Would you like a preview of Garbadon Major, Book 3 of the Jazz Healy, Reunion Series? Well, here you go! Chapter 1 in its entirety.
I hope you enjoy...
Garbadon Major
Chapter 1
Behind Jazz Healy in the dimly lit, roughhewn tunnel, someone shouted. She spun around, gun up.
A pair of men in ragged coveralls staggered into the passage from an adjacent room, belting out a slurred chant proclaiming the greatness of Kinon, the hunk of rock that Jazz found herself within.
Jazz watched them wander off in the opposite direction and sighed. Arriving on Landfall Appreciation Day, the anniversary of the moment humans first touched down on the planetoid’s surface, had been a mistake. Then again, Kinon’s official calendar nearly had as many national celebrations as days.
Despite having only been in the bowels of the planetoid for a couple hours, Jazz could understand the rationale behind the near constant festivities. Already she was giving serious thought to taking her rebreather off and heading into one of the tunnels marked ‘Out Of Order’ just to see how quickly she’d asphyxiate.
“Easy now,” she muttered. “Don’t do anything you can’t regret.”
A drop of water struck her shoulder, the splash wetting the side of her neck. Moisture from the ceiling. Satisfied the drunks behind her were who they appeared to be, she turned away. Five hundred feet more and she should be at the current residence of one Arteen Vendta, wanted for murder in the Qitani System. The price on his head: Twenty thousand Commonwealth dollars. After expenses - fuel, entry fees at five different non-Commonwealth worlds, and the rest - she should come out a little bit ahead.
She adjusted her torso-plate and maximized the feed that had been playing in a small square on the lower left-hand corner of her optics. She’d attached a mote camera to the forehead of Rainbow Ninja, her waist-tall, gene-spliced cat, and sent her prowling from the opposite direction in case Vendta got wind the hammer was about to drop and took off running.
Of course, Vendta might already have lit out but Jazz didn’t think so. Her intel was that he’d used his last cash reserves several months ago to hitch a ride to Kinon and had been holed up in its depths ever since. A poor choice of hiding place. The planetoid’s proximity to its sun, the blue star Jekanel, meant there were no aboveground settlements and belowground there was just the one exit. The small population also meant privacy was not an option. Acquiring Vendta’s address from the Port Authority clerk hadn’t even necessitated a bribe, the woman just happy to have a visitor to talk to. And possibly drunk.
The feed showed Rainbow Ninja moving steadily forward, nothing distracting her from the task at hand. The cat’s intelligence surprised Jazz, almost on a daily basis. Despite her size and rippling muscles, Jazz had no doubts Rainbow Ninja would draw little attention to herself. Probably less than Jazz, even.
Jazz minimized the feed and set off. Soon, the tunnel broadened into an area wide enough for several benches, which had been set out in an approximate circle. A whole mess of the flickering fluorescent tubes that lit Kinon’s tunnels had been lined up together on the ceiling, creating a nauseating, incomprehensible pattern of flashing. A storefront cut out of the rock, within which stood a disheveled woman, sold snack packs and other canned goods. Two men stripped to the waist but more beer gut than chest wrestled halfheartedly in between the benches, a small group of spectators equally halfheartedly cheering them on. One onlooker waved a thin wad of paper money around, his focus less on the fighters than on getting someone to take his odds.
Jazz holstered her pistol and affected an inebriated shamble. The shop proprietor fixed her with a dead-eyed stare but nobody else took any notice. Once past them, the corridor narrowing again, she redrew her gun and upped her pace. The sooner she could get off this creepy rock the better.
The map Jazz had downloaded - upper right corner of her optics - told her to veer right at the next junction, up a dead-end tunnel full of what the Port Authority clerk had described as ‘cheap’ housing.
Rainbow Ninja reached the intersection at the same time Jazz did.
“Any trouble, girl?” Jazz said, the rebreather muffling her voice, giving the cat a scratch behind the ears.
Rainbow Ninja responded by rubbing her head against Jazz’s thigh.
“Good.” Jazz headed down the corridor. “Let’s get this done.”
Several open doors showed empty rooms, the interior walls cut in the same crude manner as the tunnels. Finally Jazz came to a closed door and checked her map. This was the place. The door - some sort of imitation wood, moldy - was locked. Jazz weighed up her options. She had a device designed to overload electronic locks stored in her cybernetic arm but it would be useless against the old-fashioned deadbolt sticking out here. She could always knock. Jazz smiled to herself at the joke. She’d been doing a lot of that lately, with the mental giggles often turning into full blown conversation.
She would knock. Just with extra force. Curling her metal hand into a fist she drove it into the door beside the lock. With a crack the paneling gave way. She reached through, grabbed the deadbolt from the other side and wrenched. It came free with barely any resistance and the door swung open.
The problem with that approach was the loss of any element of surprise. Jazz stepped out of line of sight, touched Rainbow Ninja on the snout and pointed back the way they’d come. Dutifully, Rainbow Ninja turned away from the door and settled into a crouch. She wouldn’t move from her guard duties unless Jazz called.
After checking that her gun was set to stun - her default but sometimes switches got toggled - Jazz dialed her optics to low-level thermal. A new upgrade and not from her usual source but now was as good a time as any to try it out. She waited for a moment. No sound from inside. No light either. The stench of spoiled food. It’d be just her luck to find Vendta dead. He was worth a pittance dead.
This residence was laid out differently from the others she’d passed. A narrow entryway, lined on Jazz’s right by a bench dug out of the rock, with a doorway on either side at the other end. The more expensive kind of cheap, perhaps. Keeping low, Jazz drifted inside. Despite the pile of stuff on the bench, nothing emitted heat.
Now she could hear sound. The low thudding whir of a fan, coming from the right-hand doorway. Pressed as close to the wall as possible, Jazz shuffled forward, knees bent. She couldn’t stand in one doorway without exposing her back in the other. She risked a peek around the left-hand doorframe. A bed, no heat sources. She twisted the other way, saw the outline of a chair frame, the fan turning directly overhead. Slowly she shifted her balance to give herself a better viewing angle.
Two human-shaped heat signatures beside the chair. She ducked back, almost overbalancing in the process. One signature stood, the other sat. Had Vendta hired protection or had another hunter beaten Jazz to the punch?
“Lights on,” a voice said, and Jazz scrambled to switch her optics back to normal. The voice was familiar. Out of place but familiar.
The lights, weak but still brighter than darkness, powered on, illuminating walls streaked with green mildew. Half-eaten snack packs and water canisters, probably bought from the shop Jazz had passed, covered the bench beside her.
Now would’ve been a good time for one of Tollett’s smoke grenades. Jazz chased the thought away. Even after six months thinking of her former boyfriend jabbed a needle into a wound nowhere near healed.
She peeked around the corner again, yanked her head back. No gunfire. No dagger whistling past to clang off the rock. No movement other than the incessant turning of the fan. Just as she was about to take another look Jazz realized whose voice she’d heard. Letting out a noiseless growl, she straightened and stepped into the open, gun up.
“Hello dear,” Mother said, standing over Vendta, pressing a pistol against the back of his head. “You are a devil to get hold of, you know that?”
***
Thanks for reading! Psyched to read the whole book? Well, then you have two options. Preorder through your favorite bookstore by following this link or read on to see how you can get the book by becoming a member of the S.C. Mae Book Club. Garbadon Major drops August 3rd.
Book 1 & 2 of the series, Miltan Epsilon & Chak'r'Das, have already been released. The final book in the series, Bil'Tross, will be out in November.
If you buy me a coffee today, I'll gift you Miltan Epsilon & Chak'r'Das! All you need to do is let me know via the email address you donate from which format you'd prefer (.epub, .mobi (Kindle), .pdf) and I'll wing them across to you. But wait... If you become a member of The S.C. Mae Book Club you'll get both those books plus all new books launched during your time as a member, before they hit the bookstores! As a member you can also access to plenty of other exclusive content, including Jazz Healy's origin story, The Parmethon Caper.
If you'd prefer to buy Miltan Epsilon & Chak'r'Das from your favorite bookstore, then please click on the appropriate link below. Miltan Epsilon is free to read!
Once again, thanks for stopping by!
S.C. Mae
***
Miltan Epsilon
Amazon: Link
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24 Symbols: Link
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Chak'r'Das
Amazon: Link
Apple: Link
Barnes & Noble: Link
Kobo: Link
Google Play: Link
Scribd: Link
24 Symbols: Link
Indigo: Link