Space Witch: A Paranormal Space Opera Adventure (Star Justice Book 2) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  End Notes

  The Destroyer excerpt

  Lion's Quest excerpt

  A Paranormal Space Opera Adventure

  Michael-Scott Earle

  Chapter 1

  It looked like a classic western type bar. One of those watering holes I recalled from the old movies with a pair of wooden double doors, dozens of dusty seats and sticky beer tables, a broken down jukebox in a corner, and inhabitants that looked like they had worked way too hard for way too many hours. There were about half a dozen men in the room, but only two of them looked up when Eve, Z, and I stepped into the tavern.

  As soon as the men saw Eve and Z, they did a double take and elbowed their buddies. All the men sat up straighter and looked at the two women at my side with obvious hunger.

  “It looks like these guys haven’t seen a beautiful woman in ten years,” Z said.

  “I did notice the looks we got on the street. I have also been reading their surface thoughts. These are off-world traders, not natives. They have been in space for a while, and they are here to find a good time for little money,” Eve whispered. “There are not many women here in town. They all stay on their farmlands.”

  The bar was about eight meters long, but it looked like only two chairs on the end were ever used. The two women and I approached the long counter and sat on three of the chairs. The bartender turned around to grab three glasses and then set them on the bar before us.

  “What can I get you?” he asked with a wheeze.

  “Water,” the three of us said at the same time.

  “Huh? You not big spenders?” The man’s face was beyond weathered, and he closed one eye partially while looking at us.

  “We are looking for someone. John Sampson. Do you know him?” I asked.

  “Yeah, he should be here in a while. What you want with him?” the bartender asked.

  “Looking to trade,” I said.

  “What are you looking to trade?” The bartender looked at Eve and licked his lips.

  “That’s my business.”

  “I’ve got another business for you if you’re interested.” The bartender winked his eye at me before he looked at Z.

  “I am not interested in that,” I said. “These women are not for sale.”

  “Eh? Everything’s for sale. I can get you a splendid price. You’ll only have to part with them for a few hours. Then we’ll give them back. Think of it like a lease,” The man chuckled and smacked his lips together as he looked at Eve again.

  Z carried one of the smaller pistols we took from the Elaka Nota bodyguards. In half a second it was in her hand and pointed at the skull of the bartender. “I’m not for rent, asshole. Why don’t you go crawl into your corner and leave us alone?”

  The men sitting inside of the saloon shifted in their seats, and I turned to stare at them. No one had reached for a weapon, and I guessed they were more worried about accidentally getting shot than trying to defend the life of the bartender.

  “Sheesh. Just trying to make you all some money.” The man ducked his head and took a step back from Z’s barrel. His face was many shades of white now, and I guessed he wasn’t used to having a gun pointed at him.

  Few were.

  “And he told you no,” the blonde hacker growled and then slid her gun back into her holster.

  “Enough fucking around. What does Sampson look like?” I asked the bartender as I let my hand rest on the grip of my giant revolver.

  His beady eyes moved to my hand and then back to my face. Unlike Z, I had the eyes of a killer.

  “He’s got curly brown hair. Tied in a ponytail,” he said. “I’m gonna tell you, if you try to pull on him it might be the last thing you ever do. He’s got friends with him all the time.”

  “That’s what we were told,” I replied. We had landed Persephone’s shuttle on the edge of town in a field near a few other craft and then walked to the first trading post we found. The man there had been guarded, but Eve was able to help me lead a conversation with the man. Eventually he told us that John Sampson would be able to sell us water and food supplies.

  If we had money.

  The problem was that Gliese 876 - C-ii used gold “shells” as currency, and the trader told us he didn’t know anywhere on the moon where we could exchange our Trappist - 1 cash.

  At least the water wouldn’t be a problem. We spotted dozens of creeks, rivers, ponds, and lakes as we skimmed over the surface. We would have to test it first to make sure there were no toxic chemicals in it, but I doubted there would be any problems. We would probably need to make three or four trips to fill up Persephone’s reserves. Then we wouldn’t need to worry about water for another six months.

  The three of us sat at the bar in silence. I took a sip of the water, and it didn’t taste half bad. As soon as Z saw me drink and not choke, the blonde hacker downed her glass and then gestured for the bartender to bring her another. I half expected the man to tell her to fuck off, but he just nodded, filled up her glass, and then set it back down in front of her.

  This is the man we are looking for.

  Eve’s voice came into my mind, and I turned to the double saloon doors a few seconds before they opened. A lanky man, dressed in jeans and a leather riding coat, stepped into the saloon. He wore a pair of what looked like laser pistols on his belt, and each of the three men walking with him also carried small laser weapons.

  I had never thought the weapons very useful. Plasma weapons launched jets or balls of molten magma. Ion weapons fried inorganic and organic targets with focused electricity. Lasers were expensive, hard to maintain, need to recharge between shots, and couldn’t burn through most body armor. They were fine on starships because a lot of juice would flow through the blasts, and a hit would superheat most ship bulkheads, but handheld units couldn’t really get enough power. They were decorative pieces really, but I still didn’t like the idea of getting shot with one.

  The newcomers did a double take when they saw Eve and Z. Then the four men approached us with wide smiles on their leathery faces.

  “Howdy, you three new in town?” John Sampson said as he looked at Eve. They were all looking at the vampire woman, and Sampson was doing his best to not eyefuck her.

  “Yeah. We have a ship. Just passing through. Looking for some water, food, and work. We were told you are the guy to talk to,” I said.

  “I am. What kind of work are you looking for?” the man asked, but he didn’t look at me when he talked, he just stared at Eve.

  “We can transport goods across the moon or a solar system. We also have military training.” I leaned forward a bit so that I could whisper without the other men in the bar overhearing.

  “How much food you need?” one of the men asked.

  “It is for our ship. Whatever we can buy off you,” I answered.

  “How many is your crew?” John asked.

  The question is benign.

  “Three to five hundred kilograms of mixed protein and vegetable
s should be fine. Are you a rancher?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” The man turned to me. “Well, my father is. I help him with the business stuff. It is a lot of work.”

  “I can understand,” I said. “We do not have any Gliese shells. Our cash is from Trappist-1. Do you deal with that system?”

  “Naw. We might be able to trade other things though.” Sampson turned to Eve.

  “We have weapons we can trade. Also, our ship has a large hold,” I said as I tried to wrangle my anger.

  “What is your name, sweetheart?” Samson asked the raven-haired woman.

  “Eve. My man’s name is Adam. That is Z,” Eve said as she nodded to us.

  “Your man? What does that mean exactly?” John asked.

  “It means that you are handsome, but I am not interested.” Eve smiled.

  “Ahh. Well. Too bad for you.” The man sighed and then turned to look at Z. “How about you?”

  “Sorry, cowboy. We are just looking to trade. Adam forgot to mention we have other skills. I’m good with computers.”

  “Yes, sorry about that,” I said as I smiled at the blonde woman.

  “If you want five hundred kilos of mixed, it will run you rough-and-tough six hundred shells,” John answered as he turned to me.

  “As I said before, we don’t have shells. Do you have work? Would you be willing to trade for arms?” I asked.

  “I can ask my father, but I don’t think we really need help from outsid--”

  “Well, well, well. Look at who I have found lurking in my least favorite watering hole.” The double doors to the saloon opened, and a duster wearing figure stepped inside of the bar. The voice was gravely and sounded as if the speaker might have puffed on a dozen boxes of cigarettes every day for the last eighty years.

  The voice was also distinctly feminine.

  The four men turned and set their hands on their laser pistols. I looked past them to study the woman closer. She wore a cowboy hat with a wide brim that hid her hair. The woman may have once been beautiful, but half of her face was made mostly of metal, and her left eye shone with a yellow laser glow. It was almost as if she wore a mask of polished steel shaped into the form of the rest of her face.

  “I’m not looking for trouble, Cynthia,” John said as his hand rested on his pistol.

  “Me either.” The woman laughed, and the sound reminded me of an old gasoline internal combustion engine turning over to wake. Four men stepped in through the saloon doors behind the woman, and I nodded to Z.

  We scooted from our spot at the bar behind John Sampson and took seats at a corner table.

  “Then why are you in my town? You’ve got your corner of this moon. My family has theirs.” John’s lanky body was tense.

  “Oh, you know, my radars picked up a new starship, then a shuttle came down. I’m always looking for news from other systems.” The woman raised her left arm to tip up her hat a bit. I could see that the limb was cybernetic and polished just as the same side of her face was. Her glowing eye fixed on us. “That pretty ship up in the sky yours?”

  “Yes,” I said. “We are looking for food and maybe work.”

  “Ahh. I’d love to oblige you folk. I guess you picked this city because it was closest to your entry point. We’ve got thirty or so settlements on this moon. I’d like to invite you all to mine. I’m Cynthia Jayhee. Who are you?”

  Her mind is strange. I believe she has brain damage. Some of her thoughts are in digital codes. She doesn’t like John, but I cannot feel any hostility toward us.

  “Adam, Eve, and Z,” I said as I gestured with my thumb. “I’m interested in trading. Mr. Sampson here has told us he is a rancher and quoted us six hundred shells for five hundred kilos of mixed--”

  “Well, shit! Sounds like the boy is trying to swindle you. Tell you what, I’m looking for someone with a ship to do a job for me in the system. Should take you only a day or so. I’d be more than happy to give you the five hundred kilos of mixed once you finish.”

  “Hold on. I’m not done discussing the deal with these folk. I told them I needed to speak with my father, and--”

  “Your father is a son of a bitch.” Cynthia’s robot hand jerked down to touch the handle of a pistol at her hip. It looked to be a big revolver, like the one I carried holstered on my belt next to one of my large pistols.

  John’s hands lowered to his own weapons, and his men followed his movement. The two groups stared at each other for a good ten seconds, and then Cynthia slowly brought her hand up from her revolver.

  “Well, it would be impolite to have a scuffle in front of our guests. I like to think I have manners, unlike some other families on this rock.” The cyborg turned to me and made a gesture with her non-robot arm. “If you finish talking to this man’s snake of a father, you can come see me. I’ll treat the three of you to dinner as a kindness. I will ask for any news from you though. Then we can talk business. Whatever the Sampson family will offer you, I’ll better it. So keep me in mind.”

  “Thanks,” I answered.

  “Good. My ranch is at negative forty-three point eight five seven by four point three three. If you want to let me know you are coming over, my crew listens to baud forty-five.” The woman raised her robot finger to John, made her hand look like a gun. “Bang. I’ll see you around, kid.” Then she turned to walk out of the saloon with her posse.

  “I guess she doesn’t like you,” Z said to the lanky cowboy.

  “She doesn’t like my father, but no one does.” The man turned toward us and then took a few steps so that he stood closer. “Here is some advice, you are either with the Sampson’s, or you are with the Jayhee’s. I said I didn’t think we had any work for you, but you look like you might know your way around that.” John pointed at the massive revolver on my belt. “How about you head over to our place for a quick chat? You can ride with us.”

  “Sounds good. We’ll meet you outside in a few moments,” I said after I glanced at the two women. I had suspicions I was about to stumble into a hornet’s nest, but there was no way around it. We needed food but didn’t have any money. We would have to take some baby steps to get the supplies, so we could fly where we wanted, so we could get more money, and then recruit a crew. We weren’t going to get anyone to fly with us if we didn’t have food.

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this place. There is some drama in the air,” Z whispered to us after John and his crew walked toward the exit doors.

  “We will need to watch our step. There is noble work to do here, John’s thoughts have revealed to me that his father rules most of this moon with the grip of a tyrant, but Cynthia is not much better,” Eve said.

  “Oh, great. Now I’m positive I want to stay away. What do you both think about me running some water tests and filling up Persephone while you both deal with these jokers? I’m more than a little useless when on display next to Eve.” The blonde hacker sighed as she gestured to the vampire woman.

  “You are beautiful, Z. I think so, and so does Adam,” Eve said with a wide smile.

  “Uhhh. Yeah.” The blonde woman turned her blue eyes to me and then she blushed. “Anyway. I’ll feel useful getting water. I won’t feel useful negotiating a job. Cool?”

  “Confirmed. We each have a transponder.” I patted my vest pocket where the device lay. The shuttle was stocked with thirty of them, so we had each taken one in case we got separated on the surface of the moon. “Message me when you find a source, when you make your first drop off, and when you make your last. Eve and I will try to get some food so we can get off this rock as soon as possible.”

  “No, these people need help.” Eve gestured around the bar. “Well, not the people in this bar, they are scum. There are a little more than two million people spread over this moon. They are serfs to either Sampson or Jayhee.”

  “So what? Do you just want to kill them and move on? In a week there will be another pair of assholes in their place. It is just the way things work.” Z sighed.

  “No,
but I want to find a solution. I’ll know more once I talk to John Sampson’s father. Let us go into the maw of the beast,” Eve said to me with a slight smile.

  “Confirmed.”

  Chapter 2

  John had a large land vehicle with open seating. He gestured for Eve to sit up next to him, and for me to sit in the back with his men, but the vampire ignored his request so that we sat next to each other on the last row at the rear of the vehicle. The lanky man gave her a sour face before he started his jeep, and the expression convinced me that we were both going to have to deal with his bullshit for the length of our involvement with him.

  The road within the perimeter of the small wooden city was paved with asphalt, and the buildings looked in good repair. I guessed the city housed some twenty-five thousand people, but I only saw a handful of vehicles, a few bikes, and hundreds of horses. The citizens on the street seemed to recognize the jeep we rode in, and they either hastily moved out of the way, or ducked inside their homes.

  Within five minutes we reached the edge of the city, and five minutes later we were in the ranch-lands surrounding the settlement. The terrain reminded me a little of the old pictures I’d seen of central California. It was mostly grasslands in the valleys, but the sides of the hill were covered with dull gray-green shrubs. I had guessed by our fly-over that the moon got plenty of rain, and the land looked fertile.

  We passed a few small farms and properties fenced off for cattle. The men continued to look over their shoulders and steal glances at Eve, but I didn’t blame them. I doubted there was anyone on this moon that was even half as beautiful as the vampire woman. Her red eyes and fangs were probably off-putting to most, but her dark hair fluttered behind her like black silk, and the sun of the system cast the perfect amount of light on her pale skin. She was both delicate and dangerous. Dark and Light. Death and Life.

  I realized I was gawking at Eve as well, so I turned away from her to study the hillside. I saw a flash of light on top of the crest to her right, and a sudden surge of adrenaline poured through my entire body when my instincts told me what it was.

  “Get down!” I wrapped my arms around Eve and jumped out of the moving all-terrain vehicle opposite the direction of the light on the hill.