by Zen DiPietro
The arboretum might suit her current mood. Not the gentle hum of activity she’d hoped for, but a peaceful place. She had just started in that direction when Cabot Layne’s shop caught her eye. He looked up as she passed, waving her in.
“Hey, Chief. Having trouble sleeping?” He gave her tea a significant look.
“Just winding down,” she answered. “Some days are tougher than others.”
“Mm. Indeed.” He nodded with understanding. “I was just about to close up shop. No business coming in at all. Mind if I walk with you?”
“I was going to visit the arboretum.” She didn’t really want company, but he was such a genial presence that maybe walking with him could be pleasant. Besides, she didn’t want to be rude, and she did like Cabot. She probably shouldn’t, but she did.
“Perfect. Probably my favorite place on the station. After my shop, of course.”
“Of course,” she agreed. “I’d enjoy your company.”
They walked along the path, chatting pleasantly. Cabot was a shrewd judge of people, and had a prodigious ability to maintain an entertaining patter of conversation, as if he knew exactly what topics she would find most relaxing.
With her cup of tea warming her hands, Fallon wandered among the trees and shrubs, vines and flowers. She drew the scents of nature into her lungs and they grounded her. Her tension eased, leaving her shoulders and jaw feeling looser.
When they reached the far end of the arboretum, they sat on a pair of benches made out of huge tree trunks. They faced an art piece, which fit perfectly into its surroundings. Part art and part wind chime, it had been constructed of lightweight panels festooned with spheres, spirals, and circles. The shapes spun at different speeds under the ministrations of a small wind-generating device at the center of the piece. The artwork reminded Fallon of butterflies and leaves cavorting in the breeze. When the panels made contact with one another they created soft, hollow sounds like bamboo wind chimes. Fallon found it exceedingly peaceful.
She and Cabot fell silent, enjoying the moment. She closed her eyes to focus on the soft sound.
A whisper, or maybe a sense of something, had her on her feet and moving even as she opened her eyes and turned. Cabot shouted in surprise and backed away as a man clad in gray burst out of nowhere. Fallon had been ready, and instead of tackling her from her seat as he’d intended, he had to roll and pop back up to his feet. Which was more than enough time for her to grab her stinger and hit him with a point-blank burst to the chest.
Except that didn’t drop him, as it should have. Didn’t even make him pause. His clothes. He must be wearing a neutralizer. Top secret tech. Only issued to PAC intelligence and Blackout itself. Which organization he represented, she didn’t know. It hardly mattered at the moment.
The time she’d taken to use her weapon had given him the opportunity to get back into an offensive position. A terrible loss of advantage for her. She flung the stinger away. She had blades in her belt and hidden in her uniform. She wouldn’t draw one yet, though. This guy had skills like hers, and she might need the use of both hands.
In the split second that they sized each other up, Fallon recognized him. The tall, blond one in that trader group she hadn’t liked. Her suspicions about them had been well founded, after all. He charged her again and she leaped out of the way, catching his shoulder and shoving down on it hard as he rushed past her. Off-balance, he wheeled around, and she pressed her advantage. Grappling with a bigger opponent was always her last resort, but she had little choice at this point. She had no idea if there would be others and she couldn’t afford to be vulnerable if they arrived.
She got in close, distracted him with a feinting head shot, then got a grip on him for a hip throw. She followed him to the ground and punched him in the throat. He began choking and making horrible sounds. Possible trachea rupture. Damn. If so, he could suffocate before she got any information out of him. She’d hit him too hard.
She scrambled up to straddle his chest, with her knees painfully pressing the flesh of his arms into the dirt. Her hands wrapped around his throat.
She leaned down so he could hear her, while hopefully no one else could. “Move, and I’ll crush your windpipe, if it isn’t already,” she hissed in his ear.
He stopped trying to fight her off and his body shuddered under her. Lack of oxygen. Prelin’s ass.
“Cabot, I need a medical team down here immediately. Tell them it’s a critical case, crushed trachea. They might need to resuscitate. Use the comport in my belt.” She couldn’t spare a hand to give it to him. Even in his critical state, the agent under her could not be underestimated.
To his credit, Cabot didn’t even pause. He grabbed the portable voicecom, sent a terse message, and said nothing more. He retrieved her stinger and stood silently waiting. She was impressed. There might well be more to Cabot than she’d thought.
The medical team arrived and a brief argument ensued. Fallon insisted that the man, who appeared unconscious, be heavily sedated before she’d release him from her death grip.
With a few grams of trophezine in him, Fallon had no worries about him being a threat. Now she just had to hope he lived. She needed information.
After the medical team rushed the man to the infirmary, Fallon faced Cabot. He stood, watching her with new understanding in his eyes. What exactly he’d learned about her she couldn’t be sure, but he was a canny fellow, and she suspected he’d realized far more than she’d like.
Her gaze caught on the edge of the wind-chime art, where an errant foot had kicked in a dent. “I’ll have to see that gets fixed.” She accepted her stinger from him, annoyed that she hadn’t been able to use it. Her attacker would be in perfect health now if she had.
“Yes,” Cabot agreed.
“I must excuse myself to the infirmary,” she said. “Thank you for the walk. Before that guy showed up, it was perfectly relaxing.”
Cabot smiled wryly. “That’s what I was aiming for. Certainly not a visit from…an old friend?” His eyebrow raised.
“Hardly. I don’t know him.” She paused. “I imagine I don’t have to tell you—”
He cut her off. “No. You don’t. I know when to keep my mouth shut.” He nodded his head once.
“That’s good.” She again noted his lack of distress. He didn’t even seem to have an adrenaline rush. She sure did. Her limbs buzzed with electricity. By contrast, Cabot looked just as he had when they’d been admiring the trees and flowers.
“Although,” he added, “if you happen to need someone to lend an ear…well, I have two very good ears. And, on occasion, I’ve even been known to help a person out of a pickle.”
She studied him hard. What exactly was he alluding to? She didn’t have time to figure it out just now. “I’ll find you. Soon.”
He seemed delighted rather than intimidated. “I’ll look forward to it.” He gave her a courteous bow, which she returned perfunctorily, already in motion toward the exit.
In the infirmary, she overrode the door lock utilized during a crisis to ensure privacy and a minimum of confusion.
Brannin stood over a techbed, yelling names of drugs and procedures without seeming to pause for breath. Doctors, nurses, and techs filled the space, and a cacophony of voices and equipment sounds completed the synchronized chaos.
Brannin caught sight of her and gave her a disapproving look, even as he barked an order to increase the peak flow. Or whatever he’d said. Fallon knew a great deal about anatomy, but only advanced field medicine when it came to actual doctoring. She’d uncovered that skill set just the other day, after poring through her active file.
Her attention riveted on the man lying on the techbed. He looked grayish. Not good at all. His eyes were closed and Brannin’s voice rose higher and louder, even as the rest of the noise in the infirmary quieted to silence.
Finally Brannin’s shoulders slumped. “Loshem, please note the time of death and prepare for an autopsy in the clean room.”
The e
ntire infirmary was designed to function as a clean room, and could be counted on to be sterile even for surgeries. The area known as the clean room, however, was one of the private suites at the back of the infirmary, where her surgery had been.
Brannin faced her. “What do you know about him?”
“Nothing. He came out of nowhere and attacked me.” She smoothed her hands over her uniform, wondering if she had stray bits of dirt or leaves on her.
“And you never met him?”
“Saw him once. Coming off a trading ship with a group of others. Didn’t like the look of them, but they supposedly left yesterday.”
He seemed unhappy with that response, but he nodded. “If you’d try to find out more about him, I’d appreciate it. I at least need to notify his next of kin.”
She seriously doubted she’d find any trace of his existence, but she definitely intended to try. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”
“Thank you. I’ll do the same. We found nothing on his person. No identification, no money, no personal effects. Just his clothes.”
“I’ll need those, once you’re done with them.”
He nodded. Assuming, no doubt, that it was part of her investigation. She knew the clothes wouldn’t give her any information. But they did have a stinger neutralizing field, and that might come in handy.
She hesitated, then gave a small bow and left the infirmary. Brannin had no additional information for her, and hanging around would only encourage him to ask her the questions she saw in his eyes.
Her pace slowed once she emerged into the corridor. She replayed the incident over and over in her head, but no new information presented itself. Once in her quarters, she sent a message to her staff on duty to inform them of the attack, and instruct them to see to the arboretum. She didn’t even remember tossing her teacup, but she must have, and she’d promised to return it to the Tea Leaf shopkeep. If it had been damaged, she’d have to be sure to pay for it.
She ran her fingers through her hair as she paced her quarters. What now? She wished her attacker had lived. At least Raptor was due to arrive within the next few hours. She could discuss it with him.
“What did he look like? Did he say anything to you?” Raptor’s words were tight. Terse.
They sat in the quarters she’d assigned to his alter ego, discussing what had happened since last they saw each other.
“No, he was too busy trying to kick my ass for a polite hello,” she sniped as she flipped through security feeds on the voicecom. “Here.” She pulled her attacker’s image, turning the screen toward Raptor.
He hissed in a breath. “That’s Granite. Oh, Prelin’s ass, you killed Granite.” He twisted to face her, his eyes intense.
“Who is he? PAC intelligence, or Blackout?”
“Blackout.” Raptor sat back, letting his head rest on the futon, which left him staring up at the ceiling. “From the class ahead of us. Stone Unit. We’ve worked with him before. An okay guy.”
“Specialty?” That might let her know what his plans for her had been.
“Assassin.”
The silence in the room rang in her ears.
“Sooo,” she said slowly, “we can assume I’m now marked for death.”
“Yeah.” His tone was flat. “And likely the rest of us, too.”
“Oh, great.” She said it flippantly, but her mind raced. “Well, that changes things.”
“Yeah,” he said again, seeming to have retreated into his thoughts.
She pressed her fingers to her mouth for a moment, thinking. “First off, you aren’t going back to that moon. That’s just asking to get killed. And we need to extract Hawk and Peregrine immediately.”
Raptor said nothing and she poked him in the shoulder. “I need the data chip with Peregrine’s information.”
“Right.” He opened a seam in his sleeve and handed her the tiny chip.
She inserted it into the voicecom display and began tearing through the information.
“Peregrine’s in deep cover on the far side of Sarkan.” Strange for her to be so close to Fallon, but maybe not so bizarre since she’d been buried under deep cover. She was so undercover she might as well be on Earth, except for the fact that she and Raptor could now extract their partner.
“So we go get her first,” Raptor guessed, coming back around.
“Yes. Hawk’s on a moon in the Zerellus system. We’ll get him as soon as we have Peregrine.”
“Shouldn’t we split up? We could get them out sooner.”
She bit her lip. The sooner they got their teammates safe, the better. They all had targets on their backs, no doubt. If Raptor took his ultralight to get Hawk and she liberated Peregrine, they could all rendezvous and be a complete unit again.
But she had no idea what they’d find in either location. Once Blackout realized Granite had failed, they’d try again, and this time they wouldn’t send a lone assassin.
Which meant they had to leave immediately. She stood. “Is your ultralight ready?”
Raptor ran a hand through his hair. “It could use some maintenance, but it has enough juice for a one-way trip to a Zerellian moon.”
She nodded. No way both men would fit on the ultralight. They’d have to get their hands on a ship to escape the moon. She’d leave that to them. She had her own problems.
She gave him the coordinates of Hawk’s location and all the details that seemed potentially pertinent.
“We rendezvous on Dineb in two days,” she said.
The tiny planet of Dineb was a party spot. They’d easily get lost among the hubbub of Dinebian festivities, so long as they didn’t linger there.
“Easy for you. You don’t have far to go,” he scoffed.
“Oh, so you can’t do it?” Her voice held a high degree of taunting.
“Of course I can. Just pointing out how much easier your assignment is.”
She snorted. “Right. At least you know exactly where you’re going. I have to track my target down.”
“Aw. Need help?” He gave her big, helpful eyes full of condescension.
“Shut up and get out of here,” she ordered.
“Not just yet.” He clasped her hand. “Blood and bone, Fallon.”
“Blood and bone, Raptor.”
“Let’s get our team back.”
5
For someone Fallon had originally suspected of wanting her dead, Captain Nevitt had turned out to be a surprisingly good ally. She had no problem with Fallon taking the station’s only class-six cruiser for a rescue mission, about which Fallon had given as few details as possible.
“I’m guessing you’re going to need a sizeable leave of absence.”
Fallon wasn’t sure how to answer that. She didn’t know if it would ever be possible for her to return to her position on Dragonfire. A part of her hoped so. At least, that it could be a possibility.
“Don’t think you’re getting out of your assignment. You owe me about three more years of duty. I expect you to take care of business and return here to finish out your tour.” Nevitt gave her a severe look.
“And owe you, for the rest of my life,” Fallon translated dryly.
Nevitt’s grim expression broke into a grin. “Exactly. You and I are going to get things done. Things that have needed doing for a very long time.”
Fallon wondered if Nevitt knew more about the shady dealings of PAC administration than she let on. Then she dismissed the idea. Nevitt might have very good instincts, and accurate impressions of corruption, but at her security clearance level, she’d have no hard data Fallon could use. Nonetheless, she could prove to be a powerful ally.
“What would you think about scrubbing all the data referring to the Onari’s visit? Making it look like it was never here?”
Nevitt’s eyes narrowed and her gaze wandered to the far wall. Fallon could practically see her running through the massive undertaking. She was a little surprised the captain hadn’t just snapped off a quick negative.
“Co
nsider it done.”
Fallon stared, causing a slow smile to spread over Nevitt’s face.
“Oh, I get why it’s necessary,” Nevitt assured her. “Brak’s presence here, the implants, PAC intelligence. There’s a trail of bread crumbs that could be followed, and someone will definitely be looking. I’ll take care of it. Including letting the crew know that the Onari’s visit didn’t happen. We can’t do anything about the other people visiting Dragonfire during that time, but most of them wouldn’t have much interest in the Onari unless they were in need of a hospi-ship at the time. Just one more stop among many. You’d be surprised at how much it all blurs together for them. Sometimes poor recollection is a captain’s best friend.”
Which was a very intriguing statement, but Fallon couldn’t afford to get off track. She had to focus on containment. “The crew’s families are a potential problem.”
“Wrong. Everyone here loves you. They won’t know the why of it, but they’ll know they’re backing you up.” A humorous light glinted in her eyes. “And you know what, my looking out for you might actually get people here to like me, for once.”
Nevitt seemed to find that highly amusing, and Fallon wondered about this captain of hers, whom she’d taken to be a dull, insufferable hard-ass. She wished she had more time to get to know the real Nevitt. Maybe sometime, in the future.
Before leaving Nevitt’s office, Fallon saw the captain’s mouth curl up on one side. “I almost wish I could come with you. Before I started on my long climb to the top to change things from the inside, I wanted to do what you’re doing.”
“Fighting for your life and the lives of your team, against a special-ops outfit gone wrong?” Fallon couldn’t keep all traces of disbelief out of her voice.
Nevitt grinned. “Well, not exactly that, but something along those lines. Just with less, you know, likelihood of death.”
