Stalker's Luck (Solitude Saga Book 1)

by Chris Strange

  “Talk to her. I have questions. Too many questions. Not that any of them matter. But I have to ask.”

  “And then?”

  “I don’t know. I hadn’t got that far.”

  “Hm.”

  “What?” he said.

  “Are you going to try to get her off Temperance?”

  He looked around. “Is there any booze here?” Next to the computer console was a small fridge. Eddie gestured to Knox. “Hey, check the minibar, will you?”

  “Eddie,” Dom said.

  “What?”

  “You know we can’t take her with us if she doesn’t have a pass. And if she had a pass, she’d be long gone.”

  Knox pulled open the minibar. Empty. Eddie slumped back down in his seat.

  “Eddie,” Dom said.

  “I’ll figure something out. We’ll find a forger and—”

  “No, Eddie. The Feds would find her. You know how they watch us. They’d catch us before we got five thousand clicks from the station. They’d send her right back to Temperance. We’d forfeit the contract, probably end up in prison ourselves. They’d confiscate the Solitude. We can’t bring her with us.”

  “No,” he said. “You don’t have to. But I do. You don’t want to risk your own neck, that’s fine. I get it. I’ll find another ship. I’ll take her myself.”

  “You can’t afford a ship.”

  “I’ll pay for it out of my cut when we catch Roy Williams.”

  “And you’ll go off alone, is that it? Just take all your shit out of the Solitude and go? Go where? Where would you take her? To the Outer Reach? It’s the only place you might be able to hide her away from the Feds. Or will you become a nomad? Just spend the rest of your days flying around the system, getting supplies shuttled in to you, just you and her together forever in the void. Is that what you want? Forget your stories, forget why you follow me around with a gun strapped to your hip. Just sit in space until your life support fails and the cold takes you.”

  He waved away her words and stood up. “Forget it. I’m going to find some booze.”

  “Like hell you are,” she said. “Leone’s men are out looking for us. And I have to contact the Feds and give Pine a report.”

  “Do it without me. Guy’s a fucker anyway.”

  “Eddie, sit the hell down and put some ice on those injuries before you tear something.”

  He strapped his gun back on. “We have any ammo?”

  “No.”

  “You’re lying. I can always tell when you’re lying.”

  She scowled. “Fine. There’s a magazine in the bag.” She waved at a duffel bag at the end of the bed. “It’s all there was left of yours in the armoury. Now sit down, all right?”

  He ignored her. He riffled through the bag, found the full magazine, and slid it into his pistol.

  “Eddie, for the love of Man,” Dom said.

  He holstered his gun and went to the door. He paused, hand on the knob.

  “You know what, Freckles?” he said. “I count you as one of my only true friends. Who else would’ve come to save me with such a ridiculous display of firepower? But you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

  “No,” she said. “I think I know you better than you know yourself.”

  He didn’t have anything to say to that. So he left the hotel room without another word and went down the hallway, listening to the sounds of lovemaking all around him.

  22

  “Surly son of a bitch, ain’t he?” Knox said when Eddie was gone.

  Dom shook her head and said nothing. She’d never seen Eddie act like this before. He’d always been a man full of passion that he tried so desperately hard to hide. The monetary reward of the contract was always an afterthought for him, as much as he liked to pretend otherwise to the Feds.

  But this—talking about leaving, trying to skip out with this woman—it wasn’t like him. As much of a pain in the arse he was on the long trips through space, he was good at what he did. He was loyal. And even if you couldn’t rely on him to always be there, he was there when it mattered.

  They made an odd couple, they had ever since she found him in that bar on Pilgrim’s Rest, so deep into his own stories he’d racked up a quarter million vin gambling debt with the loan shark Dom was tracking. He’d helped her then in exchange for a take of the bounty, and then he’d wormed his way onto her ship and proved his usefulness in contract after contract. After fleeing New Calypso and getting picked up by the Feds, she’d forgotten what it was like to have friends, comrades, people to count on when your back was against the wall and the predators were closing in.

  Well, fine. She’d been alone before, she could be alone again if that was what he wanted. She wasn’t his wife and she wasn’t his mother and she had no desire to be either. Friendships ended, partnerships ended. It was the way of things. Eddie could do whatever the hell he liked. It was what he did best.

  “How long until you can get that tracking information on Williams?” she said to Knox, a little more forcefully than she’d intended.

  Knox looked up from the computer console, raising his eyebrow.

  “You might want to try asking me a little nicer, sweetcheeks. I’ve already got the biggest part of what I went into that goddamn death trap for. I’ve got my travel pass. You’re lucky I’m still here.”

  She stared at him for a moment. Then she rose from the bed, stretching to her full height.

  “Listen very carefully. We made a deal. You get your pass. In exchange, you get me to Williams. If you choose to back out on that, I have very little use for a backchatting augment fugitive. And I may reconsider Eddie’s proposal to turn you over to the Feds.”

  He put up his hands. “Easy, easy. Down, tiger. I’m not planning on abandoning you yet. I still want to get my hands on that bastard’s money. I just don’t want to end up back in the situation I was in today. Sending me into the lion’s den to retrieve your friend went way above our original agreement. I just want a little compensation.”

  “Do you now? And what kind of compensation would that be?”

  “Instead of a third of Williams’ money, I get all of it.”

  She snorted.

  “I’m serious,” he said. “Do I look like a fighter? I got access to the security system, I got into the central command console to get his data, and then I helped get your friend out of that casino. While people were shooting at me. That wasn’t the original deal. So I want to be paid.”

  It was getting more and more tempting to deliver him to the Feds. But she still needed him. And if she was honest, she’d known this was coming. She’d heard it in his voice as soon as she asked him to go in to pick up Eddie. Damn it, Eddie.

  “Two thirds,” she said finally. “I can’t guarantee you Eddie’s share of Williams’ money. But you can have mine. Assuming you can keep the Feds from confiscating it.”

  He thought about it a moment, then nodded. “All right. Two thirds. In answer to your earlier question, I’m fucked if I know how long this will take. I’d say settle in for a long stay. Do we have any food?”

  “I raided a vending store on the way in. We’ve got a fine selection of dried fruits, jerky, and highly processed gruel.”

  “My favourite. Bring me something, will you?”

  She tossed a packet of jerky at the back of his head. It slapped against him and he turned to glare at her.

  “Thanks,” he said flatly.

  “You’re welcome.”

  She sat there for a few seconds, staring off into space. Part of her wanted to head back out there, pound the streets, find Williams the old-fashioned way. But she knew all that’d get her right now was a bullet in the head. Stalking in tourist cities like this was always the worst. The criminal element was too powerful, the local law so greased up they wouldn’t chase a murder if it happened to their own grandmother. And the population was too transient, too excited. The city was packed with too many people that didn’t care that they were funding syndicate memb
ers as long as they could indulge their own vices. Like these people in the rooms around her, fucking away like they were trying to out-moan each other. No one had an identity here, just a persona that they slipped into like a suit. And Williams was the same.

  No, she was stuck here in this room until the augment came up with something. That was her best lead. And it meant she was sitting here with nothing to do.

  To keep her mind off the pain in her jaw, she dragged her submachine gun into her lap and started stripping it. The mindless task cleared her thoughts, let her focus. She hadn’t brought everything she needed to clean the weapon, but she disassembled and reassembled it anyway, twice, three times. The tension never drained completely, but slowly she found herself able to think clearly again.

  The job hadn’t changed. Find Roy Williams. Apprehend him. Turn him over to the Feds. Everything had gone to shit, but the job remained. Knox was helping find him. But she still needed to apprehend him. And for that, she’d need weapons.

  She was down to the last magazine of her submachine gun. Another twelve rounds for her revolver in addition to the load it was already carrying. And that was all she had on her. She wished she hadn’t had to ditch the sniper rifle.

  Eddie was running low on ammunition as well. If he was still interested in helping. There wasn’t much left in the armoury on the Solitude. And in any case, she’d decided to stay away from the ship until the heat died down. It wouldn’t be hard for Leone or Williams to find the Solitude, if they hadn’t already. No, the risk of walking into a trap was too great. But there had to be at least a couple of arms dealers left on the station. Somewhere they could go.

  “Knox,” she said. “Bones and the rest of your crew were all armed.”

  “I noticed.”

  “We need guns and ammo. Where’d they get theirs?”

  “No idea,” the augment said without looking up from the computer. “But why bother looking? I don’t think Bones will be needing his guns anymore.”

  “They had a stash?”

  “Not enough to outfit an army, but for all your personal defence needs, I think they’ll have just what you’re looking for.”

  “Where?”

  “Upstairs from the chapel. There’s a room that used to be the manager’s office. The guns aren’t hidden.”

  She licked her lips, stood up, and peered through the curtains at the street below. A couple of tourists bounced along, hand-in-hand. She couldn’t spot any thugs in the perpetual semi-darkness.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll be back soon.”

  “Wait, you’re going now?” The augment stopped working and looked at her. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Eat your jerky and get back to work.” She hung her submachine gun in place beneath her arm and pulled on her duster.

  “What if Leone comes?”

  She shrugged, slipping her revolver into its holster. “Throw your jerky at him.”

  “This isn’t funny, sweetcheeks.”

  “No one knows we’re here. And if Leone does know, me being here isn’t going to save your arse.”

  “You don’t know that. He might go easier on me once he’s taken his anger out on you.”

  She went to the door. “Lock the door behind me. And keep working. I want Williams’ location by the time I get back. The sooner you get it, the sooner we find him, and the sooner we can all get the hell off this station.”

  “I’m aware of that. I’d just prefer to get off this station in a ship rather than being flushed out the airlock with half a dozen holes in me.”

  “Wouldn’t we all.”

  He scowled at her until she closed the door and left him to it.

  23

  It took Roy a few minutes wandering the streets to get his bearings. Temperance wasn’t a big town, but his need to keep a low profile had meant he hadn’t had much time to explore it since he broke away from the other fugitives. In the end he had to find a public comm terminal and bring up a tourist map to find out where he was and identify the address of the place he was looking for.

  Leone owned property all over the station, not just casinos but brothels and strip clubs and hotels and bars. According to the screamed confessions of Leone’s man, Scott Hudson, he owned a small but classy hotel near the spaceport that was maintained to accommodate staff and visiting acts for his shows. In case of emergency, it was also used as an evacuation point for the more valuable of his staff.

  Lilian would be there. Roy had no doubts about that. Leone wouldn’t send her off to fend for herself in the chaos. He wanted to keep a tight hand on her, to continue to degrade her and use her for his own purposes. The thought made Roy’s blood boil.

  Leone’s men were spreading through the streets as he set off towards the hotel. As a pair of them walked past, one scanned him up and down. But they made no move to stop him. They were looking for the stalkers. He was just another tourist to them.

  The wound in his thigh was aching irritatingly by the time he stopped down the block from the hotel. It was a quieter, more dignified looking hotel than the businesses surrounding it. No neon, no gaudy colours, just a simple white facade and an old-fashioned design that wouldn’t be out of place on Babel.

  The main entrance was a revolving door. Roy could see the lobby beyond, all thick carpets and warm lighting. A single guard was at the door, a grim-looking woman in a black coat that didn’t hide the machine pistol hanging at her side. She stood in the shadow of the entranceway, the orange tip of a cigarette glowing between her lips. Her eyes tracked the tourists strolling past.

  Roy dropped the butt of his own cigarette, ground it beneath his shoe, and put a new unlit cigarette between his lips. With his hands in his pockets, he headed down the street towards the hotel.

  The guard eyed him as he closed. He could see her tighten her grip on her gun.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “Can I have a light?”

  “Get lost, stranger.”

  “Just let me light it with yours.” He leaned in towards her. Her gun twitched towards him.

  He slammed her up against the wall with the full force of his body, pressing her gun back against her stomach so she couldn’t aim it at him. Before she could cry out, he pulled the box cutter from his pocket and dragged the blade across her throat.

  She stared at him through shocked eyes. The blood bubbled from her neck as she tried to speak. He stepped back quickly, taking her machine pistol with him.

  She slumped down against the wall, clutching her throat. He reached into her pocket, took her keys and a spare magazine for the gun, and left her there.

  He stepped through the revolving door. No one in sight. No one manning the reception desk or the bar. Most of Leone’s people would be on the streets, searching for the stalkers.

  He hurried across the lobby, wiping his box cutter blade clean on his sleeve. He punched the elevator call button and stood glaring at the floor countdown for a second before growling with frustration and heading for the stairs.

  He’d waited years to get her back, and the years had turned into months and then days and then hours. And now he was so close he couldn’t wait another second. This was the one thing that had kept him going through the long dark hours in that tiny box floating through the void. The one spark of hope and rage that had propelled him to freedom. Knowing that the demented bastard who he once counted among his closest friends had his paws all over Lilian. The only reason to not put a belt around his own neck and end it all.

  Now he’d love to put that belt around Leone’s neck and watch him go blue and then grey, smell his stink as he pissed himself when the last vestiges of life crawled out of that disgusting husk of a man. And maybe he still would, one day. But first he had to get Lilian off the station. Get her safe. Then he would have all the time in the world.

  He emerged from the stairs on the first floor and ran down the hallway, banging on doors as he went. “Lilian! Lilian, it’s me.”

  He could hear the nervous cries and whisper
s of people inside the rooms. But no answering call came. He ran back to the stairs and up to the next level and started down the hallway again. “Lilian!”

  A woman’s voice caught in a room as he passed. He stopped and turned back to the door. He hammered on the door with his fist. “Lilian. Lilian, is that you?”

  He stepped back and kicked the door. It shuddered. He kicked again. Again. The synth-wood splintered. He growled and slammed his weight into it. The wood around the lock gave and the door flew open.

  A female escort in a red gown cowered in the corner of the room, both hands and one bare foot lifted as if to ward him off.

  Roy snarled and ran back down the hall and up to the next floor. And the next. And the next. Where was she? She had to be here. She had to be!

  Top floor. He banged on door after door. Nothing.

  “Lilian!” he bellowed.

  He slammed his injured palm against a door, leaving a bloody handprint behind. The door creaked open under the force of his blow.

  He stopped, stared at the door as it opened a crack. “Lilian?”

  He pushed open the door and stepped into the hotel room. A pair of high-heeled shoes sat lined up next to the front door. The curtains were pulled, but the lamp in the corner was on.

  He brought the machine pistol up and moved through the central room. An open door led into a bedroom. The bedspread was dented where someone had been sitting on it. A tab lay forgotten on the bedside table. He picked it up, stared at it. Put it in his pocket.

  “Lilian?”

  He checked the bathroom. Empty. The whole room was empty. But she’d been here. He could smell her scent in the air. Even after all this time, he hadn’t forgotten her smell. But where the hell had she gone?

  A black mark caught his eye on the skirting board running along the wall next to the front door. He bent down. It was a mark made by a shoe. Not the high heels. A man’s leather shoe. It could’ve been there for years for all he knew. But a place like this didn’t leave marks like that on the walls. It was recent.

  There’d been a struggle. Someone had come and taken her. Taken her without letting her get her tab or her shoes.