Six Lost Souls

By R. E. Stearns

In this hardboiled science fiction novella set in the Shieldrunner Pirates universe, Ku Nel-Aoki sets out to learn why a colony ship is still docked after refueling. The reason turns Ku’s comfortable life of crime upside down. A member of the organized crime group known as the Ceres syndicate has gotten arrested and the entire neighborhood’s police force has been replaced. Ku’s syndicate boss drops the whole mess in her lap. Now Ku has to clean it up before the police find a reason to put her in a cell too, or her boss gets impatient and kills everyone involved.

Praise for Barbary Station, a novel which takes place in the same universe as this story:

"This book is good fun. I really enjoyed this, and I bet you will, too." (Ann Leckie, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of Ancillary Justice)

"Grabs you in chapter one and doesn't let go." (Mur Lafferty, Award-winning author of Six Wakes)

• Language: English
• Publisher: R. E. Stearns
• Release date: Dec 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463377475

R. E. Stearns

R. E. Stearns wrote her first story on an Apple IIe computer and still kind of misses green text on a black screen. She went on to annoy all of her teachers by reading books while they lectured. Eventually she read and wrote enough to earn a master's degree in curriculum and instruction from the University of Central Florida. She is hoping for an honorary doctorate. When not writing or working, R. E. Stearns reads, plays PC games, and references internet memes in meatspace. She recently moved to Denver, Colorado, USA with her husband/computer engineer and a cat.

Book preview

Six Lost Souls

Copyright 2019 R. E. Stearns

Published by Near Earth Press at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Pronouns Used in This Story

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Other books by R. E. Stearns

To Hannah Bowman, without whose knowledge and encouragement the stories I’ve written would never have been read.

Pronouns Used In This Story

He, She, They, Ve

Him, Her, Them, Ver

His, Her, Their, Vis

Chapter One

It wasn’t quite eleven a.m. on Ceres Station, but nobody in the bar would tell Ku Nel-Aoki that it was too early to drink. A couple of the bar’s dancers were on stage, kicking to basoelectronica that shook the ill-lit floor beneath Ku’s boots. The few third shift workers relaxing in this corner of the Jane Jacobs residential module, JJ to the locals, would’ve left Ku and her two shadows alone even without the dancers to distract them. Ku owned this level of JJ. Everyone else just lived there.

One of her shadows, Fuse, thumped her arm with the back of his hand. Although his hair was as black as Ku’s own where he hadn’t streaked it green, Fuse was too old to be doing the work they did. Ku kept him around because he showed up when and where she told him to, and he was bigger than her. He also put up with everybody calling him fuse when his Japanese name had two syllables.

He nodded toward the front door. Ey, is that the rojoy?

Rojoy, Kuiper cant for old-timer, was Ku’s nickname for the white police officer assigned to JJ-2, the second level of the mod. Dah-ah, that’s him. Midmorning usually found the rojoy in his office three streets over, waiting for complaints to come to him. Now he wavered near the door while his eyes adjusted from the bright morning sunsim to the bar’s scattered overhead lights.

Ku’s second shadow said nothing. Cedar, all purple mohawk and hooded eyes this time of morning, would’ve spotted the new arrival before Fuse. If the rojoy’s complaint was a simple one, Cedar would spend the exchange scowling and sharpening vis knives with one boot propped on an empty chair.

The rojoy’s gaze finally fell on Ku and he crossed the stained floor to her table. Every patron who saw his uniform let their conversations lapse. The AI bartender that projected from the ceiling kept on bobbing its head to the music and wiping a projected rag over the bar. On the half hour, the bar cleaned itself.

By tightening eye muscles, Ku activated the implant protected by a metal housing embedded in and around her eye sockets. The rojoy snapped into focus as the implant redirected the light entering her eyes. His uniform was as rumpled as ever. The gleaming Ceres Station police badge projected onto his chest lit a weak chin and gray stubble. A thermographic analysis came back as anxious, the word fading into Ku’s view beside his head and fading out once she read it. According to her weapons scan, he’d added a stunner to his usual combination of knives and impatience.

Ku scowled like the rojoy interrupting her gin and orange breakfast inconvenienced her. Really, she was looking forward to learning what’d made the duster heave himself out of his desk chair. Like all law enforcement officers, he had no control over the dust-fine nannites that deployed at what cams identified as crime scenes, but the slang for his job stuck anyway. There was often money to be made in sources of duster distress.

Cedar’s knife slid into a sheath and vis boots thudded to the floor, preparation for violence on the off chance the rojoy had gotten ambitious since Cedar and Ku had last seen him. Fuse smiled with friendliness that should’ve been false but wasn’t, on him. Ey, what do you need? he asked the rojoy.

The rojoy barely glanced at Fuse. Ku, we need to talk.

Ku stood and shook out hair that almost touched her shoulders, covering minor disorientation from switching off her implant’s analyses. Aw, are we breaking up? I’ll need another drink for that.

Ku, this is serious.

Fuse and Cedar stood too, but three members of the Ceres syndicate against one old duster would make the rojoy too anxious to say all he had to say. Ku waved Fuse back to his seat. To Cedar, she said Posey minun, foro karo. Cedar sat down too.

The rojoy stepped aside to let Ku lead the way out. Why can’t you just speak English? Everybody else here does.

Cant is faster, Ku said. My time’s valuable. Not allowing an old duster to overhear her every command was valuable too.

She stepped out the bar’s front door and let her implant adjust her eyesight while she scanned for dangerous faces and the wrong kind of weapons. Locals walked along the bot tracks that ran through the center of the street, looking no more wary than usual. A massive delivery bot rumbled down the tracks, stopping every few meters to shove boxes into buildings’ inventory systems.

Several blocks to her right, toward the grav acclimation tunnel that led to the port mod, Ku’s implants pinged on a group of pedestrians. They were a long way off, but coming closer. The implant applied a yellow glow to