A Fistful of Trouble (Outlaws of the Galaxy Book 2) by Paul Tomlinson (free ebook reader for iphone .TXT) 📕

they have preserved the study of a famous writer or they have a recreation of 221b Baker Street. It was a collection of furniture and objects in a location rather than someone’s home. This place was supposed to convince us that its owner was a successful man with good taste. I found it soulless and the imported mahogany panelling was dark and oppressive.

An area of the sage-green carpet in front of the Colonel’s immense mahogany desk was covered with polythene. I looked up, thinking they must be painting the ceiling, but then I realised that it was there to protect the carpet from something else. Blood. My blood.

“You’re thinking that it lacks a woman’s touch,” said a voice behind me.

The villain of the piece, I presumed. I’d been thinking that it lacked a human touch, but decided not to correct him. It’s often helpful to allow an opponent to overestimate his own deductive abilities.

Colonel Damian Hodge was tall and thin, holding himself in the upright manner of someone with a bad back. I think they call it military bearing. Either that or having a stick up your ass. He had a straight, narrow nose and milky blue eyes. His pale moustache was neatly trimmed, curving to points that may have been waxed. The goatee beard was also cut to a point. Sandy hair was swept back from a smooth, high forehead. There was a frown-line between his brows but otherwise his face was free of wrinkles. I knew he must be of a similar age to the Mayor and Patricia Brennan, but he could easily have been taken for a younger man. Everything about him was smart and precise, from the manicured nails of the long fingers, to the polished leather of belt and boots, and the crisp creases down the front of his uniform trousers. Twin rows of gleaming buttons marched vertically down the blue-grey military jacket and loops of wine-red braid were sewn in perfect horizontal lines across it. I felt like I’d stepped through a portal into Ruritania. There was a benign smile on his thin lips as he reached to shake my hand.

“It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Mr. Randall,” he said. “I thought I should save you the trouble of having to lie about your name. I consulted with a friend in Military Intelligence.”

“Colonel Hodge – I’ve heard a great deal about you,” I said. “But I’ve always thought ‘military intelligence’ was a contradiction in terms.”

His half-smile didn’t falter. He displayed a curious lack of emotion throughout our meeting. No anger, no enthusiasm, just a cold efficiency. Normally, I would have seen this as a challenge, but under present circumstances I thought it best not to provoke him too much. He indicated that I should take a seat on one of the uncomfortable leather sofas. He took the chair opposite me, sitting stiff-backed. The big blue robot entered and took up a position behind the Colonel’s chair. I saw Casey looking at it and realised that he used to stand in that place.

“Would you like some tea? Something stronger?” the Colonel asked.

I shook my head.

“I’m glad that we have this opportunity to talk,” he said. “I feel that events have rather overtaken us.”

I wasn’t really in the mood for small talk. “What are you going to do?” I asked.

“To you?”

“No, to the town.”

“Nothing. As long as they are prepared to be reasonable.”

I’m sure he had his own ideas about what ‘reasonable’ was. I doubted whether the Mayor or any of the other townspeople would see what the Colonel wanted as reasonable.

Colonel Damian Hodge shared with me his life story and the history of his family. He seemed to like the sound of his own voice. Or perhaps he didn’t get many visitors. I wasn’t giving him my full attention, but even if I had been I don’t think there would have been much to report here. His father had been a successful businessman who made his fortune manufacturing armaments of some kind during the War. Damian Hodge was the second son and not his father’s favourite. He had joined the Alliance Army towards the end of the War.

I’m not clear how the Colonel ended up on Saphira after the conflict ended. I suspect he had been stationed in this far-off quadrant and saw an opportunity to make his own fortune during the anticipated ‘War tourism’ boom. He had created his own company and secured a lucrative contract when the Hailey hotel chain had decided to build a space station in orbit around the planet. I think he had the contract to install all of the carpets in the Starlight Hotel. Or he may have said conduits, my mind wandered. His success hadn’t been enough to impress his father and he remained estranged from his family. I’m not sure that excuses his behaviour – I don’t get along with my father and I turned out all right. Sort of.

Colonel Hodge had met Patricia when the space station was nearing completion. Her family had invested in its construction. The Colonel had fallen deeply in love – for the first and only time in his life. He courted her – his word – for some months, but her feelings for him were not nearly as intense. Unable to win her heart, he had lost her to the more handsome and more outgoing Jason Brennan.

After their marriage, the Brennans had moved to Cicada City expecting, like the other founders, to see it prosper off the back of the space hotel. The tourist boom had never really happened – wealthy visitors remained on the station and made only occasional and fleeting visits to the planet itself. For unspecified reasons, Colonel Hodge had also made Cicada City his home. If his only reason for moving there was to be near Patricia Brennan, he was a creepy stalker as well as a militaristic nutjob.

“I helped to found this town,” the Colonel said. “And I have devoted much of my life