Fragments (Dragonfire Station Book 2) Read online

  The lack of water made the shower more of a rugged necessity than a pleasant indulgence, though, and she got done before her clothing did. A quick inventory of the room’s contents did not reveal a bathrobe. After a moment of debate, she wrapped a towel around herself and tucked it, turning it into an unfashionable tube dress that went down to her knees. At least the towel was big. And soft.

  She wet her hair down in the sink and used a smaller moisture-wicking towel to dry it. Short hair had turned out to be more work than she’d expected, but the asymmetrical style suited her well. It gave her an edge that her somewhat plain, Japanese face didn’t have all on its own.

  She stepped into the small living area. “My clothes will be a few more minutes. Your turn?” she asked Hawk, who stood at the voicecom with Raptor.

  “Yeah. Per’s not answering. But she doesn’t usually get up before noon unless she’s on the job. We’ll catch up with her later.”

  Hawk strode to the necessary and the door closed behind him, leaving Fallon alone with Raptor.

  “You okay?” Raptor studied her.

  “I’m fine. Why?”

  “Just checking.” He stepped away from the voicecom and sat on the small couch.

  She joined him, settling on the other half. Her conversation with Hawk drifted up from her thoughts, along with a comment or two that Peregrine had made.

  “What’s our relationship?” she asked. “Something between the two of us is different than the dynamics among the rest of us.”

  He didn’t seem surprised by the question. “I’m not sure I have a definitive answer to that. We’ve never fit into a tidy category.”

  “Were we a couple before I was assigned to Dragonfire?”

  “A couple of what?” he asked. The words should have made him sound like a smartass, but he seemed genuinely frustrated.

  “A romantic couple.”

  He made a sound of profound suffering. “Can’t I just punch you in the head and see if that knocks some memories loose?”

  “You tried that already, the night you broke into my quarters on Dragonfire.”

  “Oh. Right.” He looked wistful, as if recalling good times long gone.

  She snapped her fingers to get him focused on her actual question. “Romantic couple. Were we?”

  “No.” He leaned back and put his feet up on the small table.

  She could have done worse. Raptor was a good-looking guy, with light-brown hair that seemed to want to go wavy, and big brown eyes fringed with thick lashes that she envied. There was nothing feminine about him though. He had wide shoulders and a narrow waist. Nothing like Hawk’s hulking muscularity, but toned and defined in a way that most guys never achieved. If she had to, she’d admit that she found him very hot. But not while he was listening.

  “Have we ever been a romantic couple?” she persisted.

  His face did a squinchy thing that gave her an answer before he found the right words. “You and I found each other soon after starting academy. By the time we were halfway through, we were sharing a dorm.”

  She wanted to be clear on the details. “So we were what, in love? Best pals? Just enjoying a bountiful sex life?”

  He smiled reluctantly. “All of those. We had everything in common, so we just fit together.”

  “What happened to change that?”

  “Before we left the academy, we found out we’d been tagged for Blackout. We got our unit assignment and our new names. It changed everything.”

  “Ah.” He didn’t need to explain that for her. Of course Blackout had changed things. They were meant to bond together as a group of four. Having a couple among them would be a distraction and a shift of power dynamics. Never mind that being on an elite squad tasked with literally unspeakable things would be hard on a relationship.

  He nodded at the understanding he saw on her face. “Yeah. Being together while belonging to the same unit wouldn’t have been smart, or safe, or fair to the rest of our team. When given the choice between us or Blackout, we both chose Blackout.”

  “I see.”

  That explained some things. It also meant he knew a whole lot more about her than she’d realized. Intimate things that she used to know about him, too.

  “Is my lack of memory hard for you?” she asked.

  He looked surprised. “I hadn’t thought about it that way. But…no. We’re past all that. Don’t worry. You’re not going to get any tortured crap from me about you getting married.”

  Oh, and there was that, too. She hadn’t even gotten around to considering that part yet.

  “Well, good.” She had a lot to re-learn about him, but she knew she would. She took great comfort in knowing that he, along with Hawk and Peregrine, would stick with her no matter what.

  “We’re going to figure everything out.” His voice was reassuring, as if he thought she needed it. “Your memory, and who’s pulling the strings to try to bring down Blackout. Or whatever they’re doing.”

  That caught her attention. “You think someone’s trying to dismantle Blackout? From the inside?”

  He pressed his hands out in front of him, as if trying to distance himself from what he’d just said. “I don’t know. Maybe. I think it’s either that, or someone’s trying to get control of something that no one person should have control of. I don’t think it’s a simple power play within the organization.”

  Hawk rejoined them, clean and mostly dressed. He hadn’t zipped his jumpsuit up above his waist, instead letting the top hang down over his hips. “What did I miss?”

  She straightened to her full height. “Raptor was telling me about our sordid past, and previously very inventive sex life.”

  Raptor snorted, but Hawk nodded appreciatively. “Good. Glad I don’t have to dodge that topic anymore.”

  Fallon had to laugh about the part of her statement he’d found noteworthy.

  Hawk looked puzzled. “What?”

  “Nothing. How about we get some breakfast while we wait for Per to wake up? If we have time, we can visit the infirmary.” The sooner Hawk had a clean bill of health, the better, as far as Fallon was concerned.

  “Why? You feeling sick? Can’t handle a couple drinks anymore?” Hawk sat on the arm of the couch and nudged her with his elbow.

  “Hah. Try me.”

  “Oh, you don’t want to say that.” Hawk nudged her again and she slapped at his beefy arm.

  Raptor let out a long-suffering sigh. “If I didn’t know that Fallon had a big hole in her head, I’d never guess it by the way you two behave together.”

  Fallon fixed him with a pointed look. “About that hole in my head. Since there are things I should know but don’t, I was hoping you could give me some details. Starting with the size of your—”

  “Gosh, I’m starved, let’s go!” Raptor declared, bolting out of the room so fast that the doors almost didn’t open in time.

  She and Hawk followed at a much more sedate pace, laughing.

  PEREGRINE JOINED THEM AT MIDDAY, looking well rested. Hawk had received a clean bill of health from Jerin, which relieved both him and Fallon. Now they were ready to make plans for their long journey.

  Avian Unit sat together in Hawk’s quarters. The space was tight for four people, but they made it work.

  “So what’s the plan?” Peregrine asked. Fallon had learned to appreciate her abruptness.

  Raptor and Hawk glanced briefly at Fallon, and she again felt the oddness of them continuing to defer to her as the unit leader. As far as her memory was concerned, she hadn’t known any of them just a couple weeks ago. Why should they accept her authority? But Hawk, Per, and Raptor had insisted that was the way Avian Unit worked. So, fine. She’d lead.

  “Long-term plan remains the same,” she answered. “We lay low on the Onari and let our trail go cold. After four months, Blackout will have no idea where to even start looking for us.”

  She got three nods in response.

  Fallon continued, “Raptor will be pulling whatever data he c
an along the way, though some of the planets we’ll visit only receive basic communications with no access to the major datastreams. Those certainly won’t have any chance of intercepting point-to-point transmissions, so we may not turn up much. Once we arrive at Earth, we infiltrate the PAC intelligence base in Tokyo. Its setup and public areas make it the perfect target for us. If we do it right, we should have the information we need to figure out who tried to kill us. Once we know that, we can determine how we approach PAC command at headquarters.”

  Fallon focused her attention on Peregrine. She could never decide if Peregrine’s hair was honey blonde or light brown. Her brown eyes and thin, often-frowning lips were pretty, in a strong way. Fallon envied Peregrine’s thick, but still feminine, physique. Peregrine was all kinds of muscular, in ways that Fallon’s body could never be. “Per, you and Raptor will run the infiltration. There’s no way he can slip into a PAC base’s high-security area unnoticed without you fronting him. You two will have a lot of time to work out your strategy.”

  Peregrine nodded. “A clean mission?” Meaning that their presence at the base would remain undetected, even after they got out.

  “Highly preferable, if we can manage it. We don’t want to give Blackout a beacon to bring them right to us, after all that time spent getting them off our trail.”

  “Right.”

  “What about the short-term plan?” asked Raptor. “What are we going to do here for months on end? We need to train to keep our skills up, and there’s no gym or targeting room here. Something to pass the time would be great, too.”

  “We also need to resupply,” Hawk added. “We’re going to need casual clothes and equipment.”

  Fallon looked toward him. “I’ll need to talk to Jerin. Hawk, if you and Per can figure out what supplies we need and where along our flight path we can get them, I’ll see what I can do to arrange a stop.” She hesitated. “Going back to the long plan. There’s another thing I’d like to do.”

  Three pairs of eyes watched her expectantly.

  “One of the things I’d like to grab from PAC intelligence is my birth identity.”

  Peregrine’s mouth pursed thoughtfully, while Raptor and Hawk frowned. “How’s that going to help?” Raptor asked. “Whoever you were back then, you haven’t been that person for a decade.”

  She’d expected some puzzlement, if not outright resistance to the idea. “It could jog my memory. But even if it doesn’t, reconstructing my past would at least help me better understand who I am.”

  “Does ancient history really matter?” Raptor pressed. “You haven’t changed—you’re the same exact person you were before. Why go digging into a past that hasn’t been relevant to you in years?”

  His comment stung, for some reason, but she replied calmly. “The first fifteen years or so of your life might feel irrelevant to you, but that’s because you have the luxury of taking them for granted. It’s all just a big blank spot to me, and somehow that makes it very relevant. I can’t describe what it’s like to lose your past, so you’ll have to take it on faith that it matters.”

  His expression softened, and he looked contrite.

  “It’s a side detail, though. If there’s time and opportunity, only. If it jeopardizes us or our mission, it’s off the table. The primary objective is getting what we need to figure out who we’re fighting.” She searched their faces, trying to read their thoughts. Did her interest in her past make them doubt her decisions?

  Peregrine leaned forward and touched Fallon’s elbow. “We want your memories back, too. Whatever might help, we’ll give it our best.”

  “Thanks, Per.” Knowing her team would back her up eased a pressure on her she hadn’t realized she’d felt. “I’m also going to try hypnotherapy with Jerin and Brak. We’ll be giving it a shot in about an hour, actually.”

  “Why didn’t you try it on Dragonfire? They had a therapist, right?” Raptor asked.

  “They did. But at first, he didn’t think it would be helpful. And when I realized that my head is full of classified info, I knew I couldn’t talk to him about any of it, anyway. Jerin and Brak already know parts of what’s happened to me. Brak’s even got top-secret clearance for the work she’s done for the PAC, so she knows the risks. I know we can trust them.”

  “Is there any risk to you in doing hypnotherapy?” Hawk asked the question, but the same concern showed on Raptor’s and Peregrine’s faces. “Like, it’s not going to convince you that you’re a mime or something, will it? I mean…nobody likes a mime.”

  The tension broke and they all chuckled or smirked.

  “No,” she answered. “Jerin said it either helps or it doesn’t. It won’t harm my big, dumb brain.”

  “Good,” Hawk said. “All that flailing around and walking down invisible stairs would get annoying. Besides, if we’re going to pull this mission off, we need our Fury.”

  She shook her head, wrinkling her nose at her private code name within Avian Unit. In ancient Greek literature, a Fury was a spirit of punishment. That struck Fallon as overly fanciful, and she preferred to think of the name as simply meaning intensity. Actually, she’d have preferred to ditch the secondary code names entirely, but the others seemed quite attached to them. Some bonding sort of thing. Whatever.

  As for her teammates, Raptor was Ghost, for his ability to hack into systems and get in and out of places unnoticed. He had certainly made short work of her security system on Dragonfire, which still irritated her to no end. He also had some impressive field-medic skills. He’d practically brought Hawk back from the dead after extracting him from the moon that Blackout had exiled him to.

  She particularly liked Hawk’s second code name: The Machine, for his strength and great fortitude. Now that was a cool name, and fitting for an extraction expert. Perhaps if he’d been the one getting himself off that Zerellian moon, things would have gone better. But any escape you survive is a good one, so Raptor had ultimately done okay.

  As well as being the extraction expert, Hawk had the dubious distinction of having contacts in unexpected places. Raptor teased him sometimes about missing his calling as a Rescan trader, but his connections would prove useful in getting the supplies they needed.

  Finally, Peregrine had earned the name Masquerade in honor of her talent for disguises and impersonation. Fallon had experienced that skill set firsthand while extracting Peregrine from Sarkan. Peregrine had quickly and convincingly changed their identities more than once on their race off the planet. Peregrine was also an expert with surveillance technology and “spy gadgets,” as Hawk liked to call them. Per wasn’t a mechanic or an engineer by any stretch, but she was damn good at using tech to give them an edge, and they could certainly use any advantage they could get.

  “Right. Fury.” She didn’t like the name, but didn’t hate it either. Fortunately they didn’t normally use them. Her own secondary skill was piloting. Of course, she had a third duty as well. As their leader, she was also responsible for the lives of these three. It was a lot to live up to.

  “We could change it to Brainstorm, which I always thought was better, if you’d rather,” Hawk offered helpfully.

  “Uh, no.” That was way worse. She shook her head, but his comment had broken her somber train of thought. Which had no doubt been Hawk’s intent.

  “So what do we do tomorrow? And the next day? We have a lot of hours ahead of us,” Hawk pointed out.

  She gave him a squint. “Mostly we just keep our heads down and stay out of trouble. The crew thinks we’re here for long-term medical treatment while on our way to Earth. Jerin says her people will mind their own business. Of course some of them know me from Dragonfire, so they might be curious, but Jerin assured me that confidentiality is sacrosanct here. We don’t appear on any travel manifests or records, and no one will mention us in any communications.”

  Peregrine looked skeptical. “How can we be sure?”

  Fallon had asked the same thing, prone as she was to suspicion. “We can’t, really,
but Jerin was adamant. Her crew either adheres to the standard operating procedure for a hospi-ship, or they get dumped at the nearest outpost, however wretched, and blackballed from ever working in any healthcare position involving the PAC or Bennaris.”

  “You buy that?” Hawk asked.

  Fallon lifted a shoulder noncommittally. “Frankly, she was pretty scary when she said it. I liked that. Made me feel more confident in her ability to properly intimidate her people.”

  Raptor said, “We’ll keep our eye on things, just to be sure.” Then he looked from Fallon to Peregrine to Hawk. “So which one of us is supposedly being treated? It’s Hawk, right? For his massive ego complex?”

  “No, it’s you, for your severely kicked ass,” Hawk retorted.

  Fallon ignored them both. “The official story is that Peregrine is the daughter of a high-ranking official, and suffers from a chronic illness. The three of us are here to ensure her safety, which is of diplomatic importance.”

  “Ah. Good story.” Hawk squinted at Raptor. “I’ll still kick your ass, though.”

  Raptor grinned. “You’re always welcome to try.”

  Peregrine closed her eyes, looking like a long-suffering mother. “Shut up, or I’ll kick both your asses.”

  The men smiled, but shut up.

  Fallon had to marvel at her change of circumstances. Two weeks ago she’d been married and living aboard Dragonfire as the chief of security and second in command of the station. A straight-arrow PAC officer, right out of the recruitment vids. Now she led this group of rogue BlackOps. A group that someone at Blackout wanted dead, and that spent as much time teasing each other as they did talking actual strategy.

  As much as she missed Dragonfire, it still seemed like a pretty good trade.

  2

  Fallon left Hawk’s quarters as her teammates began working up a shopping list. She had more time than she needed to get to the infirmary for her appointment, but she welcomed the chance to get out of the tight space.

  As she stepped out, she saw Brak down the corridor at the door of Fallon’s own quarters. She joined the Briveen, who had become a good friend back on Dragonfire, when Fallon had been struggling to reconcile her sense of self with her false identity.