Stalker's Luck (Solitude Saga Book 1) (2 page)

“Yes, sir,” Dom said. “We’re well aware. We’ve followed the reports. But they don’t say why he fled to Temperance after they abandoned the shuttle on Segan.”

Eddie peered at the tab. “There’s no picture.”

“What?” Dom leaned over the table. She glanced at Pine. “You don’t have a picture of him?”

Pine shook his head. “We have been unable to obtain any recent civilian photographs of Williams. All municipal records were transferred to the Federation following his arrest. But during the breakout, it appears Williams had a fellow prisoner hack the local databases and wipe most of the records.”

Dom understood now why the Feds had been so cagey ever since they’d taken the contract on Williams. The Feds were protective of their technology, but the truth was they didn’t really understand how it worked. It was all old tech, like the oxygen generators and the solar collectors and the grav drives that powered their largest ships and kept the artificial gravity operating in stations across the system. Technology from before the collapse of the Gypsy Gates, from before the Lonely Years, before the Gravity War, from the time when the Solar Federation was spread through thousands of systems across the galaxy.

The collapse of the Gypsy Gates had cut the Eleda system off from the rest of humanity. Now all they had left were the remnants of that age. The Fed databases, the stations, ships like the
Solitude
. They’d lasted three hundred years. But time had been hard on them. One by one, the remnants were breaking down. And the system was dying.

Not that the Feds wanted to admit that, of course. The party line was that the Gypsy Gates would one day reopen. That one day the Eleda system would be welcomed back into the arms of the Solar Federation, that these few million souls on the galactic frontier would once again be united with their billions of brothers and sisters of humanity.

What a crock of shit.

Eddie scrolled through Williams’ records on Pine’s tab. “There’s not even any identifying information. Height, weight, tattoos, age, nothing. Are we even sure he’s a man?”

Pine scowled. “I’m informed that he is in his fifties with a strong build.” He glanced at Dom. “About your size.”

“That’s it?” Eddie said. “How many people are on Temperance?”

“Eighty thousand.”

“That’s just residents,” Eddie said. “How many tourists you got down there partying it up, dropping a few hundred thousand vin on roulette tables and hookers? Another thirty thousand?”

“More or less,” Pine said.

Eddie pushed back his chair and picked up the spilled mug. “I’m getting some more coffee.”

“What
can
you tell us?” Dom asked.

Pine shifted in his chair like he was trying to decide whether to stand up and make himself taller. “Not much. We lost all records of his known associates. Most of the ones we know of are dead. Williams is a dangerous man.”

“No shit,” Eddie said as he poured himself another mug. “That’s why we’re here.”

“We recently received a message from a man on Temperance who claims to have information on Williams. Reverend Benjamin Bollard. The address is in the file.”

Great. A preacher. Just what she needed.

“We haven’t been able to question him,” Pine said. “The Accord has seen to that.”

Dom didn’t have to ask what accord. Since the Lyon Accord was signed, the Feds had control of inter-colony space, but had no jurisdiction on any station or colony except for Babel, the capital colony.

“The higher-ups have seen fit to give you the sole contract on Williams,” Pine said. “So I’ll be monitoring your progress.”

“We prefer to work independently, sir,” Dom said. She immediately realised it was a mistake. The lieutenant’s pinched lips pulled back in a sneer.

“I’ll expect to be kept up to date, stalker,” he said slowly, rising from his chair. “And I expect you to do your jobs quietly and efficiently. I do not want business disrupted on Temperance. But I will not allow Williams to die on that rusted hunk of metal and sin without facing the Federation’s justice. Do you understand me?”

Dom looked down on him, looked at his acne-scarred skin and the veins snaking through the whites of his eyes. She could smell the sweat rising off him. How many like him she’d killed. How many Federation uniforms she’d left drenched in blood. But they had her. She was on their leash. She was their dog now. So she barked.

“Yes, sir. I understand you, sir.”

Eddie strolled up behind the lieutenant, sipping his coffee. “Reward. Remind me. How much?”

Pine kept his eyes on Dom. “Eleven point one million.”

“Plus?” Eddie prompted.

Pine turned to Eddie and smirked. “Plus the six point five million time sensitive bonus.”

Eddie whistled and smiled at Dom. “Sounds sweet, don’t it? What did I tell you? Last chance bounties are where the money’s at.”

“Come to think of it,” Pine said to Eddie, “I don’t recall your purpose. Miss Souza is the registered stalker for this contract. What is your job, Mr Gould?”

“I’m a writer.”

“A writer.”

“Uh-huh.”

Pine glanced back at Dom, as if he thought he was being made fun of. “And what does a stalker team need with a writer?”

“I’m what you call the moral compass in this motley crew,” Eddie said. “Also, I’m a pretty quick draw. No reason a stalker can’t be a writer as well.”

“I suppose not,” Pine said. “I don’t recall ever hearing your name before. Would I know anything you’ve written?”

Eddie shrugged. “Maybe.
Massacre at Fractured Jaw
?
The Slow Death of Louie the Liar
?”

“Ah.” Pine nodded as if everything had become clear. “I thought you meant you were some kind of reporter. But I see. You write for the dimes. Little stories to entertain the working classes, correct?”

Eddie smiled and took another sip of coffee.

Pine gave his sneer a bit more practice, then nodded. “Very well. You have your contract. I look forward to hearing from you. You will return to the outpost when you have Williams in custody. The Federation thanks you for your service. Good hunting.”

He turned and strode back down the corridor and out the airlock. A moment later, the bootsteps of his marines clanged away. The airlock siren sounded once more. The door slid closed with a hiss.

Dom took a deep breath and forced the tension from her shoulders. She rubbed her forehead. Her head was throbbing. Fucking Feds.

“He never paid me for that coffee,” Eddie said. “Who does that? Who spills someone’s coffee then doesn’t pay for it? It’s rude, is what it is.”

“Leave it alone. That’s not Tarut coffee. We picked up the whole sack for five hundred when we resupplied at Karm station.”

“Well, he didn’t know that.” He tipped his mug in the direction of the airlock. “How old do you reckon he was? Did you see the way he looked at you? I think he was sweet on you, Freckles.”

“I told you not to call me that.”

“It suits you.”

“I don’t even have freckles.”

Eddie shrugged.

The ship groaned as the maglock disengaged. Out the port hole she could see the outpost’s gangway umbilical retracting back into the small Fed station. Beyond, the swirling blues of the gas giant Eleda VI filled space. A half dozen major stations orbited Eleda VI. They were all scheduled to die sooner or later. But Temperance would be next. If they didn’t capture Roy Williams before the station went cold, Dom’s bounty would go with it. And she’d be that much further away from paying off her indentured servitude to the Federation. That much further from being free of the Feds’ leash.

“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.