Dragon's Echo

by Natalie Grey

  In the end, they had decided to divide and conquer, using the teams run by Talon, Nyx, Mase Hernandez, and Alina Kuznetsova, as well as Tera and Cade. The teams were in contact with one another, but were handling things mostly separately for now. Originally, Mase and Wraith had decided to team up, but with Nyx now running Team 11, she and Talon would team up instead.

  Lesedi spread the four pictures on the table and tapped one, a man with hazel eyes and greying light brown hair.

  “Our target is Edward Collette. He’s 38 years old and a Navy veteran. Interestingly, he was assigned to the HAS Tomczyk, which would have been part of the second wave in the Navy’s invasion of Ymir.”

  Cade’s eyebrows shot up. One of the Navy’s greatest failures to date was their attempted attack on Ymir almost two decades ago. Aleksandr Soras, still a rising star in the Navy at that time, had not been part of the task force that initiated the assault, but had nonetheless learned of it in time to crash the first carrier the Navy had sent, bombarding the rubble to ensure that there were no survivors.

  How, exactly, he had accomplished the crash was not known. None of the interrogators had managed to get that out of him since his arrest. At the time, the Navy had been too demoralized to attempt another attack. Soras, meanwhile, had been frightened enough by the close call that he maneuvered his way into Intelligence instead of the Navy. From there, he had successfully averted any further attacks over the years by manipulating Intelligence reports, targeting non-governmental forces that might have helped a rebellion, and killing officials and officers who would not let the issue of Ymir go.

  One of the first he had killed, of course, was the man he had replaced as the Head of Alliance Intelligence, and he had used Tera to accomplish that. She looked around herself, suddenly wondering if these two knew her role in that event. Lesedi, at least, must suspect it.

  Tera had been told at the time that James Hoa was weak, incapable of protecting citizens—that replacing him would save lives. She wondered now just how many of her early assassinations had been completed under similarly false pretenses. She had toyed with the idea of asking Lesedi to investigate them.

  Lesedi would never turn that opportunity down, after all. Many of the assassinations had been made to look like accidents, and Tera’s accounting of events would bring many facts to light, things that Lesedi would find useful to know.

  Tera wasn’t ready to know yet, though. She crossed her arms and tried to focus.

  “Collette, also known as JD, is a member of Team 7,” Lesedi told them.

  “JD?” Cade asked, frowning.

  “John Doe. Apparently, he’s very…forgettable. A good talent in a spy.” Lesedi smiled wryly. “My best guess is that Soras recruited him when he was still in the Navy.”

  “I may be able to confirm that,” Tera murmured. “If it’s important.”

  Lesedi gave her an uncomfortably shrewd look. “Your father’s files?”

  Tera hesitated, then nodded. She had copied everything before she turned it over to the Alliance and most of the copies were now hidden in a small cache. She was still afraid to look through them, and something in her rebelled at the idea of anyone seeing them.

  Someone should know, though. Her father’s cruelties had been many, and secret. Lesedi might be able to bring peace to a large number of families who had never known what happened to their loved ones.

  Cade, looking between them, noted Tera’s discomfort. “Probably not important yet,” he said decisively. “What we need is to figure out where he goes to ground and get him to hole up there.” Lesedi frowned and Cade smiled. It was not a particularly nice smile. “People who do this shit always have somewhere to run—and those places are rarely as secure as they think.”

  “He’s right.” Tera backed him up, seeing that Lesedi was still doubtful. “And being shut up there makes most of them panic and do stupid things. It’s a good plan. As to how we’ll get him to go to ground, I have an idea—tip one of the four of them off and see if they communicate with the others. We need them somewhere we can monitor communications, of course…”

  “Between us, Talon, and the others, we should be able to.” Lesedi didn’t seem at all worried. “Talon mentioned tracking his toward Akintola—and between me and Tersi, we can get a bead on almost anything sent from the station or through it.”

  “There we go,” Tera said.

  “The trick,” Tera said grimly, “will be getting the other captains to monitor things without tipping off the spy.”

  “Does Talon have any ideas?” Cade asked her.

  “I haven’t mentioned it to him yet.” She frowned. “I was going to when we were in contact next, but he hasn’t been in touch. He should be off Seneca by now.”

  “There was an explosion at the Dragon docks this morning,” Lesedi murmured. “No Dragon casualties—one dock worker. But it was the Ariane and the Conway. I sent both Talon and Nyx messages about it. I was waiting to hear back from him before I told you all.”

  Cade’s gaze sharpened. “Who was it?”

  “Nyx thinks it may be related to her last mission.” Lesedi looked troubled. “Which would support some suspicions I had. It doesn’t seem as if Maryam Samuels’s death killed that organization, but that’s just a hunch on my part. I couldn’t tell you who’s running it, or what they’re up to. I’m just not seeing the normal displacement I’d expect if they’d gone under.”

  Cade and Tera met her troubled gaze. Nyx was part of their family, and a threat to her was something all of them instinctively wanted to head off.

  “We can’t do anything about it yet,” Tera said finally. “We’ll offer our help when we know where to hit.”

  “She won’t ask us,” Cade warned. “We’ll have to keep an eye on her. Us and Talon.”

  Tera and Lesedi frowned, but nodded.

  “And her?” Lesedi looked pointedly toward the engine room to indicate Mala.

  Tera and Cade both shook their heads. There was no need to worry Mala yet, when there weren’t even any facts to tell her.

  “Enough about that, then. How do we flush Collette out?” Lesedi looked between the two of them.

  “You don’t have ideas?” Cade asked, surprised.

  “I’m the information broker, dear. I provide information. I don’t specialize in putting it into action.” Despite her confident tone, Lesedi looked out of her depth for the first time since Tera had known her.

  The other two accepted this without comment. Tera was searching through the papers when she noticed Cade staring speculatively at one in particular. When she craned to look, he pointed.

  She began to smile. “Yeah, we could do that.”

  He grinned back and slid the piece of paper over to Lesedi.

  She gave a disbelieving chuckle. “Is this the sort of thing you’ve been doing with my information all these years? No, don’t answer that. But you two certainly don’t play nice.”

  “Waste of time,” Cade said simply.

  On the first night out of port at Seneca, Talon gathered with Aegis and Tersi in his quarters to finish the day’s business. On Nyx’s recommendation, Talon had chosen Aegis as her successor. Perpetually unimpressed by both etiquette and youthful exuberance alike, Aegis was just as methodical with his paperwork as Nyx had been.

  Now he was applying that methodical nature to an incident report on the explosion at the docks, and he was frowning ferociously.

  “How the hell am I supposed to answer this? Look—name of attacker, political motivations, this whole section. I don’t know any of it.”

  “Oh.” Tersi had leaned over to take a look. Now he shook his head. “Just write, ‘pending audit results’ there, there, and—I know there’s another one—yep, there. It’ll have an audit number in a few weeks, but we have to submit within five days.”

  Tersi just shook his head at the bureaucratic nonsense, but Aegis did not join in on the joke. Instead, he looked at Tersi and Talon steadily.

  “But who did do it?” he a
sked. “Who’s hunting her?”

  Talon put his pen down. This wasn’t about paperwork anymore, and he’d been trying to ignore the same thought all day with no luck. They might as well talk about it.

  Enemies were a professional hazard in the Dragons. When they took out the worst of the worst, there were often people who wanted revenge—or people they missed. Most, however, were motivated to get revenge very directly. Pain and death were their goals.

  Most would have sent an assassin today, not a challenge.

  The note, the ore, the location—all of it had been designed to show that the person who sent it had resources, patience, and access to classified information and areas. Given Samuels’s involvement in the organization, Talon supposed he shouldn’t be surprised by that last part, but what he couldn’t understand was who would care enough to go after Nyx when instead, they could be getting up to speed, running the organization.

  If Nyx was a threat to them, she should be eliminated, but there was no reason to suspect that she was any more of a threat than any other Dragon.

  So what in Hell was this person up to?

  “Maybe Samuels wasn’t the mastermind,” Talon said finally.

  Aegis shook his head. “You should’ve seen her. She was crazy, but she was smart, and she had just few enough inhibitions to do something like that.”

  Tersi was nodding. “I suppose that leaves…what? A business partner? Protege, lover?”

  “Why not all three?” Talon raised an eyebrow. “If she’s as crazy as Aegis says.”

  Aegis snorted.

  Tersi smiled briefly, but the smile didn’t touch his eyes. “Whatever it was, she disrupted a big operation. I fucking hate that she’s not here right now.” He rubbed at his temples. He seemed to be holding words back, and when Talon and Aegis said nothing, he burst out, “Well, they couldn’t protect Mallory, could they? And now that’s who Nyx has watching her back. It’s….I shouldn’t say that.” He looked away for a moment, and then looked back, his jaw set. “But it’s true,” he said. He sank his head into one hand.

  Tersi and Nyx had been close, Talon knew. Even amongst the leadership on a Dragon team, there was separation between the captain, and the XO and chief. Now, Talon waited for Tersi to look up.

  “Hey. You know Nyx is fucking pathological when it comes to trusting people.”

  Tersi laughed and wiped at his eyes, which were suspiciously bright. “Right.”

  “And you’re forgetting,” Aegis rumbled, “we’re running this mission with them. We’ve got her back for a while longer.”

  Tersi gave him a grateful look as Talon sized up the pile of paperwork and sighed.

  “All right, I’m calling it. We’re getting up in our heads and this shit can’t get done tonight. Go get some sleep. And that means no researching on Samuels,” he added pointedly to Tersi, who gave him a guilty look.

  Alone in his cabin, Talon sighed and slumped back in his chair. Behind Tersi’s habitual good humor, Talon could see that the man was adrift right now. In the past months, Tersi had lost Sphinx entirely, and now he didn’t even have Nyx to confide in.

  Talon hesitated, then went to the door and called down the hallway. When Tersi came back, curious, Talon beckoned him closer.

  “You know she’s a call away,” Talon told him. “And she wants to hear from you.”

  Tersi nodded. His eyes closed for a moment.

  “She’ll always be one of us,” Talon said. “Always.” He held out a hand.

  Tersi clasped it. “Always,” he agreed.

  5

  Nyx’s feet stuck to the mats slightly as she circled. Sweat was dripping into her eyes, but she didn’t take her gaze off Centurion for a moment.

  When he’d suggested a match, she’d been glad for the chance to blow off steam. Now, fifteen minutes later, she was thinking Centurion had been Team 11’s best kept secret. Patient, unerring, and blindingly fast when he wanted to be, he excelled at being a hairsbreadth out of reach at all times.

  Except, of course, for the times when he was hitting his opponent with what felt like the force of a freight train.

  Also, he didn’t seem to get tired.

  Nyx waited now. And waited. And waited some more. She circled as the assembled members of Team 11 began to fidget, and she fought the urge to attack just for something to do—to match the rhythm of a normal fight.

  Centurion was just as focused on her as she was on him. His eyes were always moving, tracking on the way she settled her weight, checking her core frequently to spot the beginning of a movement.

  She waited.

  When he attacked at last, it was with a convincing feint that transformed into a throw. Nyx bared her teeth in a grin as they came face to face and she slid forward to steal the power from the throw. She put everything she had into an uppercut and Centurion, caught off guard, gave a grunt as the wind was knocked out of him.

  He recovered unnervingly fast and grabbed for Nyx, but she had already danced away. His fingers closed on empty air and he tipped just slightly off-balance.

  That was all she needed. Her shoulder dropped and her foot lashed out to catch him on the side of the head. He went sprawling, tried to stand, swayed, and regretfully sank back down to tap his knuckles twice on the mats.

  There were some whistles of approval and a smattering of applause as Nyx gave him her hand to haul him up.

  He shook his head ruefully. “Always heard the stories about you. Always wanted to have a round. Now I get as many as I want and I think it may not be what I was hoping for, after all.”

  Nyx laughed. “You nearly had me with that throw.”

  “Next time.”

  She lifted her water bottle in acknowledgement before taking a gulp. “Okay, who’s next?”

  “Me.” A man with flyaway dark brown hair and thick brows stepped onto the mats. His right forearm was covered in tattoos, and he lifted his hand in a joking salute.

  She gave a mock glare. After her request not to be called Commander or Ma’am, the team had been ribbing her by showing proper Navy etiquette—or their idea of what that was, anyway. Many of the Corps had come from other walks of life, and those on Team 11 who had been in the Navy thought it was funny to copy the overblown manners the others had come up with.

  Even Loki was getting in on it, and he was too quick for her to smack him for it.

  “Which one is this, again?” Nyx looked over at Centurion, feigning ignorance, and jerked her head at her opponent. “Moop? Boop?”

  Centurion’s lips were twitching. “No one told you? Choop is short for Chupacabra.”

  “Oh, Hell.” Nyx gave the man a once-over. “I didn’t sign up for mythical beasts.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll go easy on ya.” Choop was bouncing on his toes. He had a lanky sort of height that Nyx suspected was deceptively strong, and getting around those long arms and legs was going to pose a challenge.

  “Captain?” Foxtail’s voice came over the speakers. “Er, Nyx, sorry.”

  “Call her ‘Ma’am’!” Halo called. “You have time to lock the cockpit door before she gets there.”

  Nyx shook her head as she laughed. “What is it, Fox?”

  “Call for you—Major Rift.”

  Nyx gave a decisive nod, pleased. This would be the update on Lesedi’s progress.

  She found that she did not want to leave. She was enjoying sparring. She always did, of course—she had found over the years that sparring was one of the best ways to get to know someone, and the good-natured observation of the teammates was as aspect of Team 11 that she approved of: they watched each other, they learned, and they adapted their own styles.

  She could have stayed here all morning, sparring some matches and watching others, but business was business.

  “Tell him I’ll be right there,” Nyx called. “I’ll take it in my cabin. Loki, you fill in for me.” To Choop, she added, “God help you.”

  She clasped his hand and nodded to Centurion before jogging down the
hallway to the fore of the ship, where her cabin nestled under the hull. She threw her tank top at the hamper and grabbed a fresh shirt, scooching her chair over to the desk and bringing up the call.

  “Hey.” She grinned at Talon’s familiar face.

  “Hey, yourself.” Talon appraised her. “You look good,” he said frankly, and she could hear the question in it: you look like you’re settling in—are you?

  “I feel good,” she said. There was a warm flush at the thought, but also a sense of guilt. She pushed it away.

  He went straight to the point. “I heard from Lesedi.”

  “Good. Don’t suppose she mentioned something about the explosion at the docks.” Nyx fiddled with a pen. Ever since Wraith brought up the idea of going after the person, she hadn’t been able to get the thought out of her head. “I put her on it. I don’t like what happened. Whoever it was, if they’re pulling this sort of shit—”

  “She didn’t mention it.” Talon’s voice was oddly abrupt. “It’ll probably take a while to figure out. You know, something like that.”

  Nyx frowned. He was behaving oddly.

  Why, though? Crew issues? Aegis not working out? She opened her mouth to ask and then decided against it. It wasn’t her place anymore to stick her nose into the Ariane’s business, particularly when it came to her replacement.

  And he’d been so at ease a moment ago.

  “Everything all right?” she asked finally.

  Something definitely flashed in his eyes this time, and she would have sworn it was worry, of all things. But when he spoke, his tone was tight. “We have another mission to focus on—and Lesedi has four rogue Dragons to research. We don’t need to be distracting her.

  What’s gotten into you? Nyx bit back the instinctive question. Even when she’d been Talon’s XO, he’d never responded like this to her questioning him. He knew that questioning priorities was important. For Dragons, the situation was always evolving.

  But she knew what this meant to him. Eliminating the last of Aleksandr Soras’s legacy would finish an operation that had nearly cost him everything—and had cost many good people their lives, including two of his team members.