by Zen DiPietro
“Don’t tease. But that would be nice,” Wren admitted. “Not that I want anyone to get hurt.”
“You just like the more interesting jobs. I know.”
Wren smiled and took the last bite of her blistercake. “Want to watch a holo-vid tonight?”
“I’d love to, but I’ll have to see how the day goes.”
“Right. Spy shit, and all.” Wren began clearing the table.
“That’s my life.” Fallon finished her own blistercake and gathered her dishes, taking them into the kitchenette.
“Yeah. I’m okay with it.” Wren leaned back against the cabinet and pulled Fallon into a hug. “I’m sure I don’t even know what that really means yet, but I’ll learn.”
“You’re sure you want to deal with that?” Fallon didn’t know what this conversation was leading to.
“Yes. I love you. Whether your name is Em or Fallon or Rikivontagu. I love you. Your heart, your humor, your way of being all hard on the outside but all soft on the inside. I’m in this long term. You’ve never been just an amore to me.” Wren fixed her with an intense look. She clearly needed Fallon to know that their relationship had never been a casual affair to her.
There are some statements and questions that, no matter how you answer, you’re screwed. Even taking too long to answer means you’re screwed. And as much as Fallon didn’t want to be quiet for too long, she wanted even more not to say the wrong thing that she could never take back.
But rather than be offended, Wren smiled and kissed Fallon’s nose. “Relax. I’m not asking for anything. Married, not married, monogamous, free…I don’t care about all that. You humans have the worst time appreciating what you have. You have to put all this energy into owning someone, or being owned. That’s the one thing you never really understood about me. I thought you’d started to loosen up, considering that good-looking teammate of yours.” She gently traced her fingers over the back of Fallon’s neck. “I don’t need any more than to know that we have this, and that we’re going to keep having this.”
“So what you’re saying is that you have other people you don’t want to stop seeing naked.” Fallon couldn’t say it without laughing, even though she’d intended to be deadpan.
Wren pressed closer and kissed Fallon’s earlobe. “You’re my favorite person to be naked with, the only one I love beyond reason, no questions asked. And if you really wanted to go back to monogamy we could. But I think we’d both be happier if we didn’t. Don’t you, Lady Spy Shit? With all of your stunts and intrigue, don’t you want to be able to live on the edge without worrying about petty jealousy?”
“Well, when you put it that way, it does sound more convenient.”
Wren leaned in for a feather-soft kiss. “Why do humans measure different loves against one another, then limit themselves to only one? Why not take all the passion you can get? Our lives are short. Shouldn’t we enjoy all the love we can while we have the chance?”
It sounded kind of familiar, if Fallon replaced “love” with “adventure.” And in some respects, the two weren’t that different. “I guess I can work on it.”
“Would anything you did mean you loved me any less?” Wren dropped a line of kisses along Fallon’s jaw.
“No.” Fallon’s answer came out on a soft breath. She steadied herself and spoke deliberately. “Wren, you’re a better person than I am. Always have been. You’re kinder, warmer, and so full of love that you’re like a pillow and a supernova all at once. And you’re so strong. You’ve bounced right back from every hard thing that’s ever come your way. You’re everything I’m not, and being with you makes me better. Even Raptor said so.”
Wren’s lips parted and her eyes grew shiny. “You’re better than you think. You could have refused to believe me after what I did. I should be in a brig, not here with you. Don’t think I don’t know that. You have more heart than you let on.”
Fallon found the bottom seam of Wren’s lounge shirt and slid her fingers beneath, feeling the soft warmth of her skin. “I don’t think you have an accurate perception of me.”
“I do,” Wren breathed against her neck. She pressed her lips to Fallon’s pulse. “And you know what else?”
“What?” Fallon was as fascinated as she was apprehensive.
“You’re going to be late to work for the first time in your whole, damn, disciplined life.” She cupped Fallon’s face and drew her into a deep and entirely disorienting kiss.
And she was absolutely right about that one.
Fallon skipped her morning run, enabling her to make it to work only a few minutes late. She preferred to maintain a routine, but she lived in strange times when her enemy turned out to be her lover and the person who felt like her other half wasn’t talking to her. Not to mention that her government was tearing itself apart, her uncle was a monster, and the captain who had hated her now chugged drinks with her at the pub. Up was down, down was sideways, and what the hell. She was just riding the tide.
She’d barely begun her morning tasks when she received a call from the Deck One security office.
“Chief, we’re getting a strange request to dock. No flight plan filed, no previous intent to dock received, and this ship’s registry isn’t on record.”
Fallon sat up straight. “What did the message say?”
Her officer’s face scrunched up. “Just a docking request. No data, none of the normal protocol. It’s like he’s never done a docking before.”
“A refugee?” Fallon suggested. They occasionally ended up at Dragonfire.
“Maybe.” The officer frowned. “There was something about it that felt odd.”
“Give him permission to dock, but don’t open the airlock until I arrive.”
“Understood.” The officer gave a quick bow and her image blinked out.
Fallon stood and smoothed her uniform. “Well, this should be interesting.”
Fallon sat in Deck One’s security office. Her staff stood nearby as she connected to the communications system of the mysterious cruiser. “This is Chief Fallon, head of security. What is your purpose for visiting Dragonfire Station?”
The response was immediate. “I’m looking for someone. I heard he might be there.”
Someone tracking a criminal, maybe? A law enforcement official would know proper docking protocol, so perhaps a bounty hunter? “What’s his name? Perhaps I can be of assistance.”
“He doesn’t seem to have a last name. People just call him Hawk.”
Fallon kept her face expressionless. “Unidentified vessel, a security team will come and admit you through the airlock. Be aware that Dragonfire’s security is second to none. We will tolerate no infractions.”
“Believe me, Chief, the last thing I’m looking for is trouble.”
Fallon closed the circuit, puzzled. “All right. Orowitz and Chen, you’re with me.”
They were two of her higher-ranking staff. Good weapon accuracy. Chen had a particularly high aptitude for code breaking, while Orowitz had a knack for languages.
They followed her down to Docking Bay Six. As she entered, she could see their visitor on the other side of the airlock, peering through. He appeared to be a few years older than her, human, and a little rough around the edges.
She touched the voicecom panel. “I’m going to open the airlock, Mr…” She let a pause draw out, inviting him to fill in his name.
“Lim.”
“Mr. Lim. Then—”
“Just Lim. No Mr.”
“Fine,” she continued. “I’ll let you through, Lim, and then you can tell me why you’re here.”
He nodded, and she activated the airlock’s opening sequence.
He stepped through, his wariness clear in his stance and expression. He wore fine clothes, but his hair was unkempt and he had a generally haphazard look about him. Her instinct told her there was something peculiar about this guy.
She bowed.
“Oh, right. Bows.” He bent at the waist, a little too deeply for the circum
stances.
“Welcome to Dragonfire Station, Lim. I’m Security Chief Fallon, and these are two of my staff, Lieutenants Chen and Orowitz.”
Lim nodded to them, but his eyes remained on her. “Just Fallon? No other name?”
“Yes. Why didn’t you transmit your credentials prior to docking?”
“I lost them.”
Fallon frowned at him. “Misplaced, or revoked from you by the government?”
His eyes flicked from her to the other two security officers. “My story’s a little unusual.”
“You’d be surprised how many unusual stories I’ve heard.”
“Can we talk alone?” He fidgeted.
Fallon didn’t want the situation to escalate into something adversarial. That would only make matters more complicated, and she had enough complications on her hands already.
“Do you mind being searched for weapons beforehand?”
Surprise replaced his wary expression. “No. I’m no threat to anybody.”
Her officers did a thorough scan of him and performed a physical pat down. An archaic check, but a good one when you were watching out for spies.
“We can go to my office,” she said, nodding at her officers to dismiss them.
She watched his eyes as they walked. They darted around, as if they’d never viewed a space station, noting every detail. He was in good shape. Athletic, and a few centimeters taller than her. He was a mix of genetic backgrounds that she had a hard time identifying. Part human, probably. She guessed him to be in his early twenties.
They said little on the trip up to her office. She watched him study the lift, the door to her office, and finally, its interior. There was a hypervigilance to him.
“So.” She sat on one couch and indicated that he should do the same on the other. “What brings you to Dragonfire?”
“I’m looking for a guy named Hawk.”
“You know him?”
“No. Someone told me that he’d help me.”
“Who?” Fallon asked.
“I don’t know who she was. A doctor, but I didn’t know her name. She helped me out of a situation, told me to find Hawk.”
“What makes you think he’s here?”
He chewed on his lip before answering. “I’ve been looking for him for about a year and a half. It’s not easy finding someone when you know nothing but a name.”
“So what led you here?”
“I figured if the guy can help someone who’s in trouble, he might have been in trouble in the past, or at least know people who are. So I started thinking about multi-planet operations, the kind of stuff that isn’t terribly legal. Smuggling. Bogus identification. Things people keep off the books.”
Very smart. Fallon was impressed. The pieces fell right into place and made his story ring true so far.
He continued, “I did a little off-books trading. Nothing illegal, just untraceable. But I made some contacts and a little money to live on. Eventually I met a guy named Arcy. Said he knew Hawk and would tell me where he last knew Hawk to be if I did some work for him.”
“What was the work?”
He shrugged. “Delivering a package. I didn’t ask what it was. But he told me that I’d be able to find Hawk here.”
Arcy and Hawk had a strong partnership. Either Arcy had screwed Hawk over to benefit himself, or he had decided that Lim was trustworthy. Since Lim seemed to have little to offer, she was betting that Arcy had vetted him and determined him to be legit. Which was interesting.
When she didn’t respond right away, Lim asked, “Is he here?”
“What if he isn’t?”
“I’ll go find Arcy and shake him down for why he lied.”
Fallon couldn’t fault that plan. She’d do the same thing. “And if he is here?”
“I need to see him. Right away.”
“Why?”
Lim’s green eyes glowed with intensity. “I’m hoping he can tell me who I am.”
Fallon dismissed her lieutenants and took Lim to her office to wait for Hawk. When he arrived, she could practically smell his suspicion.
Lim frowned at Fallon’s hulk of a partner. “You’re Hawk?”
“Yeah. Who are you?”
Lim ignored the question. “How do I know you’re the guy I’m looking for?”
Hawk pushed back into the couch cushion and rubbed his jaw. “Hell if I know. How am I supposed to prove it when neither of us knows the other?”
Lim’s shoulders slumped. “I guess I should have asked Arcy for some way to know for sure.”
Hawk’s eyes narrowed. “Arcy? Pale little guy? About a meter and a half?”
“No. Dark as night, and almost as tall as you, though his frame is smaller. Likes to swear in some language that seems to involve a lot of spitting.”
“Sartrevian,” Hawk answered. “Very difficult language. I never did manage to learn much of it. Shtiptu mokovol flistivtu.”
He did appear to spit a couple times in the process of speaking.
“That’s it!” Lim’s words vibrated with excitement. “That’s what he said when he dropped a pipe wrench on his foot.” He beamed. “You are Hawk.” He relaxed back into the couch with a look of contentment, as if now that he’d found Hawk, his work was done.
“So what is it you want from me?” Hawk asked.
Lim glanced at Fallon and back to Hawk.
“You can trust her with anything you tell me,” Hawk said. “She’s my partner. One of ’em, anyway.”
“There are more of you?” Lim looked pleased, as if more people increased his odds somehow.
“And some associates too. We’re growing.” Hawk smirked. “We’ve had to recruit, so to speak.”
Lim chewed his lip. “I don’t actually know why I was supposed to find you. The woman just told me that you’d make everything stop.”
“Make what stop?” Hawk asked.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you know?” By this point, Hawk seemed more intrigued than annoyed.
“Not much, to tell the truth. I woke up in a jail cell. I didn’t know where or who I was. I was taken to this guy called Admiral, who told me to assemble a plasma converter.”
Hawk nodded, encouraging Lim to continue.
“I did it, but not as well as he wanted. He ordered my guards to take me to get some food. They fed me well, treated me okay. But I kept seeing pity when they looked at me, and it wasn’t hard to figure out that I was doomed. And I was remembering these little bits. A security code, the face of a woman, just little flashes without any context. Then the guards said it was time for me to see the doctor, and I got the feeling it was the last thing I’d ever do. So I grabbed a stinger from one, knocked them out, and ran.”
He looked from Hawk to Fallon.
“What happened?” Hawk asked.
He licked his lips. “Those little flashes were all I remembered, but they got me to a docking bay. I hadn’t even known I was on a station. I got stuck, unable to get to the shuttle, but the woman from my memory showed up and helped me. She wouldn’t come with me though. She said she had to help the next one, that it was all her fault. Then she said, ‘Find Hawk. He’ll make it all stop.’”
Fallon raised an eyebrow at Hawk, but he only shrugged. “What did she look like?” he asked.
“Bennite. Pretty. No Bennite accent, though. Medium height. Right-handed.”
Fallon and Hawk exchanged another look.
“Ugh, stop with the looks!” Lim burst out. “Just say what you’re thinking. Does any of this make sense to you?”
“Some of it sounds familiar,” Fallon said slowly. “What can you tell me other than that experience? Anything from before.”
“Nothing. I don’t remember a thing before that day. Everything else is what I’ve experienced in the past eighteen months or so. Including learning how to pilot the shuttle. If it hadn’t had autopilot when I escaped, I’d have been dead.”
“You think they were going to kill you?” Hawk asked.
“Yeah.” Lim looked to some far-off point in the room. “I definitely had that feeling, and I assume it was why the woman wanted me to escape.”
Fallon moved closer to the couch Lim sat on. “So you haven’t recovered any memories in the past year? No dreams that felt like they could be memories? No additional flashes of knowledge?”
For each question, he shook his head. If what had happened to him was related to what had happened to her, they’d had very different experiences.
“Here’s my problem,” she said. “I’m not going to bullshit you. You’re in serious trouble. I don’t know if your kind of trouble is our kind of trouble, but whoever sent you to Hawk was right—he and the rest of our team are trying to fix some things, and we’ll look out for you. Provided you don’t give us a reason not to.”
Lim frowned. “I won’t. So long as you are the good guys.”
Fallon stifled a sigh. “Unfortunately, ‘good guy’ and ‘bad guy’ don’t seem to mean as much as they used to.” She stood. “Okay. So I’ll assign you quarters. You’ll be staying with Hawk. Hawk, you’ll be moving to the next suite over, and Raptor and Ross will gain a whole lot of space.”
He smirked at her. “Not all of us can fit into a suitcase.”
She flashed him a grin. Lim seemed puzzled by their interaction. “You’ll get used to it,” she promised. “If you’re around long enough.”
Lim’s mouth tightened. “I will be. If I don’t belong here, I don’t belong anywhere.”
Hawk patted his shoulder on their way out. “Hold that thought, young’un. All of us might just belong nowhere.”
On that cryptic note, Fallon locked up her office and followed Hawk and their new hope.
“So Hawk’s over there, babysitting the guy?” Peregrine seemed less than impressed.
“Pretty much,” admitted Fallon. “I wanted a chance to meet as a team before deciding what to do with him. And I didn’t want to leave Lim on his own, even if he is only next door.” She rested her hand on the arm of the couch in Raptor and Ross’s quarters.
“Distrust, or concern for him?” Hesta asked.
“More the first. A little of the second.” Fallon smoothed her hand over the leg of her uniform pants.
