The Colossus Collection : A Space Opera Adventure (Books 1-7 + Bonus Material)

by Nicole Grotepas

  From the corner of her eye, Holly caught Odeon unfolding his napkin and placing it in his lap, as he did that he made a slightly imperceptible gesture.

  “We don’t know how to play any of the earth instruments,” Hera said, sipping her water. “I’m sure we could learn quickly. They’re not quite as complex as Yasoan instruments, not to mention the music itself. Our scales—they’re very difficult to master.”

  Odeon had gone quiet again, staring as though into the distance above the heads of his parents.

  A server stopped at their table and placed a small placard menu in front of the three off-worlders.

  Socrates lifted a hand to gently refuse the menu. “You know what we’ll have, Xaxes. Thank you.”

  It was the first time Holly had seen one of them be remotely polite. She was beginning to not like them, at all, but there was still hope. Perhaps one of them would display some kindness that could redeem them. Families were a difficult animal, always. What was the old saying, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”? It could be true here. It was true for Holly’s family, the remnants of it. Her mother and father had separated years ago and she spoke very little with either of them. It was hard to hold their splitting up against them, especially after being married herself and stuck in an extremely unhappy place. She’d spent many a lonely night in prison reflecting on what had happened in her childhood to influence her to pick Graf. Sometimes she blamed her father. Sometimes her mother. If only she’d been able to follow her parents’ paths to just leave the person who was contributing to her misery.

  If only.

  “Holly?” Shiro asked, nudging her in the side. “To drink?”

  Holly started. “Oh, ah. Right, just a water for me, please,” Holly said, looking up at the server.

  As Odeon’s parents placed their drink orders, Shiro leaned close to Holly and whispered, “I’ve been watching our mark. She’s given me the eye a few times, which I’ve returned. Laying the groundwork.”

  The server left and Holly caught Hera and Socrates staring at them, so she leaned forward to get Shiro to move away from her.

  “So,” Holly began. “It must have been exciting to live on a resort like this for so long. Odeon tells me he grew up here.”

  Hera and Socrates exchanged a look.

  “It’s simply been our life. Nothing too romantic about it,” Hera said. “We’ve done it to help people.”

  “That sounds very altruistic.” Holly sipped her water.

  Socrates cocked his head to one side. “In some ways, yes. But selfish as well.”

  Hera shifted in her seat and looked around the room. “I do hope they hurry with our meal service. The place is filling up. Socrates and I will only be able to stay here as long as there are empty tables. Once they’re full, we’ll have to take the stage.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem,” Shiro said. “For myself, I’m looking forward to the show. As I said before, I appreciate the arts and especially Druiviin music.”

  “Yasoan,” Hera said, glancing directly at Shiro.

  “Right right. I’m sorry. Yasoan,” Shiro said, his face coloring a touch.

  “Odeon, minma, how are your studies going on Kota?” Socrates said, taking a slice of the dark bread the server had just dropped onto their table.

  Odeon stirred as though he’d been asleep. “Wonderful,” he said, attempting a smile that turned out rather feeble.

  Holly had gleaned from Shiro’s conversation so far that he seemed to be playing a role.

  “Studies, Odeon?” Shiro asked. “I didn’t know you were a student. At which school?”

  “The school of life.” Odeon looked directly at Shiro, his eyes seeming to relax when his gaze moved in the direction of his friends.

  Hera laughed. “Very good, Odeon. Still clinging to your ideals?”

  “Of course, mother. I learned to be stalwart from my parents. To affix myself to a concept, even if it is to the detriment of everyone around me.”

  Oh no. It’s a temper tantrum, Holly thought.

  An appetizer was placed in front of them, in the center of the table. Two large cheese boards with olives, cheeses, hard breads, and a smattering of sauces, from the different regions in the moon system, influenced by Druiviin and Centau cuisine as well as human and Constie.

  Everyone but Shiro ignored the appetizer. The stress of the conversation and familial tension had created a swirl of anxiety in Holly’s gut that turned down food.

  “Don’t be silly,” Hera said. “You’re too good for that particular conviction, Odeon. We raised you to be above it.”

  “You raised me?” Odeon repeated, his eyes narrow, his body tense. “I seem to remember things differently.”

  “Memory can be deceptive,” Socrates said, with a soft chuckle. “Let’s move on. Let’s enjoy this appetizer.”

  For the first time, Holly felt a tendril of gratitude to Socrates. Maybe he wasn’t so bad. She wanted to take sides, of course, and her loyalty was firmly with her friend. But for the sake of diplomacy, Holly wanted to get along, to build bridges rather than draw lines in the sand.

  It just wasn’t her place to intervene. This wasn’t her family. This wasn’t her character being slighted.

  “Yes, we haven’t much time before we’ll have to perform,” Hera said, picking up a piece of hard bread. “Your choices are yours. And you will always have a home here, minma.”

  Odeon nodded stiffly and the boiling tension at the table calmed to a simmer. Crisis averted. After that, there was surface conversation while the cheeseboards were consumed. Questions about work, about family, about future plans. Something in Holly wilted a little to see the fight in Odeon fade. It was like a blade had been dulled and used against wood, blunted in the wrong fight, justice not delivered, rightness not restored. It was unfair.

  But it wasn’t her fight. They weren’t her parents. They hadn’t wronged her in a childhood filled with unmet hopes and desires. At least Odeon as a child had had a place to go where love ran free and no one had crushed his innate longings to study and belong and find something beyond the tribalism that some of the four races adhered to.

  Soon his parents left the table and went to the stage. The lights dimmed and they sat at their instruments, Hera at a stringed zucti and Socrates at an icreash, which was a sort of wind instrument, both traditional types from their homeworld. When Holly had first met Odeon, he’d been playing a keyboard and some kind of old school Earth synthesizer. This divide in his parents methodology and his own was obviously one source of their friction. Odeon wanted to do as Shiro kept saying—blend. And his parents were proud of their heritage and believed it superior to that of the other races.

  Socrates took a deep breath and blew into the icreash, creating a long, sustained bass note that drifted gradually up into the higher register, while painting a low atmospheric quality into the music. His fingers worked the buttons and strings to adjust the sounds and the tones of the notes, forming them into fatter shapes and then stacking them into chords of impossible complimentary tones that Holly had never heard in the popular musical scales from earth.

  As the imagery he painted with his music reached a crescendo, Hera joined in with her strings, plucking them at first as the dancing notes pranced across the mellifluous qualities of Socrates’ canvas. And then she picked up a gaudy fat bow, designed to touch multiple strings at a time, and began dragging it across the strings. Together their playing danced and moved together in pirouettes that moved in synchrony, switching at times into opposite gestures that depicted a sort of flippant fun, playful and energetic, and then twitching into a sultry, tango of music that made Holly catch and hold onto her breath, curious about where this thing would go. It was hypnotic.

  Holly took a breath, feeling as though she’d been witnessing a lover’s dance, in music. The audience listened, in rapt silence, their forks and knives forgotten on their plates, their eyes glued to the performers, who, though they sat a
t a nearly empty stage, seemed to be alive and decked out on a grand set, full of color and godly beauty.

  It was perhaps one of the most amazing performances Holly had ever seen. Her gaze flicked to Odeon, who stared up at the stage, his chin tilted toward them, his head thrown back like a child staring up at his parents, desperate for their approval and attention. It was clear he adored them, not just for their otherworldly ability with music. Her heart suddenly ached for him.

  32

  “Holly, Odeon. I’ve got Voss on my radar. She’s at the pool wet bar, I’m making my move. Now you make yours. If she starts back for her room and I can’t hold her, listen for ‘whiskey sour.’ I’m ordering one now, so disregard that one. But if I say it again, that’s the code word.”

  “Really confusing, Shiro. Can you just order another drink? If she comes for the room, order a dirty vodka martini.”

  “Why would I get vodka? I’d get gin.”

  “Fine. Order that.” Holly sighed.

  Holly and Odeon hurried from their room and found the door to Aimee Voss’s suite. Holly posted lookout while Odeon pulled out his tools to get past the lock. The lock-pick set had been in a hidden compartment in his bedroom drawer. “A sneaky Yasao?” Holly had said, grinning and shaking her head when Odeon had gotten them out.

  She peered up and down the hallway, and then stood very close to him, to hide what he was doing. Though it was a stretch for Holly, she found that she could act casually and laughed, as though they were both drunk and Odeon was so drunk he couldn’t just get the lock open using his room key. His fingers kept slipping.

  “What’s wrong?” Holly whispered, then loudly, “Come on babe, I’m tired. Partying all night is so hard these days. I need a bath and nap.”

  “Sorry. My fingers are sweaty. I haven’t done this in a long time.”

  “I thought you did it back on Kota sometimes.”

  “I did. My parents aren’t on Kota waiting for me to screw up so they can lord it over me that I’m wrong and they’re right,” he hissed.

  “Alright, alright,” Holly said, lifting her hands in surrender. “Sorry. I don’t doubt your abilities.”

  Holly heard laughter over her shoulder, coming from down the curved hallway. “Someone’s coming.”

  “I can hear them. I heard them when you were saying you needed a bath. They’ve been coming for a while. That is also why my fingers are slippery.”

  She took a breath so that she didn’t razz him to go faster. That would just make it worse. Finally the lock clicked and the door opened. Odeon fell into the room and Holly followed him. She could hear Shiro in her earpiece chatting with Aimee Voss.

  They shut the door behind them and then began looking for the safe. Holly hadn’t even noticed a safe in their room, so she simply started looking.

  Odeon went right into the main suite and opened a cabinet. Inside it there were small bottles of alcoholic beverages and a large safe.

  “Wait,” he said, when he saw it. “This is different.”

  “What do you mean, different?” Holly asked.

  “When I lived here, the safes were different. They only took keys. There was a chance that she might have left the key in here. They’ve upgraded. These take a key, or a combination.”

  “So do the combination,” Holly said.

  Odeon touched the lock and spun it. He put his ear up against it. “But this will take six numbers, which will take more time. The resort keeps an extra key on file for if the guest loses theirs.”

  “She’s ordering another drink, chaps,” Shiro whispered in the earpiece.

  “Does she have the key on her, Shiro?” Holly asked.

  “I’ve not noticed. If it’s not in the room, then she probably does. Figure something else out. She’s coming back.”

  “Either break the combination, Odeon, or let’s get the other key. Quickly.”

  “Key. I know where they keep them. Let’s go, quickly. Wait, no, you stay here so I don’t have to break in again.”

  “Fine,” Holly said, but she didn’t like the sound of that. Splitting up meant she was more vulnerable, and so was Odeon. But she had the gun, that was a small consolation.

  “Be right back.” Odeon said and left.

  She paced the room, skirting the bed and then hovering by the glass balcony doors that looked out on the bay. This wasn’t going to work. Odeon would get caught. Why hadn’t she gone with him? She should have gone with him. But, if the door suddenly opened and the woman, Aimee Voss came in, Holly had an escape plan. She would go out onto the balcony and climb to another balcony to get away before it ever came to a gunfight—Holly didn’t even know this woman. There was nothing that could happen that would justify shooting her.

  “Odeon” she said, addressing the ear piece. “Come in, Odeon.”

  No answer. Her heart raced. He’d been caught. She could hear Shiro chatting away. At least he was still there.

  What if Odeon had been caught? Or worse—hurt?

  She was going to have to go after him, that was the only thing that made sense. They were a team and there was no chance that Holly, as the leader, would leave a teammate behind just to save her own skin. No way.

  Shiro was still there, in the background of Holly’s mental anxiety, chatting with Voss. “I’ve always loved the arts, as well. And their performance last night was simply perfection. Have you ever heard something like it?”

  A garbled response from Voss that also picked up on the sound of laughter and excited chittering.

  Holly inhaled sharply. How much longer could Odeon possibly take? This room was located quite close to the front reception area. The resort itself was vast.

  “Odeon?”

  No answer.

  This was it, then. He’d been caught. She’d have to go after him. It was the only thing she could do at this point. She would casually head to the front desk, scope everything out, see if he was anywhere around while she made polite conversation with the clerk, and then hope for a moment where she could sneak into one of the back areas where he could be being held.

  She went out into the large living area of the suite. Her hand was on the door. “I’m coming for you, Odeon. I don’t know what’s happened, but I’m not going to leave you behind.”

  “Holly, I’m here.” Odeon’s voice was a hushed whisper. “I’ve got the key. Almost out of the reception area where they keep them. Just give me a moment.”

  “Oh my god,” Holly breathed, her body turning limp in relief. She collapsed against the door. “I was about to die from adrenalin overload.”

  They talked in whispers as Odeon made his way back to Voss’s suite, which made Holly feel less abandoned in the middle of a dangerous situation. Soon there was a light tapping on the door.

  “Yes, it’s me, Holly.”

  Holly opened the door and Odeon came in. She threw her arms around him. “I’ve never been so happy to see you.”

  “The mark is on her way to her rooms,” Shiro said in Holly’s ear. “I couldn’t stop her. Something I said must have made her suspicious. Might have been the suggestion that we turn it up a notch in our own little beach side cabana. I don’t understand what’s wrong with that, sounds like a dream for me—no strings attached. We were getting along so nicely. But I heard that Odeon has the key. Open the safe and hurry up.”

  “Did you have to, Shiro? I mean, really, you just met her,” Holly said.

  “I did have to. It’s part of my honor code. To not do it would be to violate my own rules. A man couldn’t live with himself if he passed up a chance like that.”

  “You don’t even know her. She could be a murderer. She could be doing terrible things. Why does she need the Skelty Key in the first place?”

  “Well, my guess is she’s a thief. She fits the profile. In fact, she seemed quite clever and practiced. We might consider her for our next job,” he said.

  “There won’t be a next time. This is it for me,” Holly said.

  They were back in the
bedroom. Odeon put the key in and opened the safe.

  Behind the reinforced, padded door, there was an envelope full of novas. But no Skelty Key.

  “What the hell?” Holly said. Her fists clenched. She felt like crying. “It’s not here. Shiro, it’s not here.”

  “You want the Skelty Key?” A voice behind them said.

  Holly spun. She hadn’t heard Voss come in. She should have, but the blood in her ears was so loud. The frustration coursed through her and blocked out sound. Voss pointed a gun at them. The aether projectiles would carve a hole through them. Being shot would not feel good. A memory flashed through Holly’s mind of aether bullets shredding through the body of a man. It had felt like freedom when she saw it happen. It had felt like chains breaking open, incinerating and turning to dust.

  Holly couldn’t be shot. “No need for guns, my friend.”

  “Who are you?”

  Odeon stood and turned, his hands up in the universal sign for surrender.

  “I don’t think that’s very important now. The important thing to keep in mind is that we’re not here to hurt you. We just wanted the key,” Holly said, feeling quite calm suddenly. She knew that Odeon had begun to hum, then. She hoped that calmed Voss.

  It didn’t. The gun remained leveled at the two of them.

  “Someone else already got it. A few days ago. You’re too late.”

  “Who?” Holly asked, her nervous energy returning. Odeon must have stopped when he saw that his humming did nothing to the woman with her gun pointed at them.

  “If I knew, I’d have gotten it back. It has a tracker on it, however. It was on Paradise last I checked. But the people who have it aren’t forgiving like I am.”

  “You’re forgiving?” Holly asked, holding back a sarcastic laugh.

  “If I wasn’t, I’d have shot you both already.”

  She shrugged. “OK, I can see that.”

  “But I suspect you’re with the handsome chap outside,” Voss said, invoking one of Shiro’s typical words. “His name isn’t Jace, is it?”

  Holly shook her head. “Not likely.”