Dragon's Echo

by Natalie Grey

  This was harder, somehow—and her mistake during the attack on the docks had shown her just how far she was from being at ease with all of this. And, worse, she did want to be here. She wanted to have her own team, choose her own targets.

  She wished she hadn’t already fucked up.

  There was a knock and Nyx jumped guiltily. She should be unpacking, doing paperwork, reading dossiers on the members of Team 11, literally anything except sitting on her ass.

  The door was already sliding open to admit Wraith, who paused when she saw Nyx’s expression. “Sorry. Centurion and I would just come in when—well, with Mallory.” She shut her mouth, embarrassment making a tinge of red on her pale skin. “You’ll probably want to do things your own way,” she said a moment later.

  “Don’t apologize.” Nyx rubbed her forehead. It was a remarkably graceful statement given that the reason for all this change was that a close friend had been brutally murdered. “I, ah—I’m just wishing you’d caught me doing something useful, that’s all. Apparently this is not my day to make good impressions.”

  With her luck, Wraith wouldn’t like blunt honesty, either. She honestly didn’t know much about the woman beyond her combat record.

  But, to her relief, the XO was startled into a snort of laughter.

  “What do you need?” Nyx asked.

  Wraith gestured out toward the rest of the ship. “You gonna make a speech before we head off?”

  “Why—oh.” Nyx groaned. “I hate speeches to start with and this is already not my day. But I should. Let’s get it over with, let me just change first.” She was still wearing the damned dress uniform, after all, though she’d stripped off the coat as soon as she could.

  She pulled off the dress shirt, sniffed the undershirt, and wrinkled her nose at the lingering traces of smoke and sweat. Everything she was wearing today was probably a loss. She folded it all neatly, however, out of habit, before putting it in an airtight bag and pulling on a ship uniform. Dragons tended to wear whatever the hell they wanted, both in combat and out of it, but Nyx had never lost some of her Navy habits.

  She jerked her head at Wraith when she was done, having rebraided her hair and checked briefly in the mirror for any bad patches of soot.

  There was a scrape down the side of her face, aching dully, but there was nothing to be done about that right now. She could go to the ship’s medic for a gel that would have it healed within minutes, but with her upgrades, it would heal fairly quickly on its own, and she never went to a doctor if she could avoid it.

  “Any ship customs you can think of, let me know,” she told Wraith as they walked. “I don’t want to mess with what’s working. So … how you all handle chores, maintenance, that sort of thing. I’ll want your thoughts on the crew dossiers, too.”

  She fully intended to draw her own conclusions from experience, but there was a lot you couldn’t learn about a person from their medals and biographical details, and sometimes a heads up was nice.

  Wraith nodded. She thought it over. “Tonight there’s a lot of stuff just for getting underway, but I’m free after dinner tomorrow—Choop has the helm, if I’m remembering correctly, and most people will be doing chores or working out. I’ll bring Centurion as well, if you want.”

  Nyx nodded. They could hear the crew gathered in the mess by now and her heart was beginning to pound in her chest. She hadn’t been lying when she said she hated speeches, and she was especially dreading one now, after making such a spectacular misstep earlier in the day.

  Instinct told her, however, that if she let embarrassment get the better of her, it would be hard to recover from. She had to get back on the horse.

  Everyone quieted when she came into the room. She caught sight of Loki, sitting comfortably on a table next to a woman with blazing red hair. Nyx caught Centurion’s eye with a nod. A good crew chief was a godsend, and from what she had seen and heard of Centurion so far, she had no intentions of replacing him. He reminded her a bit of Aegis, although he was much quieter.

  Wraith melted away and Nyx tried to think of how to begin.

  “I hate speeches,” she said finally. There was a round of chuckles. “They’re almost never called for, and then I make it all worse by rambling on. So, uh—look. We don’t all know each other yet, but we’re Dragons. We’ve got each other’s backs no matter what. I, uh….”

  She wrapped her arms over her chest and tried to decide if she should mention Mallory.

  She decided to do so. They weren’t going to get anywhere by pretending the assassination hadn’t happened. Avoiding topics this central was almost always a bad choice.

  “Mallory saved my life by giving us a heads up about the assassination order. I don’t know if you all knew that. What happened to her—what Soras did to her—” Nyx broke off. “It’s why we do what we do,” she said finally. “Because there are assholes out there and there are innocent people, good people, who get caught in the crossfire. And we’re good at stopping those assholes. We’re really good at it.”

  She looked up at them and could not read their expressions.

  “So that’s all,” she said. It didn’t seem like enough. “We’re going to be taking out the last of Soras’s Dragons—we think there are a few still to go and we’re working on verifying them. Some other groups are involved.” Her crew had all been vetted by Lesedi, but Nyx still wasn’t willing to spill too much detail right now. “We’re waiting on details for one of them, and once I have those, we’ll be working with the crew of the Ariane to take one down.”

  Like they needed a reminder of this morning. Still, this mission couldn’t wait.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Wraith’s frown.

  She looked over, keeping both her face and her voice carefully neutral. “What is it?”

  “You’re, ah…” Wraith exchanged a glance with Centurion. They must have discussed this. “You’re not going after the people who attacked us today?”

  Nyx blinked. She had not considered changing their priorities.

  “Captain.” It was the woman with the red hair, who Nyx recognized from a quick skim of the dossiers as Fala “Foxtail” Stoltz. “If we can ask…what was that about?”

  “You can ask.” Nyx leaned back against the wall, shoving her hands into her pockets. “I had command of the Ariane for a few weeks during my command trial and we took down—well, that lump of metal with the note was Gerren’s Ore.” She gave a wry grin. “You can probably put two and two together on that one.”

  News of Maryam Samuels’s involvement in the smuggling ring, coming right on the heels of Aleksander Soras’s conviction, had touched off a firestorm in the news. Samuels had been the face of Senate anti-corruption efforts, which only made everything worse. If we can’t even trust the anti-corruption crusaders, numerous Op Eds had asked, who can we trust?

  Nyx was of the opinion that joining the anti-corruption team had been a stroke of genius on Samuels’s part, and hardly indicative of the rest of the team’s character. Still, she had to admit that it was disturbing how high both Soras and Samuels had risen through the ranks without anyone learning their secrets.

  Who else might be lurking in the government?

  The members of her team, meanwhile, seemed highly amused by this revelation.

  “That was you guys?” Centurion asked, and Nyx got what she guessed was a rare gleam of a smile. “Team 9 is earning a reputation.”

  Nyx nodded her head at him with a grin. “Yeah. You should have seen Hugo’s note. Not that he was unhappy,” she added hastily. The new head of Alliance Intelligence was a surprisingly likable man, who Nyx guessed had been underestimated by a lot of people in the course of his life. Slight and unassuming at first glance, he was formidably intelligent and quietly, incorruptibly principled—as well as having a good sense of humor. “He just referenced some visits he’d had from ‘concerned parties.’ He thanked me for giving him a new list of people to investigate.”

  The team guffawed.<
br />
  Wraith, however, was quiet and still. “You killed Samuels,” she observed. “So who’s coming after you now?”

  The team’s amusement disappeared at once. They looked from Nyx to Wraith and back again, and Nyx noted their sudden change in demeanor. They respected Wraith’s opinions. That was spoke well of the woman’s leadership.

  “Someone in her organization, maybe?” Nyx suggested. “Honestly, I have no immediate suspicions. I’ll have Les—people—looking into it.”

  She caught herself before saying Lesedi’s name. Lesedi now lived on the Io, assisting with the mission to dismantle the last of Soras’s organization, but even before that, Nyx and Talon had trusted her with inquiries that, at times, revealed classified information.

  Lesedi had made it abundantly clear that she was capable of finding such information on her own, but Nyx knew some of her team might balk at their methods.

  “For now, we focus on the traitors,” she said firmly. “Let’s make the Dragons Soras-free and then worry about the rest of it. Dismissed. Oh, and one more thing.” Everyone paused in the process of getting up, and sank back into their seats. “I, uh, I feel real weird about being ‘Captain.’ Call me Nyx for now, would you?” Everyone nodded and withdrew.

  Wraith approached. “Didn’t mean to question you in front of everyone.” She shook her head. “Won’t happen again. Truth is, I’m grateful to be going after his legacy. We were going to take on Team 5’s traitor with Mase’s team, but put that on hold when we got called in to pick you up. He said he could take it alone—he and Hera know each other.”

  Nyx smiled. There was a little bit of a smile when Wraith said that last part. Mase and Hera’s relationship was a fairly open secret within the Dragons.

  That had been part of Nyx and Talon’s calculations on this front. With that link to Hera’s team, Mase would hardly need help. Meanwhile, their target was on a team they hadn’t worked with often. Them teaming up had been a natural choice for any number of reasons.

  “I’m glad we’re working on this,” Wraith added. “Feels like the least I can do.” Her face had gone very still, but there was pain behind her eyes that she could not hide. “Considering,” she finished softly.

  “We lost two,” Nyx said. “I understand.”

  Wraith stared at her silently for a moment, then swallowed. “I don’t think you do,” she said finally. “I was the one who vetted the bastard. If I hadn’t passed his name on to Mallory…”

  Nyx took a deep breath. Now she did understand, and her throat ached at the thought of it. An XO was often the person who did the first interviews at Dragon selection, weeding out those who were obviously unsuitable for whatever reason before passing the names to their captain. What would it be like to be in Wraith’s position? Talon had become one of her closest friends, and the same was clearly true for Wraith and Mallory.

  Nyx didn’t want to think about it. She nodded silently, then assessed Wraith’s character and decided not to offer reassurances that it wasn’t the woman’s fault. “We’ll make sure it never happens again,” she said simply.

  Wraith smiled. “Thanks for not saying all the usual bullshit,” was all she said. She nodded and headed for the cockpit.

  Nyx made her way back to her quarters, deep in thought. The speech hadn’t gone too badly, really, but she still felt adrift and off her game. She arrived in the room and looked at the bare walls and empty closets.

  “You have until you get unpacked,” she told herself firmly. “Then you have to stop wallowing.”

  Then, with a timeline established, she set some music to play and went to work.

  4

  Tera leaned over the desk and pushed a stack of papers into a fan. They were the mission briefs not only for the target she and Cade would go after, a member of Team 7, but also for the other three targets, presently being pursued by Talon and his allies among the Dragons.

  Tera had made it her business to read as much as possible on each of them. In some ways, she and the Dragons seemed very similar—highly trained and very adaptable, with almost complete discretion over their targets.

  In truth, however, they worked very differently. Tera was used to being entirely alone on her missions and wasn’t even sure how well she’d be able to work with a partner, while the Dragons had turned their reliance on one another into a strength.

  She stared at the documents for a long moment and then took one out neatly.

  “I’m intrigued,” said a voice from behind her. “What made you decide to pick that one up?”

  Tera looked over her shoulder at Lesedi with a smile and raised eyebrows, and Lesedi smiled back. She strolled into the room and took a seat, her cup of tea cradled in both hands.

  “You don’t know, do you?” the information broker asked. “You do it by instinct.”

  Tera shrugged. “Some. But instincts can be wrong. I try not to do too much by instinct beyond combat.”

  Lesedi raised her brows as she nodded, considering. “I’ve been watching you for a few days,” she explained. “You tend to go for the same pieces of information I do. I suppose we’ll have to be careful with that, so as not to make the same instinctive mistakes twice over.”

  Tera nodded, but she wasn’t particularly worried. “We have Cade. Between the three of us, we should be able to keep our plans tight.”

  Even as she spoke, Cade ducked into the room. The Io was a small ship, and while Lesedi and Aryn could walk through the ship with no problems, Cade, Mala, and Tera all had to duck nearly every time they went anywhere.

  Between the three of them, they had amassed an impressive collection of forehead bruises.

  Tera looked over at Cade. “Good workout?”

  He nodded, still breathing hard. He had kept himself in reasonable shape when he left the Dragons—or, as almost anyone else would call it, excellent shape. Now he had thrown himself into training for combat once more and his dedication was paying off in both speed and strength.

  Tera had been pleasantly surprised. She was used to training and working alone, testing her skill against robotic competitors. She had been wary of working with anyone, but she enjoyed sparring with Cade.

  At the beginning, between her upgrades and his years off from combat, he hadn’t been a match for her. She had sensed his frustration, and knew instinctively how deep it went—which meant she knew to push him harder rather than tone down her sparring. When he joined the Dragons, he had been 22 and in peak condition. To be where he was now, was frustrating on the deepest level of who he was.

  She, too, had always been the best when she went head to head with someone. Whenever she was injured or found herself going up against something stronger than she was—be it a situation with multiple opponents or some physical feat she could not yet manage—any hint of pity or false easiness made her want to put her fist through a wall.

  So she didn’t go easy. Instead, she used all of her speed, her strength, and her tricks in each match against Cade, and it wasn’t long until he began to score good points. Now he sometimes won their matches, combining strength and speed with a sneakiness that Tera admired. She would always bet on experience and cunning over youth, and the fact that he hadn’t backed down or slunk away in frustration gave her peace of mind.

  Anyone who accepted defeat wasn’t an ally you could trust.

  He looked longingly at Lesedi’s mug now. “Tea,” he said, in tones of deep disgust. “I’d kill for a cup of coffee. I forgot that about living on a ship.”

  She held it up for him to smell.

  Cade sniffed it, then jerked back. “What in God’s name is that? That was the tea? I thought Mala was fixing something on the engines!”

  “It’s Lapsang Souchong,” Lesedi said, amused. “It’s an acquired taste, I’ll admit, but no more rank than you are right now.” She raised an eyebrow at him and Tera. “One sees all you warriors with their muscles, and rather forgets how … fragrant … the process of getting them must be.”

  Tera laugh
ed. She went through several loads of laundry each week, simply to keep her living quarters from smelling like an old gym.

  “Now.” Lesedi stood and put the cup of tea on the table.

  Cade edged around to the other side, wrinkling his nose.

  “Our target is—” Lesedi looked around. “Do we want to wait for the other two?”

  Tera shook her head. “They’re working on engine tests. Elbow deep in grease and equations, both of them.” She shrugged. She had passed by the engine room to hear them arguing good-naturedly over whether Mala’s calibrations were going to get them splattered on the side of a moon somewhere, and had then spent the past hour trying not to think about the possibility.

  Lesedi nodded. “Very well, then. This operation as a whole has four targets: Yara Litchfield on Team 5, commanded by Jamie Bank; Edward Collette on Team 7, commanded by Sarah Rousseau; Zachary Hinn on Team 18, commanded by Andrew Beckett; and R. Estabrook on Team 22, commanded by Gareth Hughes.”

  “Grunt,” Cade interjected. “That’s what Hughes goes by. And Banks is Hera. The other two, not sure—you don’t know everyone in the Corps at any time.” Some people, like Nyx, became well-known, but with 30 teams of 16, no one was going to know everyone else.

  Lesedi shook her head. “You all and your names. Where did that one come from, I wonder? No, don’t tell me,” she added hastily. “Any questions on any of the four?”

  She looked at the other two, who shook their heads. They’d been over the dossiers already.

  It was a safe assumption that Soras had placed a spy on each Dragon team, and almost all of the teams had already found them. From the four that hadn’t, they had determined who they believed the traitors to be. Now they needed to figure out how to take down each of the four without tipping them off—if they sent messages to the team leaders, identifying the traitors, they ran the risk of the traitor intercepting the message and killing the team leader.