She really hoped Dragonfire never saw an event that required the use of this room.
She eased into the command chair. It wasn’t as comfortable as the one in regular ops, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t there for comfort. She needed to think about the decisions she’d made in the past couple of years. She analyzed everything, trying to determine whether her actions had caused her current troubles. Whether she’d missed something that would have changed everything.
She couldn’t be sure. Had she been blind? Had she helped create this entire situation?
By the time she returned to her quarters, Fallon had performed a factory reset on herself. She’d never been a very emotional person. She was logical. Tactical. Someone who didn’t get so caught up in her relationships with people that she missed something.
She needed to go back to being that person.
To say that Raptor’s presence on the couch in her quarters was bad timing would be an understatement. She stopped just inside the doors as they whisked closed behind her, her armor up and her stupid heart silenced.
Raptor’s wolfish grin faded. He stared at her, and the light seemed to leak out of him. “Well, fuck.”
“I need to focus on what we’re doing. No more personal stuff until I get it all sorted.”
“We’ve never been anything but focused on getting the job done.” His voice was flat. “What happened?”
“I screwed up. Let myself get distracted. It’s not your fault—it’s mine.”
His mouth pressed into a hard line. “Humans are supposed to have feelings. I thought you’d figured that out.” He searched her face. “Damn, Fallon, what happened?”
His hurt almost broke her resolve. She stood still, her eyes fixed on a spot on the wall. She had to do it this way if she wanted to trust her own judgment, because if she opened her mouth she’d lose it. And the fact that he could make her lose her willpower was exactly why she needed to keep it. This wasn’t about what she wanted. The safety of everyone she cared about depended on her objectivity.
She continued to stare at the wall, standing at attention.
“Right.” He stood and strode past her to the door. He paused before triggering the door sensor. “If you decide to tell me what’s going on, come talk to me. Otherwise, I won’t bother you again. All business, just like you want. Blood and bone.” His bitter tone made their motto sound like a curse.
Then he was gone. She should have felt bad, but she didn’t. She didn’t feel stripped, or hollowed. She didn’t ache to call him back. No, she felt nothing.
Fallon slept little. Her task for the next day pressed down on her too hard. After giving herself the night to think about her situation, she now had to act. To address the betrayal. Finally she got up and went to work early, skipping her usual run.
In her office she completed regular security checks with obsessive precision while waiting for Arin to escort the person behind her current difficulties.
When they arrived, she nodded at them both, remaining seated.
For the first time in her life, she didn’t want the answers she was about to demand.
“Thank you, Arin. You’re dismissed to your duties.”
He covered his puzzlement quickly as he bowed and left.
She steeled herself. She felt only her sense of duty. Only the need to do her job.
She focused on the traitor across from her, trying to decide just how long the deception had been going on. Finally, she asked the question she most needed to have answered. “How long have you been in collusion with Admiral Masumi Colb?”
Wren’s eyes widened and she sucked in a noisy breath. “What?”
“Drop the act. You know what I am. You know what I do. It took me longer than it should have to connect you to him, but I’ve corroborated it with eyewitness reports and surveillance recordings. You started meeting with him eight months before my arrival on Dragonfire. Did you know him before that?”
Wren wrapped her arms around herself and rocked gently back and forth. “Oh no,” she whispered.
“I’m glad that you’ve decided not to play dumb.” Fallon watched her fair-skinned former wife grow even paler.
“It’s not that.” Wren licked her lips. “I just want you to be safe. But now…” Her voice broke. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“Start at the beginning. When did Colb first contact you, and how did he identify himself to you?”
“Like you said, eight months before you arrived on the station. I’d never met him before that. He found me in the shop and said he needed to talk to me about vital security. He showed me his identification as a PAC officer, and I was able to confirm with intelligence that he worked for them as an operative.”
“He’s a little more than that.”
“I found that out. I didn’t know anything about Blackout at that point. When I learned he was an admiral, I couldn’t imagine what he’d want with me. But he said he needed my help to find a clutch of smugglers that had been operating through this station. Chief Pirlin, who was here before you, wasn’t as thorough. Things weren’t like they are now. I agreed to hand over packages on three different occasions to smugglers, who acted as the middlemen to get the items where they needed to go.”
“What was in the packages?” Fallon asked.
“Medicine. Supplies that were being stolen from PAC aid shipments to planets that were in desperate need. They were being sold on the black market instead of getting delivered. And Colb’s operation worked. The smugglers did what Colb needed them to do and I never saw them again. Colb thanked me. I thought that was it.”
“But it wasn’t.”
Wren shook her head. “He contacted me again soon after. Said that since he knew he could trust me, he wanted me to continue helping him get those medical supplies to where they were supposed to go. Legitimate smuggling, more or less. Keeping the goods
