by Kelly Jensen
“You ain’t been here long,” Felix countered.
She half turned. “Dip.”
A tattooed monster appeared in the junction. He had to be at least two meters tall. “Wassup?”
A shorter version of his scary self appeared beside him.
“Recognize this loser?” the woman asked.
Dip inspected Felix, and then moved on to Zed. Eyes narrowing, he tilted his head back and forth, the tendons in his neck snapping loudly in the quiet space. Zed remained silent, but his height and bulk didn’t require him to do much else. Just as Felix wondered if the issue of supposed trespassing might be settled by a staring contest, Dip’s gaze flicked away from Zed, passed back over Felix and returned to the stout woman.
“No.”
The Agrius trio stepped forward in a single, coordinated movement. Hand shifted to hips, fingers closing around barely concealed stunners.
Felix cleared his throat. “Ah, we could just go.”
“I don’t think so,” the woman said.
Hair rising across the back of everything, Felix rocked into Zed. A murmur tickled his ear. “Left, on my go.”
The words were low and emotionless, the same voice that had directed him at Dardanos. Skin still crawling, Felix nodded to indicate he’d heard and would obey. He’d seen Zed in action and, though it freaked him out, he trusted the man would do all in his power to extract them from this situation. He also figured there was going to be a body count.
“Go.”
Felix ducked left as Zed shot forward to his right. In seconds, Zed lifted the woman from the floor by her neck. She hissed and spat. Dip pulled a stunner from his belt. Felix barreled into him, catching Dip’s arm and jerking it back. Keeping a hold of that massive arm, he kicked Dip’s knee. The giant surprised him by going down. Felix followed, expecting to be tossed at any moment. Instead, arms banded about his shoulders from behind—Dip’s “little” friend joining the fight. Felix struggled once before giving in to the hold, allowing himself to be pulled off of Dip. Zed moved in between them, his motion almost comically fast.
Felix ducked, rounding his back so that his captor rolled over his shoulders and landed in a messy sprawl in front of him. He glanced toward the clash of the titans and saw Dip and Zed locked in a grapple. A punch to the gut pulled his attention back to his own fight. Dip’s friend had rolled. They now crouched face to face. Felix pushed forward from his heels, intending to drive his foe back to the floor. He knew he couldn’t shift the other man’s weight, so he grabbed an arm and pushed it up and over, forcing the man to turn—or lose the use of that arm. Felix had caught him by surprise. The guy’s shoulder dislocated with a grating pop that set Felix’s teeth on edge. Then Dip’s elbow arrowed out of nowhere and connected with the side of Felix’s jaw.
Ears ringing, Felix rolled across the floor, groping the slick surface until he found something to cling to. A boot. He shook his head, which made the station lurch. Someone landed on his back. Felix fell forward, pinned. He jabbed his elbows back into his attacker and felt a breath whoosh past his ringing ears. He tried to roll, only to have his shoulder wrenched back. Then the weight disappeared and the snap of a broken neck echoed down the suddenly quiet corridor.
“Shit.” The sickness in his gut wasn’t all from the blow to his jaw. Felix looked up at Zed and fought the urge to cower from the blankness pulling at the lines of his friend’s face.
Zed rubbed at his temple. “Shit,” he echoed.
Felix waved weakly at the bodies. “Are they...dead?”
“Yeah.”
Using the wall to steady himself, Felix pushed to his feet. He extended a tentative hand toward Zed. “You, um, okay?”
“Headache incoming.”
“Hold that thought.”
Felix ducked his head around the corner of the hall, hoping the two people Zed had spotted weren’t crouched on the other side, clutching each other in terror. Or, worse, simultaneously pulling weapons and calling station security. Thank all the stars they were in a camera dead zone. Of course, that probably meant Agrius owned this sector.
Jesus, Joseph and Mary.
Felix nodded toward the nearest bolt-hole, a closed door three meters down the hall. “I’m going to hack that lock. Can you, um, collect the bodies?”
Zed answered with a nod, the aftereffects of even a short trip to the Zone evident in the pause before the motion and the deepening lines of tension surrounding his mouth.
The lock gave quickly and, thankfully, their luck held. No screaming witnesses waited within, only a dark and dusty office. Felix helped Zed drag the last of the three dead cartel members inside and then took a moment to prod the bruise already rising along his jaw.
“Something’s going on down here,” he said, leaving the bruise to purple on its own so he could pat his pockets. He dug into one and pulled out a handful of lint. Poking through with the metal-clad fingers of his left hand, he uncovered a couple of tracking devices. “The Agrius cartel shouldn’t be this far out of Vega. We need to get back to the ship and compare reports.”
“What’re you doing?”
“Hmm? Oh. If Agrius retrieves these guys, we’ll know when, and where they take them. Could be useful intel.”
The cartel could be after the same bounty, or they could simply be in the process of establishing a foothold on a station that experimented in botany. Colonization of the galaxy had turned up a number of plants with narcotic properties.
Either way, Felix didn’t like coincidences.
Chapter Twelve
The fact that the gangway didn’t extend without Elias triggering it himself told him that he was the first to return to the Chaos. The corridors echoed with emptiness and the ship felt lifeless—not abandoned, like it had when he and Fixer had bought it, but lacking. The atmosphere would change entirely once the crew returned, but until then, it was like the Chaos was sleeping.
Elias made his way to the bridge and checked comms and systems. Everything was as it should be. He contacted Qek and Nessa for an update. They reported nothing unusual or all that helpful. His finger hovered over Fixer’s contact, but he didn’t press it. Contacting him might put his friend in a bad spot since, of all his crew, Fix was the most likely to find trouble. Particularly with Zander, Zed, Loop, whatever-the-hell his name was at his side.
Leaning back in his chair, Elias called up the files he’d saved on his wallet, all the info he could find on Zander Anatolius. He’d found plenty of tidbits dated from before the war had started, mostly information on the other, more public members of the Anatolius family with some brief mentions of the youngest son serving in the AEF. He’d found a reference to a few commendations in the early years of the war, a couple of promotions, and then nothing. For the past five years, it was like Zander Anatolius had ceased to exist. Until that holo had surfaced a few months back.
With a flick of a button, Elias called up the recording he’d scrounged up from somewhere on the net. The cacophony of a battlefield filled the bridge, the sound of explosions and gunfire interspersed with sobbing and prayers. The person behind the camera swept her device across the interior of the transport, noting in a low, shaky voice that the vehicle had been disabled by enemy fire and at last check, the stin were advancing. It was clear that she expected this to be a recording found after her death as she explained the circumstances behind their late evacuation and gave the names of the people aboard the transport, reporting that three evacuees had already been killed by the same fire that had disabled the vehicle. Ten civilians huddled behind the seats.
Then the camera spun in a vertigo-inducing blur to the front of the transport where a large man dressed in dark combat gear stood. Black streaks of paint broke up the lines of his face and his hair was shorter, but it was unmistakably Zander Anatolius. He barked out questions that the woman with the camera answered, her voice wavering, then he seemed to listen to his earpiece for a moment. He glared out the window, his jaw hard and square, and after a moment tugged
the comm off his ear.
“Everyone out!” Anatolius shouted. “Move! To the skipper. Move, move!”
The civilians staggered to their feet and raced across the road to the soldiers’ short-range troop transport vehicle. Without the melody of desperate whimpers and gasps for breaths, punctuated by explosions, Elias might have found the footage of people trying to squeeze into the skipper funny. Like clowns in an ancient clown car.
But it wasn’t funny. Zander Anatolius had, without a doubt, saved those people, and it seemed as though he’d disobeyed orders to do so. The man was a hero.
So why had he sounded so flat at the news that his brother was racing to Chloris to see him? Not only that, why was his brother compelled to rush? By his own words, it had been a while since Zander had seen his family—which made no sense. Why wouldn’t he have sought them out after the war, when his time as a covert operator was done?
It just didn’t add up. Everything Elias had found in Zander’s past indicated no anger or recrimination from his family for his choice of career; the Anatolius clan seemed like a close, loving entity, despite their riches and power. Which, yeah, was odd in itself, but congrats to them.
Was it the aftereffects of the war keeping Zander from his family, or something else? War fucked people up, so maybe that was all that was in play here. Zander shared the same sort of darkness that dwelled in Fix’s gaze—except it wasn’t well camouflaged, and that made Elias nervous.
Be honest. It scares you shitless.
Yeah. He wouldn’t soon forget the image of Zander Anatolius standing among a pile of bodies, unmoving, or the dead emptiness in his eyes when he’d looked up.
Now Fixer was involved with him. Enough to be torn up about it. Enough to be jealous.
Elias was up and out of his chair, his feet carrying him down the corridor to the guest quarters, before he’d made the conscious decision to move. Justification was easy. As captain, he had the responsibility—the duty—to determine if Zander was a threat to his crew. He had the right to know what the ex-soldier was hiding.
* * *
By the time they returned to the ship, light and noise had begun spearing themselves into Zed’s brain. His jaw tightened against the discomfort, his teeth grinding together, and he forced himself to relax—a process he’d gone through more than once as they’d trudged back to dock Alpha Two. It’d been damned tempting to contact Hana and make use of the apartment, with its no-doubt soft bed and full shower, but Zed hadn’t mentioned the possibility to Flick. They needed to get back to the Chaos and check in, and the importance of any intel the rest of the crew had gathered trumped the potential comfort—and quiet darkness—of the Anatolius accommodations.
He could hold it together long enough for the debrief. If the pain worsened, he had his stash tucked away in his quarters; even his worst migraines couldn’t last against those pills. They’d put him out of commission for a good few hours, so he’d avoid taking them if he could. Still, it was a comfort knowing they were there. A security blanket.
“You okay?” Flick kept his voice low, but it was still too loud.
Zed unclenched his jaw. “Peachy.”
The hand clasping Zed’s shoulder said that Flick knew “peachy” meant anything but. He jogged ahead of Zed, up the gangway.
“Honey, I’m home,” he called softly.
Despite the way the words bounced around between his temples, Zed couldn’t help but smile. It was just such a Flick sort of thing to do that he wanted to pull him into a hug. That thought led to another—holding Flick in the quiet dark, letting the rhythm of his breaths soothe the pounding in his head. He’d never had the chance to indulge in that, but God, the thought of it was so good.
“Fixer to the bridge. Bring Anatolius,” Elias ordered over the comm.
Flick cast a glance over his shoulder at Zed. “You good?”
“I’m not going to lose my cookies all over your captain’s lap.”
“Really? Because you kind of look like you might, and I might pay to see his face if you did.”
Zed really didn’t need that imagery. “Let’s make it quick, all right?”
“Look, why don’t you head to your cabin, and I’ll—”
“Felix, I’m okay.”
Flick watched him for a long moment. “You’re such a bullshitter,” he grumbled finally before angling through the ship to the bridge.
The rest of the crew was seated in their usual spots. Zed settled against the wall and focused on ignoring the pain in his head. The path to the Zone glowed with invitation, but he resisted despite knowing that it would push the pain aside completely. Zoning again would make the migraine that much worse when he came out of it.
It took him a minute to note that Elias and Nessa were watching him. The captain’s face was carefully blank, his dark eyes intent with something Zed couldn’t read. Nessa simply looked concerned. She shifted to the edge of her seat, as if she expected him to keel over. Elias laid a hand on her arm and she moved back, the movement almost imperceptible. A warning bell sounded sluggishly in Zed’s mind.
“So,” Flick said, leaning back in his chair like he had no worries, “we had some fun with Agrius.”
Elias’s gaze snapped to his friend. “What? How did you know—”
“Pretty sure it was just chance. We were looking around and stumbled onto something we shouldn’t have.”
“Crap. One of my contacts told me they were here, and not just for the bounty. They’re setting up in this sector.”
“Apparently.”
“And they’ve got a new enforcer.”
Zed’s spine stiffened. Shit. Emma? He shared a tense glance with Flick as they both processed that possibility. Why would Emma work with Agrius? Hell, why not. If they could provide support and meds, it’d be a coup for her—particularly because they’d view the murder of Chloris Station guards as a mark in the pro column. That would explain their presence this far outside their usual turf.
Elias’s gaze swept over his engineer, lingered on the bruise purpling his jaw. “Any survivors?”
“No,” Zed grunted.
“Fuck.” Elias rubbed a hand against his cheek, glancing from Zed to Flick. “If they put two and two together...”
“No active cameras in that area,” Flick said. “It’s a surveillance blind spot. But...” His gaze drifted back to Zed.
“Yeah, I know. Multiple casualties in hand-to-hand is not exactly a calling card, but close enough.” Zed sighed. There was a chance, a small one, the cartel would connect the deaths on Chloris with those on Dardanos. “It was them or us. We unintentionally trespassed and they weren’t inclined to let us go with a warning.”
“And you couldn’t just knock them out?” Elias demanded.
“Right, because leaving them behind to identify us and look for payback is a better idea.” Zed rubbed his temple. “The mission dictated—”
“The mission dictated recon, not murder.”
“At that moment, no, the fucking mission dictated I get Flick out in one piece. Which I did.” The hand at his temple stretched to rub his forehead as the pain spiked. He concentrated on his breathing for a minute.
“You okay, Zed?” Nessa asked, her voice soft.
No.
“Fantastic,” he ground out.
“Missing these, huh?”
The sound of pills in a container jerked Zed’s attention away from his pounding head. He zeroed in on the tiny unmarked package, without any question of what it was or whose. Pills weren’t a popular delivery method for meds—too slow to be absorbed in the bloodstream, and hypo-syringes were pretty easy to use, if you had a good storage system for the serums—but they were reliable, not often affected by changes in temperature, and easy to store. In other words, perfect for an ex-soldier living out of a pack.
“You went through my cabin,” he said.
Flick snapped to attention. “What the fuck, Eli?”
“You had a regular pharmacy in there. Ness has been tryi
ng to identify all the drugs, but some of them she’s never seen,” Elias said. “So what’s the story, Anatolius? You dealing?”
Unease stirred in Zed’s chest, the precursor to panic. He didn’t miss the captain’s use of the past tense, he had the drugs. The majority of them were now presumably in Nessa’s med bay, which meant they weren’t his security blanket anymore. Which meant he was at the mercy of both the pain and the captain.
“No,” Zed said.
“Bullshit.”
“I’m not.”
“Eli, if he says—”
“Shut up, Fixer.” Elias’s gaze remained on Zed’s as he rose from his seat. “I don’t condone using on my boat.”
“I’m not using,” Zed growled.
“This shit?” Elias held up the container of Zed’s best pills. “One of these goes for a thousand creds. They’re illegal throughout AEF space because they kill people. After they make them so high they think they can spacewalk without a suit.”
“That’s not how they work for me.”
“So you are using.”
“No!” Zed squinted as the pain in his head jolted up a notch. The full bloom of panic nudged him toward the Zone. “Just, please. Give them back.”
“No. They’re getting dumped. I want you off my—”
Zed welcomed the Zone. It erased the pain and the uncertainty, and the panic that had threatened to steal his breath disappeared completely. He looked at his hand around Idowu’s neck dispassionately and employed just enough pressure to make the captain’s eyes widen. He noted the movement of the rest of the crew. O’Brien and Qekelough had jerked to their feet, standing beside him and Idowu, their expressions unsure. Ingesson took a step toward him from behind.
Ingesson. Felix. Flick.
What the fuck are you doing, Zed?
He wasn’t sure if the question reverberating in his brain was Ingesson’s or his own silent one, and he had no time to contemplate it. Ingesson stepped forward, fists cocked. Zed released Idowu and lifted his hands in a fighting stance to match the engineer’s.
