Authors Jenn Burke and Kelly Jensen keep up the pressure and the action in this third instalment of their compelling Chaos Station series. Where the first two books were really Zed’s story, with Lonely Shore focusing predominantly on his failing health, the team’s efforts to help him, and on his rekindled relationship with Felix, Skip Trace explores the toll Felix’s outward stoicism has taken on him while also feauturing a fast-paced plotline full of intrigue, scheming and betrayal. Be prepared for heartbreak and to be kept on the edge of your seat.

Note: There are spoilers for the first two books in the series in this review.

Ship’s engineer, former PoW and all-round stubborn, scrappy, snarky bastard Felix Ingesson is not sure what to do with himself when he and the crew of the Chaos arrive at Alpha Station, the home of the Anatolius family and base of its galaxy-wide operations. He’d expected Zed’s family to be out in full force to greet him, but it seems someone must have leaked the news of his return, so the Chaos docks to find a three-ring media circus waiting for them, along with a military contingent headed by Zed’s former CO, General Bradley. Zed knows he’s an embarrassment to the AEF by virtue of not being dead, and knows all too well that their end game is to end him – and before he can get as far as greeting his family, he’s waylaid by Bradley and accused of breaking the terms of his retirement from the military and of betraying AEF secrets.

After a heated exchange with Zed, his brother, Brennan, and the Anatolius family lawyers, Bradley is forced to back down, but not without insisting that Zed should be taken into military custody, but Brennan is having none of it. He does, however, agree to Zed remaining in the family compound on Alpha. Zed isn’t wild about the restriction, but he’d intended to spend some time getting to know his family again anyway, so he’ll go along with it – for now.

He’s somewhat dismayed, when he arrives at the family penthouse, to find it full of people rather than just the small family gathering he’d expected. But as his smiling mother comes to embrace him, he thinks that maybe he can put up with it for a while. As he’s steered into the throng, he notices that Felix has moved to the other side of the room and is standing with the rest of the crew, but he’s oddly detached and isn’t really part of their conversation.

Watching Zed being absorbed into the midst of his loving family really brings home the fears Felix has always harboured about not being good enough for him. Felix is a station rat, born into hardship and squalor while Zed, the youngest son of the wealthiest man in the galaxy, is as close to royalty as it gets. Felix wants Zed to be happy and knows he needs to have his family in his life, but those two things and staying with the Chaos aren’t compatible. No matter how much they love each other, no matter that losing Zed all over again will kill him, Felix knows he isn’t, and never will be, good enough, and that he can’t hold Zed back from being where and what he’s supposed to be.

As Felix’s fears and insecurities are growing and he’s withdrawing from everyone around him, their friend, Marnie, who was at the academy with them and now works for military intelligence, alerts Zed to the location of his former second-in-command, another of the soldiers who had been part of Project Dreamweaver (the top-secret AEF experiments to create super soldiers using an alien toxin). Zed has made it his personal mission to track down those who remain in order to at least try to at least make their final days as comfortable as possible, but it seems the AEF is looking for them too – although not with benevolent intent. There’s nothing the AEF won’t do to stop the project (and it’s ultimate failure) from becoming public knowledge – and that includes making sure none of the test subjects live to tell any tales. Learning that his former brother-in-arms has been tracked to a small, remote station and is now trapped there makes Zed want to head off in the Chaos to pick him up immediately – but with the AEF watching his every move, Zed and Felix can’t leave Alpha. Zed is surprised when Felix doesn’t argue about not going – and is utterly devastated the next day when he learns that Felix is aboard the Chaos, bound for Petrel Station. Furious, heartbroken and confused, Zed doesn’t know what to do or what to think – after everything they’ve been through he’d thought he and Felix were solid – and nothing makes any sense. And then things go from bad to worse when a breaking news report about Project Dreamweaver gives the AEF the perfect cause to arrest Zed for treason.

Skip Trace is another rollercoaster ride of high-stakes action and heartfelt emotion that had me anxiously turning the pages from start to finish. It’s been clear since the very beginning that Felix has not dealt with any of the trauma he’s experienced – losing his family during the war, being a prisoner of war for four years, and losing the man he loves, twice – and now, with Zed safely returned to his family and his future seemingly secure, it becomes impossible for Felix to keep a lid on it any longer. He’s bottled everything up for so long, and when Zed’s family make clear their desire for him to stay on Alpha and work with them, his insecurities about his place in Zed’s life begin to spiral out of control, bringing all the rest of the stuff he’s tried to pack away in his brain along with them. No question he does some shitty things in his attempts to push everyone away, but he falls into a very dark place and nobody – not even his closest friends – can reach him. It’s so hard to watch a character you’ve come to love self-destructing before your very eyes, and the authors do a very good job of showing the extent to which Felix’s unresolved trauma is driving him.

Chaos Station is shaping up to become one of my all-time favourite series. The authors are doing a fantastic job of combining clever, action-packed plots with the deeply emotional love story between Zed and Felix, using the plotlines to further the romance and highlight the protagonists’ internal struggles – and getting the balance between all those elements just about right. I continue to enjoy the strong friendships between the crew members, and the secondary cast is expanded by the addition of Marnie and Ryan, a married couple who were part of Felix and Zed’s friendship group at the academy, who put their lives on the line to help with the rescue. Although we don’t see a lot of them, the Anatolius clan is portrayed as a group of decent, loving people who genuinely want Zed to be happy, and I liked the glimpses we’re given of Zed’s relationship with his brothers.

While there’s an HFN for Zed and Felix here, it’s clear that Felix has a long way to go if he’s to properly battle his insecurities and slay his demons – and Zed isn’t going to let him go it alone. With one final cryptic message, the Guardians leave us wondering what could possibly in store for our heroes next – and I’ll be jumping into book four, Inversion Point, as soon as I can to find out.

As with the previous books, this new edition of Skip Trace includes material previously published in the collection Always and Forever, this time two short stories; Salute to the Sun, about Felix’s attempts to learn to meditate with Zed… which don’t quite work out as planned (set immediately after Skip Trace), and Kiss the Guardian (set between Chaos Station and Lonely Shore), follows the crew on a fun day out.

Skip Trace is another unputdownable instalment in the excellent Chaos Station series. The worldbuilding, the characterisation, the relationship development, the storylines… all are superb and earn it a well-deserved DIK rating.