Short Stories of Aurora Rhapsody Page 3

  Alex had deposited Kennedy at the spaceport moments earlier, somewhat less refreshed and well-rested than requested. But it had been an enjoyable night. She stifled a yawn as she gained altitude and approached the nearest atmosphere corridor, but a smile replaced it. A couple of minutes remained for her to decide her destination once she hit space.

  It was a subversive notion, the idea that she was free. Free to choose where to go and what to do with her time.

  She wasn’t a goldbricker. She intended to run a business and had crucial appointments the next week she intended to keep.

  But at the conclusion of those appointments she would choose to take the jobs or not. If she took the jobs she would choose how best to fulfill the contracts. The path between the agreement and the delivery was hers to chart. She would succeed or fail on her own merits; her rise or fall would be of her own making.

  Until then she had six days to herself, nothing but her ship and the expanse of space to distract her.

  The ship exited the atmosphere corridor. The sky darkened to onyx and the stars brightened to opalescent ivory. Her father’s words from so long ago echoed in her mind.

  Siyane is perfect, sweetheart. My little star shining brightly. One day, milaya, the cosmos will be yours to tame. One day you will hold the galaxy in the palm of your hand. I know it.

  She killed the lights in the cabin and stood to take in the view as the fullness of space spread before her.

  Her head tilted in contemplation. Could she make it to Carina and get back to Earth in six days? She double-checked the parameters on the sLume drive…yep, she absolutely could. Six days round-trip for a spectacular view? Worth it.

  Now clear of Erisen Traffic Control, she ran a quick safety check then engaged the sLume drive. The stars blurred away to surround the ship in a soft halo.

  Hey Dad? I made it. I made it to the stars.

  S OLATIUM

  Morality could not be spawned by tweaking a few genes or shutting off a few neurons. Though humanity conquered the very stars, it remained unable to conquer the darkness within.

  In the dark, seedy underbelly of Pandora—a lawless colony on the best of days—a young woman who’s lost everything but her soul fights to reclaim her life from a violent, sadistic criminal despot. But when she’s given a chance for freedom, she realizes escape is not enough. First, a just punishment must be exacted for crimes committed.

  Set twelve years before STARSHINE: Aurora Rising Book One (Aurora Rhapsody #1) , Solatium is Mia Requelme’s origin story—and the story of how she and Caleb Marano met. It’s a story about criminals and those who punish them, but mostly it’s a story about the struggle to keep hold of one’s soul in the face of so much darkness.

  *

  Solatium is the story of how Mia and Caleb first met. It’s also a buddy-action tale that gives a peek into Caleb’s relationship with his former mentor, Samuel. But above all else, it’s Mia’s origin story. And she has one hell of an origin story!

  Solatium is best read after you’ve read Starshine at a minimum, so you have a sense of who Mia is now, but it works as a standalone story as well.

  D RAMATIS P ERSONAE

  * * *

  Mia Requelme

  Hacker, thief.

  Faction: Independent

  Caleb Marano

  Special Operations intelligence agent,

  Senecan Federation Division of Intelligence.

  Faction: Senecan Federation

  Samuel Padova

  Special Ops, SF Intelligence;

  mentor of Caleb Marano.

  Faction: Senecan Federation

  Eli Baca

  Underworld crime boss.

  Faction: Independent

  “Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand,

  Blood and revenge are hammering in my head.”

  — William Shakespeare , Titus Andronicus

  2310

  (12 Y EARS B EFORE THE E VENTS OF S TARSHINE)

  * * *

  PANDORA

  I NDEPENDENT C OLONY

  N ORTH- C ENTRAL Q UADRANT OF S ETTLED S PACE

  THE RELENTLESS THRUM OF HARD SYNTH spilling out of the dance club down the block set the fine hairs of Mia’s forearm on edge. She pressed the fingertips of her left hand onto the door lock. Her glyphs lit up to send a burnished chrome ribbon swirling from the base of her neck down her arm to the pads of her fingers.

  The glyphs seemed to fall into sync with the beat of the music, adopting the tempo the driving cadence demanded.

  The door slid open and she slid through it.

  It was pitch black inside the shop. She would kill for a decent infrared upgrade for her ocular implant, but paying for the single, solitary glyph stream had left her without a credit to her name, and now it was costing her credits she didn’t have. Worth it.

  She did have the floorplan stored in her eVi, however. She projected it to a tiny aural twelve centimeters in front of her face and felt along the walls in the dark until she located the business office.

  The office door was locked as well, but it was a pitiful effort, and she was inside in seconds. Once the door closed she activated the lights, confident the office was far enough back for the light not to be seen from the street, then went straight to the desk .

  The encryption on the control panel would be too robust for the internal hacking routines she kept stored in her eVi. She removed a small device from the pouch at her hip, connected it to the input port recessed in the desk’s surface, switched on the screen and went to work.

  Mia spared one sidelong glance at the dance club on her way out. Though she could see the strobes flash above the street and feel the rhythm of the music vibrating in her bones, the club couldn’t be any more out of her reach if it were parsecs distant. It belonged to a world she’d never seen—a world of shimmery synthetic silks, exotic cybernetic enhancements and personal starships. It belonged to people who were free.

  Seeing as she was not, she pivoted and went in the other direction, toward the levtram station. She needed to get the files she’d stolen to Eli.

  Not that Eli would comprehend anything on the disk. He’d pass it on to his boss, who would pass it on to their boss and so on until it landed on the desk of Aiden Trieneri, 2.4 kiloparsecs away on New Babel. She hadn’t been told why the files were desired, but they had included details on supply contracts and bank account transfers, several involving black market companies. So in her informed opinion, the head of the Triene criminal cartel wanted to blackmail the executives of Escapes Extraordinaire, probably for hundreds of thousands if not millions of credits.

  Whereas she simply needed twenty credits. They would buy dim sum and noodles at Sumi’s Cantonese House, with enough left over to pay for a ten-minute shower rental at the community center. Her stomach churned to remind her how long it had been since she’d eaten.

  Yesterday morning , it grumbled in an accusatory tone.

  There was a bread roll last night , she grumbled in retort .

  Oh, god, she was conversing with her stomach like it had sentience. She was going mad, and without even a chimeral addiction to blame for it. She had to get out of this nightmarish prison her life had become….

  “Give a guy a hit, doll?”

  She recoiled in disgust at the filth pawing at her arm. Oily, stringy hair hung in clumps around a gaunt face. His tongue flicked out at her from between cracked, bleeding lips.

  Her hand swept out to knock him to the ground. “I don’t have what you’re hunting for, trust me.”

  As Mia whipped away, something incongruous flitted in the edge of her vision. She continued walking and didn’t alter her demeanor while she scanned the area. Was someone following her? She casually checked over her shoulder, but saw nothing—nothing beyond the trippers and the drunks, the peddlers and the pawns.

  Maybe she was getting too paranoid; maybe it came with the madness. She shook off the apprehension. She’d almost reached her destination, anyway. Eli’s hangout sat
right in the heart of slum central.

  Chimerals were available everywhere on Pandora. Hell, the colony was effectively one big party planet. But there were two kinds of drug-seekers who resorted to frequenting the neighborhood known as The Channel: those who could only afford the cheap, dangerous chimerals, and those who used to be able to afford the quality stuff, had gotten addicted, had gotten poor and now could only afford the cheap, dangerous chimerals.

  She instinctively held her breath as she entered the ‘lounge’ where Eli spent many of his late night hours. Aside from the smell of too much stale sweat, Eli piped Surf through the ventilation system—the act of walking inside got you high, so gradually you didn’t realize it. He did it so his customers would be more relaxed and less inclined to haggle over price or product. He’d built up an immunity to it long ago. She’d written her own routine for her eVi to filter the chemical out of her bloodstream as fast as possible, but she still felt sick whenever she was inside .

  The bouncer grunted upon recognizing her and let her pass into the main room. In the smoky, wavering light it looked the same as it always did. Trippers lined the walls, sampling merchandise from the teaser dispensers while Eli’s muscle watched them, ready to toss anyone who got too greedy.

  Eli was sprawled on a couch in the middle of the room. Corpulent and greasy, his belly overhung atrocious fuchsia leather pants. A ripped, sleeveless shirt showed off glowing scarlet tattoos down both arms—they looked like glyphs, but they were fake. He wouldn’t know a self-directed cybernetics routine if it crawled up in his head and transformed him into a dancing monkey. She snickered to herself at the image; what if one already had?

  He was finishing up a business transaction as she approached. At his nod, one of his guys off to the side offered a square box to the customer.

  “…works out, there will be crates of this waiting for you.”

  The man turned to leave, throwing her a leer when he passed her. She ignored him to thrust the data disk from Escapes Extraordinaire toward Eli.

  “I got your files. Didn’t run into any problems. Now pay me.”

  He made a face at the disk and waved her off. “Go take it to Isaiah. He’ll get it on a transport. I’ll pay you when he says the data’s good.”

  Annoyance and hunger gnawed at her gut. “Fuck, Eli—I’m not one of your pansy runners!”

  His hand shot out and grabbed her wrist, yanking her onto her knees in front of him. “You’re whatever I say you are, sweetie, because I own you. Don’t I?”

  Spit gathered on her tongue, ready to spew forth. Hit him between the eyes with it. She could do it.

  “Say it!” His meaty, clammy fingers tightened their grip until they cut off the blood flow to her hand.

  She swallowed the spit, and the last vestiges of her imagined dignity accompanied it down her throat. The whisper escaped through gritted teeth. “You own me. ”

  “That’s better.” He let go with a forceful shove to send her sprawling onto her ass. “Now do as you’re told and take the disk to Isaiah.”

  “Yes, sir .” Hatred seethed in her glare as she crawled to her feet…but he had turned his back on her to gesture at the bartender for a drink.

  She stalked toward the door, acidic self-loathing rising up to burn her chest, so when another hand grabbed her bruised and aching wrist, she kneed the assaulter in the ribs.

  “Dammit, Mia!” Paul clutched at his side with a moan. “What’d you do that for?”

  “General principle,” she muttered and resumed course for the door.

  “Hey, wait—” he managed to regain a slight hold on her and dragged her into the supply alcove, then blocked her exit “—we need to have a conversation.”

  “Not now, Paul. I’ve got places to be.” She tore her wrist out of his grasp. She wanted to massage it but didn’t dare lose yet more face with yet more people who held power over her.

  “I think you owe me some credits before you go.”

  She sighed heavily as a flood of weariness—the existential kind sleep could never heal—overwhelmed her. “He hasn’t paid me yet, okay? Never mind that I’m the best hacker he’s got. I also have to be one of his bitch runners and ferry a delivery to the boss.”

  “Javier’s as good a hacker as you.”

  “No, he’s not. You know how I know he’s not? Eli put him in the hospital last week for buggering up a job on Galaxy First. Eli hasn’t put me in the hospital.” He’d come close a few times, but she kept this detail to herself.

  Paul’s jaw dropped for a beat until he recovered a measure of false bravado. “Javier’s sloppy—but so are you. I mean, I caught you at your dirty dealing, didn’t I?” He grabbed her by the hair and pinned her against the wall. “You make sure and send me my cut of your pay by sunrise, or I’ll rat you out to Eli. I’ll tell him you were skimming off your jobs, and he will slice your skinny neck open from ear to ear.”

  “Cause you’re too chicken-shit to do it yourself.” She kneed him again, lower this time, gathered her hair back into its tail and stepped over his writhing body. “You’ll get your money, like you always do.”

  She made it half a block before doubling-over and retching from the nausea—of the poisoned air inside, of her body’s attempts to save her from its ill effects, of her conscience’s disgust at the evening’s events. Or maybe it was the fear. It was only dry heaves, though. She hadn’t eaten in twenty hours.

  After a few slow inhales she straightened up and considered the long gauntlet of The Channel. Isaiah’s place was up in the far, far nicer Promenade, where proper criminals did proper business. She had a long way to go.

  If only she could keep going. Further, until there were stars ahead of her.

  There must be another way, a better way, of living. Glimpses of it teased her in the spaceport and on the exanet and at the synth dance clubs parsecs away down the street.

  She simply needed a chance to grab hold of it. One real chance.

  “She’s the one.”

  Samuel eyed Caleb skeptically as they tailed the young woman through a side thoroughfare of The Boulevard. “I know what you’re thinking, but she’s too young for you.”

  “No, she’s too young for you , old man—and just because you’re thinking it, doesn’t mean I am. She’s the right choice.”

  The woman had stopped to browse at a kiosk, and they did the same. Samuel picked up a neon lime t-shirt featuring an animated character painted on the front and held it out to inspect it. “All right. Tell me why. ”

  Caleb squelched a rude reply. Almost four years had passed since he’d been Samuel’s trainee; they were on this mission as equals. Technically. Yet he found himself answering as if he were still the student. “Watch how she moves. She’s cognizant of everyone around her—where they are, where they’re heading. Her eyes scan a crowd the way ours do—seeing it all and each tiny detail. This one’s smart, quick and self-aware.”

  “That means she’s a talented thief. It doesn’t mean you can turn her.”

  He grimaced when Samuel held the t-shirt to his chest, shaking his head in firm disapproval. “I’ve seen her interact with Eli’s people. If looks could kill, there’d be a string of bodies leading all the way from here to Eli’s door. She thinks she’s better than them, and she’s not wrong. But she’s also malnourished and essentially homeless, which means she doesn’t have a way out.”

  “And you’re going to give her one, be a big goddamn hero.”

  He frowned, taken aback by the cynical tone with which the statement was delivered. Not because Samuel wasn’t often cynical—he was—but because Caleb had assumed that was the goal. “Well…yes. If she gives us the access codes to Eli’s manufacturing facility, it’s just compensation.”

  “True.” Samuel folded the t-shirt and returned it to the table as up ahead the woman began moving again. After a suitable delay, they followed. “Sure you don’t want to grab one of Eli’s underlings and beat them until they spill their guts?”

  He
regarded his partner, deadpan. The man didn’t enjoy roughing up people, even thugs, any more than he did. Not much more than he did.

  Samuel groused and rubbed at his beard. “It was only a suggestion. If you say she’s the one, make your play. I’ve got your back.”

  “Why should I help you?” the woman snarled at Caleb like some kind of feral cat.

  He’d intercepted her as she pilfered a stack of disks from a merchant kiosk and escorted her to an alley off The Boulevard thoroughfare, then launched into his pitch. “Because I can get you out. I’ll even get you off-planet, to somewhere you can start a new life.”

  “I already started a new life once. Didn’t help.”

  Caleb smiled at her. It was genuine…and also happened to be part of the soft sell. “But I bet you have a list a kilometer long of the mistakes you made and how you would get it right the next time. Help me, and let me help you find your next time.”

  Her eyes narrowed warily to scrutinize him. He let her, refusing to wilt under her admittedly impressive stare, but also not bristling in challenge. He could see the thoughts race behind her dark irises, see her weighing the pros and cons of hearing him out…but when the scales didn’t tip in his favor after several seconds, he decided it was time to sweeten the deal.

  “I tell you what. Why don’t you let me buy you some dinner, and you can think it over while we’re eating.”

  She scowled and ran a hand through tangled, dirty hair, and he knew he had her. “Fine. It’s your money.”

  He gestured toward the alley exit and silently pulsed Samuel.

  We’re on the move. Burrito joint we passed farther up The Boulevard.

  I’ll follow dutifully behind and watch your ass.