Chaos Station 01 - Chaos Station

by Kelly Jensen

  “You and me both,” Nessa murmured.

  Elias’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Oh, so now I’m the bad guy?”

  “No, I believe I currently have that distinction,” Qek said.

  “Okay, let’s try something,” Nessa said. “We’re each going to spend a minute telling the rest of the crew what we want out of this situation. After we’ve all had our say, no interruption, we’ll use Qek’s formula to plot our best possible outcome.”

  Felix let out a pained groan. “This is not the time for a circle jerk.”

  “All you need to do is tell the truth. Qek, why don’t you go first.”

  Qek clicked thoughtfully for a moment. “I want four hundred thousand credits to spend on repairs and upgrades to this ship.”

  “That’s—”

  Nessa held up a finger. “Not your turn, Eli.”

  Grumbling, Elias clamped his mouth shut.

  “But this ship is nothing without her crew. As I stated before, I would forgo the mission in order to protect the integrity of what we already have.”

  Felix cast his gaze down toward the floor, disappointed by Qek’s admission, but not surprised. The ashushk thought at a slower and therefore more logical pace than the rest of them. She had effectively cut through the emotion of the issue.

  Quietly, Nessa added her thoughts. “You know what? I want the same thing, with one codicil. Zed is a part of this crew.” She waved Elias to silence when he opened his mouth. “It might not be a permanent placement, but he’s here now and he needs our help.”

  A murmur rounded the table. Qek clicked quietly.

  “Elias?”

  Elias fumed silently for a moment—his thinking moment—then he let out a deep breath. “Fuck it. You know what I really want? I want to not have met Zander Anatolius and his big fat wallet of credits. But seeing as it’s already too late for that wish, I want...” His brown gaze rolled over each of them. “I want you all safe. I want you happy and healthy. That being said, I want what we do to mean something. Anyone can deliver Belarian carpets to Ashushk Prime, but not everyone is willing to take the risks we do.”

  Emotion tugging at his weary heart, Felix nodded at his captain, offering encouragement. This was the man he had partnered with.

  “I didn’t just take this job for the credits. Yeah, it’s a lot of money and we could use it. I took the job because Zed needed to find his friend. I could see how much it meant to him and...” He shrugged. “Just seemed like the right damned move.”

  Smiling, Nessa grasped Elias’s forearm. “You old softy.”

  Elias grumbled.

  Nessa looked up at Felix. “Your turn.”

  “I think Elias said it well enough.”

  “That’s a cop-out.”

  Felix sighed and pushed his hair around. It could use a trim—and thinking about that only delayed the inevitable. What did he really want? He wanted Zed not to be a lab rat with stin scars down his neck. Same for Emma. He wanted the wedge between him and Elias to dissolve. He wanted Qek to touch his hand again, palm to palm, and he wanted Nessa to stop mothering him.

  “I want a fucking time machine.”

  Qek clicked and Elias groaned. A crease of disappointment appeared between Nessa’s brows.

  “What? Elias wished he’d never met Zed.”

  “You’re missing the point of the exercise.”

  “I don’t want to play the game.”

  “It’s not a game.”

  Felix kicked at the floor. The weight of his crewmates’ attention made his skin itch. What he wanted was to go back to his quarters, burrow into his bed and sleep until the nightmare ended. He tried again. “I want too many things and none of them are important or relevant right now.”

  “Stop being a selfish prick and just tell us what you want out of this job.”

  “Fine. I want to rescue Emma and then find a way to fix them both. Get that fucking stin poison out of them so they don’t have to live like this.” Or die like this. “That work for you?”

  Elias held his gaze for a moment before offering a sober nod. “Yeah.”

  Nessa looked at Qek. The ashushk clicked and answered the unasked question. “If the definition of crew is expanded to include Mr. Anatolius, then I believe my wish can be expanded as well.”

  Everyone looked at Felix. He supposed they were waiting for him to play his asshole-card. Object to something, anything, everything. That thought tipped his balance, but didn’t push him over. His crew had all just thrown in with him, told him they wanted to see the job through. He needed to give something back. He put both hands on the table, palm down, the metal-clad fingers of his left clicking softly against the scratched surface. “Thank you. I...” He swallowed a sigh. “I’m sorry. Y’all know I don’t play well with others.”

  “No shit,” Elias muttered.

  “No, you mean bullshit,” Nessa said. “Look, this is our first big bump as a crew. For nearly a year, we’ve gotten along with no more than a spat here and there, and those have been confined to someone stealing the last Cheesy Bik or forgetting to put more beer in the fridge.”

  “Or taking the refrigerator apart,” Felix said, offering Nessa a wry smile that she immediately returned.

  “Point is...” She rubbed at her brow. “Hell, I’m not sure I even know what the point is anymore. I’m tired.”

  “I think we are all fatigued,” Qek said. “I suggest we break for a few hours. Get some rest while we have the opportunity.”

  A part of Felix wanted to rush back out onto the station, but going alone would be stupid. He’d been trained better than that. He also knew that given the stresses of the previous couple of hours, he needed rest. They all did, Zed most of all.

  Pulling himself off the wall felt like too much effort, so Felix lounged there until Nessa and Qek left the mess. He summoned the energy to stand upright as Elias approached. Elias cocked his head in question and Felix pondered the physical distance between them, hoping he could find the words to bridge the other gap.

  “Are we good?” Oh, nice. Perfect.

  “Honestly, I dunno, Fix.”

  Heart dropping through his stomach, Felix dipped his chin and prepared to creep away. He stepped forward instead, placing himself right in front of Elias. “If you need me to go, say the word. I’ll be gone in an hour.”

  “That’s not what I need.”

  “Tell me what you want.”

  “Already told you, man, in Nessa’s little therapy session.”

  “That’s what you truly want to do?”

  “Hey, if I’d lied, Ness might never sleep with me again.”

  “You guys on again?”

  Elias made a seesaw gesture with his hand.

  “I feel like I’m out of touch with the crew.”

  Elias’s mouth quirked into a half smile. “I think you’re more in touch than you realize. What do you really want?”

  Everything he wanted rolled through Felix’s thoughts, unfiltered. Zed featured prominently. Again, he thought about Qek’s gestures of friendship and Nessa’s annoying but not entirely unwelcome concern. Pausing the memory reel, Felix took a moment to consider the man before him, the one he owed two lives. He wanted to see Elias’s handsome face creased in a smile, and maybe catch that occasional note of pride in his warm brown eyes, the glint he got after a job well done. He wanted his friend back.

  “I want it all, Eli. Nothing less.” A wavering smile twitched across his mouth.

  “C’mere.” Elias enfolded him in a hug and Felix let it happen; he owed Elias at least that much. With minimum stiffness, he leaned into his friend, his brother, and breathed in the comforting scent of Elias’s soap, did the back patting thing.

  After a moment, Elias pulled away, cupped his ears and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Go get some rest. We’ve got asses to save.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Zed always felt off the first twenty-four hours following a shift-induced seizure. His head seemed too big, his movem
ents were uncoordinated enough to be noticeable, and his vision was just that much more wrong. But none of that would keep him from tracking down their newest lead.

  Someone had disturbed the three bodies they’d left behind. Flick’s trackers had started pinging frantically about twenty minutes ago, and there was no way in hell Zed was letting Elias accompany Flick to investigate—especially not after the welcome they’d gotten the day before.

  Vines dangled from the ceiling overhead, making Zed feel like they were on a reconnaissance mission planetside rather than on a station. They didn’t quite mesh with his memories of the place. When he’d visited Chloris with his father years ago, the vines had been so thick he couldn’t see the stars above them. It had been like walking through a green cave—still was, sort of, but the combat that had damaged part of the main docking area must have extended well into the station.

  As they wound their way deeper into Chloris, the distinct aroma of soil and plants faded, replaced by less pleasant organic smells combined with the sharp tang of metal. Zed had always associated the scent of a station with Flick, though he hadn’t actually lived on a station for over half his life, now. The combination of life and metal just suited him.

  Flick paused before they reached their destination, casually leaning against a wall to check his bracelet. Zed matched his posture. His eyes remained active, evaluating the figures that pushed past them. Nothing triggered his suspicion. All the people on this level seemed intent on keeping to themselves and just getting from one point to another as quickly as possible. It might be a different story later, when the lower-level nightlife picked up. He’d already spotted a pair of bars on their walk that weren’t yet open for business, and there would be others that didn’t advertise. Despite all stations having unique cultures and traditions, some things were just universal. Back-alley joints were one of them.

  “Our dance happened down that hall,” Flick said.

  Zed resisted the urge to crane his neck around the perpendicular corner. He remembered what it looked like: a lot emptier and much more plain than the main drag on which they stood.

  “Ongoing readings?” he asked.

  “Yep.” An expression of triumph flashed across Flick’s face as his display blipped again.

  Zed leaned close, as though he was trying to convince his lover to indulge in a public kiss. Around here, no one would notice two men snogging against the wall, but standing around, looking tense for other reasons? That would sound alarms.

  “What’s the plan?” he whispered.

  “We need clues, not more bodies.”

  Zed tried not to flinch. “Right.”

  “You good with that?”

  “State the mission. It’ll help, if I have to...” He shrugged.

  “Mission has two objectives,” Flick said, his voice falling into the cadence of their training as if he’d served only yesterday. “First, gather intel for the whereabouts of Emma Katze. Second, avoid anyone with a moth tattoo.”

  Zed repeated the objectives silently. Right now, he grasped all the various layers of importance to the two goals: the whys, the reasons, the underlying need. In the Zone, those layers didn’t matter. Only the objective remained, and in the absence of an assigned mission, Zed had defaulted each time to keeping Flick safe, regardless of the means required to do so.

  “Got it,” he said. “Team B?”

  Flick tapped his bracelet. “Elias, Nessa. We’re in position.”

  Nessa’s voice hissed through the open connection. “We should have code names.”

  Elias quickly overrode her. “We’re in position.”

  “Location?”

  A gray blip appeared on the display. They were monitoring a second approach that could also be used as an exit.

  “Got it.”

  “Ready?” Zed said.

  Flick switched off his wallet and reached up to grab Zed by the back of the head. He tugged Zed’s lips down to his own for a hard, over-too-soon kiss.

  Zed blinked down at him. “What the hell?”

  “Never heard of a good luck kiss?”

  “Good luck kisses don’t involve tongue.”

  Flick winked. “Okay, I’m ready. Be careful.”

  Zed brushed this thumb over Flick’s cheek. “Same goes.”

  He kept his stance relaxed and unconcerned as they turned the corner and slipped into the seemingly empty corridor. Nothing to see here, ignore us. Possible scenarios of what they’d find flitted through his head. Station security cataloguing the bodies, maybe, or more Agrius looking for revenge. Hell, maybe one of the dead guys wasn’t dead and he’d started twitching.

  He sure as fuck didn’t expect to see Emma Katze slipping out of the room where they’d stashed the corpses. She fiddled with the lock, unaware of their presence.

  Zed’s mouth dropped open and he jogged forward a few steps before his feet froze to the floor. He reached out automatically to grab Flick, keeping him well out of range of the woman standing in front of them.

  “Emma?” he said, his voice tentative.

  Her shoulders stiffened. Turning, she glared at them. Then her spine lost some of its rigidity. “Fuck.”

  “Good to see you too.”

  Emma straightened, her lithe form just as muscular and cut as he remembered. Whatever she’d been doing for these past six months, she’d kept herself in shape. Long brown hair was gathered in a messy, knotty bun low at the back of her head, and multiple strands had escaped to brush her ears and neck. Her trousers were almost as worn and ragged as Flick’s, and her dull SFT sported a tear in one long sleeve. A half-healed cut stretched from the left side of her jaw, toward her ear, disappearing beyond her hairline.

  The hope that all of this was just one big misunderstanding or mistake faded.

  “Did they send you, Zed?” she demanded, her gaze flat. But not Zone-flat, thank God.

  “No. I’m as in the wind as you are.”

  Her gaze drifted to Flick. After a second, her eyes widened. “Holy fuck. Is that—”

  “Hey, Emma.”

  “You’re dead.”

  “That’s what he thought too.” Flick jerked his head at Zed. “Y’all need to talk to the AEF about better comms.”

  “He knows,” Zed said.

  Emma’s gaze whipped back to Zed. “You told him?”

  “We had a few run-ins with Agrius.” Zed hoped that was all the explanation she’d need. He didn’t want to reveal his lapses on the Chaos—neither incident would prompt any sort of confidence in him, and right now, he needed Emma to believe he was in control and knew what he was doing.

  Even if he didn’t have a fucking clue.

  “Shit.” She hunched a shoulder at the hidden room behind her. “That was you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You after the bounty?”

  Ouch. “Emma. Come on.”

  “He hired my ship and crew to haul ass over here and find you,” Flick said. “What the hell happened?”

  “What, you mean before or after the AEF fucked us over?” She shrugged and brushed a hand over her hair. “I got tired of staring at the mirror and trying to see the insanity.”

  “Damn it—”

  “Agrius let me use my skills. Gave me support. They appreciate me, which is more than I can say for the AEF.”

  Flick craned his head and examined Emma’s neck. “No tattoo, though.”

  “Hell no. I might work for ’em, but they don’t own me.”

  Zed wasn’t sure if that was better or worse. “Why didn’t you contact me?”

  She laughed, a humorless sound. “Right. How? You cut us loose just as thoroughly as the AEF. All those pretty words of yours, how we’d stick together, how you’d always be there...all fucking bullshit.”

  Zed clenched his jaw, unable to argue. She was right. He’d isolated himself, completely. “I was fucked in the head.”

  “We all were. We all are.” Emma sighed and her gaze lost some of its challenge. “I lost it.”

&
nbsp; “I know.”

  “I...” She cleared her throat. “I killed good guys.”

  “I know. Look, we’ll get you off-station. We’ll get you some help.”

  “What kind of help?”

  “We’ll figure something out. You’re not alone anymore, I promise. Listen, we shouldn’t linger here.” Not next to a room full of bodies, not near Agrius territory. “Let’s go back to the ship. We can talk more there.”

  * * *

  Emma was a beautiful woman and she’d always been the put-together sort, her uniform fitting as if it had been tailored for her rather than issued by a quartermaster. That she usually kept her gear stowed neatly might have had something to do with that. Now, she looked as if she wore all she possessed, and even that was going to fall off her soon. Felix recognized the fashion, and the wear and tear. She’d run from something, or maybe to something, and now she was hiding out—probably more from herself than any perceived enemy. Personal demons were the most tenacious, though.

  Studying her drawn features, Felix wondered if she suffered the same sort of fits as Zed and decided that she probably did. Sadness trickled through his veins, cold and leaden. He hated to see Emma like this.

  He never wanted to see Zed like this.

  For a moment, he was struck dumb by the idea he was going to lose two of his oldest friends. Worse, he felt powerless to do anything about it. But...loitering in a quiet corridor wouldn’t accomplish anything.

  “We’re going to need an alternate route back to your ship. Docks are crawling with AEF,” Emma said.

  Zed looked away from Emma with obvious reluctance, as if he feared she would disappear if he averted his gaze. He barely glanced at the map.

  “Which is why we’re going to use the service corridors,” Felix explained.

  “The AEF is watching those too.”

  Zed produced a tight smile. “Not all of them. This is an Anatolius station and not every corridor is listed on the public maps.”

  Felix tapped his comm. “Eli?”