by Zen DiPietro
“I can start working with her this evening, if she’s available,” he said.
“Good. I’ll talk to her, let her know what’s going on. Then you two can work out the schedule on your own.” She paused. “Now the second job. I’ve left a stone unturned, and I need you to help me flip it over and inspect it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I need information about events on the station that occurred in the year before I arrived. Maybe even two years. First, we’ll search the official records, then we’ll need to dig deeper. I’ll need your personal recollections so we can search personal logs and communications. I may need you to question people about that time. Do not mention any of this to anyone else.”
Arin wore the look of a man who was about to stand in front of a firing squad, but was prepared to meet his fate. “Okay. When should we start?”
“Now.”
Sometimes you go looking for something you don’t want to find, and then you find it. It only took a few hours for Fallon to unravel this particular knot. But now that she had, she needed some time to think about her next steps.
She gave herself the night to mull it over. The next day, she’d have to act on what she’d found. It would have both personal and professional ramifications. She wanted to be alone to give it some deep thought, but she didn’t want to be in her quarters or her office. Going to the boardwalk was out of the question. But she knew the perfect place, with no risk of interruption.
Her serious expression and brisk pace kept anyone from sidelining her as she walked through the station, and she avoided areas likely to be well populated. On Deck Five, she bypassed the crew quarters to head straight for the center of the deck. Several layers of security later, she stood alone in crisis ops control. It seemed like a fitting location, and absolutely no one would come here. She’d run training drills in crisis ops, but a situation had never arisen to warrant using it for real. It would have been exciting if one had, but she cared deeply about this community, and was glad one hadn’t.
Crisis ops had half the space of the regular ops control and was stocked with emergency medkits and rations of food and water. Weapons too. Stingers, low-grade projectile weapons that weren’t a risk for hull puncture, and edged weapons.
She really hoped Dragonfire never saw an event that required the use of this room.
She eased into the command chair. It wasn’t as comfortable as the one in regular ops, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t there for comfort. She needed to think about the decisions she’d made in the past couple of years. She analyzed everything, trying to determine whether her actions had caused her current troubles. Whether she’d missed something that would have changed everything.
She couldn’t be sure. Had she been blind? Had she helped create this entire situation?
By the time she returned to her quarters, Fallon had performed a factory reset on herself. She’d never been a very emotional person. She was logical. Tactical. Someone who didn’t get so caught up in her relationships with people that she missed something.
She needed to go back to being that person.
To say that Raptor’s presence on the couch in her quarters was bad timing would be an understatement. She stopped just inside the doors as they whisked closed behind her, her armor up and her stupid heart silenced.
Raptor’s wolfish grin faded. He stared at her, and the light seemed to leak out of him. “Well, fuck.”
“I need to focus on what we’re doing. No more personal stuff until I get it all sorted.”
“We’ve never been anything but focused on getting the job done.” His voice was flat. “What happened?”
“I screwed up. Let myself get distracted. It’s not your fault—it’s mine.”
His mouth pressed into a hard line. “Humans are supposed to have feelings. I thought you’d figured that out.” He searched her face. “Damn, Fallon, what happened?”
His hurt almost broke her resolve. She stood still, her eyes fixed on a spot on the wall. She had to do it this way if she wanted to trust her own judgment, because if she opened her mouth she’d lose it. And the fact that he could make her lose her willpower was exactly why she needed to keep it. This wasn’t about what she wanted. The safety of everyone she cared about depended on her objectivity.
She continued to stare at the wall, standing at attention.
“Right.” He stood and strode past her to the door. He paused before triggering the door sensor. “If you decide to tell me what’s going on, come talk to me. Otherwise, I won’t bother you again. All business, just like you want. Blood and bone.” His bitter tone made their motto sound like a curse.
Then he was gone. She should have felt bad, but she didn’t. She didn’t feel stripped, or hollowed. She didn’t ache to call him back. No, she felt nothing.
Fallon slept little. Her task for the next day pressed down on her too hard. After giving herself the night to think about her situation, she now had to act. To address the betrayal. Finally she got up and went to work early, skipping her usual run.
In her office she completed regular security checks with obsessive precision while waiting for Arin to escort the person behind her current difficulties.
When they arrived, she nodded at them both, remaining seated.
For the first time in her life, she didn’t want the answers she was about to demand.
“Thank you, Arin. You’re dismissed to your duties.”
He covered his puzzlement quickly as he bowed and left.
She steeled herself. She felt only her sense of duty. Only the need to do her job.
She focused on the traitor across from her, trying to decide just how long the deception had been going on. Finally, she asked the question she most needed to have answered. “How long have you been in collusion with Admiral Masumi Colb?”
Wren’s eyes widened and she sucked in a noisy breath. “What?”
“Drop the act. You know what I am. You know what I do. It took me longer than it should have to connect you to him, but I’ve corroborated it with eyewitness reports and surveillance recordings. You started meeting with him eight months before my arrival on Dragonfire. Did you know him before that?”
Wren wrapped her arms around herself and rocked gently back and forth. “Oh no,” she whispered.
“I’m glad that you’ve decided not to play dumb.” Fallon watched her fair-skinned former wife grow even paler.
“It’s not that.” Wren licked her lips. “I just want you to be safe. But now…” Her voice broke. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“Start at the beginning. When did Colb first contact you, and how did he identify himself to you?”
“Like you said, eight months before you arrived on the station. I’d never met him before that. He found me in the shop and said he needed to talk to me about vital security. He showed me his identification as a PAC officer, and I was able to confirm with intelligence that he worked for them as an operative.”
“He’s a little more than that.”
“I found that out. I didn’t know anything about Blackout at that point. When I learned he was an admiral, I couldn’t imagine what he’d want with me. But he said he needed my help to find a clutch of smugglers that had been operating through this station. Chief Pirlin, who was here before you, wasn’t as thorough. Things weren’t like they are now. I agreed to hand over packages on three different occasions to smugglers, who acted as the middlemen to get the items where they needed to go.”
“What was in the packages?” Fallon asked.
“Medicine. Supplies that were being stolen from PAC aid shipments to planets that were in desperate need. They were being sold on the black market instead of getting delivered. And Colb’s operation worked. The smugglers did what Colb needed them to do and I never saw them again. Colb thanked me. I thought that was it.”
“But it wasn’t.”
Wren shook her head. “He contacted me again soon after. Said that since he knew he could tru
st me, he wanted me to continue helping him get those medical supplies to where they were supposed to go. Legitimate smuggling, more or less. Keeping the goods hidden so they didn’t invite theft.”
“Right.” Fallon had to admit it was a plausible story. The PAC had resorted to such tactics in the past.
“I’d pass on a package every day or so. It was nothing. Took a few minutes out of my day. I felt proud to be helping the PAC and the people who needed those supplies.”
“So then what?” Fallon asked. Perhaps the biggest mysteries in life were buried in that midpoint between Point A and Point B.
“Nothing. It continued on that way. I didn’t hear from him again until he came to the station a week before you arrived. He said that our new chief of security was like a daughter to him and he hoped I’d look out for her in whatever way I could. He said that there was some power shift in your department and he’d assigned you to Dragonfire to keep you safe from all that. I thought it was normal politics. I didn’t know then you were in intelligence.” Wren’s face was pinched, worried.
So what Colb had said implying that her meeting Wren had not been a coincidence was true. It should have hurt. Should have made her go cold, then flush with anger. But she was hard. She was polymechrine incarnate. And she was ready to cut to the chase. “When exactly did he give you a force-field disruptor and a class-eight plasma torch? I’m guessing you hid those in your shop somewhere?”
Wren’s eyes widened with the understanding that Fallon knew everything. “I put them in a restricted-access locker, where only I could get to them. Colb gave the items to me right after you and I got married.”
“Strange wedding present.”
“It wasn’t that. He said that the power shift had become something more, and that if we ever needed to escape the station quickly, we should use these.”
Fallon squinted. “That didn’t seem strange to you?”
“Of course it did! That was my first clue that I’d gotten in over my head, that all this was more than I’d thought. I’m not…I mean, I’m just a mechanic who wants people to be safe and fed and taken care of.” Tears of frustration formed in her eyes. “Especially you.”
Fallon searched Wren’s face as she talked, looking for any hint that would give her away. Prove she was an enemy. But she didn’t find it. She only saw a bewildered and frightened woman.
“How did Colb alert you to break him out of the brig?”
Wren stared down at her hands. “An automated message. It told me that if I received it, he’d been taken into custody. That the situation with the PAC command restructuring had become an all-out coup, and your commanding officer, who was the real enemy, had convinced you that Colb was the one responsible for everything.”
“And you just did what he said? What about coming to me? Telling me what you knew? Letting me do what I do best? Instead, you acted appalled that I hadn’t told you about being a covert operative!” In spite of herself, Fallon found her voice rising.
“You did keep that from me, and I was horrified! That part was true. But if I had revealed myself at that point as a liar in league with your enemy, you wouldn’t have believed me. I was in too deep.” Wren’s eyes were wild. “Colb had told me the best way for me to protect you was to say nothing until he could take on the person who had been after you and finally get everyone on the right side together.” She pressed her hand to her eyes. “I just wanted you safe.” Her voice was a ragged sob.
Fallon tried to poke holes in Wren’s story, but couldn’t. Wren had been duped by a master who had put time into grooming her. She’d thought she was protecting Fallon.
“So you know I’m a BlackOp, then?”
Wren laughed—a wet, manic sound. “I’m naïve, not stupid. I knew things weren’t right early on when your abilities didn’t match your record, though I didn’t realize how deep that went. But now there’s this supposed coup, and the PAC command scuttling Jamestown and going into hiding. And you, in the thick of it all. Appearing, disappearing. Showing up with these friends of yours who look like they eat rocks and belch fire. There’s no other answer but that you’re one of the people involved in everything that’s happening. And…and your head. That’s part of it all, isn’t it?”
Fallon didn’t answer. Didn’t feel like she owed Wren any answers at the moment. “Do you still believe Colb?”
“I did. I thought he cared about you and wanted to protect you. But I trust you more than I trust gravity. So tell me what I should believe and I will.”
Oh, Prelin. Wren’s innocence and blind trust stripped Fallon bare. She rose, went around the desk, and opened her arms.
Wren broke into sobs and clung to Fallon like a child. “I’m sorry,” she croaked. “I was so stupid.”
Fallon guided her to a sofa. “We’re both sorry. We thought we could protect each other by keeping secrets.”
They lay back with Wren’s head against Fallon’s shoulder. After many long minutes, Wren sat up and took a deep breath, her eyes red. “I didn’t pursue you because he told me to.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
Fallon had to smile at her look of surprise. “You’d never do that.”
“Of course not! That’s horrible.”
Fallon laughed. Somehow, this eager, gullible woman’s disgust for duplicity seemed hilarious. In spite of what she’d done, she was a better person than Fallon would ever be. “I guess it’s no wonder you freaked out and dumped me when you realized I was involved in covert operations.”
Wren sighed. “I had no idea what to think. Colb was out of touch, and you had no memories.”
“I can only come to one conclusion,” Fallon said.
“What?” Wren’s face was full of worry.
“That you are truly awful at picking wives.”
Wren smiled. “I picked a great one. I just wasn’t strong enough to…to watch the world burn so I could be with you.”
Fallon found her own words romantic, when coming out of Wren’s mouth.
“And now?”
Wren held Fallon’s hands in hers. “Let’s burn it all down. Whatever this is, I’m in it with you.”
Fallon usually had a few different options marked out at any given time. Strategies. Plans. But looking into Wren’s eyes, she made the only choice she could—she kissed her.
“Good news,” Fallon announced when she assembled Avian Unit, Ross, and Hesta in her quarters that evening. “I know how Colb escaped.”
“And the bad news?” Hesta asked.
“Wren broke him out.”
A long pause allowed Hawk to get all the swearing out of his system.
When he was done, she held up a hand to the questions being thrown at her. “She thought he was the right side to trust, just as we did at one point. She thought she was doing the right thing. But I’ve worked it through, and this could work in our favor.”
“How’s that?” Ross asked.
“He doesn’t know we’ve flipped her. Therefore, he should still trust her. We can work with that. All we need is an idea.”
Silence fell, and she knew they saw the opportunity.
“What do we do about Wren?” Hesta asked.
“She now understands the basics of the situation, and I’m certain we can trust her.”
“You’re sure you’re being entirely objective about that?” Peregrine looked curious rather than doubtful.
“As sure as I can be. You’re all welcome to question her. In fact, I want you to.” She gave them a moment to think about it before she moved on. “Arin’s going to be training Kellis, now that I’ve brought him on board. He’ll be invited to meetings like these in the future too. It’s going to get tougher to get us all together, since someone’s bound to be on duty at any given time.”
“You know…” Hawk scratched at his beard. “I’m thinking of chucking all of this top secret shit and taking up farming on some little planet.”
“No you aren’t.” Peregrine smirked at him.
“No, I’m not,” he agreed. “But it sure sounds nice, every now and then.”
“You’d be bored in no time,” Fallon pointed out. “It sounds like we have no ideas on how to reel Colb in. I want you all to think about it and we’ll meet tomorrow to discuss it.”
Nobody looked thrilled with their assignment.
“Cheer up,” Fallon said. “This is good. We have a way in.”
She wondered if they were thinking about Wren and her trustworthiness, but they’d just have to talk to her themselves. Then they could be sure.
Raptor was the last to leave, and he fixed her with a look before he did. He’d said nothing the entire meeting, and she could only wonder what he was thinking. She needed to talk to him to explain her previous need for space, but his look told her that he now wanted some distance. They were the same, the two of them. What always drew them together also pushed them apart. She hoped that soon, he’d be ready to talk.
Fallon woke up with Wren the next morning, feeling happy but guilty. On one hand, she had Wren, pink-cheeked and brimming with gaiety, peeping at her over a quick breakfast. On the other, her heart felt heavy about Raptor. Her relationship with Wren hadn’t bothered him before, but she’d told him she needed to not have relationship stuff clouding her vision. Then she’d almost immediately taken her relationship with Wren to another level. Raptor deserved better, and she couldn’t have felt more shitty about it.
“Busy day ahead, right?” Wren asked.
“You could say that. Bunch of spy shit. You know.”
Wren laughed at her. “You’re awful.”
“You’re probably right.”
Wren shook a chopstick at her. “You’re not supposed to agree.”
“How about you?” Fallon asked. “A lot to get done today?”
“Routine stuff. Some basic maintenance on incoming ships.”
“Well, maybe you’ll get lucky and someone’s ship will blow up, requiring you to make unusual and difficult repairs.”