Chaos Station 01 - Chaos Station Read online

  “After a burn and before a windup.”

  “None of these terms are in the manual, are they?”

  “There is no manual and I have devised simplified phraseology for your use.”

  “You sound like a computer sometimes, Qek.”

  “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

  “Hey! That one almost fits!” Ashies loved to use idioms. It made them feel fluent in whichever language they absorbed, even if they didn’t often get them right. Felix put his good hand to his heart in a gesture of sincerity. “I appreciate all of your lessons, please continue.”

  “As you wish.” Qek’s blue face creased into another smile. “If the temperature of the drive is above—”

  “Fix?”

  Felix tapped his bracelet. “Hey.”

  Elias’s voice squawked from the communicator. “En route with a load.” Which translated as: The client is with me. Cargo was cargo. A load, or possible passenger, represented significantly more work.

  “ETA?”

  “Ten minutes.”

  Lips twisting, Felix surveyed the disassembled refrigerator. Shit. If a client traveled with them, they’d need a functioning galley. Some folks could be picky about the whole having-to-eat thing and their foodfactor really only made decent coffee. It could do donuts in a pinch. Every other meal it produced had the taste and texture of a prepackaged ration bar, hence the kitted-out galley and doctor with a delicious hobby. The doctor who might need to medicate herself if she returned to the ship too soon.

  “When’s liftoff?”

  Qek rolled her almond-shaped eyes at the anachronistic expression. Felix winked at her.

  “Have Qek request a slot for eighteen hundred.”

  “Will do, Captain.” With a subtle shift of her lithe frame, Qek rose to her feet. “We will have to continue our lesson later, Fixer. I want to run some preflight checks.”

  Felix affected a wounded expression. “You’re leaving me alone with this mess?”

  “Mess?” his comm inquired.

  “We’re in the mess. See you when you get here, Cap’n.” Felix cut the connection and surveyed the jumble of panels and wires spewing out of the refrigerator. “Double shit.”

  He could fix it, given the right parts. He had a crate full of regulator units and the like in...”Triple shit.”

  They hadn’t had a client aboard the Chaos in ten months, which meant no one had used the one spare cabin in ten months. Well, almost no one. Felix had been using it to store spare parts.

  Unfolding his lean frame took considerably more effort than Qek ever exhibited. The ashushk had not broken as many bones as Felix; nor was her skin marred by as many scars. Felix didn’t often have trouble getting around—he was thirty-one, not sixty-one. He kept himself limber with daily exercise and the wonder of modern medicine. But two hours cross-legged on a hard floor would mess with anyone’s joints.

  His spine snapped, crackled and popped as he stretched his arms overhead. A sway to either side relieved more tension. Straightening, Felix hustled out of the mess. The steel web covering his left hand clanked lightly on the rail as he hauled himself up the narrow stairs between levels. He keyed open the hatch to the spare cabin and stood in the doorway, chewing on his lips.

  Barely large enough to swing an ashushk, the cabin housed a single-and-a-half bunk, a desk, a chair and a cubbyhole of a closet. When not littered with stuff—small bins of parts, flexible plastic circuits, panels, wires, spare tools—both the bed and the desk could be folded back into the smooth metal walls. Larger bins peeked out from the underside of the bunk. The cabin didn’t look bad, per se, just...cluttered. Huffing out a sigh, he bent to the simultaneous tasks of finding a compatible regulator while sorting his vague piles of parts into their appropriate bins.

  “Fixer!” The cry echoed through the ship without the assistance of the comm system. “Oh my freaking God, what have you done to the refrigerator?”

  Felix leaned his head out of the open hatchway. “Don’t touch anything. I’m about to fix it.”

  Nessa’s voice shot up the access stairs. “We have a client coming!”

  “I know, I got the call. I’m cleaning up the spare cabin.” Sort of. Felix thumbed his bracelet, which had slipped back down to loosely encircle his left wrist. “Nessa? I found the fault. Once I fix it, the deep freeze will work after a jump.”

  “How long...where...” Felix could hear Nessa moving through the mess. “Where’s the food?”

  “Somewhere cold.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “Want to come toss some stuff in tubs while I clean up the mess?”

  “You’re asking me to clean up one of your messes while you clean up the other.”

  “Yes.”

  Nessa’s sigh whistled through the comm as her boots clanked against the stairs in the access. “That’s about three jillion you owe me!” she called out.

  “Fine, fine, add it to the tally.”

  Felix grabbed the correct regulator and went to meet her at the access. Her ginger head emerged first, her freckled face followed. Finally, Nessa stood before him, arms folded beneath her ample bosom, one hip cocked and ready, brown eyes flashing, lips pursed into something resembling a plum.

  Felix adopted a pose of quiet appeal. “It will work better, I promise.”

  “And you’ll get those contaminants out of the medicine locker?”

  “That’s our food you’re talking about.”

  She arched a pale auburn brow. Felix flashed a dimple at her. “Our beer won’t freeze when I’m done.” Which had been more mystifying and annoying than the spoiled food.

  Grumbling, Nessa stepped around him and leaned into the spare cabin. “Okay, this isn’t as bad as I expected.”

  Felix made his escape while he could. He had the correct tool out of his belt before he even dropped from the stairs, and his momentum allowed him to kneel at the door and skid across the mess floor on his knees. He grabbed the panel and began working the bum regulator loose. Ideally, he’d like to replace the whole panel, have it match the spec of the rest of the unit, but he didn’t have time. A quick fix was in order.

  A hum buzzed against his throat and seconds slipped into minutes.

  Footsteps approached the mess from Cargo One, two sets. Felix slotted the panel back into the refrigeration unit and began scooping up the arterial tangle of cables. He glanced up when he sensed Elias and their guest reach the door. Elias stepped through first, his handsome face held in an expression of anxious calm. Not exactly his client face, more his “we need to talk” face, and Felix did not think the exposed refrigerator guts would be part of the conversation. The job must have sounded or paid right for Elias to accept, but he obviously wanted to confer with his partner.

  Felix stood up and scrubbed his right hand against his thigh. The dead smart fibers in his worn pants didn’t even flinch away from the smudge of burnt skin and solder.

  “Fixer, this is our client, Mr. Loop.” Smile broadening, Elias stepped to the side and gestured grandly. “Mr. Loop, this is my engineer and business partner, Felix Ingesson.” Elias aimed a pointed look at the half-gutted refrigerator. “Goes by Fixer.”

  A tall, broad-shouldered man ducked his head through the hatch and stepped into the mess. As he straightened, Felix felt the blood rush from the top of his scalp down to somewhere around his boot heels. But for the scar on the right side of his face, the dark-haired, blue-eyed giant was a dead ringer for Major Zander Anatolius—AEF specialist, his oldest, dearest friend, his lover for five short days, the man he had planned to spend his life with until the war with the stin had pulled them apart. That had been nearly nine years ago.

  “Fix?” Elias said into the awkward pause.

  Ignoring Elias, Felix worked his mouth until his throat moved. “Zed?”

  Chapter Two

  “I don’t want to do this, Zed. I don’t want to walk away in five days and spend the next four years pretending that the guys I hook up with are
you.”

  “So we don’t walk away.”

  Zed stared at the man staring at him. It was wrong, all wrong. His hair was too long, too blond; his green eyes too bright, too close to a neon shade rather than the gentle, calming hazel Zed had stared into more than once. This man’s nose had been broken and his face scarred. It wasn’t him.

  Felix Ingesson.

  It couldn’t be him. He’d know, wouldn’t he? Someone would’ve told Zed, would’ve hurdled the secrecy surrounding his status in the AEF or hunted him down after the war, despite his refusal to carry a wallet or communicate with anyone—because if Felix Ingesson was alive...

  But no one had. So Felix wasn’t.

  Zed focused on his heartbeat rather than the emotions that wanted to overwhelm him. He steadied it, mastered it, controlled it. As tempting as it was, he didn’t reach for his training. He needed the pain and the rage, the sadness and the horror. They kept him grounded.

  He turned to Elias. “Lieutenant Felix Ingesson was killed in action eight years ago. What is this?”

  Elias’s gaze swung between Felix and Zed, uncertainty written across his face. “I don’t know what you’re—”

  “Zed.”

  Someone would have told him, damn it!

  Zed ignored Felix—the man who looked like Felix—and took a step toward the captain. Had Elias’s reluctance in the bar been an act? Had this been planned from the start? Had someone discovered the connection between him and Emma—the Academy—and then tried to find some leverage in that to use against him? What better choice than having someone masquerade as his dead best friend. They’d been all but inseparable since they were eight years old, from before the Academy and through their training. But they’d have to know he wouldn’t fall for it, so why even try?

  It didn’t make sense. It was too convoluted, too unbelievable, too unreal...

  Unreal.

  Oh, fuck.

  Zed examined the wall above Elias’s head, the ceiling, the refrigerator with its guts partially hanging out. The ship smelled like a ship should, with a slight chemical tang from recycled air and circuitry. Despite the way the shadows were darker and the lights brighter than they should be—he’d gotten used to that weirdness in his vision—it all seemed real. But that was the insidiousness of insanity, wasn’t it?

  How much was truth? Was he actually standing on a ship? Or was he still sitting in the bar with the beer—unless that was something his brain had made up too. He remembered, then, how the label of the beer had seemed to move, writhing in place. He should have considered this. If Emma had lost it, and she was undoubtedly the strongest of their team, then he should have known he’d be falling down that rabbit hole shortly after.

  “You know him, Fixer?”

  Not Fixer. His name is Flick.

  “You’re the only one who calls me that, you know. Haven’t heard it in years.”

  “Yeah, I do. Zander...”

  He glared at the imposter. “Felix Ingesson is dead.”

  He’d thought he was past this, the hurt and confusion. Eight years ago, he’d known the news wouldn’t be good when his relay point comms had gone unanswered for two weeks, then three. By the sixth week, he’d both dreaded checking for new ripmail and had this weird light-headed spurt of hope that Flick would’ve emerged from whatever black hole had sucked him in. Then news had woven through the ground forces about the loss of the McCandless. Flick’s ship. It took a year for them to declare him KIA. Zed didn’t remember much of that year; the following ones were filled with repetitive memories of missions and objectives and little else.

  Not-Flick huffed out a breath and stepped forward, moving until he stood right in front of him. “I’m not dead.”

  “You’re not real.”

  “I’m not...” He rocked back slightly. “What?”

  “You’re not real.” Zed squeezed his eyes shut and muttered, “C’mon, Zander, wake up.” His hands curled into fists at his sides.

  If he couldn’t get himself back under control, he wasn’t of use to anyone. Worse, he’d be a danger. He refused to harm the people he’d committed his life to protecting. Otherwise, what was the point? Everything he’d given up, all his sacrifices...they had to mean something.

  It’s a dream. It’s not real. Wake the fuck up, Zander.

  Something brushed his cheek. Zed’s eyes snapped open. He moved without thinking, one hand flying up to grab the man’s wrist. He twisted his grip and stepped to the side, the movements for the armlock as natural as breathing.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Elias stepped around Zed, toward the man held immobile in front of him. “Let him go!”

  “Ow! Fuck, Zed. You break my good arm and I will fucking throw you out an airlock, I swear to God.”

  He didn’t know what was real. The arm in his hands felt solid. Flexing his fingers pressed flesh to bone and made the man grunt in pain. Would a hallucination do that? And if he wasn’t dreaming...

  Was this really Flick?

  Zed let go and stepped back, staring at his hands before lifting his gaze to consider the two men in front of him. Shadows and light played across their features in a vertigo-inducing dance. Was that real? “I...I don’t...”

  “Damn straight you don’t.”

  He turned to Elias just as the captain’s fist slammed into his jaw.

  * * *

  “Fix?”

  Ears roaring, Felix looked up from the man sprawled across the floor of the mess. Absurdly, he felt like saying “I’m not dead.” But Elias knew that. Elias had been one of the men to bring him back from near-death. Twice.

  Felix shook his head slowly. By the second gentle swing, he acknowledged the fact his thoughts would not clear until after he talked to Zed. And that was Zed on the floor, one hand stretched out across the loosened refrigerator panel. Throat tightening, Felix studied him again, noting the smudges beneath closed eyes, the furrows marking his forehead—even in repose—the hollows of his cheeks, the cords in his neck. Zander had always been a large man and he still was, but drawn, like a shadow of his former self. A darker, angrier copy.

  A warm hand cupped his shoulder. Felix glanced up at Elias and thought about folding himself against his friend’s chest. He’d never do it, never had. But he thought about it sometimes, when he needed someone, when he needed...

  Cradling his wrist awkwardly with his gloved hand, Felix turned from Elias and Zed and slid into the booth that served as the mess dining table. He breathed out and stretched his wrist across the scratched surface to give himself something to look at, something other than the man on the floor.

  Oh my God. Zander Anatolius.

  “He thought I was dead.”

  “Who is he?” Elias asked, sliding into the booth on the opposite side.

  A creep across the back of his scalp warned Felix not to give out Zed’s full name. Holographic letters pulsed in his memory: Access Denied. Zed’s whereabouts had been shrouded in AEF secrecy until seven months ago, when he’d been all over the newscasts. The galaxy labeled him a hero, some said he’d ended the war. He had still been impossible to contact, and then he’d disappeared completely. Now he’d rolled up using an alias to broker passage on a run-down corvette with a third-class crew.

  “What did he want?” Felix asked. “What’s the job?”

  Elias leaned across the table and gently wrapped his fingers around Felix’s wrist, just above the ring of scars that spoke of a much older injury. “Who is he, Felix?”

  “An old friend.” His oldest. “We...” Felix shook his head again. It was just too unreal. “We went to school together.”

  Elias’s dark brows rose. “Really?” He then frowned at the man on the floor. “And he thought you were dead? Galaxy ain’t that big.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m wondering what kind of friend gives up on a man who was captured by the enemy, tortured, imprisoned—”

  Felix pulled his wrist from beneath Elias’s hand. “Eli, do
n’t.” He didn’t want to go there. All that mattered was that he had lived and recovered. Mostly.

  “You exist, is all I’m sayin’. Something’s off. He offers us twice what we made on our last trace as a down payment, invites himself aboard, calls you a dead man and tries to break your wrist?” Elias wrinkled his nose and scoffed, the silent “What the fuck, man” echoing across the mess.

  Felix shoved his right hand into his tangle of blond curls. He peered past his wrist at Elias. “Twice our last trace as a down payment?” That would be about two hundred thousand credits, which meant, yep, the man on the floor was definitely Zander Anatolius, son of the man who owned the space station where they were currently docked...and about two dozen others. Humanity’s expansion into the galaxy owed a lot to Anatolius Industries, the pioneers of the sorts of space stations that were more miniature planets than just workspaces. Each Anatolius station might have its own culture and general purpose, but the philosophy behind them all was the same: they were home.

  Damn it, he hadn’t thought about stations like that in ages. Probably since back at the Academy, with Zed waxing poetic about his family’s legacy—always focusing on the philosophy and never on the piles and piles of credits stashed in the family’s bank accounts.

  Felix didn’t want to think about the money Zed had offered Elias, which they sorely needed. He didn’t want to think about Zed, either, but knew that he would. Even if Zed woke up, walked out the door and disappeared into the press of Dardanos Station, Felix would think about him. Not for four years, as he had after they graduated from Shepard Academy. Or for more than eight after their five-day reunion, which had ended with an exchange of stupid, naïve promises. Nope, this time—if the pattern held—it would be sixteen goddamned years until fate tossed a coin and Zander crossed his path again.

  “You don’t look so good, Fix.”

  Felix met Elias’s concerned gaze. “I don’t feel so good. I...” How could he possibly explain what the man on the floor meant to him? That he’d already loved and lost him twice, and had never expected to see him again. That he almost didn’t want to see him again because of what it would mean. They weren’t meant to be. Pain tugging at his heart, Felix dipped his forehead toward the table. The mild chill of the surface seeped into his skin, sending a shiver down his spine. “What’s the job?” he mumbled.