Chapter 19
SOLEIL
Soleil finished wiping down the last mirror in the upper guest cabins.
With a sigh, she stretched, the satisfying crack of her joints sounding through the room.
She packed up and put away her cleaning tools.
Slinging her satchel over one shoulder, she stepped into the hushed hallway leading toward the elevators.
The Sombra’s guest level was tranquil at this hour, almost too quiet, and the simulated lighting cast long, sterile shadows across the polished floor.
She was about to press the call panel when movement snagged her attention.
A figure stood at the far end of the corridor.
He was tall. Male, not in uniform.
He was scanning the area with the subtle impatience of someone seeking a specific target. His gaze landed on her, and he relaxed in recognition.
Fokk.
Her breath hitched.
She had no clue who he was.
Still, his energy, his crimson tattoos, and gangster lean raised the hair on the back of her neck.
She turned, hoping to look casual as she diverted her steps down a side hall.
She moved fast, but so did her pursuer.
His footfalls were quicker. He was closing in fast.
‘Don’t,’ she snapped as he caught up to her, reaching to sidestep him.
But his hand latched hard around her forearm and dragged her into the shadowy curve of the corridor.
Her shoulder slammed into the faux-marble column as he leaned in, his breath warm, his words hissed at her.
‘Times up, Red Queen.’
She glared at him, bristling. ‘Who the fokk are you and what do you want?’
‘Name’s Rodeo. Vern sent me.’
Her skin went ice cold.
She stared at him, every instinct screaming danger.
His face was hardened, pockmarked, rough with the grime of a man who knew his way around a knife fight, but not even a flicker of memory stirred.
‘You don’t remember me, do you?’ The man calling himself Rodeo snarled. ‘I was one of your capos, Your Scarlet Highness.’
Scarlet Highness. Red Queen.
The title she loathed so much, and the pain it represented, sent shards of agony through her.
How naive of her to think Vern decided to leave her alone.
Her knees nearly gave.
When she found her voice once again, it was tight with frustration.
‘Rodeo,’ she uttered. ‘Vern and my father had me locked in a fokkin’ mind control device for years. It rewrote my memories. Whoever I was, whatever I did, wasn’t me. So, nada, I don’t remember you.’
His mouth twitched, not with anger, but with an almost pitying expression.
‘Shame. You were wild when they had you going. Fire in your blood. Like your papa, but darker. Meaner. Fokk, you could bring the whole system to its knees.’
She winced at that and yanked her arm free. ‘What do you want?’
He reached into his coat and pulled out a matte black box, no larger than a small loaf of bread, and pressed it to her chest.
‘Vern said you’d need this.’
Her heart pounded.
She didn’t take it immediately. ‘What is it?’
‘Don’t open it,’ Rodeo said dryly. ‘Might go bang and take out this entire ship along with you.’
Her pulse hammered with panic, but she forced her face into a passive expression as her eyes narrowed. ‘So why the hell are you handing it to me?’
‘Because he said to,’ he replied, shrugging as if that absolved him of responsibility. ‘You take it with you. Keep it close. He’ll be in touch soon with instructions.’
She grabbed the box and shoved it into the bottom of her cleaning bag, fury laced with terror simmering in her gut.
‘You know this is sick. You’re all twisted. Vern’s not going to win.’
The capo tilted his head, as if examining her with new eyes. ‘Doesn’t matter if he wins. What matters is what you’ll do when he calls. Because he will, and you’ll answer. You always do.’
He thrust another bag at her. ‘This has all the gear you’ll need to fly free, Scarlet Bird, Red Queen, Crimson She-Wolf.’
She took it and stuffed it into her hover kit with a bitter twist of her mouth.
‘See you on the other side,’ Rodeo grinned.
With a sneered curl of his lip, he turned and disappeared down the corridor.
Leaving her alone in the sterile quiet, holding a box that might kill her, or someone else, if she made one wrong move.
Behind her, the elevator chimed.
She forced herself to walk like nothing was the matter, even as her skin crawled with dread.
Minutes later, Soleil stepped into the elevator, her limbs trembling with the aftershock of the strange man’s grip.
Also, with worry about what lay hidden in her hover cart.
The payload, whatever it was, rested beneath a heap of stained linens, stuffed in a ragged laundry sack.
The lift hummed as it moved up.
She wrapped her arms across her chest, the scent of chemical cleaner clinging to her uniform making her stomach twist.
When the doors parted, she forced her features into neutral calm and wheeled the cart toward the maintenance office.
She found Astra seated behind a desk, sorting through a box of supply tags.
‘Hey, hon,’ her colleague and friend chirped. ‘You look pale. You alright?’
‘Didn’t sleep much,’ Soleil muttered with a wan grimace. ‘My head’s foggy.’
Astra gave her a once-over, concerned but not probing. ‘You want some of my yerba tonic? It’s a kick in the face but clears up brain fog like nothing else.’
Soleil shook her head and forced a polite smile. ‘Later maybe.’
She kept her tone even, but her pulse galloped.
She waited for the locker room to clear, pacing the hallway under the flicker of recycled lights. When it was finally empty, she slipped inside and locked the door.
Her hands moved, though they trembled at the wrists.
She opened the hover cart’s concealed compartment and removed the box.
It was heavier than expected and warm.
She didn’t dare open it, didn’t want to see what sort of horror she was carrying.
With a soft grunt, she transferred the first package and the second to her cross-body bag and adjusted the strap until it pressed tight against her ribs.
Just as she finished zipping it closed, the door rattled behind her.
‘Soleil.’
Wren’s voice was gruff and impatient.
She cracked the door and peeked out.
‘Sir.’
‘You’re on double rotation tomorrow. We’ve got a suite inspection on Deck 24. Tess the Witch is on a rampage, so don’t be late.’
‘Yes, sir.’
He squinted at her. ‘You good?’
‘Fine,’ she breathed, then added, ‘Just tired.’
He grunted and trudged off, leaving her to exhale through her teeth.
She exited, walked briskly back toward the elevators, only to stagger as a bolt of pain sliced through her wrists.
She veered and stumbled into a narrow utility alley, hand clapped over her mouth to muffle the cry.
The anguish ebbed just enough for her to breathe and extend her forearm before her wrist holo burned and flashed.
Revealing his face as his voice, oil-slick and amused, uncoiled through the byway.
‘Well, well. Top of the morning, doll.’
Vern’s projection shimmered like static in front of her, his cruel grin unchanged.
She grit her teeth and straightened. ‘What do you want?’
He clucked his tongue. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Home. It’s after work, I’m tired as fokk and need to shower, eat, and sleep, in that order.’
‘Oh no. Nada, my girl. You’ve got an errand to run.’ His smile twisted. ‘One of the most important ever, and should you refuse to do it? Well -’ he tapped the side of his temple, a visual tic that sent fire lancing through her wrists.
She gasped, doubling over as pain lit her nerves like acid.
‘I’ll blow you and that pretty little payload of yours and turn you into a fine scarlet mist,’ he chuckled.
Her hands clenched into fists. ‘You bastard.’
‘You always say the nicest things. This time I’m not signing off. You’ll hear me in your ear the whole time, sweetheart.’ He winked. ‘Now head due left, for level sixteen, and the CVIQ conduit.’
He transferred his voice into her neural node, a disgusting slide of his presence into her mind like grease into clean water.
Shaking, Soleil pressed her lips together, braced, and began to walk.
The echo of her footsteps across the metal grates of the maintenance corridor sounded like a funeral drumbeat.
Every step carried the question she didn’t dare articulate out loud.
Is this how it was to end?
Her insides trembled, but she kept walking anyway.
SANTIAGO
On the Crimson Widow, drifting in the shadow of a dying star, Santi’s patience was worn down to a threadbare wire.
He loomed over the bound and bloodied Red Skull lieutenant, arms crossed, mouth tight, deciding which of his more creative interrogation methods to employ next.
The dim emergency lights cast a scarlet glow over the cargo bay, eerie and pulsing like a heartbeat.
Zev and Boaz stood guard at the sealed exit, Kaal crouched nearby, calibrating a vibro-dagger with ominous indifference.
A ping sounded in his neural cortex.
A private call from Miral.
Santi, she said, her tone clipped and urgent, after you flagged down that we might have a problem, I can confirm that we do.
He inclined his head, alert.
Talk.
Miral gestured him aside to a dark alcove in the bay.
She activated his neural node to interface with her data that glowed blue across his irises. I got into the Red Skulls’ data systems through the Crimson Widow’s comms array. Root-level access. They were messy.
His brow lifted. And?
I found a batch of high-priority pings, but more worrying, a resonant pulse that traces back to The Sombra.
Santi’s jaw tensed. To whom?
Miral didn’t answer right away, then she sighed. The message recipient is what really concerns me.
She flicked to another screen.
It spun until it snapped into focus, an audio waveform spliced with a blurry face mid-scream.
The voice that came through was all too familiar.
Female, raw, hoarse, and desperate.
Soleil.
Santi’s form stiffened as if he’d been stabbed. The fokk?
She’s being tortured, Miral muttered. And forced to work for them. I traced the signal packet’s call-and-response structure. There’s a neuro-bonded sub-frequency in her body, keyed to a pain relay. It’s real.