by Zen DiPietro
“Well,” Fallon said. She and Jerin had been staring at each other wordlessly for officially a few seconds too long now. “I don’t want to keep you from your work.” She turned to go.
“Why don’t you and your friends join me for dinner? I’ll invite some people you know, and some people you ought to get to know.” Jerin watched her with intent green eyes.
“We’d love to.” At least she would. If the others had a problem with it, then too bad. She didn’t think they would, though.
That gave her several hours to kill before dinnertime. What would she do with all the hours between now and four months in the future? She’d need to find things to keep her busy. Maybe upgrade the Onari’s security system? That was an idea, if Jerin would go for it. She’d need to find ways to exercise, too. Not having a gym would be an obstacle.
Back in her quarters, she sent the message to Endra, asking to meet after dinner. The sooner she got that confrontation over with, the better. She wasn’t eager to hear all the names Endra was likely to call her for marrying her best friend under false pretenses, though.
Fallon prowled around her small quarters restlessly. Since her team had only just escaped the confines of the scow, she wanted to give them some time to themselves. So then, what?
She contacted Brak on the voicecom, expecting to leave a message, but the cyberneticist actually answered. Her face filled the screen.
“Are you settling in well?” Brak asked.
“Too well. I’m bored already. Any chance there’s anything at your lab I could do to help out?”
Brak tilted her head to one side. “There are always things to do here. How are you at wiring?”
“Excellent.” She didn’t have any memory of wiring anything, but her mind filled with diagrams on doing so. She was satisfied that she’d have no issues with such a basic task.
Maybe she could apprentice with Brak for a while. Help Brak to help others and learn some basics about cybernetics along the way. It seemed a good use of her time.
Fallon rubbed her eyes, then took a drink of her iced tea. Hours of staring at microcircuits had made her nearly cross-eyed. She’d have to get better at that. But she’d learned a lot, and the time had passed quickly.
She sat with Jerin, Kellis, Trin, and Raptor. Hawk and Peregrine sat with Ops Commander Demitri Belinsky and Brak, plus a couple others she didn’t know. She recognized the faces, since she’d already memorized the entire ship’s crew. Getting to know the ship’s systems would take longer, due to their complexity, but the task promised to chew up plenty of hours, which worked for her. She’d prefer anything over sitting around and being idle.
Fallon cast a look over her shoulder as the other group broke into laughter. The little restaurant was cozy and pleasant, and apparently doubled as a bar. No fine dining here, just a place to relax. Which suited Fallon perfectly. She’d ordered comfort foods and enjoyed them immensely. She’d felt like she hadn’t eaten in days, but now, with a comfortable fullness in her stomach, that was just a memory.
Jerin and Trin were telling Peregrine about their next stop, another vaccination run, and Fallon let her thoughts drift. It felt nice to have the time to do so, without the weight of an imminent problem pinning her down.
Too soon, the get-together ended. Everyone had finished eating hours ago, and eventually the crew had to excuse themselves. Their shifts would come early the next day, and they couldn’t afford to be exhausted. Fallon had started feeling tired herself, but she still had something to do.
After saying her goodbyes and promising to see Brak in her lab the next day, Fallon reported to Endra’s quarters.
The doors opened, revealing a hostile-looking Endra. The woman halfheartedly waved her in. Fallon braced herself and walked into the fray.
“What do you want?” Endra didn’t sit. She paced the room with her arms folded.
Fallon chose an armchair next to a side table and affected a position of earnest sincerity. At least she hoped it struck Endra that way.
“I don’t know exactly what you think of me, or what I’ve done, but clearly it isn’t good.” Fallon hadn’t prepared a speech, and paused to consider her next words. “First, and most importantly, I want you to know that I sincerely care about Wren. Someday, if and when I figure out who I really am and what’s going on, I hope to be able to reunite with her. Maybe we can’t put things back together, but it’s a top priority for me to make sure that she’s okay in the long run. As important as anything else I’m doing.” She let her genuine feelings display themselves on her face, feeling naked and exposed, but wanting Endra to understand.
Endra leaned on the arm of the couch, half-sitting. Well, at least it was an improvement over the stiff-legged stance from before. “You’re PAC intelligence, right? Are you on the run? Have you done something wrong? Is Wren in danger?”
Fallon took it one question at a time. “I am with intelligence. But I can’t give you details, for your own good. I couldn’t give Wren details for the same reason. It’s not what she thinks, but I can’t tell her what it really is. For one thing, I’m not entirely certain, and for another, it might paint a target on her back.” She paused, considering how to answer the next questions. “I don’t believe I’ve done anything wrong but be in the way of someone who wants to do something bad. That’s an oversimplification but it’s the best I can do. I am on the run, in a manner of speaking, because it’s up to me and my team to figure things out. Set things right.”
Endra’s brows pulled down, and her mouth tightened into a pout of deep thought.
“I know it’s a lot to consider. It might even be hard to believe. But my unit and I are the good guys. We want to keep the PAC working like it’s supposed to, and not let some corrupt official hurt innocent people. We’d even like to remain among the living, if we can work it out that way,” she finished dryly.
“Is this ship in danger because of you being here?”
“I don’t think so. If anything, you’re currently the most protected ship in this sector of the galaxy.”
“Is that woman your lover?”
A stab of surprise lit Fallon’s chest. “Who, Peregrine?”
A hard look from Endra indicated a yes.
“No. So very no.”
Endra’s eyes softened, then her posture loosened, like frozen custard left melting in the sun. She slid over and sat on the couch with her legs folded under her. She let out a huge sigh.
“This sucks,” Endra decided.
“Agreed.”
“How could you marry her when you had all of this stuff right behind you?” When Fallon opened her mouth to answer, Endra held up a hand and cut her off. “No, I know. You have no memory, so you don’t know, right?” She sounded more frustrated than accusatory now.
“Yes. My memory loss is real. I wish I knew what led up to my marrying Wren. I wish I knew what happened on that shuttle when I lost my memories. And I wish to Prelin I knew that when I get all of this figured out—and I will—that things with Wren will tie up into some tidy package. But I don’t know any of that.”
A long silence stretched between them.
“What do you know?” Endra finally asked.
“I know that I’ll do whatever it takes to make things right. I know that I’m a good person. That my team are good people, too.”
Fallon took a breath, thinking further back. “I know that I woke up with people telling me who I was, and that from the start, I thought they might be wrong. I know I can trust my instincts. I know my feelings for Wren are not just some figment of my imagination. I also know that staying away from her is the best thing I can do for her. But I already said that.”
She fell silent for several long moments, then thought of something she hadn’t yet said. “I know that I’m with the right people, moving in the right direction. Someone’s tried to kill my team, and I won’t let that go unanswered.”
She felt like she’d just let loose her entire identity and left it, exposed, dangling betwee
n them.
Endra’s jaw set, as if she’d made a decision. “I guess it’s a start.”
A grudging acceptance, but Endra was right. Fallon had managed to hit the reset button on the events that Krazinski, presumably, had started. She and her team now had a chance to make things right. She didn’t yet know Raptor, Hawk, and Peregrine as well as she wanted to, but she would. Avian Unit would get there, wherever there was, together. Eventually. She had a lot of time to wait out on the Onari beforehand. She knew that their adversary in Blackout would be working in the meantime, but there was nothing she could do about that. Yet.
At least she had the Onari and its crew, and people like Nevitt and Cabot, who’d proven to be more than they seemed. Most of all, she had her team. She was anything but alone in the universe, and that was a long way from where she’d been on the day she’d woken up in the infirmary with a hole in her head.
She said goodnight to Endra and left the quarters. Once in the corridor, she allowed herself a small, hard smile. Explaining things to Endra had clarified the situation to her, as well.
This is what I’m meant to be doing, she thought. Blood and bone don’t quit.
About the Author
Zen DiPietro is a lifelong bookworm, dreamer, writer, and a mom of two. Perhaps most importantly, a Browncoat Trekkie Whovian. Also red-haired, left-handed, and a vegetarian geek. Absolutely terrible at conforming. A recovering gamer, but we won’t talk about that. Particular loves include badass heroines, British accents, and the smell of Band-Aids. Visit her at her website, where she writes reviews, author interviews, and other assorted fun stuff.
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