The Dragon Corps

by Natalie Grey

  “Yeah, yeah.” Nyx gave him a look. “So what’s this about one of our crew? Because I’m absolutely religious about counting the crew, and I can tell you for a fact they were all on board when we left.”

  “You’re only religious about it because of that time you lost Jim,” Talon muttered.

  “He’s very quiet, it’s easy to think he’s there when he’s not.”

  “Uh-huh.” Mallory bent to pick up her rifle and headed off into the alleyway. “Anyway, I’m assuming you’re not going to tell me yet why central command wants you dead—”

  “Nope.”

  “—so I’m going to go dark for a few weeks.” She looked over her shoulder. “You can probably find me if you need to. Same with Mase and Python, I’d think, but just in case someone else doesn’t think of it the way we do….”

  “I’ll be careful,” Talon promised.

  “And come get your rookie,” she added.

  Liam woke up with a start. There was someone by his bunk, someone who was not Wraith. His nose caught the scents of old water and broken concrete and the faint smell of a discharged weapon, and he looked up into eyes that glinted faintly green in the light from the Conway’s corridors.

  “Get up,” Talon Rift said shortly. “There was an opening on the team at the last minute.” He was gone just as quickly, but he stuck his head back in the door as Liam sat up muzzily, trying to parse what had just happened. “And I’m given to understand you made a rather impressive speech that might have saved my ass. So thank you.”

  “I—what?”

  “Move,” came the voice. “Wings up in five minutes.”

  24

  “Rest assured, if I had that information, I would give it to you.” Lesedi frowned at Talon.

  “You’re not listening to my question,” Talon said smoothly. “I didn’t ask you who the Warlord of Ymir was, I asked you for your best leads on who he might be.”

  Lesedi stared at him for a long moment. “You already know, don’t you? And I’m not going to get to see you in a tutu, am I? That’s a disappointment.”

  “How about this.” Tersi scooched his chair over and leaned on the arm to smile at Lesedi. “If you give him the leads, he’ll still do the tutu thing.”

  Talon looked over at him. “Okay, first of all? How are we going to get into the Opera House?”

  “We’ve broken onto ships traveling FTL.” Tersi gave him a confused look. “What on earth would make you think we’ll have a problem with an Opera house? Do they even have security?”

  “Read the room, Tersi.”

  “Fine.” Tersi rolled himself back across the floor. “Try getting the information out of her without that.”

  “Well, that’s not going to work now, is it?”

  “No,” Nyx and Lesedi said in unison.

  Talon dropped his head onto the desk with a groan, and gave himself a moment to mourn the version of his life where he had some semblance of dignity left.

  “Fine.” He picked his head up. “When I come back to Seneca, I will take time out of my very busy schedule of fighting off assassins, in order to dance around in a tutu on the stage of the Opera House. I give you my word. The last time I made a promise, it was to free a planet and kill a psychotic warlord. This time, it’s to put on a frilly dress and prance around. I hope you’re all happy with yourselves.”

  There was a pause.

  “Yes.” All three of them spoke in unison.

  Talon looked around himself. “I’m going to remember this. You all just wait, because someday I’m gonna get payback. With interest.”

  “Mmm.” Lesedi looked off to the side, focusing on what Talon guessed was another computer screen, and there was the sound of keys tapping away. “Well, I’ve sent you everything I have.” She leaned back in her chair. “And I suppose you’ll know about the four Dragon teams that have gone dark….”

  “Four?” Talon had stopped dissembling when it came to her. “I only knew about three.”

  “The fourth was this morning. Team 17.”

  Talon’s eyebrows rose. Alina Kuznetsova, known before her command as Suka, was one of the Dragon commanders about whom the least was known. She was precise, cold as a glacier, and if she’d ever run a joint mission with another team, Talon hadn’t heard about it.

  He hoped like hell she had gone dark because she wasn’t planning to kill him, not because she’d taken the job.

  “Keep an eye on that, would you?”

  From the way Lesedi nodded, he could tell that she knew the orders the other commanders had gotten.

  “Be careful.” She was smiling. “I’d hate to have you die before I had a chance to see you in that tutu.” She nodded past Talon. “Nyx. Tersi.” She ended the call with a flash of a smile.

  “Well, then,” Talon said.

  “Why didn’t you tell her?” Tersi asked. His loyalty had been vouched for by Nyx, who had left him in charge of the Ariane while she went to Talon’s aid.

  “She’s already got a target on her back,” Talon said. “And anyone who knows is on a very short list to die at this point.”

  “Yeah, thanks for that.” Tersi gave a wry smile and took a gulp of tea. “Well, let’s get you to this meeting then. If you’re planning to bluff this hard—”

  “Oh, I am.”

  “—then it’s best to get it over with. And if all else fails, you let us know and we’ll come in to get you.”

  “You really think you’ll make it up eight floors, just the two of you, without encountering any trouble?” Talon raised an eyebrow.

  “Of course not.” Tersi looked at Nyx and jerked his head at Talon as if to say, get a load of this guy.

  “We’d come in the window,” Nyx explained. “So if you get in trouble and push your panic button and, you know … duck.”

  Talon gave a snort of laughter. “Right. Well, take us in, and I’ll get ready.”

  Aleksander Soras raised his eyebrows and stared at the man in front of him before looking back to the letter in his hands. “You want to resign your commission?”

  “Yes.” Talon linked his hands behind his back and stared out the back window.

  “You’ll have to give me more than that, you know.” It was all he could do not to let dislike creep into his voice. This man was a thorn in his side, and Soras did not believe for a single moment that Talon intended to give up this fight. The man didn’t have it in him to cut and run—more the pity—and whatever had happened on Nimiset, he was still alive.

  “You’ve read the incident report, I’m sure.” Talon swallowed.

  “No.” Julian should have given it to him at once.

  Talon’s brow furrowed. “We filed it this morning.”

  “‘We’?”

  “Commander Alvarez and I, sir.”

  Nyx. Soras’s lips tightened. When it became clear that Talon was obsessed with Ymir, he’d sent several agents to see if she was open to bribery. He’d never disclosed just who she would be working for, simply that some information about Talon’s whereabouts and plans would be handsomely rewarded.

  She’d killed every one of the messengers.

  “Sum the report up for me,” he said.

  “I lost control of my team,” Talon said bluntly. “And it got two of them killed.”

  Soras went still. “Go on.” He did not bother to disguise his tone.

  “When I stopped on Nimiset, I insisted that I go alone to a meeting. Petty Officers Valkenburg and Rekowski seem to have followed me—or they may have been trying to meet sources on their own.” Talon’s green eyes met Soras’s at last. “I’m not sure, to be honest with you. They didn’t tell anyone their plans.”

  Soras frowned. The lie—surely it was a lie, it must be—was audacious. There was no way Mars and Camorra could be dead without Talon knowing why. From his continued survival, Soras had been sure that they had failed, but….

  He had to know. He must know.

  But his silence, quite unexpectedly, seemed to spur Talon int
o speech again, like a nervous schoolboy.

  “I failed them.” There was real grief in his voice. “They should have been able to tell me where they were going.”

  Soras narrowed his eyes slightly. Was this real? There was no doubting the sincerity of the grief, and Talon was someone he would think would have no regrets about killing traitors. After the mission on the slaving ship, any hint of a conscience was unexpected.

  Had he entirely misjudged this man?

  For the first time, Soras felt a budding rage at his own inadequacy. He could pull out a gun and fire, but he’d seen Dragons spar—even if it was only a reaction based on instinct, Talon might still kill him. And even if Talon died, his crew would never let it go. There would be no staying safe from them … them, and any other teams who took up their cause.

  Goddammit, why was it so hard to get rid of one stubborn soldier?

  One thing was certain, though: however dangerous Talon was as a Dragon commander, he was more dangerous as a free agent. Soras wanted him using Alliance resources, things Intelligence could track.

  “I don’t accept your resignation,” he said bluntly. He saw Talon’s surprise, and the argument on his lips, and he held up his hand. “My answer is final. Do better next time. I will inform the families.”

  Talon stood as if frozen, and Soras stared him down. “You have chosen dangerous prey, Major. Some casualties are inevitable, wouldn’t you agree?” It was a long shot, but if Talon was this shaken by two dead soldiers … perhaps there was still a way to talk him out of this crusade.

  But Talon only nodded jerkily.

  “Yes,” he said quietly. “I will do better. Thank you, sir.”

  In the hallway outside, Talon descended the stairs quickly and quietly. His fingers were still itching with the desire to crush the life out of Soras then and there.

  But a man didn’t get to where Soras was, without a network of traitors—both in Intelligence and the military, and in politics.

  And he made a promise to himself that Soras wasn’t going to die until he had led Talon to every single one of his allies.

  Epilogue

  The klaxon blared and the metal grate rose to disgorge a shifts’ worth of exhausted miners onto the streets of Io district. The sun was sinking fast, and Samara and Stefan disappeared into the tunnels that led down to the mines, bumping their hips tiredly against the chip counter that kept track of the workers.

  The shift hadn’t even started yet, and already Samara could feel the ache of exhaustion in her bones. The air rising out of the elevator shaft was hot and filled with soot. Some of the new shift workers were already coughing, the wheeze that claimed most in time.

  They huddled together as the lift made its halting way down, chains catching, eliciting the familiar heart-in-throat fear of a tumbling elevator, a meaningless death.

  Beside Samara, Stefan was fighting for composure, and she reached out to touch his arm—the sort of gesture that could hardly be seen. The way they had all learned to give one another comfort under the watchful eyes of the overseers.

  “You’re okay,” she told him quietly.

  “No one’s come yet,” he said back, just as quietly. “No one’s coming.”

  Samara looked up into the darkness, to the sky she could not see and the clean air she could not breathe.

  “Someone’s coming,” she told him. “Someone heard that message. I promise.”

  The strains of classical music rippled through the house as Aryn made her way from the vaulted, glass-paneled library toward her private rooms. In the main hall, she caught a glimpse of a figure leaving.

  “Aryn.” Ellian had caught sight of her as well, and he came to kiss her and smile down into her eyes.

  Not for the first time, she felt like a kept animal, to have her hair stroked, to be placated with gifts and rewarded for good behavior.

  She pushed away the thought. “Have a good time, my love.”

  “Rest,” he told her. “Feel better.”

  Her cheeks flushed, and she could only hope he would think it was the fever she had claimed to have. She nodded wordlessly and pulled her elegant wrap around her, watching as he left for his car and one of the endless round of dinner parties and business engagements.

  And then she made her way quietly down the hallways to her room, to the silence she so craved.

  She looked around herself at the low couches and the walk in closet, and had the thought that if it were not for the specific books on the end table, there would be nothing of her in this room at all. Catching sight of herself in the mirror, at her clean skin and the clothes that were so very far from the mining coveralls she had worn most of her life, she realized that no one would see much of her even if they looked directly at her.

  She had turned into a shadow, a pretty dress up doll, and she couldn’t bear it anymore.

  Her hands clenched and she went to the desk in a rush, pulling out the computer to pen a message. How could she be nostalgic for Ymir?

  You miss fighting for something.

  She pushed the thought away. Such thoughts were dangerous. Still, her fingers danced over the keypad.

  Samara…

  “There’s another person on the crew,” Talon said. He lounged against the bulkhead and peered down the hallway. “There has to be. Camorra said they were recruited at selection. If you had to guess—”

  “No guesses,” Nyx advised. She was facing the other way, rolling a mug of tea between her palms, brown eyes contemplative.

  This was one of the few places on the ship where sound would not carry, and you could see at a glance who was approaching. Talon had spent a considerable sum of his own money to bribe the contractor who built the Ariane.

  He hadn’t quite envisioned the circumstances that would lead him to use it, though.

  “What would you do, then?”

  “Go the other way,” Nyx said promptly. “Pick who’s loyal, rely only on them.”

  Talon considered this. It made sense. “What do we tell the rest?”

  “Don’t tell them anything. Go low-key, need-to-know, until it’s time to go to Ymir. Then maybe you leave while everyone’s in a dive bar somewhere.”

  Talon gave her a look. “You’re sneaky.”

  “Everything doesn’t have to be a fight,” Nyx said, unconcerned. She took a sip of her tea.

  “I’m getting Cade back,” Talon said.

  Nyx choked on another sip. She gave him a look.

  “What?”

  “Well, for one thing, I believe his exact words on that subject were, ‘I’ll be dead before I get pulled back in.’”

  “I’ll find a way.”

  “He might kill you when you show up.”

  “I’ll find a way,” Talon said again. He gave her a quelling glance.

  “Sure, sure.” She hopped down off her stool and pushed it in. “Well, you figure out where and when you’re going to get your ass handed to you by Cade, and I’m gonna go get my ass handed to me by the rookie.”

  “How’s he doing, by the way?” Talon looked over in interest. “Where’d you put him?”

  “He’s bunking with Tersi. Couldn’t resist throwing an obstacle in there.” She snickered. “I pretended not to see him sneaking back from Sphinx’s bunk last night, got him all jammed up in the shadows and took my time looking up and down the corridor.” She mimicked Tersi, jammed into an alcove.

  Talon guffawed. “Ah, this is gonna be fun. All right, you get your ass kicked by Loki, I’ll go ask Lesedi where Cade is.”

  Liam was sliding one of the drawers shut under his bunk when Tersi appeared, breathing heavily and looking a bit flushed.

  “Sparring?” Liam asked him.

  “Uh.” Tersi cleared his throat and tugged his shirt down. “Yeah.”

  “With Nyx?” Nyx had said something about training, and he had the suspicion that he wasn’t going to be enough of a challenge for her to want to fight him while she was still fresh.

  Tersi muttered somethin
g.

  “What?”

  “So, how are you settling in?”

  “Oh. Well enough.”

  “Heard Talon’s already given you a nickname.” The other man gave him a grin. “Don’t let him be gruff with you, he’s glad you’re here. Him and Nyx, both.”

  Liam flushed. He hadn’t spoken to Talon beyond that single, brief conversation in his bunk on the Conway, and he still wasn’t entirely clear how and why he’d changed crews—but he was glad of it. When he looked up, he found Tersi staring at him.

  “Why did you want to be on Talon’s crew?” the man asked. There was a sudden chill in the air.

  “Honestly?” He felt stupid even saying it. “Nyx wiped the floor with me, and then I started hearing stories, and … well, you want to be a Dragon because you want to stand for what’s right, and people talk a lot about the commanders, and … Talon seems like one who’ll do that.”

  “He will,” Tersi said. “I hope you’re ready for that.”

  “I hope so, too,” Liam admitted. “I know I may not be the fastest, or the best fighter—”

  Tersi snorted. “You’re close to the fastest, I’ll say that much. But it’s not about being fast, kid. It’s about not taking the easy way out. Someday you may find yourself staring down the barrel of a gun, and it’ll be easy to turn tail.”

  “No,” Liam said. He shook his head. “Not ever. I ever do that, you shoot me.”

  He meant it as a joke, but Tersi only nodded. “Will do. If Nyx doesn’t first. Speaking of which, weren’t you supposed to….” He pointed to the door.

  “Oh. Right.” Liam grabbed his water bottle and headed for the armory. At the end of the corridor, he thought he heart a sound, thought he saw a glint of light on blonde hair. There was a thud from his bunk room. “Tersi?”

  “It’s fine.” Tersi stuck his head out the door. “Everything’s fine. Go spar. …Take your time.”