Stalker's Luck (Solitude Saga Book 1)

by Chris Strange

  “Don’t you need to—you know—pilot this ancient crate?” Eddie asked, dragging her out of her thoughts.

  She grunted and strode back to the ship’s helm. She could hear Eddie shuffling along behind her.

  “How long until we touch down?” he asked.

  “Sixty-two minutes.”

  Dom climbed into the pilot’s seat and wiped the fingerprints off the cracked control screen. The screen was one of the few remaining pieces of Pre-Fall tech in the helm. All the rest had long been replaced by the chunky, temperamental systems Eleda engineers had been building to replace the old tech as it slowly failed.

  She touched a button and—with a little urging—brought the solid fuel engine coughing back to life. When she glanced back, Eddie was squinting sceptically at the rumbling coming from above them.

  “It’s getting worse.”

  “She’s fine. She’s a good ship.”

  “Whatever you say, Freckles. I’m going back to bed. Wake me when we’re there.”

  Dom nodded and gave the manual throttle a gentle twist. Her stomach lurched for an instant before the gravity compensators caught up. There was a splash behind her. Eddie sighed.

  “I’m never going to finish a coffee again, am I?” His footsteps quietened as he strolled back towards his quarters.

  “Hey,” Dom called over her shoulder. “Don’t turn that bloody noise back—”

  A flood of synth music roared out of Eddie’s quarters. Dom set her teeth and started the Solitude on a course for Temperance station.

  2

  When Dom banged on his door to announce that they’d set down, Eddie crawled out of bed, tucked away the tab he’d been scribbling on, and strapped on his gun.

  He yawned as he tugged open his door and shuffled out through the open airlock. He never could sleep properly on the Solitude, especially not when they were taking the dark roads through the system. A two day stretch in one of them was enough to put his cheek muscles in spasm, the way the ship creaked and groaned and screamed through the compressed void of space.

  Sleep would be on the menu tonight, a good sleep in a good hotel with real goddamn coffee in the morning. He started to whistle to himself at the thought.

  He wandered down the enclosed boarding tunnel, casting glances out the windows at the ships docked next door. Temperance had always been a tourist station, a getaway for the soon-to-be-poor and the desperate-to-be-rich who came to test their luck. And the tourist docks were once more crammed with passenger ships, even in the station’s last days. Because of them. Different stations died in different ways. Some struggled, desperately attempting to jury-rig repairs to the life support systems, just to give themselves a few more days of life. On some stations they prayed. On others, the residents gathered with their loved ones and ate their last meals laced with cyanide. But Temperance was different.

  On Temperance, they partied like it was the end of the world. And everyone wanted a bit of the fun.

  Eddie emerged from the spaceport onto a shrewdly placed viewing platform and took his first look at the station’s interior. The sky above was covered with transparent panels, revealing the slow rotation of Eleda VI and the storms raging across its surface hundreds of kilometres away. Those panels would be hardened against all the usual threats to a station’s survival: meteors, debris, and of course, small arms fire. The ancients had learned that particular lesson early on, when the Second Colonial Expansion gave way to the Fracturing.

  The station-wide lights were all off, casting the city into twilight. A grav train rocketed along an elevated rail that carried it swerving among billboards and apartment blocks. The spires of hundreds of towers were packed tightly through the city, the metal and plastic and glass exteriors glinting in the light of a thousand sparkling neon signs.

  Slots.

  Girls, Girls, Girls.

  All-Night Stims.

  Golden Hand Pachinko.

  Eddie smiled and drew in a deep breath. The smell of broken air filters and desperation and cheap beer and spices and hair dye and broken stim vials and sweat and come and pussy. This was it. This was the life.

  He looked up and down the viewing platform. The denizens of dozens of stations and colonies were pouring out of the spaceport and flowing through the streets, looking for action, looking to experience the thrill of apocalypse. A swooping dress with a high collar and thick makeup bounced past him. Eddie had chosen a simple white shirt and a dark grey waistcoat for his outfit. It’d get him into most of the high class casinos, but he’d still fit in if he decided to slum it in a back-alley bookie’s.

  Heavy, familiar footsteps clanged behind him. You live long enough with a person on a ship the size of the Solitude, you get to know pretty much everything about them. Everything they can’t hide, anyway. Their ticks, the little noises, their toilet habits, their footsteps.

  “What’s the time?” Eddie said as he leaned against the platform railing.

  Dom appeared alongside him and checked her tab. “Just after two p.m. local.”

  He looked up at the false sky. “It’s night.”

  “They’re down to thirty percent of their solar collectors. They’re on light discipline to save energy.”

  “Perpetual night,” Eddie mused. It suited Temperance. Why hadn’t they thought of it before?

  Dom inspected her tab. She was still wearing her ridiculous duster, like she thought it could hide the submachine gun tucked under her arm. She was dreaming if she thought she was going to get to a high-roller table dressed like that. Oh well, she could suit herself.

  While he was eyeing her outfit, she looked out over the city and pointed. “Reverend Benjamin Bollard’s supposed to have his church somewhere in the starboard districts. We should find a train.”

  Eddie straightened and tucked his hands in his pockets. “You go ahead. I’ll catch up with you later.”

  “What?”

  “I feel like seeing if I can find some action.”

  “We’ve got a bloody job to do.”

  Eddie rocked back on his heels, trying to take in the whole city with his eyes, trying to imprint it on his memory. “You’ve got a job to do. It’s your contract. Call me when you need some help.”

  “I need your help now.”

  “You’ll be fine, Freckles. He’s a preacher. What’s he going to do, throw holy water at you?”

  And with that, Eddie turned and strolled down a set of stairs leading into the thick crowds of the city streets. He whistled to himself to cover the sound of Dom’s swearing.

  Eddie threw himself into the hot press of the crowd. The street narrowed for twenty metres as he passed beneath a tall, garish archway. The neon lights across the arch should’ve spelled out the words Welcome to Temperance, but all the “e”s had been knocked out. To the right, there was an old man with one leg. His head was shaved, except for a ponytail emerging from the crown. He leaned against a wall, next to a spraypainted declaration: The End is Nigh, Muthafuckas.

  With a roar of hot air, a grav train screamed past overhead, temporarily drowning out the excited hubbub of the crowd. Eddie pushed in between a knot of businessmen as the street widened into a long central strip that ran the length of the station. Revellers and gamblers and scantily clad men and women weaved across the strip in every direction, diving through massive entranceways of casinos that glittered with light and sparkle. Someone screamed far away, a scream of broken fingers and unpaid debts. But no one took any notice. Eddie was already stringing together the words that would bring Temperance to life when he wrote the tale of Roy Williams and the keen-eyed stalkers who brought him to justice. This was going to be a good one. He could feel it.

  A topless woman with rings through her nipples and a short bob of blue hair pushed a pamphlet into his hands as he passed. An advertisement for some titty bar. Eddie tossed it aside.

  A thick scent of spice tugged at his nostrils from a side road. His stomach growled. Dom was a lot of things, but she was no cook. And he was n
o better. He fished his wallet out and thumbed through his cash. Still plenty there between the last royalty payment and their most recent bounty. He owed himself a treat.

  With one last glance at the lights, he abandoned the glitter of the strip and ducked into the side road. The bustle of the strip faded. This had clearly once been part of the tourist district, but now it was nearly deserted. Spherical lanterns were strung up overhead between the buildings on either side of the street. Most of the shops he past were barred, their windows broken and their innards looted. But there was a light on at a small noodle stall nestled between a pair of hookers. Eddie smiled as the smell drew him in. He handed over his notes to the young man behind the counter.

  “You don’t look much like a local,” Eddie said to the man, eyeing his red-brown skin and thick curls of hair.

  The man shook the wok back and forth over the small blue flame. “Not. Came here six months ago for a bit of fun. Same as you. You know how it is. But I had a bit too much fun. Got into a poker game, high stakes. Two pair, all black, aces and eights.”

  “Dead man’s hand,” Eddie said.

  “Ain’t it so. Got stupid. When he raised, I put up my travel pass. I was so sure he was bluffing.”

  “And now you’re stuck here.”

  “And now I’m stuck here,” he agreed.

  “I didn’t think travel passes were transferable.”

  “They ain’t. But there’s people that can do the forging. You want any peppers?”

  “Surprise me,” Eddie said. “So why don’t you find yourself another travel pass? Get someone else to do the forging.”

  “That’s the plan. ‘Cept there’s still the issue of money. Which is why I charge extra for the soy sauce.”

  “Wouldn’t think there’d be much profit in a place like this.”

  “Probably not. Helps that I don’t own the place. Just found it abandoned and got working. Keeps the overheads down.”

  The young man scooped the noodles into a box, shoved a pair of chopsticks in, and slid it across the counter.

  Eddie took a taste. “Pretty good for someone who can’t cook noodles.”

  “I never said I couldn’t cook. Just said I didn’t own this place. I opened this place back up because it was something I’m good at. And because I’m sure as shit no good at cards.”

  Eddie dropped a tip on the counter and wandered away, shovelling the noodles into his mouth. A block down the road he looked up and found a man who’d decided he didn’t want to sit around and watch the station die. He’d decided it by tossing himself out a fourth floor window and letting the electrical cable wrapped around his neck catch him. He obviously hadn’t been the man who’d won the noodle kid’s travel pass.

  The Feds had stepped up their control of travel in the last five years as the stations started to break down more rapidly. If the denizens of a doomed station fled to other stations, those stations would die all the faster with the added pressure on the life support systems. So it was a lottery. You sat in your apartment and stared out the window and prayed to whatever god you thought gave a shit that the solar collectors would hold out, that the water reclaimers would keep grinding away. That some other bastard on some other station would be the one to face their certain death, not you.

  Unless you were one of the lucky ones. Someone who served some role deemed vital to the machinations of the Federation bureaucracy. Like a pair of killers contracted to save a convicted murderer from a cold death in a dying station. To capture a man like Roy Williams and bring him back to justice. So he could live out his life in a cell while eighty thousand innocents faced their own personal apocalypse. Eddie was sure it made sense to some high-up official poking numbers on a tab. And in truth, he didn’t mind the absurdity. It assured him that no matter how bloodstained and lurid and insane his little tales got, at least they weren’t as bad as reality.

  He was two blocks down and halfway through his box of noodles when he heard the footsteps behind him. Not normal footsteps, not the stumbling steps of a drunk or the excited stride of a tourist. The footsteps never got quieter or louder; they always stayed just the same, keeping pace with him.

  He glanced in the reflection of a broken window and saw a shadow in a hat and a grey coat. Maybe it was nothing. For the hell of it, Eddie slowed a little. The footsteps slowed. He sped up. The footsteps quickened. A tail already. He couldn’t believe it. He’d only been on the station an hour. Not even that.

  The streets were narrow and quiet here. Apartment buildings rose on either side of him, dotted with abandoned restaurants and motionless escalators to underground markets. Eddie finished off the last of his noodles, tossed the box into an overflowing rubbish bin, and ducked quickly down a narrow alleyway. There was an intake of breath behind him. The footsteps picked up speed.

  Eddie pressed himself into the shadow of an alcove made by a pair of dumpsters. The shadow in the hat hurried into the alley. His footsteps made a pitter-pat of panic.

  The figure moved past Eddie, not seeing him. Eddie took a step after him and cleared his throat. “What’s the story, Jack?”

  The figure gasped and spun around. A flash of blond hair peeked out from beneath his hat. He was round-faced and red-cheeked. With white eyes he stared at Eddie. His coat fell open. Soft sheen of a handgun at his belt. The man’s hand twitched.

  “Don’t,” Eddie said. “Jack—”

  The shadow’s hand went to his belt. Fingers closed on the butt of the gun. Fumbled. Panic drained the colour from his cheeks.

  Eddie fired. He hadn’t even noticed himself drawing the pistol from his side. He never did. Muscle memory. The crack of the shot echoed back and forth in the tight alley. Maybe it would echo there forever, until the last of the oxygen drained out of the station and it finally went quiet. Eddie’s ears rang.

  The shadow clutched at the wound in his throat as he went down. But only for a moment. He barely made a sound.

  Eddie lowered his gun. His mouth was suddenly dry.

  “Shit.”

  He edged over to the shadow. Only a couple of metres separated them. He nudged the man with the tip of his shoe. The body didn’t move.

  “Shit,” he said again. He holstered his pistol, turned, tightened his hands into fists, turned back, looked at the slumped figure. “What did I say, Jack? I said ‘Don’t’. Don’t do it, you stupid son of a bitch.” He shook his head. “Why’d you do it? Huh? Why’d you make me pull?”

  But the man said nothing.

  Eddie pushed air through gritted teeth. He settled down on the cold metal ground outside the widening pool of blood. No one had screamed, no one had come running. Probably gunshots weren’t a big deal on Temperance. But still. But still.

  He stood up, sat down again, stood up once more, and pulled out his tab. Unlike Lieutenant Pine’s tab, Eddie’s was held together with electrical tape and epoxy glue. One corner of the screen had cracked a few decades before he was born and every year another few pixels died. With a few taps on the ancient device, he bleeped Dom. A moment later, she picked up.

  “What’s the situation with the law on Temperance?” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  Eddie chewed the inside of his cheek. “Is it illegal to shoot someone here?”

  “It’s illegal to shoot someone anywhere.”

  “Yeah, but how illegal?”

  “Eddie, what’s going on? Don’t tell me you’ve shot someone.”

  “All right, I won’t.”

  “For the love of Man.” He could hear her grinding her teeth through the tab. “We only just got here. We’re supposed to be scouting.”

  “I didn’t go looking for it. I had a tail. Probably been following me since we landed. Someone knew we were coming. I stopped to have a chat. He got spooked.”

  “How badly did you shoot him?”

  Eddie looked at the blood slowly oozing from the throat wound. “Well, he won’t be complaining about it.”

  “Ah, fuck me,” Dom said. �
��Did anyone see?”

  “I managed to be discreet. I need your help.”

  “You’re a real piece of work, Gould.”

  “That’s what they tell me.”

  Dom grunted. “Deal with it. Get the hell out of there. No one’s going to bother to look too hard.”

  “The law won’t. This guy’s bosses might.”

  “Deal with it,” she said again.

  Eddie exhaled. His breathing was beginning to slow. The shakes would come soon. But he had a few minutes, that blessed space between the panic of sudden action and the time when the adrenaline withdrawals began.

  “Okay. I’ll deal with it. Keep an eye on your six, Freckles. If there’s one, there might be another.”

  “Bloody hell,” she said. Then she cut the connection and he was listening to the low beep of a lost signal.

  He slid the battered tab back into his pocket and rubbed his jaw, staring down at the body. No one had come running to investigate. He had time. With a quick glance up and down the alley, he crouched and turned out the man’s pockets.

  The man’s fingers were still wrapped around the gun he hadn’t managed to pull from his belt. No wonder he’d fumbled it, the thing was a hand cannon. The barrel must’ve tickled his balls every step he took. Stupid kid had let it get tangled in the folds of his trousers.

  Aside from that, he was running light. No tab on him. A billfold held a thin stack of cash and his ID card. Name read Javin Lindeman. He wasn’t smiling in his picture. Probably thought it made him look tough. He was twenty-two and a Temperance native. He wasn’t getting off the station. So what if he’d died a couple weeks ahead of schedule? So what?

  The only other thing on him was a silver poker chip in his inner coat pocket. Eddie spun it back and forth in his fingers. No value written on it, no casino name, no nothing. Just a whole lot of nothing. And that was that.

  Eddie pocketed the chip and slipped the cash out of the billfold and pocketed that as well. “Payment for the stress,” he told Javin. Javin didn’t seem too happy about it, but to hell with him.