I don’t want my station to become the headquarters of a rebel alliance bent on taking down a branch of intelligence I’m not even supposed to know exists?” She arched a supercilious eyebrow.

  “Then we’ll move elsewhere. But Dragonfire is the perfect location for what we need to do. And I can ensure it’s defended.”

  Nevitt stared her down. “Even against the PAC?”

  One of the smiles Hawk hated slid across Fallon’s face, in spite of her best intentions. “Absolutely. The connections we have—” She broke off. Nevitt needn’t know details about that. She rearranged her face into something less maniacal. “I can make sure we’re fortified and protected.” She met Nevitt’s gaze and stared right back at her.

  Nevitt rubbed her thumb over her lower lip, back and forth. Finally she nodded. “This is either going to save the PAC or result in our fiery deaths. But as things stand, our futures don’t look good anyway. So I’m in.” She narrowed her eyes at Fallon. “And I mean all the way in. I expect to be part of every decision, and kept informed of every development. I realize I don’t have command authority over you and your unit, but I’m the authority on this station. Understood?”

  Fallon gave a small bow of her shoulders and head from her seated position. A sign of respect and acquiescence. “I expected no less.”

  Nevitt sighed. “I knew you’d be trouble the first time I saw you.” She pursed her lips wryly. “But I never would have guessed you’d bring a Blackout unit here and use my station to stage an insurrection.”

  “We’re not the ones who started the insurrection,” Fallon argued. “Krazinski is. The PAC is founded on laws and treaties that he’s trampled right over. He’s the one putting us on a short road toward galactic war. We are the ones protecting the entire PAC.”

  “From the outside, and in violation of oh-so-many laws and directives.”

  Fallon smiled. “I didn’t say it would be easy.”