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

by Nicole Grotepas

  He nodded. “Meg and I have uncovered some shit. We can’t talk about it much, though. Because we think there’s a mole on the force.”

  The gondola slipped into a dock and they got out. The two of them went into the elevator tacked onto the side of the Indigo Jade tower and rode an elevator down to street level. Gabe stopped to buy a Bahn mi sandwich from a food cart. He ate it as they walked.

  “I just realized where we’re heading. Work,” he laughed.

  “I know. I’ve been taking us this direction. I want to ask Meg about this lead.”

  “Great idea,” Gabe said. “I just think you might be good at it. You have balls of steel. You survived Graf, that dickwad. I always hated him. I could tell he was an abusive dick. Surprised he lasted that long with you.” His eyes glittered as he studied Holly.

  “Balls of steel. What every woman wants, if not her own pair, to catch a pair and put a ball and chain on them.”

  Gabe almost choked on his sandwich.

  He coughed and wiped his lip with his thumb. “Good one. Alright then. Look, while we’re in the station, don’t say anything about anything I’ve told you.”

  “OK, so don’t say anything.”

  “Nothing. We don’t know who’s corrupt. So I don’t want anything we say to be picked up by whoever this jerk-off is.”

  “Done.”

  “You think you can do that?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Also, be nice to Meg about the lead. She’ll probably want to head out of the station to talk to you about it. And I’m coming with. And she’ll hate that, but it’ll be hilarious to see her annoyed about it. I just need that in my life. I have nothing else to look forward to except irritating Meg,” he laughed, then added. “And Lucy. My little ray of sunshine.”

  They reached the tower that housed the precinct and went inside.

  7

  If Holly had to pick just three words to describe the police station where Meg and Gabe spent their days, two of them would be wood and smoke. The bannisters and stairs, desks and tables, were all a dark polished wood pulled from the cooler northern regions of the Sliver region of Kota. The smoke came from the police officers themselves, who puffed on pipes or rolled cigarettes as they worked.

  Holly coughed as she collided with a cloud of smoke from a passing officer. She climbed the stairs and followed Gabe through the corridors, passing uniformed cops, some of whom looked familiar from Graf’s days on the force.

  That would be the third word: haunting.

  Her face went hot and the hackles on her neck stood up straight with the sense of disapproving eyes on her. She couldn’t help but wonder who of these people had participated in destroying her future just because she dared to stand up to her abusive husband. It was a boys’ club of the worst sort, even if it was populated with women too. She didn’t trust any of them. Hell, she sometimes had a hard time trusting Gabe, and even Meg, her own sister.

  Gabe led her into the wing of the station where his team was busy working on a case. Some of them stood up when they saw her—she recognized Meiko and of course Meg, but there were two new members. A Druiviin and another human.

  “Holly, this is Daxan. He’s new. And this is Torquil Jude, who’s also a new addition. And you know Meiko and your amazing sister, obviously.”

  “Hi Meiko, and nice to meet you Daxan and Torquil,” Holly said. Meg looked up from her desk, rose and came to give her a hug and a beso on each cheek.

  Meiko’s eyes were huge as she stared at Holly and waved in a small little gesture. Holly blushed, wondering if she was suddenly a monster in Meiko’s eyes. Not that she cared, because frankly, Holly would take the label “monster,” if it meant living rather than dying at the hands of a man during a violent rage. No one understood it. Gabe did, maybe, but not the same way Holly understood it, or any woman who dealt with the unpredictable temper of an abusive partner.

  Daxan and Torquil both approached to shake her hand. Daxan looked uncomfortable with it, or maybe she was misreading him. The expressions on a Druiviin’s face were different from human expression. They often looked bored, but from everything she’d heard, they weren’t bored. Just cursed with a resting-bored face. Daxan’s hair was cut short and he was dressed like Gabe—in a dark dress shirt and trousers with a belt, almost like he was mimicking Gabe’s style. Torquil wore something similar but with a jacket and a loose fitting tie.

  The other detectives returned to their desks and resumed working, occasionally shooting looks toward Holly as she spoke with Meg and Gabe. Did they think she was going to suddenly start shooting them? It was an uncomfortable sensation, to be stared at and handled with kid gloves.

  “What’s going on? Is everything OK?” Meg asked.

  “Yeah, it’s fine. I just came to see you. Is that against the rules?”

  “Of course it’s not,” Meg said, eyeing Gabe, as though she were trying to communicate something with a look.

  “What is it?” Gabe asked.

  “Gabe. Please,” Meg said, her look intensifying. “Not here.”

  Meiko cautiously approached and interrupted, a serious expression on her face. “Excuse me, Gabe, can I talk to you for just a moment?”

  He sighed, and looked at Holly then back at Meiko. “Yeah, right. What is it? Hang on a minute, guys. I need to take care of this.”

  Once he was gone, Meg planted her hands on her hips and studied Holly with her lips pursed. “What’s going on, Holly? I can count on my one hand how many times you’ve come to the station just to say hello.”

  Holly folded her arms. “Gabe came by to tell me I should ‘take the lead.’ And I had no idea what he was talking about, apart from that evasive conversation you had on the communicator with him the other night where you kept saying ‘her.’ So what is it? This lead? I’ve got nothing else to do right now. I can’t exactly go back to work in my former profession and I still don’t know what I want to do other than teach to make money. But I do know that I want to move out and leave you and Lucy to your own peace and quiet and I can’t do that till I’m earning a living.”

  “I like having you there,” Meg said, frowning. “Have I given you the impression that I don’t?”

  “No, but Jesus Meg, you’re my older sister. Having you take care of me is a bit embarrassing. I’m almost thirty. And I just got out of a marriage from hell. I’d like to get out on my own and prove to myself that I’m not a waste of space. That I can take care of myself without the world’s most overbearing man breathing down my neck and monitoring my every move and gas-lighting me into neuroses, controlling me, you know?”

  Meg cocked her head and shifted on her feet, as though she was actually thinking about it. “I get it. I guess. And I don’t blame you. But there’s no reason to rush. You don’t even know what you’re asking me and there are other ways to make money.”

  A uniformed police officer came barging into their wing. He had a military hair cut and a face etched out of rock. Maybe his nose had been broken a few times. Another guy strolled in behind him, his thumbs resting on his belt, arrogantly swaggering and looking around the room like he owned the place.

  Gabe straightened from where he was leaning over Meiko’s desk looking at something with her. “Can I help you Vlad? Toshi?” The two officers stopped, the one in back stumbling into the other.

  “Oh, Gabe, you’re here,” one of them said.

  “I think you mean, Detective Bach,” Gabe responded, putting his hand in one pocket and rising to his full height. He was a big, tall figure. Imposing even. But Holly often forgot that, since he took such devilish pleasure in calling her kiddo and teasing her. If anyone else had called her that, she would have taken issue with it. But since it was Gabe . . . well . . . and sometimes, maybe she wondered if he wasn’t reminding himself that she was off-limits. He’d been married to Meg and in all the time that he’d known Holly, she was just that: Meg’s younger sister.

  But now, with the divorce and everything, he was just a man and
she was a woman. Don’t go there, I can’t even believe . . . she scolded herself, pulling her eyes from Gabe, and focusing back on the uniformed officers who’d come barging into the unit.

  “Right, Detective Bach. We were, uh, looking for you, actually,” the rougher-looking one said, glancing at Holly and flashing her a scowl, then looking quickly back to Gabe.

  Oh so, that’s what they’re doing, Holly thought, noticing how they looked at her, relieved that Gabe stepped in, if a little annoyed. She could take care of herself.

  “What is it, Vlad? I’m here. Spit it out,” Gabe said, moving away from Meiko’s desk. Everyone in the room watched, though the Druiviin, Daxan, appeared to try to busy himself with his v-screen keyboard.

  “Er, how’s the investigation going?”

  “The Trippel?” Gabe asked, frowning and adjusting his waistband. He leaned out and the gun at his belt flashed as his blazer dropped open and then closed again.

  “Right right. Any new suspects or leads?”

  “The boss wants to know,” the one apparently called Toshi said.

  “You’re on an errand for Izak? Really?” Gabe asked, laughing. He tilted his head down as though he was trying to hide his laughter. “Alright guys, thanks. Mission accomplished. You asked me. Now you can go tell the boss he can come and ask me his goddamn self if he’s curious about my investigation.

  “Now run along. We’ve got a lot of work to do and we’re on a schedule,” Gabe leaned back down to point at something on Meiko’s v-screen and then tapped it.

  “Bye Vlad, bye Toshi,” Meg called, reminding them to get out. She waved as they turned and walked away. They both gave her withering glances just before they left the room entirely.

  “Cretins,” Meg said once they were gone.

  “They were here because of me, weren’t they,” Holly said.

  “Yeah, word must have gotten around that you were out, and visiting the precinct.”

  Holly shivered and rubbed her arms.

  “Don’t worry about them, if they try anything—” Meg said but didn’t finish.

  “What? You’ll do what? Take them out? Tattle on them?” Holly’s tone surprised herself. She hadn’t realized she’d been so irritated by the little scene. There was just something that made her feel helpless and brought back memories of Graf. The way those cops swaggered. The way they moved and took up a room with their presence. It was like they sincerely believed they were above the law.

  Meg gave Holly a reproachful look. “Yes. All of the above, and then some. Just because you’re an annoyed cop and feel that justice wasn’t done, doesn’t give you the privilege to go on a vigilante rampage. Not only that, this is the station. Threatening people, wordlessly or with words, is also unacceptable. Vlad and Toshi just happen to have been some of the biggest friends to Graf. For all I know—“ she stopped, staring at the suspect wall where there were images of grisly murder scenes as well as photos of the irritated potential perpetrators.

  “What?” Holly asked, looking where Meg was staring. Had she seen something?

  “Anyway, Look, let’s get some lunch, alright. We can talk about this somewhere else.”

  She grabbed her jacket off the back of her chair and pulled Holly by the hand as she passed her on the way out.

  “I’ll be back in a bit. Lunch,” she announced to the room.

  8

  They were out on the street before either of them noticed that Gabe had tagged along. “Seriously?” Meg asked, irritated once she noticed him.

  “Of course,” he said. “What can I say? I missed my favorite ex-sister-in-law and I miss my ex-wife when she’s not around to run the unit.”

  Meg didn’t answer, but pushed into the crowd and led them a few streets out of the district, passing shops and bistros until she led them into an elevator attached to a nearby jade tower, and they went up to take the Spireway. “Sorry I know this can take longer, but—” Meg said, glancing over Holly’s shoulder to see if anyone got off the elevators and followed them onto the platform.

  “Are you worried we’re being followed?” Holly asked, shocked. They wove through crowds heading toward the elevator they’d just left.

  “Maybe. You saw Vlad and Toshi, right? We don’t know—” she stopped again.

  “I already told her,” Gabe said, “Let’s go. Ride’s here.” He pushed them both gently toward their gondola that was currently being emptied by a group of loud teenagers.

  Meg punched in their destination and then sat down on the bench around the edge.

  “Told her what?” Meg asked, finally appearing to relax. She rubbed her neck with one hand.

  “Come on, Meg,” Gabe answered, hitting the controls to lower the protective glass windows. “I need the wind. The closed in feeling isn’t good.” He reached into his blazer and pulled out a pair of gray sunglasses, which he put on.

  “He told me about the mole,” Holly said, figuring she wasn’t supposed to mention the corruption. She watched Gabe from where she leaned against the forward-end of the gondola. The wind whistled in her ears as she studied him. There were beads of sweat around his hairline. She’d forgotten about his claustrophobia. He’d been hiding it better than she remembered—on the elevators and in the station. He was a series of intriguing contradictions, which was part of why he was hard to get along with for Meg, Holly supposed. He loved the city, but hated how closed in he felt in it, with the crowds and the massive towers. He preferred the Spireway for all his transportation, but had to take elevators to get to it and he hated them. A lot of cases he and Meg worked put them in closed-in spaces and so Meg ended up doing a lot of directing the forensic teams away from the crime scenes when he had to be there. She had to run interference for him. It was one thing to deal with in a work partner with, and another to go home to it at the end of those days. Too much maintenance, according to Meg.

  But Holly thought that at the end of the day, he had to be worth it. Because if Gabe wasn’t worth it for Meg, then what hope was there for Holly? She’d had her chance, and picked Graf. And well, that didn’t end up so great.

  “Right. Well, that’s a good reason to leave for important conversations,” Meg said. “And we don’t know who this lead is from, the one Gabe wants to give you. And we don’t know where it will go. We’ve got no idea if it’s related to some other things or if it’s in a class all its own.” She clasped her hands together, then separated them to indicate these two possibilities. “Which is why I don’t want to give it to you, Holly. I just got you out of that shitty place. I don’t want to send you back by getting you mixed up in some shady business.”

  “She’ll be fine, Meg,” Gabe said, gesturing to Holly. “She’s tough as hell and can get herself out of any situation that might be questionable.”

  “Maybe, Gabe, maybe.” Meg sighed. “But it bothers me that you went behind my back to try to get her to take the lead.”

  “I love it when you guys talk about me like I’m not here,” Holly said. Gabe smirked like he heard her, but he answered Meg’s concerns instead.

  “Well, what was I supposed to do? It was obvious you weren’t going to give it to her without some prompting. And she doesn’t have a job,” he said, appealed to Meg. Then he turned to Holly. “Listen, Holly, I’m looking out for you. More than your sister, who just wants to keep you in her apartment, safe from the world, safe from horrible men like Graf, safe safe safe. The world isn’t safe, Meg. But Holly has proven that she can handle shit.”

  “What are you proposing?” Meg asked in a steely voice.

  “We give her a gun, give her the lead, and let her use her own judgment. She can go to the meeting and if she has a bad feeling about it, she makes that call. Maybe the payoff will be good. Maybe it’s some easy job like, I don’t know, transporting an important head of state or tracking down some husband who’s a cheat, that kind of thing.”

  Meg fumed quietly. The gondola swayed around a turn. Gabe caught hold of one of the overhead straps and steadied himself a
s Holly rocked with the motion, subconsciously balancing. She’d missed this sort of feeling, this sort of freedom.

  They cruised into a dock and the gate opened.

  “Let’s go. I’m thinking about it,” Meg announced curtly.

  * * *

  Down on the street, Meg led them through the crowds and then stopped in front of a shop with a sign up that flashed in orange neon: The Molten Taco.

  “Oh, my favorite,” Gabe said. The walls of the joint were the kind that lifted up into the ceiling on tracks, leaving it breezy and cool inside. Holly could see why Gabe liked it—he didn’t feel suffocated inside. He hurried in with Holly and Meg on his tail and immediately ordered a plate of tacos.

  “I thought you ate already,” Holly said when he was finished paying.

  He grinned. “That was breakfast.”

  Meg ordered the Druiviin-style tacos and glanced expectantly at Holly. “Get something. I’ll pay for it.”

  “Oh, wait,” Holly said, remembering the novas from that psycho, Darius, back at the club. She pulled a a few coins out of her pocket and ordered two tacos.

  “Where’d you get that?” Meg asked, staring at the coin.

  “Some crazy dickhead who involved me in his cheaters scam at a club.”

  “Cheating scam?” Meg repeated, her brow furrowing.

  Gabe laughed. “I’m sure it’s nothing. Probably. We don’t need to worry about it.”

  “Good idea. I wasn’t happy about it, but nothing else happened and I’m fine.” From the corner of her eye, Holly caught Gabe flashing Meg a look that seemed to say, “See?”

  Holly didn’t know what she would do, even if the two detectives decided it was a brilliant idea to give her a gun and let her have this lead. She wasn’t confident about having that kind of power available at all times. She’d used an aether gun before. And didn’t like to think about how that went or the ramifications that came from using one on another living being.