Chapter 16

SIXTEEN

J upiter was two years distant from the Cambridge . Millions of kilometers. Her moons would provide no safe haven for the Chaos , or any shuttle Zed managed to secure. Felix maneuvered his ship through relatively empty space instead, attention fixed on the sensor array, hands curled like claws over the navigation panel. Beside him, Qek held a similar posture. They'd been in Sol for two hours, and each had stretched interminably.

"The Cambridge is in sensor range," Qek said.

Felix opened a general channel. "Any word from Ryan?"

The bridge door slid open and Marnie answered him directly. "Nothing for five minutes." She sounded worried, as she should be. Ryan had been sending regular updates every two minutes. A batch of code that when unraveled, traced Zed's progress through the massive drift. No actual coordinates, but with Marnie's knowledge of the Cambridge , she'd been able to plot his course. The idea was to keep the Chaos near possible escape trajectories, because they all knew that if—when—Zed left the Cambridge , he wouldn't have much time.

The display beneath Felix's fingertips flashed once, then a small speck appeared at the outer edge of the local map. "Is that?—"

"A second signature." Smaller than the Cambridge .

The bottom dropped out of Felix's stomach. Despite the painful crook of his fingers, his hands trembled. The quiver of fear touched his throat. He swallowed. "Time to test these shields." His voice was not steady.

"Plotting an intercept course."

They could be plotting to intercept a military transport, or a piece of debris. But in his gut—the part left behind—Felix knew they were moving toward Zed.

"Anything from the Cambridge ?"

"A lot of noise, nothing from Ryan—wait…" Marnie remained silent a moment and Felix imagined her fiddling with the holo display over her bracelet. He could picture her face, lips bitten, eyes focused downward.

They drew closer to the speck.

"Do we dare risk communication?"

"Can we identify the hull?" Felix asked.

Qek ran a subroutine. "Not yet. The craft is still too distant."

"Fuck it, use our new comm system to send a nondirectional hail. If it's not him, we'll have hopefully distracted someone."

It was Zed. Had to be Zed! Felix leaned forward over his console, as if he could push the Chaos faster with the power of his need.

"No response to our hail," Qek announced, though the silence of the comm had already relayed that point. "But I can confirm that it is a shuttle craft. It appears to be on an unstable trajectory."

"Unstable?"

"No flight path locked in. I suspect it is being flown manually."

"It must be them!" Several more contacts flashed at the edge of the navigational display. "We need to make contact with that shuttle. Now."

Lights pulsed and skittered across the shuttle's controls, status indicators that Zed didn't care to understand. Now that he was sitting, all he wanted to do was close his eyes.

Not yet. Not safe yet.

He forced his eyes open wide. Blinked a few times. A glance over his shoulder indicated that Kinley hadn't moved from the position in which he'd placed her. Her chest rose and fell in a regular rhythm—that and the occasional flutter of her eyelids the only signs that she was still alive. He was tempted to talk to her, try to pull her mind back from the blankness, but he didn't. Honestly, it was probably better for her to be absent now. The stress of waiting would just send her back into the Zone anyway.

Sighing, Zed turned back to the dash and spotted a new light. He brushed a finger across it.

"Shuttle, this is the Chaos . Please acknowledge. Over."

Oh, thank God. One thing gone right. Zed wilted with relief. "Qek, it's me."

Clicks echoed across the connection. "It is so good to hear your voice, Zander. Fixer will have a cat."

Eh, close enough to the right saying. He smiled at the shuttle's controls even though the comm was audio only.

" We have detected several more signatures leaving the Cambridge ."

"Let me talk to him ? —"

Flick. Damn it. Zed couldn't say what he wanted, what he needed to say with one very big thing on the verge of going wrong.

Qek clearly got Flick to leave the comm alone, somehow. Her calmer tone was welcome. "Are you finding it difficult to pilot the shuttle?"

"Well, if I wasn't before?—"

The craft shuddered. Zed braced himself against the dash, scanning the indicators for any clue what was happening. The vibrations of the engines ceased, grinding to a low, inaudible hum instead of the steady whine that said he was moving forward.

"Shit. I think I broke it."

"I do not think that was your doing, Zander. I am reading another signal emanating from the signatures closing in on your position."

Sure enough, the signatures the Chaos had detected appeared on the shuttle's control interface. Clearly the Cambridge had gotten its shit together and sent out a retrieval crew, who'd gotten close enough to trigger some sort of…something. Shutdown protocol? Was that something programmed into AEF shuttles? Clearly, he should've spent more time bugging ship techs during mission transports instead of hanging out with the rest of the grunts in the gym. Shit. What would they do? Board him? Surround the shuttle and herd him back to the Cambridge ? Or just shoot him out of the black?

He needed time to think of a plan. "Stay back. Stay hidden. And…Qek?" Zed paused, all the things he wanted to say sounding too much like goodbye or some dramatic deathbed confession. He didn't want to go there. "Never mind."

The pings on the console got closer to his disabled shuttle. He wasn't surprised to see a comms light pop up a moment later, and flicked it on with the swipe of a finger.

"Shuttle Delta-Sigma-One, you have been disabled under orders from the Allied Earth Forces ship Cambridge . Stand down. Repeat, stand down. We will escort you back to dock."

"Like I have a choice," Zed muttered.

His gaze rested on the Guardian cuff and he froze. Maybe…maybe he did.

The bracelet acted as a comm and a universal lockpick, which meant it had some means of manipulating electrical impulses and computerized commands. Interfacing. Bridging. Undermining?

Not much to lose if he was wrong.

Brushing his fingers across the smooth metal, Zed visualized what he wanted. Control of the shuttle. Disruption of the Cambridge -enforced shutdown. Escape. One by one, lights that had dimmed or flipped to red when the shuttle had been disabled reignited. The whine of the engines increased. Zed couldn't help but give the cuff a kiss.

Then he attacked the controls, sending the shuttle scooting away from the incoming escort.

He heard curses over the AEF comms until he switched to the channel Qek had pinged earlier. "Qek! Chaos ! Coordinates!" A loud beeping cut through the cabin—a sound he hadn't heard since well before the end of the war. The shuttle had been painted with a targeting system. "Now would be really, really good!"

The drone of the alarm reached a fevered pitch. Zed couldn't tell where the shot was going to come from—fuck, avoiding it was out of the question. He couldn't make the shuttle dance, he wasn't good enough. The alarm's tone rose to a crescendo—then silence. Sudden and absolute.

Zed sucked in a shaky breath just as the shot exploded on the starboard side of the shuttle. Not a direct hit, more a warning shot, but it was enough to stagger the little craft. More alarms, a cacophony, and lights flared all over the board.

"I'm in trouble." The targeting alarm sounded again. "Shit, I'm in so much trouble." The beeping increased in tempo, indicating that the targeting was getting closer to locking on once more. Coordinates flowed into one of the holoscreens, the Chaos 's location, he assumed, but it was too late. He couldn't bring the wolves to the Chaos 's airlock.

He didn't want to sit here and wait to die, either.

Slapping the AEF frequency, he yelled, "I want to negotiate!"

"Shuttle Delta-Sigma-One, you have violated a direct order and we are authorized to use deadly force."

"You sure about that?"

"I—what?" The pilot seemed to regroup. "Stand down, Shuttle, or we will ? —"

"Tell Bradley I'll talk. General Thomas Bradley. I'll talk, tell him everything. On one condition."

"You are not in the position to ? —"

"Fucking get General Bradley on the horn or I will ram one of your goddamned fighters and then neither of us will be in the position to do anything!" He muted the AEF channel and turned to the Chaos one. "Qek? If things go to plan, you'll have a passenger coming aboard shortly."

"Roger, Zander. I will inform Elias." She paused. "Just one?"

Before he could reply, Bradley's gruff tones sounded across the comm. "Major Anatolius ? —"

Zed flipped off the mute. "Just drop the ‘major.' After all this shit, I don't want the rank anymore."

"Fair enough. You want to negotiate?"

"Yeah." Zed sucked in a shaky breath. "Let me drop Kinley off on the Chaos , and I'll turn myself in."

"Lieutenant Webb is a patient in the care of the AEF. She was getting round-the-clock medical care aboard the Cambridge ."

"She was locked in what amounts to a cell while they waited for her to die—or maybe they were running tests. Trials." God, a guinea pig to the end. Revolting. "She deserves more than that, General."

The comm was silent for so long, Zed feared he'd lost Bradley's signal. Then the general sighed. "I can't argue that."

"The AEF has nothing more to learn from her."

"But they can learn from you?"

Everything in Zed wanted him to run, but he couldn't. They had him well and truly cornered. "Yes," he said shakily.

More moments of silence.

"You should also know I coerced Ryan Scott." Might as well try to mitigate as much damage as possible.

"You coerced him. From your cell."

"Yes."

"You want to go there?"

"It's the truth."

"Is that the sort of truth I can expect from you if I agree to this deal?"

Fuck. Zed threaded his fingers through his hair and tugged, a gesture he'd picked up from Flick. The stinging in his scalp helped to ground him. "He's an old, old friend, General."

"I know. I'll admit, we let that opportunity happen when it shouldn't have. I'll see what I can do. No promises." Bradley huffed. "I'm agreeing to your conditions, Anatolius." A pause and a beep indicated Bradley had widened the comm channel. "Fighter Squadron Tengu, be advised that Shuttle Delta-Sigma-One has permission to dock temporarily with the Chaos , once it arrives. Docking time will not exceed fifteen minutes. Monitor life signs. One will leave the shuttle. If the second leaves, open fire at the Chaos . If the shuttle deviates from these instructions at any time, open fire at the Chaos ."

"Tengu Squadron Commander. Acknowledged."

Zed muted the AEF channel again and folded forward until his forehead brushed the shuttle's console. So close. So fucking close. At least Kinley wouldn't live out the end of her life surrounded by nothing. She'd have the Chaos crew. Dieter, if Dieter was in any shape to care. Friends.

He could salvage part of his promise to her and their teammates. That's what mattered.

Felix yelled as Elias wrestled him away from the comm array for the umpteenth time. "Let me talk to them!"

"You can't, Flick." Anger gave Marnie's voice an unaccustomed edge. "There are six Raijin class fighters out there. You know why they're called that, right? Thunder and lightning!" The AEF's fighters were all named after Japanese deities, and Raijin-class fighters were the best of the fleet. "If we even twitch in the wrong direction, they're going to kill us all." Her lips trembled and Felix fought the wave of compassion surging through him. The AEF would not stop with scouring them from space. General Bradley had Ryan. He hadn't outright said it, but Zed's half of the conversation clearly indicated as much.

"Five minutes until intercept." Qek's quiet voice was a shock, a slap.

"We came all this way!" His voice rose on a whine. "I came…" back . He'd come back. And it was too late.

"This isn't the end of it. The AEF was willing to negotiate, that means they want Zed alive."

Another cry rose within, one he squashed before it could mangle his throat. His whole body wailed with internal refrain: it's not fair!

God, when would he accept that life wasn't fucking fair? How many times did he have to be front and center for yet another demonstration of just how unfair shit could be? And he couldn't even take comfort in the fact that his misery currently had such good company because he felt Marnie's pain too. Her anguish and her barely concealed anger. He'd never seen her so human and he didn't want to say it didn't suit her.

"Four minutes," Qek intoned.

Elias hooked a hand around Felix's shoulder. "Let's get to Cargo Two."

Mind whirling, Felix followed. He formed plans, examined them from multiple angles for workability and lunacy. This couldn't be it . This could not be the end of the road.

Joining Zed aboard the shuttle would accomplish nothing except his own incarceration. Or death—he wasn't as useful as the super soldier. He didn't have time to jigger some sort of signal, to fiddle with the shuttle's life support, put in a false signature. Did he have anything in Cargo Two that could replicate the bulk and temperature of a human being?

It had taken him hours to retool the shields, he couldn't just lay them on a new vessel, nor could he extend them. As for the Chaos , the upgraded shields might have rendered them invisible, or less visible, but the Cambridge currently had a fix on them. If he did haul Zed aboard, they couldn't maneuver fast enough to get away without being traced. And their shields, visible or not, couldn't withstand more than a single shot from anything out there. Any collision with a pebble would tear a hole in their hull soon after.

By the time they reached Cargo Two, Qek's countdown had hit two minutes. Nausea cramped Felix's belly. He leaned his shoulder against the wall and shut his eyes, sure he was going to throw up or pass out or both. The dual sensation was not unlike what he'd experienced going into combat. Fear, exhilaration, formless rage boiling up between.

He'd always been too emotional to be a soldier. Why hadn't anyone ever seen that?

"One minute."

The Chaos shuddered as they made contact. Felix opened his eyes and listened to the faint thump of the airlocks latching together. Nessa and Marnie arrived with a hover float and med kit between them. Light danced along the panel beside the auxiliary hatch, drawing his gaze. The LEDs blinked in sequence, back and forth, back and…locked. The airlock began cycling. Felix held his breath.

Only Elias's hold on his shoulder kept him back as the door slid open to reveal two figures dappled with emergency lighting. The shuttle had taken heavy damage from the AEF's warning shot. The larger of the two figures was obviously Zed. He pulled Kinley over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.

"If I set foot in the docking tube, they'll open fire," he said.

Elias let go of Felix and together they moved forward. Elias pushed through the hatch first, into the short docking tube. Zed hefted the unconscious form of Kinley Webb onto his shoulder, then stepped back.

"You okay?" Elias asked.

"Peachy," Zed replied. He looked anything but. Filthy and worn, with the posture of a man who had pushed for days without proper rest. He'd lost his shirt, if he'd ever had one, and his torso was a mess of grime and dark abrasions. A gray bandage was wrapped around his left foot.

Did I do this to him? Felix made a sound, something nonverbal.

Zed's gaze cut sideways as Felix elbowed his way into the narrow space beside them. "Flick," he said, his voice full of pain and resignation.

"Zed." What else could he say?

Zed edged back along the tube. "I gotta go."

"Don't go." Felix reached for him. "Zed…please don't go." He was breaking, again. He could feel it. Pieces of himself flying away, swirling up like dust, leaving him thin and weak. Insubstantial. " Please …no."

"I have to."

Felix took another step forward. "I'll come with you!"

"You can't."

"Let me go instead!"

"You can't ."

They were stupid ideas, as formless as the dust of his being. Felix leaped forward anyway, reaching for Zed, desperate to touch him. "I'm sorry, Zed. I'm sorry."

Zed's warm hand gripped his. "Don't be."

"Please…" He swallowed the rest of it. He had to let go. He had to let Zed go. But not without knowing. "I love you."

A brief smile shifted Zed's mouth. It pained him to smile, Felix could see that. But he tried it and succeeded for a moment. "I know."

Zed let go and stepped back, palming the door panel. It hissed closed. Felix resisted the urge to fall against it, pound with his fists until he bruised his flesh beyond repair, broke his bones. He stood there, trembling from stem to stern, his rage no longer formless. The howl inside deafened him to the voices behind, but he knew what they were saying. He had to step back, he had to exit the tube. He had to leave Zed as Zed had left him. Again.

With a monumental effort, he stepped back. Once, and again. He all but tumbled out of the tube and reached up to smack the panel. The door slid closed and the lights blinked in reverse order.

"Fix?"

He shook his head. Speech would be impossible until he quieted the urge to scream his throat raw. No one touched him, for which he was thankful. Instead, they turned their attention to Kinley, supine on the float, and conversed in quiet tones.

Qek's voice piped through general comms. "We are disengaged."

"Let's make tracks," Elias said.

"Where to, Captain?"

The voices in Felix's head calmed, formed a simple sequence. "Thunder and lightning."

"What was that?" Elias asked.

Felix turned to him, took a breath, said it again. "Thunder and lightning."

The tilt of Elias's head pretty much said he thought Felix had left any address known as sanity.

Felix raised his voice. "Set a course for Mars, Qek."

"Mars?" Elias breathed. "Are you going to appeal to Central?"

Felix shook his head. "Think bigger. Think much bigger."