Holly agreed. She spoke in a low whisper. “Besides, it means someone is after us if Odeon has been hurt.”
“This easy job just got more exciting.” Charly’s tone matched Holly’s.
“Before someone else shows up. Odeon can sleep in my berth. Or Shiro’s.”
Holly removed her black jacket and began to wrap it around her fist, only to have Charly stop her. “Wait, wait. Who’s the fists in this tribe?” Charly pulled the jacket off Holly’s hand and began to wrap it around her own fist.
“Well, you could at least use your own jacket, then.” Holly said, watching Charly prep to break the glass.
“I’m wearing one shirt. I guess I could take it off, but that might attract the wrong attention,” Charly answered.
“Fine, use mine, but hurry before someone else comes and see us. This looks like we’re up to no good.”
Charly scoffed. “We are. Whoever hurt Odeon is going to pay.”
Holly checked up and down the corridor. “It’s clear.”
“Watch my back.” Charly cocked her arm and then slammed the jacket shrouded fist through the glass. Holly flinched at the sound of the implosion and the cascading noise of glass shattering. Most of it spilled into the cabin. The curtain fluttered inward. Charly hissed. “Not too bad, actually. I’m just so powerful, you know?” She laughed. As Charly unwound the jacket from her fist, Holly pushed her gently out of the way and reached through the jagged hole and opened the door.
Holly leapt through the small narrow door. Her breath came in short pants, her heart thudded hard against her bones. The fire of battle-readiness flared up inside her as she moved into the unknown, cautious. There had been so many situations where they were in danger, where the Shadow Coalition had caught one of them, where enemies had tried to kill them, where their lives had been spared just in time that she was too seasoned to not worry that the worst had happened. She was aware of all these past experiences subliminally. They informed her movement into the cabin. Sounds greeted her that she hadn’t expected. Heavy breathing. A noise like someone fighting to speak. All of these registered in the mere seconds it took her to get through the door. She scanned the room.
She hoped. She hoped what she would find was Odeon perhaps in the throes of lovemaking. That would be better than finding him stabbed to death. She was prepared to laugh and make an attempt at a dignified exit, catching him with a lover, so absorbed in it that he’d not heard their attempts to contact him. It would be embarrassing, yes. But at least he’d be alive. Odeon hurt? Odeon dead? That was something Holly wasn’t sure she could endure. It would be tantamount to an innocent, wild animal being needlessly slaughtered. At least that’s how it feel to Holly, who suddenly understood just how much she treasured the Yasoan. He was advanced and perhaps one of the most self-aware beings in the galaxy, but he was beyond recrimination.
“Oh god, Odeon. No, no, no,” Holly said, rushing to him. He lay on his side on the floor of the berth. Blood-oozed from his side where he appeared to have been stabbed. His hands were bound in front of him. His feet were also tied together. Holly inspected him, concerned about moving him. He was breathing, but at the moment he was unconscious. The carpet was saturated with his blood.
“What the hell?” Charly asked, entering the small space of the berth. “Guys, Odeon is hurt. We’re in his cabin. And, we’re worried. But this means you guys need to be on your guard. Shiro. Iain? Iain?”
Holly could hear Charly saying this in the room, and also over her earpiece.
“We must have heard him fall from the bed,” Holly said, seeing that the bedspread covering the bunk was also wet with blood.
“When Shiro and Grant get here, let’s move him into one of the other cabins,” Charly said. “Is there only the one injury?”
“I think that knife wound is the only injury.” Holly had been searching his body. Touching him everywhere, her heart felt like a flag on the top of a spire, shredded by wind and weather. She would ache for any of her crew members hurt under her watch. But Odeon. Odeon was a special case.
6
“We’ll need to get off at the next stop,” Holly said.
Iain looked at her, understanding flickering across his face. “Yes, we need more supplies for this.” Odeon had fallen asleep again. He’d lost a fair amount of blood, and though Iain was quite skilled in field medicine, even he had been forced to admit that they would need more to help the Yasoan. First of all, Odeon kept falling asleep. Which prevented him from healing himself with his song.
Yasoans had the unique capacity to speed their healing up using a song, or a frequency, that directed their body on a molecular level to work faster to knit bone, sinew, and skin back together. Odeon had also lost enough blood that his body was having a hard time working fast enough. It was also why he kept falling asleep, according to Iain’s assessment.
Shiro returned from the errand he’d been sent on to find more first-aid gear to help Odeon. “I found this,” Shiro said, handing over a small kit with the universal stamp upon it that signified Yasoan.
“Thank you, Shiro,” Iain said. He placed the kit on the floor and opened it. There were syringes with Yasoan blood injections as well as frequency patches that added another source to the healing song.
Holly continued to pace in the tiny space beside her bed. They’d moved Odeon into her room—she’d been intending to slip into Iain’s room at night, but now she would sleep in the berth above Odeon, to keep him safe. If she slept at all. Her gaze kept going back to her friend. How had she let him down like this? Why hadn’t they stayed together? Why had she underestimated the threat? There were always more threats than she could know, she should realize that by now. She clenched her fists and jaw, angry at herself for allowing this to happen.
Iain opened the packet with a frequency patch inside. Cracked it to activate it, and slapped it onto Odeon’s bare chest. Holly looked at the bandages that had already seeped through with the Yasoan’s blood. Holly shivered at the fresh memory of Grant washing the blood from his hands and the instruments he’d used to stitch the gaping hole together in the tiny lavatory in the berth. Iain said that he suspected it had come from a serrated blade of some kind, in a downward motion, likely stabbed from behind in the side and jerked downward. It was a slash, and Iain said they were lucky for that. If it had gone much deeper, it could have caused major organ damage.
She paused in her tracks. “Charly? You there?”
“Damn straight. I’m going to find this jerk. Currently in the gambling coach.”
Holly bit her lip. “Any sign of a shady figure? Anyone that could have done this to Odeon?”
“Everyone looks shady. I suspect everyone. They’re all terrible. I say we accuse all of them and leave them in the next town.”
Holly wanted to laugh, but her heart wasn’t in it. She gave a small chuckle to hide how desolate she felt due to this turn of events. They all needed to stay strong. And Holly especially would influence her crew if she resorted to despondent talk. Moods were contagious. “Let’s not, but I’m not too far off in wanting to do something similar. I’m sending Shiro to help with the search and to watch your back. The last thing we need is another one of us being targeted.” She turned to Shiro who’d shut the cabin door behind him and was leaning against it, with the bottom half of his cane flipped up and balanced against his collar bone in something that gave off a jaunty air. “This alright with you, Shiro?
He dipped his chin. “Happy to oblige. Would be even happier to oblige if we could get our hands on the malevolent force that did this and exact our revenge.” He slipped his cane-sword half-out of the sheath that concealed its true nature and grinned wickedly around the exposed blade at Holly.
“I completely agree. But let’s not get too eager to slice innocent passengers up. We don’t know who did this, or why.”
“Of course, Ms. Drake. Though, with the heat-resistant gear gone, I think we do know why they did it.”
“Yes, but who? What’
s their intent? Are they after the angel too? Or just working for the Centau and trying to stop us before we can stop her?”
Shiro snapped his sword back in the sheath. “Ms. Stout, I shall rendezvous with you shortly. On my way now. Watch for me.” He tipped his hat and left the cabin.
Holly sighed. Iain exchanged a look with her, and continued to monitor Odeon. The quarters were cramped with three adult bodies in the tiny space, even with one of them taking up the bed.
“Thank you for taking care of Odeon, Iain,” she said, softly. It was the fourth or fifth time she’d said as much. Field medicine wasn’t a skill she suspected that Iain would possess, though it made sense. His years in the military likely gave him ample opportunity to learn and use it. She wondered if he’d ever tell her about the years he was out at the fringe of the sun Yol’s light, patrolling the boundaries, policing the heliopause and fighting non-humanoid aliens that were whispered to exist. He knew they did, had said as much, but nothing more, so far.
“Glad to help. Glad I’m here, really. Normally a Yasoan doesn’t have to worry—at least not as much as the rest of us. But there are ways to incapacitate them. Odeon had the deck stacked against him this time.”
“Drake?” Darius’s voice came in over the comms. “You there?”
“Yeah, I’m here, Darius,” Holly said. She’d resumed her pacing, worrying a threadbare patch in the tiny rug that covered the floor.
“Drake, I see nothing in any of the databases about Xekna working with anyone else. From what I can tell, she doesn’t keep the standard Centau connections. Not saying the databases are totally accurate. But it could be true. And that would also mean, then, that whoever is after you is after her . . . competition, I’d say.”
“Yes, that’s if what you’re saying is true,” Holly answered.
7
The train ride was always meant to take a day and a half. The snow and weather, added three hours. By the time they arrived in Birbourne, Odeon had awoken a few more times—long enough to describe his assailant, and to thank them for their help before falling into a deep sleep again as his body replenished the blood he’d lost.
“Darius, you there?” Holly asked over her comm as she glanced out at the darkening scenery beyond the window of the train coach. Jagged mountains shot up into the sky. The snowy sky seemed to glow with the whiteout conditions. There was always something energetic about falling snow, or blizzards. But she could do without one now. It was hindering their progress.
“Here,” Darius said in her ear.
“Can you get online and book us a room at the inn? Odeon can’t keep traveling with us. So we’re going to need a couple rooms to hole up in.”
“Got it, got it,” Darius said over the comms. They weren’t to the outpost yet, but Holly’s concern was that if they waited much longer, there would be no rooms left.
Shiro and Charly had continued their search for the mysterious assailant, but like Shiro suggested, whoever had gone after Odeon had likely overheard them discussing their plans at some point, followed them back to their cabins and taken a chance on Odeon. And then, of course, stolen the gear that would help them in the hot terrain once they got there.
Holly had no idea what they were going to do once they arrived. She knew that the temperatures in the volcanic region reached 48-54 degrees Celsius regularly, and that would sap their strength and drain their functioning to subpar. But, she would wing it. Somehow, they’d work it out. They had to. Because if she turned around now, the angel would be gone before they could return and Odeon’s injury would have been for nothing.
“Ready to go?” Iain asked as he came into the room to relieve Holly of staying with Odeon. “We’ll be in the station soon.”
“No. Never ready. But that also never matters.” She smiled and finished gathering her toiletries and put them into her bag. “You heard me talking to Darius, right? We can’t make Odeon keep traveling. Hopefully Darius can get us some rooms. Someone needs to stay with Odeon.”
Iain watched her, his eyes thoughtful. She waited for him to cross his arms in a gesture that meant he was getting defensive or anticipating what she was going to say, and that he wouldn’t like it. Her marriage had been like that—Graf had resisted everything she asked of him unless it was what he already wanted to do. She was his, and she was supposed to let him run the show.
Holly caught herself, and reframed how she thought of Iain Grant. He wasn’t Graf, Holly’s ex-husband, thank Ixion. And it wasn’t fair to treat him that way or expect the same behaviors from him. Before she continued, she pulled her communicator from her pocket and muted the mic. She didn’t need the rest of the team listening in on this. Iain watched her do it, and pulled the team communicator from his pocket as well and muted it. Behind Grant, Odeon stirred in his sleep. Holly exchanged a look with Iain, took his hand, and led him out of her cabin into his cabin.
“Alone, finally,” she said, letting out a massive breath.
Iain laughed. “Leading a team, I get it.”
Holly sighed again, and stretched. “Ok, we don’t have much time. As much as I would love to use this rare moment with you to do something other than plan and conspire, I’m wondering if you’d be willing to stay behind and take care of Odeon. You know medicine. No one else does.”
Iain nodded, but his expression was reflective. “Yes, I can do that.”
“But?”
He smiled, and laughed, hunching his shoulders as though he wished he hadn’t been caught. “No but. I know you can handle yourself without me. But that doesn’t mean I don’t worry about you out there, alone.”
She felt an involuntary smile spread across her face. It was good to know that he cared, but that he wasn’t going to stop her. That he trusted her to take care of herself.
“Thanks. I don’t think any of the others can handle taking care of Odeon. They mean well, but their specialities are in fighting, not nurturing. You’re rare, Grant. You can do both.” She watched his face as she spoke, and suddenly felt her cheeks grow hot as though she’d been discovered. But that shouldn’t matter, after all the things they’d shared together.
She took two paces to close the distance between the two of them to kiss him, but the train suddenly slowed and she fell into him instead. He caught her and laughed.
“If only,” he said, shaking his head.
“If only what?” She asked, giving him a sly look.
“The one time on this trip that we have some privacy.”
“Yes, it would be have been nice. Maybe. But, back to work.”
They left the cabin, moving out into the rowdy corridor as passengers began to fight their ways off the train. It would require waking Odeon to get him off the train and into their rooms at the small inn.
Shiro and Iain helped Odeon once he was awake enough to move, with one of them on either side of him. Charly helped with their bags. They found a small auto that took them to the inn which was situated on the main thoroughfare through the small town.
Odeon dozed in the auto, his head nodding until it touched Iain’s shoulder. Holly watched and smiled, trying to keep her spirits up. But seeing Odeon in such a bad way was eroding her confidence. They were lucky they’d not had another encounter with whoever had stabbed him. Or unlucky, depending on how she looked at it. In one way it was good—since no one else had been hurt. In another, it was a disaster. They had no way to protect themselves in the volcanic region but there was also no other choice but to forge ahead.
Soon they were being let out at the inn as the auto slowed to a stop in the driveway. It was a cabin-style building with steeply pitched roofs that were currently being blanketed with a thick layer of snow. She got out and stretched, fat snowflakes pelting her in the face and clinging to her eyelashes. It was a small boon that the thief hadn’t managed to take their warm clothes as well.
Inside, beneath wildlife trophies mounted on plaques with glassy black eyes, Holly checked them in. “Here we are, then, the lucky group that got our
last rooms.” The human male at the desk said. He wore a blue vest over a dress shirt with long sleeves and a name tag that declared him to be Stephen.
Holly kept the interchange brief as the rest of the crew migrated into the small reception area where worn furniture offered them a place to sit. Finally, after Holly got their room keys, she led the way to the two rooms. There were only fifteen in the whole place, so they were guaranteed to be near each other, a fact that Holly was thankful for.
They passed two other groups of people heading for rooms as well. Holly recognized them from the train ride, and she nodded politely, though their faces betrayed a certain irritation that she herself felt for being forced to delay their journey here. The snowstorm that had parked over the region ran the show now, and no one—least of all meager humanoids—could dictate otherwise.
Shiro and Iain helped Odeon onto one of the beds in the room, the Yasoan stirred enough to help, though he’d hardly moved. For the most part, the two men had dragged him to their quarters. Iain checked Odeon’s bandages, then looked up at Holly. She’d positioned herself near the window, fighting the urge to pace. Her thoughts struggled against the need to move, to exorcise the energy building in her and feeding on concerns for Odeon. He would recover.
“What?” Holly asked.
“He’s lost a lot of blood. If he doesn’t wake up long enough to eat, we’ll need to find a hospital for him.”
Holly chose her next words carefully. “Let’s keep that as the next step if he doesn’t. Use your best judgment. Are they any signs that the wound is healing?”
“Yes, but it’s slow. Not quite as slow as a human, but slower than a Yasoan with a frequency patch.”
“Do your best, Iain. I’m going to get this production moving—we’ve got to get that cursed angel back. Soon as I do that, we can put this all behind us.” She hailed Darius on the comms.
“Hey Drake. So, while you were all touring that lovely little town, I found out that there’s a ship like the Olavia Apollo leaving soon—the winds shouldn’t impact it quite the way they would an airship. So you could take that. Say the words,” Darius said.
The Colossus Collection : A Space Opera Adventure (Books 1-7 + Bonus Material) Page 155