Cut to the Bone: Chains of Command Book 3

by Zen DiPietro

  She really needed him to put all his trust in her. If what she suspected was happening was truly happening, Priestley would be faced with choosing between her and the captain. She had to make sure he chose her.

  If she screwed this up, she and Minho would lose their advantage of operating in secret. The entire thing would become a showdown, and that would only make this bigger and more harmful to bystanders.

  When he arrived, he looked curious but not suspicious. He’d only been to her quarters once before, but she wanted him to know that they were speaking in a private place. She and Minho both checked their quarters every time they returned to them to make sure no surveillance devices had been installed. She knew that Lydecker had no eyes or ears inside her quarters, but she couldn’t be so sure about Priestley’s quarters.

  “Hey, Emiko,” he said as he entered and the doors closed behind him. “What’s up?”

  She gestured to the couch. “Have a seat.”

  She’d debated on what approach to take. Pretending to know more than she did seemed like the best method, so she took a breath and sat.

  “As you know,” she began, “I’m here on behalf of PAC command to fulfill a security role. It’s come to my attention that there’s a security breach in progress on Asimov. I wanted to talk to you about this personally, and in private, to see if there’s anything you can tell me.”

  He paled and his eyes widened slightly. “A security breach? No, I don’t know anything about that. Why would you think I do? My clearance is the lowest clearance possible while still having access to the areas I need to work on.”

  She folded her hands in her lap. “I’m pretty sure that when I say that this is something that goes quite far up the chain of command, you might have a suspicion about what I mean. I need you to tell me about that suspicion, in detail.”

  She paused and looked at him pointedly, but he remained frozen. If this went wrong, this situation was going to get ugly, fast. She continued, “I know you, and you know me. I also know the risk I’m asking you to take. If you help me, I can protect you.”

  His hands clenched together in his lap. His eyes looked like there was a war going on behind them.

  Time to put all her cards on the table. “I know he’s the captain, but I have a great deal of influence of my own. There’s a reason I’m a security specialist. I also have authoritative power that exceeds my rank when it comes to security issues. Now, I need you to decide. Are you going to tell me what you know?”

  He looked like he wanted to run. She prepared herself to tackle him if he did. Whatever happened, she couldn’t let him get to Lydecker and warn him.

  “He said…” Priestley’s voice came out in a rasp. He cleared his throat and started again. “He said if I didn’t follow his orders, he’d make sure no one, anywhere, ever hired me.”

  “Who?” She needed him to say it out loud.

  “Captain Lydecker.” Priestley stared at his hands.

  “What does he want you to do?”

  “There’s a delivery arriving in two days. I’m supposed to log into the system to receive it, then get lost.”

  “Get lost?” Fallon repeated.

  “Not verify the contents of the shipment or monitor its unloading. Take a walk while it’s being handled.”

  “Why?”

  Priestley shook his head. “He said it’s standard on stations. That there were classified transactions that couldn’t go on record.”

  “Did that sound right to you?” she asked. “Legit?”

  “No, but he’s the captain and what do I know? Plus, I need the job. He disliked me from the beginning. I think he’d be more than glad to get rid of me.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “I think his dislike is manufactured. He’s been grooming you since the first time he met you. Teaching you to fear him and reinforcing the power differential between you. It’s a classic way of exploiting someone.”

  “For what, though?” Priestley asked. “Contraband? Smuggling?”

  “I don’t know,” Fallon said. “But we’re going to find out in two days.”

  The timing would be tricky. Minho and Fallon were scheduled to leave in two days, which also happened to be when Captain Lydecker’s mysterious package would arrive.

  A message to Admiral Krazinski ensured that the transport was delayed just enough to give it an ETA at the very end of that day.

  Now they just needed to hope that whatever Lydecker was bringing to Asimov didn’t get delayed.

  They didn’t bring Katheryn in on what they were doing. The fewer people who knew anything was going on, the better. Fallon and Minho kept a close watch on Priestley. They didn’t think he’d go to Lydecker, but they couldn’t just trust that he wouldn’t, either.

  Ironically, amidst the belief that the captain of the station was engaging in some sort of illegal behavior, they officially signed off on the station’s security the day before their scheduled departure.

  Yeah, sure, everything was ship-shape, perfectly fine. Nothing out of the ordinary at all.

  The ideal versus reality reminded her of what Minho had said about there being things that most people were better off not knowing.

  They watched everything closely, obsessing over every detail and being careful to look like they were doing everything just as one would expect a couple of officers with no official duties to do.

  The night before the arrival of the transport, she stayed in Minho’s quarters.

  “Won’t that look a little…” She raised her eyebrows suggestively when he told her to sleep over.

  “Exactly,” he confirmed. “Half the crew thinks we’re an item anyway. We’ll just be furthering the idea that we’re enjoying some recreational time when, really, we’re making sure we can’t be ambushed separately.”

  “All right.” She’d shrugged. “But I get the bed.”

  He rolled his eyes slightly. “Don’t be childish. We’ll both sleep in the bed. That’s the point of not being separated. I know you’ve slept in the same bed with Hawk. This will be like that.”

  “We were drunk,” she grumbled. “Besides, Hawk and I…” she trailed off, realizing she didn’t want to say what she’d been about to say.

  She and Hawk had no attraction for each other whatsoever. She might as well be sleeping next to a big, snoring boulder as alongside Hawk.

  However, she didn’t want to give Minho the idea that she felt differently about him. Because she didn’t. Nope. This would be just like sleeping in Hawk’s quarters.

  That night, they locked themselves in the quarters, triggered the outer door, then triggered the door to the bedroom. Anyone attempting to enter without the passcode would get a nasty shock.

  “Cute trick,” Fallon said.

  “Thanks. It’s nice for when you want to get some sleep, but don’t want someone sawing off your head while you do it.”

  She laughed.

  He smiled. “Not many people would laugh at that.”

  “I guess we share a sense of humor.”

  The overnight bag she’d brought, setting at the bottom right corner of the bed, caught her eye. She willed herself to be cool about the situation. It was a stakeout. A weird one, but just a work thing.

  “I guess I’ll get ready for bed then,” she said. “For sleep,” she amended, then regretted having done so.

  She ducked into the necessary with her bag and closed the door.

  “Ack!” Minho wore a wide-eyed look when Fallon emerged from the necessary, clean, wet-haired, and wearing long lounge pants with a short-sleeved shirt.

  “Nothing.” He stood up and stepped around the bed to the necessary, closing the door.

  She sat on the bed. Ack? She looked at herself, looking for a tear in her pajamas or a stain or something.

  Everything looked fine.

  When he emerged fifteen minutes later, she sat at the head of the bed on the side closer to the necessary. His long pants and short-sleeved shirt were almost identical to hers except
for color and size.

  “Why did you say ‘ack’ before?” she demanded.

  He ran his fingers through his damp hair. “Well, I saw that you hadn’t dressed to impress. You looked a bit frumpy, to be honest. I’ve gotten used to seeing you in your uniform. Forget I said it.”

  “You’re wearing the same thing!” she exclaimed.

  He patted his shirt with his palms. “I feel like I bring a little extra something to this ensemble.”

  “I’m not seeing it.”

  “Look closer.” He put his hands on his hips.

  “Nope. Nothing.”

  “Really?” He pursed his lips in puzzlement. “Well, clearly you don’t know greatness when you see it. That’s just as well, though, given the circumstances.”

  He made a general gesture at the room, the station, and them.

  She laughed. She shouldn’t have worried. In all the time she’d known him, she’d never known Minho to be unable to handle whatever came at him. She should have known he would handle this, too.

  It kind of did feel like one of her sleepovers with Hawk now. They laughed together a lot, too.

  He stood at the edge of the bed and started to sit down, then drew back. “Ah, I almost forgot. Rules for the night. Keep your hands and feet to yourself. No kicking, no punching, and absolutely no pillow stealing. I’m serious, I’ll get mad about that one. If you snore, I reserve the right to shake your shoulder vigorously and possibly call you a jerk.”

  He pulled back the blanket and sat.

  “Anything else?” she asked.

  He gazed upward thoughtfully. “If you’re the type who gets up to go pee, I advise you do it quietly. I might think you’re an assassin and take you down.”

  “Noted.” She grabbed the blanket and pulled it up to her knees.

  “What, you have no conditions?” he asked.

  “I think the same ones you said will do just fine.”

  He nodded. “Okay. Except for the snoring thing. These are my quarters, and if I snore, that’s just my privilege.”

  She arched an eyebrow and said nothing. Maybe that was what he thought.

  “Ready for lights out?” he asked. “We have a long day tomorrow.”

  “We do,” she agreed. “Hopefully we’ll get everything here sorted so we can move on.”

  “I’ve never known anything to be that simple, but okay, we’ll hope for that.” He turned the light down to only five percent illumination, darkening the room without leaving it pitch black and leaving her to lie awake thinking about what he’d said.

  Fallon’s eyes snapped open. She’d heard something. She stayed perfectly still, listening.

  Then she realized that Minho’s face was only centimeters away.

  Right. There was a reason she’d felt like she wasn’t alone—because she wasn’t.

  The faint light silhouetted his cheek, forehead, and nose. His breathing was slow and even.

  She watched him, careful not to make any noise.

  There was no point in denying that she liked him. She liked him a lot. For multiple reasons, she couldn’t reach out and touch his cheek.

  She’d never do that to Raptor. She’d never do that to her team, either, because surely whatever happened between her and Raptor would have some fallout on Avian Unit.

  That kind of selfishness had no room in her life.

  Very slowly and carefully, she edged backward, putting more space between them. She closed her eyes, listening to his breathing for a long time before she fell back to sleep.

  Fallon opened her eyes to find Minho staring at her.

  “You’re awake,” he said.

  “Either that or I’m creepy as hell, sleeping with my eyes open.” She pulled back and sat at the edge of the bed.

  He rolled over and sat up, too. “I’m going with awake. Though I don’t deny you can be creepy, too.”

  She checked the time. “Scrap.”

  “Okay, two things,” he said. “First, you need to learn some grown-up swear words. You’re in covert ops now. You just had a good opportunity to say, ‘Prelin’s ass!’ and passed it up.”

  “And the second thing?” she asked, amused.

  “Right. What made you say ‘scrap?’”

  “A gentle upbringing, perhaps. Hawk’s been a bad influence on me and I do swear more these days, but I guess I need to work harder.”

  He laughed. “No, I meant, what’s wrong?”

  She knew what he’d meant, but pretended otherwise. “It’s too early to go do anything. The day shift hasn’t even started.”

  “Right. And it would probably look odd for us not to take a leisurely start to the day. So we have a couple of hours in here together. Whatever shall we do?” He leaned back against the bulkhead of the bedroom and gave her a slow smile.

  A slow, wicked smile.

  She felt like she’d been flash-frozen, then dropped into a deep fryer.

  “Breakfast?” She wasn’t sure where the word came from, but, sure, that was a reasonable thing for her to say.

  He snapped his fingers, then pointed at her. “Exactly. I have a fair bit of stuff in the kitchenette. We might as well make something good. I love how in sync we are.”

  He gave her that smile again. It wasn’t a regular smile. It was a smile that said things that his words didn’t.

  He was teasing her. They both knew there was something between them, and they both knew nothing was going to happen. So he was joking about it.

  That jerk! Her tension about the situation eased and she laughed. “Perfect. You go get started. I’ll pull my hair back and be in there in a few minutes.”

  After cooking everything Minho had in his kitchenette and eating more than she usually did in a single meal, the day shift started and Fallon and Minho ventured out.

  Today they would be like tourists, or officers enjoying some shore leave. They’d poke around the station under the guise of taking a little vacation time between the completion of their duties here and the next assignment that awaited them.

  Wearing casual clothes rather than their uniforms, they strolled along the station’s boardwalk. Almost all of the commercial spaces had been claimed by colorful shops and fragrant eateries. Fallon also noticed a beauty treatment boutique, an open-air meat-stick vendor, and no fewer than three pubs.

  “That’s a lot of pubs for one space station,” Fallon noted to Minho after they passed the third.

  “You don’t know,” he said. “Maybe that’s essential to live here after a year or two.”

  She laughed. Despite everything, she was having fun. That worked well, since she was supposed to appear to be enjoying some leisure time. She’d have expected to have a ball of tension in her stomach, waiting for Lydecker’s transport to arrive, but somehow, whenever the stakes got higher, she always felt more vital and ebullient.

  “Oh look,” he said. “It’s the girly shop.”

  “The what?” She followed his gaze to the boutique with a pretty window that displayed perfumes, jeweled hair clips, and frilly underpinnings. “Oh, right.”

  He edged in front of her to stop her from moving on. “We should go in.”

  “No, we really shouldn’t. Unless that kind of thing appeals to you. Because it’s doesn’t to me.”

  “Sure, sure,” he said dismissively. “We both know you’re all killer instinct and blood and guts or whatever. But all the people who are watching us without letting on that they’re watching us think they’re seeing a couple doing a little fun shopping together. We should go in, for the cover.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “I don’t believe you. You just want to get me in there so you can laugh at how much those things don’t suit me.”

  “Never. I’m a professional. It’s for the cover.” He wore a totally believable look of sincerity.

  She didn’t believe it. “Fine. Five minutes. Then I get to pick the next place.”

  He nodded, smiling. “Whatever you say, dear.”

  “Don’t do that.”r />
  “Okay,” he agreed quickly. “I am officially not doing that.”

  She stiffened her spine and stepped into the shop. On closer inspection, she saw that it had décor, too. Feathery fronds tucked into shiny vases lined one display shelf.

  “Those are nice,” Minho said, looking at them.

  “I’ve never been much for knick knacks,” she said. “Even if I were, it’s not like I’d want to lug that kind of thing from assignment to assignment.”

  “I didn’t say I was going to buy you one,” he said defensively. “I just said they were nice.”

  “Okay. They’re nice.” She eyed him suspiciously. She didn’t trust him not to pull some kind of shenanigans like saddling her with some useless object she didn’t want.

  The shopkeep wandered over, welcomed them, then subtly drifted away, remaining in the background so that she wasn’t hovering over them while remaining available for inquiries.

  Fallon admired her deftness. “She’s good.”

  “Of course she is. Not just anyone can get approval to own a shop on a PAC station. Only the most professional, most ethical businesspeople.”

  “Right.” He seemed to be in an odd, perky mood. Maybe it was just part of the act. Maybe he was looking forward to wrapping up this mission.

  They browsed around, made some appropriately admiring comments, then ducked back out.

  “Your choice now,” he said.

  “There.” Fallon pointed at the dry goods store.

  “Really? I thought you’d be looking for something I wouldn’t like.” He seemed mildly disappointed.

  “No matter what I chose, you wouldn’t care, so I might as well go someplace I’d actually like to see.” Without waiting to see if he was following, she hurried over and entered the shop.

  “Mm.” She took a long, deep breath. “It smells good in here.”

  “Real wood,” Minho said, also breathing in. “Not the synthetic stuff. It’s one of the best smells in the galaxy.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” She kept taking deep lungfuls of it. Enclosed spaces like stations and ships never had this organic sort of fragrance. They always had a very dry, almost antiseptic smell.