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

by Nicole Grotepas

  A momentary exultation crashed through her chest. The emotion was short-lived, as Aeolionaias countered her with one he’d also taught her, but which she’d forgotten to watch for. He leaned into his momentum from her strike, and performed a move he had called the Dove Lands Softly, flashing both arms out as he crashed forward, planted them and spun his weight around. His legs rammed against the front of her shins. Bone collided with bone and she fell.

  She twisted in the air to lessen the blow and maneuver away from Aeolionaias, but only succeeded in landing with a jarring thud on her side as she crashed roughly onto the mats.

  In a flash, Aeolionaias was atop her, gathering her arms back into his hands and pinning her face down onto the floor. She cringed at the smell of dust and sweaty feet.

  “Yield, Holly Drake,” Aeolionaias demanded.

  “A bit rough, chap,” Shiro called, sounding affronted. “Don’t you think?”

  His voice came from above her. Holly opened her eyes to see him standing over them, the tip of his cane poking into the muscles of Aeolionaias’ naked shoulder.

  “She hasn’t yielded. I am her trainer. I know how much strength to exert. If she’s hurt, she’ll tell us.”

  The problem was that Holly did not want to yield. She wanted to win. That he had bested her, yet again, stung.

  Her father had forced her to take martial arts classes as a young girl. He, a detective in the same precinct that Holly’s sister Meg now worked, the man had known the risks in the city despite the strange Centau obsession for pretending that the City of Jade Spires was a utopia. She’d managed to learn a small amount, but had always purposefully shed the skills the minute she’d left the classes, in rebellion to her father.

  At least, she had tried to. A few of them clung to her, and they were the things that occasionally had saved her, like during her time in the women’s prison.

  As Aeolionaias held her cheek to the mats, she grappled mentally with the irrefutable fact that he had bested her. Irritation simmered in her chest. She burned to win, to no longer be dominated by men, to be strong enough to fight them.

  But she needed his help to do that.

  Holly bit her lip. “I yield.” Her voice was husky and gravelly with emotion as well as the pressure of 200 pounds of Yasoan muscle on top of her.

  Aeolionaias leaped off her. “Good fight, Holly Drake. You’re improving.”

  Shiro tried to take her hand to help her to her feet. She looked up at him and smiled. “Shiro, trust me, you don’t want to touch me. You’d have to wash off immediately.”

  Shiro nodded and tilted his head. “I don’t mind getting a bit dirty, Ms. Drake. Not if it involves assisting an improving fighter such as you.” He winked. He returned to the side of the ring, the hand he’d offered Holly returning to his pocket. His gaze flickered toward Odeon on the side of the ring.

  “I don’t feel like I’m getting better.” It was a soft mutter to herself, but Odeon caught it with his preternatural hearing.

  Odeon addressed her in his soft baritone. “You are. Aeolionaias’ counter-move saved him. If you’d remembered that one as well, you could have dodged his lunge.”

  Aeolionaias offered her a towel. She accepted it with words of gratitude and wiped the grime off her face from the mats.

  “Today you choose a new weapon, Holly.” Aeolionaias waved to a far wall laden with various weapons. The four of them looked toward it, across the floor where other fighters battled and trained. There were other smaller rings in the facility as well as training devices from ancient Yasoan culture. Wooden stands for close quarters, hand-to-hand combat ranged across one section, as well as wooden posts like the one she’d seen in Elan’s garden in the northern district of Rochers Deshiketes.

  “Oh, right.”

  Odeon watched her face, read it, and tapped his own temple. “Conquer the doubt in here.”

  “He’s right, Ms. Drake. Everyone loses. There is always someone who can beat you in the physical game. Don’t let them also win the fight in your own mind.”

  “Am I that transparent?” She smiled, attempting to accept their reassurances.

  “Have you thought more about what you would like to train to use, Holly Drake?” Aeolionaias asked her. He ran a towel across his neck and shoulders. It was the first time she’d seen him actually work up a sweat in a sparring match with her. Perhaps she was improving.

  She draped her towel on one of the ropes. “Maybe.”

  “Let’s go look.”

  They left the ring, weaving their way across the floor of the facility. The mildew-laden odor of sweat and dirty clothes mingled with the fragrance of cedar and heat. The air outside was getting colder, and while the building was heated, the management of the training arena kept the temperature low. The sounds of exertion and bodies colliding with each other accompanied the small group to the wall of weapons.

  “What have you considered using, Holly?” Aeolionaias asked, again.

  “Just about everything.” She picked up a club like Odeon’s and ran her fingers along the smooth wood. “A staff would be easy to balance—whatever force I put to it is what comes out. Not like a gun, where the smallest exertion creates a massive crater of damage.”

  “Club. Not a staff,”

  “A sword, Ms. Drake, is the noblest of weapons.” Shiro pulled a rapier from a stand and gave it a few experimental swings.

  “Yes, Shiro, but that is your specialty. Besides, I’m afraid I would accidentally run someone through.”

  “Don’t let fear guide your decision, Holly,” Aeolionaias said. “Pick some up. Try them out. Choose based on what feels correct in your grasp.”

  Odeon echoed his agreement with the trainer’s advice.

  Holly studied the many weapons. Sweat trickled down her back. The sounds of the room became distant as she pondered what she would feel most confident in trying. “Something for close quarters. Or something with reach?” she mused aloud.

  “Both would be ideal,” Shiro said.

  “What can do both?” Holly asked.

  “If I may, Holly,” Aeolionaias said.

  She glanced at him and nodded.

  “Your gun works for reach already. And the fighting we’re doing is helpful for close combat.”

  “The chap has some points.”

  Odeon came to stand beside her and touched her shoulder. “Pick what feels right, Holly.”

  Their voices were distracting her, but they meant well. Her gaze had settled on a set of sleek knives. “Tell me about these,” she said quietly, picking two of them up. They were black, smooth, hilt-less, and they felt perfectly balanced in her hand.

  Aeolionaias picked up another by the dull handle and tossed it and caught it again. “These are throwing knives. They hide up your sleeve. An old tool from Earth, but one that existed on Yaso as well, and I believe the Centau had a similar idea in circulation.”

  Holly admired their matte-black lines. Shiro, she noticed, was suddenly busy on his communicator with a call, and Odeon stood with his Ousaba balanced on his shoulder, watching Holly.

  “Something about them seems right,” she said to herself.

  “Come with me,” Aeolionaias said. He gathered up more of the knives by the smooth handles and led her to an area of the training floor, cordoned off and protected from foot traffic. Shiro, though he was on a call, followed them. Holly overheard some of the conversation. Her skin prickled at the mention of what sounded like the name Aimee Voss. She flashed a look at Odeon, who nodded as though he knew what she was thinking.

  “A training ground for throwing knives,” Aeolionaias said, nodding down a lane toward a humanoid shaped target. “This is a standard distance to begin learning to balance and throw them. If you choose this as your secondary weapon, Holly, you’ll want a standard knife with a hilt as well. Throwing knives aren’t meant to be used in a close combat. Now, this is just for fun.” He waved a knife at the dummy. It stood in front of a wooden panel pockmarked with notches, nicks, and
gouges. The Druiviin trainer nodded to the knives in her hands. “Try throwing them. What comes naturally? That’s what I am interested in.”

  “Fighting the Hands,” Holly began, standing square to the dummy. Odeon and Aeolionaias stepped to her side and out of the way of the knives, “It would have been helpful if I’d had other options. The gun relies on parts that can break and ammunition cartridges that can run out, as well as aether coils.” The idea of throwing a knife felt awkward, but she’d never learn if she didn’t give it a shot. She balanced one of the knives in her hand and stared down the lane at the dummy.

  Odeon relaxed against his club, using it to prop himself up. “You did well against the Hands. Another option to protect yourself is smart, Holly. I agree that it would be nice to have the knives up your sleeve for if something happens to your first line of defense.”

  “Or attack,” Shiro said, joining them, his communicator put away.

  “We still need to get the hydrantium to Xadrian,” Holly said, taking a deep breath and then throwing the knife. She’d given it her all, but the knife merely clattered against the wooden backdrop and fell to the ground. “Well, that was pointless.”

  “Again, Holly,” Aeolionaias said.

  She obliged, but felt her face burning at being so terrible at something that seemed so easy. The knife went wide and hit the wooden panel of another throwing lane.

  “Your form is promising, Holly,” Aeolionaias said. “That will make a difference. Now, let me show you how it’s done. And then you can try again.”

  Holly moved off the lane and watched as the trainer threw three knives at the dummy. The first landed squarely in the forehead. The second in the heart. The third in the arm. “It can be deadly. It can maim. It will depend on what you want.”

  “If I want it. Or perhaps I’ll choose something else.”

  “Any weapon will require training. Try again and use the tips I gave you. It will help you make your decision. Does it feel natural to you?”

  She shrugged. “It doesn’t feel unnatural.”

  “Try again and see.”

  Holly stepped into the lane as the trainer moved away. He handed her another knife. She let her breath out and flexed her shoulders, then tried to imitate the movements she’d seen him do. This time the knife stuck into the board instead of falling to the ground. It felt better.

  “Improving already. Holly Drake, I think we have found your match.” Aeolionaias smiled.

  She flexed her fingers and nodded, considering what her future might look like as a rogue-type with knives hidden up her sleeves. Her parents would never approve—she was becoming someone with ambiguous values, the sorts of criminals they’d fought against. Wasn’t she? Still, there was something immensely satisfying in seeing the knife plunge deep into the wood and stick there. She held out her hand, taking another knife from Aeolionaias, giving Odeon a sly smile. His eyes danced.

  Before she could throw again, her communicator buzzed. She pulled the small oval from her trouser pocket and looked at it—it was the call she’d been expecting, but sort of hoping might never come.

  She sighed. “It’s Xadrian.”

  “Ah, the flashy lad with the questionable background. Come to claim his reward?” Shiro twirled his cane.

  “At least it’s not Voss,” Holly teased.

  Shiro blinked. “You assume my call was from Aimee Voss?”

  Holly shook her head. She wasn’t in the mood for his denials. Instead she took the call from Xadrian with a polite apology to Aeolionaias as she stepped away from the knife-throwing lane.

  “There you are, HD,” Xadrian said over the communicator.

  “Yes, XT. Me. None other than.”

  “You know what this is about. The deal?”

  “I’m ready to take you out to collect the hydrantium. I have a crew on standby.”

  “Finally. This has been longer than I had intended to wait to get my goods—I have clients waiting.”

  “As I’ve said before, the circumstances wouldn’t have been conducive to getting your goods alive if we’d done it the way we’d initially planned.”

  “And when shall I expect to accompany you to retrieve it, HD?”

  “Not too long now. We’ll be ready in a day and a half.”

  2

  Holly sat strapped in aboard the Olavia Apollo next to Trip Taurus. Nearby, Odeon and Xadrian debated the benefits of having live music in the Glassini Wine Bar. It was the first time in a long while that Holly recalled seeing Odeon speak to or acknowledge Xadrian at all, though she knew they knew each other. Xadrian frequented the bar and Odeon played there often. It was how she’d met Odeon initially.

  “Of course it’s lovely. That’s not the argument. The argument is that it doesn’t matter. People like me would still go there,” Xadrian said.

  “I cannot trust a human to know these things—to be aware of the many dimensions of emotion, the labyrinth inside their soul. A human is more lost than that half-human monster, the fabled minotaur and its quarry when it comes to what moves them and what calms them.”

  Holly raised an eyebrow as she overheard Odeon’s answer to Xadrian. It wasn’t necessarily wrong, she realized, though she wasn’t quite sure if a Yasoan was any better at finding their way through the mists that obscured motive and desire. She knew what calmed her. The uncertainty of space flight certainly did not calm her and the remembrance of a past experience created a crater of anxiety deep within her. Odeon’s singing always worked like a salve against the fears, but this time she’d convinced her friend to focus on other things rather than concern himself with her. But she felt that she could hear in his voice a note of irritation.

  “How much longer?” Holly asked Trip. From a seat behind her, she heard the sound of Shiro snoring. She envied his ability to fall asleep during space flight without intervention.

  Trip spoke to the ship and a holographic image of their flight trajectory appeared above the console.

  “There. A few hours, Holly,” Trip said. “Try to sleep, like Shiro. The beds are available as well.”

  “I can’t sleep.” Her head hurt. She inhaled and rolled her shoulders, attempting to relax them.

  “Odeon could help,” Trip observed.

  “He’s not a slave, Trip,” Holly grumbled.

  “He’s a friend who wants to help,” Odeon called from his seat.

  “For someone who hates space flight, you seem to find a lot of excuses to do it,” Scotch said with a raspy laugh.

  Iain Grant, or “Scotch” as he was also known, had parked the tanker out in a stable point between Itzcap and Ixion. And there it had stayed after they’d escaped from the Ixion base and delivered the children to Kota. His crew had stayed aboard, holding it indefinitely and now he was returning to finish his command of the tanker by getting the hydrantium to Xadrian and the crew manning her back to Kota. Holly glanced back at him where he was positioned next to Shiro along the side of the bridge.

  Xadrian caught Holly’s gaze and flashed an impish grin at her. “HD enjoys pushing her limits—it’s one reason my client hired her.”

  Holly laughed, trying to ignore the swirling anxiety in her gut. “Your client? He’s more of an employer, XT. You make it sound like you could turn down his work if you wanted.”

  “We both know I could. He doesn’t own me.”

  Holly shrugged and turned back to watch the holograph on the console. “Debatable.”

  “How long will it take to get the tanker to my holding base on Po?” Xadrian asked.

  It wasn’t the first time the plan had been discussed. Xadrian was exhibiting an air of nervousness about the process and kept bringing it up. Holly turned and caught him wringing his hands. His head was cocked to one side and he watched the view-screen where, outside the ship, a thin fragment of yellow-orange Ixion glowed.

  Holly’s gaze flicked back to Trip. “Any ideas? If you could answer the man, Trip, that would be ever so lovely.”

  Trip laughed. “I only know
how much longer it will take to get to the tanker. After that, time-tables are in Iain’s hands.”

  “Iain?” Holly looked to Grant.

  “Depends. I’d need my pilots to calculate distances. The moons don’t stay in one place. You know that, don’t you, Xadrian?”

  “I resent the implication that I don’t,” Xadrian huffed.

  Holly twisted back around in her seat and took deep breaths. She closed her eyes and listened to the hum of the ship, avoiding thoughts that tugged at her memory.

  Grant’s laugh was a distant low-pitched sound. “Resent all you like. There are things a commander doesn’t just pull out of thin air. And flight plans are one of them.”

  “Just how far is Po from where the tanker is based?” Xadrian’s tone sounded on the brink of shattering.

  “You in a hurry, then?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “Xadrian, perhaps you could use some of my calm-songs.” Odeon laughed softly. Holly heard it distantly and latched to it. Though she refused to let him coddle her this trip, there was a comfort in Odeon. After all that they’d been through, she considered him an old friend. Outside of Charly and Elan, perhaps her oldest friend. Solid.

  “I don’t need the witchery of any Druiviin. I’m just fine, thank you. Though I do wish there was an open bar available.”

  “This is a cruiser, not a pleasure vessel,” Trip said, only the faintest hint of irritation entering her voice.

  “No one’s perfect, I suppose, right HD?” Xadrian laughed mirthlessly.

  Shiro snorted loudly and then seemed to settle back into his dozing. Holly leaned back and closed her eyes. It would be a few hours before they arrived.

  * * *

  Holly jerked awake as someone squeezed her arm.

  She tried to leap out of her seat, but the harness held her in.

  “Transfer time,” Trip was saying, a look of laughter in her normally serious eyes. She ran a hand across the stubble of her skull. “We’re there. You’re going with Grant now.”