by Kelly Jensen
Felix glanced at Zed. “Thanks, man.”
Elias eyed the bodies gathered at his feet. “Thanks for helping out.”
A sideways glance at Nessa confirmed that she knew the bodies weren’t unconscious. She hadn’t crouched to check the pulse of a single one.
Zed twitched. “We’re not clear of the hot zone. We need to leave, now.”
Shaking his wrist, Felix dismissed all displays but one. “I think we’re going to need a different exit. The rear corner of the warehouse is still under construction.”
Like many orbital and ex-orbital stations, Dardanos had sustained damage during the war. Scaffolding and construction plastic masked many of the scars, but the blackened edge of steel framing a new door served as a bleak reminder of the long conflict. The fact the warehouse stood nearly empty of containers was a more poignant reminder of the lasting effects. The human economy had yet to fully recover, giving cartels like Agrius openings that had not existed before.
Familiar heat prickled his skin as Felix jerked his gaze away from the bodies. Swallowing the anger that threatened to engulf him every time he thought about the war, about the stin, he lifted his chin toward the exit he’d marked. “We can access the service corridors from there.”
Zed visually assessed each member of the team and gestured. “Single file, Ingesson rearguard.”
Felix felt himself responding to command even before his feet actually moved to take up his position. Annoyance pinched his shoulders, but he shook it off. Zed knew what he was doing. Hell, without Zed, he’d probably be a drooling mess of scrambled brains right about now.
Nessa grumbled but took up her position; Elias did the same with an arched brow. Silent as a snake, they slithered through the stacked containers until they reached the quiet construction zone. The workers were absent, maybe on a break, maybe paid off. Zed disabled a solitary guard with quick efficiency. When he straightened, he stumbled forward a step, one hand rising to rub at his temple. The square line of his shoulders shifted and the hand not pressed to his temple had acquired a tremble.
Felix pushed forward. “You all right?”
“Fine.” Zed wrenched his hand away from his temple and stood tall. He pointed toward the rectangle of light at the other side of the maintenance bay. “There’s your exit.”
“Right,” Felix murmured, disturbed by the pain etched across Zed’s forehead, deep furrows that hadn’t been there nine years ago.
He’d wanted Zed off his ship and out of his life, but the bastard had followed him across the port and, damn it, he’d saved his life, and by extension, the lives of Elias and Nessa. They owed him more than thanks.
“You’re coming back to the ship, right?”
“Of course he is,” Nessa said, tugging at Zed’s elbow. “C’mon, let’s get out of here before Agrius catches up with us again.”
To Felix’s surprise, Zed allowed himself to be led through the quiet zone and didn’t utter a single complaint as Felix assigned himself to the position of vanguard. He might have stayed where he was. Shadows converged soon after they entered the labyrinth of service corridors, from the front and behind. Felix ducked down and pulled his stunner from his belt. Fuck Zed and his call for quiet, they were in a compressed space that left them little room to maneuver.
Agrius obviously didn’t feel the need to observe the quiet rule. Yells cut through the air, interspersed with grunts, groans and the snap of electricity as stunners sought targets. Felix thrust his weapon forward, thumb activating the release at the same moment. His most immediate foe doubled over, falling into him. Stepping up, Elias caught the guy and heaved him aside.
Felix took aim at figure waiting behind, a squat woman whose mouth appeared to be fixed in a permanent snarl. She had a stunner raised at a similar angle. If they didn’t get closer, they’d merely singe one another’s extremities. Not fun and not useful. Elias leaped forward, turning his shoulder in, catching her side. The woman flinched as she spun, her stunner discharging harmlessly into the wall. Taking advantage of the opening, Felix leaned in and pressed his stunner to the plain brown coverall she used as a disguise. Compressed voltage shot through the stiff fabric and into her flesh. She jerked, her snarl widening into a grimace.
The wall shook beside them. Felix turned to watch another jumpsuited figure collapse to the floor. Nessa turned, a hypo-syringe in her hand.
“Remind me never to sneak up behind you,” Felix said.
“I shouldn’t have to.” Nessa’s expression countered the glibness of her tone. She hadn’t seen much combat during the war, but she’d dealt with the aftermath during her several tours with the Red Star.
Felix didn’t doubt that Nessa was tough. Still, he asked, “You okay?”
She offered a nod in reply.
He then noticed they were missing a member of the party, Zed’s absence all the more weird because he’d only recently appended himself to Felix’s life. “Where’s Loop?”
“He ran back—”
Nessa broke off as Zed reappeared at the end of their corridor. Zed moved with the calm precision of a scout, but the tremble in his hands had increased so that it was visible at ten paces.
“How many?” Felix could have asked if they were dead, but he knew they were.
“Two. There could be more. We should keep moving.”
“Do you have to kill them all?” Elias asked.
Zed’s unemotional stare flattened by another degree. “The mission dictates—”
Felix waved his hands. “We don’t have time for this. Our mission is to get back to the Chaos.”
No one disagreed. Moments later, they stepped out into the crowded concourse just outside their own dock.
Beyond the press, the Chaos nestled against her pier, looking like a beached crab. She was an ugly ship—squat and bulbous. Not sleek, and with her pitted and scarred hull, far from beautiful. But to Felix’s practiced and fond eye, she was a ship designed to do one thing very, very well. The flare of ceramix plates at her rear housed an ashushk star drive. Bobbing in the gravitational differential of a space dock, she appeared ungainly. In j-space, however, the Chaos’s shape mattered little. There, her superior drive and pilot gave her an enviable edge.
Elias let out a slow whistle. “We’re done dealing in pharmaceuticals.”
“You think?” Nessa’s eyes flashed angrily.
The captain held up his hands. “Just what we need to keep ourselves happy and healthy.”
Nessa huffed and pushed into the jumble of people flowing toward various piers. Elias followed. Felix turned to Zed. The man’s eyes were no longer flat. In fact, the steely blue had dulled to a soft gray.
“You all right?” he asked again.
Zed stiffened, frowned more deeply, lifted his chin and shook his head. No, he was not all right. “Headache,” he murmured.
“We’ll get you something for that,” Felix said, “and then, ah, we should talk.”
* * *
Elias glanced up as Nessa stepped into the bridge. “Close the hatch would you, Ness?”
She frowned but turned to do as he asked, smacking a small fist against the release.
“Why are we having a secret meeting in the Batcave?” Fixer asked.
“Batcave?” Qek echoed.
“Hmm, yeah, maybe it’s more like the Justice League Satellite in here.” Fixer rocked forward in the copilot’s chair.
The what now? “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I’ll assume we’re in here because voices carry from the mess to the crew quarters,” Nessa said, “but if you’re going to yell, I might as well open the hatch.”
Elias exhaled sharply and waved at Nessa. “Just grab a seat, will you?”
She parked her butt on one of the jump seats and leaned forward to prop her elbows on her knees. The posture gave a good view of her cleavage, but Elias wasn’t in the mood to leer.
“Is he sedated?” he asked.
“If you’re asking if I knocked out our
client, the answer is no. I gave him something for his headache and suggested he lie down. And that’s what he did.”
“Sensors indicate Mr. Loop is sleeping,” Qek reported.
Fixer appeared as frazzled as his hair. His left knee bounced against the edge of the seat and his gaze jerked around the bridge, searching for a place to settle. Though every instinct coached him to demand an explanation, loudly, Elias recognized a man on the edge. “Want to tell us about your friend?”
“Not much to tell.” One shoulder hitched up. “We went to school together, then served together for a few years. Not in the same unit. Z—Loop’s something of a specialist. I’m just an engineer.”
“Who is he, Fix?”
Expression guarded, Fixer met his gaze. “I can’t tell you.”
“Then we put him off the ship.”
Nessa sat up straight. Qek clicked.
“Unless you intend to eject Mr. Loop from an airlock, he will be traveling with us until we dock again.”
“That’s what I meant.”
Qek could be so damned literal.
“Are you forgetting he just saved our asses?” Nessa said. “We wouldn’t be having this meeting if he hadn’t been there to back up Fixer.”
A needle of pain shot through Elias’s temple. He massaged the point and heaved out a sigh that felt like it started in his boots. “Fuck.” Dropping his hand back to his lap, he looked over at Qek. “Any sign of pursuit?”
“None, Captain.”
A departure slot had opened up shortly after they returned to the ship, so they had been able to leave in a timely and inconspicuous manner.
“Instead of voting to space our client,” Nessa said, “we should be talking about the ambush.”
Briefly, Elias wondered if his father had encountered as many problems running a trade ship. Probably. He remembered the excitement of his childhood and the reason he and Fixer had decided to pool their resources to buy their own ship. They wanted to be captains of the sea of stars, cresting the waves and lolling in the troughs. They’d chosen this, and they’d chosen that ambush as well. “We shouldn’t have taken those antibiotics from Leto.”
“You think?”
“Cut the sarcasm, Nessa. You were only too happy to play the part of benefactor when we passed them on.”
Chastened, she leaned back in her chair.
“We all agreed that sometimes the gray market was worth the risk,” Fixer put in, his tone oddly reasonable. “What we need to do is chalk this one up to experience.” He held up his glove and tapped the first metal finger to tick off a point. “From now on we steer well clear of the Agrius cartel. Of any group calling itself a cartel.” He tapped a second digit and moved to a third. “We don’t take any deals that are too good to be true.” He tried for a smile that came across more like a grimace. “Not for a while, anyway.” He moved to the fourth finger. “No drugs, ever. I don’t care if we hear of an opportunity to cure the Thaxian Bends. We’re traders, not Robin Fucking Hood.” He contemplated his fifth finger for a moment. “And I’m out of points.”
“Is that smell coming from your hair?” Qek asked.
“Yeah.” Fixer fiddled with the burnt patch at the back of his head. “Really lingers, doesn’t it?”
This was his crew. His crazy crew. Before Elias could declare his undying love for the three best shipmates in the galaxy, he had to be captain, however. “What do we want to do about Loop?”
“We’re not shoving him out of an airlock,” Nessa said, all tigress with her red hair and flashing eyes.
“I meant the job, Ness. Jesus.” Elias bit off another sigh. “Fix?”
Fixer pushed down on his left knee, halting the bounce, and an expression Elias recognized crossed his face. Determination. Whatever he said would be something he not only meant but felt with every fiber of his being.
“He’s a good man, Eli. I believe that. He didn’t have to follow me this afternoon, he could have grabbed his gear and gone.” Fixer paused to catch the eye of everyone in the small bridge. “He pretty much saved us. Agrius might not have killed us, but they’d have taken their pound of flesh. This job he wants us to do? It’s important to him and...it is to me too.”
Why had he hesitated? Loop and Emma were both old friends, weren’t they? Except...Fix didn’t have friends, not outside the Chaos. It was clear he and Loop had a past, though. Something more than simple friendship, and that was weird. Elias had never met anyone Fixer truly cared for before.
Elias opened his mouth, closed it again when Fix finished his twenty seconds of contemplation.
“Emma would come after me. Hell...so would Loop.”
When? After he finished reading the obituary notice?
As if party to his thoughts, Fixer shot him a glare. “He had a war to fight, Eli.”
Point.
Elias leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs out in front of him. He pulled a second sigh from his boots. “Okay. We’ll take a vote. All in favor of not spacing the crazy man?”
Three hands rose in unison. A half smile pulling at his mouth, Elias put his own hand up. “The ayes have it.” But he wasn’t done. Turning back to Fixer, he said, “You need to decide if his secret is more important than what you have here.”
Fix’s jaw tightened. “So does Loop.”
Chapter Five
Zed figured it was a testament to his shitty mental state that he wasn’t more excited about not waking up dead. As the drugs and the aftereffects of the Zone had pulled him under last night, he’d figured his chances were sixty/forty that the crew of the Chaos would toss him out the airlock, ancient friendship with Flick or not. Yeah, he’d helped save their asses, but...he’d Zoned to do it. And he knew how fucking weird that was. How terrifying. He’d seen the questions in everyone’s expressions when they’d gotten back to the ship, questions he’d avoided thanks to his headache. The one time he’d been thankful for that symptom.
He sat up and rolled his neck and shoulders. His head still ached—probably would for a couple of hours yet, unless he took another dose. A stash was waiting in his bag, from mild everyday painkillers to stuff that wasn’t strictly legal, but six months in the wind had taught him not to touch his supply unless he absolutely had to. He could hit up the ship’s doctor for some over-the-counter stuff; she’d been quick enough to offer meds last night. That would invite questions, though. How often did he get these headaches, had he seen a doctor about them, and so on. Questions he didn’t want to deal with.
So, lingering pain it was. Suck it up, Zander.
The mess was empty when he stepped inside. He assumed the fact that he hadn’t been spaced and the lack of a lock on his door meant that he had free roam of the ship, so he helped himself to breakfast. Hunched over a bowl of foodfactor oatmeal seemed as good a time as any to evaluate the newest developments in his life.
There was probably a metaphor in there, if he dug hard enough.
He had no idea what to think about Flick being alive. It should be a good thing. The best thing. And yet, contemplating his presence on the ship threatened to tie Zed’s stomach into knots. Why couldn’t he just smile and accept it? Thank whatever gods decided to spare Flick’s life or bring him back from the dead or whatever the hell had happened.
It just...it complicated everything. He had a plan for his life—okay, it was a lousy plan, but it was still a plan. Seeing Flick again, realizing he wasn’t dead...it made Zed wish for things he couldn’t have.
“If you scowl any harder at that spoon, it might take offense.”
Zed glanced up but didn’t bother to try to return the doctor’s smile. “Morning.”
“Morning,” she replied, matching his gruff tone. “Did you get some coffee?”
“No. I don’t drink it.”
“Are you sure you’re human?”
Loaded question. Zed shrugged and spooned more oatmeal into his mouth. Silence stretched, interrupted only by the scrape of his spoon against the bowl and the clattering
of whatever Nessa was doing in the galley. He knew if he focused, he’d be able to catalogue and identify every sound and movement, but there was no point. The crew of the Chaos was no threat to him; they’d proven that by allowing him to awaken.
He glanced up as Nessa leaned over him. “Ugh, ‘factor oatmeal?” She grimaced. “I think we’ve got some bacon and eggs if you want me to whip some up.”
“No, I’m good. Thanks.”
A red brow arched. “Bacon and eggs.”
“You don’t—”
“Hush. Your build, you need more calories than you got out of that oatmeal. Is that how you’ve been eating?” Nessa tsked and opened the fridge. “Bacon, eggs, fruit. Oh! Do you like avocados?”
“You have avocados?”
“Picked up a few on Dardanos and I need to use them quick. I’m going to make some guacamole later on, but I can spare one for you, if you want it.”
“Uh...” When was the last time anyone had cared enough to make him breakfast? “Yeah. Sure. Thanks.”
Nessa grinned. “Awesome. Egg ‘n avocado coming up.”
“Wait. I can cook.” Sort of. He started to get up. “You don’t have to—”
“Like hell you’re cooking in my galley. Sit your ass down.” She glared at him and Zed slowly lowered back onto the seat. “So what’s your story, Mr. Loop?”
“Should’ve figured there’d be some payment for the breakfast,” Zed muttered.
As tempting as it was just to walk out, his stomach was invested in trying out this egg and avocado thing. He really hadn’t been eating all that well over the past few months, which showed in the amount of muscle mass he’d lost. As big as he was, he’d been bigger before leaving the AEF.
He picked up his spoon and toyed with the dregs of his oatmeal. “Loop’s fine. I think by now you’ve all figured out it’s not a surname.”
“We might’ve, yeah.”
But Flick still hadn’t told them who he was. Despite being pissed, he’d obviously voted to let him stay aboard and kept his identity under wraps. That knowledge did weird things to Zed’s chest.