Starbreaker

by Amanda Bouchet

  Fiona snorted. “What? Like five years? I’ve already done that.”

  “Two weeks ago, if you’d shown up in that outfit, he would’ve stared at the wall and kept his mouth shut. Today, you got a reaction.” Practically an explosion, coming from Jax. “That’s progress.”

  Fiona caught her bottom lip between her teeth and shoved random things into her bag without even looking. “He was mean,” she finally said.

  “Your ass is adorable, and he knows it.”

  Her eyes flicked my way, humor sparking in them. “I’m glad you think so.”

  “That new outfit is amazing. If I wasn’t a giant compared to you, I’d totally borrow it. And that slap was epic.”

  She smiled even as she ruefully shook her head. “I shouldn’t have done it.”

  “Maybe. Probably. But Jax is a tank. One slap in five years isn’t going to break him.”

  “I’m still sorry,” she said.

  “Was it satisfying?” I asked.

  “Hell, yes.” She flicked her loose hair over her shoulder. “Until I felt awful for doing it.”

  “If it’s any consolation, I’m pretty sure Jax feels awful, too.”

  Fiona stared blankly past me. “It’s not, actually.” Focusing on me again, she slung the strap of her satchel over her shoulder, letting the bulky bag hang against her hip. “How are things with Shade?”

  I hummed a satisfied sound, volcanic warmth instantly filling me.

  “That good, huh?” She arched her brows, looking eager for details.

  I lowered my tone, confidential. “I keep getting these shocks of feeling inside me. Little zaps and jolts when I think about him. And the stuff we do together. It’s like I’m all twisted up and on fire, but in a good way, you know?” I felt myself flush. I wasn’t used to talking to Fiona this way. To anyone this way. Even at the orphanage, I’d never engaged in much girl-talk. I was either shadowing Mareeka, taking care of Coltin, or spending time with Gabe. This was new to me. And I liked it.

  Fiona smiled. “Enjoy it. You deserve it.” She held up a hand in caution. “As long as you’re sure Shade’s not going to go back to being part of the evil galactic machine of oppression.”

  “I don’t think he ever wanted to be part of the evil galactic machine of oppression.”

  “In that case, fuck like flervers,” she said.

  I cracked up, and Fiona laughed with me.

  “You don’t even know what a flerver looks like,” I said, still laughing.

  “I looked them up. Apparently, they’re a midsized semiaquatic rodent native to Albion 5 that have an average of fifteen offspring a year, so ‘fuck like flervers’ seems like a pretty appropriate analogy to me.”

  “Holy Sky Mother. Fifteen!” I shuddered. “Busy little beasts.”

  “Busier than I am, that’s for sure.” Sighing, Fiona asked, “Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve been kissed? Let alone any of the rest of it?”

  “Five years?” I guessed.

  She nodded, her expression souring.

  Fiona had been intimate with her partner on Hourglass Mile. There hadn’t been any question of that between Jax and me. He’d been grieving his family, and I’d just lost Gabe. I hadn’t looked twice at a man in seven years until Shade came into my life.

  “Jax will come around,” I said, hoping it was true.

  “Do you think he knows how I feel?” Looking down, Fiona scraped at the frayed edge of her bag with her fingernail.

  I answered to the best of my knowledge. “I don’t know. I think he feels it, though, regardless of knowing whether you reciprocate or not. His fear is holding him back.”

  She looked back up. “Maybe he wouldn’t be afraid if I make it clear I’m interested.”

  “He’s not afraid of rejection.”

  “Yeah, I know.” She looked down again.

  A knot formed in my throat. I loved Jax so much. I wanted him to be happy. He’d be forty in a few years. Life was passing him by, and he wasn’t living it. I loved Fiona, too. “You’re the one thing that can drag him out of the past and bring him joy again. Please don’t give up. He needs you.”

  “I’m not sure he wants to be happy.” Her voice wavered. She swallowed. “It’s like he doesn’t think he deserves it. Not when his wife and kids are all dead.”

  Unfortunately, I agreed, even though I hated it. “But that’s only half of it. He’s terrified of actually getting what he wants and then losing it—just like he lost them.”

  Fiona took a deep breath, steadying herself. “It’s not as though I can claim a danger-free existence as a push in the right direction.”

  “No, but keep wearing that corset, and he’ll crack. Hell, I almost want to kiss you, you look so good.”

  Fiona laughed, some of her usual confidence coming back. She slung a jacket over her arm and moved past me, stopping just outside the door. “Should I tell them on the Unholy Stench that you need the details of their plan ASAP?”

  I nodded, although it sounded like a classic get-in-while-there’s-confusion and get-out-before-they-notice-you type of heist. “I’ll head over to their hangar as soon as the Mooncamp crew clears out our cargo holds. They’re due any minute now. Can’t do anything until that’s done.”

  “Got it.” Fiona started down the corridor, tossing me a sultry look over her shoulder. She put a little extra swing into her hips.

  I laughed and wiggled my fingers in goodbye. “Have fun with Frank,” I said suggestively.

  “You know as well as I do that Frank’s gay.” She turned back around with a smile.

  I chuckled, wondering when Jax would finally figure out that Frank wasn’t a rival for Fiona.

  * * *

  Raz arrived with only half a crew, promising the other half in about an hour after a gale storm around Mooncamp 3 died down. I hadn’t been to any of the other DT moons. The food coordinator redistributed from here, so this was where the Endeavor landed. From what I’d heard, the inhabitable moons orbiting Demeter Terre were all pretty similar: mostly empty, largely barren, and incredibly windy.

  I hated going outside here and mostly stayed in our designated shed. There wasn’t really anything out there besides pieced-together living quarters, sudden squalls, and relatively clean air, the latter of which we could take advantage of from the hangar.

  While we’d flown in, Shade had asked me why this had become the principal settlement, probably because it looked so bleak and underdeveloped. I hadn’t had much of an answer. As far as I knew, no single moon had been chosen over another for its merits. A few ships had landed here first during the panic to get off Demeter Terre, probably because they were damaged or their crews were dying, and that was that. Mooncamp 1: established.

  I helped Raz direct where our haul was going after he gave me half his spreadsheet. Shade, Jax, Merrick, and Sanaa did a lot of the heavy lifting on the Endeavor while the food crew filled hover crates according to Raz’s and my instructions. The crates were color coded for each of the six refugee cities, with red crates staying here, blue crates going onto a transport vessel destined for Mooncamp 2, yellow crates headed to Mooncamp 3, and so on. Raz’s overall distribution was pretty even this time, which meant breaking into sealed containers and manually parceling out the boxes or cans inside to provide similar amounts for everyone.

  “For fuck’s sake, Raz.” Jax wiped sweat from his brow before taking a long drink of water. “Could you have made this any slower?”

  Raz gave Jax an owlish blink from behind his round glasses. “Are you in a hurry?”

  “I’m always in a hurry.” Jax’s smile said he was just fooling around. “And you’re lucky you didn’t kill us with last night’s dinner, or your spaghetti arms would be the ones lifting all this food right now.”

  “My spaghetti arms are perfect for checking off boxes.” Raz lowered
his clipboard and peered at the contents of the large hover crate Jax and Merrick had just finished loading. After counting off the items, he gave the go-ahead, and his crew began maneuvering the crate off the Endeavor. They’d steer it out of the hangar and onto a nearby waiting transport. “See—check, check, check.” With extra flair, Raz marked three things off and then flipped the page of his spreadsheet.

  Jax chuckled, then groaned when he saw the next hover crate. It was just as big as the previous one and needed the exact same contents. Raz buzzed around like a worker bee, busy and dedicated. I couldn’t begin to count the number of times in an hour he went up and down the loading ramp at the back of the Endeavor, making sure the supplies we’d brought were headed to the locations he’d chosen with care and intention. His B-Team was unloading the Unholy Stench in the next hangar over. We had more food, so we got Raz and his main battalion. The DT Mooncamp food coordinator was one of the only people I knew who refused to use a tablet. He said it was a pen and paper and his own damn writing, or nothing. Seeing how straight the lines were on the spreadsheet he’d given me, I knew he also used a ruler.

  We were more than halfway done unloading when the rest of Raz’s crew showed up, bringing the remaining transport vessels and hover crates that had been stuck on Mooncamp 3 in the tempest.

  “Good. They’re here.” Jax glanced past me toward the hangar entrance as he helped two women and a man fill a green hover crate with boxes of the dried brown beans we all ate on a regular basis. From the picture, they looked like animal droppings. I had to convince myself they weren’t sometimes. “We’ve almost cleared out the two cargo holds with food in them. Almost everything’s in the hangar now and ready to be loaded up again.”

  “Did you set aside anything for yourselves?” Raz asked.

  Jax shook his head.

  “You’re sure?” Raz turned to me for assurance.

  “We stocked up not long ago. We’re fine,” I answered. If there had been anything fresh, I would have kept it. I was generous but not stupid. Cans, boxes, and other tasteless generic stuff, most of it containing the ubiquitous trigrain something, could be had anywhere it was safe to dock. “If we end up starving, we’ll come back here. I know you’ll feed us something catastrophic.” I grinned at Raz, taking the sting from my words.

  He scratched his head, pushing his fingers through his buzz cut. “Was it that bad?”

  “Worse,” I answered, meaning it.

  “I’m not entirely sure what it was,” he admitted. “I gave it to Frank, too.”

  “You’re lucky I’m more forgiving than Frank. He might never come back here. Ever.”

  “I’m not,” Jax called from behind a huge crate. “You’re dead to me, Raz,” he promised.

  Merrick good-naturedly voiced his agreement. Sanaa didn’t say anything and worked as hard as anybody else here, even though she really had no reason to.

  We continued unloading and organizing. When Shade walked past where I stood at the corner of the lowered ramp to the Endeavor, he gave me a hot-as-the-Reaginine-sun look that said he didn’t care what he ate, as long as he got his dessert afterward.

  His smile set my blood on fire. My breasts tingled, and arousal swam in my belly. All Shade had to do was look at me, and I was ready. I was about to toss him my best you’re-so-incredibly-on-for-tonight grin when the voice of a ghost froze me solid.

  “Tess? Great Powers. Tess, is that you?”

  I turned slowly. Impossible. But that voice… I’d know it anywhere.

  I lost all sensation in my body as my blood crashed away, leaving me empty, numb, and shaking. It couldn’t be. But it was. That was Gabe—running straight at me. Gabe was dead. Wasn’t he?

  He rushed in and hugged me so powerfully that my feet left the ground and my lungs felt crushed. He swung me around. I landed again, staring past the shell of an ear and longish brown hair that was darker than I remembered. He squeezed me hard, but I couldn’t move, couldn’t squeeze back. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t talk. My arms hung limp, and all I knew was shock. I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.

  “Tess. Tess. Thank the Sky Mother, you got away.” Gabe looked at me, a heart and a thousand kisses in his eyes. He gripped my face with shaky hands and covered my mouth with his. Soft. Hard. Urgent. Trembling. He kissed me like we were nineteen again, the center of each other’s universes, and looking for a rebel crew to join so we could kick some Dark Watch ass. The two of us. Together. Like we’d always planned.

  Gabe flew away from me, a look of total surprise on his face. Shade shoved him another several feet back and stood in front of me.

  “Get the hell off my…captain.” He glanced at me. His gaze dipped, making sure I was all right.

  I touched an unsteady hand to my mouth. I blinked. Blinked again. My lips felt numb and my vision dark.

  Gabe recovered his balance quickly. This was no beanstalk of a boy anymore. He rivaled Shade in height and strength. In fact, his new build reminded me more of Jax.

  I’d only ever guessed at what happened to Gabe when I got caught and sent to jail. Now, the pieces slammed together like a cell door crashing closed. “You were on Hourglass Mile, weren’t you? You were in the mines?” We’d never seen each other. Never crossed paths. The whole place was segmented to reduce the risk of riots. The warden wouldn’t have partnered up two people who’d been caught in the same place at the same time, and I’d had no way of knowing who was in a different section of the huge prison, or if Gabe had ended up there at all.

  I swallowed, but the tears still rose. He’d been right next to me for two years. He’d been that close.

  Gabe nodded. He didn’t move, wary of Shade now.

  In a daze, I bypassed Shade and went to Gabe. I touched his arm. Warm. Solid. There. Gabriel was alive. He had been all these years. “I was there, too. From the day we got separated.”

  “Me too.” His eyes searched mine, shining with moisture. Aglow with invitation. That life we’d talked about was still on offer. I saw it, right there for the taking.

  My chest ached so deeply it felt as if someone had buried a hatchet in it. Gabe and I had lost so much. Freedom. Each other. Us. We were both out of prison, but we hadn’t found each other until now. In my heart, I knew that meant he’d been on the Mile this whole time, but I still needed to hear it from him. “I escaped five years ago. When did you get out?”

  “Five years? Oh, the explosion. Good.” He looked relieved for me. “I just got out. Barely a snap ago.” His hazel eyes were just as I recalled, green and brown with flecks of gold. They looked into me and burned my soul. I’d left him. I’d left him there and gone on alone.

  “How?” My eyes stung and watered. He blurred in front of me. This man I’d loved. My first friend on Starway 8. Gabe.

  “They blamed me for a riot. A DW general picked me up to get me out of their hair while they brought things back under control on the Mile, but I was slated for a lethal injection. He was supposed to make a public spectacle of it from his big scary warship. Instead, the guy, Bridgebane, gave me a choice. The injection, or try my luck in a black hole.”

  My jaw fell open as I stared at him. I knew this story. “He sent you after me. I went through the Black Widow, and Bridgebane wanted to know if I could have survived somehow.”

  Surprise wiped all expression from Gabe’s face, and we were both pretty damn shocked to begin with. “You. I followed you?”

  “Well, no.” I dropped my hand from his arm, realizing I was still gripping it so hard my fingers hurt. “I ended up in Sector 2, and you went to Sector 17.”

  Gabe’s dark brows drew together under the shaggy fall of hair that tumbled over his forehead. “How do you know that?”

  “Bridgebane told me.”

  His frown deepened. “How did—”

  I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. You’re alive. I can’t believe it. Have yo
u told Mareeka and Surral yet? They’ve been so worried.”

  “No.” He looked surprised. “I didn’t really think about it.”

  A knife finally pierced my fog, the cold, sharp prick of a dagger. “Didn’t think about it?” How was that possible?

  “Yeah. I made it here. Figured I’d join the DT refugees and earn my keep until a crew had room to take me on with them.” He stood up straighter. “Did that guy say ‘captain’?”

  I nodded, looking at that guy. Shade. I touched my lips again, still feeling the press of Gabe’s mouth there.

  “Fucking Captain Tess Bailey.” Gabe grinned at me. “You’re living the life we always wanted.”

  “I guess so,” I mumbled, shaken and off-kilter. I glanced at the people around me. Shade wore the wariest expression I’d ever seen on his face. Guarded. Not happy. Jax understood what was happening, and the sympathy written all over his features only rammed home my unexpected and difficult position. No one else knew what the hell was going on, but they were morbidly curious.

  “You got a spot for me, Captain?” Gabe’s question came out half-teasing and half-unsure but hopeful. The flame in his eyes, the way he smiled, were an encouragement to pick up where we’d left off seven years ago, before the Dark Watch had destroyed the life we’d built together since childhood.

  I opened my mouth. Closed it. My heart hurt. My mind blanked. Gabe on the Endeavor?

  “I…” I have no idea what to answer. “I’d have to talk to my crew first. And we’re leaving in about”—I glanced at my watch—“ten hours.”

  “Sure.” The word left his lips easily enough, but his face told a different story. I’d always hated disappointing Gabe. Having spent eleven years as close companions, it had definitely happened. The hatchet in my chest twisted, the ache intensifying until I could barely breathe and wanted to blurt out something stupid just to make him feel better.

  I didn’t.

  Gabe took a step away from me. “I’ll help finish with this haul you brought in. Gotta make the trip back to Mooncamp 3 with the stuff anyway. I’ll come back later.”