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

by Nicole Grotepas

  “Isn’t it good to find this, to know that he hasn’t completely cut himself off from who he is? You are mad, I don’t blame you.”

  “It’s only good if it impacts how he behaves now. And since it doesn’t, no. It’s not. I don’t know what this suggests about the man I called Father, but I want him to choose not to exploit children. To not destroy what we have here in the 6 Moons. Who knows where he’s gone, but I suspect it’s away, to bring back an army.”

  “If it is, you’ll be waiting with your own army.”

  “And hopefully whatever army the Centaus have.”

  “Yes, they have one, and maybe that will be enough.”

  “I should ask Iain about it. And Dave.”

  She pushed the box away, feeling an intense bitterness that surprised her. Why didn’t it make her feel better to discover that her father had a sentimental bone in his body? Perhaps the size of that one bone in the inner ear, the smallest in the human body. The anvil? The stapes? That was the size of George’s sentiment. Smaller, probably. A fraction of that.

  With a sigh, Holly realized that finding the mementos had increased her anger. As she shoved the container of the remnants of her childhood back into its hiding spot, she saw the familiar corner of carved wood peeking out from beneath a tiny pile of stuffed toys. Something she hadn’t noticed before.

  Holly brushed the toys aside and lifted the item out, her hands moving gently, cradling the object like it would break if she slipped. The wood was smooth beneath her fingers. It smelled of cedar. And when she opened it, a tiny pair of pointe shoes—meant for ballet—twirled on a carousel. All this time, the thing had been wound up. Music rose from it, the tinkling notes of a long-forgotten sonata.

  It tugged something loose within her. Memories surged like a tide in her heart: hours spent as a child, winding it up, listening to it play, and then winding it up again as she imagined what life was like so far away. It had been, to her, some stray string that would guide her all the way back to Earth through the wormhole, across the light years, across the aetherway and through the strange tunnel that had brought her ancestors across the distance.

  “I forgot about this,” she whispered.

  “What is it?”

  “A music box. It was so magical for me as a kid, even with all the easy ways to hear music.” She wound it again as the song ended. She breathed deep. “I’m taking it.”

  “Was it yours?”

  “Yes. Still is.”

  She finished putting the container of memories back and shut the door. As an afterthought, she flipped through the pages of the old books on the table. A scrap of paper drifted out.

  “I thought you checked the books,” Odeon frowned.

  “I thought you checked them.”

  “So neither of us checked them?”

  She bent to pick up the paper. “Looks that way.” She stared at the random string of numbers. “No idea what it means.”

  Odeon took it and read it. “I don’t know either. I think it’s likely garbage.”

  “Let’s keep it. It’s the only thing we got out of this trip.” She folded the paper and slipped it into her jacket pocket. Her gaze met Odeon’s, and she saw the smile in his eyes.

  “Don’t settle too deep into those feelings,” he said.

  She cocked her head. “Don’t start on me about balance.”

  “I would never do that. I was going to begin playing you a song about your inner torment and sorrow.”

  “Brutal, Odeon.”

  “I know. Sometimes we must laugh these things off.”

  She laughed sarcastically as she led the way out of the villa, striding to the convertible auto they’d parked in the overhanging garage.

  She was gathering a gentle retort in her mind to lob at Odeon. Her reply rested on her tongue. She opened her mouth to say ‘Just like you laugh off your parents?’—the very parents whose resort they were staying in—when something leapt out from the backseat of the convertible.

  21

  Holly swore. It was actually two somethings that leapt out at them wielding swords, which they swung wildly like idiots. A female Constellation with the standard red tattoo on her cheek, and a human male with long, red hair pulled into a bun.

  At first, she thought they were from Voss’s team, simply because of where the encounter was taking place—the warehouse near George’s villa where Holly had on so many occasions run into Aimee Voss. But she quickly took in their attire and realized no, not Shadow Coalition; these people were The Cocks.

  “Why are Cocks always popping up where we don’t want them?” Holly cried at Odeon.

  “That’s just the nature of the beast,” he said, lifting his Ousaba to block a blade. “Eventually, you get used to it.”

  “Give us whatever you found in there,” the Constie snarled.

  “You want my childhood too? It’s not enough to follow me and try to kill me, you also want the feeble memories of my shitty dad?”

  “So you found something,” the male said, swinging his sword twice at Holly.

  She jumped back several steps, dodging him. The music box was in her left hand. With her right, she reached for the aether whip handle where it hung from her belt.

  “I think the right answer to that is none of your business,” Holly said, flipping the whip on and giving it an experimental flick, feeling the aetheric energy vibrate through the handle as it uncoiled into a humming purple strand of light.

  The overhanging garage was open space except for the convertible. There were a few odds and ends stacked against one wall, which happened to be the wall that Holly now found herself backing up against. She didn’t know why The Cocks would be here for the music box, but like most things the morons had taken to doing, she assumed it was more a matter of them not knowing what they were after, but wanting to simply take whatever Holly had in hopes it would aid in their desperate search to find her lame-ass father.

  Ixion’s Eyes, he was such a dick to have done this to her.

  “The box? In your hand? I’ll take that,” he said, swinging his blade. It was a large katana-style sword that required two hands to wield properly. That handicapped him severely, as long as he didn’t somehow manage to chop off her whip hand.

  But the music box she protected with her other hand also handicapped her. The fight was lining up to be fair, as bitter as that made her feel.

  “Bad news. You don’t get it. It’s mine. And it has been since I was a baby.”

  “Fine. You win. I’ll kill you and then take it.”

  “George know you want to kill his daughter?”

  That question actually gave the redhead idiot pause. He faltered in his attack as he pushed the glinting blade toward her. Holly took advantage of that balk and swung the whip for his leg. When the tip wrapped around his calf, she jerked the handle. His leg slipped out from under him, and he fell on his ass, which was what she’d hoped for.

  “How you doing, Starlight?” Holly called, not taking her eyes away from her opponent.

  “A sword is no match for my Ousaba club,” the Yasoan shouted back at her.

  The Constie laughed and tried to get into Odeon’s head. “That’s not a club. That’s a staff! Such a tiny staff is no match for a sword.”

  Odeon refuted her with a ferocious roar, then swung his club under her legs. She jumped and retreated a few steps until she was outside on the secluded road that led to George’s villa. Holly observed this out of the corner of her eye, as she also concentrated on the redhead Yasoan-wannabe in front of her.

  That would get into his head.

  “I like your bun,” Holly said as her opponent scrambled to his feet. He held his sword out and sidestepped around her. “It’s very Yasoan.”

  He clenched his teeth and scowled.

  “Odeon, I think our boy wants to be just like you. You should show him how to fight like a Yasoan. All he appears to know at the moment is the hairstyle.”

  “I saw that,” Odeon shouted. “Doesn’t lo
ok as good on him.”

  Odeon and the Constie jumped into a frenzy of parries and thrusts as Odeon went on the offensive. Soon, he’d have her disarmed and perhaps knocked out. Whatever happened, Holly knew that Odeon wouldn’t kill the Constie.

  She watched the redhead’s scowl deepen. “Sounds like Odeon’s into helping you with some fashion tips, and maybe some cultural tips as well,” she taunted. “It’s OK that you don’t know any actual Yasoans. You do now. He’s a generous teacher.”

  His lip curled up in a sneer, and he came at her with wild swings, advancing in a flurry of glittering silver and flashing teeth. Her game had worked.

  Holly aimed and flicked the whip. The tip snapped against the redhead’s wrist, and he screamed and dropped his sword. Holly jerked and flicked again, and the whip coiled around the sword, and she sent it flying with a few choice hand gestures.

  She wanted to be finished with the encounter. But she knew their opponents both probably had backup weapons, so as soon as the katana flew off, Holly snapped the whip back at the man in front of her. It wrapped around his waist.

  She sighed. That was a mistake, her goal had been his neck. This was a little more brutal than she wanted, but he’d threatened to kill her.

  He hissed and grabbed hold of the purple length of whip, then hissed again. The aether whip would burn and sting when grabbed like that.

  “Yeah, you don’t want to grab that,” Holly grimaced.

  He only tightened his grip and pulled the taut part of the whip to him.

  She lifted an eyebrow, impressed with his pain tolerance . . . and his stupidity. She let herself be pulled closer to him. This way, at least, he wasn’t grabbing for another weapon. She resisted enough to make it appear that she was scared, and her muscles burned as he pulled the whip closer, going hand over hand.

  Holly waited until she was just a few feet away, and then lunged for him, flicking the whip’s switch off. The coil vanished from his hands, and Holly leapt through the air. Midair, she arched to propel herself forward, and swung the aether whip handle like a club, clocking him in the head as hard as she could.

  A sickening crunch accompanied the blow, and the redhead crumbled. His eyes fluttered shut as he settled into a pile of defeated human.

  “Let’s go, Starlight! Finish her!” Holly ran for the convertible and jumped into the driver’s seat.

  Odeon and the Constie had danced further away from the villa. Holly reversed out of the covered garage and then sped up the street to where Odeon currently battled the woman.

  “Get in!” Holly shouted.

  Odeon parried and then delivered a fierce swing that pushed the Constie against the wall of the villa that rose behind her. While his opponent recovered from the unexpectedly intimidating attack, he turned and leapt into the convertible.

  Holly hit the aether pedal, and the auto carried them away.

  “Did you kill the human male?” Odeon asked breathlessly.

  “Knocked him out. He’ll be fine. Might have some burned hands and a headache when he wakes up, but otherwise, I don’t think I mortally wounded him. Not that he didn’t deserve it. He threatened to kill me.”

  “An affront that deserves death.”

  “Mmhm. But I didn’t have killing on my to-do list today.”

  “It’s on my list every day.”

  Holly scoffed and steered through the winding streets that carried them out of the cluster of villas on the hilltop. They only had a few minutes to put enough distance between themselves and The Cocks that they could lose them and not worry they’d be found again.

  “I doubt that, you balance-loving, obsessive freak, you.” She switched the auto into a lower gear for their descent of the hill into the old city center.

  “Holly Drake, do not wound me with insults like balance-loving,” Odeon said, smiling. “You need someone like me to remind you that balance is everywhere.”

  They took a circuitous route back to the resort where Odeon’s parents lived. Holly checked repeatedly for someone on their tail, while Odeon turned in his seat to keep a lookout; they wanted to be certain they didn’t lead the goons back to the hotel.

  The equatorial city was full of tourists basking in the perpetual summer of the region. It drew crowds of wealthy elites from the other moons. Since the City of Jade Spires was still in the middle of its brutal winter, Itzcap lured in many of Kota’s most powerful residents—Centaus and Yasoan alike, with just a smattering of humans and Consties.

  “We can leave tonight,” Holly said. “Unless you want to spend some time with your parents before we head out?”

  Without removing his bright gaze from the road behind them, Odeon laughed. “I don’t think so, Holly Drake. The last thing I would like to do at the moment is spend even three minutes in the presence of my parents and their stares broadcasting that I am their failure of a son.”

  She wasn’t sure that was precisely what their stares were, but she understood the feeling. “Want to see your grandmother before we go?” She snuck a look at his face.

  His brow softened. “No time. Let’s get off this rock and put some distance between them and us.”

  “You got it.” She wasn’t going to argue with reason. Reunions always took longer than they should. “Let’s just hit the space elevator, get a ticket now, and wait on the port for the next zeppelin back to Kota.”

  22

  It was a place of sunlight and information. It smelled of aged wisdom and the dust of faraway worlds, and carried the collected wisdom and visions of long-ago dreamers. From a hundred feet away, it glowed in the creeping evening, which cast shadows across the towering spires of the Lavender Jade district. The library beckoned like a cathedral, promising refuge rather than judgment, and perhaps love as well as solitude. It called to Holly as she approached with Shiro at her side two days after her return from Itzcap.

  He’d insisted on joining her, though she’d wanted to go alone. She knew he still smarted from her trip to Itzcap with Odeon—she glanced at him, bundled up in his wool coat and bowler. He looked like he was heading to a dinner party, and not merely the only bookstore in the City of Jade Spires.

  “My favorite part,” Shiro said, gesturing at the glass entrance as they arrived.

  The warm lights behind the glass illuminated the stained-glass depictions of scenes from old novels. Holly still hadn’t found which books they came from—not that she’d looked very hard. One was a rough illustration of a man in a high-collared suit, together with a woman in a dress. It carried the quote, “The distance is nothing when one has a motive.”

  It seemed to convey multiple layers of meaning, and though it was impossible for her to know what the author meant, she agreed with it. Distance was almost an idea at times, with neither respect for how close something was, nor how far away it might be. What was distance in matters of the heart, anyway? That strange space inside which housed emotion and sentiment condensed distances into quantum space, or magnified them till they were as vast as galaxies were wide. It was—to Holly, anyway—a universal truth.

  The other depiction—which always stirred up revulsion and curiosity in her—was that of a bonfire engulfing books. Abstract depictions of humans stood around it, throwing colorful rectangles into the fire. Even as her gaze glanced across it to the doors that opened for her and Shiro, she wondered just what the hell it meant. Why advertise such a terrible concept?

  “What is it we’re looking for here, in this holiest of holies that we both revere, Ms. Drake?” Shiro asked as they entered through the glass doors, then passed through the small vestibule, and pushed against the final set of doors to enter the lobby.

  “You’ll see,” she said.

  “Oh, a mystery. I’m sure I could solve it without this trip,” he said, unbuttoning his coat.

  Holly led them to the main desk at the center of the place.

  A tall female human with short spiked hair and an eager smile greeted them. The owner, Harvey—with his preternaturally black, hu
man eyes—was nowhere to be seen.

  He was a caretaker of books, a man who did not read them, but shepherded them. He’d told Holly that he used to read, but now that he accepted there wasn’t enough time to read everything that existed, he chose to simply care for the objects. He usually spent his time physically working with the books. Rebinding them when he needed to, covering their boards with a protective layer, checking the pages for light damage and then hiding them in the windowless interior rooms if they exhibited any. If they were paperback books, he slipped them into plastic envelopes, which he then sealed and sequestered in a safer area.

  But he wasn’t at the main horseshoe-shaped desk when Holly and Shiro reached it.

  Holly sighed in relief. She actually didn’t love having to deal with him.

  “Where’s Harvey? Or Quin?” she asked after saying hello to the unfamiliar woman before her. She’d only ever seen the owner and Quin at the desk.

  “Hello! Ah, he died. Sorry, yeah. They brought me on after Quin died—did you know him? I’m Henn, by the way,” she held out a hand to shake.

  Holly took it and introduced herself and Shiro. “And Harvey?”

  “Ah, you know Harvey?” Henn jerked her thumb toward the stairway that rose through the center of the store. “He’s up in the stacks, finding books that need help.” She said it like they were patients in a hospital.

  An open book lay on the desk behind her. She’d been reading when they’d entered. Not a bad job, Holly decided.

  The bookstore belonged in Analogue Alley, but had missed it by one street. Stragglers veered off the main route to visit it, however. Several customers decked-out in Alley attire milled around the store, handling the books and perusing their spines.

  Harvey had once told Holly that he didn’t love them touching the books, but that was what books were for, so he let them. ‘I’d rather they love ‘em up than fear them and neglect them.’

  V-screens carried thousands of ebooks, but touching a real book was an analogue experience that people like Holly and Shiro savored.