Quantum

by Jess Anastasi

  She started to suck in a long breath, but her air got cut off when Zander’s mouth came hard up against hers. For a suspended moment, she froze under the onslaught. She really had been adamant there would be no more intimate contact between them, making things messier and more convoluted. Her mind couldn’t process the reality of Zander kissing her right now.

  Then her instincts took over. Her thoughts vanished into nothingness, swept away by a tide of feeling so powerful she had no way to resist.

  With a single movement, she hooked her leg over Zander’s thighs and slid into his lap, her hands spearing into his short hair as she returned the kiss with no deftness whatsoever, because she couldn’t control the emotion expanding in her chest like volatile vapors, at risk of exploding any moment.

  The kiss between them held an edge of desperation. Zander’s mouth moved over hers with unrepentant force, as though he couldn’t kiss her deep enough, and his arms wrapped around her like a vise, as though he couldn’t pull her close enough. Her frayed emotions echoed his sentiments. She wanted all of him now, wanted to feel the hard, muscled, warm strength of his naked body against her until she forgot every bad thing that had happened today.

  Zander’s hand slipped up under her shirt, his fingers hot against her already fevered skin, his touch the spark to the accelerant. A moan rose up within her as his palm closed over her breast, and without breaking the reckless kiss, she plucked at the fastenings down the front of his shirt. Smooth skin over hard muscle met her fingertips, sending a sharp tingle through her body.

  Complications and promises be damned, she needed Zander more than air.

  His mouth tore away from hers and landed against her throat, even as he tugged at the cup of her bra and pinched her nipple between his fingers.

  “We can’t do this.” His words were harsh and ragged against her skin.

  “I know,” she returned just as unsteadily. “I told myself I wouldn’t feel anything for you any longer. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  He leaned back from her and she caught his gorgeous, toffee-colored gaze at close proximity.

  “No, I don’t mean because of that, even though you’re right. I mean we can’t do this now. The door might lock, but we’re far from safe. We can’t afford to let our guard down. And if I get you naked…” His gaze swept down her body and back up, as though she were already bared for his pleasure. “Some bastard could probably walk right up and shove a knife in my back, because my guard definitely won’t be up. When I’m with you like that, nothing else exists.”

  A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, when a good pouting would have gone a long way…if she were the type to do something as unproductive as pouting.

  “Funny. Usually I’m the voice of reason in this relationship.” She gulped over the R word after it slipped out, even as Zander’s expression darkened.

  Whatever this was, it sure as hell wasn’t a relationship, and never would be. And if she kept letting her damned heart run away with her mouth and her brain, she was going to find herself in serious trouble.

  …

  Zander stared at the unending star-dotted blackness beyond the small viewport of their private booth. Exhaustion had claimed his body after the past three—no, four—days of disturbed or little sleep. Yet in the depths of his chest and the inside of his limbs, an agitated disquiet burned through his very cells.

  Really, a guy could only be almost killed so many times in a few short days before sitting still began to feel impossible. If he could have gotten up and paced, he would have. But the booth was too small, and venturing out into the passageway didn’t seem like a smart idea. It wasn’t like the paranoia was winning out, but he carefully took note of every person who passed by the open doorway.

  Opposite him on one of the pull-down bunks, Mae slept on her side, facing him. She hadn’t moved a muscle in over three hours, and he’d promised to wake her after four hours so he could take a turn getting some shut-eye.

  But he couldn’t be bothered moving, let alone getting up and walking the three short steps to wake her. If she’d been as tired as him, he couldn’t imagine simply calling her name would do the trick.

  Maybe he wouldn’t wake her at the four-hour mark, even though he’d cop hell from her about it later.

  Realizing that he’d be dead if not for her had knocked loose a piece of his psyche, and while she was asleep, he’d been coming to grips with it all.

  He’d never had a whole lot of ambition, despite being one of the youngest captain admirals in the IPC military. He’d always just been the grunt at heart, but dedicated to his duty, one of the guys on the ground in the trenches. It just so happened his best was better than most men’s, and he’d almost effortlessly moved up the ranks at a rapid pace. He had no family to speak of and had never been interested in the whole settling-down-to-marriage-and-kids scene. With nothing but his military career to focus on, he’d put his whole life into his job and never once considered any other way of living.

  Except some frecking alien wearing his face had taken over his life, and he questioned what he was left with. Which was a whole lot of nothing.

  He’d faced his own mortality plenty of times during the war, and from that he’d developed a fatalistic view. Never once had he ever thought about what he’d be leaving behind when he finally did kick it.

  Hell, getting old must be making him maudlin. Because, okay, he’d be leaving behind a prestigious military career. But who would really care about that beyond the eulogy at his funeral? Sure, heaps of people would turn up to pay their last respects, but none of them would be heartbroken over a universe without him in it any longer.

  Looking at Mae sleeping across from him, he now realized how hollow he was. He needed something more than just his career, more than a title and people deferring to him because they had to.

  She was all wrong for him. Yet the surge of expanding heat in his chest told him exactly the opposite. When he’d given in to his feelings for Mae out in the wilderness, he’d convinced himself it was strategic, that it was two people who’d nearly died and clashed heatedly releasing some of the tension—the old cliché of reaffirming life. It would be a fling, something never to be spoken of again once they got back to the Swift Brion and reality. But they hadn’t made it back to his ship. And despite the fact he still didn’t fully trust her, stupidly, he wanted more with Mae than just a few forbidden nights in the woods.

  How could his mind and logic tell him one thing, while his instincts told him something completely different? Just who was Mae Petros? The woman he could trust with his very life, or someone lulling him into a false sense of security until she could enact whatever endgame she’d concocted? When she’d revealed that she still had her UAFA contacts, she’d confirmed his suspicions—and just what were UAFA hoping to achieve by planting an agent in the IPC?

  Zander dragged a hand across his face and blinked away the heavy feeling drawing down his eyelids.

  Coffee. Yep, he needed a coffee, even if it was only a bad-tasting brew of repli-coffee. It would still have the required dose of caffeine needed to kick-start his system.

  He pushed up from the seat, groaning low at the aching stiffness in his limbs, and went across to a screen inset into the bulkhead. The shuttle didn’t offer much in the way of entertainment, amenities, or food, but luckily the ticket price included a few basics. The ship itself was an older model, a budget carrier that took poor people to even poorer planets and stations.

  Before he ordered, he took a quick glance over the limited menu choice, but nothing appealed, and he wasn’t that hungry after enjoying the five-star meal at the hotel. The mention of the hotel made his guts clench, so he did the same thing he’d done a million times already—compartmentalized with the logic that he couldn’t do anything about the mass-scale tragedy. For now.

  He ordered a coffee for Mae as well. He had to wake her up at some point, and it might as well be with the lure of fake brew.

  As he sat down to
wait for an automated server drone to bring the beverage, the constant, low whirr of the engines wound down and then stopped altogether. He straightened, about to wake Mae, when another ship passed by the small viewport. The hull was entirely black, apart from the ghostly image of a woman dressed in white, painted with the words “Ebony Winter” underneath. And no identification numbers in sight.

  Damn. He didn’t need the lack of identification numbers to tell him he was looking at a ship belonging to illegal salvagers. Because the Ebony Winter, her captain, Qaelen Forster, and the entire crew were currently sitting high on the IPC’s most wanted list.

  Forster’s ship had either disabled the shuttle’s engines, or the captain had given up in the face of the infamous thieves. One way or another, it looked like they were about to be boarded. What in the fiery pits of Erebus could Forster hope to gain from raiding a piss-poor excuse for a shuttle like this one?

  The IPC’s inability to capture Forster had galled some high-ranking members of the military, especially since Forster had once been IPC military and had fought in the Assimilation Wars. Zander had met him a handful of times way back when, and even while living within the constraints of the IPC military, the guy had possessed a cocky, laugh-in-the-face-of-death attitude. Over the years, as the captain of an infamous illegal salvage crew, his swaggering, crazy-ass exploits had only become more legendary. The guy had been one hell of a soldier, and Zander had to admit, part of him had always admired the man.

  Of course, there was also a part of him pissed at Forster, considering the Swift Brion had come up against him and hadn’t caught the fugitive. That was partly his fault. About a year ago, he’d followed Forster’s ship with a full cargo hold, curious to know what the marauder was selling, thinking he could take down the buyer for illegal trade as well.

  Except the Ebony Winter, being a smaller Sylph class supply ship, had landed on the roof of the largest hospital on Mobius Gamma—a factory moon with a high mortality rate—where Forster had unloaded everything from fresh produce to medical supplies and toys for the children’s ward. The Ebony Winter’s captain didn’t receive a cent, as far as he could tell. The revelation had stumped him. So, instead of bringing the Swift Brion down onto Mobius Gamma to apprehend the salvager and his crew, he’d let them slip away.

  Well, there might be an alien in command of his ship pretending to be him, but Zander wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to capture a wanted marauder, especially since this time, Forster’s intentions were clearly outside the law.

  Zander crouched in front of Mae and gently shook her shoulder. She took a long breath and stretched, then opened her eyes and focused on him. An unguarded smile flitted over her face, her gaze warm with the intimacies they’d shared. In the aftermath of their shared anguish over the destruction of the hotel, something had imperceptibly changed between them. Something he couldn’t name and didn’t want to examine. But hell, what he wouldn’t give to strip her down and make love to her while she stared up at him with that exact expression.

  “We might have a problem.” He shifted back from her. But no, that wasn’t far enough. The urge to get his hands on her still burned through him, so he returned to where he’d been sitting.

  The warm sleepiness vanished from her gray eyes as she sat up. “Reidar?”

  “Nothing that bad. I think we’re about to be boarded by illegal salvagers. The crew of the Ebony Winter, to be exact.”

  She frowned, but a spark of interest and excitement lit up her face. “Seems like it might be our duty to go and check that out.”

  He grinned and stood. “Glad we’re on the same page. Maybe if I can capture Forster, they’ll offer me another promotion I don’t need.”

  She crossed her arms, her frown turning into a full glare. “I?”

  “Oh, I mean we, of course.”

  “Uh-huh.” As she stood, the automated drone arrived with their coffees.

  “Great timing. Let’s take it to go.” He grabbed the two drinks and handed one to Mae—who’d picked up their makeshift cushion bag—then slipped past the drone, out into the passageway. “I think in these old shuttles, the cargo bay and docking hatchway are located on the topmost level.”

  Mae nodded and sipped at her coffee while he decided on a direction.

  They found the cargo bay without taking any wrong turns, but by the time they got there, the crew of the Ebony Winter had already boarded and the shuttle’s copilot had come off the bridge to meet them.

  Zander sidled into the cargo hold and stopped behind a secured pallet of luggage, Mae a step behind him.

  Near the hatchway where the Ebony Winter had atmo-locked on to the shuttle, the copilot stood with his hands held out to his sides, arms visibly unsteady and posture tight. “Take whatever you want. Just leave us able to fly and don’t harm the passengers.” The copilot’s words didn’t have much impact, considering the way they wavered.

  Forster stepped forward, drew out a pistol, and shot the unarmed man without hesitating.

  Zander clenched his hand on the edge of the pallet he held for balance, a surge of fury blazing through him. Not even five minutes onboard the shuttle, and the man lived up to his deadly reputation.

  Mae pressed into his side. “How are we going to do this, considering we have no weapons and Forster appears to be trigger-happy?”

  “The only way we can—by lying our asses off and calling the biggest bluff of the century.”

  “That’s all you’ve got?”

  He tore his attention away from where the crew of the Ebony Winter had spread out and started examining various crates stacked around the cargo hold.

  “With the whole two minutes I’ve had to think about it, yes, that’s all I’ve got.”

  She stared past him, forehead creasing as she glared. “Instead of apprehending Forster, we should give him a dose of his own medicine and steal his ship.”

  He knew the look he shot her had to be half skeptical, half incredulous.

  “You want to steal the ship of a marauder with the reputation of Qaelen Forster? There’s crazy, and then there’s totally deranged.” Except, as he said the words, he could see the insane brilliance of her suggestion. “Even if we managed to do something so impossible, he’d hunt us down and have our heads, no matter if we left his ship somewhere safe and in the exact condition we found it.”

  Stealing Forster’s ship was a surefire way to avoid the Reidar and get to Rian, but they’d be better off apprehending the illegal salvager and calling the IPC. Surely then he could get back up and someone would do something about the alien who’d parked its ass in his captain’s chair. They had to nab Forster and his crew, even if the odds were five—no, six—against two.

  “I say we go with the original plan and apprehend Forster to use him when I contact the IPC.” He set his half-empty cup of repli-coffee down on a waist-high crate and stepped out around the pallet of luggage before Mae could argue. Forster saw him right away and brought the pistol up.

  “By the saint’s holy balls, if it isn’t Zander Graydon.” The pistol leveled out, aimed at his forehead, and Zander stopped moving. His heart rate shot up a few levels, drumming against the inside of his chest, but he kept his breathing steady.

  He inclined his head in a measured movement. “I didn’t know if you’d remember me or not. It’s been a lot of years.”

  Forster grinned as though they’d met at some waystation bar instead of on opposite sides of a weapon. “How could I forget the uppity Captain Graydon? Though, what are you calling yourself these days, Captain Admiral? Got yourself a big, shiny IPC flagship, right?”

  Zander nodded, affecting a more relaxed pose. So far, so good. Forster hadn’t shot him…yet.

  “Yes, I’m a captain admiral, and last time I checked the IPC’s most wanted list, you and your crew featured quite predominately on it.”

  Forster shifted his stance, though the pistol never moved. “And here I thought we were having a nice old war buddies reunion. You know, hal
f that stuff they’ve accused me of doing isn’t even true. In fact, some of it was done by other people, and I got the blame.”

  “So you haven’t killed at least a dozen people, besides all those ships you’ve illegally boarded and stripped?”

  “Actually, I haven’t…well, at least I didn’t kill anyone who didn’t try to kill me first.” He shrugged, and this time the pistol lowered slightly. “But I can’t deny taking a few things here and there. A man’s got to make a living somehow.”

  Zander swept a pointed look over the body of the copilot sprawled on the deck between them.

  “What, him?” Forster grinned. “He’s not dead, just unconscious. And he’ll be coming around any time. So if you don’t mind, I’ve got a job to do. Got some clients waiting for a certain piece of mining equipment this shuttle is carrying. Speaking of this shuttle, what in the name of a virgin’s underpants is a captain admiral doing on this rust barge?”

  “It’s a long story. I can tell you all about it on the way to the nearest IPC lockup.”

  Forster laughed outright while in the background his crew converged on a single crate and got to work removing it from a stack of other boxes.

  “You and what IPC fleet? Looks like you’re all on your lonesome.”

  “Lieutenant Marshal?” Zander called out to Mae but didn’t take his eyes off Forster.

  He sensed Mae moving up beside him. “This is my admiral’s assistant, Lieutenant Marshal Petros. I have an entire team in place ready to take you and your crew down. So either surrender quietly or I’ll be forced to instruct them to act. And believe me, they’ll be acting with extreme aggression.”

  Forster flicked a look at Mae, then surveyed his crew. They’d gotten the large crate on a hover-pallet and had started moving it toward the hatchway.

  “Now, why do I find this story so hard to believe?” Forster asked as he turned his attention back to them. “Tell you what, I’ll call the rest of my crew over here, you call your boys down, and we’ll settle this with an old fashioned firefight. See how many are left standing when the dust settles.”