Mireside: Sol Control, #2

By L. A. McGarvey

After leaving Oscar Trey for dead on Outpost 23, Rosemary Deathly heads to her base of operations for her next assignment. She is ordered to retrieve the evidence Max Van Citra hid somewhere on Mars.

Detective Kelvin Moby, hot on Rosemary's trail, follows her to her hideout, where they decide to join forces to fight their common enemy. Together they discover the evidence against Sydney Van Citra isn't on Mars itself, but on the orbiting space station, Mireside, an ancient, dangerous station with an AI that is less than stable.

Arriving during Mireside's famous Halloween festival, Rosemary goes to work retrieving the evidence while a smuggling ring sidetracks Moby. Things go wrong when pirates attack an enemy ship, hitting Mireside instead, damaging the reactor.

Will they make it out alive, saving the evidence and the contraband from the smugglers?

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trouble Twins Publishing
• Release date: Sep 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9798215313145

L. A. McGarvey

L. A. McGarvey is a goat wrestling, loader driving, horseback riding author with a unique sense of humour. Find her on Facebook @LAmcgarveyauthor  Email: [e-mail] 

Book preview

Mireside

Sol Control #2

L. A. McGarvey

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Trouble Twins Publishing

Contents

1. Rosemary

2. Max

3. Rosemary

4. Kelvin Moby

5. Rosemary

6. Oscar/Max

7. Kelvin Moby

8. Rosemary

9. Kelvin Moby

10. Rosemary 

11. Kelvin Moby 

12. Max 

13. Rosemary 

14.  Kelvin Moby 

15. Max 

16. Rosemary

17. Chariots of the Sun 

18. Kelvin Moby 

19. Rosemary

20. Max

21.  Rosemary

22. Kelvin Moby

23. Max 

24. Kelvin Moby

25. Rosemary and Max 

26. Kelvin Moby

27. Everyone

28. Crew Quarters 

29. Baskin  

30. Sydney Van Citra 

31. Rosemary

32. Max

33. Kelvin and Baskin

34. Max

35.  Sydney

36. Max 

37. Kelvin

38. Max

39. Chariots of the Sun

40. Max

41. Bentley

42. Rosemary and Max

43. Baskin

44. Rosemary and Max

45. Kelvin

46. Rosemary

47. Rosemary and Max

48. Visi Crubs

49. Rosemary and Max

50. Baskin

51. Max and Rosemary 

52. Baskin

53. Kelvin

54. Sydney

55. Rosemary and Max

56. Sydney

57. Baskin

58. Kelvin

59. Visi Crubs

60. Max

61. Rosemary

62. Control

63. Kelvin and Baskin

64. Visi Crubs

65. Max

66. Bentley

67. Rosemary

68. Baskin

69. Max and Rosemary

70. Visi Crubs

71.  Kelvin 

72. Visi Crubs

73. Rosemary and Max

74. Kelvin

75. Mireside

76. Sydney

Read Next: Armstrong Station

Fullpage Image

Rosemary

Max

Kelvin and Baskin

Sydney Van Citra

Visi Crubs

Control

Also By L. A. McGarvey

About Author

one

Rosemary

Rosemary breezed past Detective Moby wearing her Nanoflage. She walked close to him, knowing he would feel the electrical field, get curious when nothing happened in her hotel room and go investigate.

She hustled back to the shuttle base. Checking her heads-up display, she could see the shuttle heading to Outpost 23 hadn’t left yet. Good.

She wove her way through the crowds on Mainland carefully, sticking to less crowded areas when she could. When she couldn’t, she juiced up the suit’s electrical field. People moved aside instinctively.

The shuttle was almost loaded. Falling in behind one of the cargo handlers, she drifted through the airlock and onto the ship. She snuggled into a corner and waited.

The shuttle launched and the twelve-hour trip was uneventful. The cargo must contain sensitive medical supplies, she thought, as the hold remained marginally pressurized and heated. It relieved her, as it would save power on her suit if it didn’t have to provide as much life-support as full vacuum required.

The shuttle settled into the docking bay on Outpost 23, landing smoothly, probably thanks to an AI pilot. The hold opened and as the ramp lowered; she prepared to bolt out of the cargo hold.

Cargo inspection. Someone announced as boots stomped up the ramp.

She stayed where she was. Four Outpost security personnel preceded the cargo handler into the hold. They were running scans on the freight. Not a surprise after the Outpost discovered Oscar’s sabotage, but if one of the scanners pointed her way, the Nanobots would send it off the scale.

She held her breath. A member of the security detail started scanning towards her hiding spot.

The cargo handler, she could see now, was Baskin. 

Baskin came over to where the security guard was working. Hey, what are you doing?

The security officer retorted, My job. These crates of medical supplies can’t be scanned. She pointed at the row of crates. So, I have to open them manually to inspect the contents.

Yeah, but you’re supposed to inform me first, Baskin had their back to Rosemary, effectively blocking any view the officer had of her hiding spot.

Rosemary slipped from behind Baskin, out of the hold, and down the ramp. The Nanoflage deadened her footfalls, as well as made her invisible. Pausing at the bottom to check her surroundings, she swiftly made her way across the cargo bay and out of the lock. She smiled at the irony when she saw the sign for Docking Bay 17. She shook her head. No time for nostalgia. The passageway was clear. She ran for the lunchroom. 

two

Max

Max laid on the uncomfortable cot. Rosemary had knocked him out, removed his arm and a couple of teeth, he discovered as he moved his tongue around his mouth. He felt weak and hurt everywhere. She’d warned him she would need a lot of his blood. It had to look convincing.

She’d stashed him here, wherever here was. He was hooked up to a blood replacement drip. He groaned as he rolled over onto his side to the edge of the cot. The pain meds had run out a while ago.

He was finally lucid enough to look around. Rosemary had set up some kind of safe house to retreat to. It was a struggle to sit up. He was right-handed, or he had been before she cut his arm off. He was clumsy with his left.

Sitting, he waited until the woozy feeling subsided. He could still feel his arm and it was disconcerting when he tried to push himself to his feet with both hands. He unbalanced, nearly falling over.

Finally, he got to his feet, staggering to the rudimentary facilities. The safe house was functional. Barely.

He rinsed his face, wincing at the pain. There was no mirror, but he could feel the swelling was going down in his face. He could open his eye a little now too. Scrubbing his hand across the stubble, he rinsed his mouth out, spitting blood down the tiny sink.

There wasn’t much to look at. The room was a tiny square, not much bigger than the cot. She had retrieved his leather satchel, as well as two crates of coffee, from his apartment. He pulled his satchel onto his lap after plunking down on the cot again, legs weak from his minor exertion.

Holding it between his knees so he could open it single-handed, he pawed through the contents. The tracker was gone. Good. The Apollo Nation would have a hard time tracking him down without it. The implants he’d had were gone too, along with his arm and his teeth.

There was a clean set of generic coveralls in the bag. He pulled them out and got changed. The stump of his arm was clean and didn’t smell. A good sign.

Changed into clean coveralls, he had two of the protein shakes Rosemary left for him, then lay down for a nap, exhausted.

three

Rosemary

Rosemary drifted into the lunchroom behind a pair of cargo handlers from the day shift. She’d met them before at shift changes but didn’t remember their names. Based on their conversation, lots of things had changed in the brief time she’d been off Outpost 23.

All cargo handlers were required to work in pairs now unless accompanied by a security team, as Baskin had been. These two were complaining about being dumped onto the night shift and a shortage of workers. It seemed people were leaving the Outpost in droves.

She waited unobtrusively in the corner. She thought the pair would never leave. Finally, after an hour, one of them got a ping about a ship coming in and they left.

Rosemary received a ping of her own. Her heads-up display flashed a message. Oscar, Max, she amended, was awake and his vital signs were good.

Bolting from the corner, she had to move fast. She had no idea if anyone else would enter the lunchroom. She dropped to her knees in front of the microwave counter, feeling for the hidden catch. The maintenance panel slid open.

Her heads-up display flickered a warning, Fuck! She growled as she read the blinking low power alarm. She heard the door open at the same time. She dove through the maintenance access hatch, shutting the panel behind her.

Her heads-up display flashed another warning, and the battery failed.

four

Kelvin Moby

Kelvin debated about calling the forensics team. He’d tipped Miranda generously then sent her on her way. He read the card again.

Should he call the number? He didn’t want a job, but he was intrigued by what information he could get. Not yet, he decided, stuffing the card in a pocket. Picking up the earth portraits that he’d last seen hanging around Rosemary’s neck, he let them dangle from his fingers.

He peered closely at the portraits. They were all generic vistas of Earth. Pretty, but no information to be gleaned there, he guessed.

Finished with the hotel room, he decided not to bother with calling in forensics. His superiors at Solar Enforcement seemed content with the fact that Oscar Trey was, to all appearances, dead.

Kelvin wasn’t so sure, though. Something about all of this wasn’t adding up. He needed to go back to Outpost 23.

five

Rosemary

S hit, she swore as the power went out on her suit. If anyone looked in the maintenance cubby, they would see her. There was a route from the maintenance access hatch to the safe house where she’d stashed Oscar. The maintenance cubby also held a stash of pain medication, which is why she chose this one. She knew Oscar would be out of pain medications by now and could tell from his heart rate monitor on her heads-up display before it failed that it had worn off.

Someone opened the hatch. Reaching a hand in, they felt around. Looking for the meds, she assumed. It had to be Dan. She caught him months ago, hiding his drugs here. As far as she could tell, no one else bothered with the nearly invisible panel.

She’d walked in on him, retrieving his drugs one day. He hadn’t noticed her until after he’d taken them and returned them to their hiding spot. She hadn’t reported that. Had, in fact, never mentioned it to him. Which was why she knew he looked the other way when she was delivering packages illegally to Oscar.

Dan stuck his head inside the cubby. She curled up in a