The Last Days

By M.E. Owen

Pilar Jones y Garcia, Zion Station's police chief, still mourns her husband's death years later. She, and everyone else with a radio, heard his last transmission moments before his small ship incinerated in the toxic atmosphere of the gas giant below.

 

But Emilio Garcia y Jones had secrets that he kept even from the woman he adored. Secrets that hunted him down, forcing him to make the hardest decision of his life.

 

Join us for a story set before the Consortium's AI genocide, when Zion's AI has yet to gain sentience. When Jones struggles to fit into her new job as police chief, unaware that she's a pawn in a deadly game that will ultimately take her husband from her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Towhee Publishing
• Release date: Sep 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215474396

Book preview

The Last Days

THE LAST DAYS

ZION STATION 08

M.E. OWEN

TOWHEE PUBLISHING

THE LAST DAYS

A ZION STATION STORY

Five years before the AI Purge

Now

Technically, he was beating his wife.

Hickory stick raised, heavy, solid, perfectly balanced and fit his hand like it was made just for him, which it was. He circled her, looking for weakness, looking for an opening—there.

He shot in, whipping the stick around for a brutal blow to her head—

Chief— the smooth alto voice of Zion Station’s AI boomed through the speakers.

—and she flinched, just enough that she would miss the block, so he adjusted downward to catch her in the upper arm instead.

—Jones y—

But she’d already ducked, and his blow clipped the top of her head.

—Garcia, you’re—

She swore even as she turned it into a roll, snapping out her own stick and—

—needed at—

—hit him hard in the Achilles, sweeping his leg out from under him on her way down.

—Noiz.

He rolled with the fall, but she’d already popped up, and in the split-second when he was gaining his own feet, she nailed him in the groin.

JEEZUS, Pilar! His protective cup had caught the main force of the blow, but still. He backed away, panting, stick and guard hand up. He didn’t trust her for a second.

But Pilar had backed away too. "Lo siento," she said sweetly, her words distorted by her mouthguard and her own heavy breaths, but with a smile of triumph. A sheen of sweat made her almost glow, and he grinned as they both stood down. God, she was beautiful.

And deadly. Yeah, technically he was beating his wife, but it probably didn't count if you were both wearing gear and the wife had won the round.

He took out his mouthguard. "You keep that up and there won’t be any kids," he said.

She laughed and dropped her own mouthguard into her palm. "Pobrecita. Like the stick?"

It was his birthday present. He flipped it from one hand to the other. "Stupendous. Gracias."

Zion, what’s up at Noiz? she called.

John Chester has been found unresponsive behind the bar. The medical team is less than sixty seconds away, but my scans indicate he is already dead.

Chester? she said. Shit. She was already stripping off her gloves and helmet and dropping them onto the mat. Emilio, will you—

I got it, he said.

Thanks. She was already heading for the door.

Chester? Oh shit.

The downspire tram seemed to take forever to arrive, but it gave me a chance to get my station coverall properly zipped and run my fingers through my hair. In the meantime, Zion kept me apprised.

You’re absolutely sure he’s dead? I asked for the third time.

Yes, she replied. I re-settled my earjack as the tram arrived and I stepped aboard.

You seem stressed, Chief Jones y Garcia, Zion said. Is it because this is the first death on station since you became chief of police?

Probably, I’d dealt with a few on-station deaths as a deputy, but I was already discovering that being chief was different. So I’d told Zion to keep anyone from touching the body until I arrived.

I used my comm to set