“What do you think?”
“Strange. Is this what you expected?” Odeon asked in a hushed tone. Something about the room encouraged whispers.
“Look at that. What is it? A repository of information? That’s what I’m putting my money on,” Darius said, watching Holly’s stream. “You have a number, I take it, Drake?”
“Yes.” She located the proper row, then found the precise column—the coordinates that Dave had given her. A glowing blue crystal rested in the slot. “This one.”
“Well? Take it,” Darius said loudly, immune to the aura of the strange, artificial cavern of storage crystals.
She inhaled nervously. “This is when something bad happens.”
“Nothing that we can’t handle,” Shiro encouraged.
She grabbed the crystal. In her fingers, it was cool and hard, with small grooves running across its surface. Though she expected it to do something outrageous, nothing happened.
“Huh, that was anti-climactic.” She handed it to Odeon, who put it into his satchel.
Shiro laughed. “I thought perhaps a massive boulder would materialize from some nearby alcove and crush us. Though where they’d be hiding a boulder in here is anyone’s guess.”
Holly glanced around, taking in the entire room once more. “This whole place seems unnaturally magical. I’m sure the Centau could conceal a boulder in a handbag if they wanted to.”
“Touché, Ms. Drake. They did manage to construct a tower of floating stones. Nothing seems to be beyond them. It’s almost like living amongst gods, isn’t it?”
“Asshole gods,” Darius said. “Er, Trip’s not on, is she?”
“That I am, Darius. That I am.”
“Ah,” he laughed. “Well, you’re the exception.”
“No, I am actually a god. Like all Centau.”
“Ah, but somehow in possession of a sense of humor.”
“The exception, you could say,” Trip noted.
“Then we agree,” Darius responded.
“Alright, enough with the banter. Not the time for it. Or, keep going, but the rest of us—let’s get out of here before something does happen,” Holly urged.
The ethereal aura of the room was getting to her. Shiro’s observation of some type of alarm system or booby trap wasn’t that foreign a concept. She wouldn’t put placing traps past whoever had felt the need to make such an elaborate structure to store the crystals.
They hurried back to the entrance and exited into the glaring, bright day. Odeon punched the button for the door, and it slid shut as they trotted to the edge of the platform, preparing for their descent. Holly stopped and fiddled with a tab on the arm strap of the backpack she wore.
“Brilliant. Thank for you for getting the work done for us,” a female voice said, startling Holly.
Three humans floated up to the edge of the platform in a convertible hovercraft. They were dressed in white jackets emblazoned with a red crest over the breast. Something she couldn’t quite pinpoint about the jackets and the symbol reminded Holly of a rooster.
The one who spoke had risen slightly in her seat. She held her hand out and made a come-hither gesture to Holly’s crew. “Hand it over.”
“Well, I guess it is possible to take a ship through the blocks,” Shiro said. “Why didn’t we do that?”
“Like I mentioned already, pointless to get one of those. They’re expensive, and it has one use. Did something happen to your legs that you need to be carried everywhere?” Holly asked Shiro. She turned to look at the goons. “Can I help you?”
“Give us the crystal,” said the female, who was clearly their leader.
Holly laughed. “That’s definitely not going to happen.”
“Not a joke. It’s ours,” the woman said. “We let you retrieve it, and now we’re going to take it.”
“You must have a different definition of how ownership works. Sounds like stealing. Doesn’t it sound like stealing, guys?” Holly asked.
“Very much so,” Shiro answered.
“I agree,” Odeon said.
“Great. Yeah. Checks out. That’s stealing. So let’s get back to essentials. And you are? Shadow Coalition I take it, judging from the bad taste in attire.”
The woman spat, and the other two followed suit. “Don’t insult us like that. We’re the Shadow’s Shadow.”
Holly couldn’t help herself. She laughed. “You’re calling yourselves ‘the Shadow’s Shadow?’ Truly? A thousand possibilities for a cool gang name, and that’s what you came up with? Why not the Falcons? The Doom Club? Or the Tiny Dicks?”
The male pilot of the small hovercraft gunned the vehicle forward threateningly.
The leader’s face turned red, and she lowered her chin like she was about to leap across the gap between their craft and the platform and strangle Holly. “And you think your terrible sense of fashion is somehow better than ours? What is he, a painter?” She jutted her chin toward Shiro. “Did he redo the walls of the Centau’s secret storage repository?” She tapped the other female human on the back, who was laughing at her leader’s clever insult.
“How dare—” Shiro choked back his words as the female minion pulled out an aether gun and pointed it at Holly with a laugh.
The leader continued. “While we’re at it, give us the map to find the Heart. We know you have it.”
That brought Holly up short. Her tongue felt thick and she couldn’t speak. A map to find my father?
“Whatever you think we have, you’ll have to take it. We’re not giving anything up.” Odeon brought his Ousaba across his body and gripped it in both hands in an attack stance.
“The Heart was right about you,” the woman sneered at Holly.
Holly was too angry to speak. She inhaled, ran to the edge of the platform, and leapt off, pulling on the tab sticking out of her arm strap.
“After her!” the leader of the Shadow’s Shadow shouted, her voice fading behind Holly.
3
“That was stunning, Ms. Drake,” Shiro shouted over the comms.
“You followed, then?” Holly shouted back. She could hardly form the words, her stomach was in her throat from the leap. The wind in her face made it hard to breathe.
“Of course,” Odeon answered.
“What a thrill!” Shiro said, then let out a happy war-cry.
“I was worried you two had chickened out.”
“You can’t get rid of us that easily,” Shiro said.
The device on Holly’s back was something they’d purchased from Macav Onini on their way to Po. It was the cheaper option of the many he’d given them to assist in the job. They could have gotten a hovercraft, but that had seemed unwise due to the cost. So Holly had opted for the freefall shield that prevented them from slamming into the blocks on their way down the narrow channel between.
Soon, a narrow parachute would slow her fall. The sensor in it would detect their proximity to the ground, and release. For now, they shot toward the desert floor below at an alarming pace, the devices moving them away from floating blocks.
“I take it back—this is much more fun than a hovercraft,” Shiro said.
“It’s faster,” Holly agreed.
“They’ll be coming after us,” Odeon said. “What’s our next move?”
“Of course—but we’re ahead of them. At least for now. Trip? You there?” Holly asked.
“That I am, Drake,” Trip’s voice came over the comms. She’d brought them in and waited below with the Olavia Apollo. “We’re powered up. As soon as you’re on board, I can take us out of here.”
Holly nodded. “Excellent. Stand-by.”
“I suppose we have your mysterious friend to thank for being so prepared,” Shiro said.
“Yes, for once. I was waiting for the twist at the end of this job,” Holly said. “Like usual.”
“The job,” Odeon said, “isn’t yet over, Holly Drake.”
“I know, I know. But try not to bring a curse down on us by mentioning that.”
“I don’t know about you, Darius, but I’m about to lose my breakfast, listening to this talk with the wind in the comms,” Charly said from her safe spot back at the Bird’s Nest.
Darius’s low chuckle sounded in Holly’s ear. “Just makes me so glad my job always keeps me back here. I’m captain of this desk chair.”
“You are both the laziest sucks of the crew,” Shiro said.
“You’re a suck, Shiro.” Charly laughed. “Maybe we’re lazy, maybe just smart. It’s getting late. About to go snuggle up under the covers.”
“Ah, dear Charly, you are far too good at rubbing our noses in your good fortune.”
A loud noise and a jerk from over her shoulder suddenly slowed Holly’s fall as her chute ejected. She let out a breath of relief and looked around to see if those morons—the Shadow’s Shadow—were following them. A soft silence filled her ears as the wind slowed, and she suddenly felt as weightless as a feather.
The blocks they’d recently climbed rose around them like floors outside an elevator. Her group’s descent was slower than it had been, but still faster than they could have moved on foot.
“Funny story.” Shiro’s voice betrayed a nervous warble. “My chute hasn’t deployed yet.”
Holly craned her neck, looking for him, and found Shiro moving toward the ground about thirty feet above her, continuing at the breakneck speed with which they’d been traveling before their chutes ejected. He was plummeting toward her like a stone.
Think of something, quick!
There was no time to worry about the prospect of losing one of her best friends. There was only time to act.
“Odeon, I’m moving into Shiro’s path. Get there too. We’ll both have to slow him. It’ll make us all fall faster.”
“Yes,” Odeon answered. “Shiro, please stretch out. Make yourself spread out like a flying monkey. That will slow you some.”
“Chap, I hardly think that will do anything,” Shiro protested, though his voice had risen in pitch, taking on the hysterical sound of fear.
“Shiro,” Holly growled, “for once, shut up and do it. Every bit counts, and we’re not going to watch your white suit turn into a red stain on the desert ground.”
“Yes, unfortunately I didn’t wear a more colorful number for this job. I would have preferred to exit this mortal realm in a brilliant fashion. Alas, it seems I’ll die in muted, drab tones not befitting one of my interesting nature.”
Darius laughed, but there was a nervous hitch to it. “Of course that’s what he’s sad about. Can you believe this guy?”
“How can you laugh at a time like this, Darius? Is the idiot spreading out to slow his damn fall?” Charly asked, her voice sharp and tense.
Holly could almost see her gripping the edge of the bar top as she leaned forward, glaring at her Yasoan bartender and boyfriend, Torden.
“I’m really going to spew my lunch all over this bar if something bad happens while I’m listening in. Torden, lover,” Charly said, “please bring me a bowl to catch the vomit. Hurry!”
Holly looked up, never pausing in her flailing motions meant to propel herself into his path. “Yes,” she grunted. “He’s spreading out.”
She also saw that Odeon was in his path. She wanted to stop and watch the collision between them that was about to take place, but had to keep moving or she’d miss them altogether. It would require both of their chutes to slow Shiro enough that he didn’t crash into the ground in an explosion of body parts.
Sharp noises of pain registered in her earpiece. That meant Odeon had caught him.
Holly increased her efforts, then reached up and pulled the strings on her chute, hoping to steer it a bit more. The device had its own steering, but she hoped to override it.
“Move faster, Holly. Or We’re going to crash into your chute,” Odeon said.
“Great,” she muttered, now trying to overshoot them to move her parachute out of their path.
She finally noticed the rudimentary emergency steering handles that she’d missed, and grabbed them, trying to guide herself out of the way. As she worked, she cursed her decision to go with the cheaper option—if something happened to Shiro or Odeon, she’d never forgive herself.
Her breath caught in her mouth. Her will to control the wind expanded like fire in her chest.
Give me something, she found herself begging the Universe.
4
“We’re passing you, Holly,” Odeon said.
Holly looked up just as Odeon’s and Shiro’s feet came into her field of view. A lavender hand was there suddenly, reaching for her, and Holly grabbed it and pulled herself toward it.
In a rustle of clothing and wind and grunts, the three of them came together in a knot of bodies that sped toward the desert floor.
“Did you catch Holly?” Charly’s voice rang in her ear.
“We got each other,” Holly said, straining to slow their fall. “But we’re still falling pretty fast. Shiro, loop one arm beneath my arm straps. And Odeon’s. Let’s see if we can get your chute to open.”
“Good idea,” Shiro agreed.
He did what she asked. His normally tan complexion had gone the color of the clouds that blanketed the moon of Helo. Terror clung to his soft brown eyes, and the false smile that tugged at his lips also tugged at Holly’s heart.
They all put on a brave face for each other. And though none of them were forced to be there with her, Holly felt the weight of responsibility on her shoulders for bringing them into such volatile situations. They were all thieves, rogues, outlaws in their own ways, but when they worked on their own jobs, the danger they got themselves into was danger they walked toward without Holly.
But this was Holly’s doing.
She crunched her jaws together, gritting her teeth hard, and fumbled with the pack on Shiro’s back. Three buttons and two sensors formed a cluster at the top of the pack. There were other sensors, and an LCD panel that glowed with numbers quickly counting down—altitude, she guessed. Holly continued to examine the hard shell encasing the chute. She tapped on the sensors and rubbed her hands across them. As she fumbled with the pack, the wind pulled at her, threatening to rip her away from Shiro and Odeon.
“I’m not sure I can do anything at this point,” Holly said, admitting defeat. “But I think the chute would tangle up in ours if it ejected now, and that’d be worse than hitting the ground at this pace.”
“Agreed,” Odeon said.
“Well, this is it, then, my friends. I daresay being on your crew has been the highlight of my life. I don’t know what I would have done without you, except perhaps that I may have lived longer. I certainly wouldn’t have died on Po, in the center of a mystical edifice like this. What a way to go. However, I do wish I had worn a better suit for the occasion.”
“We’re not going to die, Shiro,” Holly said. “Sorry, I know you’d love to go out with a bang, but that’s not happening. Not today.”
“Yes, let me hit the ground first. You two use me to soften your fall,” Odeon said, suddenly, his eyes lighting up. “It’s the only way, Holly Drake.”
“Hardly, Odeon,” she said.
“Of course Odeon starts offering himself up as a sacrificial lamb,” Darius said, his voice full of mirth. “My vote is do it, Drake.”
“Yes,” Charly agreed. “This isn’t a democracy or a representative type of system, but that’s my vote as well.”
“They are right, Holly. I can sing myself better. I can heal quicker. Trust me,” Odeon said. “If one of you gets a broken limb, it’ll take weeks to heal. If it’s me, a few days at most. Just find me another Yasoan to sing to me once I’ve sapped my reserves.”
Charly laughed over the comms. “Let him do it. He knows what he’s talking about. Torden will heal him when you guys get back on Kota.”
Holly looked at Odeon. His multihued eyes regarded her steadily.
They were nearly to the desert floor.
Holly glanced down. Sunlight glinted off the h
ull of the Olavia Apollo about thirty feet away from where they would land. She spotted Trip standing beside the gangway, guarding it from being entered by whoever happened upon the scene—the Shadow’s Shadow, and possibly the Shadow Coalition, if those idiots also decided to show up.
Trip waved one arm back and forth and then disappeared into the ship to prep it.
“There’s no time, Holly—decide!” Odeon demanded, his voice penetrating her thoughts as she struggled to make the right decision.
“Well, if anyone cares, I’m on board,” Shiro answered. “Happy to land on you, chap.”
“Fine,” Holly said.
Odeon heaved and swung their cluster of bodies into a position that put him first. Shiro’s elbow jabbed into Holly’s ribs, and he grunted as his other arm was manipulated and pulled while Odeon jerked and swung his weight.
The ground was suddenly there in a violent impact. Odeon landed first. His knees buckled, and Shiro collided with him, falling onto the Yasoan, and pulling Holly with him. Hot lightning bolts of pain jolted through Holly—her feet, her knees, her thighs, and her ribs where Shiro’s arm had been secured under the straps of her chute-pack.
They tumbled, and the parachutes settled softly on their mass of bodies and limbs, incongruent and gentle, unlike their hard landing. Through the grunts and complaints, the trio pulled themselves away from each other.
“No time for resting, the fools are after us. I see their hovercraft weaving through the blocks, getting closer,” Shiro said, standing up and dusting off his white suit. “You alright, old man?” He grabbed Odeon’s hand and helped him to stand.
“Ouch. Help Holly. I can manage,” Odeon said.
Holly climbed to her feet and unclipped her parachute, gathered it, and shoved it back into the pack. She ignored the complaints screaming at her from her various injuries. “You OK, Odeon?”
“I will live.” He struggled to his knees, then his feet.
“Anything broken?”
“We can deal with broken. Dead? Not so much,” Charly said over the comms. “I mean, that’s easy for me to say, because I’m far away and safe. But you know I’m right.”
The Colossus Collection : A Space Opera Adventure (Books 1-7 + Bonus Material) Page 104