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

by Michael Robertson

  When Bruke shifted again, Seb saw Sparks looking up at the large brute. She had her computer raised in his direction, the end that fired electricity pointing at him. One eyebrow raised, she issued a silent threat for him to move his hulking body out of her space.

  An irritated frown still locking her small features, Sparks looked past the reptilian lump at Seb. “I think the whole of the Shadow Order will be done after you’ve taken him down; he’s the linchpin of the entire organisation. Where does that leave us when this is all done?”

  As much as Seb loved Sparks, he didn’t have future plans with her. Once he’d dealt with Moses, he’d talk to SA to see what she wanted to do. Just thinking about it lifted heat through his cheeks, almost as if the others could hear his private musings. Good job Bruke blocked her from seeing him at that moment. And what if she didn’t want a quiet life? He shook his head to himself. He couldn’t think about it now. Deal with Moses first. One step at a time.

  The elevator came to a halt with a slight bounce that made Seb hold onto the wall next to him. He drew a deep breath to clear his mind. Just one thing to focus on at that moment. Everything else could wait.

  The gap down the centre of the doors widened, letting in the stark light of the place and revealing the gunmetal grey of the Shadow Order’s base. Although Seb felt SA’s hand on his arm as he passed her, he strode out of the elevator and didn’t look back.

  Don’t do anything rash, SA said to him as he walked away.

  The time for discussion has well and truly passed. This has to end now.

  She didn’t try to dissuade him.

  As he walked down the corridor towards the training room, Seb heard Moses before he saw him. Churning out his usual propaganda, he espoused the virtues of being a Shadow Order member to what must have been another room full of rookies. His booming voice echoed through the cavernous space as if amplified by more than his large diaphragm. An almost godlike oration, it spoke of the creature’s power.

  When Seb entered the training hall, he saw the benches behind the simulation rooms. They were loaded with rookies. All of them watched Moses, either in awe of him, or doing a great job of pretending they were. Then one of them looked his way. Within seconds, most of them had shifted their attention from the shark to him.

  A moment later, Moses stopped talking and turned around slowly. Upon seeing Seb, the side of his wide mouth lifted in a ghastly smirk. He fixed him with his onyx glare, his dark eyes as impossible to read as ever.

  When Moses clapped his hands together once, the sound of it went off in the cavernous space like a gunshot. “Well, well, well. I wondered how long it would take for you to return with your tail between your legs.”

  The dead parasite still in his pocket from when Buster had given it back to him, Seb fished it out and held it in Moses’ direction as he walked towards him. “My tail is far from between my legs.” He threw the dead bug at the shark. Half of the rookies gasped as it hit the Shadow Order’s leader on the end of his nose and fell to the hard metal floor with a ting.

  Moses stared down at it and shook his head. His voice came out as a low growl that echoed around the large space. It sounded like an idle ship’s engine. “You don’t have the first clue what you’re talking about, boy. There are much deadlier beings in the galaxy than me. I’m the least of your worries.”

  “Whether that’s true or not, you’re a snake. You’re not going to wriggle your way out of this one.” His world in slow motion, Seb looked at Moses’ snout. It stood out as his weakest spot. Although, the weakest on Moses looked to be much tougher than what he normally faced. He wouldn’t go down easily.

  As Seb stood there with balled fists, Moses acknowledged his challenge by baring his teeth, a wide spread of sharp enamel from one side of his fat head to the other. One snap of those powerful jaws would take his head clean off.

  His focus on the shark’s scarred nose, Seb yelled and charged at him. He threw a hard blow that connected with a loud clop.

  The collective gasp from the rookies swirled around the room, but Moses remained in the same spot, his black glossy glare as hard to read as it had been seconds ago.

  Seb stared at the Shadow Order’s leader. It looked like his smile had spread even wider. Two more jabs in quick succession, he watched Moses’ head snap one way and then the other.

  The shark remained on his feet.

  Moses then drew a deep breath. His already broad chest broadened. He released a roar so fierce, the force of it sent Seb back a couple of steps.

  From the second he’d met Moses, Seb had assumed he could beat him; now he didn’t feel so sure.

  As Moses lunged, Seb dived to the side. The snap of the brute’s jaws went off like a thunderclap, slamming shut where Seb had been moments before.

  If Seb’s punches didn’t work, he’d have to rely on his slow motion.

  As Moses sailed past him, Seb caught a glimpse of all the rookies again. They watched on, shock on every one of their faces. When he spun to face Moses, he saw his friends behind him. They stood at the entrance to the room, gathered in the corridor he’d just stepped out of.

  Moses came at Seb again, his mouth open wide.

  Seb avoided him and drove a blow against the side of his face. Like punching a horse dressed in leather, it seemed to have little effect. Until he saw he’d changed the shark’s trajectory. He crashed into one of the upright steel girders dotted throughout the training space.

  While the clang echoed through the hall, Seb looked at his friends. Make sure no one else gets involved. This fight is mine alone.

  The twist of SA’s features showed she’d heard him. She didn’t reply.

  Just in time to catch Moses running at him, hope lifted in Seb’s chest to see the blood glistening on the end of his nose.

  Moses jumped at him again, his mouth a hoop of razor-sharp teeth. Seb darted to the side and caught him with another jab as he sailed past. This time he meant to send him into a girder. A crunch rang through the space, and Moses fell limp to the ground with a dead thud.

  Seb ran at the beast.

  His jaw clenched, his right fist balled, Seb let out a scream. But just before he could land another blow, Moses burst to life again, springing up with a roar.

  Although Seb ducked, the sharp sting of Moses’ bite caught his left shoulder as he leapt past him. It ripped a tear through his top and tore fire through his flesh.

  A few metres separated them when Moses landed, spun around, and smiled again. “You think you can take me down that easily, human? You’ll have to work harder than that.” He charged again.

  Seb stepped in to meet him and drove an uppercut into Moses’ lower jaw. It closed his mouth with a loud clop and halted his progress, but it didn’t knock him back.

  Moses’ snout exposed, Seb piled a flurry of punches into it. One, two, three, four … the fifth one rocked the tall beast, and he blinked several times as if trying to remain conscious. He had him!

  Just as Seb pulled his fist back for the final blow, his arm snapped away from him, yanking him backwards. For the briefest of moments he thought one of the rookies had grabbed him. Then his other hand dragged over with it.

  Seb hit the metal floor fists first. Someone had turned it magnetic.

  Despite his desire to fight, Seb couldn’t move his hands. He fell limp.

  Moses’ deep laugh boomed through the space. “You think I wouldn’t protect myself against you? I saw how volatile you were the second I met you. I knew this day would come.” In his hand, he had a remote, which he waved in the air. “This entire place is magnetic if I want it to be.”

  Panting, Seb spoke through gritted teeth. “So that’s why you gave me metal hands?”

  “Of course. I mean, it makes you a better fighter, but I’ve seen how you look at me. At some point, I knew the pup would try to bite the alpha.”

  “So you assert your authority with dirty tricks?”

  “Easy enough to do when you have an opponent with only one s
trategy of attack. When will you learn you have more than your fists to fight with?” While closing the distance between them with slow and powerful steps, Moses shook his head and laughed harder. “Besides, there’s no such thing as a fair fight. When all’s said and done, there are winners and losers. The smart and the stupid. The dead and the living. All you need to do is decide which one you want to be? Although maybe you’ve already answered the question.”

  With a two-step run-up, Moses closed the remaining distance between them.

  Seb watched the shark’s face grimace with the effort he put into his kick. White light then flashed through his vision. The very start of a fierce sting bit into the side of his face. Intense and overwhelming, it emanated from the point of impact and spread through his entire body. But before he could truly feel it, his world went dark.

  Chapter 2

  Because Moses had kicked him so hard, Seb was certain he could still feel the imprint of the shark’s boot along the side of his face. It felt like he’d left a dent in his skull. As he came to, he opened and closed his jaw. It hurt—damn, did it hurt—but he could move it. Despite the pain, he probably hadn’t broken anything.

  His hands still pinned to the floor, Seb blinked away the fog in his mind. As his vision cleared, he turned to look up at the beast still standing over him. Except it wasn’t Moses. “What are you doing here?” he said to the mandulu from the prison. At least that was what he tried to say. The swelling in his mouth made him slur his words, each one running into the next in an indecipherable mess.

  The mandulu shrugged. “I’ve not gone anywhere, sunshine.”

  The smell of the place ran up Seb’s nostrils, and he took in his surroundings. He looked around at the other beings and saw the ragtag bunch of prisoners he’d seen before. They all stared at him, and he recognised most of them. All of them looked pissed; they looked like they wanted to repay him for the prison break. No doubt Moses had punished them for it.

  A nod at Seb, the mandulu then smiled. “You look like you’ve been on the wrong end of a beating … for once. I’m guessing you’ve upset someone again? I’d like to feel sorry for you, but I’d like to be able to fly too. Some things just ain’t ever gonna happen, eh?”

  As much as Seb wanted to touch his face, he couldn’t lift his hands from the floor. In the magnetised metal complex, he had no power. The taste of copper in his mouth, he spat a lump of rubbery blood in the mandulu’s direction and said, “Screw you.”

  “I’m glad you said that.”

  Just the action of frowning sent shards of pain streaking through Seb’s sinuses. Before he could ask why, the mandulu kicked him on the opposite side of his head to where Moses had. A whiplash snap of his neck and fire exploded in his shoulders from where his hands refused to budge despite the rest of his body flying away from the blow.

  A few woozy seconds passed before his sight cleared again. Now viewing everything in slow motion, Seb saw blood pool on the floor as it ran freely from his mouth. He hung his head and watched a line of it dribble in a continuous stream. A slur—worse than before—clung onto his words. “Know that this is the only way you’ll ever get one up on me.”

  A smile as wide as his fat jaw, the mandulu bounced on the spot, clearly giddy with the power he had over him. “You sold us out, boy. You let us run into the Shadow Order’s training day to take a kicking so you could escape.” First the mandulu looked left, and then he looked right. All of the other prisoners had closed in around them. “I’d say we owe you a few licks each. Don’t worry, we won’t kill you.” His voice dropped to a more sinister tone when he added, “We don’t want it to be over too quickly.”

  Maybe twenty prisoners around Seb, maybe even more, they closed in so tightly on him they blocked out much of the cell’s light. Their stink came forward with their heavy shadows. Even with his nose clogged with blood, he smelled their sweat, their breath, their lust for violence.

  One of the three creatures that had picked up the electric pole the last time he’d been in the cell—the ones with the thick skulls and weak bellies—stepped closer to Seb. It balled a fist, raised it, clenched its jaw, and then brought it crashing down.

  A world still in slow motion, Seb winced away from the blow. But before it could connect, a buzz of electricity sounded out and the beast yelped.

  When Seb opened his eyes, he saw the odd brute slumped against the far wall two metres away. It sat with a dazed stare and didn’t look like it would get up any time soon.

  “What the …?” Seb said, looking up at the others. They’d already started backing away from him. When he saw where they were looking, he suddenly felt it. They had their attention on his neck rather than him. Still recovering his senses, he hadn’t noticed it. Although, now he realised he had a collar on, the weight of the cold metal seemed impossible to ignore.

  A crackling noise came into the cell through a speaker, the small space amplifying the sound. A guard then spoke to them. “We get that you needed to hit him, but if anyone else attacks the prisoner, they’ll get the same electric shock. The voltage next time will be more powerful than a warning.”

  The beasts in the cell all stepped back another pace.

  “Moses needs him,” the guard continued. “We’ve healed all his broken bones from the kicking the boss gave him. We don’t need to be doing it again.”

  The sound of the guard on the speaker rang through Seb’s ears. It joined the tinnitus tone that had been driven into him with the force of the mandulu’s boot. Maybe he’d burst an eardrum, although he still heard the mandulu when he spoke.

  “Looks like you’ve been saved again. Are you Moses’ golden boy or something? How nice it must be to be one of the privileged in the galaxy.”

  Seb would have rather taken another beating than look at the scorn staring back at him at that moment. But he bit back his response. No matter what he said, they’d think he was privileged, that the normal rules didn’t apply to him on account of who he knew. And maybe they were right.

  “So,” the mandulu continued, “what did you do to earn a free pass? Daddy connected to Moses in some way, is he? Thought they’d throw you down here so you could rough it for a couple of days. When you’ve learned your lesson, they can take you back to the real world. Is that it?”

  As much as he tried to hold it back, Seb glared at the brute. “Why don’t you do one, yeah? The only way you can win a fight against me is if I’m stuck to this floor. You’d do well to remember that. Maybe instead of blaming me for whatever’s going on with you, you need to ask yourself why you’re here.”

  When the mandulu didn’t reply, Seb said, “Why are you here anyway?”

  The response came back so quickly it sounded rehearsed. “Multiple murders.”

  For a few seconds, Seb stared at the mandulu in an unspoken calling out of what he’d just said. Whatever he’d been put in the cell for, it had nothing to do with murder.

  Before Seb could push it, he noticed the buzz of his electric collar. Or rather, he became aware of it because of its absence. The mandulu clearly noticed it too. Its eyes narrowed with a predator’s intent.

  The mandulu stepped forward, and Seb watched his boot come towards him in slow motion before it connected with the side of his face again. The deep and stretched-out pain of a slowed-down kick clattered into the side of his head. Blood flew away from him and splattered against the wall. Another whiplash shock as his hands remained pinned to the floor.

  As Seb fought to remain conscious, he heard the buzz of his collar. Whoever watched them at that moment had just warned him to let the mandulu be. After spitting on the floor again, he looked back at the stunted-horned brute, blood flowing like a waterfall over his bottom lip as he spoke. “Not just me that’s protected, then.”

  Seb watched the mandulu back away, comforted by the buzzing around his neck. Although vulnerable on the floor in the middle of the cell, none of the others looked like they wanted a go at him. After a few seconds, he pulled into his mind and
said, SA.

  Seb, where are you?

  Moses has thrown me in the prison cell again. What’s going on?

  I’m not sure. I think they want to talk to us all. Explain a few things.

  What? Like how he values profit over lives?

  I think it’s more complicated than that.

  When do they want to talk to us?

  Soon. I think someone’s coming for you now.

  Good. I hate this place.

  Oh, and, Seb? Keep a lid on it, yeah? I think there’s much more to this than we know. We need to give them a chance to speak.

  Seb spat another mouthful of blood and stared at the prisoners around him. I hope you’re right, because if I fight Moses again, it won’t end until one of us is dead.

  Chapter 3

  Hard to tell how much time had passed since Seb had spoken to SA. Maybe ten minutes, maybe a little more. From what she’d said, he’d expected someone to come for him sooner than they had.

  For the entire time he’d been pinned to the prison’s floor, his collar buzzed. It warned his would-be attackers to stay back. The mandulu hadn’t taken his eyes from him. It looked like he hoped they’d cut the electricity again. Other than the occasional cough, sneeze, and passing of gas, the cell remained silent.

  Because of the position he’d been sat in, the muscles in Seb’s back ached. Another half-roll of his shoulders did little to relieve the pain. Just as he drew a breath to call out for someone to let him move, the lock on the cell door clicked open. Bright light spilled into the dingy space.

  With his back to the door, Seb couldn’t see who’d appeared, and he didn’t give them the satisfaction of turning around to look. Not that he needed to; the smell of fish and the wide mouths and eyes of the prisoners staring past him told him everything he needed to know. To smile raked pain across his swollen face, yet he still did it. “About bloody time,” he said. “I was starting to get cramps sitting like this.”