The Dragon Corps

by Natalie Grey

  Liam wasn’t someone who wanted to go his own way in the world. He wanted to know that he was a part of something, working toward a goal.

  He wanted to know that goal was worthwhile.

  “So.” Wraith gave him an appraising look. “Mallory saw you fight Nyx. She was impressed.”

  “What do you know about Nyx?” The question came out before he could stop himself.

  A single pale eyebrow arched. “Why? You gonna ask her out?”

  “No!” His face was hot. “It wasn’t that. I just … my friends and I would fight, and I got so much better than all of them, that—” He broke off, suddenly aware of how that sounded.

  “You’re here because you’re one of the best.” She met his eyes. “It’s not conceited to say it. So, you got so much better than all of them, that….” She gestured for him to continue.

  “They couldn’t even come close to beating me. They’d come up with these clever ideas, but almost none of them worked, and definitely not more than once—and then I had their tricks, and I was still faster and stronger. I kept trying to get faster, as fast as I could go. I’d never met someone faster than me until I came here, but even the past couple of weeks, I’ve been able to hold my own, you know? But fighting her … it was like … she hardly seemed to move and she was out of the way. And then I started hearing about her and Talon—” He broke off. “It’s not important.”

  Wraith’s expression was more understanding than he expected. “When it’s your first time actually meeting a Dragon … well, I may have been in a while, but I remember Selection. You realize you aren’t a Dragon yet, you see how much better they are than you are.”

  Liam nodded.

  “The reason Mallory wants you for the team isn’t just how you fight, you know,” Wraith told him. “She wanted that, she could point to anyone in that room. The reason she wants you is that she’s seen the security feeds of you sneaking away to train in the middle of the night.”

  Liam froze. “You can see all of that?”

  She gave him a grin. “Of course. You think anything happens in this building that we don’t see? Well … that we don’t have access to see?”

  There was a pause.

  “You guys are fucking sneaky,” Liam said finally.

  “We are.” Her laugh was rich and throaty. “And I think you could be, too. You could use a few more years, but Mallory knows a good thing when she sees it, and I agree with her, after meeting you—you’ve got the talent, and most importantly, you’ve got the attitude. A whole bunch of commanders sat up and took notice when you got your ass handed to you and you didn’t run off home.”

  “If I ran off home every time I got beaten in sparring, I’d never have gotten here.”

  “You’d be surprised.” A shrug. “Lotta people are always the fastest and the strongest. They’re used to being the smartest. They get here, and maybe they’ve got one of those things, but they haven’t got the crown in all of them anymore. It’s hard for a lot of people to take, and that can’t be your attitude on a Dragon team.” She reached out and rapped her knuckles on the table. “So, what d’you say, Morel? You want to be part of Team 11?”

  There was a pause, where Liam knew that this was everything he had wanted for his life, and that he was about to make the biggest mistake he ever had.

  “No,” he said finally. There was no way out of saying that word. “I’m sorry, I really am. I would have said yes, but—”

  “Morel.” Again, her smile was understanding. “I get it. I do. But Talon’s not coming back to Selection. He has a full team, and he’s—well, let’s just say he’s occupied, and will be for a while.”

  Liam swallowed. This was his chance on a silver platter, and his mind was screaming at him to take it. He could be a Dragon. He was throwing away a one-in-a-million shot … for a one-in-a-billion shot.

  “I know,” he heard himself say. “But it’s a chance I’m willing to take.” Because, in the end, it was.

  To his surprise, Wraith wasn’t upset. She reached over the table to shake his hand.

  “I wish you luck, Morel.”

  “Thanks.”

  Back in the dormitory, he felt eyes on him while he walked back to his bed and lay down to study. Victoria had lent him a book on languages, and he tried to force himself to focus, instead of ruminating on the fact that he’d probably just made the biggest mistake of his life.

  “So, you flame out, or what?” a voice asked.

  Liam looked up to see Ed, one of the younger, brasher recruits, still staring at him. In fact, everyone was still staring at him.

  “Guess so.” Liam shrugged, and went back to his book.

  He could feel Ed’s eyes still watching him for a long time after that, and Victoria’s, but he couldn’t bring himself to admit what he’d done.

  Eventually, they went back about their business and left him to read in peace.

  Talon was summoned to Tersi’s bunk a day or so later, only to find the man stuffing a pair of women’s underwear hastily under the bed as he arrived. There was a long moment while Talon fought an internal battle to keep from making jokes about Tersi wearing women’s underwear—he’d have to agree, unless he wanted to tell the truth—and won.

  Barely.

  “Yeah?” he asked finally.

  Tersi stared at him warily for a moment.

  “Is someone going to tell me what’s going on?” a female voice asked.

  “Lesedi?” Talon leaned over Tersi’s computer and lifted a hand in greeting. “Hello.”

  “Hello to you. If we’re all done with awkward silences—which I’m curious about, by the way—I was telling Tersi that I have come up with a name.”

  “She means, she came close to having a name, and I helped her figure it out.” Tersi slid over to give Lesedi a sweet smile. “Did you think you were going to get away without mentioning that?”

  “In any case—” Lesedi clearly was not going to deign to answer the question “—the information is fairly conclusive. The person taking this job is Satomi Kreuger.”

  “Have you been in contact with her?” Talon took a seat on the bed and settled back comfortably, then wondered just how recently the sheets had been cleaned. He sat up again.

  “In this case, I don’t need to. Satomi … has a reputation.”

  Talon frowned. “I’ve never heard of her.”

  “Not the kind of reputation that invites Dragon involvement, dear.” Lesedi was smiling wryly. “For any reason. She has a passion for … how shall I put this delicately … lost causes.”

  Talon scratched at the back of his neck.

  “Now, you being involved obviously shifts the balance somewhat in favor of the resistance.” Lesedi was clearly running calculations of a sort in her head. “Still.” She gave a little shrug.

  It was hard to argue.

  “So she, at least, thinks this deal is for the resistance, not the Warlord.”

  “Yes. And I’d be surprised if the Warlord bothered to use someone like her for 1500 weapons. There’s a possibility, of course, that he’s trying to flush out anyone who would help them … but I actually doubt it. There’s still considerable numbers of questions being asked from people I’m fairly certain are aligned with him, that suggest he doesn’t know who’s taken this job.”

  “Who?”

  “What?”

  “Who’s asking the questions?”

  “Talon, I only have guesses, and I don’t offer people up for assassination with just guesses.”

  “Fine, I won’t assassinate them. Until I have proof.”

  Lesedi narrowed her eyes at him, but eventually gave a sigh. “You’re running up quite a tab, I hope you know.”

  “I know.”

  “A tutu and the Seneca Opera House may not be enough to pay this off anymore.” She raised an eyebrow. “Oh, did you think I’d forgotten that? Because I haven’t. In any event, the man asking questions is Ellian Pallas. He’s an arms dealer on New Arizona who abruptly stoppe
d taking new contracts about five years ago, though he still requests quite a lot of high-end weaponry for someone in the same sector as Ymir. Make of it what you will.”

  “Mmm.” Talon considered. “Well. I will … try to set up a meeting. See if you can contact her, will you?”

  Lesedi nodded.

  “And I’ll see about getting a tutu,” Talon added. “Any requests on color?”

  “I’ll leave that up to you.” With a sunny smile, she signed off.

  “Want me to send a message?” Tersi asked.

  “Yes. To the Dragon teams. Put out a call for—actually, you’re off duty right now, get some rest. Mars.” Talon lifted his voice as the younger man headed past in the hallway.

  “Yeah?” Mars ducked his head into the room.

  “Could you send a message to all Dragon teams?” Talon stood. “Tell them to hold off on interfering in the weapons sales for Ymir. I have good intel that the weapons aren’t for the Warlord.”

  “Sure.” Mars jerked his head toward the cockpit. “I’ll go now and—”

  “Sent,” Tersi announced.

  Talon gave him a look. “I told you to get some rest.”

  “Work is my rest,” Tersi said prosaically.

  “You’re not deep, you know, you’re just a workaholic.” Talon ushered Mars ahead of him out of Tersi’s room. “Next time I say rest, I expect you to follow orders. Read a book. Smell some flowers.”

  “Have one of those really long ‘sparring’ sessions with Sphinx….” Mars added, continuing the list.

  “What?” Tersi called.

  “Nothing,” Mars called back over his shoulder.

  Talon smirked, and headed off to do some research on Satomi Kreuger.

  16

  Aleksander Soras stared at the communication and resisted the urge to curl his hands into fists. It was admirable, what Talon was doing. One could hardly argue that point.

  It was also going to get a substantial number of combatants killed, and Soras had learned very quickly that Dragons never considered this an acceptable reason to halt a mission. Civilians, yes; combatants, no.

  And not only had Talon clearly decided that given the precise situation on Ymir, civilian casualties were allowable in this case, he’d shown in the past that he was willing to act on that assessment. He wasn’t going to flinch at the last second, as a commander normally would. He was actually going to do this.

  Soras wondered idly if the man was religious, and—if so—what he anticipated for the afterlife.

  He had more important things to worry about, however. He pulled the memo from the Ariane toward him, and then the memo that had been paper clipped to it when he got in this morning. Julian had underlined key passages, made notes in the margins, and cited corroborating information from other sources.

  Talon claimed to have irrefutable sources, but it was Julian’s word Soras was going to go by. And while this discrepancy would normally be of little consequence, unfortunately, Soras was sure that it was Talon’s word the other Dragons would go by, as well.

  Which meant he now had a very short window in which to act.

  That meant he needed to go find—

  No time. He picked up the phone….

  And then thought better of the idea. There was no excuse for sloppiness in Intelligence. No shortcuts, especially not now. He gave one last look at Talon’s memo, sighed, and left his office, closing the ornate doors gently behind him.

  “I’m leaving for the day,” he informed Julian.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You can reach me, if you need to.”

  “Of course.” Julian smiled at him. “If I need to.”

  The training range was a thing of beauty, an obstacle course designed to flip itself into different configurations each time, enemies appearing at random intervals, objectives defined on a rotating basis: clear the course, kill one specific enemy, simply make it to the end. One could see the course in advance, to plan a strategy, or have the course obscured until the timer started—the option Tera almost always chose. Planning was a useful skill, but combat couldn’t be planned. You were adaptable, you made good choices … or you died.

  Now, she bounced on the balls of her feet as she waited for the timer to count down.

  At her request, an option had been installed to use live rounds, and she had set this course on that setting. When the klaxon went and the blast doors opened, she was slightly off-center and already in motion.

  Which was good, because one of the robotic warriors had its sights trained at about her height. Bullets shot over her head as she ducked and threw herself into a tight roll at the left edge of the room, behind a much-abused concrete barrier about two feet high.

  First objective: cover. Her quick scan of the room had caught three backup soldiers on the right, and the barrier set too close to the wall for anyone to fold themselves behind it on the left. Of course, there could be any number of other unpleasant things—spikes, grenades, smoke bombs—but getting out of fire was the first objective.

  She looked around herself. Nothing else here, though it wasn’t an ideal location.

  One thing at a time. Now that she had cover, her second objective was to assess the course. She pulled out her sidearm and closed her eyes for a moment. There was a faint disturbance in the air, not pushing out into the waiting room, but sucking back into the heart of the course.

  Fire obstacle. Her lips curved in a smile.

  What else? There was a clanking noise, something … turning? Most likely turning.

  And the footsteps of the robotic soldier, who was advancing on her. She heard the clank of the other three rearranging their position, and her smile broadened.

  “Let’s see what you got, motherfuckers.” She waited until the first soldier loomed over the partition, and then she reached up to clamp her hand around the gun and yank. The soldier staggered off-balance, robotic fingers clenched around the gun, and she slammed her own sidearm against its wrist to weaken the support. Another blow, another, another—she grabbed its forearm in the other hand and yanked the two apart with a twist. The robot’s wrist gave way, and the fingers popped open.

  “Two guns, no waiting.” She rammed the butt of the rifle into its face and pulled it back down behind the barrier with her as the other three started shooting.

  It fought her, stronger than a human opponent and coldly logical, but she knew its weaknesses. She grabbed its head in both hands and twisted, hard; like a human, it was set to “die” if its neck was broken.

  Unlike a human, she was able to wrench its head off and reprogram it to use as a makeshift grenade.

  Which was what she was doing when the course powered off.

  “Tera?” Her father’s voice.

  “I’m here.” Tera stood up, the head still in her hands and a confused frown on her face. Her father sometimes came to watch her, but he had never interrupted a course before. “Hi?”

  “Hello.” He came around the blast doors and paused, staring at the head.

  “You can modify the self-destruct to use it as a grenade.” She hefted it in one hand.

  He looked over at the other soldiers. “Would you have had time?”

  “Yes. Remember, I can store code fragments in here.” She raised her hand to show the implants embedded in her forearm.

  “Ah. Well. I actually need to you leave for a mission—immediately.”

  “Tell me.” Tera dropped the head and walked out into the antechamber with him.

  “A woman named Satomi Kreuger. She accepted a job to bring weapons to Ymir—for the Warlord. I need her taken out.”

  Tera’s eyebrows rose. “We’ve finally found his arms master?”

  “No. Though Julian assures me that if any of our agents determine who it is, I’ll be the first to know. No, this is a … one-off. And it needs to be taken care of quickly.”

  “I’ll … move as fast as I can.” Tera rubbed at her forehead. “Kreuger. I’ve never heard of her. Any leads? If this needs
to be done fast, I’ll need something more than just a name.”

  “I could give the mission to Apollo.”

  “No!” The word was reflexive.

  Her father sat back, a bemused arch to one eyebrow.

  “No,” Tera repeated. Her cheeks heated, and she grabbed her sweatshirt off the mat angrily.

  “Because….”

  “Because he’s sloppy.” She spat the words. “He’s sloppy, he’s untrustworthy, he’s second rate. You have no idea who else he might be taking contracts from.”

  “Tera, I think I know enough to do background checks on assassins.”

  She gave him a look.

  “Do you think I don’t?” His voice took on a colder note.

  She looked away, swallowing. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him look away as well. His jaw was set.

  “It’s not that I don’t trust you.” Her words were rushed. She was almost in a panic, especially when she saw a muscle in his jaw jump. “It’s not that I don’t think you know your business, but … I don’t know why you keep him around. He isn’t—he doesn’t—”

  There was a silence.

  “You have me,” Tera said finally. She looked over at him. “Have I ever not come through for you?”

  He met her eyes, and the anger went out of him. He blew out a long breath. “I did not mean to impugn your skills. You know that.”

  She looked at him. “I know.” But you did. The words hung in the air.

  “Right now, there is no room for error. If this deal goes through, it will set off a bloodbath. A backup—”

  “No.”

  “These matters are not always in your hands.” Annoyance was creeping back into his tone. “I have Dragons who think they can take on the world, I do not need you doing the same. I need you to accept that things do not always go right the first time, that you are not infallible, that you will sometimes be outmatched.”

  Tera froze for a moment. She looked down at the floor, hearing the blood beat in her ears.

  “When do you need her taken out by?”

  “Immediately, Tera, do you not—”

  “When?” The word was raw. “Just tell me when!”