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

by Nicole Grotepas

  “Good,” he said. He took a deep breath like he was preparing to tell a gambling addict that they’d lost all their money again. “Right, then. She took it across the Silvertop Crags in the north to the Scorching Wastes. Apparently this Centau has a workshop on the edge of a volcano. Her intent, from what my intelligence sources have been able to gather, is to melt it in the volcano, then make her little thing.”

  “So it’s not only just that she’s a bit mental, but I’m going to have to go traipsing through the cold into the super hot region to get it back?”

  “Well, yes. It’ll be like a vacation. A nice, hot one.”

  “Sounds like a trip to hell.”

  Idris stood up and clapped his hands like he was dusting them off. “Pack warm clothes.”

  “Very funny. Give me everything you know. I’ll take my team and go after the angel.”

  “You know as much as anyone about the Angel of Starlight. A relic. Or more accurately, an heirloom from Earth.”

  “I bet it isn’t even real gold.”

  He shrugged. “For all I know it’s not. The value is in the idea of the angel. She’s connected us to our homeworld. But if we don’t have her back for the ceremonial lighting festival, I mean, who knows, Drake. Rioting in the streets? I know you have friends in Analogue Alley. It wouldn’t be good to have angry mobs terrorizing those businesses.”

  “That feels a bit like a threat.”

  “Could be. I just want you to know what’s at risk.”

  “What’s the pay? I also need to know that so I can get my crew to commit—crew, Idris, not club. Or team. Crew. It means something more—I watch out for them, they watch out for me.” She watched his eyes. There was a hint of bemusement in them. His banter was something she enjoyed, though she didn’t like him to know it. She pressed on, ignoring that his baiting had worked. “Anyway, they’d do it just for me, but I hate to ask them to give up their time without a reason beyond loyalty and friendship. They have rents to pay and mouths to feed and bodies to clothe.”

  Idris laughed and the conversation turned to logistics. Money, the kind of expenses the crew would incur as they traveled to the northern reaches, and before the conversation wrapped up, Caron reminded her how little time was left before the lighting ceremony.

  “Well, I don’t like to overpromise, but maybe we can get it back before that happens.”

  “Five days?”

  She pursed her lips. “It’s not much. But my crew is the best.”

  “That’s what Xadrian and I both think.”

  Holly snorted. “Xadrian. Yes, of course. Why didn’t you have him meet with me? I’m flattered that you’d bring me in and not send your errand boy to fill me in on it.”

  “Well, not that I like to share this sort of information with just anyone, but Xadrian is currently busy fulfilling another task for me. Besides, Drake, I wouldn’t miss meeting with you if I can help it.”

  3

  “I’m having second thoughts.” Holly stared out the window next to Charly’s desk in the Bird’s Nest—the crew’s affectionate term for the offices above the Surge Club. She was pointedly ignoring a Christmas tree that Charly had procured somehow and placed between her desk and the window to the club floor.

  Down below, Torden wound through the tables, bending over and running his fingers under the seats and legs of the chairs. He was effectively Charly’s bar manager and lover. When Charly was gone, he ran the club. Today the Yasoan’s silver hair was pulled up into a bun on the crown of his head. He straightened from his task and his colorful eyes suddenly shot up to the window, as though he sensed Holly watching him.

  “We need the cash. So, tough. We’re doing it,” Charly countered from her seat at her desk.

  Holly turned to look at her friend. It was impossible to take her seriously with such an ostentatious tree in the room, so close to Charly’s desk. Any other plant life in the room would be normal, and likely welcomed. But this was completely out of the ordinary. Holly turned back to observe Torden’s strange ritual.

  “Last I checked, I ran the show,” Holly pointed out. Then she asked absently, “What is Torden doing?”

  “Standard floor check before it gets busy in the evening. He looks for everything from loose novas to hidden recording devices. He also makes sure the underside of the tables and chairs are clean. Normal stuff,” Charly answered. “Why?”

  “He just looked at me. I never see him anywhere but behind the bar. So seeing him out on the floor is just kind of strange.”

  “I used to do it. But I told him he’s on that now. He didn’t like it. He’d rather be behind the bar doing all the cool stuff.”

  Shiro Oahu, who had begun the brewing process for kasé the minute he’d entered the room, suddenly looked up and gazed thoughtfully at Holly. “Normally I love to be on a job, Ms. Drake, but I agree with you. Let’s skip this one. Sounds rather unsavory. First the snowy north, then the jarring heats of the Scorching Wastes? How can a man be expected to pack for that?” He shook his head. “What did you say it’s for, again? A stolen tree ornament?”

  Charly suddenly laughed. “Holly, did you say ‘I ran the show.’ Wow. That just registered. Did your long absence spoil you? I wasn’t expecting you to say something so, I don’t know . . . arrogant?”

  Holly ran her hands over her face and left her spot standing at the window to walk around to the other side of the couch. She dropped into it, feeling defeated. “This seems like a distraction. That’s all. I came back for a breather, but now Dave has us on this pointless job. I need to be figuring out what’s going on with my father. Where the hell did he go?”

  “Darius and Odeon will be here soon. Let’s work the details out. Then, if you’re still against it, you can back out.” Charly held a vscreen in her hand and placed it down on her desk as she focused on Holly. “The important thing is that you can help me decorate this tree.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to make me feel better about this. Christmas is fine without that silly angel. I don’t see what the harm is in letting this one slide. And I’m not touching your silly tree.”

  Charly lifted a box onto her desk and began stringing lights along the boughs of the token tree. Holly glared at it. She was in a position that didn’t make her happy, and it was all due to Christmas.

  Shiro made a noise from his spot next to the wet bar and the kasé machine. Holly glanced at him. From his finger dangled a long, skinny mug, with the white liquid sloshing around as though he’d nearly dropped it. The aroma of brewed kasé wafted around the Bird’s Nest.

  “What?” Holly asked.

  “Ms. Drake, I don’t believe what I am hearing. Christmas is fine without the angel? The angel? My dear, that angel is what starts the Christmas season. Don’t mistake my reluctance to tackle extreme weather as a lack of appreciation for the Angel of Starlight. I repent. We must rescue the angel! It is a piece of the past that brings it into our embrace and reminds us of where we come from. It is symbolic and—” he began to stammer as though at a loss for words. His cheeks had colored during his soliloquy and left him breathless.

  “Well, to be fair, Shiro, this would be our first Christmas together. None of us would know what to expect from each other. You obviously care about Christmas. I’m ambivalent. And Holly doesn’t care. Does that about sum it all up?”

  Holly sank deeper into the couch. “Sounds right to me. Judging from Shiro’s outrage.” She was feeling low—something about being sent off on a wild goose chase when so many other things were left unresolved. It would pass, she knew. These were things that Holly had grown used to from living in her own skin for all her twenty-nine years. It was the indecision of what she would do next, and her reluctance to go after something that she didn’t value. That had never mattered before. But this time it was different. This time it was putting the search for more information about her father on hold so that she could chase after a fruit loop Centau with delusions of grandeur.

  Shiro made a disapprov
ing sound with his mouth. “How can either of you be so nonchalant about this? My dears, we only define ourselves as human by the traditions we carry out.”

  “And by the DNA and blood which we possess, and all that that means, right, Shir?” Charly asked. Her tone oozed with sarcasm, but she seemed to have no qualms about mixing teasing Shiro with the innocent chore of decorating a blasted Christmas tree. Although to Holly they seemed very at odds with each other.

  Holly almost laughed, but she caught herself. It wouldn’t do to laugh at Shiro. Besides, she wasn’t annoyed at Shiro. She was frustrated at the timing of the case that Idris wanted her to do. She caught herself, realizing she almost said his real name out loud. She resolved to continue to call him Dave in her thoughts. Blowing his cover was something she didn’t want to be responsible for.

  A sound in the stairwell announced the approach of someone. Holly turned to see who it would be, but she had an idea based on the heavy sound of footfalls. Odeon never clomped around like that. Soon Darius popped into the room. He shook out of his overcoat. “I’m here.”

  “Good man, the party can begin, as they say,” Shiro said, raising his mug as though to toast the tech wizard. “Can I interest you in a warm drink?”

  “For once, yes. I’m finished with winter already. Let’s move our base of operations to Itzcap and drink cocktails all day long,” Darius said, accepting a three-bulbed mug from Shiro after throwing his coat onto the empty desk chair in the midst of his bay of computers. “Tell me about the job.”

  “First let me ask you,” Shiro began before Holly could say anything. She could see what he was doing and let him. “How do you feel about the Christmas season? The holidays?”

  “Holidays. Artifacts from earth. Like all the little heirlooms we fight over,” Darius said with a shrug, then sipped his kasé. “Love the tree, Charly.”

  Shiro picked up the lionhead cane that he’d laid across the wet bar countertop, and slashed it through the air without hitting anyone, like he was about to begin sword fighting. “Angry cynics. That is what all of you are.” He pointed at each of them individually. Holly laughed when then gold-tipped cane settled in her direction “I must say that I wouldn’t expect any of you to get so wrapped up in the festivities that you become silly oafs dressed from head to toe in red, green, gold, and silver, but at the very least you could acknowledge that there’s value in recognizing the traditions.”

  “Hang on. Did I say I thought the holidays were pointless? I said it’s an artifact. A lingering strand that connects us back to Earth. Have any of us been to Earth?”

  Holly caught Charly’s eye, then Shiro’s and Darius’s. All of them shook their heads.

  “No, and none of us are likely to,” he said, sipping his drink again. “It’s the best we’ve got. I say celebrate everything, even these relic traditions.”

  Holly cocked her head to the side. “So you’re saying you think it’s a good idea? You think it has a purpose?”

  Darius nodded and carried his drink back to his desk. “Yes.” He haphazardly shoved his coat aside and sat on its tails, spinning in the chair to face the room at large.

  “Good because the job Ms. Drake has for us is to get back the Angel of Starlight. Darius, you will appreciate this, lad, our job? It’s to save Christmas,” Shiro said, leaning forward and beaming at Darius. Holly had never seen his brown eyes quite so alive, aside from the times he was noticing a pretty woman, specifically Aimee Voss.

  “That true, Drake?” Darius asked, swinging his gaze around he room until it rested on Holly.

  “It is. That is, if we don’t back out. The job would mean chasing down what promises to be a crazed Centau—Xekna Kensa—who thinks she’s a witch.”

  Darius laughed. “Really? Hmm. A Centau with delusions of witchcraft. Sounds a bit unstable.”

  Charly had returned to studying her v-screen, flicking her finger across the surface. She suddenly looked up. “Right? A fly in the ointment. That’s what I think—an imbalanced Centau. So strange.”

  “I agree,” Holly said. “It seems a bit much to me. I’ve never heard of a Centau with problems like that.”

  “They hide it,” a familiar voice said from the stairwell. “Just like my people. It’s too much weakness. It hints at things we don’t even want to acknowledge.”

  Holly smiled at Odeon as he stepped into the golden lamplight of the Bird’s Nest, his Ousaba club held with one tip to the floor like a walking staff. His soft violet complexion and brilliant multicolored eyes flashed around the room. He removed the hood from his silver hair and shook it out, then pulled it up into a bun and stabbed a short stick through it.

  “Are you in, Odeon?” Shiro asked, sounding hopeful.

  “I would not pass up the opportunity to see a volcano and a witch. Besides, it’s named after me. Of course I must meet this angel.”

  “She’s not a witch, Odeon, there’s no such thing. It’s just an idea.”

  Odeon watched Holly’s face as though he sensed that she was confused. “Perhaps not in the eyes of humans. But everyone else knows that there are things that we do not always understand.”

  Holly could accept that, but it didn’t change the fact that she didn’t want to head north to the mountains and beyond them to the volcanic regions. “The dangers are serious. And she’s unstable. The trinket hardly matters, and aside from that, I still have no answers about the Heart.”

  “She means her father,” Charly offered, draping tinsel on the tree. “Just say it. No one thinks you’re going to be like him and we were all there, so we know what happened. You’re completely different from him.”

  “Everyone needs the money, Drake. Even you.” Darius passed a meaningful glance around the room.

  “And it’s not just for the money,” Shiro contributed.

  “It’s for the children?” Holly finished, indulging in a half grin. A sarcastic grin.

  “Precisely, Ms. Drake. And you love children.”

  “Speaking of, how’s the school?” Charly asked, beginning to hang dangling ornaments from the tree. She was referring to the school that Holly had helped Elan set up to take care of the children they’d rescued from the Shadow Coalition.

  “I’ve been away, so I don’t know. That’s another thing I need to check on. There’s a lot going on, leaving me very little time for anything else.” Holly jumped as her communicator vibrated in her pocket and startled her. She pulled it out and looked at it. There was a message from Iain Grant. And one from Meg Wolfe, her sister. A sense of dread filled her and she looked up at her team. “Who is in?”

  “You going to tell us what that was about?” Charly asked, pausing, an ornament of a tiny rat king hanging from her fingers.

  “Iain’s coming. The good news about that,” she continued, seeing Shiro flinch and try to hide his irritation, “Is that he’s very much into the holiday.”

  “Yes, but he’s not a real crew member,” Shiro countered quietly.

  “What about Trip? She could fly us to the pass. All we’d need to front is the money for fuel,” Charly said.

  “Trip’s on a job for some dignitary,” Darius said. “People take the jobs they need to take to pay their bills.”

  Shiro tapped his cane on the ground. “So, then it will just be myself, Odeon Starlight, Charly Stout, Darius Jackson, and Holly Drake?”

  Holly waited a moment. “And Iain Grant.”

  “And not me,” Darius said. “Because I’ll be staying here, running background ops for you.”

  “Hold on a second, hold on a second. Anyone else dying to know what Holly’s messages were? What changed?” Charly asked. “Just a few minutes ago you were sulking on the couch like someone had eaten the last donut.”

  Holly stood up and went to the large v-screen board near Darius’s desk. “We’ll need supplies to do this.” She touched the screen with her finger and made notes of what they might want. She scrawled the words warm clothes and shorts onto it. “I don’t really know what the volcano w
ill be like. Anyone else? Darius, could you do some quick research on that for us?”

  “Sure thing, Drake,” Darius said, spinning his chair back to face his control bay.

  “Sorry girl, not giving up on my question,” Charly said, taking several steps closer to Holly, perhaps intending to force her friend into confessing. “Who were the messages from? What did they want?”

  Holly felt her face go stiff as she reluctantly spoke. “One of the messages was from Meg, my sister, the detective. My niece, Lucy, found out from her mom that the angel was taken. She’s crushed.” Holly avoided their gazes once she’d turned to face them, then raised her eyes to Odeon’s face, then Shiro’s. She saw the understanding cross their visages and sighed.

  “You’re gonna save Christmas for Lucy,” Charly said. “I don’t blame you.”

  “Can’t help it. If there’s one person in all the moons that matters to me as much as Lucy . . . Well, let’s just say there’s not.”

  4

  “I’m not sure this is the best way to use our time,” Odeon said as they pushed through the doors leading into the strip club. Sveldt Encounters was the front for Beatrice Le Tissier’s real business—selling black market goods for surveillance, espionage, and other sundry tools that could assist a person in skirting the authorities.

  Holly’s history as the daughter of a police officer and the sister of Meg Wolfe, who also worked in law enforcement, often caused her to feel intrinsically at odds flying under the radar like she was.

  But then, nothing had ever convinced her that following the rules paid off. When she’d followed those rules, she’d landed square in the midst of an abusive relationship that pushed her to the edges of her tolerance until she snapped.