by Jenn Burke
Felix’s usual curse—shit and double shit—died in the back of his throat. Instead, he breathed out a mournful whine, barely heard over the roar of the moisture extractors being set up across the cargo bay.
Shipping shit wasn’t their usual thing, unless you used the term broadly. Hauling cargo from one end of the galaxy to the other didn’t pay as well as skip traces and bounties, but since running afoul of the Agrius Cartel, the lower the profile of the job, the better. The profit margin on this one was starting to look a little thin.
Qek poked her head around Nessa’s shoulder. “What is that smell?”
Nessa turned to regard their pilot, a diminutive ashushk with wide eyes that were about to disappear in a crimp of blue wrinkles. Qek—short for Qekelough, which was a mouthful even without grit caught between his tongue and teeth—let loose a delicate shudder as she eyed him.
“That smell is Fixer,” Ness said.
Felix looked down at his streaky brown self. The stink was rolling off of him in dizzying waves. “Look, I’m going to pass out from my own funk if I don’t get clean. What do you recommend?”
“We have only just refilled our water tanks. If you use the shower, you will likely seed the entire system with traceable elements,” Qek said, inferring that their water would smell and taste like shit until they purged the system. “I would recommend a chemical wash station.”
“Oh, hell no.”
“Fix—”
Felix chopped the air with a mottled brown hand. “Been there, done that, not doing it again.”
“It’s the only way to get the stink off of you,” Nessa said. “Permanently.”
“Fuck!” He knew she was right, but…a chemical wash station? They were reserved for the processing of undesirable elements—people leaving quarantined zones, those suspected of carrying communicable diseases, people covered in shit, and…
“You have visited a chemical wash station before?” Qek asked.
“Yeah.” Something in his tone had Qek and Nessa exchanging a glance. “The AEF put me through one. After, you know, I got back.” Former POWs were always submitted to chemical wash stations. Standard procedure. Couldn’t have stin bugs crawling all over AEF systems.
“Would you like me to accompany you to the station?” Qek offered.
“Nope.” Felix gestured toward the cleanup operation taking place outside. “Oversee this, will you? Eli’s charm might run out any minute, and Zed…” Had a crease between his brows, the sort he got with a headache. “Zed might trip over another bag and double the cleanup bill.”
Worry for Zed proved an effective dampener of the anger crawling up his spine at the thoughts of the war and being a slave to the stin. The fact his skin burned was distracting too. The breath huffed out of him on a sigh. “Okay, I’m gonna go get everything that makes me me scrubbed away.”
Nessa’s lips twitched. “Wait just a minute, I’ll get you some clean clothes to take with you.”
Her quiet laughter echoed in the corridor as she disappeared, Qek trailing after. Felix grumbled quietly in his throat. He wouldn’t want to hang out with him, either, not while he stank.
His wallet buzzed. Extracting it from his pocket took all of his concentration. He fumbled with the flexible plastic square until Zed appeared at his side, one of his large hands plucking it from his clumsy grasp. Zed opened the wallet and a holographic display appeared just over it. Felix quickly scanned the incoming message.
“Client for our other shipment. He wants to move the meeting up.”
Zed manipulated the display, activating a map location. “One dock over, and he wants to meet in twenty minutes.” He glanced up. “I’ll take Ness.”
“Like hell you will. I might stink, but I can still…” Felix paused to spit out another brown glob. “Ugh.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I just need to hit a wash station. Be ready in five.”
Zed’s brows made a bid for his hairline.
“Ten minutes.”
“Flick, it’s going to take an hour to get that stink off of you.”
“Well, if you hadn’t hit that damned bot. What was with that, anyway?”
Zed didn’t have a temper, not really, which was probably why he’d made such a great candidate for the project that had fucked him up. The AEF would never have asked Felix to be one of their super soldiers. He was far too temperamental—and he’d been “retired” by then. But Zander Anatolius? Perfect soldier, perfect super soldier. The experimental program might have ended the war, but it had wrought changes in Zed and his team that could not be undone. In Felix’s opinion, the cost had been too great.
He tried to hide it, his headaches, the fact that his attention wandered from time to time. But Felix knew Zed like no other. His heart beat in time with Zed’s. He loved him. Always had, always would. He saw the tightness around Zed’s eyes, noticed when Zed failed to finish a sentence.
Had he been in control when he punched the InstaShit droid?
Scrubbing the heel of his palm over his brows, Zed effectively hid his gaze as he answered. “Damn thing was annoying.”
“Not half as annoying as being covered in shit, man.” Felix caught Zed’s elbow and pulled his hand away from his face. “You all right?”
Zed met his gaze. His eyes were the color of steel and could warm and cool accordingly, flashing a chilly blue when he was annoyed, a softer blue-toned gray when he was overcome with emotion. Felix liked watching Zed’s eyes when they made love, the shift of color and intensity. Seeing Zed’s feelings march from one extreme to another. He searched for signs of stress and found none. He wasn’t convinced. Five years of covert ops meant Zed could lie, even to him.
“Truth,” he said, hoping to coax Zed into admitting something.
“I’m good.”
“Then why did you hit the bot?”
“I didn’t mean to hit it that hard.”
Had he meant to hit it at all? That was the question Felix wanted to ask. He chewed it over a second, then spat it out. “You knew you hit it, right?”
“What the fuck do you mean?”
“Zed, c’mon. You know what I mean.”
“Look, I’m sorry the bag opened on you, okay? Not like I planned this shit.”
“Not funny.”
Zed turned his hand so they clasped arms. “Go get cleaned up. I’ll handle the client.”
A crease teased the space between Zed’s brows. Felix could see him fighting the frown. He wanted to press, but knew that the fight would have to wait. Right here, right now, they were arguing about something they both wanted to be nothing—and they had a client waiting. And shit to clean up.
Felix closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them, Zed had moved in closer and had one hand raised as if he planned to cup the back of Felix’s head. His nose wrinkled and a small coughing sound emerged from his throat. He leaned back. “Can I kiss you later?”
“I should make you kiss me now.”
Zed swallowed visibly.
With a dry chuckle, Felix leaned back and waved him away. “Go. And take Elias instead of Nessa. Xihe is a rough station.”
“Ness can look after herself.”
True, but only Nessa could properly care for Zed if anything happened.
Chapter Two
Maybe it was leftover paranoia from being in covert ops, but whenever plans changed for no good reason, Zed’s skin crawled.
He surveyed their surroundings as he and Elias walked to the meet, watching for anything out of place, anything that didn’t fit. Nothing jumped out at him—literally or figuratively—but that could be because of the damned headache that had set up residence between his temples. He should’ve taken something before they left the ship, but that would’ve clued Flick in that something wasn’t right…and he wasn’t ready for that, yet.
“Headache?”
Fuck. He should’ve known Flick wouldn’t be the only one watching him. “No.”
Elias arched a dark brow. “You sure? Because
you get these little furrows right there when—”
“I’m worried about our meet.”
“Uh-huh.” Elias’s lips opened, then closed—then he shrugged. “Now’s not the time.”
Zed grunted and led the way into the private dock belonging to their potential client. There would never be a good time for that conversation, which was why he planned to never have it. Even as he had that thought, his gut clenched with a sense of betrayal—not for him, but for Felix. He owed Flick that conversation, didn’t he? As painful as it would be, didn’t Flick deserve to hear the truth?
With an effort, Zed turned his attention back to the task at hand when they entered the office area. Their client, a rotund man with pale skin and thinning, dirty blond hair, sat behind a nondescript desk that bore no signs of actual work. No holos floated above it. It was like walking into one of the AEF’s top-secret installations, where they announced that personnel without the appropriate security clearance were on the floor and every spook shut down their wallets and holos so nothing could be observed.
Yep. He was definitely paranoid.
“Mr. Collins? I’m Elias Idowu, Captain of the Chaos.” Elias stepped forward and held out a hand, which the portly Mr. Collins grasped across the desk. “A pleasure to meet you.”
“Likewise.” Mr. Collins’s head bobbed in an enthusiastic nod. “Sorry to mess up your timetable—”
Elias waved a hand, dismissing the concern. “It’s not a problem. This is my security officer, Mr. Loop.”
Zed didn’t offer his hand, but instead leveled a look just short of a glare at the client. He knew his role. It was to say “Don’t fuck with me” without a word.
“R-right, hello.” Collins’s smile wavered, then fell away as he took in Zed’s bulk. It wasn’t the first time someone had been intimidated when they realized just how much muscle was packed onto Zed’s frame, but it seemed as if it was an effort for Collins to turn back to Elias. As though he was afraid to take his eyes off Zed?
Paranoia…
“I had another meeting get rescheduled, so I had to move some things around.” Collins sat down again without inviting Zed or Elias to do so. His hands twisted in front of him, constantly in motion, and he didn’t seem to be aware of it. A bead of sweat sneaked out from his hairline to trail down his cheek next to his ear.
Zed’s frisson of paranoia pinged louder. No way was he that intimidating.
He grabbed Elias’s biceps. “We’re done.”
Collins rose from his seat, his hands braced against the desk. “W-what? But we haven’t even discussed—”
Zed ignored him and leaned in closer to Elias. “He’s too scared.”
“Shit.” The curse had barely escaped Elias’s lips before he turned and opened the office door.
Only to come face-to-face with a pair of thugs armed with laser carbines. The moth tattoo poking above their collars stated their affiliation loud and clear.
Agrius.
Everyone on the Chaos had gotten more familiar than they’d ever wanted to be with the criminal cartel after acquiring a shipment of antibiotics out from under Agrius’s nose. Zed had unintentionally intensified the cartel’s interest in their ship by protecting his crewmates—killing a bunch of Agrius thugs to steal away Emma, one of his oldest friends and a veteran of the same secret training he’d participated in. She’d been in trouble, and he couldn’t not act.
That Emma was now dead, that she’d sacrificed herself to save Elias didn’t matter. Or maybe that was the main reason Agrius was after them now—they’d robbed the cartel of a valuable operative. Zed wasn’t about to ask for clarification.
He reached for the Zone. The calmness of the altered state of consciousness brought with it a clarity of purpose he rarely experienced at any other time. With his emotions stripped away, life became simple. He had no fear, no doubt, no concern for his own life. Only the mission mattered.
Protect Captain Idowu.
Shoving Idowu behind him, Zed grabbed for one of the thugs’ weapons. He slammed the barrel into the man’s face, the crunch of cartilage telling him he’d struck well. He sliced his other hand into the second man’s throat, then curved his fingers into the nape of the guy’s neck and yanked him forward into his upraised elbow. Another crunch, another cry of pain.
“Don’t kill them,” Idowu said.
Zed grunted. “Acknowledged.” That was an addendum to every mission—despite the risk it entailed, he was to leave as many opponents alive as possible. It made no sense in wartime, but…
This isn’t wartime.
Zed blinked. The Zone faltered but he held on with his mental fingertips, knowing that if the altered state of consciousness fell away now, he’d be less than useful to Idowu. The mission was not complete.
“Are there more?” Idowu demanded from Collins, who was hiding behind his desk.
“Th-there were six. Outside, maybe? I don’t know! They told me I had to cooperate or—”
Zed glared at the man. “Alternate exit?”
“I-I don’t—”
Engaging his superior speed, Zed darted forward and grabbed Collins by the throat. Hefting his bulk against the wall wasn’t easy but the way the man’s eyes bulged with fear illustrated the effort was worth it.
“Alternate exit?”
“Col—” Collins swallowed hard. “Collins-five-eight-eight-nine!”
Behind the desk, part of the wall flickered then faded, revealing a door. Idowu had already started for it as Collins explained that the holo would stay down for fifteen seconds, tops.
“Don’t call us for any more jobs,” Idowu growled as he opened the door.
“W-wasn’t my fault. They threatened me, and I—”
Zed changed his grip and slammed Collins’s head down into his rising knee. The portly businessman crumpled into a heap, unconscious. Or maybe dead—Zed didn’t bother to check.
“We need to—” The Zone flickered again and Zed staggered against the doorjamb.
“Shit, Zed, you okay?”
No. He wasn’t.
Review later.
He brushed past Idowu, calling up his mental map of the station and comparing it to their current location. This wasn’t one of the stations built and operated by his family so he wasn’t as familiar with it and had no special access codes, but that hadn’t stopped him from memorizing the blueprints from the Net.
“We need to leave Xihe Station as soon as possible.”
“I’ll get Qek to reserve an earlier spot in the exit queue.” Idowu grabbed Zed’s elbow as the door slid closed behind them. “You’re pale as hell, man.”
Zed kept walking. “Review later.”
“Fuck,” Idowu grumbled. “There better be a later.”
*
Felix ran his hand over the top of his scalp, enticed by the soft tickle of the two millimeters of hair he had left. After his date with the chemical wash station, an hour in engineering with his latest project—a replacement web-work glove for his mangled left hand—would hopefully dull all memory of the intimate scrubbing.
“You look much younger with no hair.”
Eyeing Qek’s bald head, Felix scowled. “I look like an ashushk.”
Her face wrinkled into a smile. “You are not blue.”
Nor was he brown, anymore. In fact, Felix had never felt so clean, and he hated it. Not that personal hygiene and he had a loose relationship—he liked a hot shower and would sell children into slavery for an hour in a deep tub. Okay, maybe not children. Or slavery. And he liked his baths best when he had Zed there to wash his back.
Mmm-hmm.
The wallet resting on the work bench buzzed and skittered into the base of the mold they were using to construct his new glove. His left hand was next to useless without it, and a ship’s engineer functioned better with two hands. Felix tapped the wallet, flipping it open.
“Fixer?”
Alert to the urgent tone of Elias’s voice, he immediately replied. “What’s up?”
Shit. Only one reason Elias would call with a seemingly inconsequential health update for Zed. Gut clenching, Felix pushed away from the work bench. “What happened?”
“Tell you when we get there. Have Qek confirm our departure time, maybe see if an earlier slot opened up, and alert Nessa to the situation.”
Qek had her own wallet out and unfolded across her palm, holographic display shimmering above. “Would now be a good time to employ one of the override codes Mr. Anatolius stored in the pilot’s comm?”
“Not on a Shi Corp station. Too much attention.” Reciprocal agreements were all well and good until criminal cartels got involved, and a niggling sensation at the back of his squeaky clean neck told him that Agrius was the cause of Zed having to Zone. Everyone else liked the crew of the Chaos. Mostly.
Elias conferred with Zed, their conversation just out of range of Elias’s comm, then he reported back. “We should be safe in the jump queue. See you in ten.”
Jump-space was the shortest navigable distance between two galactic points. Someone who was sufficiently determined might figure out where they were headed, but the Chaos would be practically invisible until they got there, secure in the envelope provided by their ashushk star drive.
Felix tapped the wallet again. “Ness! Zed and Eli are on their way back. Something happened with the client. Zed must have had to Zone. Eli reported a headache and he’s still talking, but I don’t know if that means—”
“Take a breath, Fix. I’ll take care of him.”
Felix breathed out, but the tightness in his chest did not ease. Though he knew Nessa would take care of Zed, any reminder of his infirmity coiled him tighter than a one-millimeter helical spring.
Qek touched his hand before he could leave engineering. “Elias is with him.” She did not fully understand human relationships, but she understood what Zed meant to him. “All will be well, my friend.”
Felix caught her blue hand in a gentle clasp. “Thanks, Qek.”