She frowned, watching him closely. “Very. But still not nearly as much as you.”
His brow furrowed. “I guess I’m not as accustomed to bloodshed and death as you are.”
“Bullshit. Enough lies.” She stared at him hard.
His mouth gaped. “What?”
“You heard me. You were expecting something specific, and this wasn’t it. I think you need to explain yourself.”
His eyes widened and he struggled to compose himself. “I don’t have to explain myself to anyone,” he declared. “Not even you, regardless of how fond I am of you. I’m an admiral. You five are by far my subordinates.”
“And yet, since you seem to have outlived your usefulness, you’re the one faced with a first-person view of the cosmos as you fly out of an airlock,” she observed calmly.
“How can you—” He swallowed and began again. “How can you say that? You’re like a daughter to me.”
“Maybe I was, once. But you led me here, along with my team, to see us killed. We knew that all along.” And that was everything there was to say.
Colb only stared at her. She could see in his eyes that he wouldn’t tell them anything. They’d have to figure it out on their own. She dropped into the chair at a science station. “Take him to the brig on the Nefarious. Search him thoroughly.”
Hawk clamped a meaty hand on the back of Colb’s neck. “Do me a favor and resist, will ya?” he snarled. “I’ve always wanted to see how fast I could rip a pressure suit off.”
Colb’s face twisted. Transformed. One second he was a befuddled, kindly uncle, and the next he was a dragon. “Fine, lock me up. But there are things in play you haven’t even begun to guess at.” He gave Fallon a sly look. “You think it was happenstance that you met that wife of yours?”
Fallon was on her feet and across ops control without even being aware of it. “You do not want to talk about her.” She kept her voice calm, but with an icy razor edge.
“Kill me and you’ll never know the truth.” He smiled smugly and pressed his lips closed.
As much as she wanted to tear his lungs out through his nose, she refrained. Sat. Turned her attention back to the science station. “Take him,” she ordered. She didn’t look as they went.
Raptor put a hand on her shoulder. “You okay?” he murmured.
“No. We need to find out what happened here. That means you’re on point.” She gestured to another science station. “First of all, some lights would really help.”
“I’m on it.” And he got to work without another word, thank Prelin.
They found the databanks wiped and destroyed. The station lacked life support to all areas but the docking bays and the parts of the station that ran on a separate system. Even Raptor couldn’t retrieve any data. The man had a nearly magical talent but even he couldn’t combat what he called an “Armageddon wipe.”
What had happened here? Why kill some people and evacuate the rest? Were the survivors her allies or her enemies, and why had they crippled Jamestown, then locked it up tight?
“I want to do one more thing before we go. Ten minutes,” Raptor said. His instinct, like hers, must have been telling him this was not a good place to be.
Fallon had no reason to think their presence on the station had gone undetected. Ships should be on the way. Patrolling ships needn’t be more than a few hours away. If that was the case, she wanted to be long gone by the time they arrived.
“Fine. Peregrine, stay with him. I’m going to go to my storage compartment and get some things.”
“Actually, there are a few things in my compartment we could use, too,” Raptor said.
“Same here,” Peregrine said.
Not surprising that they’d all put some things away for a rainy day. And it was raining like hell now.
“I imagine Hawk does as well. Okay. We’ll take the time to grab our stuff. But let’s be quick. Change of plans. Peregrine, you can come with me, then relieve Hawk in the brig so he can get his stuff. Raptor, finish up here, get your stuff, and get to the ship as soon as possible. Twenty minutes with regular check-ins. No longer.”
As she and Peregrine made their way to the lift, she felt empty. Their pivotal moment hadn’t gone like she’d expected. She had no resolution. No answers. Just another crisis and a lot more questions that made her worry for the people of the PAC.
At least the lifts still worked. They ran on self-contained power with backups. Knocking them out would have required an EMP.
She and Peregrine didn’t talk as they descended into the lower decks of Jamestown. When the lift doors opened, Fallon ignored how eerie it felt to walk through corridors that should have been bustling with activity. The light source from the pressure suits centered them in an illuminated bubble, surrounded by a massive, shadowy ghost station. She ignored the four bodies that appeared in the sphere of light, and disappeared again once she and Per walked past.
At least the open voicecom link in her helmet distracted her from the silence. Stations weren’t supposed to be silent. Panels on the walls should have been lit and ready for access. The whole place should have been bursting with life. She was walking in a tin can full of dead bodies.
She focused on the task at hand—getting to the storage bays. She and Peregrine shared space in the same one, as did Raptor and Hawk. They found their units and as soon as Fallon used her code and retina scan for access, she grabbed a large rucksack inside, dumped out the survival supplies, and loaded it with the items that would be of use. Ammunition. Weapons. Covert operations gadgets.
Finally she put the rucksack on and hauled out the cases with her heavy artillery as well as an anti-grav cart. She
