Cut to the Bone: Chains of Command Book 3 Read online

  Cut to the Bone

  Chains of Command Book 3

  Zen DiPietro

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dragonfire Station Universe

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Message from the author

  About the Author

  Dragonfire Station Universe

  Copyright

  COPYRIGHT © 2018 BY ZEN DIPIETRO

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without express written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations for the purpose of review.

  Please purchase only authorized electronic editions. Distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law.

  ISBN: 978-1-943931-30-9 (ebook)

  Published in the United States of America by Parallel Worlds Press

  Cover art by Zen DiPietro

  Dragonfire Station Universe

  Original Series (complete)

  Dragonfire Station Book 1: Translucid

  Dragonfire Station Book 2: Fragments

  Dragonfire Station Book 3: Coalescence

  Intersections (Dragonfire Station Short Stories)

  Mercenary Warfare series (complete)

  Selling Out

  Blood Money

  Hell to Pay

  Calculated Risk

  Going for Broke

  Chains of Command series

  New Blood

  Blood and Bone

  Cut to the Bone

  Out for Blood

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  1

  Fallon felt like her legs had been torn off.

  Being separated from her team wasn’t exactly a physical pain. It was more of a feeling of being incomplete and less capable than she was accustomed to. A deep, constant ache chewed at her every hour she was awake.

  Why had PAC command made her, Peregrine, Hawk, and Raptor into such a tight-knit team only to pull them apart like this?

  She hated it.

  It would have been easy to let herself sink into that feeling, or even become depressed. Doing that wouldn’t serve her teammates, though, or the PAC, so she vowed to force herself to focus only on the job ahead of her.

  It wasn’t an easy task, trying to convince herself not to feel bereft.

  During the first month of traveling across the galaxy with Minho to her new post, she felt like she was one big, open wound despite her best efforts.

  She wasn’t accustomed to her best efforts failing.

  The second month, her sensation of rawness transitioned into a welcome, dull numbness.

  Finally, in the third month, as the ship traveled further away from Earth than she’d ever been, she was finally able to put all of her energies into preparing for her job on Asimov Station, which had recently reached the final stages of its construction. It would become the newest, most state-of-the-art installation in the PAC.

  She would accomplish the mission then return to her team as efficiently as possible. That was how she could best serve Avian Unit and the Planetary Alliance Cooperative. She aimed all her effort and attention at this goal. Now that she’d completed officer training school, her unique version of security training would be the setup of Asimov’s security system, from installation to final checks. If she had been a typical security officer, she’d have had a much more structured internship that worked through an established curriculum. Instead, she would dive elbow-deep into intensive hardware installation, software checks, creating evacuation plans and emergency protocols, and, eventually, running security drills.

  Trial by fire.

  She’d be going all-in for her very first foray into the specialty. Since it was an exciting project, she felt eager to tackle it, rather than intimidated by it.

  Gazing out the porthole at Asimov Station, she imagined working there alongside Minho. A great deal of critical labor lay ahead of them, hovering in a somewhat out-of-the-way portion of PAC space.

  Minho would, as he always did, make it all manageable. He’d been a great help to her during the past three months. He had a certain astuteness that he artfully blended with deft subtlety. He’d frequently used those skills to take her mind off her isolation from her team. No doubt he’d do the same when they tackled the monumental task directly ahead of them.

  The voyage had given them time to immerse themselves in intensive study of cutting-edge security systems. Then, they debated the best plan for Asimov. As they approached the station itself, they had a fully-developed, clear plan of action.

  They were ready to get to work.

  She was grateful for Minho’s quiet support, and glad for the chance to get to know him better. They brought out the competitive and often playful parts of each other, and their personalities meshed extremely well. She couldn’t have picked a better-suited travel companion for herself even if she’d been given the opportunity to try.

  She had gotten the opportunity to see Bennaris, which had been their last stop before arriving at Asimov. Fallon found the planet to be just as lovely as Val, her friend from the academy, had described. The funny thing about looking at images of other places on the voicecom was that it never accurately portrayed the feel of a place. Certain nuances just had to be experienced in real time.

  One planet visited, hundreds of others in the Planetary Alliance Cooperative still to see.

  “What are you doing?” Minho’s voice made her turn away from the porthole.

  “Looking at Asimov Station,” she said. “Putting the mental image of it into our plans so I can adjust what I’d envisioned. Voicecom images never quite convey the same feeling of actually being somewhere.”

  He moved past her to get a packet of lemonade out of the cooler. “But why are you doing it in the galley? The view from your room would be the same.”

  She shrugged. “It was a chance to stretch my legs. I’m more than ready for new surroundings.”

  He took a sip of his drink. “I don’t love long space flights either, but you’ll get used to them. They’re part of the job.”

  She turned and leaned against the bulkhead. “I’m not used to having so much time on my hands. I’d have taken more time at the helm if the pilots had let me.”

  “Just because you didn’t have a rigid schedule doesn’t mean you didn’t have a lot to accomplish. But I can see how, after the academy and officer training school, not having a regimented schedule would feel strange. After this trip and mission, you’ll be expected to take daily shifts sitting at navigation. You got a pass this time around since you’re new to long flights and because you had a lot to learn about the job on Asimov Station.”

  The PAC pilots who had been assigned to the flight, Henry and Jill, had been friendly but very restrained. Apparently, they’d been given strict orders to avoid crossing paths with Minho and Fallon whenever possible.

  It had kept the pilots at a distance from them, making Minho her only source of compan
ionship.

  It was a good thing they got along so well.

  “I learned a lot,” she said. “I even had some time to pick up another language.”

  “Which one?”

  “Rescan. I thought it might come in handy for security purposes, just in case some traders are speaking it because they assume I won’t understand.”

  He raised his eyebrows, looking amused and maybe just a smidge impressed. “That’s a good idea. How many languages do you know?”

  “That makes seven. I’ll keep adding, though. How many do you speak?”

  He switched to speaking in Rescan. “Four, fluently, including Standard. Learning the other three took tremendous effort. I can get by in two or three others, but I can’t speak anything like a native. Languages aren’t really my thing.”

  That shouldn’t surprise her, but it did. Many people only spoke Standard, since all PAC planets used it, often in place of their own native language. But she and Minho were so similar, it surprised her to find a significant difference between them.

  “Don’t look so disappointed,” he laughed.

  “I’m not,” she denied quickly. “Your Rescan is really good. You almost speak like a native.”

  “Oh, only ‘almost.’” He pantomimed a knife to his heart, pretending to be in terrible pain.

  She laughed.

  “Look.” He gestured to the porthole.

  They were about to dock.

  Finally. She was ready to get to work. The sooner she got this job done, the sooner she could rejoin her team.

  She wondered where Hawk, Peregrine, and Raptor were, and what their new assignments were. They could be as close as Bennaris, as far as she knew, or at the very edge of the PAC zone, in the Barony Coalition or something.

  She had no way of knowing where they were. Her orders had been clear that she was not to attempt to contact any of them during this assignment, nor speak to them afterward about it.

  She willed her partners to complete their missions well, and as soon as possible.

  In the meantime, she’d give this assignment her all, so she could learn whatever PAC command, Blackout, and especially Admiral Krazinski wanted her to learn. The project would be intensive, but she and Minho had broken it down into sequential tasks on a schedule that would allow them to have the job done on time.

  She only hoped the work would be as straightforward as it seemed.

  An eager-to-please young lieutenant greeted them at the airlock. She enthusiastically escorted them through the station.

  Fallon wasn’t an expert on space stations, having only visited two, but Asimov felt—and smelled—very different than Jamestown or Dragonfire. As she stepped onto the new station, she tried to identify what made it so different.

  Both of the established stations had felt as alive as any city she’d visited. People bustled from one place to another and others lingered about, socializing with one another. Conversation and laughter rang out. There had been a feeling of life going on in a thousand different ways, creating a nexus of time and space in a way that humanized a giant hunk of technology hanging in the void of space. Dragonfire and Jamestown had felt like communities, just like a town on a planet.

  Asimov Station didn’t have any of that going for it just yet. It felt like a hunk of technology.

  The idea of helping to make Asimov ready to become a community made her feel good. Useful.

  The lieutenant gestured at the corridor. Much of it had exposed hardware lining the bulkheads. “As you can see, Asimov Station has been engineered with all the latest technology. Conductive materials in places where it can help conserve energy, and nonconductive materials in areas where heat needs to be controlled. High efficiency materials in every single system and component.”

  Lieutenant Lee seemed enthusiastic. She somehow seemed younger than Fallon, even though Lee’s record proved her to be five years older.

  “Have you been aboard a space station before, Lieutenant Arashi?” Lee asked.

  Arashi would be her name here, as it had been at OTS. Lieutenant Emiko Arashi, security specialist. Fallon had fixed Minho’s fictional identity for this mission into her brain, as well. Here, he would be Lieutenant Commander Minho Park, also a security specialist and her direct superior.

  Fallon’s faux biography included a couple of short stints on stations, so she felt confident about answering, “Yes, I have, though not long-term. I understand you’ve been here for a while now.”

  Lieutenant Lee nodded. “Yes, I’ve been here since slightly before Asimov was habitable. It’s a long-term assignment for me. Once the command crew arrives, I’ll become its most junior member.”

  The lieutenant made a visible effort to mute her pride but didn’t entirely succeed. She glowed with enthusiasm.

  “Your first command position?” Minho asked.

  “Yup. Eventually, I want to captain one of these. This is my first big step.”

  Minho smiled. “No wonder you requested such a lonely assignment. Not a lot of people would want to be on a station for months with only a skeleton crew.”

  “Sometimes I wish for a little bit of night life,” Lee admitted, “but it’s been an interesting experience. And the crew will arrive before long. We’re getting close.”

  Fallon reached out and slid her fingertip across a section of finished bulkhead. “It’s interesting to see a station in such pristine condition. I’m sure this assignment will be a learning experience for me, too.”

  Lee smiled, and Fallon expected to like this ambitious, hardworking officer who showed all of her feelings in her expressions and body language. She seemed like a very honest, forthright person.

  Working with someone like that might be a refreshing change of pace.

  Lieutenant Lee nodded. “I’m sure it will be. I still learn something new every day. I’ll show you to your quarters first. You can rest if you’re tired. I’m not sure what day cycle you’re used to, but we’re following the PAC standard schedule here already. You can take some time to adjust if you need to.”

  “No need,” Minho answered. “We’re already on a standard cycle, and since it’s only midday, we can just drop off our belongings and get right to the tour of the station. I don’t know about Lieutenant Arashi here, but after months in space, I’m glad to have a change of scenery.”

  Fallon nodded in emphatic agreement.

  “Great,” Lieutenant Lee said, sounding pleased. “The good news is that since we don’t have many people here, that makes us the ranking officers, and we can stay in the best accommodations.” She laughed.

  “That sounds fun,” Fallon admitted. “I’d enjoy some room to spread out. I’ve been in tight confines for quite a while now.”

  She didn’t just mean the ship. Before that, she’d shared living quarters with her team, and before that, she’d had a tiny dorm room.

  Having a lot of space to herself suddenly sounded like a grand luxury.

  When they arrived at the quarters, she wasn’t disappointed. Her room was right next to Minho’s and they looked mostly the same. An ergonomic design made the most of an already-generous space. Fallon set her bags on the dining table that slid out from the wall and admired the sleek, minimalistic décor.

  Whoever got stationed here long-term would no doubt personalize the space in their own way, but for Fallon’s taste, this was an ideal set-up. The furniture looked comfortable, and nothing drew any particular attention.

  She appreciated simplicity.

  “What a restful space,” she said. “I like it.”

  “Really?” Lieutenant Lee asked before catching herself and ducking her head in embarrassment. “I mean, it’s nice. I’d want to add some bright colors, though.”

  “I’m sure that would be good too,” Fallon said, “but simple suits me.”

  “Me too,” Minho said. “I’m sure we’ll be very comfortable here. Since we’ve both dropped off our things, what should we see next?”

  Lee brightened. “Everything.”<
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  2

  Lieutenant Lee hadn’t been kidding when she said she wanted to show them ‘everything.’ With great enthusiasm, she showed Fallon and Minho every section of the station, from the lifts to the air containment system to ops control.

  Though they’d met a few crew and service workers along the way, the three of them stood alone in the large control center of the station.

  And there was the command chair. Unoccupied. A sensation Fallon had never experienced swept over her.

  She couldn’t help but look at the chair.

  “Go ahead.” Minho nudged her.

  She nudged him back. “You’re the senior officer here. If someone’s going to sit, it should be you.”

  He smiled. Minho had a great smile. The expression didn’t just come from his lips, but from his eyes and the rounding of his cheeks. All his good humor came out when he smiled. “I’ve sat in the command chair before. It’s fine, but I don’t really get a thrill out of it.”

  He nudged her again. “Do it. You know you want to.”

  She glanced at Lieutenant Lee, who grinned and said, “Give it a try. I did it, too, when I first got here.”

  Well, if her subordinate had done it, then why not?

  Fallon turned, let out a breath, and sat.

  She imagined herself as captain of the station, snapping out orders and being obeyed without question. She envisioned the station as a hive of activity—efficient and productive.

  Yeah, that was a good feeling.

  “Ohh, you’re one of the ones who likes it. I had a feeling you would be.” Minho grinned. “Some people are made for a command chair.”