The Shadow Order - Books 1 - 8 + 120 Seconds (The complete series): A Space Opera

by Michael Robertson

  For the act of it if nothing else, Seb walked over to the largest of the three porcupine creatures, the one he’d broken the wrist of. He grabbed its ankles and dragged it towards the edge of the stone platform they were currently on.

  To look down into the churning mess of waste flipped Seb’s stomach. The brown river turned over on itself as it rushed through the sewers. A thick and rancid mix of toxins and disease. He looked from it to the lead slaver and then to the dead boy. All of the other children had gathered around the kid’s corpse. They all looked at Seb.

  A clenching of his jaw, Seb then screamed through his gritted teeth and kicked the vile beast in the back.

  The sound of his blow echoed through the tunnels as a slap. The creature rolled in midair as it fell from the ledge and plummeted into the river below. It hit the water with an unceremonious splash before vanishing beneath the surface. No doubt it would wash up on Aloo’s shores at some point in the next few days. Not that a dead body in Aloo would surprise anyone. Hopefully such a frequent occurrence, no one would bother to investigate, but even if they did, they had no way of tracing it back to him.

  Just as Seb thought to go back for the other two slavers, he saw the children bringing them to him. They sent them the way of their leader.

  A line of seven little beings from all over the galaxy, they stared down into the river and watched the space where the creatures had vanished beneath the surface. They needed that.

  When one of the children walked over to the frog boy and grabbed his ankles, Seb shook his head. “No,” he said. His voice cracked when he added, “He’s not going in there.”

  “Then where?” the child, a hairless bipedal cat, said.

  A good question. They could hardly find somewhere to bury him. “We need to leave him down here,” Seb said.

  Confusion stared up at him.

  “Hardly ideal, I know, but we can’t take him above ground. Not if we want to get you lot out of here without any drama.” Did he believe that? Most beings, no matter how ruthless, would want to help the children. But if he had a tail sent to follow him by Moses, he didn’t need to be coming above ground and making a fuss with the body of a dead child. It wouldn’t bring the kid back to life. “I don’t think he should be dumped in the water. He deserves more than we just gave those things.”

  Before Seb could say anything else, all of the remaining children gathered around the frog boy. They went to work on him, straightening his clothes and crossing his arms over his chest.

  It only took a few seconds before they stepped away from his corpse. Seb’s eyes itched and his world blurred. The kid lay on the damp stone ground. His green eyes were glazed with his passing, but he looked at peace, a halo of blood pooling around his head. The torment of only a few minutes ago had left him; forced through the top of his skull by a green laser blast. As sad as his suicide was, it made sense. Just a shame he couldn’t see any other way to process what had happened to him.

  Seb walked over to the boy and crouched down next to him. He stared into his dead face and stroked his brow. “Be at peace. Find your mum, kid.” The gods knew he’d thought about ending it all himself. A thousand times at least. When his time came, he’d get to see his guardian angel again. She probably looked down on him now. The call of down rang through his memory. Maybe not a strange voice. Maybe just a voice he hadn’t heard in a long time.

  When Seb looked back at the children, he met the stares from seven small and dirty faces. Although he cleared his throat, it did little to banish the emotion in his voice. A warble ran through his words. “I know we’re not exactly in the nicest of places,” he said, “but we need to wait it out in the sewers for a few more hours. After that, I’m going to take you to someone who can help you. But I don’t want to wait in this exact spot. We can all say goodbye to …”

  “Artez,” the blue-furred girl said.

  Seb nodded. “Artez. We can all say goodbye to him; then we need to find somewhere else.”

  The kids formed an orderly queue, the blue-furred girl at the front. Seb watched them say goodbye to Artez one by one.

  Chapter 17

  A large creature similar to the brown hairy one in the prison cell—the one that looked like Bruke—walked into Seb. The impact sent fire through his right shoulder and spun him almost all the way around. Instinct took over. He clenched his metal fists, slowed his world down, and glared at the brute. It stared straight back, more than ready for the fight it didn’t realise it had no chance of winning.

  But Seb turned away from the creature and continued on, moving through the bustling crowd in the busy spaceport. The only human from what he could see, he pushed forward and took the knocks. Let them try to intimidate him; it didn’t matter. It still seemed like the resentment came because of what he was rather than who he was. He could only assume Moses hadn’t put the call out for him yet.

  What sounded like a million different accents filled the air in the spaceport as creatures shouted at one another. So many voices, the sound turned into white noise for all but the ones closest to Seb. The creatures farther away could be talking about him. Hard to imagine they wouldn’t be with how they all stared at him. But he couldn’t kick off, especially not now.

  The few hours in the sewer had helped Seb lose his tail. At least, he’d seen no sign of it yet. For all the attention on him at that moment, he couldn’t feel the watchful eye of someone specifically sent to track him down. Although, like a salamander, he might have lost one tail, but he’d grown another.

  A look over his shoulders on both sides and he ran through the count. One, two, three, four, five, six … His heart sped. Six?! Seb stopped and the six stopped too. They were to follow him, stay in sight, but not get too close. A human in the spaceport attracted enough attention. If he had seven slave children with him, he wouldn’t last two seconds without something kicking off. Then he saw her, the small blue hairy one. He’d not asked their names because he didn’t want to get too attached. A relieved sigh, he set off again.

  To walk between the two ships on either side of the alleyway to the docks made the guards on the cargo bays of each ship bristle. On his left he saw four beasts. They held chrome handles that would no doubt produce a laser sword of some description. Two guards on the other side, they went for the more traditional semi-automatic blasters. Both crews utterly different from one another were united in what appeared to be a desire to obliterate humanity.

  Although he had to remain vigilant to the threat, they really didn’t matter at that moment. Seb stared straight ahead as he headed towards the docks. The children followed him.

  The wind on the other side of the ships ran across the expanse of open concrete straight into Seb. All of Aloo stank of salt, but having it rammed in his face intensified the stench.

  Where he’d lost the small blue hairy creature in the busy spaceport, Seb saw her come through the walkway first. He tapped her on the head as she passed him. “One.”

  Several more came through behind her. “Two, three, four, five.”

  A look up the alleyway and Seb saw six and seven walking towards him. But then one of the creatures from one of the cargo ships stepped in front of them. One of the ones with the swords.

  “Wait there,” Seb said to the five children and he headed back up the walkway. “What’s the problem?”

  The creature with the sword didn’t look capable of wielding it. Fat, flabby arms, tyres of blubber running around its middle. It looked at Seb and lifted its plump top lip in a sneer. “What are you doing with these kids?”

  “Taking them to someone who can help them. They were slaves.”

  “You bought them?”

  Seb dropped his voice to a low growl. “I rescued them.”

  “They’re valuable.”

  The two remaining children were mandulus. They were even ugly as kids, but they were kids nonetheless. They were so young they still had their horns. Seb moved between them and the fat swordsman. He shoved both of them in the dire
ction of the others and said, “Go and be with your friends. I’ll catch up.”

  “I can’t let you do that,” the creature with the sword said. A quiet click and the metal handle of the sword produced a purple, cutlass-shaped blade.

  The fighting grew tiresome, but sometimes it resolved things quicker than anything else could. In one swift movement, Seb shoved the creature back, its skin slimy as if it secreted sludge. Before it had time to think, he punched it in the centre of its fat head.

  The swordsman hit the ground hard and the two kids ran to be with the others. Seb leaned down and pulled its sword from its unconscious hand. When he cut the weapon through the air, it felt sharp enough to slice through the salt on the wind.

  The blade still in his hand, Seb turned to look back at the creatures guarding either ship. First he looked at the sword wielder’s friends, and then he looked at the two beasts with the semi-automatic rifles. He raised his eyebrows at each group, inviting them to step forwards.

  None of them took the offer.

  While pointing the purple blade down at the unconscious beast, Seb said, “I don’t know what he thought to do with those children, but they’re going to be reunited with their families. When he comes to, make sure he knows I spared his head. But if he even thinks about trafficking, especially children, I’ll be back for it.”

  Other than the wind, Seb heard nothing, so he looked at the unconscious beast’s friends. “Okay?”

  The creatures nodded.

  Then to the two with blasters. “That goes for you too.”

  They also nodded.

  The sword’s handle had a small button on the grip. Seb pressed it and the blade vanished. He then slipped the weapon into his pocket.

  Seb walked towards the docks, stepping out of the alleyway into the harsh wind again. The skin around his lips and eyes stung worse than ever. The sooner he got away from Aloo, the better.

  Chapter 18

  “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,” Seb said as he did another head count and set off again. Now they had an expanse of concrete between them and the chain-link fence sectioning off Buster’s warehouse; hopefully none of them would go astray.

  Where Seb had struggled against the battering from the wind, he glanced behind to see the children had lined up in single file behind him. And he couldn’t begrudge them using him as a barrier against the elements. The assault ran so hard into him, it would probably lift the kids off their feet if they tried to brave it on their own.

  Only a fifty-metre walk at the most, but by the time Seb reached the gate in the chain-link fence, the skin on his face had pulled so taut it felt like it could crack.

  A nine-foot-tall mandulu with a swollen face appeared when they got closer. It wore a blaster on a thong across its chest, just like it had the last time Seb saw it. It glared harder at him than before, almost as if it had been plotting its revenge for the beating he’d given it.

  The creature looked like it wouldn’t say anything, so Seb shrugged. “Buster said to come back in three hours.”

  The mandulu paused for a few seconds, its chest rising and falling with its heavy breaths. “You’re early.”

  Seb shrugged again. Ten minutes early at the most, he didn’t reply because he couldn’t be bothered with the argument.

  A snort of air from its fat snout, the mandulu waited for a good minute before finally opening the gate, letting Seb and the little ones in.

  Just before Seb rounded the corner to enter the warehouse, he stopped and raised a halting hand at the kids. Seven small faces looked up at him. “You need to wait here while I go and see Buster. I need to warn him what’s about to enter his life before he sees it.” A look at the mandulu on the gate, he saw it still staring back at him. Although it hated him, he could see it wouldn’t harm the kids. As one of Buster’s guards, it probably knew how to handle them much better than Seb did.

  Seb looked back at the children. None of them spoke. Hopefully all seven would remain where they were.

  When he entered the warehouse, Seb flinched at the sight. Good job he hadn’t brought the children with him. A scene similar to the one he’d encountered the first time he’d visited—Buster, six mandulus, and one shady-looking character wrapped in chains all stood over the hole in the warehouse’s ground.

  Buster looked up at Seb, flashed him a reptilian smile—his eyes cold, his teeth wonky—and then he pushed the chained creature into the water with a splash. He wiped his hands, his laugh ringing out through the warehouse. “I should have a new tag line for my business: Cleaning up the galaxy one slaver at a time. Maybe I’ll get some stationery made up, what do you think?”

  Seb nodded at the pit the slaver had just been dropped into. “You might have to make a new hole. Many more bodies in that one and the pile of corpses will reach the surface.”

  The same crooked smile remained before Buster said, “You’re early.”

  Owsk had seemed like a stand-up kind of being. He wouldn’t trust Buster if he couldn’t be trusted. But now Seb had to hand children over to the creature, he had to question the decision. What would he do with them? What if he couldn’t get them back to their parents? But what else could he do? Not like he could take them with him. And Owsk trusted him. “I found a bunch of slaves while I was out.”

  Buster’s frame sank and his wonky smile fell.

  “Seven of them. Children.” If only it were eight. Seb pulled in a deep breath to settle his emotions.

  A tilt of his head to one side, but Buster still didn’t reply.

  “I couldn’t leave them.”

  This time Buster looked past Seb at the entrance of the warehouse. “Where are they?”

  “Kids,” Seb called out and clapped his hands to get their attention.

  The small blue hairy one led the way. A line of tiny beings with wide and fearful eyes followed her. Even Buster softened at their appearance.

  It took a few seconds before Buster looked away again and called to one of the mandulus. “Take them into holding. Feed them, get them washed up, and find out where the hell they’re all from. We need to get them back home.”

  “Think of the fees,” Seb said with a shrug. “It’s all credits, right?”

  Buster cocked an eyebrow at him and spoke with a slow and cold voice. “Right.”

  Although Buster didn’t invite him, when he walked towards his decrepit office, Seb followed.

  The second Seb entered the room, he looked at the metal frame he’d been tied to. A once white, now yellowed, sheet had been draped over it, hiding both it and the bloodstained floor surrounding it. Should he really be handing over vulnerable children to this creature?

  After Seb had closed the door behind himself, he opened his mouth to speak. But before he could get his words out, something knocked from outside.

  “Come in,” Buster yelled.

  The face of a tall and skinny red creature poked its head into the room. Its eyes were the colour of cocoa and sat on opposite sides of its blade-shaped head. It looked like it belonged in the sea. It stared at Seb and Seb stared back.

  The creature entered the room and closed the door behind it. To see it in its tall and skinny glory showed just how impoverished it was. No meat on its bones, its clothes were filthy and torn to shreds. It gripped an envelope in its long hands, the cream paper as mucky as everything else to do with it.

  The smell of dirt walked past Seb with the creature. It stopped in front of Buster. “I’ve come to deliver the first payment for returning Alicia to us. Thank you again, sir, we’re forever in your debt.”

  Although Buster wore a permanent scowl, which he levelled on the wretched thing in front of him, he said, “Keep it.”

  Both Buster’s tone and demeanour suggested hostility, so it took Seb a few seconds before he said, “Huh?”

  An awkward silence followed as the other two stared at Seb. The red being then turned back to Buster. “I don’t understand.”

  “Keep it. You need the credits. I can’t
take them from you. Tell you what, I’ll make you a deal. If you ever come into a fortune, remember your debt. Otherwise, forget about it. I’ve just wiped your slate clean.”

  The red creature didn’t reply, its long mouth falling open as it twisted its grip around the envelope.

  “Oh, one more thing,” Buster said.

  It had seemed too good to be true. Seb’s stomach twisted in anticipation of Buster’s imminent act of cruelty.

  “Don’t tell anyone I’ve not made you pay. I don’t want the galaxy and their neighbours thinking I’m a soft touch. I have to make a living, after all.” Before the creature could respond, Buster pointed at it. “If I find out that you’ve told anyone, I’ll expect every penny of the fee, okay?”

  The red creature looked no less scared of Buster now than when he’d entered. While bending over as if halfway through a bow, he backed out of the room, repeating the words, “Thank you.”

  When the door closed, Seb looked at it for a second. He then looked at Buster, who scowled at him. No wonder his office looked like crap. If he never collected, he probably didn’t have the credits he should in his line of work.

  What small break there had been in Buster’s saltiness returned and he damn near spat his words at Seb. “I only charge those who can afford it.” He sighed. “Unfortunately, so few beings can afford it.” The scowl returned. “Let’s hope one of those little brats you brought to me has a rich mummy and daddy; otherwise I’ll be coming to you for the fees.”

  Any doubt Seb had had about bringing the kids to Buster suddenly vanished. They’d all get to where they needed to go. “So how did you get on with the parasite I brought to you?”

  While glancing at his nails, Buster shrugged. “I need longer.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s pretty simple, isn’t it? I need longer.” Although Seb opened his mouth to reply, Buster said, “The parasite has been genetically manufactured.”