Dragon's Promise

by Natalie Grey

  “I mean, it can be done.”

  “It can?” Her voice was intent. She sat, leaning urgently over the paperwork and then drawing away quickly. Caution and hope warred in her face.

  “I … can’t show you how with this.” Mala bit her lip at the disappointment in the other woman’s face. “Can you tell me anything more? Is this a ship?”

  “Sort of. It’s a station. It does have some rudders.” Nyx considered. “Mostly solar-powered. I don’t know what other kinds of fuel it uses.”

  “Windows?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, sensors you can fool,” Mala pointed out. “Eyes, you can’t.”

  “That’s debatable.”

  “Just—how much time do we have to get the doors open before someone notices us?”

  “Oh. Well, we’d be landing in a dead zone between the turrets. Theoretically.”

  “That’s a big gamble if the schematics for the turrets are as rough as the ones for these.”

  “Shit. Really?”

  “These are…” Mala considered, tilting her head. “They’re too clean. Say you build something small. A little prototype engine. Even in something that tiny, there will be things that don’t work like you hope. You can’t always figure out why, and you make workarounds.”

  “Always?”

  “Over time, yes. Things add up. So if this were a car, right off the line, I’d say it’s probably exactly like the schematics. But get to something like a car that’s a year old, or a ship like this, or a space station, and you have a lot of changes, things even the engineers who built it might not know—and almost certainly things they changed and didn’t note down.”

  “Then how do we find out what it really looks like?” Nyx chewed her lip.

  “I’m not sure you do. That sort of information isn’t stored anywhere. You can scan a ship for its schematic information, but that takes a fairly good set of scanners—”

  “We’ve got those.”

  “—and special software,” Mala finished. “And if you don’t have it now, there’s no way you can build it in time.”

  “But if you had that data…you could tell us how to get these doors open?”

  “Yeah, probably.” Mala looked down at them and shook her head. “Whoever built this really likes doors, though, let me tell you. It looks like they’re even on their own power grid.”

  “Well, that’s Ghost for you.” Nyx sighed.

  “I’ll get you the software,” Mala heard herself say.

  “You’ll—” Nyx’s head jerked up.

  “Yeah. One of my coworkers wrote it. You’re not going to find it anywhere else.” What Jessica was going to say when Mala contacted her out of nowhere and asked for her pet project, she wasn’t quite sure. It was clearly their only option, however.

  “If she’s a coworker….” Nyx considered. “Samuels was watching you. You think she had other people in Intelligence?”

  “I’ve been wondering about that,” Mala admitted. “Do you remember, she said something about me turning other people against her? I’ve wondered who that was.”

  “Yeah, but wouldn’t you know who they were?”

  “I was part of an intergalactic smuggling ring and I didn’t know. I don’t assume anything anymore.” Mala’s smile faltered. “I’m sorry, that was a bad joke.”

  “No, it was—” Nyx tried to laugh and came out with a low sort of hiss. She took the printouts back and stared at them. “Well, if you think you can get this without Ghost knowing…”

  “I do.” Mala nodded. “I will. I just need a comm.”

  “Right. Go to the bridge, Tersi will set you up.” And make sure you don’t do anything shady. The subtext was clear.

  Mala sighed. “Was there anything else?”

  “No.” Nyx hesitated as she made to stand. “Maybe. I’ve been thinking….” She looked over, and suddenly her face was too close, lips parting and brown eyes searching Mala’s. The Dragon stood hastily and made for the door. “You know what, it’s not important. I’ll wait for you to get back to me.”

  “You’re taking me with you to the base, aren’t you?” Mala kept her voice low. She almost flinched when Nyx looked back; the woman looked so guilty that Mala wanted to cry. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Then why did you say it?” Nyx’s voice was harsh. “I feel bad enough about this, even with…everything.”

  “I said it,” Mala said evenly, trying to ignore the hit, “because you’re not just going to need me for this.”

  Nyx stared at her wordlessly.

  “You’ll need my help to get from the airlock to wherever she’s hiding in there,” Mala said finally. She was sure the other woman had known what she meant, but the silence was unnerving.

  Nyx shook her head. “I won’t allow that.” Then she turned and walked away, her footsteps a bit too quick on the grating.

  41

  You should tune in on line 17. The message flashed up on Nyx’s comm screen.

  What’s wrong? she typed back.

  Mala’s contact.

  Is our cover gone?

  No.

  Then record it and I’ll listen to it later. Nyx pushed some paperwork aside and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. Talon, the bastard, had not thought to warn her about the amount of time incident reports took. She was stretching the limits of her creativity to describe her team’s operations without getting them shut down, and she was beginning to wonder how the hell Talon had described some of the missions he’d commanded. He couldn’t have foregone paperwork altogether, after all, or none of them would have come up with commendations.

  She was absorbed enough not to hear the footsteps until her door slid open.

  “I said I’ll listen to it lat—” She broke off when she saw Mala standing there. “What is it?”

  Every sense was suddenly on alert. Mala looked enchantingly out of place in one of Tersi’s old uniforms, the sleeves rolled up and the pants belted tightly to keep them from slipping over the faint curve of her hips. But unlike when Nyx had gone to see her the other day, Mala seemed neither wry nor angry. Her face was blank, and she looked like she didn’t quite know what she wanted to say.

  “I talked to Jessica,” she said finally.

  “Your contact who wrote the software?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “She was Ghost’s other contact.”

  “I am going to kill Tersi,” Nyx muttered. “He said Ghost didn’t—”

  “She doesn’t,” Mala said, shaking her head. “She doesn’t know anything. Jessica’s helping us.”

  “You can’t possibly know that.”

  “I know that she was sent to keep an eye on me after I—well, Eve—dropped out of contact. I remember. She showed up a couple of years later and just attached herself to me. She was always at my desk. We were...” Mala swallowed. “We became friends.”

  “And she was reporting on you that whole time?” Even trying to maintain a professional distance, Nyx couldn’t keep the pity from her voice. Something like this had to hurt.

  “She never did, actually. She’s the one Ghost meant.” Mala shook her head. “She said … she said I was one of the only people who’d ever just been nice to her, you know? Which is terrible. The agency is awful, people are backstabbing and—well, you don’t care.”

  Nyx looked away. She did, actually. She could listen to Mala talk about anything and be completely enchanted by the curve of her lips and the way her eyes shone. Mala saw the world in a way that made everything clearer, somehow.

  “Anyway, she got us the software—and some of the latest weapons she thinks Ghost has on there.” Mala held the papers out.

  She had to shut this down now, or she was going to get too friendly. Nyx jerked her chin at the edge of the desk. “You can leave them there.”

  Mala held them out for a few more seconds, and then she dropped them on the desk and left without a word. Nyx listened to her footsteps reced
e and breathed a sigh of relief, only to swing back around in her chair when she heard Mala come striding back into the room.

  “Look. Are you going to let me make this right, or aren’t you?” Mala’s chin was trembling. “Are you going to let me help you?”

  “I can’t,” Nyx said simply.

  “I can do things no one else on your team can.” Mala jabbed a finger at her own chest for emphasis. “I can get you through that station.”

  “How can I possibly trust you with this?” Nyx demanded. When Mala’s face went stony, she knew she’d made a mistake. “It’s….”

  “It was one mistake one time.” Mala’s words came out through clenched teeth. “It was a scared kid doing something stupid, not even getting caught up in doing something illegal. It’s not like I’m trying to protect anyone! I don’t know anyone on the inside. So, why? Why can’t you trust me?”

  “Because you’re on the other side of this!” Nyx clenched her hands. “For everyone looking at this mission who isn’t me, for everyone reading all these damned reports I have to make, you’re the cartel member I slept with.”

  “You put that in the paperwork?”

  “No! I….” Nyx sank her face into her hands.

  “I see.” When Nyx looked back up, Mala had crossed her arms. “You’re ashamed that you fell for someone who isn’t as fucking perfect as you are. You’re worried about what all the other Dragons are going to think.”

  “I’m worried that I let my feelings mess up this mission!” Nyx wasn’t quite sure when she’d stood up, but she was there now, her breath coming hard, her fingers clenched. “I trusted you, and you—”

  “Didn’t do anything wrong!” Mala cried. She saw Nyx’s flash of anger and she shook her head. “Yes, I took Eve’s place, but it’s not like I was doing her work or reporting to Ghost! I did a stupid thing, but you told me if it wasn’t Ghost you were fighting, it would be someone else just like her.

  “Well, if it wasn’t me that clued you in to Ghost, it would have been someone else, right? Eventually, you’d have been sent after her.

  “I’m not saying what I did was right, and I’m not saying it wasn’t stupid as hell, because it was—but what I did was one screw-up. One. I have spent these weeks trying and trying to put it right when it wasn’t even me doing all of that stuff, and all you see is that I did something stupid. Well, guess what? What you did wasn’t any less stupid.”

  “What?” Nyx could feel her mouth hanging open. “You’re kidding me.”

  “You’ve taken five bullets in the last three weeks—that I know of. How many did you take on Ymir? How about on your last mission? Being a Dragon is brave. It’s strong. But it’s kind of dumb as hell, too.” Mala threw the words at her. “You talk about how my parents just wanted me to be safe. Well, it’s not like your parents didn’t want the same. And you know how I know? Because before they died, before Kiran died, they were over at my place talking with my parents about how they could all talk you two out of enlisting!”

  “They what?”

  “Melissa … Nyx … I’m just saying, you’re doing things that aren’t entirely rational.”

  There was a surge of pure anger, white-hot and burning away any other thoughts.

  “So that means I should do more things that aren’t rational?”

  “No, I—”

  “Do you not remember what I said to you about command? Because I remember. You were the one I thought I could tell. If I fuck up, people die, Mala. I look at you and you’re—”

  “What?” Mala was furious, spoiling for a fight. “A disappointment, a—”

  “No! You’re…what did you even mean before, I fell for someone who wasn’t perfect? You are perfect. You’re … God, you’re everything.” Nyx looked away, feeling tears in her eyes. This was not the time for any of this. Her anger was draining away all of a sudden and she needed that anger right now. She took a deep breath to steady herself before looking back. “I look at you,” she said finally, “and I want to trust you with my life. But you’re not part of my team. It’s not just me on the line when I trust someone who isn’t a Dragon. When you’re a civilian, you get to make decisions knowing you’re only going to hurt yourself, but right now my decisions could kill this whole crew.”

  To her surprise, the anger had left Mala’s face. She looked away, and when she spoke, it was so soft that Nyx couldn’t hear her.

  “What?”

  “You think that about me? God, that was a stupid question. Forget I asked.” Mala shook her head. “I’ll go.”

  “If you could do it again….” Nyx could hear the ache in her own voice.

  “Why are you even asking?” Mala smiled bitterly. “If I’d known any of this—”

  “Would you even have left Dobrevi?”

  “Yes.” Mala’s answer was immediate. She looked up. “I couldn’t let myself die there without even making a ripple in the world.”

  “What do you mean?” Nyx craned to look into her eyes.

  “I was afraid that all there was ever going to be was Kiran,” Mala said. She was shaking her head, tears trembling in her eyes. “No one even saw me anymore, and I know that seems small and I should be grateful to be alive, but I was starting to wonder if I even existed. And then…” She gave a choking laugh. “Then I took someone else’s name. God. Fucking ironic, huh?”

  Nyx wouldn’t help herself, she laughed. She pulled Mala into a hug and felt the other woman rest her head on her shoulder.

  “You change the world just by being you,” she promised. “I…well, you don’t want to hear about him, but I learned that from Kiran. Mala…you won over a hardened criminal who gave you everything she owned. You won over the person Ghost sent to keep an eye on you. The world isn’t going to forget you.”

  “They are. No one knows who I am on Seneca. I thought, it didn’t matter because it would be me no matter if it was Eve’s name or not. I thought being successful would win me a place in the world, but I didn’t want that world. I didn’t. And now…”

  “Now what?” Nyx prompted, when the other woman’s voice trailed off.

  “Now I’ve lost you. And you were the one person who really seemed to see me.”

  “You’re not going to lose me.”

  “You said—”

  “I was being crazy.” Nyx tightened her arms. “Just one thing, though…”

  “Yeah?”

  “How would you feel about me leaving you to drift for a while in a space suit? Because this mission isn’t going to be all that safe, and—” She broke off when Mala punched her on the shoulder. “Ow.”

  “Shut up.” Mala tangled her fingers in Nyx’s regulation braid. “Shut up, and kiss me.”

  42

  Before, in the shuttle bay, Mala had felt reckless, tempting Nyx into an indiscretion she knew they both wanted. It had been heady, with the remembered smell of flowers from that night on Seneca and the thought of Nyx in that red dress, dark curls gleaming. There had been only desire. How long since Mala had really wanted someone instead of just knowing that she should? She had been desperate to take her chance before it slipped away.

  Now her bravado melted away quickly and left her shaking as Nyx kissed her. She could feel the tears still in her eyes and she curled her body close, sinking into Nyx’s arms as much for comfort as for desire.

  “What’s wrong?” The other woman’s voice was low with desire, but she drew back, her eyes searching Mala’s.

  “I’ve never….”

  Nyx tilted her head, the look in her eyes reminding Mala of the shuttle bay floor.

  “Not that.” A laugh escaped her and she sniffed. “I’ve never wanted to settle down.” She searched for the words, her eyes drifting closed as Nyx brushed a lock of hair over her shoulder. “The thought of settling down with someone seemed like … just another way to get lost in the world. I didn’t want to want that—and no one I dated made me feel it, either.”

  “And now?” The question was a breath, hopeful.<
br />
  “Somehow, I can’t see life with you ever getting boring.” Mala quirked an eyebrow as Nyx laughed.

  The other woman sobered quickly. “You know I’d be gone a lot.”

  “I know.”

  “I wouldn’t always be able to tell you about things.”

  “I know,” Mala promised. She remembered her experiences in the Senator’s base and shuddered. “I’m not sure I would really want to know.”

  “You’d really be okay with it all?” Nyx looked worried. “Other girlfriends….”

  “Were idiots not to keep you,” Mala finished.

  “Eh, I was the one—well, never mind. Have I ruined the moment?”

  “Not even a little.” Mala laughed and nestled her head on the other woman’s shoulder.

  “I meant what I said, you know,” Nyx murmured into her hair.

  “Mm?”

  “About putting you in a spacesuit and—”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  “I’m serious! It’s not going to be a good situation.”

  “You need me to get the doors open,” Mala said simply. “I’m not scared.”

  “Really?”

  “…No. But I thought you might feel better about it if I said that.”

  “Oh, God.” Nyx sounded miserable.

  There was really only one thing to do. Mala kissed her, feeling the other woman draw breath to protest and willing the words away. She pulled Nyx close and watched the other woman melt, eyes drifting closed.

  “This isn’t going to fix anythi—”

  “Shut up.” Mala fumbled at the clasp on the other woman’s belt and eventually gave up, lifting the shirt up over her head. “Arms.”

  “We need to come up with a plan,” Nyx said, voice muffled by her shirt.

  “See, you’re still talking about serious things and I said to shut up.” Mala dropped to her knees on the floor and started picking at the knots on Nyx’s boots. “There. Take off your pants.”

  “Just a second.” Nyx pulled Mala’s shirt up, yanking off the sports bra underneath and throwing them both across the room. Her fingers, accomplished on those ridiculous belts the Dragons all wore, were slipping Mala’s pants off the next second, and Nyx pushed her over gently onto the bed, grinning. “There. Much better.”