Platform 8: The Full Omnibus

By Barbara Lund

Cops in Space.

When humanity spread to the stars, it took its best and worst with it.
Creators, inventors, healers.
Thieves, killers, slavers.

Amy Cordova is a police officer on space station Platform Eight. She deals with all kinds of people, all kinds of situations, all kinds of crimes; when a Very Important Person is murdered on the station, she must discover exactly who did it, but...

The victim isn't innocent.
The suspects aren't guilty.
And none of them are strangers.

This crime is personal, and if Amy wants a killer brought to justice, she must face friends, enemies, and even herself.

Join Amy Cordova on a journey through her time on Platform Eight.

Included: Darkest Space New Space Stealing Space
Revealing Space Separate Space Changing Space
Suspicious Space Recovery Space Found Space
Damaged Space Revenge Space Craving Space
Spooky Space. Christmas Space. Slave Space
Shattered Space. Relative Space

And an all-new bonus story: Breaking Space

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barbara Lund
• Release date: Mar 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781944127282

Barbara Lund

Award-winning speculative fiction author Barbara Lund has several indie-published novels, dozens of short stories, and has been traditionally published in Daily Science Fiction and L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, Volume 37 (November 2021).She won the Writers of the Future Golden Pen (2021), along with a First Place, three Silver Honorable Mentions, and two Honorable Mentions. She won the 24th Annual Critters Best Magical Realism Short Story.She's always working on new novels and short stories.Add a husband, two kids, and a martial arts obsession, and she keeps pretty busy.

Book preview

1

DARKEST SPACE

For my brothers and sisters in blue.

There’s been a murder on Platform Eight and security officer Cordova must find the killer—it’s her job—but this case is a little more personal than she’s admitting…

---

Without even a whimper to warn me, the external monitors died. I looked at the new guy, of course. What did you do?

Nothing, I swear! Whites showed around his eyes.

Lights still glared overhead. Air still flowed through the vents. Artificial gravity still held my boots to the floor. I just couldn’t see the outside of Platform Eight. No, really, what did you touch?

New Guy gulped. I had planned on learning his name. Sometime before the end of the shift. The current… malfunction… may have hastened that desire along. I walked over to him, put my hands on my hips, and leaned in until our noses almost touched. What. Did. You. Do.

Pinned in his anti-grav chair, he couldn’t get away from me. I looked at the sweat beading on his forehead and the panic freezing him in place and thought I might believe him. Dammit. I looked left and right, even though I knew the confines of our twelve-by-twelve security bay better than I knew my own sleep bay. If you didn’t do it, it might be pirates. Get your suit on. I reached across him and touched the alarm button. Not the big, panic-everyone-noisy alarm yet, but the quiet, station-security-get-suited-and-armed button. Then I strode to my chair, turned my back on New Guy and pulled on my own space suit right over my uniform, making the plumbing connections with painful haste. Just after I sealed the front, the monitors flickered back on.

I whipped around and cast an experienced eye over each one. No pirates, no pirates, no—

The hell?

Just outside airlock three, tethered to one of the safety rings, floated a body.

---

Ninety seconds. The guy out the airlock had ninety seconds to be recompressed before death. Whoever dumped him there had used up at least twenty seconds tethering him to the safety ring and turning my monitors back on. He’d lost consciousness at ten seconds, with water vapor forming in his soft tissues. By twenty, swelling had started and his heart rate had plummeted. Dammit.

I grabbed my face mask and sprinted for the door. Come on! I bellowed to New Guy. I sent out the no-pirates-after-all message and then hit the priority override for the nearest slipstream and gave it the destination. The override ejected passengers unceremoniously out of the stream and into regular corridors while sucking me and—I glanced back—New Guy forward at four gees.

Twenty seconds to airlock three.

The slipstream dumped me and I stumbled into a run. I heard New Guy land in the corridor behind me and lose his lunch. That was fair. It had taken me a couple of years before I could stomach an emergency override. Secure the corridor, I called over my shoulder, then slipped my mask over my face, sealing it to my suit.

Ten seconds to hit the emergency cycle on the airlock and enter my code. Three seconds to open the door, step inside, and close the door. Another fifteen seconds to vent to vacuum while I clipped on a long safety line. Two to open the exterior door. About ninety seconds now, depending on how fast I had sprinted down the hallways. Decompressed guy was dead.

But I still had to put on a show for the residents of the station, because no one wants to believe they’ll die in space. No one. And everyone was watching this by now because of the emergency overrides, whether they were seeing only what the on-station media broadcast or whether they had hacked the security feeds.

I pushed off the wall—not too fast—and used my momentum to hit the end of my tether and boomerang left. The exterior wall bruised my shoulder, but I grabbed the corpse’s tether to stop me from bouncing away. Unclipping him from the exterior safety ring, I attached him to a ring on my suit, then hand-over-hand dragged us back into the airlock. The door shut. I ignored the ice at his nostrils and mouth and set a mask on his face while slamming my emotions into a box to deal with later. Then I waited for the airlock to recompress.

The med team met me at the interior door. The look on my face told them he was past help, so they completed the least invasive verification they could, preserving as much of my crime scene as possible. I looked past them to New Guy, who stood with my old partner, Luis, in a human barrier against the crowds behind them. I unclipped Dead Guy’s tether from my suit and staggered to Luis. The adrenaline dump left me shaking.

Can you get me an ID? I murmured to Luis. He dipped his chin and turned his back on the crowds.

I watched them.

The old adage that the suspect remains at the scene of his crime became a cliché for a reason. I relaxed my gaze, letting my eyes wander across the corridor, sweeping left, then right, further forward, then further back. Sure enough, one face snagged my attention. I couldn’t say what exactly caught my eye, but I’d been doing this job long enough to trust my gut.

I turned to New Guy. See the woman with long brown hair in a ponytail? Wearing a red tunic? Run an ID on her.

Got it.

The medics zipped the body bag up to Dead Guy’s chin, then stepped back and waited. Luis crouched over the body. He glanced at me, tapped his ear, and turned his back. I switched my com to our encrypted channel.

Got an ID on the corpse, he said.

Go ahead.

You’re going to love it. The stifled glee in Luis’s voice warned me. I braced myself for his next words. Your stiff is the station director’s youngest son.

Well, shit.

---

Once upon a time, there was a family with too much smarts and not enough money. EnnisCorp found that family and offered them their very own space station. All they had to do was turn a profit as a mining platform in the asteroid fields near New New Milwaukee. Don’t ask what happened to New Milwaukee. It involved a surprisingly mobile stolen black hole and a high-stakes poker game.

Anyway.

Mr. Nguyen said yes, so EnnisCorp gave him Platform Eight. Mrs. Nguyen said no, divorced Mr. Nguyen, waved goodbye to her three sons, and hopped on the next out-system ship. The oldest boy took after Dad, the middle took after Mom—literally, when he left Eight a few months ago—and the youngest was your typical spoiled, new-rich, drunk, bed-hopping fop you didn’t usually see on a mining platform.

Used to be your typical…

His dad was my boss. Well, boss’s boss’s boss, anyway. Nothing like a little pressure to solve his kid’s murder.

Sweat popped out on my forehead and other places ladies don’t mention. I’m not going to mention them despite not having been a lady since I started my glorious career in law enforcement. You know, join up, get an education, see the stars, meet new people… and kill them before they kill you but only after they’ve demonstrated their intent to kill you. Best thing about the space suit: no one would ever know how badly I needed a few minutes in the ‘fresher.

You call someone in to watch the monitors? I asked Luis over the com.

His back muscles tightened up under his black security uniform like I’d insulted him, but he answered anyway. Yep.

Thanks for your help. He would demand dinner later, my treat, as payback.

Yep.

New Guy is trying to ID a possible, I murmured. I’ll take you to Syme’s, my treat, if you’ll point him in the right direction so I can do the notification.

Luis glanced over his shoulder at me. Syme’s? You must really like me.

I nodded, hiding my smile. None of the onlookers would understand the grin and then they’d get all offended and complain that I wasn’t taking this death seriously enough. I didn’t want to explain that after ten years of this job, learning to bottle my emotions for later, a corpse was just meat. I’d pay in nightmares later, but for now… Dead kids still fractured my control, but adults? Especially spoiled rotten brats who couldn’t take no for an answer? No real loss, this one.

But that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to do my job.

Luis stood up and waved one hand at the medics. All yours, he said.

One of them zipped the bag over the corpse’s face while another slapped an anti-grav field on the bag. A sigh chased its way through the crowd at the wordless confirmation of death. The crowd parted and we stepped through: medics, dead body, and me. I kept my eyes off the mystery woman and left her to my partners, new and ex.

I had to go tell a father that his son had died.

---

All too soon, my feet stuttered to a stop in front of the station director’s secretary. She sat at an old-fashioned mahogany desk, huge and heavy with age, set at a ninety-degree angle to her view of the asteroids and the star field beyond. She had braided her long brown hair out of her face and over one shoulder where it rested on a crisp white blouse. The clothes she wore and the way she angled her body away from the window raised my eyebrows. Why would a woman uncomfortable with space work on a mining platform?

None of my business. I twitched my uniform straight and forced my feet forward. I need to see the director, please.

Cool hazel eyes met mine. He’s in a meeting, Officer.

I hid my discomfort behind brusque speech. It’s urgent. There was a death half an hour ago. I hesitated, then plunged onward. I must insist.

She dipped her chin, touched a button, then clicked keys on her keyboard. I stared. An actual, physical keyboard when the rest of the station used holo-keys?

Soon enough, the large double doors to our left opened and three men walked out, talking over each other and making their points with chopping hands and pointed fingers. They left without meeting my gaze, which was fine with me.

You may enter.

I nodded my thanks and pushed through the doors. The room beyond was palatial, for a station, as I expected. Another antique desk met my eyes and I wondered if the director had brought the secretary—and the desks—with him when he took over the station. He stood by the enormous windows, watching his workers swarming around an asteroid, his hands folded behind his back. I saw his white knuckles and realized he wasn’t as calm as he pretended. I strode forward. Mr. Nguyen, I’m Officer Cordova, Section Five.

He turned to face me and smiled. The smile didn’t reach his eyes. How can I help you, Officer?

Sir. I paused. I don’t know if you’ve heard there’s been a death?

Nguyen nodded, his face grave. Accidental?

No, sir.

Then you’ll need permission to access bank records and the like. He strode to his desk, tapped a few holo-keys, and then looked up. I’ve given Security Section Five the necessary permissions.

Thank you, sir. I glanced out at the asteroid field, then back to the director.

Something else?

Yes, sir. I hated death notifications. No matter how many I did, they never came easier. I should have made New Guy take care of it. But that would have been cowardly. Sir, you may want to sit down.

His gaze sharpened and his nostrils flared. Without a word, he spun his anti-grav chair around and sat, straight and proud.

At 1103 hours, our exterior monitors failed for approximately thirty seconds. When they came back on, there was a man outside airlock three.

Nguyen waited, unnervingly still in his chair.

I brought him back inside the airlock and recompressed as soon as I could, sir. I ducked my head slightly. I was too late.

The hands splayed on his desk had whitened at the knuckles and fingertips, but still he refused to speak.

My partner confirmed the identity, sir. Your youngest son, Ru. I’m sorry for your loss.

He swayed minutely. I took a step forward, but his upraised hand stopped me. When he finally spoke, his voice hid the emotions I saw raging in his dark eyes. Thank you. You may go.

Sir… May I com someone to assist you? Your oldest son?

He stared past me, to the star fields beyond. My secretary. Please.

Yes, sir, I whispered. I edged my way out of the room, keeping him in my peripheral vision. I paused at the doors and glanced back. The director looked like an old, broken man, sitting behind his ancient wood desk, staring at the stars. I slipped between the doors and let them shut behind me.

Your boss needs you, I told the secretary.

She gave me a startled look, then escaped from behind her desk and pushed through the doors. I watched the doors close again and snapped my mouth shut. If I didn’t enjoy the occasional historical novel, I would not have recognized the anachronism on her lower body to be a skirt. I had never seen one before in space. Even more than long hair, the impractical garment made zero-grav work impossible.

I shook my head to banish the distractions and set off at a brisk pace. I had a body to examine.

---

Unfortunately, the autopsy confirmed what I had already guessed. The station director’s youngest son had gone into the airlock alive and come out dead via his up-close-and-personal introduction to space. No trauma. Only two things worth mentioning: one, fibers under his fingernails meant he’d grabbed someone’s clothes, probably right before he died; and two, I would never get used to the pop when they remove the top of the skull to examine the brain. Icky.

Back to the fibers. Some sort of soft wool blend, probably cashmere. Which meant our bad guy liked his old-fashioned, expensive clothes.

Nothing like the female at the scene my partners were identifying. From my quick look at her, she bought the newest synth-fabric styles compatible with station life. I wondered how she fit into my puzzle. I left the morgue and headed back to the security bay, using the normal one-gee slipstream. Time to find out.

Luis and New Guy hunched together over a monitor, Luis pointing to something on the screen when I walked in. I cleared my throat. Whatcha got?

A mess, Cordova. Luis stood and ran his hand over his spacer-short going-gray hair. Your girl from the scene is Angela Figueroa. She’s the owner of the Watering Whole.

I nodded. The Watering Whole catered to more than just a lust for alcohol, hence the name. You got the clearances from the director? The report on the body?

That’s what James and I were looking at. Luis turned back to the monitor and pointed. Not too many people on Eight can pay for cashmere. We’ve been comparing upper-end purchases against locations at the time of the monitor… malfunction.

We traded sardonic looks. We both knew it was no malfunction, but until we had evidence, we had to proceed cautiously. Show me what you have.

James pointed. These three were mining. We’ve confirmed with their ship manifests and the surveillance holos. They left well before the time of death and haven’t returned yet.

I nodded. New Guy—er, James—was doing okay.

These two were across the station, and this one in his quarters, again confirmed by surveillance. This one…

The director didn’t kill his son, I said firmly. I just notified him of the death. He was shocked and dismayed.

Luis frowned. Then we have a problem. Only seven people bought clothes that would match the fibers under the corpse’s nails. He’s dead and none of the others committed the crime.

Dammit. I scowled. We’ve opened it up to the whole station again. One of them must have given the clothing to someone else. Maybe Dead Guy himself.

Why do you call him that? James interrupted. We know his name now. Ru Nguyen.

I stared at him. Then I shrugged. It helps me work. Keeps it impersonal. Ru Nguyen is the son of our boss and a playboy who may have got what was coming to him. Dead Guy is a puzzle to be solved…

It hit me like a drill into an asteroid. Oh… my… God…

What? Luis, razor sharp.

The killer’s not a man, it’s a woman. And I know who she is. Move.

They both stared at me, so I pushed past them, my fingers flashing across the holo-keys to confirm my guess. Surveillance showed her at her desk at 1045, missing at 1103, and back at her desk, one shoulder turned away from the window, at 1115.

I stepped back and leaned against the counter. She loves old clothes, so I bet either father or son gave them to her for special occasions. She was in the corridors near airlock three at 1100. Look. I pointed as the cameras followed her, and then blanked out. It was the director’s secretary.

---

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Luis waved his hand, dismissing my statement. She’s not strong enough to haul a man his size—

Who says she hauled him? I interrupted. Look at her ID. Look at her move on the monitors. Wouldn’t you follow that into an airlock?

Both Luis and James turned their attention to the surveillance of the secretary, her vintage clothes—not the white shirt I saw in her office—and her come-hither walk.

There’s the girl from the scene. Angela. Luis frowned. She coming from a different corridor, but looks like she’s heading toward the airlock too.

Yeah, that’s her. Most everybody’s moving the other way, toward the sleep bays. James ran his hand over his short, light hair, an imitation of Luis. Look at her move.

After a second, I flushed. "I might follow them into an airlock," I murmured.

Don’t, Luis blurted. Look, if I enlarge this frame, see the shine at Angela’s wrists? She’s wearing a pressure suit under her clothes. He paused the frame, then brought up the secretary. Her too.

I’ll be damned. James whistled. They both are. But that suit doesn’t cover their hands, feet, or face. Neither one would be able to function in vacuum any better than… He shot me a swift look. Than Dead Guy did.

Looking at the women, side by side, I tapped my fingers against the desk. You guys notice anything else?

They sent me identical confused looks.

Both women are fit and move well, I said, pointing. Not rare on a mining platform, but they both have long brown hair and dark eyes. Long hair’s expensive. Even on Eight.

The ice mining. Water costs less than other stations, murmured James. He touched the monitor. But their styles are different.

Opposites, I agreed.

Luis’s fingers flashed across the holo-keys. IDs flashed up on another screen. These are all the women seen in public with Ru recently. He paused while we all stared. Ru had a type. Long dark hair, dark eyes, fit. Powerful.

Power—?

The secretary’s second in command on the station. The owner of the Watering Whole, well… Luis smiled slowly.

Rumors say he enjoyed multiple partners. I stilled my tapping fingers. Constantly.

James spoke up, eagerly. What if he was banging them both and they found out about each other? What if they killed him together?

I leaned back against the wall. Do we have a shot of Dead Guy going toward the airlock under his own power?

We do. Luis tapped the monitor. But we lose all three of them at the junction.

James nodded. That camera’s out, he told Luis. Cordova told me about it a couple of days ago.

I remember. Luis looked at me. You told me too. Maintenance didn’t get it fixed yet? He stood up and rolled his shoulders.

Guess not. Too bad. I glanced past him, at the screens. We’d’ve had better evidence if they did. You check the airlock log?

My new partner nodded while the old scowled.

Software glitch. James pushed his chair away from the bank of monitors. Your emergency override is the only thing showing on the log.

The only— I wanted to hit my head on the wall. Convenient.

Too damned convenient. Luis growled.

Are you going to bring the women in for questioning? asked James. Can I help?

I inspected him, from the top of his blond head, down his uniform, to the boots on his feet. He looked the part of the new station security officer: all neat and shiny for the recruitment poster. You passed the interview and interrogation classes, right?

He stood taller. Yes!

You’ve done okay on the investigations we’ve already had here… I glanced at Luis, who glared back but kept his mouth shut. What do you think? He can do the questioning, I run the recordings, and you back us both?

Luis canted his head to one side. He’s young and attractive. That will put them at ease. They look like they’re both used to getting their way.

All right. Let’s round them up. I rubbed the headache between my eyes.

James’s eyes got wider and rounder. Really? You’re going to let me question the suspects on a homicide?

I shrugged. We can com you on the secure channel if you get stuck.

Luis clapped him on the back. Gotta pop your cherry sometime, kid.

---

We spoke to the secretary first.

"Dios mío, grumbled Luis. He and I sat in the surveillance room right behind the interview room. We had to keep our voices low because of the crappy insulation, but we could talk normally while James escorted the secretary in. Anna Guzman. Angela Figueroa. Even their names are similar. How am I going to tell them apart?"

Anna, I said, pointing to the monitor. Look at her clothes. Gray silk blouse and dark wool slacks instead of a synth-fabric shipsuit. The director’s secretary. And if you screw up her name, it could cost you your job. Angela is the cutting-edge bar owner, and if you screw up her name, all it will cost you are expensive… ah, drinks.

Luis snorted.

I checked the recording equipment. After years of practice, I could almost set it up blindfolded, but on a case like this—the director’s son’s murder—the three-dee holo recorders and backup two-dee cameras had to function perfectly.

James cleared his throat noisily in the other room. Please take a seat, Ms. Guzman.

Audio’s working fine, I murmured into my com. We have a visual, James. Go ahead with your first questions.

We both watched him as he settled himself into an anti-grav chair and verified her personal information: name, birthdate and planet, Sol ID number, sleep bay number and occupation. Luis and I murmured to each other, off the com, establishing our baseline on her body language.

Blinks a lot.

Yup. Fast heartbeat starting to calm down.

You were right. She crossed her knees toward him. She’s interested.

"Touched her hair again. Suspect likes our investigator."

Establishing her timeline for the day in question. I glanced at Luis. Kid’s doing okay so far.

He grimaced. We haven’t gotten to the hard questions, yet.

He’s covered the morning hours… here we go.

James sounded sympathetic: nice cop. You said you were at your desk until ten forty-five. What happened then?

I took a break, Anna said.

Oooh, did you see her eyes widen? I elbowed Luis.

Her nostrils flared and her knuckles went white. She’s pissed.

Follow up on that, I told James.

He nodded slightly. "Where did