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

by Nicole Grotepas

Holly shivered, remembering the fortune the woman had forced upon her. What a witch! Going around, forcing fortunes on unsuspecting bystanders.

  “List is done. We’re set, people,” Danielle said. “Just waiting for the go-ahead from flight control.” She waltzed over to her throne and sat down, leaning back in it like it was as comfortable as a sofa. “Just a few rules on my ship, and you’ll follow them, or I’ll dump you on an abandoned space station. Yes, I will.”

  “You know, you don’t need to threaten us all the time. We’ll probably just go along with your rules,” Charly pointed out.

  “A good threat is a beautiful thing. They entertain me,” Danielle said, forming a temple with the fingers of both her hands. “When we depart port or dock, I like everyone to be on the bridge. Call me crazy, it’s just a whim. We don’t haul around many passengers, but when we do, I need eyes on everyone. Second, when we have cargo and we’re on silent-running, everyone needs to shut up. Their scanners can pick up frequencies, so we just go dark. That will be the case as we move close to your target. And last, the house always wins. Like if you guys decide, ‘oh, let’s play cards’ or something, if Lucky’s playing, you guys have to let him win. Sorry, just a rule we have.”

  Wick glanced at them and smirked.

  Of course he smirked. He was just that kind of a person.

  “No problem there,” Shiro said. “We left the gambler back on Kota.”

  Wick looked crestfallen and turned back to his console, a noticeable slump in his shoulders.

  “Sorry, Lucky,” Danielle called to him. She looked back at Holly’s crew. “Well, if you get a hankering, that’s the rule. Hardly anyone ever gambles with Wick, though. Because he always wins. On this ship. Oh, one more thing, the White Witch’s fortunes often come true, so careful with her.”

  Melba nodded lazily. She looked tired.

  “And Lucky put in his fortune-telling eye and the patch. So if you guys want to get fortunes, word to the wise: be careful. But also have fun! There’s a lot of fortune-telling on our ship. We keep it entertaining. I’ve been promised a lot of money. Like, a lot, a lot lately. Still waiting for those money ones to come true,” she said, throwing Wick a dangerous glare.

  He cast a hunted look over his shoulder, then quickly turned back to his console.

  Danielle flashed a knowing grin in Holly’s direction.

  28

  Holly spent the first half of the journey in her bunk with the privacy curtains closed. She dreamed, then woke in sweat-soaked clothes, reliving the nightmares of the attack that had started her fear of spaceflight.

  After waking from one episode, she lay still in the bunk and attempted to meditate. Charly came by with a drink and asked if she wanted it. Holly turned it down. Odeon appeared soon after, checking on her, wondering if she’d be interested in his calm-song. She wasn’t. They left.

  Voices outside the bunk drifted in, then faded. The sounds outside the closed-off bed reminded her that she wasn’t alone. That was a good thing.

  The terror began to subside.

  Holly rose, changed her clothes, and went in search of her crew.

  Narrow corridors in soft yellow lighting connected the various areas of the ship. That faintly sweet smell of aether power ran through the corridors, tinged with the scent of the dust living in the rugs and tapestries hanging over some of the exposed walls.

  Holly’s boots clanged over the metal flooring. She dragged her hand along a cold banister that ran the length of every corridor, passing the badly drawn signs that directed passengers guided her to the galley.

  She found a beer in the fridge, opened it, and took a sip. Though she wasn’t hungry, she should probably eat. She found some trail mix and munched on it half-heartedly. But terror and hunger never went together, and she threw most of the package away.

  She would have felt guilty wasting the food and making a mess in the galley, but taking care of that stuff was what she was paying Wick extra for. According to Wick. She still wasn’t sure that was the truth.

  After finishing the beer, which gave her a small buzz and eased some of the tension, she headed for the bridge.

  Soon she was standing outside the open hatch. She stepped inside, and the heavy door closed behind her. She moved quietly, trying to be discreet, wanting to stay under the radar.

  Music played over speakers; an odd addition, but Holly liked it. Danielle was nowhere to be seen. Wick sat at the navigation console, his pegleg propped on a stool, his attention switching between the console and Shiro and Charly, who sat near him like teenagers vying for his attention.

  Odeon had seated himself on the carpet near Melba, and his legs were crossed at the ankle as he leaned back on his arms, talking quietly with her.

  Holly sauntered over to get a better view of what Shiro and Charly were doing.

  “My turn,” Charly said. She took a breath. “Will I land the big soiree for the Centau New Year celebration?” She leaned forward and lifted up Wick’s eyepatch with gentle fingers.

  Holly recoiled. It was so forward.

  “ ‘Outlook good,’” Charly said. She let go of the flap. Whatever was under there glowed with a blueish light. “Yes! I had a feeling about that one.”

  “Wonderful news for you, lass. Alright, alright. My turn again. Hmm, let me see.” Shiro balanced his forefinger against his lip. “Ah, yes. Shall I loan my father money to expand his haberdashery business?” He lifted the flap while Wick held still, almost looking annoyed. “ ‘My sources say no’.”

  “This is how Wick tells fortunes?” Holly asked, forgetting the fear that nibbled at the edges of her mind. "I thought you didn't like fortunes, Shiro."

  “Hols, it’s great,” Charly said, looking up as she hovered near them. “The fake eyeball has a floating thing in it that changes when the light shines on it. So you ask it a question, then lift the flap, and it tells you something.”

  “Yes, Ms. Drake, I don't like real fortunes. This is just fun, however. And the fortunes are really just answers to yes-no questions. For some reason.”

  “What reason?”

  “Because it only answers yes-no questions,” Wick growled.

  “Try it, Hols.”

  “No thanks.”

  The thought of getting any closer to Wick than she had to made her stomach turn. It wasn’t the eye or the fake leg, it was his mannerisms. Maybe some message she was getting on a subliminal level—a scent. Or a vibe that touched an ancient part of her brain and set off alarms.

  Plus, he was just kind of a dick. Otherwise, those things—the eye, the leg, the mishmash clothing he wore—were interesting. He was strange and mysterious. But the growl and his attitude were off-putting.

  “Come on, it’s fun.” Charly furrowed her brow at Holly.

  “Just as well,” Wick said in his low, scratchy voice. “Asking the Eye too many fortunes is bad luck.”

  “It is?” Charly asked. “I’ve asked it about forty questions at this point, but you didn’t think that was important to tell us till now?”

  Wick just smiled, the kind of smile that would have seemed innocent or a bit indulgent on someone else, but on Wick, it just looked lecherous.

  Charly’s face flashed through several expressions, many of them familiar to Holly. Surprise. Disgust. And then one that meant she was about to lose her temper, and was resisting applying a fist to a face.

  Shiro swallowed and looked awkward. “I see. I think, Charly lass, that he enjoyed your attention.”

  Wick laughed, which was a chilling sound, if Holly was honest.

  “Too right, but I’m not picky,” Wick said, sizing Shiro up.

  Charly did a double take, looking between Wick and Shiro, whose face took on a shattered look. Shiro was embarrassed but that was always hard to detect with his natural light brown skin tones.

  Charly laughed.

  Holly shook her head and walked away to join Odeon. She heard Charly and Shiro begin debating whether they’d already spelled so much bad luck for
themselves that more questions couldn’t possibly make it worse. But as she sat on the ground next to Odeon and clutched her knees to her chest, she heard the serious intonations of Charly asking Wick’s eye more questions.

  “Holly, Melba and I have been discussing her abilities to tell fortunes,” Odeon said, including his leader immediately. “It sounds like it’s done through a combination of her capacity to sense a thousand different strands of their possible futures, and seeing which one is brightest.”

  Melba nodded, her white curls bobbing around her face, her expression impassive, like she was deep in thought. For a moment, she brightened. “That’s right, which is why sometimes the events don’t happen—because a person might make a different choice. The surprising choice. Or someone else might eliminate the chance for the subject to make that choice.”

  “So,” Holly said, latching on to the kernel of an idea, “you might be completely wrong, but you still say what you see and just risk it?”

  “I do,” Melba said, inclining her head in a deep nod, and closing her eyes for a moment. They flashed open and fixed on Holly as though she’d thought of something new.

  “Doesn’t that seem, I don’t know, irresponsible maybe?” Holly asked, despite the fierce look in Melba’s face.

  “What’s irresponsible about it, dear?” the older woman returned, her voice surprised.

  “When you tell someone their fortune, you impact their choice and their future by turning them in a certain direction, or influencing them to not take action.”

  Melba leaned forward. Her eyes were sapphire blue and piercing, full of crystal-like flecks, and they stabbed through Holly. There was clarity in them.

  That was a surprising twist. Holly had imagined that the White Witch’s eyes would be foggy, hazy, perhaps. Something to do with the fortune-telling, she didn’t really know.

  “Who’s to say that wasn’t always the intent, girl?”

  Holly flinched at the word ‘girl’. “I don’t understand,” she said, bristling, a bit ticked to be scolded so harshly in front of Odeon.

  “I tell them what I see. They already know their possible futures, because those futures are embedded within the life they know. They can see it, if dimly, and it resonates with them when they hear it. What they choose to do from there is up to them. Now, sometimes it’s true that the futures I see have much broader consequences. Sometimes they’re about an entire race or a city. But usually, the fortune gives them the insight or the confidence to choose what they already know they should.”

  Holly listened, still irked that the woman had predicted death in her future—obviously there was no question that death waited in her future. It waited in everyone’s future. But so close?

  It was true that Melba had said that Holly would outwit death, but doubt nagged at her. What if she didn’t, in fact, outwit death? What if she failed?

  She exchanged a glance with Odeon, whose brilliant eyes seemed to know her thoughts, and then opened her mouth to speak. Before she had a chance to pepper Melba with more questions meant to guilt the woman into admitting that what she did was a terrible disservice, the hatch to the bridge opened, and Danielle Le Roi strode in and took over every conversation with her loud presence.

  Danielle clapped. “All right, everyone, break it up. Skedaddle. Fortune-telling’s done. We have five hours till rendezvous. Go get some rest and charge up before the show. Except you, Lucky. You’re on first watch. Two hours, and then I’ll spell you.”

  29

  Holly had never felt so nervous about a job as she did about this one. As she made her way back to the bridge with Shiro and Charly leading the way, still chuckling about some of the questions they’d asked Wick’s eye, Odeon walked beside her and lightly touched her upper arm. He kept his hand there, a soft, reassuring grip that soothed her. She hated that it did, sometimes, but it did.

  As though a person could in actuality stave off death, or dispel the terror of that dark specter waiting on everyone’s horizon.

  Still. Damn if it didn’t sooth her.

  He’d heard her fortune, everyone had, so she didn’t think it too far beyond the realm of possibility that he’d guessed it would weigh on her. Thought she wasn’t about to confess that.

  They reached the bridge and entered, spreading out to wait in the various stations each of them had picked to pass the journey. Holly sat at the console that Melba had previously used. Odeon stood behind her, his hand resting on the back of her chair, the other hand gripping the Ousaba club like a walking staff.

  “Welcome back, sleepyheads. Hope you got some rest. I have a surprise . . . We’re almost there! The target is in our sights. Now to set the mood—music off,” Danielle said to the bridge at large. “Wait, no. Music back on. Play my Space Instrumentals Mix at volume level sixteen.”

  The music swelled slightly until it was just below talking level.

  Danielle looked at Holly and winked. “It’s a road trip mix.”

  Holly exchanged a look with Odeon. Danielle was fairly easy to like, if only Wick wasn’t part of her package. Or the White Witch. But maybe Danielle was worth both of those irritants.

  Melba had retired to her quarters, muttering about needing a nap, and that seeing the future and arguing with silly girls exhausted her. Wick sat at his console, executing Danielle’s commands.

  “Road trip? I think you need to put on some before-the-fight music. Ass-kicking music,” Charly said, cracking her knuckles.

  Holly tried to meet her friend’s eye to call her off, but, well, getting Charly to do anything was hard when the fighter got an idea in her head. And it was worse right before a stressful gig.

  “Well, I classify intermoon travel like this as travel by road. The aetherways are roads,” Danielle said, half her attention on the screen.

  Charly sighed. “It’s too calm. We need loud music. Music that gets me ready to infiltrate and fight and win.”

  Danielle was starting to look annoyed. “I don’t know what to tell you. This isn’t a cheer squad. You could hire a personal cheerleader to follow you around, pumping you full of trite chants about how much ass you must kick.”

  Shiro motioned for Charly to tone it down.

  “Snoozefest,” Charly said, ignoring his warning. She started to pace.

  “Alright, cut it out.” Danielle’s voice was sharp.

  Holly exchanged a look with Odeon, then Shiro. They all seemed to be thinking the same thing--that Charly needed to shut up.

  Charly’s silence only lasted for a minute. “You know, I’m just thinking that if you can’t play something we all like, then you could turn it off.”

  “Charly!” Holly hissed.

  Danielle held up a hand. “It’s not a democracy. My ship, my rules, my music.”

  “She’s about to leave you on a defunct space station, Charly. A small one,” Odeon murmured.

  “Everyone, just be quiet,” Danielle said. She picked up her scepter and pointed it at each of them individually. “I like you guys. Best passengers ever so far. But shut up, or you won’t be.”

  Silence.

  “Thank you.” She put her scepter down and returned to watching the screen with her music choice playing in the background.

  Holly’s fingers itched to hang onto something as they approached the zeppelin. The ship was currently a dot the size of her thumbnail on the external viewscreen as they sailed toward it. She gripped the edge of the console that Melba had previously used to rest her elbows on. The older woman’s perfume still lingered in the area. A faintly floral scent, underlined with the fragrance of forested mountains.

  “I do love music to accentuate life,” Shiro remarked, inching closer to Holly. They’d each gotten in a short nap to charge up for the next leg of the journey.

  “Did you put on a new suit, Shiro?” Holly asked.

  “Indeed, lass. My father made it at my request—it’s an action suit. Designed for running and jumping. Performance material.”

  She waited to see if h
e’d laugh. When he didn’t, she bit back a smile and nodded.

  “But you’re not going to help him with expanding his haberdashery business?” she probed, recalling one of the questions he’d asked Wick’s eye. “Sounds like he might be onto something. Performance suits.”

  Shiro studied her, a thoughtful look in his brown eyes. “Most of his clients are the wealthy and elite. They have no use for such attire.”

  “There has to be more men like you. Action men, who need the flexible material of a performance suit, but who also want to look like they just stepped into the club for drinks, with a flock of beautiful women to choose from.”

  He blinked, a smile tugging at his lips. “Ms. Drake, are you ridiculing my performance suit? I suspect you are.” He shook his head, humor lighting up his eyes. “I needed to adapt. The job I normally do has been lost in these action-packed gigs. Besides, I’m tired of ruining my good suits.” He pretended to brush dust off his shoulder, then arranged his jacket and adjusted the tie.

  “We’re getting closer. Time to shut your faces, people,” Danielle said. She leaned forward on her throne, sighed loudly, and sat back, touching her scepter to her lips as she watched the zeppelin loom toward them. “Speed and a half, Lucky. Engage silent running. Engage cloak. Now, ready on my word to slow us down.”

  Wick complied, repeating her commands back to her as his hands danced across the slanted console. “Silent running is engaged. Music off.

  "Splendid, Lucky. Everyone, keep your mouths shut. And only the quietest breathing, if you have to breathe at all,” Danielle said.

  Holly took the opportunity to let out a final sigh. Who knew how long it would be till she could comfortably sigh again.

  Danielle flashed her a glare. “I’ll leave you on an abandoned moon.”

  “Won’t happen again,” she promised.

  “See that it doesn’t. Slow us down to fifty megameter per second, Lucky,” Danielle said. “Give me a read on our comparative speeds once that’s done.”

  Charly sneezed.

  Every eye on the bridge went to her, including Wick’s fake eye. At some point, he’d ditched the patch and put back in the unnerving glass version.