Author: Jenn Burke
Date: 2015-05-25 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction; M M Romance; Romance; Military Fiction; Aliens; Lgbt; Space Opera; Space; Disability; Fiction
Description: Book two of Chaos StationAll they can do is live day to day…Felix Ingesson has returned to his duties as the Chaos's engineer with Zander Anatolius, his ex-boyfriend-turned-broken-super-soldier, at his side. Hope means something again. But there's nothing Felix can do to battle the alien poison flowing through Zander's veins, or his imminent mental decline. With each passing day, the side effects of Zander's experimental training are becoming more difficult to ignore.When the ruthless Agrius Cartel seeks their revenge—including an ambush and an attempt to kidnap the Chaos's crew—Zander is push
Publisher: Carina Press
Rights: Copyright (c) 2015 by Kelly Jensen & Jennifer R.L. Burke

Lonely Shore
By Jenn Burke and Kelly Jensen

Book two of Chaos Station

All they can do is live day to day...

Felix Ingesson has returned to his duties as the Chaos’s engineer with Zander Anatolius, his ex-boyfriend-turned-broken-super-soldier, at his side. Hope means something again. But there’s nothing Felix can do to battle the alien poison flowing through Zander’s veins, or his imminent mental decline. With each passing day, the side effects of Zander’s experimental training are becoming more difficult to ignore.

When the ruthless Agrius Cartel seeks their revenge—including an ambush and an attempt to kidnap the Chaos’s crew—Zander is pushed over the edge. He can no longer hide his symptoms, nor does he want to. But hurting Felix when he’s not in control of himself is Zander’s worst nightmare—when it nearly happens, he agrees to seek help. Even if that means trusting the unknown.

As Zander places his life in alien hands, Felix appoints himself his lover’s keeper. And though he tries to be strong, he can’t ignore the fact that he might lose Zander...forever this time.

Don’t miss the start of the series—Chaos Station is available now!

67,000 words

Dear Reader,

I’d rather be reading. How many times do you say that during your day? I know I say it probably a dozen times through my day. I love to read, and I’d pretty much always rather be reading, so I’m always stockpiling books to ensure I never run out for the times when I can read. I’m thrilled Carina Press is able to give you month after month of books to add to your TBR pile, and May is no exception!

In Lynda Aicher’s erotic contemporary romance Back in Play, fun, flirty and sexy-as-hell Rachel Fielding is the perfect distraction Scott Walters needs when the Glaciers refused to renew his contract. But he hadn’t counted on falling for her or purging his deepest secrets to her, either. Can their fledgling relationship survive the trials he has ahead?

Edie Harris’s first romantic suspense, Blamed, was a reader favorite and she’s back with book two, Ripped: A Blood Money Novel, in which a sexy, hot-blooded spy coerces an ice-cold attorney to partner with him to wreak vengeance on the villain who threatens them both.

Joely Sue Burkhart is burning up the pages and testing our boundaries with her latest erotic romance, One Cut Deeper. Her needs are dark. His are dangerous. For Charlie and Ranay, pain is their shared pleasure...until Charlie disappears, and the hunger Ranay loved in him may be even darker than she suspected.

Alyssa Cole rocked our world with her first postapocalyptic romance, Radio Silence, and she’s back with sexy male/male romance Signal Boost, set in the same technologically devastated world. Months have passed since electricity, and society, stopped working; John is wondering if a life without internet is worth living when he stumbles across a hot astrophysicist who might change his life—and the world.

Also in the male/male category and taking us to whole new worlds is Lonely Shore, book two in the stunning science-fiction romance series from Jenn Burke and Kelly Jensen. Zander and Felix are trying to make their relationship work, but two things stand in the way: a criminal cartel out for blood and the rapid deterioration of Zander’s mental health. It’s a game of duck and cover as they search for answers, and when they find one, the cost might be too high.

2014 RITA® Award-nominated author Kat Latham’s Taming the Legend rounds out our romance offerings in May. In this passionate story of lovers reunited, legendary rugby player Ash Trenton fights to help Camila Morales—his first and only love—save her indebted sports camp...while also fighting to keep from losing his heart to her all over again.

For mystery fans who like their mystery with a side of fun, you have to check out Ricardo Sanchez. You first met Floyd, the PI living his life as Elvis would have wanted, in Elvis Sightings. Now he’s back in Bigfoot Blues, and his newest case leads him to man-eating mountain lions, chupacabras and plain-old murderers.

Coming in June 2015: Lisa Marie Rice delivers another awesome alpha hero, Julie Moffett’s Lexi Carmichael returns with further adventures and Julie Rowe launches a new romantic suspense military series.

Here’s wishing you a wonderful month of books you love, remember and recommend.

Happy reading!

~Angela James
Editorial Director, Carina Press

Dedication

For Zed, our hero.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank our editor, Deborah Nemeth, for encouraging us to be more bold. Her advice helped make this book special. As always, we owe thanks to the team at Carina Press for all they do to make every book shine.

Thank you to everyone who listened to us ramble, and ramble, stress a bit and ramble some more. Not all writing happens inside the head, or in front of a keyboard.

Co-writing means you never have to do it alone, so I’d like to thank Jenn for being there when certain tasks looked insurmountable. We make a great team.

We really do, Kel. I couldn’t imagine going on this adventure without you.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.

—from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage by George Gordon Byron

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

About the Author

Copyright

Chapter One

Xihe Station, 2269

“Yo, Zed, get that shit up here!”

Just under a year ago, Zed had been a galactic hero—a super soldier saving humanity from the ravages of the alien stin. He’d been a major in the Allied Earth Forces with his own team of specialized black ops soldiers. He’d fought hand-to-hand battles against the green bugs, facing their poisonous talons without flinching. He and his team had saved a transport of civilians against direct orders. And now...He eyed the mounds of heavy, fertilizer-filled bags waiting to be carted into the cargo bay.

Now he was a shit-shipper.

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

“This shit’s not gonna pack itself.” Flick’s wide grin told him that the novelty of carting around actual shit instead of the usual shit hadn’t worn off yet. His eyes sparkled and the gentle draft in the dock area tugged at his uncontrollable blond curls. He looked like a kid with a new toy, not a veteran ship’s engineer.

Despite himself, Zed’s lips twitched. Felix Ingesson had never met a joke he couldn’t beat to death. He’d done it when they were kids at the Academy and everyone knew him as Flick—and that personality quirk hadn’t changed with the years, or his new home on the Chaos, or the fact he now went by the nickname Fixer most of the time.

“You’re a riot, man.” Elias, the captain of the Chaos, disappeared into the cargo bay, presumably to check the load tie-downs. Unlike a lot of cargo ships, the Chaos depended on physical straps, not virtual restraints. Made sense to Zed—they wouldn’t crap out if the power died. And despite the recent upgrades to the little ship, parts of her were still held together by not much more than hope and stubbornness.

“I try.” Flick jogged down the ramp to join Zed, coming to a stop with a bounce.

Zed glanced over his shoulder. “Eli doesn’t need your help?”

“Not much I can do. Tough to grip with this.” Flick held up his left hand and flexed the gnarled and misshapen fingers. He’d once worn a glove that helped him with fine motor control, but that device had been destroyed. He leaned against the stack of bags, a dimple flashing in his cheek. “‘Sides, you’re prettier to look at.”

Being Flick’s lover technically wasn’t new—they’d tried it just before the galaxy had fallen into war nine years before—but Zed couldn’t stop the flush that crept over his cheeks. The past four weeks had been the longest they’d ever been together, and he still hadn’t gotten used to the flirting—not that he really wanted to. He liked that hitch in the gut and the rush of embarrassed pleasure. It reminded him of the good things in life.

Lifting a bag off the pallet, he arranged it on the Chaos’s loader. It was an easy, simple task, one that required more muscle memory than thought. Flick helped shove the bags into place, keeping their edges straight and making sure there were no holes in the smart fiber packaging. The shit had been dehydrated for shipping and application, but its fertilization elements could be activated with a small amount of water. As they worked, Zed longed to return Flick’s flirting and share some banter to make the job go quicker—but the words wouldn’t come. Not how he wanted them to. Not how they would’ve a few weeks ago.

Focus.

He blinked, realizing that he was now staring at a fully laden cart rather than the few sacks he remembered loading. Pain ricocheted between his temples—annoying and enough to jolt his heart into a faster pace with its implications. He swallowed, surreptitiously looking around. Flick was smiling and shouting something at Elias, who was hovering at the gaping maw of the cargo bay. The words were lost to the pounding pulse in Zed’s ears, but no one was staring at him, no one was even looking at him. Good. All good. He’d lost time with that unintended Zone but not much. Just a small blip.

Zed focused on breathing for a moment, to mitigate both the minor headache and the panic that threatened. There was no point in getting worked up. It was what it was and he’d known for two years that this was coming. At least the instances of Zoning unintentionally only lasted for a few seconds, thirty at most. It could be worse, right? He could still function. That was what mattered.

Maybe if he repeated it often enough, he’d start to believe it.

“Is your ship looking her age? Has space dust abraded away all the shine of her beauty? Restore her now with our patented InstaShine treatment!”

Zed narrowed his eyes at the droid hovering next to them, holograms with customer testimonials spinning around its bulbous head. The pitch of the irritating mechanical voice reverberated, making his teeth ache along with his temples. “No, thank you.”

The droid ignored him, which was just rude programming. “InstaShine can be applied in a matter of moments and have your ship looking like she was always the fleet’s flagship. On purchase, our automated washers will turn your tired old rustbucket into a gleaming—”

Flick scowled. “Hey! The Chaos isn’t that—”

Zed blinked. The droid was suddenly shaking, spouting error codes. He realized he was clenching his fist—and it hurt. His headache had intensified, too. Had he...?

“Why the hell did you hit it?”

He couldn’t remember hitting it, which meant—damn it. He’d Zoned. Again. Twice in a matter of minutes? Fuck.

The droid’s holograms shattered into pieces before fading into nothingness. “Err—thank you for your pur—another happy—InstaShine—rinse commencing—”

Zed straightened. “Oh no.”

The droid vibrated for another instant before water burst forth in a stream powerful enough to shove the heavy bags of fertilizer out of their neat pile. Sputtering, Zed scrambled to grab them, envisioning one breaking open and spewing activated shit across the floor of the dock—oh God, the fees that would probably come from that. Flick, drenched in the spray, flailed and slipped. Zed automatically reached for him and lost his grip on the bag. He tried to secure it but managed instead to jab a hole through the smart fiber. Just a little hole. Maybe the water wouldn’t—

Foam spurted out of the hole in the bag, a huge foul-smelling brown stream that forced the hole to grow larger to accommodate it. Zed jolted backward, but Flick, still on the slippery section of the floor, couldn’t escape the foam’s trajectory in time.

The scream that emerged from his lips was worthy of any horror vid.

“Flick!” The activated shit was mostly harmless, right?

Steps pounded down the ramp. Elias stumbled to a stop. “What the fuck did you do?”

The water spurting from the droid slowed to a trickle and it shook, dropping a foot in height before regaining altitude. “Would you like to leave a testimonial?”

“I have shit in my mouth!” Flick wailed.

“Thank you for choosing—pleasant day—our latest customer—’I have shit in my mouth!’” The droid weaved its way down the dock like a drunken sailor.

Zed clamped his lips together, but when he heard Flick’s “testimonial” drift back up the dock again as the droid approached a new potential client, he couldn’t stop a snort of laughter. Not even his headache and what it meant could deter it. He tried, though. He really did. He glanced at Elias and realized his mistake immediately when he recognized the mirth dancing in the other man’s dark eyes. He might have been able to stop laughing if Eli hadn’t started.

Soon, though, it was all they could do to remain standing upright.

“This isn’t funny!” Flick had managed to regain his feet and was trying to clear his face of the vile brown substance. He grabbed chunks of it from his eyes and tossed it to the ground. “This shit stings.”

“Shit.” Zed snickered.

“Oh my God, I’m going to piss myself,” Elias gasped.

“I hate you all.” Flick glared at them and took a step forward—only to slip and fall back on his ass. He collapsed backward and crossed his arms. “Fuck it. I’m not moving. Y’all can figure out cleanup.”

* * *

Shit stank. That fundamental truth was never more apparent than when shit clung to every pore. The smell was singeing his nostril hairs. Elias and Zed were laughing so hard, they could barely get a breath in, so they probably couldn’t smell him yet. Bastards. But as much as he wanted to stick with his threat and remain flat on the deck, Felix couldn’t stand the feeling of the shit oozing into his clothing and grabbing at his skin. He rolled onto his side and pushed up out of the slick puddle of brown nastiness, spat a glob of it onto the floor and grimaced as his teeth ground together, releasing the bitter taste into his mouth again. He dug a clump of something from one nostril and flicked it away.

Zed and Elias laughed on.

Felix stepped carefully out of the shit zone. He crunched crap between his teeth as he mentally debated whose ass to kick first.

“Captain Idowu?” a woman called from the bottom of the cargo ramp.

The smartly dressed woman wore station colors, but instead of the ubiquitous coverall dockworkers usually wore, she was attired in a tailored suit. Her hair had been gathered into a series of knots over the top of her head. Two different earrings dangled from each exposed ear. One was a holo, the other an emitter. The ever-changing configuration was distracting.

Elias straightened out of his dead-man-laughing posture. “That’s me.”

She opened her wallet and activated a holo. “Gert Balar, Xihe dock security. I have an order here for the captain of the corvette Chaos, registration delta four...” She insisted on reading the entire registration sequence before getting to her point. “You are in violation of docking code 342 B.”

“In Standard?”

“Chemical contamination of the pier. The cost to decontaminate the affected area and surrounding zones will be—”

“Hey, hey, wait a minute. The droid malfunctioned. It’s not our fault.”

The argument quickly escalated.

Felix had crewed with Elias for close to five years, eighteen months of that on the Chaos, their ugly but functional corvette. They’d learned early on in their partnership that Felix negotiated better with circuits than people. Leaving Elias to do the captain thing with dock security—Zed and his charming smile alongside—Felix made his way through Cargo One with the intent of washing the shit off his skin before it stained.

Nessa O’Brien, ship’s doctor, stood in an open hatchway, swallowing, not coincidentally blocking his access to the interior of the Chaos. “You can’t come in here.”

He’d never have taken Nessa for having a delicate gag reflex. She must have seen shit during the war. Worse shit. That joke was getting old fast. “Aww, Ness. This stuff stings. It’s burning my skin.”

Nessa waved her medical wallet over his torso, where his SFT hung in a lifeless ruin, the smart fibers rendered catatonic by the sludge of activated fertilizer. The shirt was dead. “It’s mostly nonreactive, except...” Her lips clamped together.

“Except in my crevices. Tell me something I don’t know.” Felix scratched at his arm, his shoulder, his neck and cheek. Thought about scratching his ass. “I need to get it off my skin.”

“A shower isn’t going to get the residue out of your epidermis, and it will only reactivate the fertilizer that has already dried. We don’t have soap strong enough to counteract the process, and I’m not sure our water cycler can handle it.”

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?”

“Zed has a headache.”

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.”

He rushed toward the forward access. With his old glove crushed beyond repair, he’d figured out how to climb the almost vertical stair one-handed. Still, in his haste he tripped onto the middle deck, catching himself with his bad hand. A dull pain traveled through his arm, following the tendon to his shoulder. Wincing, he stumbled upright and ran through the mess to the aft corridor, where he chased the echo of his footsteps to the cargo bay. The chemical odor of scrubbed metal assailed him as he passed the ramp. Growling, teeth gritted so tight they might crack, he jumped down from the ramp and pushed his way through the clumps of humanity clogging the dock.

He spotted the two dark heads of his companions and made his way toward them. Zed had one arm wrapped around Elias’s shoulders. Still, he lurched as he walked. The blankness of his expression gave him the appearance of a drunk or drugged-out spacer, neither of which meshed with his large, tightly muscled frame. Accordingly, bystanders stepped back and away from the pair.

Moving in beside Zed, Felix got the big man’s other arm over his shoulder and took some of his weight. Elias hissed a quick thanks and jerked his chin toward the ship. Zed merely groaned. His eyes had that flat, unfocused look.

“Agrius?” Felix asked, torn between hoping for an old foe and a new one.

“Yeah,” Elias confirmed. “Six of them.”

“Damn it.”

“Didn’t kill anyone,” Zed slurred.

Elias shot him a warning glance. “Let’s just get to the ship.”

Jaw clenched more tightly, Felix stowed the combination of emotion that struck every time he saw the results of the AEF’s project, what they had done to Zed. Anger, sorrow, aimless guilt. Quietly banked rage. None of that would help Zed. None of it would soothe his headaches, fix his blood chemistry. Halt the deterioration he kept trying so hard to hide.

* * *

Blue eyes opened, blinked and focused. Tension sliding off his shoulders to land in a heap on the floor, Felix breathed out. “There you are.”

“Here I am.” As always, Zed tried to sit up. As always, he groaned and flopped back onto the med bay bed. His eyes closed and a muscle ticked along his jaw. “How long?”

“Two hours.”

“Are we—”

“We’re in the jump queue.”

“Any sign of pursuit?”

“No. Can you stop being a soldier? For one minute?”

Zed rolled his head to the side and opened his eyes again. His steely gaze roamed the contours of Felix’s face, then lifted to his hair, or lack thereof. “You’re bald.”

Felix ran a hand over his shorter-than-short crop. “Pretty much.”

“Holy fuck. Why are you bald?”

Felix glared at him. “Do you really want the answer to that question?”

The crease appeared between Zed’s brows. He winced, a fold of skin apparently being too much sensation, and then his lips twitched. “Oh...”

“Yeah.” Felix cocked his head. “Next time you Zone and pass out, I’m going to shave your head.”

One dark brow arched. “Seriously? Flick—”

Felix waved him into silence. “I know. Listen, Eli told me what happened. I guess Agrius is pissed about Chloris.”

Zed winced again. “You think?”

The confrontation between the crew of the Chaos and the Agrius cartel was going to continue escalating until they found a permanent solution that didn’t include more bodies. They didn’t need a war with Agrius on top of Zed’s issues. Either situation would be a tough course, but both at the same time?

“Fuck.” Felix pushed the heels of his palms over his closed eyelids.

Fingers caressed his cheek. “Hey.”

Felix shook his head, not ready to reveal his expression. He didn’t want Zed to see the pain in his gaze, nor did he want to see the remorse in Zed’s. Holding still, he squashed the urge to go hide in his quarters. He’d taken on Zed’s problems as his own, promised his friend—his best friend and lover—that he’d be here, and he was. But...

Double fuck.

“If it hadn’t been for that stupid InstaShine bot, you wouldn’t even have gone to the meeting. Hell, Eli—”

“Might have more than a sore shoulder from helping me limp back. You could be the one lying on this cot.”

“Damn it.” Felix looked up. “That’s...I...” He trailed off into an inarticulate growl, teeth grinding together for the tenth time that day.

Zed’s hand cupped his jaw. “You’re going to crack your molars.”

“I’ll get them replaced.”

“I’m not going to say I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want you to, I just want...” Felix waved his hands around in a helpless gesture. “I want not this.”

Zed recovering from another near miss with a seizure. Agrius, they could deal with. Zed’s health wasn’t a simple matter of negotiation.

Neither was Agrius, obviously, but...

Triple fucking fuck.

Zed stroked his cheek again.

“We should talk to Marnie.” Another old friend from their Academy days, she had a position in military intelligence that gave her access to information neither of them even knew existed.

Zed’s eyes flattened, the spark disappearing from the cool blue. “No.”

“She has ways of getting stuff that no one can track. She might be able to help you.”

“No. Subject closed.”

“I’m trying to help!”

Zed shook his head. “Too many people know too much already.”

Felix slumped back in the chair he’d pulled up to the side of the bed. “I’m sick of sitting in this chair feeling useless.” And it had only been a matter of weeks.

“This is the first time I’ve Zoned since Chloris. It’s not a regular thing, okay? And I’m fine. Nessa has exactly the right pain meds.”

“The ones that knock you out for two hours. And what about that shit with the droid? You had a headache earlier today. I know you did. You get this crease—”

“Everyone gets headaches.”

“But not everyone has stin poison running through their veins!”

That’s what Zed’s experimental training had done—shot him full of stin venom. The attempt to unlock the secrets of the aliens’ ability to phase-shift had been successful, but at a terrible cost. Headaches and seizures were just the beginning. It had been a desperate act for a desperate time. Not many people knew how close humanity had come to losing the war with the stin. Zed’s team had changed all that. Their reward? Being forcibly retired by the AEF, told to get lost and lie low.

“Felix, I’m fine. I’m going to be fine.”

Rather than give voice to his gut feelings on that, Felix bit his lips.

Zed sighed and flopped onto his back. “I don’t want to fight with you,” he said, rubbing at his temple. A second later, his broad hand spread across his eyes, as if the striplight was still too bright.

Guilt slashed through Felix’s chest. Zed had just recovered from another head-splitting migraine, but he still probably hurt. And, likely, he was right. If he hadn’t attended the meeting with Elias, the consequences might have been more dire.

Felix forced air from his lungs in a long sigh. He breathed in, and exhaled again. Then he reached over and clasped Zed’s hand, the one covering his face. “This is what we missed out on last time.”

Zed rolled his head back to face him. “Hmm?”

Felix produced a half smile, the tug of it not quite comfortable, but somehow necessary. He squeezed Zed’s fingers. “We’ve never been together long enough to fight.”

“You punched me before the first hour was up last time.”

Felix flapped his bad hand. “You were being a thinky ass, that was different.”

“Not sure I see how.”

“We were younger then.” Less messed up. Less scarred. “Zed...” Felix worked to thrust his worry into one of his mental boxes. He’d wait until Zed didn’t have a headache. Until he had a good day, then he’d ask again. Make him understand that if anything happened to him, he’d be leaving a lot more than a pile of dead cartel members behind. “Galaxy was a different place nine years ago,” he murmured.

Zed caught his gaze and held it, and between them, their shared history unraveled. Silently, meaningfully. The near misses of their long relationship, the translation from friends to lovers. The war. Felix being declared MIA only six months in, KIA shortly after that. Zed’s involvement in the AEF’s most desperate bid. And now this—what they’d always wanted, finally handed over with a big fucking codicil.

Lifting one hip, Zed dug into the utility pocket on his thigh and pulled out a small package wrapped in bright red paper. “Here.”

Felix regarded the little box—about two centimeters thick, less than ten square—then looked up. “What’s this?”

“It’s for you.”

Felix reached for the box. It was light and for a moment he suspected Zed had wrapped up nothing as a joke—as a distraction. That would be just like him. Get everyone all worked up and then distract them with...

No, that was more his own style.

He shook the box near his ear.

“It’s not a fucking bomb. Just open it.”

“Why would I think it’s a bomb?”

“Why haven’t you opened it yet?”

He tore at the paper, revealing one corner of the box beneath, and gasped as he recognized the package. It was a new bracelet, a wrist-model wallet and comm to replace the one he’d lost. Same make, latest model.

“These are fucking expensive!” Oh nice, Felix. Beautiful show of gratitude. “I mean...”

“Even if I couldn’t afford it, I’d buy it for you. Want to know why?”

Felix shook his head.

Zed answered anyway. “Because you’d never buy it for yourself. I had to get you new pants before you disgraced your crew and let’s not even get started on the state of your underwear.”

“Seriously?”

Humor and affection had Zed’s eyes twinkling.

Felix looked down at the bracelet and swallowed a little lump in this throat. “Thanks. I...you’re right. I wouldn’t have bought one for myself.”

“You’re welcome.” Humor morphed into mischief. “Now give me a kiss.”

Felix leaned forward to do as he was told. See, he could follow instructions sometimes.

Zed tugged him closer and murmured against his lips. “Ever come right when a ship transitions into j-space?” When stomachs dropped and all internal organs paused function for a brief interval.

A quick thrill of desire shot from his chest to his groin. “Can’t say as I have.” He quirked a brow. “That would take some careful timing.”

Zed’s hand wrapped around the back of his nearly bald head, pulling him in again. “Yep.”

Felix melted into the kiss for a moment, let the taste of Zed, the feel of his lips, feed the hunger inside, then he pulled away, breathless. “Not here. Nessa would have a fit.”

Chuckling, Zed levered himself up. “Then we better head downstairs and make sure everything in engineering is properly stowed for departure.”

Chapter Three

Tapping the corner of the holo display flickering across the tabletop, Elias queued up the next item on the meeting agenda. The Chaos wasn’t a large ship, and as a merchant corvette, she had no CIC or war room. They had the mess, and this booth, which served as dining table and conference table. Fixer, Nessa and Qek were squashed into the opposite side. Elias shared his side with Zed. They’d figured this configuration out a few weeks back, when they’d officially become a crew of five.

“We need to talk about Agrius.” Elias expanded the holo so everyone could see the map of the galaxy he’d set up. “They’re not interested in credits, so it’s time to think laterally.” Expressions darkened and closed. “And I can’t say as I’m interested in giving them what they really want.”

“Not up to sacrificing yourself for your crew?” Fixer wore a wry smile.

“Should we indicate we would like to negotiate?” Qek asked.

“Not sure what we have to bargain with.” Elias prodded the holographic map. “So our safest bet is to avoid their territory.”

“Got to be a number,” Zed murmured.

“Hmm?”

“Everyone has a number. They’re a criminal cartel, right? They didn’t choose that line of business because they didn’t want to make money.”

“I’d join for the tattoo and spectacularly bad fashion choices.” Fixer shrank back slightly as everyone turned to glare at him. “What? Just trying to lighten the mood.”

“Back to a plan that actually might work, I figured we’d mark up a map and then choose our jobs accordingly.”

Zed spoke quietly. “So five hundred k wasn’t enough. We’ll double it. Triple it.”

“We could buy ourselves a new ship for that. A fleet of ships.” Elias tapped the table, his finger sinking through the galactic map. “And then conduct business outside of their territory.”

“You know what, maybe Qek is right.” Nessa waited for everyone to look up before she continued. “Maybe we should contact them. We didn’t leave any bodies behind this time, that must count for something.”

All eyes turned to Zed. He glowered.

“I, for one, appreciate the fact Zed didn’t kill anyone,” Fix put in, obviously trying to nip something in the bud. “But I’d rather avoid all conflict if we can.” Everyone looked at him again. “Hey, just because I’m an asshole doesn’t mean I enjoy getting shot and knifed every time we try to conduct business. Thing is, the more times Zed has to Zone, the closer—”

“Not talking about that right now.” Zed’s tone was dangerous.

Fix’s expression acquired a mutinous cast. “Yeah? Well, I think we should. Your health should be the next item on the agenda.”

Elias suddenly wished he’d sat on the inside of the booth. If Zed decided to make a move, like a quick exit, he was in the way.

“I’m fine.”

Yep, fine as the powder he’d just ground between his clenched teeth.

Opposite, Fixer’s jaw was just as tight. “And you’re gonna stay that way. So that means avoiding Agrius.”

Qek’s wide-eyed gaze bounced back and forth. Nessa borrowed a few of Fix’s fidgets.

Elias made an attempt to wrest back control of the meeting. “I’ve marked what we know on this map here, if you’d all care to take a look.” He hadn’t had much to go on. Previous encounters, publically registered companies, chatter on SkipNet. “We need more data, obviously, and I’d like to avoid gathering that at knife point.” He kept his gaze pointed downward, but he thought he could hear teeth grinding. “Qek, Fix, Zed...hell, even you must have contacts who know something, Ness. We’ll flesh out this map and then plan our next move accordingly.”

“We still going to deliver the shit to Risus?” Fix asked.

“Contracted to do so and we’ve a docket for a job from there. Risilium to be delivered to Alpha.”

“There’s no way Agrius is in Sol. The Belters own the criminal activity in that system.” Fix glanced up. “From there, we can hop back and forth to the Hub, maybe.” The Hub served as nominal center of the galaxy. Each species—humans, ashushk and stin—had a station there, and a gate to and from their “home” system.

Elias turned to consult his new security officer. The line of Zed’s jaw had softened and Elias thanked all the stars Zed had a more even temper than Fixer. Though, for his part, Fix was doing well. He hadn’t insulted anyone yet.

The meeting was young...

“It’s a sound plan,” Zed said.

“Would Anatolius Industries have reliable information on the placement of a criminal cartel?” Qek asked.

Zed’s gaze flicked toward Fix and back again. He shook his head, then answered to the contrary. “Maybe.”

“Brennan seemed to have more than a passing familiarity with their business practices,” Fixer said.

Had Fix and Qek cooked this up between them? As a plan to get Zed in contact with his family, it was loose. But given Zed’s razor-sharp wit and instinct, maybe that was for the best. He’d have seen through anything more convoluted. Perhaps have been insulted by it.

“I’ll see what I can do.” Zed’s tone closed the line of inquiry.

Elias tapped the corner of the holo. The map dissolved as emitted light rearranged into a different pattern. “Okay, next up is supply.” He looked up. “Fix, why does our water smell like shit?”

* * *

Zed knew that look on Flick’s face. It was the one that said they were going to hash something out, whether Zed wanted to or not. Not was definitely Zed’s preference—mostly because talking about shit wasn’t going to fix anything. All it would do would be dim the light in Flick’s eyes, turning them dark and dead, and Zed wanted to hold off on that for as long as possible.

When Elias dismissed the crew, Zed remained in his seat, waiting for the rest of them to head back to their posts. Flick continued giving him the look. Zed continued trying to ignore it.

“I swear to God, you are both such little boys sometimes.” Ness huffed. “Fixer, go do your job and let me do mine.”

Oh, shit.

“Ness—”

She glared at Flick and pointed to the mess door. “Go.”

Flick’s jaw clenched, then he looked at Zed again. “We’re not done.”

“I know,” Zed said softly.

He did know. He was only delaying the inevitable, but...he had to.

A trace amount of tension left Nessa’s shoulders as Flick exited the mess. She turned to Zed with a gentle smile. “Want anything?”

“Got any of that carrot cake left?”

Her smile widened. “Sure.”

Zed relaxed, sinking back into the booth. He blinked—and stared at the plate with a slice of cake that sat before him. His head ached. With a sigh, he looked up to see Ness watching him from the opposite side of the booth, her expression full of concern.

“It’s happening more often, isn’t it?” she murmured.

Zed stared at the cake, unable to answer.

“I noticed it about a week ago. You’d space out on conversations, maybe once a day.” Reaching across the table, Ness clasped a hand over one of his clenched fists. “It’s not just once a day anymore.”

“Never was,” Zed admitted. He drew in a shaky breath, then forged onward. “I hardly noticed at first because the episodes lasted a couple of seconds at most. Now they’re getting longer.”

“You need to talk with Fixer.”

“And say what? ‘I’m sorry my brain is giving out’?” He scoffed. “Talking about it isn’t going to change anything, Ness. It’ll just make it real.”

“It is real. Honey, you can’t hide this from him.”

“I’m not trying to hide it from him, I just—” Zed speared his fingers through his hair and tugged. Trying to come up with the right words to explain what he was thinking shouldn’t be this hard. “It’s going to be slow, and it’s going to be painful, and I want to avoid seeing...that in his eyes for weeks, okay?”

“What?”

“Pity.” Zed sighed. “Maybe I should just...go.” Get off the ship somewhere and disappear. That had been his original plan after the AEF tossed him and his team aside like so much garbage—lie low, fade into nothing, wait for the end. It had its appeal.

“Like hell!” Nessa glared at him, her fiery red curls bouncing with her ire. “We are a crew. We’ve stood by you and we’ll be damned if you throw that loyalty aside just because it’s inconvenient to your pride.” She tugged his fingers out of their fist and intertwined their hands. When she spoke again, her voice was gentle. “It’s not going to be easy on any of us, let alone you and Fixer. But we’ve got your back, Zed. Don’t ever doubt that.”

He nodded and squeezed her hand.

“Right.” Ness straightened but didn’t let go of him. “Eat your cake, then we’ll head to med bay. I want to do a full workup on you, get a baseline established, and then we’ll do follow-ups every couple of days to track progression.” Her eyes flashed with determination. “Maybe I can’t stop it, but I’ll be damned if I won’t try to slow it down.”

Zed’s smile felt weak and unstable. “Thanks.”

The fact she wanted to try, that had to count for something—but he doubted any of her efforts would make a difference.

Chapter Four

“Ready for that talk?” Zed stood precisely in the center of the engineering hatch. He’d probably planned it that way to make his direct and pointed question pointy, which was just like him—except, he’d been avoiding this point for days, so Ness must have told him to get on with it.

“Hold on.” Felix dabbed the joint between the two exposed circuits again, making sure he’d connected them properly, then lifted the microspecs from his eyes.

It had taken him months to build his first glove. This one would be completed sooner, but so much of the delicate work required more than one hand—and wasn’t that irony? From a disassembled pile of wallets, he’d been trying to fashion active fingertips—something that mimicked bio-implants without actually being implanted. J-space and cybernetics didn’t mix, but he could try to make his next glove smarter.

A part of him wanted to continue with his project. When he tinkered, his mind roamed free. He didn’t think; he actively sought the places between thought. The troughs between the waves. But he’d been the one pushing for a conversation, so ignoring Zed’s invitation would be counterproductive.

“Okay.” Felix pulled the specs from his head and set them aside, then made sure all his tools had been deactivated.

Zed caught him about the neck as he drew close and pulled him in for a quick kiss. Tucking a hand around the back of Zed’s hip, Felix leaned in. The subtle pressure parted Zed’s lips and the kiss immediately deepened. Idle thought ceased, replaced by sensation—warmth, the ever-present hint of need. Felix’s pulse ticked up and his skin prickled pleasantly as his blood stirred.

These were the best moments. The kisses that just happened—that could only happen with Zed, the only man he felt fully comfortable with. Kisses were intimate and personal. They were promises without words. And, really, who needed words? Felix’s tongue never got him into trouble when he was kissing.

Canting his hips forward, Felix rocked into Zed, nudging them both toward the wall. He used his fingers to steer Zed, guiding his hip away from the edge of the hatch. Zed’s fingers drifted up from his neck, skimming the back of his head. He murmured into the kiss. Felix knew what he was feeling—the soft bristle covering his shorn scalp. He’d been distracted by the tickle against his fingers more than once over the past few days. Tilting his head, Felix deepened the kiss further, the connection between them now essential. The warmth of Zed’s mouth, the slide of his tongue. The quiet breaths whispering between them. Heat rose from his skin, faintly scented.

“This isn’t talking.” Zed’s words washed across his mouth in a soft breeze.

Felix chased his lips. Nipped them softly. “This is better than talking.” He rocked his hips forward again, bringing his groin into contact with Zed’s. As suspected, a hard ridge met the bulge behind his fly. He pressed the palm of his right hand to Zed’s crotch and shivered as a groan reverberated through his chest.

Zed’s fingers trailed across his cheek. “I thought you wanted to talk.”

Right now, he didn’t. Suddenly and surely. The realization hit him physically, a blow to the solar plexus, a weird pain just behind. If they talked about Zed’s headaches, he’d learn what he didn’t really want to know. Nessa had already defined the horror, hadn’t she? After learning about the AEF’s experiments, she’d stated the obvious: Zed’s condition wasn’t sustainable. The headaches were just the beginning. Zed was being careful—he wasn’t pushing the envelope with chemical cocktails the way Emma had. But daily headaches had to be a symptom of his decline. How soon before he began blanking out?

Worse, how soon before he lost himself altogether?

Felix shook his head. “I changed my mind.” He couldn’t avoid it forever. But they didn’t have to talk about it right now. Not when he had his hand wrapped around the bulge at Zed’s crotch. “Day by day, right? That’s how we’re doing this, and today I don’t want to talk.”

Felix sucked on Zed’s lower lip, pulling it out before releasing it. Nipping the same lip, he closed his fingers around Zed’s erection. Zed’s eyelids fluttered down and his head dropped back with a soft thump. The smart fibers in Zed’s pants were working overtime, combating the heat emanating from his cock and the friction of Felix’s hand. The fabric twitched beneath his fingers, smoothing as he applied pressure. Zed groaned, the sound oddly breathy for being so deep.

Standing up on his toes, Felix made a bid for Zed’s mouth again. He started at his ear, tonguing the lobe, the dark hollow, then kissed his way along Zed’s jaw. “Let me make you feel good,” he whispered.

“You always make me feel good.”

Felix tasted his lips. “Then let me help you forget everything. Just for a while.” If Zed was going to go blank, it would be because Felix had sent him over the edge. Snagging his fingers in Zed’s belt, Felix tugged him away from the wall and encouraged him to turn around. “Hands on the wall.”

“Sir, yes sir.”

Felix could hear the smile in Zed’s voice. Moving in behind him, Felix ground forward, thrusting the aching hardness at his groin into Zed’s firm buttocks. His quarters were on the other side of engineering. A bed, lube, a door with a lock that would hold the rest of the galaxy at bay for long enough. The thrill of the more public space had caught him, though. He wanted to fight the fear knotting his gut with adventure, a hint of danger.

He pulled at the zipper on Zed’s pants and barely waited for it to ease down before tucking his fingers inside the placket. He traced the ridge of Zed’s cock, root to tip, and thumbed the damp spot on his shorts. “Already?”

With a groan, Zed rocked his hips, thrusting into Felix’s fingers. “Are you going to tease me, or get me off?”

“Tease.” Felix coasted his palm up and down the warm, fabric-covered length.

“Ass.”

“So they always say.” Felix snapped his hips forward again, enjoying the frustration of being trapped in his own pants—and the way Zed’s cock pushed into his palm. Then he eased the waistband of Zed’s shorts down and wrapped his fingers around silky hot skin. Took a turn at groaning.

Zed hissed something that might have been a word. Sounded more like a groan. Felix extracted his hand for long enough to spit in his palm, then reached around to grab Zed’s cock again. He grasped the base, hand nesting in the folds of fabric. After a squeeze, he stroked upward, swiped his thumb over the head, collecting the bead of moisture he found there, and stroked down again. Repeat without the rinse. Again and again. Zed’s hips bumped forward and back. His groans echoed off the scarred metal bulkhead. Felix met every thrust with his hand and hips, grinding into Zed’s buttocks. He was going to make a mess in his pants. He didn’t care.

Heat spread beneath his fingers. Zed’s cock jerked as it hardened further. Felix squeezed and Zed’s breath hitched. Felix pressed his thumb to the slit again. Ringed his fingers just beneath the glans and gave a subtle twist. Stroked down to where Zed’s balls were caught in the press of fabric. Up again. Thrust forward, imagining himself buried inside his lover, the dark heat and exquisite pressure.

Zed climaxed with a shudder. His cock stiffened and jerked, warmth spilling across Felix’s fingers and no doubt making a mess of the wall. A grunt bounced back, a soft and strangled sound. Felix used Zed’s release to slick his palm, and kept stroking, driving his hips forward until friction and the press of Zed’s ass got him to the same point. He gripped Zed’s cock and held on while he came, shuddering and gasping. With his pants still securely fastened, his climax almost hurt, but the hint of pain seemed to drive the point of his pleasure higher. When his knees threatened to buckle, he curled his fingers into Zed’s flesh and held on just a bit tighter.

Zed whimpered quietly in response. Felix pressed his forehead between Zed’s shoulder blades and breathed in the funk of sweat and sex that the smart fibers hadn’t had a chance to deal with yet. As he came down from his high, the scent of Zed wrapped him in a warm embrace. Felix breathed deeply, as if he could gather the scent, store it somewhere inside him.

He let go of Zed’s softening cock and wrapped his hand around his torso. Hugged him from behind and rejected the idea he needed to store any of him. Zed was right there, right in front of him. As long as he had that, they didn’t really need to talk, did they?

* * *

Zed waited until the crew was asleep to head for the shower. His daily agenda wasn’t so full that he couldn’t sneak in a few minutes to wash during the day cycle, but he never knew when Flick or Ness or Elias would get the same idea. Qek didn’t bathe often—not with water, anyway. Apparently ashies preferred using a fine powder to scrub away grime or absorb oils or...damn, they’d talked about this over dinner once, but the details wouldn’t come to him. It wasn’t important information, but it was interesting and it was relevant. Zed always made a point of knowing his team, even if some of that knowledge was just pieces of trivia. He could fucking picture Qek clicking in amusement and contentment that her human crewmates were just as happy to learn about ashushk customs as she was to learn about humanity’s. But the words? Gone.

Maybe he was just tired. Maybe he should just forget this whole idea, turn around and crawl back into bed with Flick. Let the warmth and rhythm of another living, breathing person soothe away his worries.

Zed scrubbed a hand over his face. No, he had to know.

He shucked off his shorts and SFT and draped them and his towel over the half wall that delineated the shower area from the sinks. A wave of his hand called up the holo interface, where he selected the temperature and chose not to override the time limit for the water. Ten minutes would be long enough.

The water was hot, just shy of scalding. It felt good beating down on his scalp, tracing lines over his shoulders, across his pecs and down his abs and lower. His fingers followed the trail and curved around his flaccid dick. He caressed himself, calling to mind the kisses he’d shared with Flick only a few hours before—how heated they’d been, how absolutely perfect. Closing his eyes, he lost himself in the memories. Flick always smelled so damned good—metal and circuits, with a spicy tang that was unique to him. And the way he never hesitated to take charge, at least in the bedroom—or engineering—God, that made him hot.

Zed spread his legs and reached his free hand between them to tug at his balls. His cock was fully hard now, fully invested in the race to the finish line. He edged a finger behind his balls, stroking his perineum. The hint at ass play had his balls drawing up, drawing tight. No one had ever fucked him like Flick—filling him, possessing him, owning him...but caring for him too. Sex wasn’t just sex between them. Never had been. No matter how hot, no matter how good...

His finger brushed against his hole and he couldn’t help the soft whimper. So good, so—

Zed blinked at the shower. Water still beaded on the metal above the inactive holo interface, but the steam had dissipated—that and the fact that the holo was no longer asking him if he wanted to extend his shower, but had switched off, said that the water had been finished for...a while. He looked down, unsurprised to see his cock was flaccid again. There was no evidence of his climax on him or on the walls of the shower stall, but his vision was rainbow-hued, a sign from his fucked-up brain chemistry that he had, indeed, experienced an orgasm. Just like he had earlier, with Flick.

He couldn’t remember that, either.

Shivering, Zed restarted the shower with unsteady fingers. He angled his face upward so the not-quite-scalding water nipped at his cheeks. His head ached and his eyes burned, either from the water or the tears sneaking past his lashes, he didn’t know and didn’t care.

He’d hoped—he’d fucking prayed—that what had happened with Flick that afternoon had been a fluke. A mistake. Non-repeatable evidence of his deterioration.

Apparently not. Of all the things that could’ve been stolen from him before the end...

Chapter Five

Humanity’s colonies were few and far between. Venturing out into space had proven just how unique Earth was—so few planets had the necessary elements to be truly viable for human habitation. Too hot or too cold, too much water or not enough, strange chemicals in the atmosphere and so on. Sure, there were plenty of planetary establishments—mining companies, for instance, didn’t give a fuck if their workers had to wear three layers of heavy-duty SFT temperature-control gear, as long as they managed to pluck their quota of minerals from the rocks on a daily basis. True colonies, though, with families and farms were rarer than the number of solar systems in the galaxy would have you believe.

Particularly after the war.

Nine years ago, humanity’s territorial dispute with the belligerent stin—the bullies of the galaxy—had exploded into full-out aggression, leading to a devastating war that, despite ending half a year ago, still echoed across human space. Countless human lives had been lost, along with sixteen colonies and seven space stations. During the war, the ashushk had stood firm at humanity’s side—offering technological and moral support, but not much more. If the omnipresent Guardians had not stepped in to halt hostilities, the stin might eventually have made it all the way to Earth—a thought Zed tried not to dwell on.

Like many human colonies, Risus had not escaped the stin’s swath of destruction. There’d once been a space elevator extending from the surface to the small hovering space station in stationary orbit, but that had been shot to pieces, if Zed remembered his reports right. There’d been a fierce space battle above Risus as the AEF fought to prevent the stin from landing on the planet. Avoiding ground battles and the stin’s ability to phase-shift had been priority one, so the AEF had put everything into the fight. Eventually, they’d driven the stin away, one of the few clear, decisive victories of the war.

“Penny for your thoughts.” Flick nudged his shoulder and Zed glanced at him before turning back to the view outside the shuttle’s window.

No space elevator meant a turbulent, unpleasant ride to the surface—all because Elias insisted on giving Qek the opportunity to see a real live human colony. Qek had become a pilot for just this purpose, to see all the stars and all the planets, inhabited or not. Inhabited would definitely be her preference, though. She always relished the opportunity to learn more about human culture. Fertilizer unloaded without a single mishap, they’d contacted the colony to secure payment. The colony’s reeve—Vinchy or something—had mentioned there was a local festival/feast thing happening that evening. The details had gone over Zed’s head but the clicks from Qek had drowned out all words for about fifteen minutes. So of course they had to go.

She was the only one happy about the impending visit. Her face was so wrinkled in anticipation that her large unblinking eyes were nearly invisible.

“I’m not really up for socializing,” Zed admitted.

“Tell me about it,” Flick grumbled.

Was that a comment on Flick’s own state of mind or Zed’s aloofness over the past couple of days? Since the shower that had revealed the truth to him, Zed had come to bed late and left early, allowing closeness only when Flick wouldn’t want anything more.

Guilt gnawed at his heart. He should tell Flick, tell him everything, but that would make it real. It would change how Flick looked at him, it would make him less in his eyes, and Zed...he couldn’t stand for that to happen.

“Hey.” Flick lifted a hand to rub Zed’s forehead gently. “Headache?”

“Always.” Zed sighed. The confession had just slipped out, its appearance lubricated by the truth—a low-level ache had set up residence between his temples and didn’t seem to be going anywhere. He held Flick’s gaze, wondering at his reaction. Would he rage? Zed had seen the sparks of anger before when he’d mentioned his pain or made reference to the project that had poisoned him. Right now, though, he didn’t have the energy to deal with it. He started to shift away from Flick, but Flick caught his shoulder.

“Rest,” he said, giving Zed a tug. “C’mon. I’ll rub your head.”

Giving in with a soft groan, Zed leaned sideways to rest his head against Flick’s chest and closed his eyes. Flick’s mangled left hand stroked his hair while his more dexterous right drew circles against his temple.

“He okay?” Ness asked.

“Yeah,” Flick said.

You’re lying and you know it.

“I have never had the opportunity to visit a human colony before,” Qek stated. “I am quite excited.”

Elias chuckled. “We can tell.”

“I have discovered from various sources that human colonies frequently have odd customs.”

“Sure. Like space stations,” Zed said. His family had made their name, and their fortune, building space stations. The disparate customs of each one was something Anatolius Industries supported and promoted. It made them unique and appealing.

“Right,” Elias said. “Put a group of humans in a relatively isolated space and they’ll come up with particular ways of doing things. Those ways get repeated and adopted into tradition. It’s just our nature.”

“Add in local flora and fauna and their weirdness, and you’ve got a plethora of stories just waiting to be told,” Ness said.

“On Outrock, the inhabitants dressed in white on the first of every month,” Qek said, “in remembrance of a crash that claimed a ship of colonists on their first descent to the planet.”

“I can confirm that,” Zed said. Outrock had been his first posting after officer training. A tiny colony on the edge of nowhere, it had been destroyed by the stin early in the war.

Flick’s hand stilled. “Really? You wore white on the first of the month?”

“No, not the AEF stationed there. Just the colonists.”

“Weird.”

“Made sense to them.”

“Any odd customs on Risus?” Elias asked Qek.

“They appear to devote a significant amount of time to prayer.”

“Define significant,” Flick said.

“According to my research, colonists on Risus visit their ministry at dawn, noon, dusk and before they retire for the evening.”

“Now that is weird.” Zed didn’t begrudge people holding on to the old religions if it gave them some comfort—there were some good lessons in the holy books. But that sort of worship made him uncomfortable. Zealotry had been the source of a great number of humanity’s worst wars, the belief that one group of humans was better than other groups because they thought one set of unprovable teachings was true instead of another. In his opinion, venturing into space had made the old religions moot. The black had proven that whatever gods humans had dreamed up, the truth was so much bigger than any of them could imagine.

Hell, some people believed the Guardians were gods. He wasn’t one of them, but it made just as much sense as anything else. How else could you explain how the mysterious aliens knew when to offer a species a gate to the Hub and a pass to the galactic playpen? Or how they knew just when to step in and stop a war before one side wiped out the other? Logic said it was technology—the Guardians had access to tech that the ashushk, the most technologically advanced species in the galaxy next to them, could only imagine—but if you took logic out of the equation, yeah, it might look like magic. Or divine power. Or whatever the hell gods were supposed to be and do.

Qek clicked enthusiastically. “I daresay not as weird as the tales I discovered of creatures that inhabit the forest. The description of these local fauna varies, but each story seemed to be a morality tale about the dangers of not obeying the law.”

“Any law in particular?” Flick asked.

“Yes. Weapons discharges. Given the number of these tales and the fact that Risus has a ban on small arms, I would surmise that the stories have a basis in fact,” Qek said, clicking slowly. “But the details are so vague and convoluted, I could not say for certain. At any rate, this festival will have a dance that discourages creatures from attacking the colony during harvest.”

“Colonists are so fucking backward,” Flick growled.

“Hey, a little respect goes a long way,” Elias pointed out. “Vinchy’s invitation to join their festival goes above and beyond whatever they’re celebrating. Hot food is a hell of a lot better a greeting than grumbles and indifference, right?”

“Or gunshots. Particularly if it brings out the nasties from the woods.”

“Fixer, really?”

Zed felt Flick shrug. “Just sayin’.”

Qek clicked. “I would rather we partake in a feast than a shootout.”

Elias let out a long, slow breath. “So would we all.”

* * *

“Is it normal for humans to share sexual partners?” Qek asked, tilting her head.

“Uh...” Zed paused. “What?”

Qek waved a blue-skinned hand at the crowd spinning about the open-air square dedicated to dancing. Garlands of vines had been draped here and there. Instead of looking festive, it just looked kind of sad. Zed wondered if the decorations for the festival would’ve been more impressive before the war.

“Each time I believe I have identified a paired couple, they have chosen others.”

“It could just be the dance.” Zed hadn’t been watching it closely. All the spinning bodies made the ache in his head that much worse and he didn’t even have a beer to dull the pain. Risus was a dry colony, which was just a bloody crime, as far as he was concerned. He directed his gaze upward, wishing he had a blanket to lie on and a lack of noise and light pollution. How long had it been since he’d taken the time planetside to stargaze?

“Possibly, but I have observed at least two of the women giving different men ‘bedroom eyes,’ as you say.”

“Hell, I don’t say that.”

“It is a saying, is it not?”

“I guess. You think that means they’re sharing? They could be single and looking for someone.”

“This is true. But it is a question I have often pondered.”

Ness and Elias returned to their table as the music ended, smiling and out of breath. Flick sauntered up a moment later and slid onto the bench beside Zed, nudging a cup of clear liquid in front of him.

“Just water,” he said. “Good dance, you two?”

Nessa’s grin expanded. “He only stepped on my feet twice.”

“Hey!”

Zed sipped his water, giving Flick a smile of thanks as Qek continued. “Nessa’s favored fictional books mostly portray monogamous couples. Does that not impact the genetic diversity of the next generation?”

Elias frowned. “Wait, what are we talking about?”

“Humans sharing sex partners,” Zed said.

“Oh. Of course.”

“Humans tend to form pair bonds, Qek. And it’s not necessarily based on procreation.” Ness nodded at Flick and Zed. “See Exhibit A.”

“It is a psychological attachment, then.”

“Yes, but also a physical one. Attraction can be breathtaking. Literally. We feel it on an instinctual level that we don’t really understand.”

“How do you know that it is a valid and worthwhile pairing? It does not sound very logical.”

“Honey, logic has nothing to do with it.”

Qek blinked and stayed silent for a moment, considering. “Humans are so strange,” she said, sounding a little defeated. “Every time I believe I have a solid comprehension of your species, I discover something new that challenges my perceptions.”

“If it’s any consolation,” Flick said, “I’m human and I don’t understand humans.”

“Same.” Zed shrugged.

“That does not offer adequate reassurance.”

Nessa smiled. “Getting back to the question...just because we’re programmed to pair up, it doesn’t mean humans can’t find other meaningful relationships. My sister has two partners, a man and a woman, and they are quite content as a triad.”

“Damn.” Elias whistled. “Is that why I can only get you into my bed a third of the time?”

He laughed as Nessa smacked his upper arm—laughter that faded as pain obviously sank in. Rubbing his arm, he whined, “Ow.”

“The ashushk do not form such attachments,” Qek said. “We treasure our friendships and hold them close, but I suspect it is not the same. We do not experience attraction or sexual need as humans do.”

“Even the ashushk who have had a gender manifest?” Nessa asked.

Like most humans, Zed found the ashushk’s lack of gender a difficult concept. Qek had chosen to be referred to as female in order to better relate to humanity, but in truth, she had no gender. Only a small percentage of ashushk developed sexually, and those individuals were sequestered on Ashie Prime in order to breed and ensure the continuation of their race. From what Zed had gathered, the life of a gendered ashushk was posh and lush with care—but boring as hell because they weren’t allowed to leave the planet or pursue any interests that could interfere with their biological imperative.

“Yes. Our procreation is...not like that of humans.” Qek squirmed slightly in her seat. “I know that it is generally based on compatible genetics, but beyond that...”

Uh-oh. If Qek was embarrassed about it, did he really want to hear the details?

“Maybe it’s a free-for-all, one big pile of—” Flick broke off as Qek’s expression smoothed in distress. He coughed. “Yeah, maybe I don’t want to know, either.”

It was kind of sad. As soon as he thought that, Zed pushed the thought away. One of the things he’d learned since joining the Chaos crew was that for all Qek’s friendliness and eagerness to maintain good relationships with her crewmates, she was completely alien and should not be judged by human standards. Besides, there was something to be said for not being ruled by one’s dick. Or boobs. Though boobs didn’t really rule women, did they?

He didn’t often consider how lucky he was to have been born a human, but right now, that was all he could think of. He leaned in to brush his lips against Flick’s, needing that reconnection. Flick’s gaze met his, eyes that he knew were hazel but, thanks to his chemically altered vision, looked brilliantly, vibrantly green. The kiss wasn’t as deep as some they’d shared—despite the desire that never seemed to ebb, Zed couldn’t lose himself with the ambient noise of the crowd surrounding them or the ever-present ache in his skull. Still, it was a comfort, as warm as a hug and just as needed.

Elias’s throat-clearing encouraged their lips to part. Zed blinked at Flick for a moment, trying to orient himself. Flick’s gaze cast around, then focused on something, growing flinty. Zed followed his gaze and spotted the reeve of the colony watching them with a concerned expression.

“Religious colonies have weird ideas about sexuality,” Elias murmured.

Shit. Right. That was the biggest difference between colonists and spacers—in the black, sex was all about comfort and companionship, or just something to do on the long jumps between stations. On a colony, sex meant procreation, and some settlements had adopted old, outdated attitudes toward sex that had no possibility of creating life. The man standing next to the reeve looked decidedly more put out than the reeve himself. He took a step forward, only to be halted by Vinchy’s hand on his arm and a few words in his ear.

Okay. No more displays of affection with Flick until they got back to the ship.

“Pardon me,” Qek said. “I must powder my nose.”

“Powder your—” Flick frowned. “What?”

“She means she’s going to the bathroom,” Ness stated, rolling her eyes. “Hold on, I’ll go with you.”

Flick watched them weave through the crowd in the direction of the toilets, his head shaking slowly. “Why do women take a piss in groups?”

“Marnie used to say the secrets of the universe were contained in the women’s restroom.” As always, memories of the Academy and the friends he and Flick had made there brought a smile to Zed’s lips. He wondered if Marnie’s tendency to deliver such hyperbolic statements with a straight face was still intact, years after she’d become a spook for the AEF. Probably. And probably more refined than ever.

They watched the dance some more. When the reeve approached, all smiles, asking if they were enjoying the party, Elias turned on his charm and led the man into a lively conversation about trade between colonies and stations. Zed tuned it out, thankful that he didn’t have to be the one smiling and rubbing elbows. He didn’t have the patience or the energy for it tonight.

The reeve eventually left and Zed couldn’t say how much time passed before Ness reappeared at the table. Her eyes were wide and her hands were clutched together tight enough that her knuckles were white.

“I can’t find Qek.”

Flick straightened. “What do you mean? She was with you.”

Ness shook her head. “She finished first and said she would wait, but when I was done, she was gone. You haven’t seen her?”

“No,” Elias said.

“I’ve looked everywhere. Walked around the bathrooms twice, asked a couple of ladies waiting in line if they saw where she went. Nothing.”

Zed’s heartbeat tripped into a faster cadence. It was probably nothing—Qek was short, like all ashies, and there were a lot of people crowded into the square. Maybe she’d stepped away from the toilets for a minute, distracted by some minutia of colony life.

No—Qek was nothing if not considerate. If she had told Ness she would wait, she would’ve waited, or left Ness a message on her wallet.

Unless someone prevented it.

* * *

“You tried pinging her wallet?” Felix rubbed his left wrist, fingertips trailing across scar tissue before finding the smooth edge of his new bracelet. He hadn’t heard a general hail and he usually left that channel open.

“Yes. I used both channels. I even tried locating her, but there’s no positioning tech active on this colony.”

Man, Risus was backward. No booze, straight sex and low tech. With a half dozen worries crowding out his sense of humor, Felix failed to find a joke in it all, though. The most gentle member of his crew was out there, somewhere, wandering a barbarian wonderland alone...or worse.

He half rose from his seat, only to have the movement arrested by a hand on his arm. “What?”

“We shouldn’t panic,” Zed said.

“I’m not panicking, I’m going to look for Qek.”

“What if her disappearance isn’t a coincidence?”

“What do you mean?”

“Shit. Zed’s right, we need to assume this is something more.” Elias tilted his head to the side, indicating the reeve without actually turning toward him. “Vinchy has had his eye on us all night. Might not be because he was worried you and Zed might do more than kiss.”

Felix glanced at Zed. “Did you notice it too?”

“Sure.”

Felix felt the lie. Zed’s expression was all wrong, and he’d have said something earlier, wouldn’t he? Security was his job.

Shit.

Nessa had her wallet out, display open to the ripmail interface. The holo screen was familiar enough that Felix could read it backward. No connection. She looked up. “Should we alert colony security?” Such as they were. A bunch of farmers armed with nothing more than shock sticks. Risus had a seriously flawed view of technological advancement.

“If the reeve’s in on it, so are they,” Elias said.

“In on what?” Felix tried to shake Zed’s hand off of his arm.

“Everyone take a breath.” Zed’s tone was calm, measured. He’d found his game face. “We’ve got two possibilities here. One, the colony thinks we’re worth shaking down.” It wasn’t unheard of for a colony to separate a crew from their ship and hold one or the other to ransom until a “mutually” beneficial agreement could be reached. “Two, they’re being coerced.”

No one asked by whom.

Felix grasped at a straw anyway. “Qek is the curious sort, she could just be lost.”

“Qek doesn’t get lost. She’s an astrogator. She could navigate her way through a black hole.”

“This isn’t exactly—”

“If we’re making a plan, can we get on with it?” Nessa snapped.

“Ness, Eli, head back out to the dancing area. Circle the perimeter.” A brief smile visited Zed’s mouth. “Make sure Qek hasn’t found a dance partner.” Standing, he slid an arm around Felix’s shoulders. “Flick and I will sneak off behind the privy. If the reeve really is concerned we’re going to compromise the values of his colony, he’ll intercede before we can get our pants down.”

Warmth uncurled in Felix’s gut. Zed had been distant over the past couple of days—coming to bed late, leaving before Felix woke. They had exchanged little more than a kiss, and even the thought of an illicit moment alone was enough to get him hard. He easily shook off all thoughts of distraction—getting into Zed’s pants wasn’t as important as finding Qek. But a tendril of something akin to fear remained firmly rooted, refused to be brushed aside. Felix did his best to ignore it as he rose to his feet.

Elias spun Nessa back onto the beaten earth of the dance floor. Taking Felix’s hand, Zed strode toward the low building that housed the privy. Felix scanned the tables scattered around the grounds. Many were occupied only on the side of the square and bonfire, folks using the tabletops as backrests as they watched the party. He looked for signs of agitation or confrontation, but found none. Everyone he saw seemed intent on the dancers.

The privy resembled a shower block. During settlement, the block would have been surrounded by prefabs and pavilions. Now, the outbuilding simply served as convenience to the festival grounds, and perhaps a reminder of the colony’s origins. As they drew close, Felix noticed a line of women circling one side. Their shadows flickered along the plasmix bricks like poorly transmitted holos. Zed tugged him around the other side of the building. As they left the light of the central bonfire behind, the sky seemed to open up overhead and stars twinkled into being. Cooler air kissed the back of Felix’s neck and cheeks. He looked up and blinked, dizzied by the vast expanse of nothingness. It was weird how he could feel pressured by the open sky, though the pinprick stars seemed so far away.

Zed pulled him close and Felix breathed in sharply. He hadn’t actually expected a kiss...

A shadow came up behind Zed and the air left Felix’s lungs in a rush. “Watch out!”

The blur of motion in front of him meant Zed had Zoned. Within seconds, he had their assailant pinned to the wall of the outbuilding. The man—no, a stockily built woman—was still breathing.

“Who are you?” Zed’s flat tone tugged at the fine hairs along the back of Felix’s neck.

Likely it did the same to the woman. She didn’t have time to answer, though. Two more shadows slipped from the hazy darkness, both with small projectile weapons pointed toward them—and the crew of the Chaos weren’t even armed with stunners, because they had been asked not to carry small arms to the planet surface. So much for polite compliance.

Double shit.

Noting the twitch across Zed’s shoulders, Felix said, “Zed, no.”

He was too late.

Zed moved almost too quickly for the eye to track, but he hadn’t phase-shifted. He remained visible—just. One of the weapons coughed quietly and sparks danced off of the plasmix bricks over the woman’s head. She swore, then huffed as Felix barreled into her. He didn’t know whose side she was on, but dead was dead, and dead folks couldn’t talk. He yanked at the woman’s collar, exposing her neck, and barely breathed out as he noted the lack of tattoo.

“Where’s our pilot?” he asked.

A heavy weight slammed into him from behind. Losing his balance, Felix fell to the ground, taking the woman with him. He attempted to roll as he fell, and curled toward the knife he kept sheathed in his boot. Before he could reach for the grip, someone fell on top of him. The darkness confused the fight but he knew the man on top of him wasn’t Zed. Didn’t smell right.

Someone grabbed him by the shoulders and heaved. Felix pushed at the weight pinning him, dislodging the unconscious man, then scrambled up to find it was the woman who had pulled him out from under. Another figure lay prone on the ground and Zed was slumped against the wall, one hand to his temple, eyes reduced to slits in his shadowed face.

“What the ever-loving fuck!” Felix stepped over the unconscious bodies—praying to all gods that they were just unconscious—and put a hand on Zed’s shoulder. “Zed?”

Zed answered with a groan.

“Got any meds on you?”

Wincing as if the mere thought of moving caused him pain, Zed said, “Shirt pocket.”

Felix glanced over his shoulder as he reached into the soft silk of Zed’s SFT. “Who are you?” he asked the woman. She had no tattoo and seemed disinclined to take advantage of the lull in action.

“I can show you where they’re holding your pilot,” she said.

“What’s going on?”

She shook her head. “That’s between Vinchy and the pus that’s got him by the balls. You want your pilot or not?”

“Why are you helping us?”

The woman blew out a sigh. “Most folks would just follow, eh?”

“Most folks aren’t invited to their own kidnapping party.”

“I like the little ashies, okay? Don’t want to see no harm come to your pilot.”

It could be a trap, but Felix didn’t see as he had any other choice. He wasn’t the choke-for-information kinda guy. That was Zed’s job and Zed currently looked as though a stiff breeze would knock him over. He shoved a pill at Zed’s mouth and shivered as a warm tongue tip teased his fingers. The pill disappeared. Steel-blue eyes closed.

The woman nodded toward the two men slumbering on the ground. “More where they came from, we best get moving.”

Grunting, Zed pushed away from the wall. “Let’s go.”

Felix attempted to contact Elias and found that verbal comms were still blocked. A shiver crept down his spine. He tapped out a quick ripmail, which he just as quickly deleted. Elias didn’t need a message that repeated the word fuck sixteen times. He sent a quick sitrep instead, hoping the lack of connection was a passing thing. Then he grabbed Zed’s arm and stepped into the darkness after their dubious benefactor. She led them downslope, away from the noise and light of the feast.

He thanked all the useless gods when she veered to the left instead of entering the line of trees that banded the bottom of the hill. Being planetside was bad enough. Having to duck between trees in the dark? Cruel and unusual punishment, even if the local legends were nothing but fireside tales. Shortly after, he made out the shape of a building. Low and squat like the privy, it resembled a bump on the landscape. The outline was familiar, though.

“Munitions bunker,” Zed murmured, confirming Felix’s suspicions.

“This is where I wish you luck and disappear.”

“Who’s behind this?”

The woman held up her hands and stepped back. A moment later, she disappeared, but Felix caught the shape her fingers made before she melted into the darkness. Thumbs linked, hands angled outward. A butterfly, or moth.

“Agrius,” he whispered.

“Surprised?” Zed had his wallet out.

“Pissed.”

“No map data available for the colony, but the configuration is probably similar to most colonial landing sites. The layout of the festival area was the same as Outrock.”

“How’s your head?”

Zed answered without looking up from his wallet. “I’m fine.”

“Bullshit,” Felix hissed quietly.

“Now isn’t the time, Flick.”

No, it wasn’t.

Felix scanned the near darkness for movement. The far corner of the building was marked by a sharp edge, meaning there was a light there, just out of sight. Probably a door. A small bulge broke the line between shadow and light. The shoulder of a guard. Could there be more than one?

Felix turned to consult with Zed and discovered he stood alone.

Swearing softly, he bent to pull the knife from his boot. He gripped the handle firmly in his right hand and crept forward. Before he’d taken more than two steps, an invisible whirlwind began flinging bodies around. Felix ran into the fray. There had been two guards and one of them was rolling to his feet in front of him. Felix pulled up behind the guard and cracked the back of his head with the handle of his knife. The guard slumped back to the ground. Zed picked the other up and thrust him against the side of the bunker.

“Where is our pilot?”

“In there,” the guard rasped.

Zed squeezed the guy’s neck until his eyes bulged and his legs kicked the hard plasmix wall behind him. Felix wavered between calling a halt and denying the satisfaction he gained from seeing the guard struggle. When he stopped kicking, the silence rang with the absence of noise. The distant murmur of the festival broke the spell and Zed moved his hand away, releasing the guard’s throat and revealing the tattoo at his neck. A moth with spread wings. The confirmation that Agrius was on the ground did uncomfortable things to Felix’s gut.

The guard dropped into an untidy heap.

“Is he dead?”

“No. Can you hack the lock on the building?”

Tapping his bracelet, Felix turned to assess the squat hatch recessed into the front of the building and swore. Instead of a keypad and panel, the wheel lock was secured by a heavy chain and padlock. “Fucking backward fucks.”

A quick search of the unconscious guards proved fruitless. Neither carried anything resembling a key. Zed had already discarded their weapons as useless. Keyed grips all ‘round. Felix looked around for something to use as a lever, but couldn’t see anything in the shadows, nothing but the outlines of bodies they’d left on the ground. Think, Felix, think. He called on long-forgotten training to direct his thoughts and find the soldier within. The mechanical engineer. The kid who knew how to hack all sorts of locks, electronic and dumb.

When he was ten, he’d stolen a locked box from a surgery in the bowels of Pontus Station, hoping it would contain drugs. Pills he could either give to his mother, or sell for the creds to buy the right ones—probably from the same damn surgery. The box hadn’t had an electronic lock, though. It needed an old-fashioned key. It had taken him three hours to pick it and then he’d taken the lock apart and put it back together—sixteen times. If it hadn’t broken on the next attempt, he might still be fiddling with it.

He dug his hands in his pockets, looking for something long and slender, and found some sections of wire he’d been experimenting with for his glove. Crouching in front of the lock, Felix slowed his breathing. He grabbed the cold lump of metal with his left hand, inserted a slender spoke into the opening at the bottom and scraped the inside gently until he felt out the mechanism. Memories came tumbling back. All the locks he’d collected and broken, all the circuits he’d redirected and rewired. Every hack, electronic and not. He heard one lever shift and catch, and probed for the next. His pick teased the second for the space of a long and painful breath before the lock clicked against his left palm. It was open. There had only been two mechanisms. Breathing out, he yanked on the lock, pulling the shank free. He wrestled it out of the chain, threw it aside and wrenched open the hatch.

Qek stood framed in the vague square of light, her blue face smooth enough to show a bruise highlighting one cheek.

“You alone in there?”

“Yes. Thank you, Fixer.”

Beckoning Qek to follow, Felix turned to check that Zed hadn’t disappeared. They still had to locate Elias and Ness, and playing find the crew member was getting old.

No sooner had Qek stepped through the hatch than a slender, dark hand curled around her shoulder. Not Zed’s hand. A stunner nudged her temple. “Hands where I can see them,” demanded a husky voice.

The woman seemed to be made of the darkness, her skin spun from shadow. Caught in the light of the door, her eyes appeared too large for her face. Her cheekbones were sculpted and her lips full. Even Felix—who had never desired a woman in his life—could see that she was beyond beautiful.

She tipped her head toward the open door. “Back inside, one at a time, nice and slow.”

The very last thing on Felix’s “to do” list would be entering a dark bunker, gorgeous escort aside. But the woman had the stunner pressed hard enough against Qek’s skin to leave a mark—and Qek was one of the few beings in the galaxy he truly liked.

“Watch your step,” Zed murmured behind him.

The instruction—the plan—made sense the moment Zed nudged him forward. Felix “fell” sideways, catching himself on a braced forearm. The impact still jarred. Zed became the wind, then, moving over and around him at the same time. When Zed passed through Qek, Felix understood he’d phase-shifted, taking advantage of the woman’s momentary distraction. The stunner discharged, electricity crackling into the night. Barely a second later, the stunner dropped from her hand as she clutched her wrist, dark features contorted in pain.

That the woman had actually fired, had actually intended to scramble the brains of an ashushk—of Felix’s friend—surprised him no more than the sudden urge to take her down, swiftly and painfully. Felix swept his knife back out of his boot and pushed to his feet. He let his upward momentum drive his arm forward, intending to stab the woman with all the strength he could muster. A bar of iron caught his arm, halting his strike. Pain slammed along the bone, alternate flashes of fire and ice. Numbed, his fingers opened, releasing the knife. Felix barely heard it hit the dirt.

Zed stood between him and the woman, one hand around her neck, the arm that had blocked Felix’s strike still angled up and across.

“Our objective is to disable, not kill.”

That shouldn’t sound as weird coming from Zed as it did.

“All right for some?” Massaging his arm, Felix aimed a nod at the woman Zed nearly held off the ground.

“Find something to restrain her with.”

Something in Zed’s tone warned him to comply—quickly. Activating the small light on his bracelet, Felix ducked into the bunker and scanned the dusty and nearly empty shelving lining the walls for cording or wire, and found what any engineer might consider one of his best allies: a roll of duct tape, the galaxy’s best multi-tool.

Qek appeared at his side. “Can I do anything?”

“Just be okay. You’re not bleeding anywhere, are you?” Would Zed flip out if he asked Qek to watch him? Possibly catch him when he fell out of the Zone? Fuck.

“I will be fine.”

“See a chair anywhere?”

“There is one over there.” She pointed into the shadows.

“In here, Zed.” A shiver crawled up between Felix’s shoulder blades. “Qek, would you mind keeping watch? Call out if you see someone.”

Zed folded the woman into the chair. Felix taped her around the middle first, getting her somewhat secured.

“You have no idea who you’re dealing with,” she said.

Felix pulled one of her legs to the corner next and wrapped tape around her boot and the dull metal chair leg. “Neither do you,” he murmured.

“Agrius will sweep you from the stars.”

“I’d like to see them try.” Actually, he wouldn’t, but there really was only one way to respond to folks who clung to warped ideologies.

With her second leg fastened, Zed ducked outside the bunker to grab the first guard. Still unconscious, the guy made a forlorn heap on the dusty floor. Same with the second.

Qek’s voice floated through the open hatchway. “Elias and Nessa are coming down the hill.”

“How many more of you are there?” Felix asked as he pulled the woman’s arms behind her. When she struggled, Zed leaned on her shoulder. She didn’t answer the question.

“Qek!” Nessa’s voice was breathless with concern. A moment later, her wallet beeped. Ever the doctor, she was already scanning her latest patient. “Are you hurt? Is that a bruise on your cheek?”

“What do we have here?” Elias sounded as breathless as Ness.

“Agrius,” Felix said. “How did you find us?”

“A woman pointed us down the hill. Said she’d led you two here.”

“And you didn’t think it was a trap?”

“When she mentioned Vinchy might be conspiring with off-worlders, I figured we didn’t have much choice.” Elias’s bright grin defied the dim light. “Besides, the crew that stays together—”

“The rest of our whisper is still out there, hunting the night. You will not escape.”

The rest of their what?

Zed plucked the tape from Felix’s hand and ripped off a piece. Seconds later, Whisper Girl was gagged.

“She might have had more information for us.”

“I think we know enou—”

Zed’s eyes rolled back, whites flashing, then he dropped to the ground. The tape bounced out of suddenly slack fingers. Felix barely noticed its passage as he folded to his knees.

“Zed!” He grabbed Zed’s shoulders. “Don’t you dare.” Beneath his hands, Zed began to buck and jerk. “Ness? Help!”

Fear again uncoiled in his gut like an oily spill.

Nessa knelt beside him. “Eli, his legs. Fix, hold his shoulders gently. Let him move, but not too far.”

“What’s happening?” Of all the stupid questions to ask...

“He’s seizing. Just hold on, it shouldn’t last for too long.”

It had already been too long, and it was just beginning. Endings really shouldn’t have beginnings and none of it should include a man bucking and frothing. Surely Zed’s reward for saving humanity’s ass should be more dignified than this?

Chapter Six

“C’mon, hon. Come back.”

Zed blinked, fighting to focus. A pale circle of a face hovered over him surrounded by a nimbus of scarlet hair, lit by the gentle, ambient light of an open wallet. He knew who owned those riotous curls but words, thoughts, memories wouldn’t coalesce. Pain sliced through his head and churned up nausea in his gut. Swallowing hard, he concentrated on breathing.

“Gonna puke?”

He closed his eyes and shook his head, groaning at the movement.

“It’s okay if you need to. Believe me, I’ve seen worse.” A gentle hand rubbed his back and he realized he lay on his side, curled into a recovery position. Another realization nudged him—Ness. This was Ness. His friend and doctor. “I’m sorry I couldn’t let you sleep longer.”

“M’okay.”

“Like hell. But we might have to make a run for it and none of us can carry you for long.”

Make a run for it? He opened his eyes again, squinting in anticipation of the med bay’s harsh lights—except they weren’t there. It was dark, far darker than the Chaos ever got, what with the ambient lighting everywhere. Unless the power was completely out—that was scary. But the room felt different. The acoustics were off and it was missing that familiar and comforting smell of metal and circuits.

“Wha—”

“We are on Risus, Mr. Anatolius.” Qek clicked slowly. “I was attacked and abducted as I left the restroom. You, Elias, Fixer and Nessa rescued me, though you phase-shifted in the process.”

Right. And there’d been a fight before that when he’d Zoned. Zoning twice and phase-shifting—no wonder he felt so shitty. “Eli and Flick?”

“They have left the cavern on a scouting mission to ensure we did not leave a trail.”

Cavern? So they weren’t in the bunker anymore, then. That explained the pervasive smell of damp stone. Zed didn’t remember walking anywhere, but he figured Elias and Flick had managed to half-carry him. “Flick is probably leaving a brand new trail. He’s awful in the woods.”

Qek clicked in a tone Zed had come to learn meant agreement. “He was not enthusiastic about the task but Nessa stated that he had to leave or she was going to render him unconscious and she could not handle two patients at once.”

“Sounds like Flick.” Zed let his eyes drift closed for a second. Holding them open was hard. “How long was I out?”

“About an hour,” Ness said. “How are you feeling?”

“Shitty.” Worse, actually. But admitting to the depth of the shittiness wouldn’t help their situation any. He’d do what he had to do to make sure they got off this rock intact. “Ping Flick, would you?”

“Already done.” Ness brushed his hair off his forehead. He let the motion soothe him and he drifted until he heard footsteps approaching.

“He’s awake?” Flick’s voice was breathless, either from exertion or worry. Maybe both.

Zed squinted up at him. “Yeah.”

Flick knelt on the floor beside Zed, and Ness made room for him. “How are you doing?”

“I think it’ll be a few hours before I can play any basketball.”

“You suck at basketball.”

“I—” He did? He remembered playing basketball. He could picture himself with the ball in his hands. But that was it. No memories of sinking any baskets, or dribbling or...anything. “Right.” He turned to Elias, trying to ignore the intensity of Flick’s gaze. “So what’s the situation?”

“Less than ideal.” Elias settled down nearby, cross-legged, with his back braced against the wall. “It’s well after midnight, local time. We could hear people in the bush—sound travels out here—but I didn’t see anyone.”

“You think it’s Agrius out there?”

“Yeah. And I think that’s the main reason we haven’t been found. Apparently Agrius thugs can’t find their asses in the dark without a microscope and a big fucking spotlight. The colonists don’t seem to be thrilled to have criminals hanging around, so they’re not helping them. Or at least, none of them but the reeve. No homegrown know-how, no finding us. I hope.” Elias pulled a scuffed and scarred wallet out of his pocket and tossed it over to Flick, who handed it to Zed. “Grabbed that from the Agrius bitch we taped to the chair. Looks like they were trying to pick us off one by one.”

“Huh.” Zed scrolled through the message log, not admitting that he couldn’t read anything. The letters all blended together and—God, his head ached. “But Vinchy was in on it?”

“Yeah, they cut him a deal when they dug up our manifest and found out we’d be making a stop here.”

“I’m going to find a way to make our manifests private, I swear to God,” Flick grumbled.

“That would not endear us to station quartermasters or the AEF. We could be labeled pirates,” Qek pointed out.

“I’ll make it temporary.”

“I do not think—”

“We need to get off this rock. Talking about anything else is a waste of air right now.” Elias glared at his crew. “Agrius will be all over the shuttles and Zed...man, no offense, but we can’t depend on you, and we have nothing but Fixer’s knife.”

“And I wonder why that is,” Flick muttered.

“Fix, will you fucking shut it?” Elias pinched the bridge of his nose. “We were told not to bring weapons, so showing up with stunners would have been a bad idea. Colonists can be twitchy about shit like that.”

“If we’d been armed, Zed might not have had to Zone twice!” Flick’s hand squeezed Zed’s, hard.

“They probably would’ve confiscated the weapons on landing, anyway,” Ness interrupted. “It’s a moot point. We don’t have them so we need a plan that won’t call for them.”

“Full-on assault is out—”

Zed shook his head. “I can do whatever needs to be done.”

“No.”

“Flick—”

“You have no fucking idea what you look like right now,” Flick growled. “The answer is no. You’re incapacitated.”

“I’m not—”

“No! You fucking selfish prick.”

Zed’s brows arched. “I’m selfish because I want to save my crew?”

“No, you’re selfish because you’re not fucking admitting—” Flick gritted his teeth and turned away.

Ness gripped Flick’s shoulder for an instant before he shrugged off her hand. Typical Felix. “He’s right, Zed. You need more recovery time.”

He wanted to argue—the words to do so sat on his tongue but he didn’t have the energy to voice them. Or the energy to pretend he was perfectly fine. “All right.” He sighed. “So we need to get off the rock and back to the station. Is there an AEF detachment here?”

“No, Mr. Anatolius,” Qek said. “You commented on that when we arrived.”

Shit. Another hole in his memory. “I’m still groggy,” he said with a shrug. “There was a squad on the station, though, right?” Please let me be right.

“Yes. They are guarding the remains of the space elevator until such time that it can be rebuilt. I believe they have had some problems with scavengers.”

“Okay.” So there was an AEF squad on the station and...”There isn’t a detachment here?”

Elias and Ness shared a look and Zed wanted to groan. That question had been answered already, hadn’t it? “No AEF detachment on the colony,” Elias confirmed.

“And no space elevator...” That was important. That meant something...after a second, the knowledge clicked into place. “The colony will have an evacuation protocol. Would’ve been implemented after the destruction of the elevator—extra shuttles. They might be in shit shape because they’re not used, but they’ll be there.”

“Like life rafts?” Ness frowned, obviously trying to picture it.

“Sort of. But they’ll be fully functional shuttles, not like the pods on ships.”

Qek clicked. “I have successfully interfaced with the Chaos. Checking public maps.” Her blue fingers swam through the hologram over her wallet. “I believe I have located the emergency shuttles. There is a large clearing on the other side of the colony that is identified in public maps as the evacuation gathering point.”

“That’d be the spot.” Zed let out a long, slow breath, his eyes closing.

“Hey,” Flick said, squeezing his hand. “You going to be good to get there?”

Zed opened his eyes and met Flick’s worried gaze. “I’ll do what I need to do.”

Even if it meant Zoning to push the fatigue and the pain aside so he wouldn’t endanger his crew.

* * *

A forest during the day would be disturbing enough. At night, even with moonlight slanting through the canopy, the scene was spooky. The tall, straight trees interfered with lines of sight, and leaves and shit kept rustling. Other movement teased the periphery of his vision now and again. Elias assured him it was just the trees—weird, alien trees with smooth trunks and spindly limbs that formed odd cross patterns. In daylight, they might resemble elongated snowflakes. Felix’s mind wanted to conjure greater horrors. Indigenous wildlife, carnivorous insects, an undocumented sentient species. Whatever the colonists were afraid of. Confronting Agrius would almost be preferable.

He combatted his fears the way a soldier should—using the extra adrenaline to sharpen his focus. He tried not to let Zed’s condition distract him too much.

Qek stopped and raised a fist, calling a halt to their single-file column through the forest. Felix held his knife, Nessa had a hypo-syringe, and Elias hovered just close enough to Zed to catch him if he stumbled. Zed had himself. That left Qek holding the map. Given that and the fact her eyesight was more adaptable than the rest of the group’s—something about the spectrum of light on her home planet—she made the obvious vanguard. A blue hand flashed down, patting the air, and the group responded by crouching low.

Felix spared a thought for the fact that Qek had researched human tactical hand signals—his amusement all too brief—before leaning toward Zed. Biting his tongue, he didn’t ask if Zed was all right. He simply pressed his cheek to the larger man’s shoulder in a gesture of affection, support...need. For a moment, anxiety almost claimed him. The fear running through his veins gave a quick jerk, causing him to twitch all over. He breathed through it, drawing comfort from the familiar scent of the man next to him.

The breeze delivered an odd sucking sound. The movement was some distance to relative west, however, and their path lay almost due north. There was no need for them to investigate or engage.

After a while, Qek stood and the rest of the group followed. She turned and spoke in a low tone. “Not human. And as we have no weaponry with us, not likely to bother us.”

“Don’t tell me you believe that shit,” Felix murmured.

“There are documented species that are attracted to sound and light. It is entirely possible this planet hosts a creature that is drawn by laser and pulse fire.”

Wonderful.

They left the forest, and though tight spaces often made him nervous, Felix found he missed the cover of the trees. The hard ground was awash with pale light from one of Risus’s two moons. The terrain between them and the evacuation port looked clear, but that could be a problem. No cover.

“If we move a little farther west, the slope of the ground should cover us,” Zed said.

Qek tapped her display. “You are right.”

She made another hand signal, pointing them to the west. Felix tamped down the urge to smile at the ashie’s imitation of human gestures. Then he remembered that whatever had passed them had been to the west.

Wonderful.

They didn’t have to deviate far. As they fell into their line, Zed moved behind him. Felix turned to protest, but the look on Zed’s face stopped him. Grim determination—not only to be rearguard, but to proceed. To shepherd his crew out of danger. Tipping him a quick nod, Felix turned and followed Nessa. Elias moved up behind Qek.

Sixteen tense but quiet minutes later, they were again crouched in a line, arrayed side by side this time. Felix’s calves ached from the incline, which had sharpened after they left the forest. He could only imagine how crappy the rest of the crew felt. The evacuation port lay before them in a large clearing that somewhat resembled a bowl. Probably a natural crater. To the east, they could just make out the lights of the main settlement. To the west lay the horror of the dark and whatever critters Risus played host to. Hopefully Agrius were still bumbling through the forest, several klicks behind them.

“How long is the night cycle on Risus?” Zed asked.

“Six Standard hours,” Qek said. “The days here are short, only about eighteen Standard hours, and we are currently in their summer season.”

“Is that other moon going to rise before dawn?”

The first moon gave off enough light for them to see. Any more light would make their progress across the shuttle port more obvious to perimeter security or electronic surveillance.

“How much time do we have left before dawn?” Elias asked.

“The second moon will rise after dawn, which is in about twenty minutes.” Qek pointed toward the east and Felix noted that the light there wasn’t all due to the settlement. A faint, bluish tinge extended along the horizon.

“We need to find a suitable shuttle and get off the ground fast, then,” Zed said.

Nessa cocked her head. “You think there is more security here during the day cycle?”

“I think we need to use whatever advantages we have. If we can’t get any of those shuttles operational, we need to find a way to stay invisible until we can figure out an alternate plan.”

Felix huffed out a short breath. “We’ll get one of those shuttles working, won’t we, Qek?”

Qek turned a wrinkled smile in his direction. “Success is ten percent inspiration and ninety percent perspiration.”

“‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way’ would have done it.” Felix glanced at Zed as he uttered the phrase.

A small hut, similar in appearance to the low bunker Qek had been kept in, served as the only outbuilding. Eight shuttles of varying configurations sat on the hard crater floor, arranged around the hut like spokes of a very odd wheel. Four of the craft were intra-system buses. Bulky, difficult to maneuver out of a straight line, but suitable for ferrying twenty or so colonists from ground to station, maybe a little way beyond. Of the other four, the closest was a definite no go. The small shuttle was little more than a wreck.

Zed had noticed it too. “Decompression damage. It’s a wonder they found enough pieces to assemble into a shuttle shape.”

“Every piece might be useful, though.” Felix turned his attention to the next candidate, hoping a visual inspection of the field might narrow their choices enough that they didn’t have to spend too long inside the crater.

“What about the Epsilon on the opposite side of the building?”

Felix lifted his gaze toward the shuttle Qek had pointed out. From afar, he could see no hull damage. The wing configuration indicated the craft had good lift and would have great speed and maneuverability in the upper atmosphere. The large tail end suggested an engine with enough thrust to get it off the ground quickly.

After eyeballing the rest of the field, Felix nodded toward the Epsilon. “Let’s start there.”

Elias jumped into the crater first, hissing slightly as he landed. Straightening, he limped to the side and called up, “The ground is as hard as ceramix.”

Geologically speaking, the crater made an excellent landing field. The hard-packed soil of Risus might make farming a nightmare—hence the need for shipments of shit—but it could withstand high temperatures and substantial weight without changing composition...much. Ness dropped down second, then Felix helped lower Qek. Anticipating an argument with Zed, he jumped down next, then stepped aside. Zed landed next to him with a quiet grunt.

“Don’t bite my head off, but are you okay?”

Zed stared at him for a second. “Peachy.”

“Because we need you and Eli to stand guard while we get this shuttle up and running.”

Expression softening by such a minute degree, Felix might have imagined it, Zed gripped his shoulder. “I’m good, Flick. Head feels like a bruised melon, but I’m steady.”

“I don’t know what a melon is.” A useless comment, but better than what he wanted to say.

“Cameras are inactive,” Qek reported.

Felix looked up. The field wasn’t fenced and perimeter security consisted of cameras mounted on the tall poles dispersed throughout the crater. The domed caps were as dark as the lights suspended beneath them.

Lazy wiring.

Zed squeezed Felix’s shoulder, let go and moved toward Elias. “Let’s check out that building in the center.”

Felix turned to Nessa. “Stay with them?”

She tracked Elias and Zed toward the building and Felix led Qek into the cover of the closest shuttle. From there, they ducked from shadow to shadow until they reached the nose of the Epsilon. A check of his bracelet showed eight minutes had passed, leaving dawn only twelve minutes away. Felix wanted to imagine daylight wouldn’t inhibit their escape, but he also felt the urgency of their quest. Zed might still be on his feet, but he couldn’t last for much longer. Qek had said she was well, but the bruise on her face bothered him. The rest of the crew was tired and stressed. Not a good combination. Felix knew his own last nerve was close to fraying and though Nessa could be the most emotionally resilient member of their group, she’d be hard-pressed to deal with more casualties than they already had—not without more supplies.

Ducking under the wing, Felix began a visual inspection of the hull. Wallet out, Qek moved toward the hatch. “Standard Epsilon lock, not currently encoded,” she reported.

“Nice.”

The hatch opened with a soft expulsion of gas.

“Should I wait for you to accompany me inside?”

Felix lifted his head. “Go ahead. I’ll be right behind you. Hull looks pretty good at a glance. We’ll be able to tell more from onboard systems, though.”

Wind kicked across the crater from the north, bringing with it some of those weird sucking sounds. Felix scanned the edge of the field, but saw nothing. Swallowing dryly, he tapped his bracelet and tried to access the Net for information about the Epsilon class shuttle. No connection. A quick check showed his ripmail to Elias still languished in his outbox. “Fuck. Hey, Qek, you still connected to the Chaos?”

“I am.”

Felix stepped through the hatch and sniffed. The interior of the shuttle smelled both familiar and not. “Second question, can you fly one of these? Because if you can’t, we’re going to have to try downloading some specs.”

The shuttle was small with a capital S. Seating for pilot, copilot and two passengers. One of them would have to strap themselves into a cargo pod for liftoff. There were four such bays, each a recessed shelf enclosed by webbing, two to each side of the main and only cabin. Didn’t even look as if the ship had a john.

“If we get this bucket off the ground, we need to head straight to Risus Station.”

“I concur.” Qek tapped the pilot’s console, and a mixture of colored light flooded the cabin. “Power is good.”

“Power is very good.”

“A full systems check will take forty minutes.”

“We probably don’t have that kind of time. Start with hull integrity and essential systems. Thrusters, life-support.”

“Stand by.”

Settling her small frame into the pilot’s chair, Qek immersed herself in the holographic display.

Thumping sounds ended with Elias scrambling through the hatch. “Tell me this thing is ready to go.”

“Can’t do that, captain,” Felix said. “What’s up?”

Nessa pushed into the shuttle behind Elias, but her attention remained focused on the outside.

“The bunker is empty, locked up tight. Zed got up on the roof to check out the approach and saw a line of vehicles on the road. Maybe two klicks out. Two skippers and something smaller, he thinks.”

Agrius had that many people on the ground? Jesus, Joseph and Mary.

“We don’t know that they’re all Agrius,” Elias put in as if party to his thoughts, “but I can’t imagine the reeve will be happy to part with one of his shuttles.”

Nessa leaned into the interior of the cabin. “Maybe it’s colony security and they’re on our side.” She leaned back out.

With his head all but shaved, hair-raising opportunities were generally felt all across his scalp. Felix skimmed a palm over the top of his head as he started forward. “Where’s Zed?”

“Still on the roof.”

Felix angled past Elias. “If he thought we could trust colony security, we wouldn’t be out here on our own. He needs to get into the shuttle. Now.”

Ness turned to block the hatch. “I’ll get him. You help Qek.”

Scalp prickling all over again, Felix shook his head. “No. I’ll get him.”

“Fix—”

“You know as well as I do what he’s planning.”

She bit her lips together.

“Let me outside.”

Nessa moved aside and Felix jumped down and strode toward the bunker. He couldn’t see Zed, so he assumed he was lying down across the roof.

“Zed!” Still no movement. “We’re about to get this thing off the ground. C’mon, let’s go.”

A boot appeared, then a knee. Finally Zed’s face showed over the edge of the roof. He made an impatient gesture, waving Felix back toward the shuttle. Felix planted his feet and put his hands on his hips.

“Flick—”

“Don’t do this. You’re not a soldier and we’re not civilians. We’re crew.”

“One of the skippers has a pulse cannon mounted to the roof.”

“Then we need to go now.” Zed opened his mouth and Felix raised a hand. “I’m not leaving without you.”

“Goddamn you, Felix. Get on the fucking shuttle.”

“No. If you were planning a heroic action, you shoulda run down the road.”

“You’d only have followed me.” Zed sounded tired.

“Damn straight.” Behind him, the shuttle’s engines clicked. A soft whine followed ignition, then slowly built in intensity so that Felix could barely hear himself breathe. Still, he called out again. “I’m coming up there.”

He started forward.

Zed disappeared from view, causing Felix’s heart to jerk against his breastbone. Blood hissed and snapped in his veins—panic, sharp and stinging. “Zed!” He reached for the roofline and jumped, fingertips only just scraping the edge. “Fucking fuck. Zed!”

A shadow dropped down beside him, then an arm swept around his shoulders. He was hauled up off the ground with breathless speed. Seconds later, the blur that was Zed thrust him through the shuttle hatch. Curling forward, Felix grappled with the indistinct shape in front of him, desperate to catch and hold Zed, stop him from senseless sacrifice. His fingers slid down the twitching fibers of Zed’s SFT before glancing off his belt.

“Eli, grab him!”

Light flared behind the bunker, silhouetting the low and blocky shape. The skippers had crested the last hill up to the crater.

The blur that was Zed suddenly stuttered. He slumped forward, obviously having lost the ability to Zone, and Elias caught him. Felix grabbed a hold of his shirt. Beams of light crossed over the top of the bunker, illuminating a sky that was no longer dark. Felix caught a glimpse of Zed’s face—too slack, too pale.

“Hurry!”

From the side, Nessa helped pull until they’d hauled Zed’s heavy body inside the hatchway. Felix slapped the panel to seal the door. Sucking in air, he fought two urges. No, three. The shitstorm of emotion inside him needed an outlet, and Zed would make a good fucking target. Given what he’d just tried to do, he should wake up with a few extra bruises or maybe a broken nose. Equal parts of Felix simply wanted to cling to him, though. Wrap himself around Zed, align their bodies so they touched all the way down, and hold him tight enough that he’d have to be pried away with a crowbar.

Instead, he acted on the most sensible urge, the need to do something useful. Choking on something that felt suspiciously like a sob, Felix gained his feet and backed away from Zed. “Get him strapped into one of those cargo shelves.” He turned and pulled forward to the copilot’s chair.

Qek glanced over. “We have a secure hull and enough power to leave the planet.”

Blinking, Felix studied the holographic display, noting errors and warnings across the board. Likely, most of the faults were a simple matter of disuse. Calibration shifts and broken linkages. But he saw nothing that warned him off using the shuttle to escape the planet’s atmosphere. Hauling in a breath so raw it hurt his throat, he said, “Let’s do it.”

Qek activated the external feeds, and a hazy image shimmered into being over the cockpit display. A skipper pulled around the side of the bunker, dark figures spilling out. Small flashes of light could be muzzle flare. They didn’t worry him as much as the cannon strapped to the top of the vehicle. Inside the shuttle they wouldn’t hear personal arms fire unless a lucky shot knocked out an essential system. The pulse cannon would punch a hole in the hull plating. Felix swore softly when he saw the telltale glow of the arming mechanism. Not a subtle weapon. How had they even got it planetside—and weren’t they afraid of the beasties in the woods?

“Get strapped in!” he yelled as he scanned his share of the console. Several flickering lights requested his attention. Safeties for the copilot to disengage. He glanced at Qek. “Ready?”

“As I will ever be,” she said, her tone not quite as glib as perhaps she hoped.

Felix tapped his console, giving full control to the pilot. Qek’s blue fingers flew across her console. Beneath them, the shuttle shuddered. The muffled whine of the engine rose to a roar and then they were up, off the ground. Felix watched the view of the crater dwindle in the external feed. Two more vehicles slid into view. The barrel of the cannon was lifting toward the shuttle.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Then a large shadow rolled into the crater from the north. Felix enhanced the visual. The shape was a number of multi-limbed creatures moving in a pack formation. The trajectory of gunfire changed, as did the angle of the pulse cannon.

“The stories are true?” Surely those shapes were colonial security, just multi-legged and...

Shit and double shit.

“It seems the ban on energy weapons is valid,” Qek said.

“That’s...” Letting gravity push his head into the headrest, Felix breathed out. “I never want to come back here. They can take their Risilium and stuff it.”

“I am in complete agreement with you.”

Felix couldn’t turn his head, so he called out. “How’s everyone doing back there?”

“We’re good, Fix, just get us off this rock,” Elias shot back.

Ness added a grunt and Zed let out a long, low moan before starting to retch.

“Now he decides to vomit.”

Chapter Seven

Living on the Chaos for the next couple of days was like waiting for a timed detonation to count down to zero. Zed knew the explosion was coming. He wasn’t sure when, or where, but he was thankful that Flick decided to hold off until his head felt as though it was mostly reattached to the rest of his body. So when Flick stomped into Cargo One where Zed was swiping a sonic cleaner back and forth—a nice, easy job that didn’t strain any of his remaining brain cells, despite the whirring that reverberated through his arm—Zed wasn’t surprised to see his eyes filled with fire, making them seem even more green in his fucked-up vision. He sort of breathed a sigh of relief.

“So are you going to tell me?” Flick demanded, his arms crossed and his hip cocked against a bulkhead. His shoulders were stiff and his arms kept flexing, as if he was trying to hold back the urge to throw a punch. He had to raise his voice over the rumble of the cleaner, but Zed figured he’d have been all but yelling anyway.

Flicking the holo off-switch on the simple display, Zed waited until the vibrations diminished into nothing. The ache in his head receded slightly but didn’t go away. It never did anymore. “What, did Ness give you the green light to come yell at me?”

“Don’t fucking avoid the question.”

Zed pushed the cleaner upright and locked the handle in place with a snap. “Flick—”

“No, don’t ‘Flick’ me. I’m not some subordinate you can fluff off with a reasonable tone and empty words.”

“Do you think I’d do that to you? Really?”

“Haven’t you been?”

“I—” Zed sighed. “Maybe. Yeah, you’re right.” He pressed two fingers against his closed eyelids, hard enough that sparks danced across the darkness.

“What the fuck was that down on Risus?”

Zed moved his fingers to pinch the bridge of his nose.

When Flick spoke again, his voice was softer. Almost begging. “Please tell me it wasn’t what it looked like. Please tell me it wasn’t some suicidal ploy—”

Zed moved quickly, dodging around Flick’s lean form and aiming for the exit to the corridor. For once, his innate grace abandoned him—he couldn’t avoid Flick’s hand as it whipped out to catch his elbow.

“Don’t you walk away without a fucking word. I can’t—” Flick’s words were choked off by something between a sob and a growl. “I can’t fight this if I don’t know what I’m fighting.”

Zed jerked his arm from Flick’s grasp. “There’s no fighting anything. You think if you stand there and stomp your feet loud enough, the poison in my blood will just disappear?”

“Don’t be an asshole.”

“Don’t be naïve!”

“I get it, okay?” Flick lifted a hand to grab at curls that no longer resided on his head and let his hand fall back to his side with a grunt. “You’re going to lose it. I know it’s going to happen—”

“You don’t know anything.”

“Because you’re not telling me anything!”

“I’m already losing it!” Zed straightened and backed off a step. Heart thudding, Zone beckoning, his gaze shifted instinctively from side to side, as if he was looking for an escape, but there was no getting out of this conversation. Maybe there never had been. He looked at the deck instead. “It’s happening.”

Flick rolled on with hardly a pause. “Okay, so we’ll go see Ness. She’ll have something that’ll—”

“Stop.”

“—slow the process or help—”

“Stop!”

“No!” Flick charged forward and grabbed Zed’s shirt in his fists. Zed jerked his gaze up to see determination in every hard line of Flick’s expression. “You’re not fucking giving up.”

“I’m tired.”

“Will you stop talking like that? Goddamn it.”

The fight drained out of Zed, leaving his muscles watery and weak. Slumping forward slightly, he leaned his forehead against Flick’s. “Doesn’t change the truth.”

Flick swallowed harshly enough that Zed felt the motion. Heard it. “Your head?”

“Hurts all the fucking time.”

“Ness will give you more painkillers. That’ll help.”

“I’ve been Zoning. Without meaning to.”

Flick’s fists opened, his palms sliding across Zed’s chest to cup his upper arms. A pair of shaky breaths passed his lips. “Okay. We’ll deal with that.”

“I—” Zed gritted his teeth. “I Zone when I come.”

“Oh Jesus. Babe.” Flick’s hands skimmed upward to thread through Zed’s hair, tugging him forward into a full hug, his face tucked into Flick’s neck. “Is that why...why you...”

Why he’d been coming to bed late and getting up early. Zed nodded against Flick’s shoulder. Flick’s grip tightened, his hands and arms squeezing Zed to the point it was almost painful. But Zed was okay with that.

“This shit stops now,” Flick whispered raggedly. “You have got to talk to me.”

“I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want to admit it.” His voice threatened to disappear, so he cleared his throat before continuing. “I didn’t want it to be real.”

“There has to be something...some treatment...”

“Damn it, there isn’t.”

Flick shoved him back enough to glare at him. “How do you know? Maybe they figured something out in the last few months. I’ll contact Brennan.”

Zed pulled out of Flick’s arms. “What? No!”

“If anyone can find something to help you—”

“I don’t want my family involved. This isn’t something I can throw my last name at and make go away.”

“What about talking to them? Telling them—”

“Telling them what? That I volunteered to have a stin POW poison me because humanity was that fucking desperate? No one needs to know that. No one needs to know how close we got to not winning.” Zed pressed two fingers to his temple and squinted at Flick. “No, just no.”

“Don’t you want to live?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“A valid one, considering you’re shooting down the one viable option to get you help!”

“There are more important—”

“Oh, fuck you and your martyr complex, Zander. You’re not a soldier anymore. The AEF doesn’t fucking care about you or Emma or me or anyone!”

“That doesn’t mean—”

“What about me? I’m supposed to just sit back and watch you fade?”

Zed froze, ice stiffening his spine and seeping into his gut. “I can leave.”

Flick’s eyes widened. “No! Fuck, I—” His good hand scuffed across his shorn skull. “No. That’s not what I meant.”

The ice melted, taking the last of his energy to fight with it. Zed didn’t know if Flick would prop him up again, so he stepped over to the bulkhead and braced his back against it as he slid to a sitting position. Psychologically, it wasn’t a good position to continue an argument—but he didn’t care. He was done anyway.

“I’m just trying to...to minimize the hurt I leave behind me,” he said softly, looking up at Flick. “I know you want to believe there’s some magic solution out there—” he talked over Flick’s strangled protest, “—but there isn’t. There isn’t, Felix. And pulling my family into this clusterfuck is just...it’s going to hurt a lot more people than just them. Can you understand that? If Dad gets it in his head to go up against the AEF, that’s going to hurt Anatolius Industries and all our workers, and maybe other people too, I don’t know.”

Flick settled onto the floor beside him, their shoulders touching. “When are you ever going to let the big picture go in favor of looking after yourself?”

“Never.” Zed let out a sigh and leaned his head back against the wall. He didn’t look down when he felt Flick’s head resting on his shoulder. He just welcomed it.

“I’m not ready,” he admitted softly.

Not ready to be done. Not ready to give up Flick. Not ready for whatever came next.

A soft noise escaped Flick and he shook his head against Zed’s shoulder. “Neither am I.”

* * *

“Trying to reconfigure those circuits with your mind?”

Felix almost jumped. Instead, a twitch traveled the length of his frame, starting at his eyelids and ending somewhere around his knees. “Huh?”

Elias tipped his head toward the half-finished web of wire covering the mold of his left hand.

Turning his gaze back to the glove, Felix studied it for a moment, still blinking as if he’d just emerged from a dream.

“Everything all right?”

Felix answered with a shake of his head.

Elias drew closer, his caution warranted. They both knew Felix’s moods could be unpredictable and savage. Felix held up his hands, showing Elias the bruised and abraded knuckles on both. “S’okay, I already beat something up.”

“Jesus, Fix.” Elias took his left hand gently in his and studied the damage. “What happened?”

Felix closed his eyes. “He’s...” Darkness didn’t hide the truth. Opening his eyes again, Felix sought the compassion he needed in Elias’s expression. “He’s losing it.”

Extracting his hand from Elias’s grasp, Felix glanced at the wall he’d used as a very unsatisfactory target. The pitted and stained metal looked the same as ever, but his knuckles were a mess. With Zed sleeping in their quarters, the weighted bag Felix kept in the corner had been unavailable, and while Zed needed undisturbed rest, Felix had needed an outlet. So he chose that wall, and the memory of what else had happened there, of him holding Zed so intimately, Zed’s confession that he’d Zoned with his climax, had driven him to nearly break his hands. It was stupid, but sometimes life felt equally stupid.

Elias caught his arm and tugged him away from the workbench. “C’mon, let’s get Ness to clean up your knuckles and then we’ll talk about what we can do for Zed.”

“He’s losing time, Eli.”

“Losing...”

“Zoning.”

“Where is he now?”

“Sleeping, I think. For all I know, he could be Zoning. Fuck, I don’t know if he’s present half the time when I talk to him anymore. He’s always so thinky, you know? His mind never stops.”

Another twitch caught him, head to toe. Felix realized it was a shiver when his scalp continued to creep afterward. For all that Zed’s predicament sucked, the idea that his brilliant mind might be affected was almost the worst part. Almost. Felix was selfish enough to admit that losing his lover hurt more. It felt as though Zed was abandoning him all over again, except this time, instead of stepping onto a shuttle as he had after graduation, following his future with the AEF, Zed would fall away from him in small, jagged increments.

Pain flared across his abused knuckles as he tried to curl his hands into fists. Never had he felt so powerless, not even when locked deep beneath the surface of Isroth, subject to the whim of his stin captors.

“Well...shit.” Elias looked as if he might pull him into a hug. Felix leaned away, afraid he’d break down in such an embrace. Lose his stuffing, his strength. He needed to be strong now, stronger than ever before. He had to be all Zed needed him to be.

“Do you think we should call his family?”

“I don’t know.” He wanted to, but going against Zed’s wishes seemed cruel, given the circumstances.

“I know Zed isn’t hot on the idea, but they’ve got resources.”

Carefully, Felix pulled his arm out of Elias’s grasp. “They have. And connections. Thing is, Zed might be right. If the AEF can’t support the Dreamweaver folks, then maybe no one can. It’s not a question of resources, but knowledge.” He put his hands to the sides of his head and pressed his ears, frustrated by the lack of curls to tug. “How could they put all their time into creating tools they didn’t know how to fix...” Because Project Dreamweaver had been a desperate ploy. Humanity’s last hope of turning the tide of war. Now the AEF didn’t need their tools anymore.

He let his hands drop back to his sides. “I shouldn’t feel this naïve, Eli. This surprised by the AEF’s ability to deceive their own.” Which should be beside the point. “The tech might be out there, but Zed doesn’t have time. And if I take him to Alpha now, he’ll find a way to duck and cover, I know it. He’ll think I betrayed him.” And I will have. “I can’t do that to him.”

Not after everyone else had let him down.

“Not even if they can help?”

“I’ll talk to him again when he’s awake and...clear-headed. See if we can’t just call Brennan, maybe. Put out some feelers. Maybe put him in contact with Marnie.” If anyone could find files of unpublished AEF research into the aftereffects of Project Dreamweaver, Marnie could.

Elias’s head bobbed up and down a few times. “Good. Brennan seems pretty solid and he obviously cares about his brother.”

“They all do, Eli. That’s what makes this so fucked up. I mean, I get why he doesn’t want them to see him like this. After...” He sucked in a quick breath. “I wouldn’t have been in any fit state to see my family for months after the war.” A moot point, seeing as his family had all been killed early in the conflict, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t imagined it.

“Did you ever contact Zed’s family...after, you know...”

“Yeah.” Felix showed Elias the bracelet encircling his left wrist. “Alexander, Zed’s dad, gave me my first bracelet.” The wrist-model wallet that had been so well suited to an all-but-one-handed man. “He offered more.”

“Which you didn’t take.”

“I’m not the one they wanted. They couldn’t find Zed either, and I would never have been an acceptable substitute.”

“You can give him to them now.”

If it were that simple, he would.

Huffing out a sigh, Felix tipped his head toward the companionway. “Let’s go to the med bay. My hands hurt like motherfuckers.”

After hauling himself up the steep stairs with far less than his usual grace, he turned down the corridor toward the med bay and gingerly tapped the panel to open the hatch. It slid back to reveal Nessa and Qek staring at a holo. On-screen was an image Felix wished he didn’t recognize—a human brain rendered in bright splotches of color. Zed’s brain.

Without preamble, he moved to the drawers of first aid supplies Nessa kept ready for the crew. Ness caught sight of his hands and followed. She didn’t say a word; none were really needed. They were all long familiar with his moods, and this wasn’t the first time he’d punched something until his knuckles swelled and bled.

The pain flared as she ghosted his left hand with an antiseptic wand. Warmth swaddled his knuckles a moment later as she applied a numbing agent. Then came the derm patches. Felix could hear Qek and Elias murmuring quietly together. He didn’t interrupt. He figured if Qek had solved the mystery of Zed’s brain, she’d speak up. Then a single word caught his attention, pulling him forward in an effort to hear more.

“What was that? About the stin.”

Qek turned her wide-eyed gaze toward him and he noted that the bruise across her cheek had faded a little. Given the blue tones of her skin, the mark appeared mottled rather than varicolored. The sight of the injury stoked the barely quieted rage in his belly. Ashushk were such a peaceful species—the thought anyone might want to harm one made him ill.

“Humanity is not the only species to have experimented with the stin ability to Zone and phase-shift,” Qek said, halting the rolling tide of thought battering the inside of Felix’s skull.

“Wait, what? Do you mean there are ashie super soldiers?”

Qek’s wide face smoothed and wrinkled before she replied. “Yes.”

“Holy shit.”

“Hold still,” Nessa warned as he started to pull his hand away from the derm patch she was trying to apply.

Elias frowned. “You knew?”

She glanced up. “Just now. Qek and I were tossing around some options.”

“Options?” Felix tugged at his hand again, growling softly when Ness held it still. “What do you mean?”

“Nessa and I were discussing the possibility of taking Mr. Anatolius to Ashushk Prime.” The ashushk home planet had another name, a much longer, convoluted string of consonants and barely related vowels that no human tongue could replicate. For their sake, Qek usually referred to it by the simple designation humanity had stamped it with.

“Did your soldiers...” Felix tripped over the words. “Are they...”

“I do not know the details of the program. Like your own, it was kept very quiet. But I have a friend who was involved.”

“So you knew what Zed was before he told us,” Elias said.

“No. But I suspected.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I did not think the comparison relevant until now.”

“What do you mean?” Felix asked.

“The conflict between the ashushk and the stin was one and a half Standard centuries ago. If not for my friend, I might not have even credited rumor insisting we had had such a program. With Mr. Anatolius’s worsening condition, I did a little research and discovered that though we lost a few soldiers early on, the majority lived long and productive lives.”

“Productive? As in healthy and sane?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“Did they affect the outcome of your war with the stin?” Elias asked.

What did that matter?

Felix opened his mouth to ask a more pertinent question, but Qek was already speaking.

“The ashushk are not a combative species. The only reason we survived as long as we did was our superior technology. Our enhanced soldiers were not used the same way as yours. Rather, we used the knowledge we gained from them to develop weapons that might defeat the stin.”

“But you didn’t defeat them,” Nessa put in. “The Guardians stepped in and ended the war.”

That should be significant, but Felix brushed the thought process aside in favor of the glimmer of hope Qek’s announcement ignited. The fire in his gut shot up to his chest—painful but acceptable. If the ashushk soldiers were well, then something might be done for Zed. They were different species, but advanced ashushk techniques had already revolutionized human medicine.

“The weapons?” Elias asked.

Qek shrugged. “I do not know.”

“They don’t have them. They’d have shared them with us if they did,” Felix said, dismissing what he considered an irrelevant thread of the conversation. “Qek...do you think your scientists could help Zed?”

Nessa was shaking her head. At the gesture, Qek lifted her chin.

“What?” Felix asked, looking between them.

“The AEF wouldn’t like it,” Elias said.

“The AEF can go fuck themselves.” Felix hissed as Nessa caught hold of his right hand. The knuckles had started to swell and his fingers were so stiff, he couldn’t move them independently.

Nessa picked up her wand and spoke as if passing comment on the state of his hand. Her words didn’t make sense at first. “If Qek goes home, she might gender.”

If the proverbial pin dropped, Felix didn’t hear it.

“What do you mean ‘might’?” Elias asked.

“Gendering is not a choice. Though we do not experience love, our people are a closely tied species. When we congregate, our bodies can respond to the needs of the group.”

Felix glanced at Nessa. “You knew about this too, didn’t you?”

“Yes. Hold still.”

He clenched his teeth as Nessa passed the wand over the back of his right hand, then breathed out as the anesthetic took hold. The haze of relief thickened his tongue as he sought words for the questions he wanted to ask. Damn, he was tired. “So...you, your friend might be able to help, but if we go to A Prime, you could end up stuck there.”

Forever. Gendered ashushk had to give up their former careers, didn’t they? For all her interest in human sexual practices, Qek was unusually reticent on the subject of her own species’ reproductive process. Regardless, losing their pilot would suck, particularly for Qek. Though she enjoyed flying the Chaos, she was in it for the travel. If there was a job at the far end of nowhere, that was the one she wanted to take, just so they could add a pin to her mental map of the galaxy.

“That is correct.” Qek’s wrinkles had smoothed, showing her consternation.

Fatigue swamped Felix. Chin dipping, he let his suddenly heavy head cant forward, his shoulders round down. He stopped protesting Nessa’s treatment of his hands.

Both options had a price. Zed’s family would do all in their power to aid their son, but what would it cost them? What would it cost Felix to betray his best friend? The ashushk scientists might already hold a missing piece of the puzzle and their ingenuity might serve to adapt it. But the potential cost to Qek would be too great. And Zed had already shot down any mention of contacting Marnie. Bastard seemed determined to die.

No one had said it—Ness hadn’t actually confirmed it one way or another. But Felix knew how machines worked, and the human body was nothing if not a very sophisticated and complicated machine. Zed’s was breaking down.

Covering his eyes with his bandaged hands, Felix said the only thing that summed up the situation. “Fuck!”

Chapter Eight

Zed leaned against the wall, his usual spot on the bridge, and hoped it wasn’t obvious to everyone else just how much he needed the support to stay upright. His head ached, a hard, throbbing pain that his morning dose of painkillers had barely touched. He should ask Ness for more, he knew he should, but he was caught in this weird headspace of wanting to be truthful and wanting to protect Flick from the truth. Though...he knew already, didn’t he? Hadn’t they talked?

The holes in his memory were getting bigger.

“Ah, Central.” Elias looked as if he’d smelled something particularly bad. “I hate this station.”

Ness arched a brow. “Too clean-cut for you?”

“Don’t kid yourself. Central is just like all the politicians that mill about down on Mars—they look pretty and put-together, but that’s just hiding how corrupt and awful they are.”

Flick grunted. “Careful, Eli. Your inner anarchist is showing.”

Qek’s long blue fingers poked and prodded at holos as she guided the ship closer to their destination. “I find it difficult to believe that the station that acts as the gateway to the human government establishment would be as contaminated as you say.”

“Absolute power corrupts absolutely,” Flick intoned.

She clicked, considering. “A fair point.”

Zed thought about adding his input into the conversation—he’d lived on Central for a few months after a shovel to the back of his head had ended his posting on Outrock—but talking about something so inconsequential seemed really not worth the effort. Instead, he just watched the holo display.

Central was more formally known as the Central Alliance of Planets and Stations, which resulted in the stupid acronym of CAPS—so everyone just called it Central. On Mars below, the human government operated out of a secure domed campus that kept the harshness of the planet at bay. Mars had never truly been tamed, but the environment worked as a natural layer in the security system. The only way in or out of the dome was through the station hovering in geostationary orbit. All access to the government proper was monitored and controlled—all traffic had to originate or terminate at either the station or the dome, nothing else. That particular bit of security had been implemented after a terrorist attack following humanity’s invitation to the galactic playpen.

The things people would do when they were scared.

“You’re sure Agrius doesn’t have any operations here?” Ness couldn’t hide the worry in her voice. Zed knew she was still shaken up by what had happened on Risus. He saw it on her face whenever she caught sight of Qek’s healing bruise. “If it’s as corrupt as you say it is...”

“Marnie assured me Agrius has no foothold in Sol,” Flick said, his tone reassuring.

“Right. And it’s not an Anatolius station,” Elias added with a glance at Zed. The fact that the crew was taking his wishes into account...it should have made him feel better than it did. “We’ll have time to catch our breath, maybe pick up some jobs in the home system. We could even make a stop at Earth for Qek to go sightseeing again.”

Qek’s face wrinkled with pleasure. “I would like to see Antarctica. My homeworld does not experience that sort of cold or buildup of ice.”

“Yeah, or maybe not.” Flick shuddered, then leaned toward the screen, eyes narrowed. “Is that a—”

Cold fingers sliced through the recycled air of the ship, sinking deep into Zed. Dimly he noted that the rest of the crew was shivering as well, but he was too caught up in the sensation of intrusion. His balls shrank, his gut tightened and the pain in his head spiked—then calmed.

“What the hell?” Elias gasped.

“That was a Guardian ship.” Even Qek’s voice sounded less steady than usual. “We were just scanned. It appears they are scanning all vessels approaching or leaving Central.”

“The peace accord at the Hub.” Flick squirmed in his seat, as though he was trying to erase the sense of fingers poking through his insides. Or maybe his balls had made a run for safety too. “They’re making sure there’s no funny stuff.”

A few hundred thousand klicks behind them hovered the gate that gave humanity direct access to the Hub. From experience, passing through it was uncomfortable. Having his molecules transported and put back together—or whatever it was that the gate did—would definitely not help his headache any, so he was glad they were skipping that particular joy for now.

“You mean we’re going to have to go through that again when we leave?” Elias looked decidedly green. “Shit.”

“Fun.” Everyone turned to Zed and he realized it was the first he’d spoken in...a while. He turned away from their scrutiny, leaning his temple against the wall. A flashing light on Qek’s console caught his attention. “Message?”

“Yes. A ripmail holo for Elias.” She clicked. “Would you like to accept it?”

“Who’s it from?”

“That information has been withheld.”

“Of course it has.” Elias sighed. “Yeah, sure, go ahead.”

The torso of a man floated in the middle of the bridge. Though the holo wasn’t the best quality—thanks to it being a recorded ripmail transmission instead of a more secure and tighter live jazer—Zed could tell the man’s skin was darker than Eli’s, his eyes a deep brown. His hair was gathered in strict, small braids that curved around the shape of his head and were pulled into a neat bun at the nape of his neck. He wore a serviceable SFT blouse in a muted color that might have been blue or gray—it was hard to tell in the flickering holo.

He smiled for the camera. “Greetings, Captain Idowu. My name is Salataje Nynt, and I am the Grand Moth of Agrius.”

“The Grand Moth?” Flick muttered. “Is he fucking kidding?”

“I do apologize for the quality of this transmission, but I did not know if your ship had the capacity to receive a jazer. Though that is neither here nor there.” Nynt’s eyes seemed to twinkle. Whatever the guy’s point—and Zed hoped he made it soon—it was clear he was in a good mood. That might be good for the Chaos. It also might be very, very bad.

“Your time is valuable, so I will not digress further. I wish to negotiate with you on behalf of the Agrius organization. Preferably in person, though I will understand if you do not wish to meet.”

“Oh hell no, we’re not meeting—”

“Fix, shush.”

Nynt’s expression sobered slightly. “That said, I hope you understand that a face-to-face meeting is not something I offer lightly or to many individuals. I will transmit contact coordinates following the holo. Please reply within twenty-four hours to confirm receipt of this message and inform me if you wish to enter negotiations. Thank you, Captain, and may your skies be clear.”

Ness was the first to speak after Nynt’s image winked out. “I don’t even know what to think of that. They want to negotiate? With us?”

“Nope, they don’t. It’s a trap.” Flick leaned back in his seat, his features set into a disbelieving frown. “Total trap. Tell me I’m not the only one seeing it.”

Elias tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair, his face twisted up into the expression that Zed recognized as his thinking face. “We don’t know enough.”

“Exactly. Maybe he’s not even connected to Agrius. Maybe this is some massive con—”

“No. Mr. Nynt sent along confirmation of his identity with the contact coordinates,” Qek reported, clicking as she scanned the information on the ripmail interface. Her fingers flew over another window and she clicked again. “I have confirmed he is who he said he is—the Grand Moth of Agrius.”

“What kind of title is that, anyway? Other than a stupid one?” Flick scoffed. “You’re not considering replying, Eli.”

Elias scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’ve got a day to think about it, right? So I’m going to think about it.”

“The whole point of coming to Central was so that we were out of Agrius’s territory.”

“I know, but...” Elias shook his head. “I need to think about it.”

Zed didn’t miss that no one asked for his opinion. A few days ago, he might have been insulted. Now, though, he was just glad he didn’t have to talk. He closed his eyes as Flick launched into another set of reasons why they couldn’t trust Nynt’s message—and suddenly someone was touching his arm, jolting him back to awareness. The pain between his temples flared, making him squint.

Ness watched him with compassion in her gaze and a slight, sad smile on her lips. “Why don’t you go lie down, hon?”

Yeah. Lying down sounded like a good idea. “Can I get another dose?” It was early, but...he needed it.

“Sure.” Ness cupped his elbow and guided him toward the door. “Let’s get you settled and I’ll go get it.”

Part of him wanted to insist that—fuck, he couldn’t even remember why her words both comforted and rankled. He decided it didn’t matter and followed her docilely out into the hall.

* * *

Felix blinked and sucked in a breath as he jolted out of sleep, instinct warning him to remain still and silent. A second later, he realized he couldn’t see. He blinked multiple times, looking for the rippled gray triangle of lamplight that usually arced across the ceiling of his quarters during the night cycle when main lighting was dimmed. Not there. Panic tickled the base of his throat like a misplaced heartbeat. He hated the dark. He didn’t simply fear it—the absence of light terrified him. He couldn’t think in the dark. He could only feel the prickle of horror creeping across his skin as memories slithered from the most distant corners of his mind—confinement, imprisonment, close and damp darkness, the clang of tools, mocking laughter, the rattled breath of his stin captors, the fear of never seeing the sky, the stars again.

He rolled to the side and a hand clamped down across his wrist. Felix bucked and pulled against the restraint. “Zed?” His harsh whisper echoed in the darkness.

The fingers of his left hand lacked the strength and dexterity to work Zed’s hand free from his wrist. His abused knuckles screamed into the dark. “Let me go. Please...” He hissed and pulled again. “The light, turn on the light!”

Another hand pressed against his lips, catching his mouth half open. Felix bucked and yelled as he struggled to pull free. What the fuck? Zed wouldn’t hurt him. Zed would never hurt him. Pain sliced across the back of his hand—a derm patch pulling loose.

“Shh.”

The sibilant whisper offered no respite. Felix tried to bite the hand across his mouth. Panic arched his back. He thrashed against the hold of both hands, then pulled his knees up and kicked out. Zed’s strength and bulk defeated him. The taste of Zed’s soap collected at the back of his throat, bitter and sharp.

Felix continued to struggle, not understanding why Zed would hold him down. He knew Felix hated the dark. He’d joked about having to sleep with the lamp on. His ribbing had always been gentle, though. Understanding always warmed his words. This...this was a waking nightmare.

“Hostiles in the vicinity. Keep your head down and shut up.” Zed’s dry monotone drove another spike of terror through Felix’s chest, and a new fear emerged from the smothering darkness: had Zed Zoned in his sleep?

Knowing he couldn’t fight Zed, especially not when he Zoned, Felix stopped struggling. Breathing against the impenetrable black, he lay still, skin itching with all he held on to—fear and sanity. The pressure of Zed’s hands eased almost instantly, then both withdrew.

Oh, thank God.

Felix sat up, automatically reaching to rub his newly mangled wrist. “What the f—” Zed’s hand smacked across his mouth again. Felix fell back, away from the offensive touch. “Zed! Snap out of it.”

He was angry now, but he still needed light, or he’d risk losing his marbles and his temper. He rolled toward the end of the bed and slid off onto the deck, jumping away from the feel of the other man, the looming darkness within the darkness. He sought the small pinpricks of illumination with which to navigate his quarters—the LEDs of the comm panel, the soft glow of the message light on his bracelet. Neither gave off much light and before he could reach his desk, a strong arm caught him around the waist and lifted him from his feet.

“Goddamn it. Let me go!” Felix found he couldn’t even twist in the hold.

“We need to stay in cover.”

“Why?” Kicking back, Felix attempted to wriggle free. Zed’s arms might as well have been tungsten carbide.

Breath tickled his ear. “They’re just over that rise.”

A horrible weakness radiated out from Felix’s core, churning through his gut, weighting his limbs. He’d almost accepted that Zed had slipped into the Zone, and if he could find a rational moment, Felix might be able to say he’d expected it. He was so still at night, he might well have been Zoning in his sleep for some time. But for Zed to move from blankness to madness, for his trips to start reflecting the degradation of his mind—it was too much.

Despair and dread were uneasy allies and neither was interested in helping him. Not right then.

Think, Felix. Think!

“I’ll duck down.” A soft quaver betrayed his distress. “I’ll be quiet.”

How could he break Zed free from this shared nightmare? He’d only barely started to recognize the gaps when he was awake—the extended silences, the daydreams that were not dreams. The safest course—the only viable course—might be to play along and make sure Zed knew they were on the same team. Again, Felix stopped struggling.

Zed responded almost instantly, setting him on his feet. Swallowing, Felix listened to the darkness and focused on what might have set Zed off. He heard nothing but his own labored breaths. Beneath, the thrum of his blood shunting through his veins, pursued by cold adrenaline.

“Sit rep,” he murmured, pursuing his chosen course.

“Four bugs at three o’clock. Fully armored.”

Bugs. What they called the stin.

Felix was combat trained, but as a mechanical engineer he had been one step removed from the front line until his capture. Then he’d had nearly four years to put theory into practice, and he had no doubt his military training had been all that had saved him from a withering death in the mines. That, and perhaps his need to be obstinate.

Any mention of the stin stirred fear and anger, usually regimented into degrees of usefulness. But in the dark with Zed pushing him deep into cover behind his bunk, reporting in that flat and lifeless tone, Felix struggled to hold on to what was important. He needed to be strong, and the jerky lassitude pushing at his limbs interfered with that. The images invading his memories didn’t help.

He’d been up close and personal with the tall, insectoid aliens—segmented torsos and appendages armored in gray-green chitin—far too often. He knew their smell, the rattle of their breath, the rustle of their limbs as they moved and gestured. He knew more, so much more, all of it terrifying.

I’m on board the Chaos. I am safe, I am free.

His lungs hitched as he tried for a deeper breath, then relaxed as he managed another. Felix could just make out the outline of the shelf over his bunk. The door to his quarters remained lost in the heavy dusk, but he could see the comm panel beside it, the tiny points of light a beacon. Zed had nudged him against the wall between the end of the bed and the desk. Felix allowed himself to be situated. He could feel Zed next to him—not just his body, but the Zone. It surrounded Zed like a heavy cloak, a miasma of tension, and it occurred to Felix that he’d not actually felt the Zone before.

“Exit strategy,” he prompted shakily, hoping to deter Zed from engaging his imaginary targets—and if they left his quarters, the light of the engineering bay might snap him back into reality.

Zed cocked his head, as if listening for relayed instructions, then directed his focus toward the far corner of the room where Felix’s kick bag hung in the shadows. “Negative on the exit. We are weapons free. Waiting for permission to engage.”

Shit, he didn’t actually have a weapon, did he?

“There are four of them and two of us,” Felix pointed out. Even if the odds were reversed, SOP would be to withdraw from the fight. On the ground, four human soldiers to one stin was the only combination with a projected favorable outcome. The aliens were too fast, too powerful.

“Do we have reinforcements on the other side of that hatch?” Felix indicated the door, hoping the fact they were not actually hunkered down behind a hillock might seep into Zed’s state of consciousness.

Zed jerked to the left, obviously seeking the outline of the door. Then he leaned forward, his attention back on the corner. “Negative. The bunker has not been secured.”

And just like that, the hatch to freedom became a potential hazard. Fuck!

“We were in there before,” Felix tried. “It’s been cleared.”

Zed shifted again, his bulk angling toward Felix this time. “Who are you?”

Oh, shit.

“Lieutenant Ingesson, sir.”

As with the Zone, Felix could feel Zed’s uncertainty. Should he have used his first name? How did one play a game with no clear rules?

“It’s me, Zed. Felix Ingesson.”

“Lieutenant Felix Ingesson is dead. MIA in 2261. Declared KIA in 2262.”

“I’m alive, Zed. You’re aboard my ship. Our ship.”

Zed tapped his throat as if trying to engage a sub-dermal mic. When he received no response, his shadow shifted abruptly and then the warm darkness that formed his outline became fluid. He didn’t disappear, he hadn’t phase-shifted, but he moved so fast, his outline blurred, and Felix found himself slammed against the bulkhead. One hand ground his shoulder into the plated steel, the other sought his throat. Felix kicked out, feet seeking belly, rib cage, or lower, that vulnerable point that could take a grown man down. Breath puffed across his face in short grunts as his kicks connected, but nothing rocked Zed back. Calloused fingers grazed his neck, then clamped around his throat.

“Zed! It’s me! Felix. God...” The fingers tightened. “I’m Flick. Look at me, turn on the fucking light and look at me-hee.” The last came out on a wheeze. As his limbs flailed, his mind scrabbled for purchase. “We’re best friends. Always have been...always...” His throat burned. “I stole your...eight years...Academy...grad...u...” Their combined history came in short gasps as fingers of iron cut off his air supply.

“Love...Zed. Please don’t...”

Chapter Nine

Zed woke up to a nightmare.

Flick’s throat in his hands. Flick’s discolored face. Horrified, Zed let go and stepped back. Pain spiked through his temples as he watched Flick collapse onto his hands and knees, wheezing. He barely sucked in a handful of breaths before he was up again, stumbling through the dark to engage all the lights the cabin had to offer.

Zed staggered backward until his back connected with the wall. His knees gave out and he thudded to his ass, slumping forward, head cupped in his hands. He couldn’t look at Flick, couldn’t bear to see the red handprint illuminated by the harsh lights.

He’d almost...he’d almost...

“Zed?”

He looked up, surprised to see Ness crouched in front of him. Had he lost time again? Flick stood behind her, all but vibrating—from anger, or fear, or worry, Zed couldn’t tell. She offered him her small professional smile—the one she pulled out when shit was really bad. “You with us?”

He shook his head and tried to look down again, but she stopped the movement with the heel of her palm against his forehead. “Uh-uh, look at me.” She shifted her fingers to his chin, holding him still, and shined her damned penlight in his eyes. “You being your quiet and contemplative self, or is it something else?”

He pulled his chin from her grasp, gently, and his gaze rested on Flick for a moment. She had to ask? He’d just woken up strangling Flick. His best friend, his lover, the one person of all people who should be safe in his arms. He’d betrayed that trust, that friendship—not only now, but so many times. When he’d left Flick after graduation. When he hadn’t searched for him when he’d gone MIA. When he’d given up all contact with everyone and didn’t know...

“Zed?” The light flashing in his eyes brought him back.

He squinted, pain flaring again. “I feel off. I’m not...coming back together.”

“Headache?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know what day it is?”

Of course he did, it was...Zed’s mouth opened and closed as he realized that he had no idea. “No.”

“Time?”

It was after dinner, wasn’t it? But...how far after...? Fuck. “No.” His chest tightened, as if someone was screwing a band around it.

“What station are we on?”

The first station name that popped into mind left his lips. “Dardanos.” No...shit, that wasn’t right. “Hemera?”

A soft breath escaped Flick. “Ness, stop.” His voice was rough, scratchy.

She ignored him. “What’s your full name?”

“Zander Damianos Anatolius.” That was right. That felt right.

“And his?” She pointed to Flick.

“Flick.” No, that wasn’t his full name. His full name was...was...”I—I know this.”

Ness waited, her expression calm and unaffected, which did nothing to soothe the panic starting to sputter in his chest. When he looked at Flick he knew Flick wasn’t his full name. He knew who he was and what role he filled in his life, what role he’d always filled, but...that one piece wasn’t falling into place.

“Fuck. I know...oh God, why can’t I...”

Flick knelt beside him and reached for his hand. “It’s okay. Shh, it’s all right.”

Zed gripped his fingers tightly. “No, it’s not okay. I know your name! Why can’t I...why can’t....” Fuck! It was...goddamn it, it was...”Felix. Felix.”

“Yeah. Felix.” Flick’s lips curved upward, a brief, brief smile, and he glanced at Nessa before meeting Zed’s gaze again. “Felix Ingesson.”

“I know that,” Zed whispered. “Felix Ingesson. Felix Ingesson.” How could he forget? How could he ever forget? “I’m sorry. Damn it, Flick, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” Flick pulled Zed’s hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to a knuckle. “Ness is going to take care of you.”

“As best I can,” she agreed.

“You need to get me off the ship.”

Flick’s gaze darkened. “No.”

“I’m a danger. I almost—”

“But you didn’t. You snapped out of it.”

“Fixer...”

“Shut up, Elias,” Flick snapped over his shoulder. “We’re not abandoning him.”

Zed lifted his gaze to Elias’s, who hovered near the cabin door with Qek. Elias’s expression was strained, lines etched around his eyes and mouth. In contrast, Qek’s features were smooth and wrinkle-free, a sign of her concern.

“You need your family,” Elias said. “They’ve got resources—”

Zed shook his head, panic rising, his breath coming too quick. “No. I don’t want them to know.”

“Damn it, they could help.”

“Or knowing this could ruin—” Zed broke off with a grunt as the hot spike he’d almost gotten used to poked his brain again.

“What about an AEF hospital?” Ness asked.

“No.” But why not? The words didn’t want to form, but he had to say it, had to explain again because he knew they didn’t really understand, they didn’t really comprehend how thoroughly he’d been left in the wind. God, his thoughts were a mess. “The AEF cut us loose.”

“Yeah. You told us that before. But maybe—”

“No, they cut us loose. They don’t want to treat us. They don’t want to help.”

Elias pushed away from the wall and took a step forward. “I get what he means. They cut them loose, knowing their time was limited, and if he shows up now, like this, they’re just going to help the end come. Am I right?”

Zed heaved out a relieved breath that someone understood. “Yes. That’s right.”

Ness made a frustrated noise. “But your family—”

He scrambled to get up, ignoring the protests from the rest of the crew. Clothes, he needed clothes. And his stash of painkillers. He had enough to—

Fuck. Maybe that was the solution.

“What are you doing?” Flick demanded as Zed searched unsteadily for what he needed.

“Leaving.” Where were his pills?

“Okay, no. Wait.” Ness blocked his path. “You’re not leaving.”

The hell he wasn’t. He grabbed a pair of pants he found on the floor, unsure if they were his or Flick’s until he pulled them on and discovered they fit. “What station are we on?”

“Central,” Flick supplied.

Zed paused. “I lived here for a few months.”

“Right, after you took the shovel to the head.”

“I didn’t know he was married at first. I should’ve asked. Why didn’t I ask?” He realized his hands were on the fly of his pants but he couldn’t remember if he’d been fastening them or removing them. “What am I doing?”

“If we try to contact your family for you, you’ll be gone, won’t you?” Elias asked, his voice soft.

Oh, right. That was what he’d been doing. “They can’t know. This isn’t...I’m not...” Damn it, when had words gotten so hard? “Flick?”

Flick swallowed, wincing at the movement, which reminded Zed all over again what he’d done. “I think he’s got a valid worry about his dad. You’ve never met Alexander Anatolius. He’s...intense. In a good way, usually. But if you hurt his family...” He scrubbed a hand over his shorn hair. “I don’t know what to do, but I’m not letting you walk off this ship.”

Qek clicked. “My solution is still viable.”

“No, it’s not,” Flick countered. “It’s too big of a risk. We can’t ask you—”

“You are not asking. I am offering. There is a significant difference.”

Zed frowned. Did he have another hole in his memory? What solution? Ness noticed his confusion and laid a gentle hand on his arm. “The ashies experimented with stin poison too. They might know how to mitigate its effects but going to Ashie Prime could cause Qek to gender.”

“Oh.” Zed blinked, trying to understand the ramifications of that statement. He had a vague recollection of a conversation on Risus about ashie gender—but the details escaped him.

“If you wish to ensure your family does not throw their weight around the galaxy in your defense, this may be your only alternative.”

“The potential cost is too high.” Flick drew close to Zed, and Zed leaned more heavily into his anchor. God, he was tired. He just wanted to lie down with Flick and forget. Forget everything.

“Zed. Zed!”

He blinked, realizing that he was no longer leaning forward but standing upright, spine stiff. Flick had both hands on his shoulders and he was looking into his eyes, a vertical furrow etched between his brows.

“You back?” he asked softly.

“Where’d I go?” The slight uptick in the pounding in his head answered that question—as did the thoughts that shifted around, as insubstantial as scraps of paper on the wind. “You’re Felix Ingesson. Felix Ingesson.”

One of Flick’s hands left his shoulder to weave their fingers together, the grip tight enough to be painful. “I’ve got you.”

Qek clicked, the sound strangely sad. “I do not think time is on our side.”

Silence filled the cabin, time marked only by soft breaths. Finally, Eli nodded. “Qek, set a course for Ashie Prime.”

Zed shook his head. “No, Elias—”

Qek stepped up beside Flick and slipped her hand beneath the one that was already clasping Zed’s. “Fixer is my friend. You both came to my rescue on Risus. Because of that, I would attempt to dance with fate.” She looked at Zed. “So you may realize yours.”

Chapter Ten

Ashushk Prime was a beautiful planet. From space, it resembled polished charoite—purple clouds writhed across the surface, hiding deep, dark oceans and strings of islands. Below the clouds, the filtered light altered the spectrum so that everything appeared tinged with violet. Red tended toward deep purple, pink softened to lavender. The ashushk themselves varied, depending upon their skin tone. Qek’s blue softened, which matched her temperament perfectly.

Elias had visited the ashushk homeworld twice before, but never with the Chaos. Studying his crew as they stretched out the kinks from a twelve-hour ride down the space elevator—the ecology of the planet was too delicate to suffer a shuttle port, if they had an island large enough to support such a structure—he noted how the filtered light lent unflattering shadows to all their complexions. Qek might appear quiet and composed, but the smoothness of her skin was telling. Nessa had thumbprint-sized hollows beneath her eyes. Elias reminded himself, again, not to comment. She had been moodier than usual over the past week. Hell, they all had.

Fixer and Zed both looked haunted and they walked as if they feared a single misstep would place them on top of a landmine. Elias’s heart twisted for them. For the past several days, the pair had alternately clung and bounced. The emotion marring the expression of one perfectly reflected the other, however. They were both soldiers, albeit retired. But the iron core within had become brittle. One hard fall and they would shatter.

The door to the arrival lounge irised open, revealing a small delegation of ashushk. None stood taller than Fix’s shoulder, and Fixer was not a tall man. Their skin tone ranged from gray to violet, the startling blue apparently more visible off-planet than on. Elias studied the ashushk arrayed before him and quickly determined only two of the four appeared young enough to flirt with their very alien form of sexuality. Again, he considered the risk Qek had taken in bringing them here. In another decade, she would be too old to gender. Until then, just being among her people might spark the change. Like her scientific friends, the ashushk pilot would concede to the demands of nature, publicly declare it an honor to serve—but the life she so enjoyed would be over.

Qek moved forward to greet the delegates in her own language. The ashushk tongue had a Khosian feel to it—clicking consonants and swallowed vowels. Ceremony was brief, the ashushk being too straightforward to indulge in pomp and circumstance. After a simple exchange, Qek turned a wrinkled smile toward her crew. As one, they shuffled forward for introductions.

“Captain Idowu, may I present Rhyniche, director of the Vesenthden Institute. Rhyniche is our foremost expert on the stin, chemically speaking.”

Elias wondered if “Rhy-niche” was a simplified version or the ashushk’s real name.

The gray ashushk smiled, skin folding softly about its mouth. “It is an honor to meet friends of Qekelough’s.”

Qek had referred to his crew as friends. Warmth bloomed in Elias’s heart as he acknowledged the gift given him by his pilot. “It is an honor to be introduced as such.”

A light danced in Rhyniche’s large, dark eyes. The director seemed pleased Elias had grasped the weight of the simple introduction.

Elias gestured to the rest of his crew in turn. “I’d like to introduce our ship’s doctor, Nessa O’Brien. My partner and engineer, Felix Ingesson, and our security officer, Zander Anatolius.”

If the ashushk delegation had eyebrows, all might have risen at the last introduction. Foreheads creased upward instead, and four pairs of large eyes pointed toward Zed, who remained still beneath their scrutiny, his posture exuding none of the arrogance one might expect from the third son of the richest man in the galaxy. Elias had come to appreciate that distinction. Zed had the nonchalance of the wealthy, but not the curious blindness that often accompanied it. He measured his comrades emotionally rather than by status. He was a good man, one Elias had become glad to count as a friend—even if he did have a nasty habit of going for the neck.

Rhyniche delivered a nod to each of the crew, then paused in front of Qek. “You did not mention the name Anatolius in your communication.”

Qek’s face wrinkled. “No, I did not.”

Rhyniche clicked quietly for several seconds. “You always did have an odd sense of humor, Qekelough.”

“Yes,” she agreed before indulging in a pair of soft clicks.

Elias looked back and forth between the two ashushk, unsure of the joke. Judging by the flick of Zed’s gray eyes, he too sought the punch line.

Qek waved her hand between the two groups in a very human gesture. “The ashushk do not express surprise very often.”

“No, we do not,” Rhyniche agreed. The director tipped its head toward Zed. “I am delighted by your presence, Mr. Anatolius. Your family is well thought of. In fact, I have consulted with many of your scientists stationed at Chloris.”

Zed’s shoulders relaxed as he proved, once again, that he wasn’t an asshole. Or, at the very least, could take a joke. Smiling, he dipped his chin again. “I am glad to hear it.”

Elias carefully let out a held breath. Proper rest and lack of stress seemed to diminish the frequency and duration of Zed’s episodes. He’d feared the long ride to the surface might have tested him, but Zed still appeared lucid.

But for how long?

Rhyniche gestured to its companions and introduced each by name and title. They were diplomatic functionaries, all of them, hence their recognition of one of the more famous names in the galaxy. The smallest, Banqueler, stepped toward Elias. “I will be your liaison for the duration of your visit. If you will accompany me, I will show you to your accommodations.”

“Thank you.”

Fixer leaned toward Qek and murmured. She pressed her palm to his arm and responded with a few quiet words. Again, Elias witnessed a subtle stretch of surprise ripple across the delegates’ faces. The ashushk did not make a habit of touching, not in the casual and friendly sense humans did.

Qek turned to Rhyniche. “Mr. Ingesson would like to know when he and Mr. Anatolius might meet with you.”

Rhyniche studied the two men a moment, round, unblinking eyes revolving back and forth in lidless sockets. Then the director offered a wrinkled smile. “I thought you might want to refresh yourselves. Perhaps we can schedule a consultation after you are settled.”

“I would prefer now,” Zed said, bowing his head slightly. “If you have no objections.”

Rhyniche clicked with apparent pleasure at Zed’s eagerness. “None at all, Mr. Anatolius. The facilities for treatment are on the same island as your quarters. Banqueler will show you to my office in...let us say, thirty minutes, Standard? I will go ahead and prepare.”

“Please call me Zed. Or Zander if you’re more comfortable with that.” He turned a half smile toward Qek. “And yes, thirty minutes sounds perfect.”

“Excellent.” Rhyniche did not test either alternative name. The ashushk might not stand on ceremony, but they could be oddly formal when it came to interpersonal relationships.

Outside the lounge, a glassed-in skyway arced over the purple ocean, leading to another island in the archipelago that served the elevator. After days of confinement aboard the Chaos—which had been akin to being trapped in a bag of angry cats—and the trip down the cord, Elias relished the opportunity to stretch his legs.

Banqueler kept up a steady stream of commentary, pointing out sights as they passed the long windows—the distant chain of islands that represented the planet’s capital territory, an extinct volcano nudging up out of the ocean on the other side, the wide beach on the island they approached, and mention of the spectacular sunsets afforded by the ever-present cloud cover, which seemed less dense when viewed from below.

“The clouds thin toward the horizon at dusk and dawn, giving the sky a stratified appearance. The colors range from...” Banqueler paused a moment, then produced a strangled click for Qek to translate.

“Magenta.” Qek turned to Fix. “Magenta is a deep red, is it not?”

Fixer blinked at her, his hazel eyes rendered a dark gray by the altered spectrum. “Red,” he said simply before his attention seemed to wander again, his gaze drawn back to the view outside the skyway.

Nessa intervened. “Magenta is a very deep shade of red. You might compare it to the color of oxygenated blood. Human blood, that is.”

Their liaison started gently. “Ashushk blood ranges from blue to purple, but I think that in an altered spectrum, it might more closely resemble human blood.”

“Indeed, it does,” Qek put in.

Can we stop talking about blood? Please.

Elias glanced over at Zed. He appeared to be following the conversation and did not seem overly disturbed. Maybe he was just too damned tired. Take Nessa’s thumbprints, double them, and you had the circles beneath his eyes. Fix continued studying the view, but the set of his shoulders indicated he was listening, despite his apparent disconnection.

Fixer usually had a smile for anyone and everyone, but he was a lot like an ashushk when it came to interpersonal relationships. He didn’t connect easily. Elias knew the war had changed him from the man Zed remembered, and he had enjoyed watching the slow thaw, the more frequent spark in his friend’s eyes, the increased liveliness of his mood. Not that the guy brooded, he just...tinkered. Since Zed stepped aboard, Fix tinkered less.

Breathing out a slow sigh, Elias tuned back into the conversation. They had moved on to the concept of vacations, and Banqueler enthusiastically recommended several locations where one might “get away from it all.” The idea of vacationing ashushk made him smile.

The gentle arc of the skyway terminated in a junction high above the largest island in the chain. According to his wallet, they had walked just over a kilometer from the elevator station. Elias looked back along the bridge and marveled at the feat of engineering. How did it stay aloft? Maybe he could ask Fix for his theories, see if he could encourage the engineer to think of something other than Zed’s condition.

Banqueler gestured to another circular door and it irised open to reveal an elevator. “Our ride down.” The gray face wrinkled. “It will take less than a minute, I assure you.”

Round eyes swiveled toward Fixer, who had taken a step back from the small chamber. Despite having spent most of his life in space, he didn’t like cramped quarters. Zed slid his arm around Fix’s shoulders and the pair leaned together briefly as they stepped through the door. Nessa’s cheeks rounded, and when she showed her smile to Elias, he returned it. Less than a minute later, they emerged into the thick atmosphere of Ashushk Prime.

Closing his eyes, Elias drew in a deep breath. His lungs quivered slightly as the air plunged into his chest. The oxygen-nitrogen mix wasn’t exactly the same as Earth but close enough they could breathe comfortably without the aid of respirators. An extended stay might require the use of blood thinners. Thankfully, that was a medical mystery solved by humanity long before the dawn of space travel.

A vehicle closely resembling a giant silver ladybug hovered over a slender ribbon that apparently served as a road. Elias blinked at the odd material and filed away another question for Fix. If only he could distract him for the entirety of their stay. One of the ladybug’s wings lifted to reveal a comfortable interior. Banqueler ushered them all inside. Seconds later, they flew along the ribbon at a stomach-jerking speed. Elias swallowed over the urge to revisit lunch. The ribbon straightened into a spear that seemed to pierce the purple air. The car followed the ramp and sailed from the end with a small lurch. Nessa stifled a squeak. Elias took the opportunity to lean in and bump his shoulder to hers. She turned to him with a rueful grin.

After another short journey across the somnolent ocean, they flew over an island that looked like something out of a travel holo: wide beaches dotted with trees that resembled palms, the broad leaves purple instead of green. The trees banded together toward the middle of the island to form a canopy over a dense jungle. Rocky buttes peeked between the lavender blanket here and there. The few clearings showed clusters of transparent domes resembling giant soap bubbles. The ashushk liked to view their world and Elias could not blame them. It was lovely. If this was the last place a man ever saw...

Sternly, Elias turned his thoughts away from eulogizing his companions and turned to their guide. “Is this where we are staying?”

“Yes!” Banqueler said. “I hope it meets with your approval.”

“It’s gorgeous.” Nessa tilted her head. “Qekelough has told me much about her home, but she never mentioned how beautiful it was.”

Banqueler’s forehead wrinkled. “You have chosen a human pronoun.” The statement was directed at Qek.

She nodded. “I work with a human crew. I would rather be a she than an it. Our refrigeration unit is an it.”

Banqueler clicked nervously. Given the nature of their sexuality, that was understandable. Maybe he thought taking a pronoun was tempting fate?

Five private soap bubbles had been reserved for the crew of the Chaos. Each opened out onto a large, communal lounge. After passing along a few more cheery comments, Banqueler and Qek withdrew, leaving them to choose rooms and avail themselves of the bathrooms and refreshments. The days on Ashushk Prime were long, some thirty Standard hours, so they had plenty of time to do just that while Zed and Fix met with the doctors and scientists.

A quick survey of the tense yet tired postures of his crew indicated any idle hours would be more torturous than not, and the gloom that hovered over them like a dense cloud of something other than purple made it difficult to embrace any sense of hope. His crew was his family. They smiled together and they hurt together. They had journeyed to this planet to help one of their own.

More than anything, he wanted to fly up out of the clouds stitched closer together than ever, the five of them healed and whole.

Elias sidled over to Fixer, who had found yet another window to gaze out of.

“It’s breathtaking, isn’t it?”

Fix looked up at him, lips twisting as they sometimes did when he sought an appropriate response.

A soft chime at the door indicated Banqueler had returned, ready to take Fixer and Zed to their appointment. Elias couldn’t find the appropriate words, settling instead for a quick squeeze of Fix’s shoulder before he and Zed disappeared through the hatch with their guide.

As soon as the door closed, worry for the two men swamped him.

The scent of lavender, weirdly appropriate for the ashushk planet, tickled his nose. Nessa appeared at his elbow. She looked up at him and smiled. “Come on, Gramps. I think the kids are in good hands.”

Elias snorted. “Gramps.” He reached up to massage the wrinkles from his forehead. It seemed his head had ached for weeks. Not like Zed’s—God, not like that. “I...” Fatigue crashed down over his shoulders. “I’m exhausted.”

“Take a nap?”

“I don’t even know if the ashushk sleep in beds.” He eyed the marshmallows collected in the center of the room. “Everything is so round.” He’d never been accommodated by the ashushk before, and their public areas usually had recognizable furniture.

Nessa wandered over to the closest puff and dropped into it. The shape flattened slightly, then reformed around her until it looked as if she were reclining in one of those slack cushion chairs kids liked.

“Huh.”

She tipped her head toward another of the puffs. “Tap that one twice on the top.”

Elias did as instructed and watched with tired amazement—or perhaps amusement—as the flattening occurred again, then stabilized so that he stood before a low, wide, round pedestal. A table. He flopped back into the next piece and groaned as it shaped around him. “Oh, man, I could get used to this.” Furniture that shaped to their needs—they should stuff the Chaos with these marshmallows. He’d have to have a word with Qek.

As if on cue, his wallet buzzed. Lifting his hip, Elias wrestled the square of plastic out of his pocket and flipped it open. A holo sprang into the air listing several ripmails and a jazer he couldn’t access without a console—which the Chaos did not have. The majority of the messages were from Nynt. Elias had opened two of them earlier that week, and he’d replied to one, letting the Grand Fucking Moth know that they had urgent, personal business to conduct that would occupy them fully for the foreseeable future.

He opened the newest ripmail. Nynt entered the room, thankfully pixelated.

“As I have not received a response to my last missive,”—honestly, who used words like missive?—”I will do you the courtesy of assuming it was lost in transmission and will restate my case. I contacted you in good faith, Captain Idowu.”

Elias paused the transmission to cast an aside to Nessa. “That’s rich, coming from a criminal mastermind.”

“He calls himself the Grand Moth, Eli.”

Fair enough.

Nessa lifted her chin and Elias resumed the playback. “I wish to deal like the civilized adults we are. If you cannot see clear to respond to my invitation to meet, however, then I will have no recourse but to—”

Elias cut the transmission and let his head flop back into the firm support of his puffy chair. “I can’t even find the energy to get all indignant at his tone, let alone pissed off.” A few squeaky moments later, Ness’s lavender scent wafted close and then a warm thumb traced a circle over his temple. “Mmm, that’s good.” He rolled his head toward her hand and she smoothed her palm across his scalp.

“You told him a meeting wasn’t feasible right now, didn’t you?”

“I did. I wonder if he got the message and is ignoring it, or if it really did go missing. Communications can get freaky around Central.” Looming gates to the far end of the galaxy, Guardian ships scanning everyone’s balls. AEF drift ships bouncing signals back and forth. “Either way, there’s nothing I can do about it now. We’re light-centuries away from Agrius territory and occupied with shit that’s way more important than this grudge he has going with us.” The indignation he’d failed to find earlier rose up out of the warmth of the chair cushioning his bony ass. “We haven’t killed any of his people recently. Not even the woman who threatened Qek.” His brows drew together. Nessa’s warm fingers followed them down before tracing circles across his forehead. “And whatever ran out of that creepy-ass forest on Risus was not on my payroll. We were told no weapons planetside, we took no weapons planetside.”

Nessa’s palm flattened again. “This isn’t much of a vacation, but Banqueler had one thing right. It is an opportunity for us to get away from it all and focus on what’s important right now. Helping Zed, supporting him and Fix. Looking out for Qek. To do those things, we need to look after ourselves. We can’t help them if we’re falling apart.”

Elias opened his eyes and looked up at Nessa. He reached for her hand, clasped it and brought it to his lips. “I don’t thank you enough for all you do.”

She answered with a beautiful smile.

Though their relationship seesawed between friends and more than friends, he knew that the underlying bond was firm. Whatever their current status, they were friends, and Nessa would always be there for him as much as she was for the rest of the crew.

Chapter Eleven

Zed could feel the Zone plucking at his consciousness. He imagined it like a circling coyote, just waiting for its prey to collapse with exhaustion before it darted forward, ripping out chunks of meat. Or, in his case, thoughts. Memories. Bits of who he was, who he’d built himself to be over the past thirty-one years.

How long would it be until there was nothing left of him?

“Hey.” Flick nudged his elbow. “You with me?”

“Tired,” Zed admitted, settling back into the comfortably puffy chair in front of Rhyniche’s empty desk. After explaining what he could of his symptoms, the doctor had examined him, referred to notes provided by Qek and Ness—then scurried off...somewhere. “Feeling scattered.”

“He’ll be back—” Flick frowned. “I shouldn’t call him him, should I?”

“Probably not.”

“Do I use it, then?”

“Seems kind of rude.”

“Yeah, to us. Because we’re human.”

Zed rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Whatever.”

Flick didn’t ask if his head ached—that was a given, now, and Zed appreciated not having to confirm it yet again. He didn’t complain about Zed’s exhausted tone, either, knowing it wasn’t directed at anyone or anything in particular. Just the situation.

“You haven’t Zoned in a while.”

“Well, now you’ve jinxed it.”

“I just meant—”

Clicks preceded Rhyniche into the room. The ashie doctor seemed excited—or at least more animated than it had earlier. “I apologize for keeping you waiting,” it said, every other word partially obscured by clicks. After living in close quarters with Qek over the past few weeks, Zed was familiar enough with that ashie quirk that he could still interpret what the doctor was saying. “I believe we have a starting point.” It held up a hypo-syringe.

Flick stiffened. “You’re going to explain what that is, right?”

“Of course.” Rhyniche’s clicks became more subdued. “First, I must stress that this is not a cure. Based on what you and Dr. O’Brien and Qekelough have explained of your symptoms, however, this may help.”

“‘This’ being...” Zed prompted.

“A neural inhibitor based on a formula that was developed for ashushk soldiers during our war with the stin. You see, it is incorrect to state that it is the stin poison that is harming you. Rather, it is the neurochemical changes wrought by the poison that your body can no longer support. Do you understand thus far?”

Flick bristled. “He’s not an idiot.”

“My apologies. I did not mean to imply he was, only that I know that it is sometimes difficult to grasp the larger medical picture when you are in the midst of it.”

Zed entwined his fingers with Flick’s, rubbing his thumb across the back of Flick’s hand. “Go on,” he prompted.

“Given the magnitude of the changes to your bodily chemistry, and the fact that human physiology differs significantly from ashushk, I am unsure if the inhibitor will have much of an effect.” Rhyniche’s face grew smooth. “It may not affect you at all. Or it might slow the deterioration. As I said, it is a starting point. If it works, even in a minute fashion, we have a path to pursue toward a cure.”

Having more alien drugs injected into his body was not Zed’s idea of a good time, but if it would keep the coyote at bay...”Any expected side effects?”

“I would only be able to tell you what ashushk soldiers reported. The same may not apply to you.”

“And what did they report?”

“Drowsiness and sluggishness seemed to be the most common side effects.”

He was already sleeping a lot, as it was. Maybe he’d sleep more—or maybe the sleep he got would be restful instead of the light doze he allowed himself now out of fear he’d attack Flick again. “Okay.”

“Wait.” Flick jerked his hand under Zed’s. “What if this inhibitor reacts in a way you’re not expecting? You said yourself, you don’t know how it will affect him.”

“I do not believe it will harm him. I would not suggest it as a starting point if I did.” Rhyniche held Flick’s gaze for a moment, its large, unblinking eyes steady and showing no signs of subterfuge or a lack of confidence. “I will be blunt, Mr. Ingesson. The scan I took of Mr. Anatolius earlier showed intense degeneration of multiple areas of his brain. By comparing that scan to the ones provided by Dr. O’Brien, we can see that those areas are growing exponentially. Without any intervention, the damage to Mr. Anatolius’s brain will reach a critical point in a Standard week.”

A week. He had a week. He didn’t know who squeezed whose hand, but their combined grip was tight enough now to be painful. Damn it. He couldn’t not call Brennan now, not with a firm time limit staring him in the face.

“And if this neural inhibitor works?” Flick’s voice sounded strangled, tight. “How long will it add?”

“Days, at most.” Rhyniche clicked, the sound sad. “I am sorry I cannot offer you more at this time. But as I said, this is merely a starting point. We are not giving up. Even if the inhibitor does not work, we will find a solution.”

Zed had always been good at reading expressions, a skill his time in the AEF’s covert ops teams had only enhanced. Rhyniche might have a completely alien face, but he’d gotten used to Qek’s features, how they wrinkled, folded and smoothed—and right now, Zed knew that Rhyniche was putting a spin on things. Maybe only a slight one, but it was there. No, the ashies wouldn’t give up, but nor did the doctor think they’d solve the problem in the week he had left.

If a few extra days was all this trip to Ashie Prime would buy him, he’d still take it.

“Let’s do it.”

Flick’s fingers tightened on Zed’s. “You sure?”

“I haven’t really got anything to lose at this point,” he said, offering Flick a small smile.

Flick looked as though he might argue, but he kept his mouth shut as Rhyniche approached with the hypo-syringe. And he didn’t let go of Zed’s hand.

* * *

Moisture beaded the bottom of the clear substance that formed the bubble of their accommodations. Outside, mist writhed in murky tendrils, obscuring the view of the beach. How long had he been staring outside without realizing he could see nothing? Nothing but the vague reflection of his own face and now, the shadow of the man standing behind him.

A hand wrapped around his shoulder, warm but tentative. Felix tried not to flinch. He was so tight, every muscle held rigid, that it would probably hurt. Tear something. The ever-familiar scent of Zed wafted forward and Felix squashed the instinct to turn and bury his face in his chest, lose himself in a circle of strong arms. Zed needed him to be the sturdy one, the capable one, though surely the weight of a feather could break him—a gentle tap at the back of his spine would burst the balloon of grief he’d been carrying within since the night Zed had Zoned in his sleep.

His neck no longer hurt. The angry red marks had been evidence more of Zed’s struggle not to kill him, Nessa had said. Rather than crush Felix’s neck, he’d twisted his palm over skin, leaving more of a rash than a bruise. Even deep in the Zone and apparently deluded, Zed had not wanted to hurt him, not truly. The fear of that night lingered, however. So often over the past week, Felix had found himself jerking away from unexpected touches. That the pain of his reaction did not always reflect in Zed’s eyes only made it all worse.

Ignoring Zed now would hurt both of them, stupidly. He had to turn and face his lover and his nemesis.

As he turned, Zed’s hand slipped from his shoulder to hang in space as if he didn’t know what to do with it. Felix traced his fingers over the veins across Zed’s wrist, then tangled their fingers together, forming a small contact. He would wait for his skin to stop twitching before moving closer. He’d wait to see if Zed remained present.

“How was your nap?” The shot of whatever Rhyniche had administered had, indeed, made Zed sleepy. Rest was a good thing, though. They’d figured that out on the way to Ashie Prime. Nearly a week without any excuse to Zone—Agrius had yet to figure out how to ambush them in j-space—had given all of them a chance to relax.

“Good.” Zed squeezed his hand and let go—not to move away, but so he could move closer. Why was it so hard not to flinch? “How long was I out?”

Felix couldn’t answer the question without checking the time on his bracelet. “Three hours.” He’d been standing in front of the window for three hours? No wonder his legs felt like rusted iron bars.

Zed’s rough palm cupped his cheek. “Tell me you didn’t stand by the window for three hours.”

“I didn’t stand by the window for three hours.”

“Liar.” Sensual lips quirked upward. Zed was so handsome when he smiled—devastatingly so. Felix’s pulse kicked up, knocking through his chest and down his arms.

“Want to get something to eat?” He back-stepped, out of Zed’s reach, and angled toward the door.

“No, I don’t.”

“You should. Eating regularly—”

Zed caught his shoulder again, turning him slightly. “Flick, don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

A sigh parting his lips, Zed let go of Felix’s shoulder and scrubbed his face. Felix watched with an odd degree of detachment as Zed’s features shifted beneath his hand, one eye widening and narrowing, his cheek pushing up, the deepening crease of a scar, the way blood quickly rushed back into furrows. The pinpricks of dark stubble, another scar—stretching and releasing. Skin.

He reached for his own face, numbed fingertips finding the scar that interrupted his left brow, danced across his left cheek and wrapped around his jaw. Did it shift like that when he moved it? Reflect light? Swallow skin and reproduce it? Change the map of his face so that he appeared at once familiar and strange?

Zed caught his hand, held it against his cheek, soliton tattoo flashing inside his wrist, and framed Felix’s face, his larger hands warm brackets over each ear. He leaned in and Felix thought he might kiss him. Despite the jagged pain in his chest, his chin lifted to accept the sweet gift. Instead, Zed closed his eyes and a breath later, his forehead came to rest against Felix’s.

Breath tickled Felix’s lips. “I’m sorry.”

Something snapped inside him. Felt like the pop of a rib. His breath hitched. “Don’t ever say that.”

“Flick...”

Felix shook his head, dislodging Zed so that he had to stand back. Their gazes locked and that was worse than feeling the small weight of Zed in the center of his forehead. In some deep, dark corner of his mind, Felix acknowledged that when this was all over—and it would end soon, whether he offered a cold shoulder or open arms—he would be lost. That all he lent to Zed would go with him. Will, mind, body and soul. His heart. He was afraid and he hurt. By the hour he fought the urge to run. Every hour, he convinced himself to stay, to take what little Zed had to offer him and to treasure it, by all those useless gods, because it was all he had.

Lifting his chin again, Felix dropped a light kiss to the corner of Zed’s mouth. Zed’s lips softened beneath his small caress and he moved so that they could meet in a proper kiss. Felix resisted at first, but Zed still held his face, thumbs locked about his ears. Falling into the kiss was easier. Felix tucked his hands around Zed’s waist and leaned in. Lips parted and tongues danced between small sighs of breath. The tightness in Felix’s chest loosened enough that he could breathe. Then his lungs hitched and his shoulders jerked.

Not now, Felix. Not now.

Zed pulled back. “Hey.”

Denying the ache building beneath his breastbone only drove him further toward expressing it. He couldn’t remember when he’d last told Zed he loved him. It had probably been an almost thoughtless admission at the end of a ripmail. Love you! After the first time, those words had been so easy to say. A greeting, a farewell, a reminder of those five glorious days they had spent together on Hemera Station before the war. Saying it now would feel too desperate or final. It would be a plea—him asking Zed not to die. Not to leave him again.

“C’mon, let’s sit for a bit.” Catching Felix’s strained look, Zed added, “We’ll get something to eat soon, I promise.” Zed directed him toward the largest poofy thing near the window.

Ashie furniture was just plain weird. All of it could be shaped and reshaped. The soft round platform that formed the bed could just as easily be a dining table. Didn’t even need a tablecloth as the material covering each piece self-cleaned, like an SFT. It also warmed and cooled and could change texture with the brush of a palm. The light blanket spread across the bed was made of a similar fabric. Both were made of a more robust material than his shirt and pants, though. Idly, Felix wondered if the material could be hardened into responsive armor.

Zed pulled him down into the cushioned embrace of a large puff, which relaxed and reformed around them, the fit not quite as close as that of the smaller “chairs.” He nudged his shoulder. “Let’s talk.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

“I need to tell you—”

Felix pushed a hand across Zed’s mouth. Something warm swept across his palm and it took Felix a moment to relate it to the glint in Zed’s gaze. He pulled his hand away and wiped it on Zed’s shirt.

“You licked me.”

“Yep.”

“I could have had anything on my hand.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Poison or fish guts or just germs, weird ashie germs.”

A soft smile pulled at Zed’s face, curving his lips and softening the lines around his eyes. “You still have a thing about germs.”

“Hell, yeah. A bullet is quick, man. Germs are fucking insidious bastards. You can’t even see them. They’ll turn your insides out and...” Felix narrowed his eyes. “I know what you’re trying to do.”

“What’s that?”

“You’re getting me all distracted and then you’re going to talk me in a circle to something you want to talk about, which is going to be...” His lungs froze again. Holy fuck, what did Zed want to talk about? Felix dragged in a breath. “I don’t want to talk about what’s happening. We’re living it and that’s hard enough. I’d rather make up new flavors of ice cream.”

“Banana cream pie.”

“What?”

“That’s my ice cream flavor.”

A jagged pain sliced through Felix’s chest. When Zed was sharp, he was so fucking sharp. Quick, decisive, thoughts flowing a million klicks an hour in a million different directions. He could consider ice cream, his illness, Felix’s health, the dire straits of Idowu & Ingesson, LLC, Agrius and their Grand Fucking Moth, whatever the ashies had planned for him and galactic peace all at once. No, wait, Felix could manage that. Zed probably had four times the number of processes going—which was why the blank spaces between were so damned disconcerting.

“What’s your flavor?” Zed asked.

“Strawberry,” Felix whispered.

Warmth shifted through the mutable blue of Zed’s eyes and a hand tucked behind him, fingers curling around Felix’s ribs as Zed pulled him into a sideways hug.

“What was the name of that wine we had?” Felix asked, harking back to his memory of their stay on Hemera. The wine that had fizzed and popped in his throat. Zed had ordered it to go with their strawberries. They had just exchanged those special words, had admitted to each other that they’d never said them before.

First love, last love.

God, no.

Zed shook his head. “Nope, we’re not doing that, either.”

Felix exhaled shakily. “Okay. New chip flavor.”

“Banana.”

Gross, but...”They have that one. They have pickled Yelaktian squid too.”

“That sounds fucking disgusting.”

“Actually, it’s not bad if you don’t mind having your tongue go numb halfway through a bag.”

Zed offered a vague smile.

Felix continued. “They revived that competition. Remember that one? Create a new flavor and you could win an all-expenses-paid drift.” Drift ships looped through real space in long arcs, stopping at every tourist trap along the way. They had military drifts too. Ships full of supermains and implanted techs, but the AEF had a different take on all expenses paid. “I entered, a couple of years ago. Qek and I created twenty different flavors. Not one of them even made the quarter finals. Which I don’t get, because I think beer-flavored chips is just a natural thing, right? I mean, what goes better with beer than beer?”

Nuts.

“Yeah, nuts. I entered that flavor too. Well, I chose Figlice Tree nuts. They’re kinda spicy, but no more so than the pickled squid.”

Zed didn’t answer that and as Felix replayed the echo of the word nuts in his head, he realized Zed hadn’t answered him then, either. A stiff glance revealed why. Zed had gone. The arm around his waist was slack.

“Zed.”

Felix tried not to panic, for his sake and for Zed’s. He worried his fear would filter through and possibly throw him deeper into the Zone. But ignoring the clawing sensation in his chest proved very hard. He strove to find the distance he’d achieved at the window—the screen that blocked out the mist, or beckoned it within, used it as a barrier between him and the clear and cruel world. But he’d lost it. He’d been rambling on about chip flavors and ice cream and Zed had slipped away from him.

Would this be how it happened? The final—

“Zed!”

He reached around to grab hold of Zed’s shoulders. He swung a leg over Zed’s so that he sat across his lap, performing the dual function of trapping him and keeping him close. Leaving one shoulder pinned beneath his hand, Felix reached for Zed’s cheek and stroked it, pulling his skin so that it moved, teasing a crease into the stiff fold by his mouth.

“Zed. Fuck, fucker. Come back. We can talk about it...that...anything you want. Just come back. Please.”

Zed had Zoned dozens of times over the past week or so, but this instance felt different. Deeper, more profound. Was it the ashie drug?

Felix folded himself in against Zed’s chest and hugged him tight. A part of him railed against his apparent uselessness, at the fact he could do nothing but just hold the blank body beneath him. Another part thanked all the stars Zed hadn’t flipped into combat mode.

A third part, which seeped into the other two like some pervasive germ, flopped and flailed. Or maybe that was his heart.

“Don’t go yet...please? Come back. I’m not ready.”

He hadn’t been ready a week ago and he wasn’t now. He’d never be ready. Ever.

Arms banded across his back and Zed’s chest moved beneath him. Rumbled. “I’m here, Flick. I’m here.”

Chapter Twelve

A soft tap drew Flick to the door of their room. Zed remained on the bed, trying to remember if he was due another examination today. Rhyniche had already given him the daily dose of the neural inhibitor—he was pretty sure, anyway. Unless he was remembering yesterday’s hypo-syringe, which was entirely possible. The days had started to blend together, thanks to the holes in his memory that were not getting smaller and the drowsiness that came with every injection. He slept, he received a shot, he slept, he was examined, he slept, he was poked, he slept. Sometimes he Zoned—deep, so deep and long that the pain in his head afterward was excruciating, an unexpected side effect from the neural inhibitor. But the instances of Zoning had diminished. That was a win, sort of.

He gave up trying to put a number on the day. Counting down to the end just seemed morbid and a waste of energy. Every lucid moment was what mattered—his main focus was making sure Flick would remember the good times. Zed pulled out all the fun memories he could as they lay in bed together, trying to get Flick to laugh. He hoped that, someday, Flick would look back on this time and understand what Zed had been trying to do—care for him, just as he cared for Zed every hour of every day.

Tomorrow he and Elias would sit down and discuss...other things. Things Flick didn’t want to hear, things Zed knew he wouldn’t be able to handle when the time came to handle them. Eli was a step removed, though, and he’d take care of everything. Including Flick.

The door closed and Flick leaned his head against it, his shoulders slumping. Zed hated seeing him look so defeated, and Flick was getting worse at hiding it.

And it was getting harder and harder to care about that. He was so damned tired of fighting, of trying to get his brain back online every time he woke up from one of his naps. The need to not quit burned through him, but even that fire was growing less intense.

Flick straightened and looked at Zed. “I’d ask if you were up for company, but I don’t think our visitors will take no.”

“Visitors?”

“AEF reps.”

If Zed’s brain hadn’t decided to clock out at increasingly frequent intervals, he might have been expecting the AEF to show up on Ashie Prime.

“Huh,” he said, pushing himself into a sitting position, his legs folded over the side of the bed. “Why?”

Flick shrugged, but his jaw was tight. “To make sure you stay decommissioned?”

“Huh.” God, his brain was slow. “Did I already see Rhyniche today?”

Flick’s gaze softened. “Yeah, babe. More tests. You got your shot too. We got back about an hour ago.” He blew out a breath. “Look, I’ll tell them you’re not up to—”

Zed rose from the bed, the weird disconnect between the fatigue in his brain and the energy of his body something he was almost used to. He made his way around the strange bed to Flick’s side. “Stay with me and I’ll be okay.”

Flick grabbed his hand and squeezed it hard before letting go again. “Not leaving you. Ever.”

They stepped through the door to see three AEF uniforms seated in the center of the communal area, with Elias, Nessa and Qek hovering at the edges. Rhyniche and Banqueler stood nearby as well. The tension pouring off Elias and Nessa was easy enough to see. From the lack of wrinkles in Qek’s face, she was not happy, either, and the other ashushk seemed displeased as well. The soldiers all blurred into one grumbly entity as he stared at them.

Except for one. A man who stood a little apart from his contingent wore the rank of a general on his epaulet and a scowl on his face, one etched in so deeply it had to be a permanent state of being. No—Zed knew it was. He’d never seen that expression lift completely—though how he knew that without knowing who this man was...

Muscle memory drew his feet together and his right arm upward in a perfect salute. “Sir.”

The general returned his salute. “At ease, Major.”

“Yes, sir.” Zed fell into a parade rest, his chin up, gaze straight ahead.

“I hear things have been rough for you.”

“Nothing I can’t handle, sir.” The words left him by rote. He’d said them so many times before, to this man, even.

The general stepped forward and Zed braced himself for a dressing down. He’d fucked up. He shouldn’t have jeopardized the mission in order to rescue those civilians, but he couldn’t have walked away knowing they were all going to die. War was all about the strategy, though—sacrifice a few for the sake of the many. He knew that, damn it, and still...

Hands tugged his face downward. “Come back to me, Zed. Come on.”

Worried eyes searched his. Beautiful, perfect eyes. Flick. “Felix Ingesson.”

Flick smiled, the expression shaky but there. “Yep.”

“Never going to forget that again.”

“I know. I know.”

A cleared throat tugged Zed’s gaze upward. He squinted as the movement jarred the renewed ache in his skull. The general had moved back to his contingent and his scowl had softened. “Do you know me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What’s my name?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

The scowl deepened, his eyes growing darker. Zed recognized that look too. He’d seen it enough. Frustration—not anger, though it had taken him a good year or so to figure out the general wasn’t going to blow like a volcano when those brown eyes seemed to grow almost black. No, it was the stillness you had to watch for, when the general seemed to stop breathing and just watched you.

The general sighed. “I need you to come with me, Major.”

“What?” Flick stepped in front of Zed, as though his body could act as a barrier. “No!”

Elias pushed away from the wall and positioned himself a few feet in front of Zed beside Flick. “As his captain, I deserve to know why the AEF is suddenly interested in him.”

The general gritted his teeth as he looked around the room. Evaluating. His gaze stayed on Zed for a moment before coming to rest on Elias. “The AEF never stopped being interested in Major Anatolius, Captain Idowu. He is a weapon—”

“You asshole, he’s a man!” Flick shouted.

“—that we can’t risk falling into enemy, or ally, hands.” He cast a look at the ashushk who were present, almost in apology.

“Should’ve thought of that before you cut him loose, then.”

Zed caught one of Flick’s arms before he could tear across the room.

“That wasn’t my choice, Lieutenant,” the general said, his voice low. “I pushed to have Major Anatolius and his team contained in a facility where they could have lived out the remainder of their lives in peace and comfort. I was overruled.”

The AEF had wanted to wash its hands of what they’d created. Let them fade away, let them disappear, encourage them to do so. Bad PR if it leaked that he and his team had been committed. There’d be questions about why...and no answers. But encouraging them to disappear...eventually they’d be nothing more than a bad memory, hardly mentioned in the history books.

“I have my orders. I can’t leave you here.”

“Fuck you and your orders!” Flick pulled out of Zed’s grasp. He marched forward, his fists clenched at his side. The two men who had accompanied the general intercepted him, hands fastening around Flick’s biceps and yanking him back.

It was as though someone hit a skip-scene button on a vid. The next thing Zed knew, he hand a hand wrapped around the general’s neck and was staring into those familiar dark eyes. Pain slammed into his temple—a migraine, worse than he’d dealt with in ages—and he winced. His grip loosened and the general jerked back and away, a hand rising to rub at his abused skin. Zed fell back a couple of steps and surveyed the room. The two guards who’d grabbed Flick lay motionless on the ground, but their chests moved. Had he attacked them? Seeing as Elias, Nessa and the ashies hadn’t moved, it seemed that way. Flick came to him, and Zed didn’t realize he was shaking until he laid an unsteady hand on his arm.

God, his head hurt.

“I’m broken,” Zed said, his voice wavering, and straightened to face the general. “And it was the AEF that did it. I’ll be fucked if I go anywhere with you. Sir. So if you want me, you’re going to need to bring a hell of a lot more than two men. And if anyone touches any of my crew, I won’t be held responsible for my actions.”

“Damn it, Zed, do you know what you’re—”

Zed blinked. He’d heard those words, or very similar ones, from the general before. After the incident that had exposed his team to the media.

Damn it, Zed, do you know what you’ve done?

“General Bradley,” Zed said, knowing the name was right when he saw the man’s eyes widen slightly. “Sorry, sir, it just clicked.” He held the man’s gaze. “Doesn’t change my mind, though.”

“No one wants this to turn into an incident.”

“Then go. Leave me alone.” Pain flared in his temples. “Please.”

Bradley held his gaze for a few minutes, then reached up to rub his neck again. “Fuck,” he spat. “Fine. I’ll stall...or something.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Goddamn it, don’t thank me. Don’t ever thank me.”

Zed drew in a shaky breath. That, he hadn’t expected. Bradley had been the one to convince him to sign up for Project Dreamweaver, but he’d never expressed any regret over it—not even when he’d handed Zed his fuck-off papers.

“I volunteered, sir,” Zed said quietly.

“No.” Flick gripped his upper arm, his fingers digging in painfully. He glared at Bradley. “You apologize. You and the AEF and everyone who fucked over Zed and Emma and the others on their team. You apologize and you don’t forget them. You don’t forget what they’re all going through, alone, without the family the AEF was supposed to be. I hope y’all go through even one ounce of what you’ve put these soldiers through before you die!”

“Flick.” Zed brushed a hand over his lover’s rigid shoulder, trying to draw his attention away from Bradley. He groaned softly as the pain in his temple spiked—though maybe not as softly as he’d thought, because suddenly Ness was there, looking into his eyes.

“Headache?” she asked.

He grunted an affirmative.

“Fixer, come on. Let’s get him lying down.”

Zed glanced over his shoulder as Nessa and Flick led him back into the bedroom, unsurprised to see Bradley watching them. What was a shock was the lack of a scowl on his face. He looked apologetic, regretful—like a man saying goodbye to a comrade who wasn’t long for the world.

The fact that Zed couldn’t work up any horror over that thought should have bothered him more than it did.

* * *

Zed jerked awake with a gasp, the dream that had chased him out of sleep fading into insubstantial mist when his eyes opened. He patted the bed beside him, seeking the reassurance of Flick’s presence—but found nothing, no sign that Flick had lain beside him. A low murmur of voices from the common area eased his concern. It must still be relatively early. Flick’s voice didn’t stand out from the others, but it didn’t matter. Zed wasn’t going to impose. The crew needed a break from him and all the worry, if only a short one.

Though it was tempting to let the languor that never left him now pull him back into sleep, Zed had something to do that he couldn’t put off any longer. With a tap, he turned on the bedside lamp and pulled on the gray SFT he’d been wearing earlier. The fabric quickly lost its wrinkles when it registered his body heat. Grabbing his wallet, he settled into a poofy chair by the wall of windows. His fingers shook as he called up the coordinates he’d never forgotten.

He tried not to bounce or worry as the ripcomm call rang and rang some more. He didn’t know if the connection would appear as belonging to him, given that it was piggy-backing on the ashies’ network. Even if it did come up as “Zander Anatolius,” he might still be ignored—

“Zed? Zed? Please don’t have hung up!”

Zed’s breath hitched as a holo of his brother Brennan appeared. His hair, longer than Zed’s but the same color, was mussed, and he kept blinking, as if he was trying to clear away the remnants of sleep. Shit, he’d forgotten they weren’t operating on Standard here on Ashie Prime. He couldn’t even begin to calculate the time difference, but clearly it was a lot later on Alpha than here.

“Hey, Bren.” Zed tried to smile and even managed a small one.

“Hey.” Brennan’s breath hitched. “Oh my God, Zed. Oh my God.”

Zed swallowed hard. “I’m sorry I—”

“No, it’s okay, I get it, I...I can’t even imagine what you—” His brother’s voice broke. “Look, it doesn’t matter, all right? None of it matters. We love you, Zed, and we just want you to be happy, whatever it takes.”

Zed swiped at his eyes, trying hard not to break down. He drew in a shaky breath, ignoring the renewed pounding in his head. Not the Zone, this time, just emotions, but it was a reminder all the same. He didn’t have hours to chat with his brother—the Zone could grab him at any point.

“I’ve got to tell you some stuff and I need you just to listen, all right?” At his brother’s nod, Zed continued, “I made some changes to my will a—a couple of weeks ago.” He thought it had been a couple of weeks. Might have been more. “I changed my beneficiary.”

“To Flick?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, but why—”

“I just need you to know.”

Bren didn’t say anything for a moment, but the holo showed the pallor of his skin easily enough. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“A whole lot.”

“Zed—”

He screwed up his lips so the story wouldn’t come pouring out and shook his head. “None of it matters.” And it didn’t, not really, not in the grand scheme. What was important was taking care of Flick, so that after...after, he would have something to build on. That was the only thing Zed could promise him, the only thing he could make happen no matter what.

“I love you, Bren. You and Maddox and Mom and Dad.”

Bren’s eyes darkened. “Why the fuck is this sounding like goodbye, Zander?”

“Tell them that, okay? And that I’m sorry.”

“Goddamn it, don’t—”

“Take care of each other.”

“Zed—”

He disengaged the call. Then, before he could forget, he sent the information Elias would need for after to the captain’s attention. The name of his advocate, the banking data, all of it.

That done, Zed gripped the wallet tight, and slammed it onto the corner of his desk. The thin plastic, hardened by its open position, shattered. Zed swept the pieces into his hands and disposed of them, trying not to remember the last time he’d rid himself of a wallet. He’d just gotten the assignment on the teams and he’d wanted nothing more than to toss away all the detritus in his life up to that point. He hadn’t wanted to feel anymore. He hadn’t wanted to be anything but a soldier.

“Be careful what you wish for,” he murmured, and crawled back into bed.

Chapter Thirteen

“I’m going to lose him if you waste any more time with tests!”

We. We are going to lose him.

Fuck.

Felix paced away from Qek, plastered his hands against the weird substance that walled every outside room and tried not to growl. He failed. Pebbles seemed to churn in his throat, the chipped-off bits from the rocks in his gut. The weight he carried everywhere, which made it difficult for him to be grateful, gracious...polite.

He’d taken a class on etiquette back at the Academy. It had been the only class he failed, and looking back, it had been a deliberate slight on his part. He’d bucked the system because manners meant nothing to the son of a disabled mechanic and a woman with a disease only the rich were vaccinated against. Credits didn’t drop into the hands of the polite. Neither did food, medicine or shelter.

“I should not have to explain diagnostic process to you, Fixer.”

Qek’s reasonable tone grated—not because she was right, because she didn’t sound emotional enough. Felix knew that if he turned around, he would see the strain in her face. Qek’s features had not wrinkled into a smile in days, and her clicks held only the regular cadence of thought.

And she had more than one reason for concern, didn’t she?

Were her clicks slower? Her skin paler? Her attitude more reserved? He hadn’t asked after her health the entire time they’d been planetside—less than an ashushk week, more than a Standard week. Had Rhyniche levied Zed’s sentence in ashie or human time?

He couldn’t remember.

With another soft growl, Felix constrained the urge to break something, anything. Several things. Anything marked with an AEF logo. Ass-wipes. They hadn’t left yet, but neither had they intervened further.

Felix rocked his head back and forward so that his forehead smacked against the bubble. White light flared behind his lids—because, like a coward, he’d closed his eyes—and pain lanced down the sides of his face. His teeth rattled.

“Ow,” he muttered, opening his eyes to a pattern of dancing spots. “This shit is harder than it looks.”

“Fixer.”

Felix peered sideways at Qek and frowned at the visible concern in her large, unblinking eyes. He pushed off the wall. “I gotta go make sure Zed hasn’t Zoned in the tub.” A monitor would alert half the island if Zed tried to breathe water, but there were no fail-safes against cooling water and pruning skin.

Halfway to the bathroom door, Felix turned back. Qek had taken his station by the bubble wall and it seemed she saw as little as he always did, morning mist notwithstanding.

“Qek.”

She glanced up.

“I...” I’m sorry for being such an ass. Except he wasn’t sorry, and he didn’t know how to be anything else but an ass. Felix drew in a deep and careful breath. “How are you doing?”

Qek tipped her head in a very human gesture. “Are you inquiring after my health?”

“Um, yeah.” Felix twirled a hand uselessly at his side. How did you ask someone if they felt as though they might suddenly...change? Outside of shared interest in spaceflight tech—any tech—he really didn’t know much about the ashushk culture.

“Will you know?” he asked quietly.

Thankfully, Qek did not ask him to clarify his question. “There is not a lot of data available on the gendering process. Much of it is...” Her hesitation was uncharacteristic and worrying. “Conjecture. Like your myths and legends.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Given that we as a species are so curious?”

“Yeah.” Ashushk curiosity was legend, hence their propensity for scientific discovery. Their agile brains were capable of thought processes even bio-interfaced humans could not match, but all that power would be wasted without the imagination to use it. So why did they have so little data available on the gendering process?

“Every culture has its mysteries. This is ours. Gendering is...” Another odd pause. “We do not have a religion, but the procreation of our species is considered a sacred covenant.”

“Covenant.” As always, Qek had chosen the perfect word. But nothing she had said truly answered Felix’s question. “How much time do we have?”

He had not accepted the fact he would lose Zed. He would not accept losing two friends. Could not.

“I do not know.”

“Can you leave, if you feel something?”

“I do not know.”

“Would it be safer for you aboard the Chaos?”

“My place is here with my friends.”

Felix wished he’d asked to see those databases, that small amount of information it had probably taken Qek minutes to absorb. Two months ago, this would have been a puzzle they’d tackle together. He wiped his right hand on his pants, smart fiber tickling his sweaty palm, then held it out to Qek, unsure how to initiate the contact she sometimes gave—sure he’d botched it several times over the past few weeks.

Qek’s smooth palm slid along his. How odd that he invited a touch from the one member of his crew least inclined to give it. Felix closed his fingers around Qek’s hand in a brief clasp. “I can’t remember if I thanked you.”

“Your gratitude was never in question.”

Felix let his hand dangle at his side again, where his fingers sought loose threads and found none. His pants were too new. “Come find me if...Don’t let it happen. Don’t let them take you away...” Fuck. What if he was encouraging Qek to turn down the ultimate honor?

Qek saved him from further dithering. “If I can, I will let you know when I need to go.”

A sigh gusted out of him and his shoulders drooped as if they had lost their only support. “Good. Okay...good.”

See, he could not be an asshole for five minutes a day.

He found Zed dressed and staring at himself in the mirror. His posture had the quiet stillness of an empty Zone. “No mist in there, babe.” Felix curled his arm around Zed’s and guided him away from the reflection of himself. A man could go insane looking into his own eyes and Zed had enough fucking troubles.

Zed followed him docilely enough, a small mercy. Felix didn’t know if Zed worked at keeping himself offline, or if the lack of stress played a part. Not having to Zone in order to keep his crew safe. The inhibitor had helped—Zed seemed more lucid when awake, and the amount of sleep he was getting could only be good for him. But he still Zoned, and when he did, he dropped deeply into the altered state and stayed there for longer than a handful of minutes. When he emerged, his headaches were clearly evident. Felix could almost feel them.

He hadn’t understood how fewer, deeper Zones could slow the degradation, not when Zed was in so much pain, but the AEF visit had changed all of that. Zed’s frightening display of skill and agility proved he was still very much online in some respects. Still dangerous. Felix had almost taken it as a good sign until afterward, when Rhyniche shared the news that the inhibitor no longer had any effect. The active Zone had flipped another switch to the off position.

Zed stopped moving when Felix stopped prompting, and Felix swallowed a sudden rush of anger. It burned his throat and dropped back to his gut where the rocks ground together, churning, breaking down, abrading him from the inside. For a second, he wanted to smack his fist into the side of Zed’s skull. Wake up, damn it! His fingers itched and curled, and a fist formed. Felix knocked it into his thigh, hard enough to leave a bruise.

It wasn’t the first.

“Felix Ingesson.”

Snapping his chin up, Felix looked into Zed’s eyes and saw he had returned. “Welcome back,” he said, words stretched tight.

Zed’s brows twitched together and Felix knew he fought another upsurge in the constant ache gripping his skull. He reached up to smooth away the furrow marring Zed’s forehead and then stroked his cheek. Inside his gut—his chest—the rocks rumbled toward an avalanche.

* * *

“Secondary testing is complete.”

Thank every fucking deity. And their children. And damn the ashushk for having such inscrutable features. Rhyniche appeared thoughtful in the vague way of its species, however, and the gentle cadence of clicks indicated it had more to say. Felix gathered the shreds of his patience and then simply gripped his knees, fingers digging into the flesh on each side of the bone. The pain focused him and distracted him from the near constant need to break things.

“What have you determined?” Qek asked. She had taken on the role of spokesperson early on, when it became clear Zed missed most of every conversation and that Felix had difficulty not flying into fits of foul language. Nessa asked the scientific questions, Qek the reasonable ones. Felix contemplated his lack of decorum.

Elias’s chair squeaked against the floor as he shifted closer, and Felix turned to pin him with a look. Don’t come any closer. Elias ignored him and settled the chair right next to his.

“We are ready to explore treatment,” Rhyniche said.

“Explore?” Felix all but spat the word. He tried to wrestle his features into contrition, but probably ended up resembling a hopped-up wastrel. Elias put a restraining hand on his arm. Felix turned his efforts to not shaking the offending appendage off.

Rhyniche regarded them with ashushk sympathy. “This is a journey for all of us, Mr. Ingesson.”

Felix pressed his lips together and nodded stiffly.

“When can we begin?” Nessa asked.

Zed chose that moment to scoot forward on the lounge where they’d parked him. Before anyone could react, his feet hit the floor and he was off. He didn’t make for the door. Instead, he halted in front of a stand of monitors and became still. Felix recognized the posture. This was the new Zone. Zed found a point of focus—a mirror, a section of bubble wall, a holo projection...last night, it had been Felix’s face. He did not appear to fixate on his view, however. Instead, he just went completely blank, features slack, breathing deep and slow.

Felix got up and moved behind to grip Zed’s shoulder gently. “Zed. You need to come back, babe.” Heat touched his ears as he considered their audience, but he didn’t soften his tone. “It’s Felix. Felix Ingesson.”

Zed continued to drift, obviously lost. He could be that way for more than an hour.

Swallowing, Felix turned to Rhyniche. “We’re running out of time.”

Had it been yesterday he’d said the same words to Qek? Or the day before?

Zed had not moved. He was so still, it seemed he hardly breathed.

“This treatment. Do you...” Felix shook his head. Did it really matter if it worked? Yes. His chest heaved with the emotion he could barely contain, all of his anger—rage—and sorrow. “When can you start it?”

“Right away.” Rhyniche turned to Nessa. “If you concur?”

“I would prefer to get Zed’s consent before we move forward.”

“What if...” It was the question that had dogged him for days. What if this Zone was the last? What if Zed didn’t come back to them this time?

“He’s still very lucid, and he has a right to have a say in his treatment.”

Felix studied the line of Zed’s shoulders, so straight and square. Sometimes, when they were alone and Zed stood this still, Felix hugged him. Put his arms around Zed’s broad chest, tucked his head into a rigid shoulder and drifted with him, the warm scent of Zed’s skin a small balm for his spiky thoughts.

“Okay.”

Talk became small while they waited for Zed to leave the Zone. Soon, an awkward quiet enveloped the room. Felix remained on his feet, standing near Zed. His knees and back ached. He shifted to relieve the gathering stiffness and at that moment, Zed inhaled sharply and folded forward. Felix grabbed the closest arm, Elias leaped forward to catch the other and together they arrested Zed’s fall. Ness stepped in a moment later, hypo in hand.

Zed managed a rueful look. “It won’t help.” Pain etched deep lines around his eyes and furrows across his forehead. Even his full mouth had narrowed.

“I can increase the dose.”

“I don’t want to sleep anymore, Ness. I’m so sick of sleeping.”

Nessa had no immediate answer, and in a rare moment of empathy, Felix understood her quandary. Not all patients required rest and for Zed, in particular, the hours he spent absent consciousness already far outweighed the hours he was present. More sleep wouldn’t change that ratio. Ever.

Nessa tucked away the hypo as they guided Zed back to his chair. “We were discussing a possible treatment.”

The creases on Zed’s face deepened for a second. “Treatment?”

Qek put forth the question no one else was brave enough to ask. “What is your prognosis, Rhyniche?”

“Based on Mr. Anatolius’s experience with the neural inhibitor, we have determined which chemicals are incompatible with human physiology and which have no effect at all. Given there are chains of amino acids we both share, we have attempted to alter the building blocks of the inhibitor, or switch, if you will.”

Spreading gray hands, Rhyniche looked up at Zed. “One of three things will happen. Your body might reject the substance entirely, which could cause catastrophic organ failure.”

“That’s not a fucking fix,” Felix said.

“No, it is not, and if we had more time, we would conduct more tests. As it is, we have dosed cultured cells with good results, and skin tests have been encouraging.”

They’d done what now?

“Batch 23B is viable?” Nessa asked.

The medical personnel fell into a discussion of the results that had led them to attempt treatment. Felix tried to follow but couldn’t. He was too tired and too heartsore. Instead, he leaned into Zed and took more comfort than should be sensible from Zed’s arm curling around his shoulders, strong fingers digging in hard enough to leave a bruise.

Elias soon broke into the discussion. “What about the other two things?”

Rhyniche clicked and produced a quiet hum.

“You said one of three things and then outlined what we’re all hoping was the worst-case scenario.”

“Oh, indeed. Organ failure would be dire.”

Even human medicine could grow new organs, if the patient had the credits. Zed had the credits, but his most valuable organ could not be regrown. Brains were one of a kind.

“The second option is that the chemical will not have enough ashushk or human markers to be recognizable, and will pass through Mr. Anatolius’s body without affecting him.”

“That sounds like a waste of time,” Felix said.

“But it would give us a lot of clues as to what to do next,” Nessa said.

Fuck clues.

“The third option?”

“The one we all hope for,” Rhyniche said, face wrinkling into a subdued smile.

A cure, a way out of hell for Zed. A balance between the chemicals affecting his body. Absurdly, Felix felt like weeping. Tears burned the back of his eyes and his nose itched.

“Enough talk,” Zed said. His voice rumbled through Felix’s side. “When can we get started?”

Chapter Fourteen

After fighting a war for eight years, Zed had thought he’d known the depths of exhaustion. It had become second nature to him to function on an hour of sleep, two hours, however many winks he could grab between missions. And then he’d signed up for Project Dreamweaver. The exhaustion he’d felt up to then didn’t even compare to the bone-deep fatigue he experienced during the experiments and training.

The past few days had introduced him to a whole new level of tired. Not physical—between the ashies’ neural inhibitor and Nessa’s pain meds, he hadn’t slept so well, so soundly, since before the war began. No, his fatigue was all mental, and the gap between his body and mind was growing larger every day. Every hour.

He didn’t need Rhyniche’s unofficial countdown to know he was going to break soon. He could feel it. Fuck, he almost prayed for it. He was at the point that if this ashie treatment didn’t work...

Don’t go there.

His exhausted brain listened to him, thoughts skittering away like cockroaches from a light source. He lay back on the bed and watched Flick at the window-wall. Rhyniche and its crew would be ready to conduct the treatment...soon. Zed had no idea when. Time had ceased to have any meaning.

He wanted to care what the outcome would be, he really did. But he was so fucking tired.

“C’mere,” he said, his voice soft.

Flick looked at him, but stayed at the window.

“Please.”

With a sigh, Flick left the window-wall and walked over to the bed. He stood there, staring down at Zed. Between the ashie light and Zed’s own fucked-up vision, his eyes looked hazel—their true color. It struck him that he was actually seeing Flick’s eyes as they’d been so long ago, the first two times he’d said goodbye. His cropped blond hair had settled somewhere between purple and gray in the weird spectrum of Ashie Prime. Shadows grasped at the lines of Flick’s face, making the ridges sharper, his scars more prominent.

It was still a face he loved.

He hadn’t decided if saying that to Flick now would be a gift or a curse. As always, his timing fucking sucked. They’d never got it right, first cluing in that they could be more than friends the night before being separated for years, then choosing to make a go of it only a few months before the war with the stin broke out. And now this.

Flick settled onto the bed and Zed leaned into him, hoping that the Zone would leave him be for enough time to talk to Flick. He might not be able to mark time’s passage anymore, but he knew he didn’t have much left.

He rubbed Flick’s arm, feeling the tension that seemed to never leave his lithe frame these days. Flick’s muscles felt like steel cords, tight and unyielding. Zed bit back the apology and shoved down the guilt—they’d been there and done that, and it didn’t help either of them.

“I’ve got some stuff I want to say while I can,” he started.

“Zed, no. I don’t—”

Zed lifted a finger to press against Flick’s lips, then traced the lower one with his thumb. “Please.”

A sigh shuddered out of Flick and he sank back into the pillows beside Zed’s half-reclined form. The weird disconnect between his tired mind and rested body pulled him in two directions. He wanted to hold Flick and offer comfort, and be held and take comfort. The disparate needs reverberated in his chest, making him shift for a moment before he leaned his head on Flick’s shoulder and let out a long, slow breath.

“I need to say some stuff you don’t want to hear, but I need you to listen. Promise me.”

A curse slipped out, barely audible. “Okay, go.”

“The odds aren’t in my favor.”

Flick jerked as though he’d hit him. “What, so you’re just going to give up?”

“No. No. I’m just...I’m stating the facts. Okay?” He breathed in, taking the scent of Flick, that tang of sweat and metal, deep into his lungs. “If it doesn’t work tomorrow, you need to let General Bradley take me.”

“Fuck that!” Flick drew away, off the bed and back to his feet. “I’m not giving you to the goddamned AEF. No way.”

“Stop and think. Please. You can’t—” Zed broke off, his throat closing for an instant, and he fell back into the pillows. “I’m done. Whether this works or not, I’m done. And you can’t keep going like this.”

Flick froze and stared at him. “I can’t believe you’re saying that. I can’t believe you’re giving up!”

Zed stared back at him, Flick’s image growing blurry and indistinct as tears rose. He wanted to be strong. He wanted to be the hero everyone thought he was. But here, now, he wasn’t. He wasn’t whole, he wasn’t sane, he wasn’t anything but a shell.

“I can’t,” he whispered.

“Fuck you, Zed, you can. You’re not going to leave me.” Flick knelt beside the bed and grabbed him, pulling him over. His arms fastened around Zed’s torso, a cage Zed never wanted to escape. “I’ll be strong enough for both of us. I’ll pull us through,” he whispered raggedly.

No one’s that strong, Flick. You’re going to break...

Zed blinked, the movement sluggish, his brain more so. Pain flared at his temples, such a regular occurrence now he barely noted it except as an indicator of what had happened. Flick’s face hovered over him, the lines of worry etched even deeper into his expression. Rhyniche, smooth skin belying its concern, stood beside him. Zed rolled his head to the side, noting that he was no longer in the room he shared with Flick. Ashies wearing medical gear milled about, casting looks in his direction as they prepared items they’d need for the procedure.

Details swept in and out of his brain—Nessa had explained it all but he didn’t understand much. They were going to inject yet another drug into him, a slower infusion this time rather than using a hypo-syringe. What the drug actually was, other than a step beyond the initial neural inhibitor, Zed had no idea. Or maybe he didn’t remember. What he did remember, damned clearly, was how forcefully Ness had spoken, as if she needed him to believe this would work.

Zed felt as though he’d already been drugged and he understood that time had run out. Whether the ashies’ procedure succeeded or not, his brain was just too tired to keep doing this. He turned his head to look back at Flick. “Long one?” His tongue didn’t want to work.

“Yeah.” Flick choked out the word and Zed wanted to apologize, again, for wasting time. Not that he’d had a choice, but...God, why couldn’t he have spent these last hours knowing Flick was beside him, with him?

Rhyniche clicked, the sound conveying sympathy. “It is time, Mr. Anatolius.”

He looked back up at Flick, words trembling on his tongue. Gift or curse? And now, as the Fates’ scissors hovered over his life’s strand, did it matter?

“I love you,” he said, fighting hard to make sure his words didn’t slur. “In case you wondered.”

“Never doubted it,” Flick said, each syllable crisp. He clenched his teeth together, his jaw working hard. “You’re gonna have to wait until after to hear me say it back.”

“Incentive?” A crooked smile overtook Zed’s lips.

“Damned straight.” Flick swallowed, looked at Rhyniche, then back to Zed, and nodded. “See you in a bit.”

Zed’s gaze followed Flick, watching each movement until he slipped through the door and out of sight.

It’s not the last time you’ll see him. It’s not.

Zed drew in a deep breath and directed his eyes to look at the curved ceiling overhead.

* * *

The treatment suite had a higher ceiling than the usual bubbles, opaque walls and a row of clerestory windows that formed a balcony view. The space behind the windows was narrow and lined with a single hard bench that seemed out of keeping with the soft and rounded lines of ashushk architecture. The wall and windows curved, however, so that Felix had a clear view of every part of the room below. His gaze fixed on one point: Zander Anatolius.

Rhyniche and its team—including Qek and Nessa—began the procedure. Plastered against the glass, Felix held his breath until purple spots encroached on his vision. Next to him, Elias was quiet. The shadows behind, General Bradley and two of his lackeys, became just that—shadows.

Rather than use a hypo, they attached a small device to the inside of Zed’s elbow. Once the pump was in place and connected to a bank of monitors, Qek looked up at the windows, her face void of expression. Nessa lifted her head as well, but the mask covering the lower half of her face hid any expression she might have. A twinge of envy rippled through Felix as he watched the ship’s doctor return to her duty, that of monitoring the patient’s vitals. She was down there, in the room with Zed. She could hold his hand, if she wished, and she did just that. Zed stirred out of his latest trance long enough to look at her. He said something, and then his body bucked upward.

His spine curved to an impossible angle, arms and legs rigid at his sides, then he flopped back onto the narrow bed. He seized again, the convulsion contorting his handsome face. Arms spasmed out, one catching Nessa across the midsection. One of the ashushk scientists caught his other arm.

Alarms shrieked, the sound boring into Felix’s skull, even muted by the thick window. Felix gripped the glasslike barrier, his fingers slick with sweat. He imagined pushing himself through, careless of the fall. Zed needed him—his voice, his touch, his strength. He didn’t acknowledge that no one could pull a man from a fit, that he’d be more a hindrance than a help. Felix had held Zed up for weeks now, perhaps longer. He had to believe he could make a difference.

But to push away from the window, to lose sight of Zed for even the minute it would take him to find the stairs and gain entrance to the suite, would be too long. Surely if he averted his gaze for even one second, Zed would fail.

I’m here, love. I’m here.

The convulsions slowed and the seizure tapered off. Monitors still complained, but their urgency receded into the background—the soundtrack of the drama unfolding across the stage. Nessa let go of the arm she’d captured and folded it over Zed’s middle. She looked up at the windows and offered a quick nod.

Felix breathed.

His legs trembled, but he held firm. He would not, could not fall now. The wall needed him, damn it. The window. Felix was then overcome with the weird conviction he had to hold up the entire building, that the weight of it rested on his shoulders alone.

It was heavy.

Elias nudged his side. “You okay?”

Without glancing over, Felix nodded. Elias gripped his shoulder and Felix stiffened beneath the touch. Another weight and already he was straining. He could bear no more.

As the cacophony of alarms subsided to a low burble, everyone in the suite below deflated slightly, shoulders drooping and spines rounding. The altered postures did not affect their efficiency. Still, they buzzed like gray bees, tapping displays, talking at devices, measuring everything.

Thirty slow, endless minutes ticked by. Felix only marked their passage because of the holo set just behind Zed’s bed, the large one that showed a composite of all the monitor feeds. In between keeping Zed alive and well with his gaze, his will, Felix measured everything. He learned the lines of each chart, followed the beat of Zed’s heart. He chanced a glance at the row of figures in the bottom corner now and again, having somehow decided that every minute that passed was important.

It was, wasn’t it?

He didn’t notice the upsurge of sound the second time, but he saw the waves swell across the monitors, reaching for sharp peaks. Zed did not buck against the bed, limbs flying akimbo. He simply lay there, oblivious to the alarms shrieking around him, the other measures of his apparent distress.

The ashushk reacted. Like a stirred hive, they flew back and forth with more urgency and purpose. Look up, Felix silently pleaded. He needed someone to look up and wave at him. Nod. Reassure him. Nessa kept her head down. The ashushk remained busy. Too busy.

“What’s happening?”

“I don’t know,” Elias said.

The forgotten shadows behind him moved forward. Felix’s back itched and crawled.

“What are they doing?”

No one answered him.

The activity below swept into a frenzy, all the monitors flashing and twisting in the air, the displays warping as various scientists tugged and tapped at readouts. The pitch of the alarms rose, and the discordant beat, up and down, up, up and down, down and up, captured Felix’s breath, pulled him into an unsustainable pattern. His head canted forward, skin kissing the window, and the buzz transmitted into his skull and down his spine. His gut roiled and threatened to rebel.

“What’s happening?”

Still no one answered.

The alarms rose to a crescendo. Felix waited for Zed to buck off the bed again, but he remained horribly still except for the foam collecting at one corner of his mouth, a strand of drool tracking down his jaw and onto the bedding. A yell echoed through the gallery. When he swallowed, his throat hurt. His legs shook and his arms ached. Someone had plugged his ears. No, someone had turned off the alarms. No, the alarms had fallen silent and the waves pitching across the main display had subsided into barely rippled lines.

Felix pushed off the glass and ran for the stairs.

“Fix!”

A hand grazed his elbow. He shook it off easily as he leaped from the landing to the middle of the staircase, stumbled and reached for the railing. He swung down the second flight, feet missing every riser, and landed at the bottom with a thump that jarred every bone in his body.

The silent alarms continued to shrill in his ears. Even his breath shrieked.

Felix pushed against the door to the suite and grunted as his momentum piled him into the unresponsive hatch. “Open up!” He pounded against the tight swirl of ceramic plates. “Goddamn it, open the fucking door!”

“Fixer!”

Hands caught his shoulders, clawing him away from the door. Felix struggled for breath as he turned into his assailant, surprising him and knocking him back. He got the impression of a dark face—Elias—as he ran to the side, looking for the window he knew he wouldn’t find. That was why they’d been upstairs. Regardless, he pounded on the wall, each impact smacking through his closed fists and down his arms.

“Let me in!” he yelled.

He reached a blind end and turned. Two men blocked the way back—Elias and one of the AEF soldiers. Felix charged them. They caught him and he bucked in their hold.

“Let me see him. Please, don’t...” Words jumbled on the tip of his tongue. Too many wants, not enough breath. “Help,” he moaned.

“Come back upstairs, Fix. We can watch from there.”

“Don’t.” He pulled left. “Want.” Finding no opening, he pulled right. “To watch.”

He surged forward, losing the grasp of one man, but not the other, and dragged that unfortunate back toward the door. The hatch irised open and a figure stepped through. Barely registering Nessa, Felix pushed toward the closing door. Hands pulled him back. Too many hands, all touching him, grabbing him. Holding him down.

“You can’t go in there.”

“No!”

“Fix.” Nessa’s voice was quietly hoarse. Her face told a tale of tragedy.

“No!”

Of its own accord, one of Felix’s fists coiled back, bunched and prepared to fly. A hand caught him before he hit anyone. He writhed and turned, pulling against the restraining hands and arms, and all his nightmares converged. The scene beyond the door—Zed, his Zed, lying too still, lips wet with spit, eyes too wide. Gone, gone, gone.

He’d seen too many dead bodies, and in that moment the specter of each wanted to revisit him—and more. His capture—being ripped free of his body armor and taken away. Gone, forever gone.

Torture of the body and mind, everything lost. His family gone. Him stumbling over his own feet and falling hard against an unknown floor. Then or now? Figures grunting around him. Restraining hands, voices. Pleas and cries. Truth and lies. The smell of dust, sweat and blood. The rank odor of the stin.

A tunnel opened up, a dark pit. Felix stumbled toward the edge, looking for a place to hide. The shadows, he sought the shadows.

“Felix, I’m so sorry.”

How did they know his name?

Why were they sorry?

Articulated oily-green figures marched in from the darkest corner of his mind, becoming extensions of the hands at his arms and shoulders. Why couldn’t he move his legs? They held him down, ready for punishment. He had defied them, again, and they were going to exact a price: his other hand. Voices buzzed around him. None of them made sense. He’d learned so little of the stin language, had not wanted to. Felix tried to hold still, deny them his panic and pain, but if they broke his other hand, he couldn’t work the mines. No work, no food. He’d die.

He bucked and screamed. “Please don’t.”

The voices rose and fell, the cadence of them wrong. Felix struggled anyway, determined to win free. His fist scraped something, a soft grunt turned him around. He had to get away, he had to escape. He had to get off of this rock and find Zed.

Zed had promised to help him.

“Zed! Help me! Help me, please. Don’t let them break me. Zed!”

A sob brushed his ear, was it his? Had he been reduced to that?

Another voice, one he’d heard before. “Just do it, Ness. He’s going to hurt himself.”

“Oh, God.”

Another sob.

They caught him again and held him tight. Knowing it was the end, Felix yelled and screamed. Cool metal kissed his neck and he had only the space of a breath to think that’s not my hand. The world receded to a pinprick of harsh and horrible light, winked once, and disappeared.

Chapter Fifteen

Elias had watched his father contact a crew member’s family once. Tamri, their logistics and supply tech, had died on a routine shipping run. She’d been exactly where she was supposed to be in the cargo bay, watching their load, sitting in her seat, belt on as they docked, doing everything right—and the securing strap on some crates failed, the load shifted, and the crates had tipped over, crushing her. She hadn’t even had time to call out.

He hadn’t wanted to sit in the corner of his father’s berth, out of sight, while Angus shared the news with the family. He hadn’t wanted to know how his dad’s voice grew all rough and tight, making him sound almost angry even as his words were as caring and soft as he could make them. Nor had he wanted to know how his father would break down after switching off the comm, folding in on himself and pressing a shaking hand to his eyes.

But because of that, Elias knew how hard being a captain could be. How, in the worst of times, the responsibility weighed on your shoulders. He wouldn’t say it prepared him for the call he had to make, but...he knew.

A breath shuddered out of him as he looked at his wallet and he wondered for the tenth time, the hundredth, if he should just wait. Maybe...He looked at Ness, sitting opposite him in the common living area, and her lips twitched into an expression that was probably supposed to be an encouraging or supportive smile. It looked sad, though, like the rest of her. Worn-out, red-rimmed and just...sad.

“He’s gone, he’s really gone,” she said, her voice soft. “They threw up a stasis field in...in case someone has a flash of brilliance, but...”

Elias looked down at his wallet again. Nessa had explained it before, after they’d carried Fixer’s limp body back to their quarters. When Rhyniche had mentioned that organ failure was a possibility, Elias had figured it’d be slow, they could combat it. Whatever they’d injected Zed with hadn’t received the same message. It had shut everything down, everything—heart, brain, lungs—and no amount of fighting had had any impact. They’d lost him. The stasis field did nothing except prevent decay, in case, like Nessa said, all the pieces suddenly came together in a way that would let the ashushk save Zed. But Ness had made it clear that it was just standard procedure. The ashies had done everything they knew how to do.

Zed was gone. Per the instructions he’d left behind, Eli had a call to make. And then, somehow, he had to be there for Fix, to help his best friend get past yet another loss. Though he didn’t know if Fixer would, this time. He’d been so out of it when it had happened, mad with grief.

Christ, Felix, how are you going to go on?

Pushing thoughts of Fixer aside, Elias sucked in a breath. Yet another missed call from the high and mighty Grand Moth, the impatient bastard, blinked on his wallet—he could listen to that, answer him, put off this other, harder call for a little longer. His finger hovered over the wallet—then jerked back as the door chimed.

Nessa’s lips pressed into a thin line. “I’ll get it,” she said, swiping a hand absently across the frizzy scarlet strands that had escaped the knot at the back of her neck.

He hoped Ness would be able to convince whoever it was to go away. Or...no, if it was the AEF, he hoped she would invite them in. Throwing a few punches at Zed’s old CO would feel really fucking good right about now.

A soft hand landed on his shoulder. “It’s Rhyniche,” Ness announced.

The ashushk scientist made its way across the room, looking as tired and wrung-out as Elias felt. The ashushk’s face was smooth, completely unlined, and it moved slowly. It didn’t sit, however. Elias had noticed that in social circumstances, particularly uneasy ones, the ashies did not avail themselves of any sort of comfort.

“Qek is in with Felix,” Nessa volunteered. “Should I...?”

Rhyniche shook its head. “No. I will be only a moment.” It drew in a deep breath, its clicks muted and slow, and focused on Elias. “On the behalf of my staff, I wish to express my deepest condolences to you and your crew. This was not the outcome—” The ashushk broke off with a sharp click, followed by a noise that almost sounded like a clogged throat being cleared. “I admired Mr. Anatolius greatly for his perseverance and I admire your crew for theirs. It is not easy to stand with someone in such difficult circumstances, and all of you did so without hesitation.”

“He’s—” Fuck. Elias blinked. “He was crew.”

“Indeed. I also wanted you to be aware that General Bradley requested that Mr. Anatolius’s body be surrendered to the AEF.”

Rage jerked Elias’s body straight. “Like hell! They have no goddamned claim to him, not now, not ever. They abandoned him when they could’ve—”

“You are preaching to the choir, Captain Idowu.” The idiom might have amused Elias at any other time—it was such an ashie thing, to purposely pepper their speech with human sayings—but Rhyniche looked cold as he said it. “I informed General Bradley that as the AEF relinquished any claim to Mr. Anatolius the moment they released him from his duties and refused to assist him any further, his body would be returned to his family. I further informed General Bradley that it would be regrettable should his continued presence cause a nervous technician to hit an incorrect button and send our files on a renowned AEF war hero to an unprotected server off-world.”

Elias’s brows rose. “You threatened the AEF with exposure?”

“Nothing so crude, I assure you.” A single wrinkle appeared over the ashushk’s eyes. “It was merely a suggestion of what might occur. We are not used to outsiders, after all.”

Wow. Elias blinked, hard, and looked down for a moment. “Thank you. Felix would not have taken that news well, so I owe you a great deal for stepping in.”

“How is Mr. Ingesson?” Rhyniche’s face smoothed out again.

“Still sedated.” He hoped. God, he’d never forget the abject terror on Fixer’s face, how he’d screamed as if he’d been back in the stin camps. One look at Fix’s eyes had told Eli that his engineer had not been on Ashie Prime with them anymore, which was why he’d encouraged Ness to tranq him. He just hoped it didn’t throw Fix into nightmares he wouldn’t be able to escape.

“It is probably for the best. He...” The ashie clicked. “He did not react well.”

Elias swallowed an inappropriate bark of laughter. None of them were reacting well. He could understand Fix’s grief—fuck, he’d loved Zed, probably more deeply than he’d even let himself recognize. But the rest of them? They’d only known Zed for a short time, during which he’d attacked them more than once, killed enough bad guys to get the Chaos in deep shit with the wrong people, and...

And brought life to a man who’d only really been half-alive before.

Elias looked at his lap, concentrating hard to keep his emotions in check. His jaw flexed and his eyes burned, and he barely noted the soft rhythm of Nessa’s hand rubbing his shoulder. He let himself have ten breaths, counting them, then looked up again and stood before the alien who had worked so hard to save one of his people, as though Zed had been an ashushk and not a human.

Elias swallowed. “May my gratitude flow with you until you join the stars, and beyond,” he said in the ashushk language. His tongue and mouth tripped over the odd syllables and weird clicks, but Qek had assured him the traditional expression of thanks would be understood despite his inelegant accent.

Rhyniche clicked in surprise, lines disappearing from its face. Its mouth opened in a small O. “It was my honor, Captain Elias,” it said in English. “You and your crew will always be welcome here.”

Elias didn’t miss the fact that the ashushk scientist had used his first name instead of his surname. Still paired with Captain, but he recognized the overture for what it was.

With a final nod, Rhyniche left the room and Elias sank back into his chair. He bent at the waist and braced his forehead in his hands, his elbows digging into his thighs. “Thank fuck Rhyniche managed to ward off the AEF,” he said, his voice rough.

He pulled out his wallet again and small, firm hands landed on his shoulders. “Do it,” Nessa said. “Let’s just get this all done so we can start to heal.”

Ignoring the Grand Moth’s message, Elias pressed the button for Brennan Anatolius with an unsteady finger. A virtual assistant intercepted the call, but mentioning his name and Zed’s got him through.

Brennan’s face appeared on the holo display. Hardly a breath passed before he said, “When?”

So much inevitability and resignation weighed on one short word. Elias’s mouth opened and closed as he realized Brennan had probably been expecting this call since Zed had reached out to him a couple of days ago. From what Zed had told Elias when they’d spoken, he’d been as vague as possible—but it wouldn’t take a genius to hear the goodbye in Zed’s words.

Oh, fuck.

Elias lifted a hand to rub the bridge of his nose. “An hour or so. He—”

If you call him...when...don’t tell him the truth, Eli. Don’t give Brennan or Dad or Maddox a reason to go after the AEF. Promise me. Let them think what they need to think.

Fuck, Zed had known too.

“It was over quickly,” he whispered.

“He...uh, we knew things weren’t...” Brennan swallowed hard. “How’s Felix taking it?”

“Not well.” Understatement there, but what more could he say? “Brennan, I’m—I’m so fucking sorry.”

“Not your fault. And not Felix’s either. Make sure he knows that, okay?” He paused, obviously trying to find some composure. “My little brother was a hero. I don’t know the details of everything he did, but I know Zed. He put everything he was into everything he did, and I’m not surprised he couldn’t find himself again after the war. I wish...”

“He loved you all very much,” Eli said, his voice ragged. “But you’re right, I don’t think he was the same man and he didn’t want you to see that.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered. It never mattered. We love—loved—Fuck.” Brennan shook his head. “I need to tell Mom and Dad, Mad.... God.”

“If you need anything...” Elias sucked in a breath, one that burned his throat. “The Chaos will transport him back to Earth.”

“Thank you, Captain. We’d be honored if you and your crew would attend the memorial.”

How was he supposed to talk with his throat so tight? “Sure. We wouldn’t miss it.”

When Elias signed off, Nessa held up her end of the promise she’d made a few days before. She folded him in her arms and held him as he cried. He didn’t try to fight the deluge, letting it all wash over him—the sorrow at losing a friend, the worry of losing a second, and the unrepentant, impotent anger at a family having to believe their son hadn’t fought like hell to stay with them.

* * *

Even before opening his eyes, Felix could feel the killer headache just waiting to catch him. What the fuck had he drunk last night? Man, it had been years since he’d tied one on—must have been one hell of a party. His forehead wrinkled into a frown and his skin felt like a sheet of paper buckling. He reached for his head to smooth it and groaned as the world tilted and swirled. Then he managed to poke himself in the eye.

“Shit.” His mouth tasted of old socks. No, his tongue was an old sock and his short curse had emerged on a croak. Felix blinked both eyes open and winced as tears filled his right, misting his view of a clear, domed ceiling. “What the...”

His question, put to no one in particular, trailed off as he recognized the bubble overhead. He was on Ashie Prime and—

“Zed!”

Oh, fuck, he’d fallen asleep, or finally given in to temptation and drunk himself to oblivion. Fallen down on his duty. Zed couldn’t be left unattended! He might wander off, or hurt himself, or worse, try to kill someone.

Zed’s side of the weird bed lay untouched, the coverlet pulled straight, pillow all plump. Felix blinked stupidly at the empty space, at the wide gap in his understanding, and grappled with the idea he should know why Zed wasn’t beside him.

Then he remembered.

A sob lurched up into his throat and wedged against his larynx, effectively cutting off the howl building in his chest. He could be screaming and not hear it. Blood roared behind his ears and the promised pain of the headache that had teased him awake clamped down with iron fingers.

He grabbed the untouched pillow and pulled it into his arms. Eyes closed, he buried his face in it and breathed in the scent of Zed. Dark hair and blue eyes flashed behind his lids; a warm voice, a quiet tickle of laughter, an earnest gaze.

I love you, in case you wondered.

The pain in his head and the pressure at his ears and throat intensified. Felix thought he might burst, fly into a million little pieces. He braced for it, but the end did not come. Instead, fate left him alone and so aggrieved that he craved the vacuum of space.

He’d get to that when he figured out how to uncurl his body and had decided whether or not to take the pillow with him.

“Fixer?”

Recognizing Nessa’s voice, Felix curled tighter—so tight he might just snap something, and that would be a fucking blessing. A distraction. In brief succession, the other ways he might distract himself marched across the memory of Zed’s beautiful face. Drowning seemed the easiest. He’d never learned to swim and the ashushk planet had a lot of water to get lost in. Knowing Ness and Eli, though, one of them would haul him out of the sea before he got out of his depth.

A weight settled onto the bed behind him and a hand brushed his shoulder.

“Do you want something to drink?”

“No.” His parched throat mangled the word.

Her hand began moving in slow circles behind his shoulder. The touch hurt, like sandpaper on bare skin. Felix pulled away and crawled across the bed, inched his legs forward and let them spill off the rounded edge. The world tilted and swirled again, as if someone had whacked his temples with a mallet. Groaning, he squeezed his eyes shut.

“Sorry, I hit you with a pretty wicked sedative.”

His shoulders hitched into a vague shrug and then seemed to drop farther down than should be natural. Pulling the pillow into his chest, Felix tipped forward and buried his face in the softness again.

“Can I get you anything?”

Zed.

The million pieces of himself bunched together and then tried to fly apart again, the whole thing a quick, torturous squeeze that ended in another gut-lurching revolution of the galaxy.

“No,” he said into the pillow.

“You should walk around a little, get your blood flowing. Eat something. It’s been...a while.”

Felix pulled his face out of the pillow and turned to look at Nessa. “You really think I want to eat? Or move? Or drink? Or fucking even breathe? I just want to be left alone.”

Her face betrayed no hint of consternation. She’d expected such an outburst, which frustrated him. She might as well rub another piece of sandpaper over his raw skin, and why the hell did his skin feel sunburned?

Felix peered down at his wrist and saw only shiny scar tissue peeking out from his sleeve. Another flash of memory caught him, a struggle, something about his hands, an impression of shiny gray armor with articulated joints. A sharp odor. His dreams.

Time to move.

He needed to resist the sucking pull of grief that would lay him down and blot out the world. He would outmaneuver the pain instead. Try to step ahead of it. Nip this coddling shit in the bud before Nessa formed a habit. As he stood, Felix realized he’d acted on the doctor’s advice. He nearly sat down again, just for the sake of defiance. Instead, he strode toward the bathroom, pillow still clutched to his chest.

“Need help with the shower?” she asked.

He ignored her but left the bathroom door open while he showered, perverse in his need to fuck with her, piss her off enough that she would leave him alone. The steady beat of water massaged tight muscles, but the knots of tension didn’t loosen. His head no longer spun by the time he stepped out, though. Steam followed him back into the room. Nessa had straightened the bed cover and was now sitting on the small lounge-shaped blob under one of the weird ashushk plants that adorned every room. Felix wrestled a clean pair of shorts out of his bag and showed her his ass as he put them on. Utility pants and a fresh SFT, and...he felt like crap.

“Ready for something to eat?”

“No.” His stomach growled and folded in half. “You can go. I don’t need a babysitter.”

“I’m not your babysitter. I’m your friend.”

“Don’t need those, either.”

He’d left the pillow in the bathroom. Felix ducked in after it and scowled at the damp feel of the fabric. Quickly, he tucked it up under his nose and tested the scent. Zed floated out and wrapped comfortingly around him.

There, he stumbled. Time stopped again and his heart squeezed.

Zed.

A sideways glance at Nessa showed her looking at the pillow. Felix threw it toward the bed and swallowed a gasp at the pain of separation. But he’d be damned if he showed her how much he hurt. He fished socks out of his pack and dropped onto the bed so he could pull them over his damp feet. He shoved his feet into his boots, thumbed the fasteners closed and pushed unsteadily back to his feet.

“Okay, I’m off. Let yourself out.”

Nessa stood. “I’ll come with you.”

“No.”

“I’m not leaving you alone and I’d rather walk beside than behind.”

“You think I care?”

He got a reaction that time, a small flare of hurt in her eyes.

Satisfied, but not, Felix smacked the door panel and stepped into the communal room the moment the hatch opened. He thought about trying to close the thing on Nessa, but even in his current state decided that would be a shitty thing to do. Instead, he stalked off, leaving her to follow.

She caught up and walked at his side. “Let’s go get something to eat.”

“I told you. I’m not hungry.”

She grabbed his arm. “Fix—”

“Don’t touch me.”

She removed her hand and shoved it into her wild hair. Felix looked at her properly, then, at the lines etched across her forehead, the pinch of her lips, and recognized that she was struggling with her own grief. But he didn’t want to acknowledge it. None of them could possibly feel as he did. None of them had lost so much, so he didn’t give a flying fuck about their pain.

“Just leave me alone. I’m not going to off myself, I just want to be alone.”

“It’s not healthy—”

“I don’t give a shit! I don’t want to be healthy, I’m not fucking healthy. I just lost my best friend, the only person in this galaxy I ever truly loved and...” His voice broke.

I didn’t tell him I loved him.

Grief wrenched and Felix looked for the nearest breakable object, something not flesh and bone. If he tried breaking his hands, he’d only be inviting Nessa to care for him. Failing to find something to smash, he studied every plump and rounded piece of furniture in the room—most now molded to the shape of someone’s ass—and got distracted as he wondered which of the slack chairs Zed had last sat in.

“We really need you to pull yourself together.” Ness was using her reasonable tone of voice. “I know you’re hurting and angry. Honestly, I’d be worried if you weren’t.”

He spared her a look at that, then went back to trying to identify the ass-prints in the chairs.

“We need to make arrangements. Take Zed back to Earth.” Her breath hitched and Felix felt the pull in his lungs. “And we have to think about Qek. She’s been really quiet today. I’m sure she’s grieving in her own way, but we have to consider the fact she might be experiencing the first effects of whatever the ashushk go through when they gender.”

That got his attention. Turning back to Nessa, Felix asked, “I told her to come to me if she felt something.”

“You’re not so approachable right now, Fix.”

He covered his face with one hand and worked to control the weird tug on his features, the way his forehead wanted to pinch and fold, his mouth spread into a grimace. Now would be a good time to start hitting a wall...

Remembering the window walls were harder than they appeared, he strode purposefully forward, fists raised. Nessa caught his elbow and yanked him back a step, her strength and determination surprising.

“Please don’t.”

“I need...” The pain ripped through him again, stem to stern. A cry of frustration burned against his throat. “I can’t do this, Ness.”

His knees gave way, dropping him to the floor. Felix folded forward, attempting to hide within himself. Ness’s restraining hand became another warm caress, and that hurt too.

“Got you,” she said and he had the idea he’d only heard the end of her sentence.

“Don’t touch me.” To his own ears, his protest sounded pathetic and he lacked the strength to pull away from her.

“God, Fix. Please let me help you.”

“I don’t want your help. I want...”

Zed.

The passage of cold and clammy hands across his skin cut through his grief. Felix groaned as the invisible fingers reached deeper, twisting his gut and stroking his testicles. Not sorrow—he’d never felt this way in sorrow—but he had felt something similar, the creepy sensation of being probed.

Beside him, Nessa stiffened and gasped. And then the alarms sounded, a quiet wail that rose in the distance, accompanied by a flash from the comm panel by the outer door. The bubble over their heads darkened and lights winked on across the walls, glowing against the now opaque windows. The floor vibrated, the ripple traveling up Felix’s legs and into his arms.

Felix hadn’t been on-planet often enough to recognize an earthquake, but that was his immediate thought. Quickly, he pulled Nessa into his side, and he attempted to curl around her, instinct driving him to protect her. Before she could tuck herself into the shell he provided, the vibration ceased and the world fell quiet except for the distant whine of an alarm. A breath later, the lights dimmed. The window walls remained dark.

Nessa’s wallet chimed and she pulled it out of her pocket and flipped it open.

“Ness?”

“Here.”

“Is Fix with you?”

She looked up at him, her expression completely unreadable, then said, “Yeah.”

“The...fuck.” Elias hissed and the connection popped. “It was the Guardians. Qek and I were making arrangements and the Guardians came. They...God. They took him, Ness.”

Who?

Felix really didn’t want to ask. He really didn’t have to.

“They scanned us all and then they took Zed’s body.”

Chapter Sixteen

“Zanderanatolius.”

“Annadolus.” Frustration makes his brows drop. He grits his teeth, then tries again. “Annadolis. Annadolees.”

Her bright smile wipes away the hint of tears that crowd his vision. She looks at him with kind gray-blue eyes that are so much like his own and he feels warm all over. “You’ve almost got it,” she says, her voice full of encouragement. She brushes a thumb under one of his eyes to erase the evidence of his frustration. “It’s a tough name, I know, but it’s yours, baby. Someday, it’ll just roll off your tongue.”

He sticks out his tongue and tries to look at it, wondering how a word could roll off it.

She laughs and taps a finger to his nose. “Try again. An-a-tol-ee-us.”

His mouth forms the sounds before he whispers them, slowly. Then, taking a breath, he tries again. “Anatolius.” His eyes widen as he realizes he said it. He said it! “Anatolius. Anatolius! I’m Zander Anatolius!”

“Breathe.”

“I know it hurts like a bitch, son, but just focus on your breathing. In and out, in and out.”

Nope. Not breathing is better. Anything is better than the spearing pain in his head. His eyes are closed and he fears opening them, fears what he’ll see. He hears a moan and it takes him a moment to realize it escaped his lips.

“We’re gonna transport you back to the base. You hear me, Lieutenant?”

He tries to nod, but that’s even worse than breathing. “Wha...” His tongue feels thick and unresponsive, but the voice knows what he’s asking.

“What happened?” A snort seems to echo. “Looks like you got caught with your pants down, sir.”

Pants down? “‘Tack? Terr—terror—”

Another snort. “Nah, I don’t think pissed-off wives with a shovel fall into the terrorist-attack category. Just keep breathing, sir. Focus on that. Memories will come later.”

He does what the voice says. Breathes, keeping it even, keeping it steady. And he drifts.

“Trust.”

A shoulder slams into his, harder than necessary, getting his attention in her unique—and occasionally painful—way. He turns to look at his assailant’s wide grin and sparkling emerald eyes. She is almost bouncing with excitement.

“You ready for tomorrow, Major?”

The rank is still new, still shiny, and he likes hearing it—something she knows, so she says it a lot. It’s a little pleasure, one she indulges, because she knows him better than anyone else left in the galaxy.

“I’m ready,” he says, offering her a smile. He doesn’t feel the emotions underneath the smile that he knows he should—he doesn’t feel much of anything, anymore.

“We’re gonna be the difference. We’re gonna turn the tide. The stin are gonna shit their pants when they see us coming.”

“I know.” Futile wishes flit through his mind and his smile falters.

“Hey.” Her shoulder bump is more gentle this time. “He’s cheering you on. You know that, right?”

He wrinkles his nose. “He’s been dead for six years, Emma. He’s not cheering anyone on.”

She shrugs and looks up, as though she can see the stars instead of the barracks ceiling. “You don’t believe there’s something after we...you know?”

“Life after death? Like heaven, hell, that shit?”

“Or something.”

He watches her for any clue that she’s having him on. He sees none, just...a peaceful sort of expression. As if the thought of something after comforts her and that makes him wonder. If shit goes south tomorrow on their first day of this new project, this experimental training, will that be the end? Or will he see...

He shakes his head. “Well, if there is, I hope to hell he’s doing something more interesting than watching me.”

“Oh, hon.” She smiles and leans her cheek on his shoulder. “If he’s out there, he’s watching you and cheering you on. Trust me.”

“Zanderanatolius.”

His name rolled around in his mind, not quite a command but not something he could ignore, either. The cadence of it wasn’t quite right, the syllables mashed together, but he could understand it. He knew it labeled him, who he was, all his thoughts and memories, dreams and wishes, hopes and emotions. His identity, his self. The knowledge wrapped around him like a blanket, comforting and warm. He knew who he was, and that was the greatest gift he’d ever received.

Secure, anchored to his self, he floated somewhere between waking and not. He didn’t mark time passing, didn’t count the number of breaths he breathed. He simply was, and that knowledge was comforting too. When had he last just existed, with no thought to plans, no worries about what the future would hold, and without coming up with contingencies to combat challenges and obstacles? Had he ever?

Slowly, his sense of self grew to incorporate his body, not just his mind. His limbs felt heavy, as though they were weighted, but warm and without any pain. He blinked and only then realized his eyes were open, staring at a starfield that stretched overhead and out to the sides. The sight should have sent panic rushing through him, and on some distant level, he felt a twinge of it—but he remembered soft, vague commands. Breathe. Trust.

He could do both.

“Am I dead?” he asked the stars.

Is this what Emma had been thinking of when she talked about the afterlife? Would he have the chance to watch over Flick, to see him live his life? That would...well, it wouldn’t be okay, but it would be something. Something more than he’d expected.

Had he expected this? He couldn’t remember.

“You are not dead.”

The voice came from everywhere, and nowhere. Zed turned his head, looking for the source, but already knowing he wouldn’t find one. He was alone in a sea of stars, floating, breathing, trusting. Not dead. Unless the voice lied, but...no, he believed it.

“Are you...” A dozen different names for human deities ran through his head, a trove of information Zed hadn’t been aware he’d stored. What label to choose? Generic was probably best. “Uh, a god?”

“We are not.”

Okay...what else was there? Demons? Devils? But they were sort of gods, too, weren’t they? Zed watched the stars, his thoughts tugged away from the questions by the serenity of the black ocean. He drifted again, floating in time. He was nothing but a speck in the vastness, an atom. Any questions he might ask, any plans he might make, meant nothing. Less than nothing. It was...a freeing thought.

What will be, will be.

Breathe. Trust.

“Do you wish to know, Zanderanatolius?”

The specifics of the question rolled over him in gentle, warm waves, nudging against his thoughts—and he understood, suddenly, that he was not hearing the voice with his ears. The words appeared in his mind, but...they weren’t words, they were thoughts. Ideas, concepts, emotions, layers upon layers that shaped themselves into an echoing phrase, one that reverberated with meaning beyond the labels his brain applied. It was the oddest sensation, but not a frightening one.

“You know me,” he whispered. How could it not? The voice was there, permeating everything, drawing on his knowledge and combining it with wisps that he could only barely grasp the existence of, in order to form new ideas, new concepts, to learn and grow.

“Everything,” the voice confirmed.

A million concepts flew through Zed’s mind: memories, emotions, thoughts, hopes, identity, morals, culture, values and so many more, all him, all with his label. He sucked in a breath. The voice knew more than he had ever thought to share with anyone.

“We like you.”

Zed laughed, the sound unfettered and genuine. As said by the voice, like meant so much more than like, encompassing approval, respect, admiration and...hope? That was difficult to comprehend, why a disembodied voice would attach hope to Zed. When put up against all of that meaning, like seemed simplistic—but also perfectly simple.

“You are proof.”

“Proof of what?”

Wordless, nebulous thoughts filtered through Zed’s mind, concepts that went beyond his comprehension. His brain couldn’t find labels for them. The warmth and lassitude in his limbs kept him from trying too hard. The intangible river flowed around him and he let it, and he realized for the first time—though, truly, he’d already known—that it was an alien presence in his head, who now knew everything that made up one Zander Damianos Anatolius.

That was...it couldn’t be good, right?

Panic flared, a distant flame, as he remembered the training that had taught him what to do in the event of being captured by the enemy. He tensed, and the connection between his mind and body started to solidify.

“Breathe,” the voice said. “Trust. You are our proof, and you will never come to harm by our hands.”

“I don’t understand.” Zed looked to the right, at the stars, and to the left, at more stars. Though he still felt warm, safe, some of the heaviness in his body lifted, as though a sedative was wearing off. His train of thought grew more purposeful, questions poking through the haze. “How did I get here? Why am I here? Where—” Oh, God, where was Flick?

“You are our proof,” the voice said again, as though that explained everything. It didn’t—even with the fuzziness shredding, Zed couldn’t follow the reverberations of that word. “Strength, heart, intelligence, spirit. Proof.”

“I don’t—” He tried to sit up, but pain lanced through his body. The warmth faded, though he still felt the edges of it. It just couldn’t hold up to the fact that everything hurt, as though someone had scraped every last centimeter of his skin with the flat of a razor, then used him as a punching bag. What the hell? Before he could ask, before he could do more than just attempt to get up, his limbs grew slack again, and his eyelids drooped. The questions he’d started to grasp for faded, along with everything else.

No, he didn’t want to sleep. He wanted...he needed...

Where are you, Flick? Why couldn’t he remember?

“Rest, Zanderanatolius. Then tell us if you wish to know. It is your choice.”

Chapter Seventeen

For a moment, a single golden moment every time he awoke, Felix existed in a place where he almost believed Zed hadn’t left him. Eyes closed, he could imagine the warmth at his side was a man, that he could hear the soft snore his breath deepened to in the early hours—that he could smell his skin, his hair.

For six days, Felix resisted opening his eyes for as long as he could, but the illusion always faded before he let the world in. The awful weight of loss would crush him, pin him to the bed. He would blink his eyes open and enter the second round of denial, resist the urge to turn his head and confirm that the warmth beside him was nothing but a pillow, the scent a shirt he’d dug out of Zed’s pack, the scrape of breath his own.

On the seventh day, he lay there with his eyes closed, already aware of the lie, the truth, the pain of his loss, and wondered if he could have done something different. Something more. Something...less. Had he been responsible for Zed’s rapid deterioration? If Zed had had less to worry about, namely a lover, would he have held it together longer?

If Felix had died in the stin work camp, or succumbed to his injuries after...if he’d been taken out of the equation, would Zed be alive?

Or was it his simple lack of belief in a higher power? If the seventh day actually meant something to him, other than the relentless passage of time, would Zed be lying next to him now?

Sucking in a ragged breath, Felix punished himself for sins real and imagined by rolling away from the pillow he wanted to hug. His gaze fell on the small vial of pills Nessa had left him and he ignored those too. Oblivion beckoned, but he had to pay for his trespasses first. He sat up on the opposite side of the bed without gathering up the black shirt and pressing it to his face. He denied himself the scent of Zed. He opened his eyes.

Outside the bubble, dusk gathered. The long days of Ashie Prime messed with his internal clock as much as the sedatives. His days and nights were purely subjective and not constrained by the passing of real time. He measured them by periods of wakefulness and longing, for Zed, for another dose of nothingness. Even assisted, his sleep wasn’t restful, though. He woke stiff and sore, as if he’d spent the night clinging to the edge of a cliff. The sedatives were supposed to keep the nightmares at bay—and they did, but only just.

Over the ocean, sunset mists thinned to streamers, layering the sky in brushstrokes of color. It should be beautiful. It sort of was. Sure beat staring into nothing but his reflection, or slipping into memories that left him aching and alone. Rationally, he knew he had to pull himself together, that he couldn’t continue to drift between the nightmares and the quiet death of drugged sleep. He couldn’t keep yelling at Nessa every time she touched him, or refusing to talk to Elias. He couldn’t ignore that for every hour he whiled away, Qek risked her livelihood and freedom. His crew was hurting too. They hadn’t loved Zed the way he had, but they’d liked him and had welcomed him into their family.

Right then, though, staring at yet another beautiful Ashushk Prime sunset, he could not find the strength to form a plan otherwise.

His door chimed. Felix didn’t answer, he didn’t see the point. Whoever it was would come in anyway, concerned that he’d slept too long, not slept at all, or had torn his room apart in the grip of another nightmare. They wanted to check on him and he’d stopped telling them to fuck off.

Sure enough, the door swished open and light footsteps padded into his room. Felix remained seated on the edge of the bed, eyes pointed toward the mist, but he acknowledged his visitor, if only because she was something of a novelty.

“Hey, Qek.” The casual greeting was callous—and he was an asshole. What if it had been Nessa at the door with news that Qek was gone, that his delay had cost her everything? Felix sucked in a breath and held it. He couldn’t deal with another loss.

“How are you feeling, Fixer?”

“Like crap.” Qek valued honesty.

“I am sorry to hear that.”

Felix turned to look at the friend he had all but ignored in his grief. Qek had not approached farther than the threshold. She stood with her hands linked behind her back, her posture reminiscent of a banker with bad news. Her smooth face indicated a quiet, pensive mood.

Oh, God...

Why did he have to keep reminding himself what her friendship meant to him?

Felix turned back to the mist and exercised the only control he’d mastered over the past few days, that of banishing tears before they burned the back of his eyes or clogged his nose. His chest hitched once with the need to sob, then fell still. He would not cry, could not. He was not a boy; tears wouldn’t change anything and he had the awful feeling that if he did give in, his tears would mean the end. That he had given up, given in.

Quietly, he said, “I’m sorry I’ve been such a shit friend.”

Jesus. Now he’d have to apologize to Nessa and Elias too. Then they’d show him smug smiles and start coddling him even more. Or expect him to get out of bed. Or cry.

“I do not require my friends to hold to any standard. They only need be themselves.”

“You’re a better man than me.” Feeling Qek prepare a question, Felix held up a hand. “It’s an expression. You’re a better person.”

“I am a different person.”

Felix turned back around. “How come you haven’t been pestering me like Ness and Eli?”

Qek’s face wrinkled gently. “The ashushk process grief differently to humans, but it was my understanding you preferred to be alone.”

“You got that right. I don’t suppose you tried to share that insight with them?”

“I did not, because they needed to tend you.”

Well, damn.

Feeling the annoying press of tears again, Felix turned away and scrubbed at his face. He swiped the heel of his palm over both cheeks, removing any evidence of his weakness. Maybe he hadn’t been strong enough. Had he let Zed down because he was broken inside and not properly reset? Brittle, and just plain moody. Not...healthy.

Maybe he was just a bad person and the galaxy, or the gods he didn’t believe in, needed to teach him a lesson.

Did thinking that make him conceited?

Fuck.

Felix dragged in another deep draft of air, held the breath until his lungs twitched, and breathed out. He peeked over his shoulder at the guest he’d left in the doorway, the one who didn’t seem to mind that he sat facing away, clad only in shorts that probably weren’t visible behind the rumpled sheets. Waving at Nessa’s favorite perch, the slack lounge under the window, he said, “Have a seat. Stay a while.”

Qek’s quiet presence offered the comfort Nessa wanted to give him and, with a sudden sharpness, Felix craved the ashushk’s company. He understood the method behind Nessa’s madness; she prodded and poked to keep him from slipping into oblivion and, for the most part, it worked. In contrast, Qek’s quietude offered solace and above all, Felix craved peace. An end to his misery.

“What about you, Qek? What do you need?”

“I need only for my friends to be well.”

“That’s a bullshit answer. Everyone needs something for themselves.”

The ashie inclined her head to accede the point and moved to sit on the low lounge. Forehead wrinkling and smoothing, she appeared to consider his statement, and then she said, “I have lived for ninety-one of your Standard years, which is about a third of my expected life-span, if I do not gender.” Her skin tightened and loosened. “I have tended many needs in that time, throughout what many ashushk consider to be their childhood. The first third. Right now, my needs are simple. But...”

The hesitation fascinated Felix, and for a moment he forgot the pain clutching at his heart. He forgot his needs. Leaning toward his friend, Felix nodded, prompting her to continue.

“There is something you could do for me.”

Felix’s brows crooked together. “Sure. What is it?”

“You advised me to come to you, and so I have. It is time for me to leave this planet. We have been here for three intervals and every day I fear I will become trapped.”

Three intervals? An interval was the ashushk equivalent of a week, or six thirty-hour days. He’d lost so much time. How long had Zed been...Felix shook his head, shunting those thoughts away. He needed to focus on Qek, and why Qek had come to see him.

“I’m sorry.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly and her cheeks smoothed. Again, Felix read her expression clearly. She did not understand his apology. She did not understand that no human should ever have to hear an ashushk’s fears, and that by that very action she’d deepened a friendship he had taken so for granted.

God, would he always be such an ass?

Probably. He had survived the stin, discharge from the AEF and the loss of his family. Hell, life had kicked him in the gut so many times, he should be used to it. Yet still he kicked back.

Felix turned back to the clear bubble wall and noted that the purple light of evening had started to darken the landscape. Soon, the ethereal beauty of Ashushk Prime would be lost for another endless night—not that he’d paid any particular attention to it during the long days. Or, maybe he had, because he knew that dark shadow over there was a curved tree that reminded him of an Earth palm. The ashushk seemed to favor them. They shaded every walkway, and potted versions leaned toward every windowed wall inside.

He pointed to it. “What are those trees?”

Qek clicked, swallowed a few consonants and then translated. “Windward recline.”

“You seriously have a tree called windward recline?”

“That is a literal translation. The trees represent two ashushk ideals, the direction of the wind, which is a prevailing force, and the inclination to lean away from it, which is a restful pose.”

Felix’s thoughts flopped sluggishly around inside his head. He caught the concept, but it sounded too Zen for him. Elias would like it. He returned to Qek’s request and considered all that it meant to him.

Departing Ashie Prime would mean leaving Zed behind. The Guardians had taken his body—for which purpose no one could divine. Elias reckoned they’d taken Zed as a trophy, that the gesture had something to do with the end of the Human-Stin war, and that video, the one that had ended Zed’s career—Major Anatolius defying orders to rescue ten civilians, making him a hero and a problem for the AEF. Elias had often inferred that the Guardian interference at that time, which had ended the war, had not been coincidental. Felix figured Elias simply tried to make him feel better by assigning meaning to random acts.

The Guardians were not going to give Zed back. They’d probably already...Felix didn’t want to think about what they might have done to his body.

Leaving this planet would mean abandoning a portion of his grief. Twelve hours in the space elevator would require him to be either civil or sedated. Felix supposed they’d all prefer the former option. The latter appealed more to him. Otherwise, he would have to pull the fragments of himself together and return to function. He would have to consider the future. His ship, his crew.

Leaving would mean that he accepted the fact that Zed had died.

Qek had waited something like a week to ask him. She had danced with fate for weeks longer than that, because she valued his friendship.

She’d given enough. More than enough.

Felix felt his chin dipping even before he’d decided to nod. The bob of his head was stiff, but he let the motion happen and confirmed it aloud. “You’re right. It’s time to go.”

Chapter Eighteen

“Zanderanatolius.”

Zed opened his eyes, the sight of the starfield as comforting as ever. It had not taken him long to understand that what looked like a vast emptiness of space was actually a room with walls, floor and ceiling all camouflaged by what appeared to be a live stream of space imagery. It had been disconcerting at first to see an endless ocean of black and yet feel something solid under his feet, but now...he liked it. He didn’t really understand why his hosts had chosen such décor, but yeah, he liked it.

He straightened his legs from where they’d been folded under him and looked up, smiling at his foolishness. He didn’t have to look anywhere. The voice had no source he could see.

“Yes?”

“How do you feel?”

Zed’s smile grew. “Why don’t you tell me?”

Warmth brushed his mind—a soundless chuckle. “We think you have adapted very well to this method of communication.”

“It’s...nice.” He let many more layers of meaning drape over that one adjective: freeing, easy, open, honest.

“That is why we use it. You feel calm.”

As always, one word brushed multiple concepts. Calm meant serene, content, peaceful, light, steady. Zed acknowledged that he was all of those things—now. It had taken a great deal of work to arrive at this point. When he’d first awoken, he’d been scattered. He’d known his name and who he was, but memories and thoughts beyond that one surety had come back slowly. His mind and his body hadn’t wanted to blend together again, the weirdest and most awful sensation Zed had ever experienced. He had felt disconnected from his body, as if it were a robotic construct belonging to someone else and only loaned to him. Without the soft, gentle patience of the voice in his mind, guiding him on how to put the pieces of himself back together, he would’ve remained broken. Or his mind would have snapped, permanently, irrevocably.

Through it all, the voice had been a comforting, encouraging presence. A metaphysical shoulder to lean on when his strength waned. It had helped him to keep going when he wanted to give up, reminding him of all the pieces of himself he’d yet to find—particularly those featuring Flick.

A sliver of doubt rose to accompany the peacefulness, one that he’d looked at and tried to address more than once. Should he feel so peaceful? Flick was out there—somewhere. Back on Ashie Prime, maybe, or in the black with the Chaos. Zed wasn’t sure how much time had passed since he’d...well, since he died. Guilt rose up to intertwine with the doubt. He should be pushing to get back to Flick, shouldn’t he?

Something soft brushed his thoughts, like a gentle hand smoothing his hair. The truth settled over him, probably nudged to the forefront by the mental touch, but he accepted it for what it was nonetheless. The physical pain that had plagued him on waking had faded, healed. The emotional and mental pain was a bit more tenacious, and harder to resolve.

He let his gratitude flow through his thoughts, knowing the voice would sense it.

“You have not asked us questions.”

No, he had not. His life had settled into a strange rhythm, one where time had little meaning. He woke when he no longer needed to sleep. He bathed in the small bathroom nestled next to the space room, using the facilities that could have been at home on any human ship. He ate when food appeared on the table beside his surprisingly comfortable cot—delivered there by a means he had yet to understand. In between all of this, he meditated, finding the forgotten pieces of himself and putting them back in place. He had not seen another living creature, but he was never alone. The voice was always at the edge of his perception, there but not heard unless it meant for him to hear. He had gotten the sense that he could engage it whenever he wished, but he’d refrained. Why, he wasn’t sure. Maybe because it was easier to drift in this place, where the rhythm of life demanded nothing from him? He’d needed the silence, the lack of demands, the space to put himself back together.

He needed Flick, too, but that need was muted. It was there, beneath the glued-together surface of Zed’s thoughts and identity, but he avoided looking at it too closely. Not because he didn’t want to return to his lover with every fiber of his being, but because...he was afraid of feeling that much again. Here, now, he existed in a bubble of contentment and no expectation—it was like a warm, thick blanket on a cold winter’s night, held close and comfortable against his skin. He wanted Flick to be wrapped in the blanket with him. Safe, protected, held apart from all the shit in the galaxy just waiting for him to reappear.

“You are confused.” Uncertain, frightened, worried.

Zed nodded. The voice might not be physically present, but he’d discovered it read body language as well as his thoughts.

“We will never harm you.”

“I know.” Strangely, he did. He had been cared for in this place, given a peace he hadn’t experienced since he was a child. His hosts wouldn’t have done that if they meant to hurt him. “It’s not you that...” He stopped, unable to voice his concerns in a method that made sense—and then realized it didn’t matter, the voice already knew exactly what concerned him. “You are the Guardians, yes?”

“That is what you call us.”

That was something he’d figured out early on, after he’d slept and awoken a few times, eaten, and relieved his bladder—all things that had made it clear he was definitely not dead.

“May I ask why I’m here?”

“We have been waiting for you to do so.” The voice paused, but Zed had the sensation it was merely gathering words and concepts he could understand. Since the insistence that he was the Guardians’ proof, whatever that meant, the voice had been careful to choose meanings that were clear to him. “You took into yourself the essence of your enemy. Why?”

“Because my people would have died had I not.”

“No.”

He blinked, frowning. “No, they wouldn’t have died?”

“No. That is not why.”

He gave his head a little shake as he looked at the stars. “I...wanted to fight more effectively. I wanted to—”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no? It’s the truth!” Zed pushed to his feet.

“It is not, Zanderanatolius.” Warmth brushed his mind again, not a chuckle this time but a pat, like how his mother used to tap his nose. “We know you.”

Breathing hard, Zed looked at the stars shifting beneath his feet. They seemed so small, but it was an illusion—he was the speck of dust, and they the giants. He thought back to the war, to his time in the Project, to the covert ops that had preceded it. To the fighting and the bloodshed. To the focus, the determination. To the knowledge that no matter how many stin he killed, he would never make the galaxy right, not ever again. Not when it was missing an integral piece, the man he’d loved and had been taken from him.

Fighting was his purpose, his only purpose. They could have done whatever they wanted to him, and he would’ve agreed to it. Not because he wanted to fight better, but because it just didn’t matter. Zander Anatolius didn’t matter, because he’d ceased to exist.

“I was lost,” he whispered.

“Yes.”

His throat tightened. “I didn’t matter.”

“Yes,” the voice said, the word overlaid with sadness.

“Is that what you’re trying to teach me?” he asked, waving his arm at the room and its starfield. “That I’m insignificant, that I don’t matter?”

“Is that what you want us to teach you? If so, you will be disappointed.”

Zed pressed his lips into a thin line. His arms crossed, bunching the soft, thin fabric of the shirt he wore—a defensive gesture, but one he couldn’t stop. “If you already knew the answer to why, then why did you ask me?”

“Because you had not admitted the answer to yourself.”

No...he supposed he hadn’t. He knew the war had changed him. Trying to slide back into life as a civilian once the fighting was done had taught him that, among other things. But he’d placed the blame on Project Dreamweaver, on the stin poison that lived inside of him. The easy scapegoat.

It was not the Project that had stolen his humanity.

“You sought direction. A purpose.” Another warm touch. “You sought peace.”

Peace, not only with the stin, but inside himself. Yes. A reprieve from the ache that had plagued him for so damned long he hadn’t even recognized it until he’d found Flick, alive and well—and even then, it had lingered. Because despite loving Felix again with everything in him, he couldn’t escape his fate, and he knew it.

He walked over to one of the invisible walls and leaned against it. Its surface was cool and smooth on his forehead. Slowly, he turned, pressing his back to the steady surface, and let his knees fold. He sat with his knees bent, his forearms draped on them, and his head drooping.

“Do you understand love?” he asked.

“We understand the concept of it. It is a bond, a connection. Your poets have described it as two souls meeting and becoming one. It is unique to your species.”

“I knew the ashushk didn’t feel it, but you don’t, either? Nor the stin?”

“Humanity’s capacity for that sort of emotional bond is singular amongst the other races. You are your hearts.”

“And that is why I was lost.”

“Yes.”

“Will I...” He gritted his teeth and then plowed on. He’d already thought it, so the question was a formality. “Will I be able to leave here?”

The voice hesitated. Uncertainty overlaid the next thoughts pushed into Zed’s mind. “We can give you purpose, Zanderanatolius. You can choose to know and work with us.”

“Stay with you.”

“Yes.”

Purpose and peace. He’d find both here—he’d already found the second. He didn’t know what sort of purpose the Guardians could give him. He didn’t know if he wanted to know, either, but the temptation to stay was great. He felt safe here, cared for. Whatever the Guardians’ purpose, he had grown to know them just as they’d learned everything about him. That was the amazing thing—and perhaps the drawback—to their method of communication. No secrets, no lies.

He would be welcome here. Useful, purposeful, safe and calm. Would staying be the right thing to do? Zed stared at the space-covered floor for a moment, then scrubbed a hand over his face. Flick might be better off learning to live without him. Though the Guardians had helped him reclaim his mind and body, through whatever amazing technology they had that could reach into a dead body and pull the core of his self back from the void, he’d never be normal. The difference that had lived in him since Project Dreamweaver was still there—quieter, calmer, but there.

Didn’t Flick deserve someone who could give him normalcy? Didn’t he deserve to leave the war completely behind him? Zed would always be a reminder of the stin and what humanity had had to do in order to survive. With Zed around, Flick would never be able to truly forget being a POW, or the cruelties he’d suffered at the stin’s claws.

Intellectually, he knew staying with the Guardians made the most sense. But...”If I choose not to know?”

A thread of disappointment wove through his mind, but he understood it for what it was—genuine emotion, not a means by which to manipulate him. “We value free will above all else.”

“Is that why you don’t control the other races?”

“Yes. You have aptly named us. We guard, we protect—from yourselves, if necessary.”

“That’s why you allow war. Free will. Freedom to act.”

“Yes.”

“Why did you end our war with the stin?”

“It was time.”

Other meanings reverberated there, and Zed tried to grasp them. Necessary...needed...pain and sorrow...

Accomplishment.

“What did we accomplish?” he demanded.

The voice remained silent, but it was still there. Waiting. Letting him figure it out.

What had happened in those last days of the war to cause the Guardians to end it? There had been no significant battles, no loss of life then that had been greater than any other time. His team had been active for six months, cutting through stin forces on the ground where they could, but they hadn’t made much of a dent in the enemy’s army. Even the video of his team’s heroics had had little impact on either side’s capabilities. It had swung civilian favor back behind the AEF, but it hadn’t resulted in anything that would change the tide.

The warm touch in his brain stroked the memory of the video. “Proof.”

“You said that before. Proof of what?” His eyes widened and his mouth fell open as the pieces clicked into place. “Proof of what we’d accomplished. Me. My team. What we are.”

“Yes.”

“Oh my God,” Zed breathed. What else had the voice said in that first conversation about proof? “Strength, heart, intelligence, spirit. I still don’t—wait.” He pressed his fist to his chest. “Heart. Humans are our hearts.”

“Yes.”

His breath sped up. “Stin are strength, ashushk are intelligence. Spirit is...you?”

“Lift your fingers to your neck, Zanderanatolius.”

It didn’t occur to him to disobey, even with his hand shaking. His fingers brushed the circular scars left by the stin POW who had been a part of Project Dreamweaver—the alien had gripped Zed and the other members of his team in a ritual embrace, flooding their systems with light doses of claw venom, over and over again. Psychotropic, it had allowed them to find an altered state of consciousness. The Zone. Most days, he tried not to touch the scars. He tried to forget they were there and what they meant.

They felt no different since the last time he’d set his fingers to exploring them. He had decided to withdraw his hand when he felt it. A new scar, a straight line running parallel to the two lines of stin claw marks, right in the middle of them. Gently, he pressed down—and felt something beneath the skin. A ridge.

“What...” His voice trailed off, the air in his lungs leaving in a rush.

“You have within you the essence of four races. You were incomplete before, and that is why you failed.”

Smoke began encroaching on his vision and for an instant, Zed thought something catastrophic had happened to the Guardians’ ship. Blackness crept in behind the smoke, telling him the true source of the haze—shock. He leaned forward and forced himself to suck in a breath, and the fuzziness receded.

The strength of the stin—their poison. The heart of his humanity. The ashushk’s intelligence, the drug they’d created to try to help him. And...whatever that was in his neck, the spirit of the Guardians.

He was proof...of a concept? A prototype? But there had been other super soldiers—the ashushk had them, too, and they were not here as proof. Why?

“The ashushk have reached their potential. Humanity has the capacity for more.”

Zed’s stomach plummeted to his feet. “You’re not...you’re not going to do this...” Oh God, please say no.

“We are not,” the voice assured him, low and gentle. “We have no need for an army of Zanderanatolius.”

He let out a shaky breath. “Then why? Why did you save me?”

The warm touch again. If he left here, he knew he would miss that.

“Because you are proof that for all the differences between worlds, there are commonalities, commonalities that can be embodied by humanity. You could not exist, otherwise. You will be a reminder to all the races, proof that fighting each other is the same as fighting yourselves. Proof, too, that the races are stronger together.”

“Is that the purpose you wanted to give me?”

“Yes. A portion of it. It could be more, but it would require you to know.” Learn, accept, embrace, understand. Stay.

Could he? Did he have a choice, or was he fooling himself?

“Stay, Zanderanatolius.” Meaning echoed around the words, a plea. Here, he was wanted, needed. Accepted.

“What would I do here?” he asked, his voice soft.

“You would help us.” Concepts flowed by, just out of his reach, and he understood that if he wanted to grasp them, he would need to agree to the Guardians’ offer to know. “You would have purpose, you would have importance. You would have a place.”

A sudden longing for the Chaos, with all her imperfections and her oddities, spiked through him. That was his place. That was his purpose. Maybe it wasn’t as grand as the one the Guardians offered, but it was his. He swallowed, acknowledging that he needed more than purpose and peace in his life. He needed his crew, his family. His love.

If they didn’t need him...

Zed sucked in a shaky breath and pushed to his feet. “You have my gratitude for everything you’ve done—for healing my body and my mind, beyond the damage done by the Project. But I am no longer lost.”

He wasn’t, he realized. He really wasn’t. For the first time in years, he had an anchor. A reason. He had Flick. And maybe...a third chance at the life he wanted.

“What you said before, that humans are our hearts? It’s true.” He offered the empty room a small smile. “I need to be with him. I might be small on a galactic scale, but to him, I matter.”

“To us, as well.”

Their disappointment rocked him. His knees weakened with the force of it. He bent forward, trying to catch his breath, trying to subdue the tears that threatened. In that instant, he questioned his choice. Did Flick want him as badly as this? Did the crew of the Chaos, or his family?

“We require that you serve our purpose, Zanderanatolius.”

Something cool clasped his right wrist. He pushed back the sleeve of his tunic to see a silver band had wrapped itself around his skin. He could detect no seam, nor did the cuff move when he tried to adjust it. Power tingled through his fingertips as he tried to pull it off. What was it? A restraint? Something to keep him where the Guardians wanted him?

Fatigue sliced through him. He’d felt this before—the Guardians had encouraged him to sleep more than once in order to speed his healing or...He didn’t really want to think about what they might have done while he was unconscious. He held on to the idea that the aliens meant him no harm, using it as a shield against the fear that spiked. After staggering to the bed, he collapsed on it and fought the urge to close his eyes, to go under.

Did they allow for free will only when it suited their purposes?

“Don’t make me stay,” he begged.

For once, the Guardians remained silent.

Chapter Nineteen

“We need a plan.”

Nessa glanced up from the holo novel she was reading. “For...?”

“Fix.” Elias gestured at the wallet lying open on his desk and activated the display. A virtual sheaf of correspondence materialized over the keys. “This is all the paperwork he has to sign to accept Zed’s estate. I’ve been sitting on it for four days. The Anatolius lawyers have taken to messaging me twice daily to ask about the delay.” He felt the pinch of his brows. “I really don’t want to talk to Brennan again. That last call...”

“Oh, Eli.”

Reporting the death of a family member had been hard enough. Reporting the loss of Zed’s body? It had been like telling Brennan his brother had died all over again. And the fact that no one could offer more than supposition about why the Guardians wanted Zed’s body had hurt everyone involved. Thank all that was holy they’d already missed the memorial service. Elias wasn’t sure he’d have stood up for it. Fixer sure as hell wouldn’t have been able to.

“I found him in the mess yesterday. Sitting in the booth, staring at a bottle of Glavan whiskey,” Nessa said.

Not good. “Just staring, not drinking?”

“Just staring,” Nessa said, her tone musing. “Maybe a short bender might knock a few things loose.”

Elias shook his head. “Trust me, Ness, Fix doesn’t know the meaning of a short bender. Ever wondered why he only ever drinks one beer on poker night?” For the space of a breath, he debated changing the subject. Fix’s past indiscretions were his business. But Nessa was a doctor, and a friend. A concerned friend. “After his discharge from the AEF—” which had been a fucking mess, “—Fix went looking for his family. He grew up on Pontus Station.”

“Pontus...oh.”

Yeah. Pontus had been all but destroyed by the stin. Very few had survived. The battle there had been one of the most crushing defeats of the early war.

“He found only a long list of the dead and...he was already messed up. You know he was kept by the stin for nearly four years, right?”

“I’ve seen the scars.”

“He hit the drink pretty hard. For about six months. If my father hadn’t literally tripped over him on Fusang Station, he’d probably have drunk himself to death.”

“I had no idea...” A crease appeared between her brows. “He doesn’t present at all like a recovering alcoholic. No compulsive behaviors or other apparent crutches.”

“Unless you count the tinkering, or his workouts.”

“I figured that was a holdover from his AEF days, or maybe a reaction to being a prisoner for so long. Needing to be strong.”

“Yeah, that’s probably a part of it.”

“He shouldn’t drink at all.”

“You want to be the one to tell him that?”

Nessa’s shoulders deflated with a deep sigh. “I’ve known him for nearly eighteen months, and yet sometimes I feel I don’t know him at all.”

“He doesn’t give away much.”

“I wish I knew how to help him.” Sadness pinched her pale features. “His grief is so awful. It’s too deep, too profound. Given his past, he probably shouldn’t even be taking those sedatives I gave him. But—”

“He hasn’t had nightmares like this for a couple years.” Elias drummed his fingers along the edge of the desk. “Maybe we should get him liquored up. Then ask him to sign the paperwork just before he passes out.”

Nessa arched a brow.

“Got a better plan?” he asked.

“I think we should just ask him.”

“He’ll fly into one of his moods.”

“Probably. We could ask Qek to do it.”

“That’s...” Not a bad idea, but also not fair. Elias shook his head. “Nope. I’m the captain, I have to do this.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“He’ll think we’re ganging up on him.”

“We are.”

Before he could gain his feet, his wallet buzzed against the desk. One glance pulled a deep groan from his belly. “And there’s the other thorn in my side.”

“I’d make a quip about roses, but Qek’s our resident expert on idioms.” Nessa glanced down. “It’s Nynt.”

“I know who it is.”

“How long have you been dodging his calls?”

Unease slithered through his belly. “Too long.” He tapped his wallet, grateful for once that they did not have the equipment to receive jazers and full holo calls. This would be a voice-only ripcomm.

“Ah, Captain Idowu. I see I have finally caught you.”

Quaint.

“Mr. Nynt.”

“I wish to express my condolences for the loss of your crew member.”

He...what? “Ah...”

“News out of Sol is that the family of Major Zander Anatolius held a memorial service for their youngest son just four days ago.”

Gears shifted inside Elias’s head. He wondered if the rusty grate could be heard outside his skull. “Though he was ill for some time, his loss is no less...” Devastating? “A blow.”

“No doubt.”

How much did Nynt know? Emma had been freelancing for Agrius on Chloris. How much of her history had she shared with the cartel?

“Listen, I’m going to give it to you straight.”

“I wish you would, Captain.”

“The last month, my priority has been my crew. I’m sorry if that has infringed upon your...overtures? This meeting you want to have. I did tell you we’d be out of local space for some time, and that meant out of Agrius territory. Before then, we made an effort to live and let live, if you know what I mean. And those creatures on Risus weren’t mine.”

He’d got a little shrill at the end there, but Nynt didn’t interrupt. Obviously, he had the patience to listen to underlings wind themselves up and run themselves back down again.

“Your crew is your family, yes?”

“That’s it exactly.”

“Then I understand.”

“You—what?”

“I understand, Captain. Now, if I may beg your indulgence, I would like to resume our negotiations. I will even let you choose the meeting place.”

“Why is it so important that we meet in person?”

“I believe a deal sealed in person, with a handshake, is somewhat more binding than any bio-signature. In person, we may take one another’s measure.”

Elias blew out a sigh. “Okay.” It was probably a trap, but okay. They needed to get this business concluded. Elias consulted the map of the galaxy he had permanently projected over a small device Fix had made for him. For a moment, his thoughts stuttered, then settled. They were currently scooping gas in a system so insignificant, it still had a string of numbers and letters for a name. He scanned the surrounding systems for a suitable meeting point.

“How about Nezha Station?” A Shi Corporation ex-orbital station in a system clogged with asteroids and gas giants. The place served as a galactic filling station. A trading post that welcomed all comers with only one rule: take your troubles elsewhere. Not that the station wouldn’t have its own gangs in the substrata, its own illegal commerce. But Nezha was known throughout the galaxy as neutral territory.

Nessa gripped his shoulder. Yes, we’re really going to do this, he answered silently.

“That would be acceptable.” The transmission paused for a brief moment. “Can you be there in three days, Standard?”

“I can.”

“Until then, Captain.” Perhaps suspecting Elias had used up all his politeness, Nynt cut the connection.

“Well.”

Elias glanced up and forced a smile. “Well.”

“Unless he has contacts on Nezha, it would be hard to—”

“I think I’m beyond caring, Ness.”

“No, you’re not.” She smiled warmly. “Never that.”

Returning the smile, Elias tapped his comm. “Qek?”

“Here, Captain.”

“Change of plans. Instead of shipping shit from Vix to Beta Huntara, we’re going to meet Nynt at Nezha Station.”

“Will we be traveling directly to the Nezha system?”

“Yeah. ETA?”

After a pause, Qek answered, “Two and a half days, Standard. We are finished scooping gas. Would you like me to plot a course?”

“Please.” They could use the extra half day to scout the station. With any luck, they wouldn’t trip over Agrius doing the same thing.

Moments later, a shiver passed through the corvette, the transition from normal space to j-space only slightly disconcerting after all the years Elias had spent in the black. Gripping the arms of his chair, he prepared to stand up. “Ready to pin Fix down and push his thumb to a seal?”

An odd vibration passed beneath his feet. Elias looked down, aware Nessa’s chin had dipped also. They were used to the constant hum of a maneuvering ship, and both recognized when the pitch changed.

Elias messaged Qek again. “Everything all right up there?”

“I am not sure. The star drive output is fluctuating oddly.”

“How oddly?”

“It appears to be a repeating pattern.”

“A what?”

“Fixer is investigating.”

“Good.” Regardless of the issue, Fixer attending his duty was good on all counts. “Should we drop back out of j-space?”

“We may have no choice. The pattern is slowing the drive. Beyond a certain threshold, we will lose folding capacity.”

“Ah, is it safe to execute an emergency drop?”

“I am calculating.”

The comm hissed and popped and then Fixer’s voice joined the conversation. “The drive isn’t responding and propulsion is shutting down. We’re going to drop out of j-space.” Even across the channel, the engineer sounded too calm and for a startling second, Elias wondered if he’d done something to the drive, if his grief had propelled him to tinker and—

“Prepare for drop in three, two, one.”

The Chaos lurched and skipped. Despite his grip on the desk, Elias rolled with his chair. Gravity fell away for long enough for everything in the room to float from its anchor, then weight crashed back down, dropping everything to the deck. Nessa bounced against him. Elias wrapped his arms around her before she could roll.

“Got you.”

His wallet skidded across the floor past his head, and as it went by, Qek’s normally soft voice seemed to screech through the channel. “Contact on sensors.”

Contact, as in a...”Another ship?” Fuck, that was all they needed.

Before Qek could respond, a synthesized voice boomed through the connection. “Human vessel Chaos.”

Shit, that sounded like—

“You fuckers!” Static distorted Fixer’s yell.

“Fix, clear the channel.” You didn’t antagonize the Guardians, even if they had stolen your dead partner’s body. “Guardians, this is Captain Idowu. We are experiencing a core malfunction. I apologize for any intrusion. As soon as we restart, we will be underway.”

“There is no malfunction.”

Holy hell. Was this how it would all end? A misunderstanding with the keepers of the galaxy?

“We summoned you.”

Oh, yeah, they were goners. Elias looked over at Nessa, then picked up his wallet. He felt a need to hold their destiny in his hands. He sat up and nearly dropped the wallet as the Guardians spoke again.

“We have delivered a package to your main hold.”

They had...what? The Guardian ship hadn’t even docked with them.

They hadn’t landed on Ashushk Prime, either.

Elias scrambled to his feet. “Acknowledged.”

“We thank you for your service, human vessel Chaos.”

Ah...

The connection closed, the resulting silence ringing with unasked questions. Elias looked at Nessa and then at the wallet in his hand. He called the bridge. “Qek?”

“Here, captain. The Guardian vessel has left normal space.” Of course they had. Wouldn’t want to get caught in the blast radius. “I have confirmed there is an object in Cargo One. It is warm enough to register on sensors.”

“Warm enough?” God, no.

“Yes. Object temperature appears to be thirty-seven degrees Celsius.”

Nessa’s head snapped up. “That’s human body temperature. Normal.”

It couldn’t be...

Chapter Twenty

Felix skidded through the hatch to Cargo One, hope burning a path from his gut to his esophagus. It was stupid to think the Guardians might have done him a favor, at long last, but his whole life was based on the slimmest chance. He’d lived through the impossible, he’d survived the worst version of a war.

The package was a man, lying supine on the floor. Even from the doorway, Felix knew it was Zed. He could see his nose, the shadow of his lashes on his cheeks. How many times had he lain awake, watching Zed sleep? He knew that profile!

The rest of the crew arrived behind him. Ignoring them, Felix knelt beside Zed. His heart beat so hard, he could feel it throughout his body. Likely, it rocked him—and he couldn’t move his arms. Maybe it was fear making him sway in time to the loud knock of his pulse.

Nessa dropped to her knees on the other side of Zed and put her fingers to his neck. Barely a second later, she smiled. “He’s alive.”

Qek’s clicks and Elias’s gasp blended into one sound that echoed along the back of Felix’s skull. Somehow, he gained mastery over his body—only to fold forward over Zed’s inert form.

“Zed?” His voice cracked horribly. Felix tucked his hands beneath Zed’s shoulders and tried to lift him, shake wakefulness into him. “C’mon, Zed. Wake up.”

Damn, he was heavy. Felix kept trying to shift him anyway. The exertion dragged at his shoulders and lungs, his breath coming in ragged gasps. The past few weeks had taxed him physically as well as mentally. His shoulders burned and his arms shook. Throat aching, Felix fit himself to Zed’s chest. He closed his eyes and breathed in the familiar scent of Zed’s skin.

Zed was here.

Felix didn’t understand how that could be, how Zed could possibly be alive when he, himself, felt so dead—his brain mush from the sleeping pills, his body so heavy. In the past week, his thoughts had only gathered when the ship needed him.

No, Zed couldn’t be alive, despite the warmth of his skin, because miracles were impossible. Better to assume he’d joined Zed in death. His grief had killed him, and his mind had chosen to interpret his last moment as this. He should be grateful...and he was.

He had his Zed; he could go.

But death was an elusive bitch. She tempted and she taunted, she made promises she couldn’t keep. Breath continued to rasp against Felix’s sore throat, and a dull ache spread behind his eyes. The wet noise was him—breathing, trying not to cry, trying not to let go, damn it. And beneath him, warm, the steady thump at his chest, the whistle of air at his ear, the throat moving beside his cheek...

Arms banded about his back, tentatively, then more surely. Felix moved to shake off the comforting touch before the familiarity of the weight, the sense that the man beneath him had actually moved, held him still—but only for a moment.

Zed was alive.

Felix reared back, shock cutting off his breath. He braced his hands against Zed’s chest and looked down. Zed’s eyes, blue as ever and calm as a spring morning, stared up at him. Fixed but focused, the edge of steel present at the rims of his irises, that spark of intelligence sharpening his gaze.

“Holy shit.”

“Hi to you too.”

“Holy—”

Felix shook his head so hard the cargo bay swayed beneath his knees. He had to grip the slippery material of Zed’s shirt to remain steady. Beneath, the warmth of Zed’s skin seemed to burn his fingers. Felix looked down again. The reality of Zed’s actual state slapped him, hard. Dressed—oddly but finely. Stretched out in repose. Warm. Alive! He studied Zed’s face, taking in the blush of health in his cheeks, the faint hint of stubble along his jaw, the glisten of moisture at the corners of his eyes.

“You look...” An itch crept across Felix’s skin. Suddenly afraid, he scrambled off Zed and straightened. Zed bent at the waist and seemed to flow upwards, standing in one fluid motion. He’d always been able to do that, fold his legs and push up with no apparent effort. His grace had always awed and annoyed.

Nessa scrambled to her feet and Elias swore softly. “Shit, man, you’re really alive.”

“Seems like I am.” Zed flashed a grin at Elias and turned to Felix. He took a single step forward.

Possessed by the same instinct that shook off comforting touches, Felix cocked a fist and let fly. He felt his mouth drop open in an expression of horror as his bunched knuckles drove forward, but control required rational thought, and the cause of all his grief, all his pain, of the vast and empty void in his life, had just taken a step toward him. Zed’s hand shot up to catch his fist, ending the punch before it really began.

“Not this time,” Zed said, and that—the acknowledgment of something so familiar between them, Felix’s instinct to always hit first and ask questions later—flipped the switch.

“It’s really you.”

Zed folded his large hand around Felix’s fist and drew him in. “It’s really me.”

Felix stepped into him and this time, he recognized the hug—fully, properly. The arms folded across his back were Zed’s. His love’s, his heart’s. Ironically, pain still tore through his chest. Shouldn’t he feel better rather than worse? Tears pressed again at his closed lids, and he forced them back to where they had come from. They weren’t needed now, were they?

A hand slid over his shoulder and Felix tilted his head enough to catch a glimpse of Nessa. She stood beside the huddle, eyes red-rimmed and shiny. He nodded and she moved in, wrapping them both with slim arms. Another weight fell across his back as Elias joined the pile.

Ignoring his confinement, the rising panic fluttering through his veins, Felix yelled into Zed’s chest. “Qek, get your ass over here.”

Slim gray ankles wandered into view and Felix pressed a hand toward the ashushk, offering her the link she might be most comfortable with. A palm slid along his and then she folded his arm back around Zed and patted his shoulder.

“Welcome back, Zander.”

From the center of the huddle, Zed said, “Do I have permission to come aboard, Captain?”

Laughter rippled through Felix’s back, then Elias’s voice boomed in response. “With an escort like that, you really think you need to ask?”

Felix closed his eyes and pressed his face into Zed’s chest. He smelled different, but not so much that Felix didn’t recognize him. Everything else was right, though. Everything.

No, not everything.

The tension was gone, and the fear. Zed didn’t just look healthy, he was. He was well.

Felix struggled out of the tangle of arms. “Oh, my God, you’re...”

“I’m here and I’m alive, yes.”

“No, you’re fixed!” Fear jolted through him. “You’re fixed, right?”

Nessa extracted a wallet from her pocket and scanned the back of Zed’s shoulders. Blue eyes cut sideways and an expression of amused indulgence softened Zed’s features.

“Seems that way,” he said.

Nessa muttered and fiddled with the diagnostic program on her wallet. When she glanced up, she looked happier than she had in months. “His brain activity isn’t exactly normal, but it’s what I’d count as normal for Zed. Heightened levels of—”

Felix cut her off. “Don’t waste intelligent words on me, Doc. Just tell me if he’s good.”

Lips caressed his ear. “I’m only good when I have to be.”

A flush he thought he’d never feel again raced across Felix’s skin.

“If he can flirt, he’s good,” Elias said.

“Flirtation does require a certain level of wit,” Qek observed.

Felix smiled and ducked his chin. The curve of his lips felt weird, unnatural. Nessa touched his arm again and he glanced up.

“So far as I can tell without a full work-up, he’s good.”

Felix looked at the hand on his arm, and flashed to all the small touches Nessa had inflicted on him over the past few weeks. Before Zed’s death and after. But the words to make it right, to thank her for the awkward hugs and tenacious support, weren’t there. Not yet. So he offered a nod and she took it as her due. Of course she did—he’d managed not to shake her off this time. He’d let her hug him and touch him. Maybe that was enough for now.

He turned back to Zed, who still had an arm curled around his back, and reached up to brush his thumb across his chin. “It’s as if you just woke up.”

“Yeah.”

“Can you tell us what happened? Do you remember anything?”

Zed nodded gently.

“Start at the beginning,” Felix said.

* * *

Nessa insisted they move to the med bay and talk there, and though it wasn’t the best location for a group meeting due to the confined nature of the space, no one protested. Zed had had enough tests to last a lifetime—two lifetimes—but he understood continuing to verify his vitals was a way for Ness to deal with him being back. Just as Flick kept a hand on him as they walked through the corridors, or how Elias kept glancing over as if he expected Zed to have disappeared in the seconds his eyes weren’t on him. Qek seemed to be the only one who’d accepted his reappearance without much of a reaction, other than an unwrinkled face and muted clicks. Zed figured she was working through the logic and possibilities.

In the med bay, Zed hopped onto the bed. The last time he’d been examined by Nessa aboard the Chaos flashed through his mind—the questions she’d asked, the incorrect answers he’d given, the first time he’d forgotten Flick’s full name. The turning point in his up-to-then quiet internal battle with the poison that had tried its damnedest to kill him.

And he’d won. With weird, unexpected help, sure, but he’d won.

He smiled at Nessa and her diodes and sensors. “Go for it.”

As she worked, Zed told them about the space room, about the voice in his head, about the Guardians’ means of communication. He told them that he’d been taken care of—fed, clothed. He kept his observations clinical, his words impartial, and didn’t share anything personal about his talks with the voice or his own revelations about himself. He owed the people standing around him, his crew, a debt he’d probably never be able to fully repay, but there were some things he just didn’t want them to know. Like how broken he’d actually been even before the poison had snapped his mind.

“So they just healed you...because?” Elias glanced at Flick, the quick exchange telling Zed that they’d picked up on the fact that he’d edited his story.

He looked down at the wide metallic cuff on his right wrist. He still didn’t know what purpose it was meant to serve. An identifier? A marker? A tool of some sort? Power thrummed through it, a tingle he could ignore unless he sought out the sensation. He didn’t touch it, not wanting to draw attention to it, and looked back at Flick. Of course the engineer had followed his gaze, and his green eyes were filled with questions.

“The word they used for me was proof,” he said quietly. “Or...that’s the word my brain assigned to their concept. I’m...” He fidgeted, embarrassment coursing through him. “I’m like an embodiment of an ideal, all right? The proof that the species of the galaxy are not so different that their essences can’t exist in one body.”

“Yeah, that...” Nessa’s voice trailed off, then she cleared her throat as she continued to stare at a monitor filled with symbols and squiggly lines. “That explains what I’m seeing.”

“Go ahead, tell them.” Zed looked at his knees and tried not to swing his legs like a little kid.

“This is the stin,” Ness said, pointing out a particular reading. “And this is what the ashies injected him with.”

“The one that—” Flick cleared his throat.

“Yeah, that one,” Nessa said, her voice soft. “And then there’s this. It’s new.”

“What is it?” Elias asked, leaning closer to the monitor.

“What fixed me.” With an effort, Zed didn’t reach for his new scar. He didn’t know exactly what the Guardians had done, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He’d gotten a reprieve, and that was enough, wasn’t it? “The ingredient I was missing.”

Qek clicked, though Zed couldn’t interpret the noise as one of surprise or one of understanding. Elias and Flick stared at him and Flick’s fingers fell slack on his leg.

“And I, uh...” Zed held up his right wrist with its new metallic band. “I think I kind of have a new job as a diplomat. Or something.”

“What does that mean?” Flick pushed away from Zed, pacing across the small room to the opposite wall.

“Which part?” Zed kept his voice low, his tone even. He ached to pull Flick into his arms, but he looked as though he’d greet any contact with a cocked fist.

“Any of it. All of it. A missing ingredient. What the fuck? You’re not a goddamned muffin, or a stew or...” Flick’s lips pressed into a thin, hard line. “You were dead, Zander. Dead.” He froze and stared at Zed for a moment, before tearing his gaze away to wave his mangled hand. “And now you’re back, just like...like...”

Zed caught Elias’s eye. “You guys want to...”

“Yeah,” Eli said, grabbing Ness gently by the shoulder and tugging her into the corridor. Qek followed, but not before pressing her fingers lightly to Flick’s.

Zed jumped down from the bed and leaned against it, not wanting to make Flick feel any more crowded than he probably already did. Instead, he just watched the man he loved, noting the blond curls that had started to make a reappearance, the dark circles under his eyes, and the new lines etched into his face. God, he wanted to kiss away all the evidence of the past few weeks, but he didn’t think Flick would let him. Not yet.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

“I already told you never to say that. Damn it.”

“I don’t know what else to say.”

“What did you leave out? When you were telling us about the Guardians.”

Zed braced his hands against the bed behind him and flexed his arms, lifting his feet about an inch off the floor. The peace he’d found on the Guardians’ vessel hovered at the edges of his perception, and he wondered if he’d ever be able to truly recapture it.

“I didn’t wake up all put back together,” Zed said, looking at the short span of floor that stretched between them. “There was a lot of stuff I didn’t realize and the Guardians...they gave me the space and the time to figure some shit out.”

“Like what?”

“Like mostly how fucked up I was after I lost you.” He looked up. “I lost you, and then I lost me and I stayed lost for a long, long time. But finding you again helped me with that.”

Flick wouldn’t meet his eyes.

Zed took a step forward, his hands held loosely out to his sides, approaching Flick the way he might an uncertain opponent. “You know what the Guardians told me?” He smiled. “Humans are our hearts. It’s our strength—probably our biggest weakness, too, but it’s what differentiates us from all the other races. We love. We give our hearts to others. We bond, we connect, we tie our souls together, and it’s not always voluntary and it’s not always fun, but it is what makes us who we are.” He took another step forward and reached out with a finger and thumb to nudge Flick to face him. “I love you. My heart is yours, always has been, always will be. I’m not leaving you again.”

Tears welled in Flick’s eyes, the sight stunning Zed for a breath. Flick had always been emotional, dramatic even, but Zed couldn’t think of any other time that he’d seen him look so...naked. Leaning in, he brushed his lips to Flick’s. A tear escaped, flowing down Flick’s cheek until Zed could taste it. He shifted, kissing away the path the tear had taken, then kissed away another and another.

“I love you,” he whispered against Flick’s skin. “I love you, Felix. I love you.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Sweat stung his eyes and greased his neck. Felix pushed a hand over his head, mopping up some of the moisture. Baby curls teased his wet palm. He’d gone from bald thug to scarred child-man. By the time he hit forty, he might actually look thirty.

Hands falling into two raised fists, he eyed the kick bag. It swayed slowly back and forth. Jab, front punch, uppercut, hook. Loose left fist delivering the short blows, right fist the longer ones. He repeated the combination, timing his punches to the jerky swing of the heavy bag until his knuckles grazed an off swing, stripping skin from cartilage.

He should be wearing gloves, or wrapping. Both spilled out of the bin of workout gear he used when he felt like following rules, or wanted to punch something without grazing his knuckles. Right now, he welcomed the stinging pain—it was real, and it matched the burn in his shoulders and calves, the open heave of his lungs. Sensation had returned to his body and he reveled in it.

He was alive, and so was Zed. They had both survived the impossible—and he needed the sting across his knuckles to keep him grounded.

Strong arms caught him from behind. Felix dropped down and rocked backward, knocking away his assailant’s center of gravity. Together, they rolled onto the hard metal floor. A sharp exhale tickled the back of his ear.

“Sneaky bastard, aren’t you?”

“You’re the one who grabbed me from behind,” Felix said, driving his elbow into Zed’s side.

Zed’s hips rocked beneath him, pulling his ribs away from Felix’s elbow as he tossed him aside. Pulling his arms and legs in, Felix rolled with the motion, then released the energy, kicking out at the one leg Zed had managed to put beneath himself. The soldier slid back to the deck with a grin. “Gonna be like that, is it?” he said.

“Oh, yeah.”

Felix pushed up to a crouch and jumped to his feet, fists loosely raised in a defensive posture. Zed mimicked his pose and they circled one another for a full fifteen seconds before Felix tried a feint and strike. Zed dodged both with his preternatural quickness. Barely looked like he’d moved.

“Man, you move fast. Blink and you’d miss it.”

Zed shrugged one shoulder and stepped in with a strike aimed at the lower end of Felix’s rib cage. Felix turned in with his block and attempted to crack Zed across the jaw with his elbow. He missed.

“Gotta be faster than that,” Zed taunted.

Felix danced backward and the circling began again. Zed shouldn’t be faster. He was larger, bulkier. Brute strength should be his call. Felix knew he couldn’t wear him down, either. He glowed with good health as if he’d just spent a month at one of those fancy retreats, whereas Felix was still shaking off the effects of a largely sleepless night. Maybe he wasn’t ready to stop taking the pills yet.

With every exchange—feints, double feints, blocked strikes and kicks caught and turned aside—he looked for an opening, a weakness he could exploit, and found none. Then he thought of something.

He drew Zed out, throwing kicks and punches until he moved forward, committed to a combination of offense and defense, then Felix attempted a takedown that would place both of them on the floor. As he grabbed Zed’s shoulder and twisted his hips, legs flying up, he saw the realization flash across that handsome face. Yeah, buddy. The only way to take Zed down was to hit the floor with him. They crashed down hard, arms and legs loudly slapping the floor. Felix’s head bounced once and he kissed Zed’s elbow, the pointed angle smacking him across the mouth so hard he saw stars. Tasted blood too.

They wrestled across the floor, a flurry of grunts and struggling limbs, truncated punches and aborted kicks. Felix’s bloodied knuckles grazed Zed’s brow. He hissed and retaliated by slamming his forearm down across Felix’s chest. They rolled again, but Zed had the better position. Felix found himself pinned, Zed astride his hips, a corded arm pressed into his throat.

“You mad bastard,” Zed said.

“Let me up.” Much as he needed Zed back in his life, his fear of being held down threatened to ruin the moment.

Zed shifted quickly, taking his weight from Felix’s hips. But he didn’t move his arm.

“Not letting you get away that easily.” His grin showed pink teeth.

“I actually caught you in the mouth?” Felix wheezed, grateful, annoyed, sore...and stupidly content to lie there with Zed’s arm across his neck.

Zed eased the pressure at his throat by a single degree, knowing or expecting Felix would take advantage if he gave more than that. “Twice,” he said, swiping his tongue across his not so pearly whites. He nodded at Felix’s mouth. “And repaid the favor.”

“I was an ugly bugger anyway.” Another plan formed. Keep him talking, wait for that arm to loosen again. “That all you, or did you Zone?”

A complex series of expressions wormed across Zed’s face. “I haven’t tried to Zone.”

For all that Felix had prompted Zed to dissect his experience with the Guardians, they hadn’t talked about this part—whether he was fixed as in back to normal, or fixed as in more super than before. Not sure which outcome he preferred—as if his opinion mattered—Felix hadn’t asked.

“Because you think you can’t, or because you don’t want to?”

Zed’s lips pursed, squeezing a single droplet of blood from the corner of his mouth. “It’s there. I can feel it.”

“Aren’t you curious?”

The pressure of Zed’s arm eased briefly as he considered the question.

“Are you afraid?”

The arm loosened and Felix was ready for it. He rocked and rolled, pushing Zed back.

“You fucking—” Zed’s complaint held no rancor and he cut himself off before he finished. Then he disappeared.

Felix rolled harder, faster, but the blur that had been Zed still caught him. His SFT tugged at his shoulders and the room tilted. Felix staggered against the deck, surprised to be upright. Putting a hand out in front of him, he sought the balance he already had. Zed stood to his right, a look of wonder stretching his mouth wide.

“Holy shit.”

“You said it,” Zed replied. While turning a slow circle, he patted himself down. He stopped in front of Felix, mouth still ajar, eyes dancing with light. Not flat, not squinted in pain.

“Does it hurt?” Really, this was the most important question, the reason Felix had avoided prompting Zed until now. The reason neither of them had broached this one subject...why Felix’s shoulders still hunched with fear. Zed had barely passed through his Zone just now, but at the end there...God, at the end, even thinking about the Zone had caused them all pain.

“No, but this bitch stings.” Zed touched the clotting wound at the corner of his right brow.

Relief weakened Felix’s knees. He locked them again, determined to stay upright. Surely he’d given enough drama for a while. Lifting his chin, he searched for the inner asshole who never strayed far. “You’re welcome.”

Zed laughed. “And you’re uglier than ever.”

“Fuck you.” Felix wiped the back of his hand across his bloody mouth. His lips and jaw hurt, and his shoulders. And everything else. The collection of stings and aches felt good, though. The pain was real, the sweat stinging his eyes and the taint of blood at the back of his throat was as real as the man standing before him, knuckles smudged red.

“So, you’re really fixed then.”

“I figured I was, but...” Zed fingered the back of his neck.

“I get it. Tempting fate is like putting your hand in a bag of snakes, eh?”

“Something like that.”

Zed stepped forward and pressed his thumb to the corner of Felix’s mouth, blotting the nick in his lip. Felix did the same to the small wound on Zed’s brow and then brushed his fingers through the taller man’s thick, wavy hair.

“I’m glad you’re fixed,” he said. A wince pulled at his brow as he considered the facile nature of the statement. “I mean...”

Zed’s thumb pressed his lips together. “Shh. I know what you mean.”

Felix shook his head. “No,” he mumbled. Zed moved his thumb. “I’m glad for me, yeah, I was a mess without you. Kinda dead.” Hollow, empty, as good as dead. Zed’s blue eyes darkened. “But you had the worst of it. Fuck, Zed, I can’t even—”

Zed silenced him with a kiss, a gentle one that tasted of sweat and blood. “It’s done, Flick. Don’t look back. It’s done.”

Eyes closed, Felix rubbed his forehead to Zed’s and tried to absorb the words and their meaning with the smell of Zed’s skin. Sweat, soap, tank water and the vague whiff of more, that hint of the essential Zed—the scent he thought he’d never catch again. Words pushed at his lips, the three he’d been holding back for weeks, the three that had wrenched more tears from him than should be healthy. The three that Zed seemed to want to wear out, though Felix didn’t think he’d ever tire of hearing them.

“I—” Fear paralyzed his tongue. His shoulders stiffened again. Conversely, his knees wobbled. It was too soon, too late. Not the right time...would he ever find the right time?

Zed pulled him closer, so close they touched all the way down. Warm arms gathered him close. “Shh,” he whispered against Felix’s temple. “It’s okay. I know.”

* * *

The scent of steam, soap and arousal chased them back to Flick’s quarters from the shower. The hot water had washed away evidence of their tussle and soothed abused skin and muscles. It had been tempting to get each other off under the sprays, but Zed wanted more than just to come—and he figured Flick did, too, even if they didn’t say it in so many words. They’d denied themselves this. Closeness was safe, but up until Zed Zoned during the impromptu sparring session and answered questions he’d been too afraid to voice, that had been all they’d dared—warm embraces, soft kisses, time in each other’s company.

Now, with the hint that he’d truly been put to rights, he wanted to take the risk, to lose himself. He wanted to forget how this closeness had been stolen from them long before those last moments on Ashie Prime. Most importantly, he wanted to prove to himself, to Flick, that everything was back to normal.

Zed peeled off Flick’s shirt and pants, thrown on haphazardly so the run from the showers wouldn’t give anyone an eyeful. The damp clothes landed on the floor, and in their absence, goose bumps raced across Flick’s arms and chest. His nipples beaded into tight nubs that begged for Zed’s lips and tongue. His gaze skimmed over the multitude of scars on Flick’s pale chest, and his throat clogged with self-recrimination. A familiar, unwelcome friend. Maybe if he’d tried to stay more connected with Marnie and her military intelligence clearance...or maybe if he’d contacted his parents more often...

No. Fuck that. Yes, he’d made mistakes—a shitload of mistakes—but he couldn’t fix the past. All either of them could do was move forward.

The next kiss he pressed to Flick’s lips was fierce with determination, making Flick gasp at the pressure on the just-healed cut. “I love you,” he breathed, pulling away to trail nips along his jaw. “I promise to be who you need me to be.”

“Zed...” The last part of his name dissolved into a groan. “All you need to be is you. I want you. I’ve always wanted just you.”

Zed swallowed and pressed his cheek against Flick’s. “Then I’ll be me,” he whispered.

He’d figure that out, building on the foundation the Guardians had given him. He’d reclaim what parts of himself he could. He’d do his best to discard the bits corrupted by the war. For himself, and for the man he loved.

“Fucking two weeks alone to do nothing but think, and you still think too much.” With a growl, Flick rose up and flipped Zed onto his back. “And you’re wearing too many clothes.”

Zed grinned as Flick yanked off his loose SFT and pants, the movements lacking any sort of finesse. His gnarled hand didn’t help matters, but it was more than that—Flick trembled and his chest heaved with each breath. Zed lifted a hand to cup his cheek and waited for Flick’s gaze to meet his.

“I’m really here,” he said.

Flick fell forward with a strangled cry, pressing Zed fully onto his back, his lips and tongue and teeth attacking him in a frenzy. Zed met and matched the passion. Teeth clacked together, catching lips between. Tongues demanded entry, demanded attention. Breaths panted past lips that never closed completely, heating skin and tickling nerves. His temple stung where Flick’s hair brushed and caught the barely there scab, drawing him out of the passion arcing between them. It made room for a frisson of nervousness to skitter along Zed’s spine, worry that he’d Zone just before climax like he’d done before.

He had to have faith that the Guardians had fixed him. Fixed all of him.

He couldn’t hold back from this, from what he needed. From what Flick needed. He shoved the worry aside and focused on the man so determined to love him senseless.

“God, oh God,” Flick gasped. His teeth tugged on Zed’s ear, eliciting a groan. His cock seared itself into the groove at Zed’s hip, thrusting hard. “I need...”

“Yes.” Zed tilted his head back as Flick latched into his neck, giving the man more space. “Do it. Fill me up.”

Flick scrabbled at the overhead shelf, blindly seeking the little container of lube. It skittered out of his hands and he chased it, swearing. Zed would have laughed, except his entire focus was on how hard he was, how desperately he needed this connection with his lover. Lube squirted over Zed’s balls, dripping down into his ass. Even that light touch was enough to make him writhe.

“C’mon,” he growled.

“I know. God, I know.”

Fingers pressed against his entrance and Zed arched his back, instinctively fighting the intrusion and wanting more, all at the same time. Fuck the prep. He wanted Flick inside him.

“Now.”

Flick groaned, his fingers pushing in deeper. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Don’t care.” Zed reached between them and grabbed Flick’s cock. “Now, Felix.”

Flick pushed Zed’s hand away with a muttered curse, replacing it with his own lube-covered one. He coated himself, then added more lube for good measure, and leaned forward. The tip of Flick’s cock felt enormous, hotter than the sun, and fucking perfect. Zed focused on breathing, relaxing, accepting, and Flick slid inside so damned slowly. He felt every inch, reveled in the burn and stretch, letting the connection touch so much more than Flick’s cock did, physically.

“Fuck,” he gasped as Flick sank in up to his balls. Zed lifted his head to look down, to see them joined together, then let his head fall back onto the pillow. He gazed up at Flick, marveling at the sight of his green eyes with the pupils blown wide with desire. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he held himself still. Flick’s arms, corded and strong, trembled with exertion but Zed knew they’d never fail.

“Need to...” Flick didn’t finish his sentence. Didn’t have to. His body took over, drawing back and thrusting forward. His groan overtook Zed’s gasp, the sounds blending together until Zed didn’t know which originated with whom.

Didn’t matter.

He kept his eyes open, watching Flick, needing to see the expressions flow over his face as their bodies surged together and apart. His brow was furrowed with concentration. His lips fell open, showing a pink sliver of tongue. His good hand abandoned the bed to grab Zed’s hip, the fingers digging in, as Flick’s rhythm faltered. He slammed into Zed, his thrusts erratic, his head dipping to look at their joining.

“Look at me,” Zed demanded. His fingers grasped Flick’s chin and tugged him back to face him. “I want to see your face when you come.”

One of his hands drifted downward to jack himself as Flick looked at him, teeth buried in his lower lip. A flush colored Flick’s cheeks, rising up his forehead and past his hairline, and his eyes glittered with desire.

“Fuck, you’re so beautiful,” Zed gasped. “C’mon, baby, come for me.”

Flick thrust forward hard, his fingers clamping down on Zed’s hip. His head arched back, his mouth opening in a silent expulsion of air. His eyes closed, but Zed forgave him that because he was the most goddamned beautiful thing in the entire fucking galaxy.

And he was his. All his.

Zed’s balls tightened, signaling the impending end of their interlude. He had an instant to hope, pray that his pleasure wouldn’t throw him somewhere he didn’t want to go—then his orgasm crashed over him, heat spurting across his stomach, the rush better than ever because he was present. Flick’s movements stuttered above him, the loss of rhythm and a fierce cry signaling his own climax.

When he opened his eyes again, it was to see Flick looking down at him, his green eyes bright, sated, incredible. Rainbows softened the light. Zed smiled. He’d wondered if that post-coital reaction would stick after the Guardians had done their thing. He was glad it had.

“You okay?” Flick asked, a shadow of concern in his gaze.

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Seeing rainbows?”

“Yeah. Though it’s a wonder I’m not blind, after that.” He sighed, then gasped as Flick separated their bodies. Before he could move away, Zed stopped him with a hand on his cheek. “I love you,” he said softly.

“Shh, you’ll wear it out.” Flick smiled and turned to press a kiss into Zed’s palm. Sighing again, Zed let his eyes close, content in the rightness of the galaxy.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Zed had sat on the sidelines a couple of times in his career, benched by injuries that needed a bit of extra rest to heal. Bruises and cuts could be ignored. Broken bones, not so much. With a clarity that he wasn’t sure he possessed even before the poison had started to eat away at his brain, he recalled how it had felt, watching his team prep for a mission—then return, successful, despite his absence. On top of the gratitude that they’d made it, he’d been jealous, envious, angry at himself for getting hurt, and worried that he’d no longer have a place once he healed.

Seeing the crew of the Chaos prep for the meet with Nynt without him made him feel ten times worse.

“At the first sign of trouble, get the fuck out of there,” he said, his voice low and rumbly.

“Yes, Mom.”

“Don’t be an ass.” He bent to check Flick’s bootknife was secured. “I’m serious.”

Flick skittered his foot away. Probably just to piss him off, because that was Flick. Zed straightened with a glare.

“You’ve got your stunner?”

Flick rolled his eyes. “I’ve got my stunner—two of them, in fact—and my knife. The kill switch is active on my bracelet—” he waved his left wrist, “—and all I have to do is say the safe word to send an alert to you and Ness and Qek.”

“And what’s the safe word?”

“Well, I’m not going to say it and have to reset everything.”

Zed bounced on the balls of his feet, the nervous energy thrumming through him needing an outlet. “I should be going with you.”

“No, you shouldn’t.” Flick laid a hand on Zed’s shoulder and stopped his bouncing with some gentle pressure. “Look, you head out there, you’re going to be seen. Maybe some folks will think they’re seeing things, because the whole galaxy’s been told that you’re dead, but someone might recognize you and realize that Zander Anatolius is still kicking.” His gaze softened. “Brennan and your family deserve to hear that from you, not some media holo.”

“I can wear a hat.”

“Zed.”

“Or a scarf or—”

“Stubborn bastard,” Flick murmured, leaning in to plant a soft kiss on Zed’s lips. “Call your brother.”

The very thought sent chills through Zed and made his stomach clench. “Not yet.”

“It’s not going to get any easier if you keep putting it off.”

“It’s not about it getting easier, it’s about not knowing what to say.”

“The truth.”

The fingers of Zed’s left hand found the smooth metal encasing his right wrist, a gesture he couldn’t stop. He was kind of thankful for the cuff’s presence—the more time he spent away from the Guardians’ presence, the less real that time felt. If they hadn’t marked him in some way, no doubt he’d have convinced himself by now that it was all some sort of weird dream.

And if he had a hard time believing it—after he’d lived it—how could he expect his family to accept it?

“I’ll think about it.”

Flick snorted. “No, you won’t.”

“I’ll think about my strategy,” Zed amended.

Flick just shook his head and moved to Eli’s side as he stepped into Cargo One. They started down the ramp to the dock.

“Be careful,” Zed called after them. He gritted his teeth for a moment, then gave in to the urge weaving through him. “Love you!”

“Love you too, baby.” Elias grinned over his shoulder. Flick chuckled.

Zed’s eyes narrowed and he fought a smile. “Don’t forget that the captain should sacrifice himself if needed.”

A raised middle finger from Elias’s dark hand was the only response to that.

* * *

Adrenaline buzzed through his veins—anticipation and energy. Felix resisted the urge to glance over his shoulder one more time, check that the man standing on the ramp was really there. Alive and well, so goddamned real.

“He’ll be there when we get back.” Elias’s grin was entirely too cheery.

“If we get back.”

“You’re such an ass.”

“Yep.”

“Unless Nynt has the creds to buy out an ashushk-run establishment, we’ll be in and out.”

The Grand Moth’s choice of meeting place had been a surprise, perhaps the most neutral establishment on the station—Ruhi’s, a restaurant specializing in ashushk food and beverage. Humans could only consume the ashie beverages, but according to Qek, there would be a menu of human food available as well. Zed had looked it up and dared Felix to sample this and that during the meeting. Felix had been more interested in Zed’s impression of the entrances and exits shown on the station blueprints.

No one had asked where the blueprints came from.

“This whole meeting idea is just creepy.”

“Aye,” Elias agreed. “But if this sees an end to hostilities, then it’s all good.”

“You’re a born optimist, aren’t you?”

Elias halted and turned toward him. “That meant as an insult?”

Maybe...but as Felix reconsidered his statement, he realized it wasn’t. Without hope, he wouldn’t be standing here either. “Nope.” He offered a smile. “I think it’s why we’re friends.”

Elias ruffed a hand over the top of Felix’s head. “Might just be, yeah.”

Ruhi’s looked as if it had been transported from Ashushk Prime. Misty windows ballooned outward into the station concourse, and the holographic lettering over the rounded door had a distinctly purple cast. Inside, holos of seascapes played over every surface, illuminating both ashie-style puffball furniture and regular booths flanked by half-breed benches. The effect messed with Felix’s equilibrium until he separated the solid from the ephemeral.

There were three exits—the one behind them, one in the kitchen, and another at the end of the hall leading to the bathrooms. Felix checked that none of them appeared to be blocked or otherwise guarded. So far, so good. Still, he rocked his ankle in his boot, feeling for the reassuring presence of his knife.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen.” Their host was an ashushk of advanced age. It wore a diaphanous robe that might or might not be culturally inclined. Either way, the soft violet color suited the ashie’s light blue skin.

“We’re meeting a client. Mr. Salataje Nynt,” Elias said.

Should have asked for the Grand Moth.

Their host produced a familiar wrinkled smile. “Of course, if you will follow me.”

The ashushk led them to one of the booths—not the most secluded. As they approached, two figures rose. One, Felix recognized as Nynt, the other...

“Holy shit.”

At his whisper, Elias stopped. “What?”

“That’s the woman from Risus.”

Elias squinted through the shifting holo imagery. “I think you’re right.”

Shit, why was she here? He’d nearly killed her—only Zed’s strict adherence to his “mission protocols” had stopped him.

“Captain Idowu.” Nynt’s dark gaze flicked sideways. “And Mr. Ingesson. Thank you for joining us. Allow me to introduce you to my daughter.”

He said a name, but sound disappeared beneath the thunder of Felix’s pulse. Heat rushed beneath his skin, prickling his cheeks and the back of his neck. His ears burned. His hands were fumbling for his stunners, the hidden one, the obvious one. If he could get a shot off first—

“Fix!” Elias’s hiss poked through the swish of blood and adrenaline.

Nynt’s daughter had her hand extended, her empty hand. She seemed to be waiting for something. When Elias elbowed him, Felix eased his hand off the stunner at his belt. He glanced up at her face, at her dark and flawless skin and wide, unrepentant gaze, and saw himself reflected. She did not want to be here, at this meeting. The silence stretched thin. Just before it snapped, Felix realized they were all waiting for him to shake her hand.

He put his palm to hers. Cool flesh moved gently against his before her hand withdrew, quickly, the shake being little more than a formality.

Nynt appeared satisfied. “A much more peaceful greeting than last time, yes?”

Did the guy not know he was a crook?

Nynt and daughter returned to their seat, a long framed pillow that molded to their posteriors, ashie-style. Elias stepped up to theirs, and again Felix hung back. Everyone turned to look at him.

“Ah, I’m sorry, I missed your name,” he said to Nynt’s daughter.

“Thamani.” Her voice recalled the night on Risus and a chill crawled down his spine. He took his seat, but perched near the edge, refusing to let the pillow hug his ass. He wanted to be up and out of there if necessary.

“Okay, now everyone knows everyone.” Elias tapped the tabletop. “Can we get to business?”

“Of course. Your time is precious, hmm?” Nynt’s face changed. He morphed from gracious host and doting father to the man Felix had expected to meet. The man who called himself the Grand Moth and did not care how ridiculous the title sounded. Eyes like flints, jaw hard enough to sharpen steel. “After the incident on Xihe, it was my decision that we stop pursuing recompense. Quite simply, chasing you across the galaxy has cost me more time and money than I could ever hope to regain, and I am a businessman, after all. Your mercy toward my soldiers only cemented that decision. It was clear to me that you also desired a truce, an end to the bloodshed.”

“Then how do you explain Risus?”

If possible, his features sharpened further. “That action was not sanctioned by myself or by any cartel officer. I take responsibility for my daughter’s mistakes, however, as a father must. The attempt to kidnap your pilot and crew was ill-conceived and has destroyed any relationship we might have had with the colonists. That the AEF had to be called in to clean up the mess...”

Thamani squirmed in her seat.

“Yet you spared my daughter’s life—” dark eyes bored through Felix, “—humbling me further.” His attention shifted to Elias. “That, Captain, is why I insisted we meet in person. So that I might properly express my gratitude.”

Smart retorts piled up on the tip of Felix’s tongue, but he swallowed them all. Now really wasn’t the time for him to be himself.

Nynt turned toward his daughter and inclined his head. Thamani fiddled under the table. Felix tensed, his hands diving toward his weapons again. Beside him, Elias stiffened, hand moving to his thigh holster. Thamani put a small object on the table. The indirect light of the restaurant ghosted the surface, making the rounded stone glow. It wasn’t until the holos shifted, a bright scene landing across the table, that Felix could actually make out what it was. Not a stone, a spherical gem four centimeters in diameter. The milky surface was wreathed with purple streaks that looked familiar...

“It’s Ashushk Prime,” he murmured.

“Yes.” Thamani picked up the gem and held it out to him. “This is a gift, for your pilot.”

Felix opened his palm and the small globe fell into his hand. It was warm.

“Thank you,” Elias said. “Qekelough will appreciate the gift.”

She would. Qek would love it.

“I have also arranged a delivery of ashushk wine. Something all your crew can enjoy.”

Elias gave Nynt a crooked smile. “We have no gifts for you, sorry.”

“None expected, Captain. But, perhaps our gesture has put you in a mind to negotiate the terms of our truce.”

Wow, it really sounded as if Nynt wanted to deal. Giddiness circled Felix’s gut once more. He closed his hand around the gem and tucked it into his deepest utility pocket. If things went south, he wanted to make it out with that, at least.

Nynt produced a wallet, and after projecting a holo over the table, one that competed with the seascapes floating past, he laid out his terms. A cessation of hostilities, given they respected Agrius territory, which meant they would not enter or conduct business within certain systems. As Felix watched Nynt block out a small area of the galactic map, he wondered why the man would share the borders of his territory. He quickly decided those borders were probably already well known. Agrius wasn’t a startup.

Elias leaned back. “Excuse me while I confer with my partner.”

“Of course.”

Elias tapped the small panel recessed into the side of the table, activating a personal dampening field. It could be expanded to provide privacy for the entire table, or sized for just one or two people. He dialed it wide enough to include Felix. “What do you think?”

“Honestly, Eli, I’m not sure what the fuck to think. This is utterly surreal.”

“I know. I keep expecting people to jump up from behind every table and point weapons as us.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I think we should accept the deal. I’m not quite sure what Nynt gets out of it, but for us it means not having to watch our backs.”

“You sure about that?”

Elias lifted one shoulder in a quick shrug. “No, but we can see how it goes, right?”

Day by day. The phrase floated up from memory, pulling a small smile to Felix’s mouth. Zed would take the deal. He’d investigate further and he’d prepare for contingencies, but he’d take the deal—because that was how life worked. Day by day.

“Let’s put our thumbprints on his map and get out of here.”

* * *

“Here’s to a truce with Agrius.” Smiling, Elias lifted his bottle of beer.

“Hear, hear.” Zed clinked the neck of his bottle against the captain’s and glanced at Flick, letting the relief that they’d returned safe roll through him once more. He’d been convinced Agrius was going to double-cross them, and even though it had turned out well, he was happy to leave Nezha Station behind.

“While we’re toasting...” Ness shot a grin in Zed’s direction. “Here’s to Zed. We missed you.”

Zed looked down at his cards, jaw clenching. Before more emotions could swamp the crew, Flick cleared his throat and piped up, “And here’s to Qek not having three testicles.”

“Thank you, Fixer. Though it was nice to see my homeworld again, I am grateful it was just a visit.” Qek dealt the cards and rearranged her own as the rest of the crew anted up. “However, your comment brings to mind a question I had for Zander that complements the discussion we had on Risus about human and alien sexuality.”

Elias kept his eyes on his cards, but a smile crept over his lips. “Oh, this should be good,” he said in a not-quite whisper to Nessa beside him.

Qek clicked in agreement. “Did the Guardians reveal anything about their reproductive—”

Zander choked on a mouthful of beer. “Whoa. Stop. No. I can’t go there. I really can’t.”

More clicks, the sounds confused now instead of happy. “I just imagined that with their telepathy, their connection might be intensely pleasurable.”

“Uh...” Zed wiped a stray droplet from his lips. “Maybe? But I didn’t think about it. I didn’t ask.” He looked around the table, at the curiosity shining in the eyes of his crew, and put his cards down. “Look, they lived in my head for two weeks. It was...not intrusive. Weird, right? You’d think it would be. But it wasn’t. It was warm, and comforting, and...unconditional. Like having my nana patting my head as she praised me.” Okay, that was a little more personal than he’d intended, but the description was dead-on. “So I don’t really want to think about Nana having sex.”

Wrinkles formed and smoothed on Qek’s face. “What is a nana?”

“His grandmother,” Flick supplied. He chuckled. “I don’t blame you, man.”

“Oh.” Qek clicked, considering. “Yes, I suppose that would be exceedingly awkward.”

Zed eyed the pot and picked up his cards again. Ness folded immediately, but Elias, Qek and Flick were still in with him. And the way Flick was hunching over his cards let Zed know he had something good.

Never go pro, love.

“Two weeks’ latrine duty,” Zed bet. Qek made a note of the bet on her wallet, as she did for all of the chores thrown into the pot.

“Oh, fuck, I’m out.” Elias tossed down his cards.

Qek clicked and looked at Zed, then at Flick, before placing her cards gently on the table. “I fold as well.”

Flick stared up at Zed and Zed met his eyes without flinching. He knew how to keep his expression flat, even in the worst of combat. Facing down Flick over a poker table was simple.

“I see your two weeks of latrine duty,” Flick said. “And raise you one call to your family.”

Zed’s façade cracked. “Not fair.”

“All’s fair in love and poker.” Flick shrugged. His green eyes caught Zed’s, sympathy spilling from their depths. “You know you have to do it.”

“We’re heading to Earth anyway, so I should just...wait.”

“And let them think for another four days that you’re dead?”

“I don’t want to do it over the comm.”

“Zed.”

“In person would be—”

“Zed.”

“Fuck you, Felix. Just...” He clenched his jaw. “Fuck you. I call.”

He knew that he’d lost before Flick flipped over his pair of aces to match the one on the river. Zed tossed his cards, his limbs suddenly filled with nervous energy. Feeling as if he were channeling Flick, he let his leg bounce and stared at the table.

“You’ll be with me?” He meant it to come out as a demand, but his voice rose plaintively on the last word.

Flick left his seat and rounded the table. Steady, familiar hands cupped his shoulders as Flick leaned down to press a kiss to the top of his head. “As long as you need me, Zed,” he whispered. “As long as you need me.”

“Well, that’s gonna be forever.” Zed offered a quick, halfhearted smile. He needed Flick at his side for this. Elias, Nessa and Qek too. The call was one thing, but seeing his family in person and witnessing the aftermath of everything he’d put them through...He was going to need help with it. A quick glance around the table, taking in everyone’s sympathetic looks, told him that his crewmates understood. They’d be there for him, through whatever came—just as they had been on Chloris and Ashie Prime.

Zed drew in a shaky breath and his smile strengthened. “Time for another hand. I owe you an ass-kicking, Felix.”

“Bring it,” Flick said, returning to his seat.

As the mood around the table lightened, banter and friendly taunts coloring the air of the mess, the ache in Zed’s chest eased. There was home...and there was home. No matter what happened on his call to Brennan later, or what happened on Earth, he had a team again. Folks who had his back.

There was no better feeling in the world.

* * * * *

About the Author

Jenn Burke

Jenn’s always been drawn to weird and wonderful stories, particularly those set between the stars, or juxtaposed with our normal, boring world, or...well, just about any of them, really. Her love of the written word prompted her to get a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from the University of Ottawa, and she’s spent the years since working in corporate and web communications—and dreaming up weird and wonderful stories of her own. A self-confessed geek, Jenn loves spending time in the worlds of video games, surfing her favorite websites, reading all the romance novels she can get her hands on, and accumulating an impressive collection of nerdy T-shirts. She currently lives outside of Ottawa, Ontario, with her husband, two kids and her writing helper, Alenko the husky.

Kelly Jensen

Born in Australia and raised everywhere else, Kelly now lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, daughter and herd of four cats. After disproving the theory that water only spins counter-clockwise around drains north of the equator, she turned her attention to more productive pursuits such as reading, writing, writing about reading and writing stories of her own. She also enjoys volunteering at her local library and playing video games, and holds a brown belt in Kiryoku, a martial art combining Shotokan, Aikido and Tang Soo Do. Her family is not intimidated by her.

Kelly is the author of Less Than Perfect, a tale of love and adventure in post-apocalyptic America, and “Domestic Bliss,” a story of love and robots. It’s not kinky. Well, maybe it is.

Felix and Zander’s story begins with CHAOS STATION—available now!

CHAOS STATION
Chaos Station, book one

“You’re not real. Felix Ingesson is dead.”

The war with the alien stin is over, but Felix Ingesson has given up on seeing his lover, Zander Anatolius, ever again. Zander’s military file is sealed tighter than an airlock. A former prisoner of war, Felix is attempting a much quieter life keeping his ship, the Chaos, aloft. He almost succeeds, until Zander walks on board and insists that Felix isn’t real.

A retired, broken super soldier, Zander is reeling from the aftereffects of his experimental training and wants nothing more than to disappear and wait for insanity to claim him. Then he sees footage of a friend and ally—a super soldier like him—murdering an entire security squad with her bare hands and a cold, dead look in her eyes. He never expected to find Felix, the man he’d thought dead for years, on the ship he hired to track her down.

Working with Felix to rescue his teammate is a dream come true...and a nightmare. Zander has no exit strategy that will leave Felix unscathed—or his own heart unbroken.

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ISBN-13: 9781426899829

Lonely Shore

Copyright © 2014 by Kelly Jensen & Jennifer R.L. Burke

Edited by Deborah Nemeth

All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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