“I understand that you’re skeptical. But I have data. Proof. I can show that Krazinski’s been involved in treasonous deals for over two years now. He squeezed me out because I tried to stop him. I wasn’t fast enough to maneuver him out before he did it to me.” He slapped the edge of the table, his cheeks red.
“We have data too,” Fallon said. If Colb couldn’t give them more than that, he wouldn’t be very useful to them. “The trouble is that we don’t know who we can trust at PAC command. We don’t know how many people he controls. Jamestown Station might be teeming with people loyal to him.”
Colb nodded. “I have some suggestions. So let’s talk about how we’re going to get this done.”
Fallon sent a questioning glance at her team members, but saw agreement in their eyes. They’d needed an ally of his stature, someone who still had ties within the bureaucracy, and now they had one.
“Okay,” she said. “What’s next?”
They tabled the discussion until they could get Colb up to the Nefarious.
They covertly returned to the restaurant. After putting street clothes over their jumpsuits, they ate enough of the rapidly cooling food to make it appear as if a dinner party had taken place. Hawk did the majority of the eating, while Peregrine disguised Colb for the trip back to the Nefarious.
Once on board the ship, they spent the next three hours talking, first suggesting tactics, then hacking them all apart. Finally, exhausted, Hawk suggested they get some sleep. They’d start on their way back to Dragonfire after they rested.
In her quarters, Fallon got dressed for bed, but only stood staring at her bunk. It didn’t look inviting.
Instead she went next door to Raptor’s berth and touched the chime.
“Thought you were tired.” He looked like she might have woken him, but he moved back so she could enter.
“I’m practically asleep right now.” She eyed his narrow bunk. “Mind if I sleep here?” She willed him not to make a big deal about it.
“Sure. But I get the wall side. If someone’s falling out, it’ll be you.”
She smiled. “It’s happened before.”
“That’s why I want the wall side.”
He sat on the bed, and she waited for him to lie down before she hit the light panel and squeezed in next to him. “Goodnight.”
“Night,” he answered, his voice rough with fatigue.
Despite her own tiredness, she listened to his slow, even breathing for several minutes before closing her eyes.
Fallon took the first flight shift, to be sure they got properly under way and because she was somewhat domineering about the pilot’s chair. Afterward, she was glad for a chance to sit down with Colb in his quarters and get reacquainted.
“You’ve been well?” she asked, seated across from him. He looked healthy enough, albeit weathered, for a man of his age. Andra’s death three years earlier had taken such a toll on him.
“So they tell me.” His smile brought back images of her childhood. He and Andra had shared many meals at the Kato household. Her mother had enjoyed hosting them, and afterward, Colb was always happy to play whatever game Fallon suggested. His own children had been a good deal older, and he’d seemed to have a particular fondness for young Kiyoko, as he’d known her then. He’d been so close to the family that he’d called her Kiyoko-chan, just as her mother and father did.
His fondness for her hadn’t changed as she’d aged. He’d been the one to sponsor her application to the PAC academy. Perhaps he’d even put her name in front of the people who ran Blackout, though he’d never hinted at such.
He and Andra had been like family—a favorite aunt and uncle. Even now, seeing him without her honorary aunt seemed strange to her.
“How are Rolly and Jenna?”
He smiled ruefully. “Oh, you know how it is with grown children. They go off to this galaxy or that and you end up hearing from them only on odd occasions. But last I talked to them, they were both busy and happy. Jenna had a second baby and Rolly still hasn’t settled down.”
Fallon nodded. She’d never known his children well. They’d been adults by the time it had occurred to her to wonder about them.
“I imagine it’s hard to have your kids so far away,” she said.
“Yes, but they’re happy, and that’s what matters.” He gave her a knowing look. “No doubt your parents were thrilled to see you.”
She chuckled. “That hardly describes it, but yes. I hadn’t been home for a long time.” When she’d visited a few months ago, her parents had been strangers to her. Now that she’d recovered her memories, she wanted a real visit with them. She knew that her near future had no trip to Earth in it, but maybe her parents could come visit her.
“I imagine they were beside themselves.” Colb folded his hands over his knee. “I’ve never seen parents as proud of their child as they’ve always been of you. And your brother, of course,” he added quickly.
“Kano was always the more easygoing of the two of us,” she admitted.
“Still quite the achiever, though.”
She gave him a small, seated bow in acknowledgement of the compliment to her brother.
He waved his hand. “No need to be formal with me. I knew you when your mother still put your hair in pigtails.”
She let out a long sigh. “How did it all come to this? Fighting the very thing we’ve always wanted to be a part of.”
Sadness washed over his face. “I’ve spent a lot of time wondering that, myself. Some people don’t recognize what they have. It makes them blind to the tiny changes that lead to disaster. When they finally realize what’s coming, it’s too late.”
“What did Krazinski miss?” Fallon leaned forward, watching him intently.
“The fact that the galaxies are always changing. Power is always shifting. We have to keep ourselves informed, so that we
