The slightest click pierced the silence, and the magnetic pull dragging Seb to the floor released.
As Seb got to his feet, he rolled his shoulders in wider circles than before, snapped his head from side to side, and turned to face Moses. “You’d best keep a close eye on that button. The second I get a chance to destroy it, it’s gone. Also, I owe you a kick in the head. I plan to pay that debt.”
A raised eyebrow, nothing more. Moses then turned his back and walked off down the corridor.
The prisoners in Seb’s path quickly moved out of his way. Just before he left the cell, he said to one of the three with the thick skulls and weak bellies, “You want to make sure you keep an eye on that mandulu back there. He’s in here for murder.” With a faux wince, which hurt like hell because of his bruising, he pushed through the burning pain and said with mock fear, “Multiple murders.”
One of the guards then blocked Seb’s way before he stepped out into the corridor. Balled fists, a clenched jaw, and another frown despite his pain, he stared up at the creature. “You ain’t leaving me here again.”
“Relax,” the guard said as he leaned forward and unclipped Seb’s collar. Seb strode off up the gunmetal grey corridor without looking back.
The large shark walked at a fast pace, which Seb caught up to and then matched. “SA said you have something you need to tell us. That there’s more to this than we know. Personally, I still think you’re an arsehole, but let’s see, shall we?”
Although he didn’t look at him, his slightly swollen snout raised, Moses dipped a curt nod. “Look, I understand you’re suspicious of me. I’d be suspicious of me, but you need to hear me out. There is much more to this than you know. Also, I understand you’re scared about the prophecy—”
“I’m not scared!” When Seb saw Moses had no intention of riling him up, he let his defence go with a long sigh and allowed Moses to continue.
“It’s a big burden for you to shoulder. You’re the one who can bring the darkness in the galaxy under control.”
“But it’s you who needs to be taken down. You’re the darkness with your profiteering and murder.”
“First of all, you’ve got me wrong. Second, save your energy. What you’re about to find out makes me look like a pup. There’s something much larger at play here, and you’re essential to helping get it under control.” Moses stopped and turned to Seb. “You have a lot of weight on your shoulders, and emotions are running high, but don’t let it cloud your judgement any further. Know that I’m here to help. I want us to work together.”
The desire to argue wound tight in Seb, but he kept his mouth shut as he remembered SA’s words not to lose his head.
“I used to be a lot like you when I was younger,” Moses said as he set off again.
Seb moved off with him. “How old are you now?”
“Fifty-two.”
“Wow. I’d have never guessed. You don’t fight like you’re fifty-two.”
“Maybe I do.”
“Huh?”
“It always pays to fight smart rather than hard. Sometimes you can avoid using your fists when you use your head.”
The thought of being pinned to the ground returned. “I would have kicked your arse had you not pulled that cheap trick.”
“That’s my point. Honour in fighting was created by those with weaknesses. You fight to win however you need to. When it comes to staying alive, rules go out of the window. Why give yourself unnecessary restrictions so you can abide by some bullshit warrior code? Life and death ain’t a sport.”
To avoid any more of a lecture, Seb changed the subject. “I need to ask you something.”
While maintaining his brisk march, Moses turned to Seb again.
“That mandulu in the prison cell told me he was in there for multiple murders … but I didn’t see it in his eyes.”
Every time Moses smiled, it looked menacing, even when Seb knew it not to be. It stretched from one side of his face to the other. “He’s not paid some fines he owes me. If he’d been caught for multiple murders, I’d have given him some concrete boots and sent him out for a swim. I only keep him here because he’s worth something to me. At least, he has the potential to be worth something to me.”
“And there’s me starting to think I might have got you wrong. That it isn’t always about profit for you.”
They arrived at the conference room. When Moses opened the door, he said, “I think by the end of this you’ll see where I’m coming from.”
Seb peered into the room to see SA and the others already sat there waiting for them. He relaxed. Maybe he should trust him … for now at least.
Chapter 4
The bite of the air conditioning in the conference room hit Seb the second he entered it. His conversation with Moses had relaxed him ever so slightly, but the nip in the air snapped him defensively rigid again. Maybe a good reminder to keep his guard raised. No matter how convincing the monster sounded, he couldn’t forget what he knew about him.
When Seb sat down next to SA and smiled at her, she didn’t smile back. It made the already chilly air feel colder. Are you okay?
Yep. She continued to stare straight ahead.
What’s going on?
But before she had a chance to reply, Moses clapped his large hands together with a loud crack. After waiting for everyone to look at him, he said, “The Countess was working for Enigma.”
“Huh?” Seb said. “Who’s Enigma?”
Sparks leaned forward in her seat so she could look down the line at him. Her purple eyes widened with what looked like frustration at his stupidity. “Do you know what the word enigma means?”
A look from his little friend then back to Moses, Seb saw the large shark raise his eyebrows and shoulders in unison. Not condescending, but what more could he say?
“It could be a code name,” Seb said.
“It is,” Moses said.
“And you might know their identity.”
“We don’t.” After a pause to see if anyone else needed to speak, Moses continued. “We know very little about this organisation, but we know they have dark designs. We also know they’re big into slavery. We know they’re planning to unleash chaos, but we don’t know how. The Countess was one of the most productive slavers in the galaxy, and we know she was involved. What you’ve seen of her up until this point is about a sixth of her operation at most. She had many planets under her control. She pumped slaves into the galaxy on a mass scale.”
“Good job I shot her in the face, then,” Seb said.
“Normally I’d agree,” Moses said as he sat down on a seat beside him. “But she was our link to Enigma. The longer we worked with her, the closer we were getting to the organisation.” While pressing the tips of his thick fingers together, he looked to be thinking about his words. “Her death was problematic, to say the least. She was as high up the chain as we’d managed to get. I’m not sure how we’ll take the next step now.”
Seb thought about everything he’d seen the Countess do to the beings on Solsans and beyond. “So that’s your excuse for letting the Countess behave like she did?”
“What’s coming is larger than anything you’ve seen so far. There’s a darkness threatening to consume the galaxy. The Countess was our way of finding out where that darkness emanated from.”
The phrase robbed Seb of any response. He thought he’d gotten rid of the prophecy, and now here it was again. He’d done nothing but fight since he’d been in the Shadow Order, and it looked like it would get worse—much worse—before it got better. He didn’t have it in him. When he looked along his line of friends and the seats beyond, he imagined Gurt sitting there too. Remorse twisted through him. He couldn’t lose anyone else.
“Also, you need to see this.” Moses waved his hand to bring up footage on the screen behind him. It showed the slums of Solsans. They looked better than when Seb and the others had been there last. “When we’ve been able to go in without blowing our cover, we’ve gone back
and helped the planets affected by her brutality. We fund charities to do the clean-ups. We don’t do it ourselves because we don’t want Enigma to know where our sympathies lie.”
Seb shook his head. “And you think that’s enough? Donate a few credits to send a company in with mops so they can wipe the spilled blood from the streets? Have you seen what she did to teenage males when she wanted to take them in? Do you know how many have died because of her?”
A heavy sigh, Moses sagged in his seat. “We’re all too aware of how many deaths there have been.”
“So why let it happen?”
Moses fixed Seb with his dark eyes. “We don’t know much, Seb, but we do know we’ve not seen the worst of what’s to come. I can see why you helped the people of Solsans, but it nearly blew the trust we’d earned with the Countess. We had to pay her a lot of credits to make up for the loss of slaves. As far as she knew, I was working with her, getting rich with her, and I didn’t want anyone else to know about it. I needed to keep up that pretence for as long as she lived.”
Sparks leaned from her seat again. “But you still earned credits from working with her, right?”
“Nothing compared to what we’re spending on relief work throughout the galaxy.”
“So you’re a saint now?” Seb said.
“Not at all. I simply want you to understand we’re not in it for profit. We knew what she had planned for Carstic with the parasite, and we didn’t put a stop to it because of what it was about to lead to. We needed to earn her trust again so we could get into her inner circle. We were one step away from getting involved in her slavery business.” Moses held up a small gap between his thumb and index finger. “We were this close to making contact with Enigma. But then you killed her.”
After he’d let go of a long sigh, Bruke spoke, a warble in his voice as if he might cry. “So all of that suffering for nothing.”
Since he’d sat down, Seb had sunk lower in his seat. The thought of Wilson and his family weighed heavy. Unable to clearly form his words, he spoke in half sentences, “But what about …? But when …? How …? Why didn’t—?”
“We tell you?” Moses finished for him.
“Yeah.”
“We didn’t know if you’d have been on board or not. We’ve let a lot of beings die. But we did it so we can save so many more. I’m being straight with you now because I want to move forward with no more lies.”
“You keep saying we,” Reyes said.
“We hope that you might be the team to help bring Enigma down. You’re the best we’ve got.” Moses fixed his gaze on Seb. “We need you more than anyone. There’s something about you in particular.”
It felt like everything hit Seb in a wave. Fatigue, grief, sadness, trauma … He shook when he said, “The damn prophecy! Maybe I’m not the one. Have you thought about that? Maybe it’s not all to do with me. Maybe I need to walk away from this. Too many people have died already.” Again he looked at the empty seat next to Sparks, the seat Gurt should be sitting in.
In a soft tone, Moses said, “And many, many more will continue to die. We don’t know much about what’s coming, but we know that for sure. This will affect your life whether you’re with us or not. When this is over, if Enigma wins, none of our lives will be the same again, no matter where you’ve decided to go.”
When Seb looked down the line of his friends again, he saw they were all looking back at him. He felt the loss of Gurt as he thought about seeing another one of them dying. When he got to SA, it nearly broke him. He couldn’t watch her in danger again. “You know what? I think I’ll take my chances when the chaos comes. I’m tired. Every time I think I’m making a difference, I learn about even more shit in the galaxy. No matter what I try to do, things just get worse. Maybe I need to lead a life of ignorance for a while.”
Moses spoke again, pulling the attention from Seb to him. “You need time to think about it.”
“No, I don’t. I’m done.”
But Moses ignored him and continued to address the others. “The Countess was working for Enigma. She was getting paid from somewhere, but we can’t trace where. The credits have been bleached of their legacy.”
His arms folded across his chest, his heart running close to a panic attack, his love tense beside him for some reason he couldn’t understand, Seb sat mute and let the others talk.
“So the Countess is dead,” Sparks said. “What now?”
“We need to find where she keeps her slaves.”
“Kept her slaves,” Sparks corrected.
“Not necessarily. The Countess might be dead, but Enigma still needs slaves. I would presume her slave trade remains a thriving business, and I’d imagine if we find where it’s based, it will take us that much closer to Enigma.”
“If we need to find out where she keeps her slaves,” Bruke said, “why don’t we just ask a slave? I’m guessing there’s plenty of them in the galaxy if her operation is as large as you say it is.”
With a shake of his shark head, Moses said, “None of them remember.”
Reyes spoke this time. “None of them?”
“We’ve put over a thousand through rigorous inquiry, and none of them know where they were taken by the Countess before they were sold. They can barely remember what happened to them yesterday. She’s doing something to them before sending them on.”
Sparks threw her hands up in the air. “So how are we supposed to find out where she keeps her slaves if you lot can’t?”
“And why should we trust you?” Seb said. “You could still be lying to us. You keep saying we, but you won’t tell us who we is. How do we know if your intentions are true? All we have at the moment is your word, and that hasn’t proved to be worth much.”
When Moses rubbed his face, Seb saw the slight wince of pain from what must have been his still tender snout. It reminded him of his own swelling, the sharp air conditioning lying against the throbbing warmth of his bruised skin.
“I’ll tell you what,” Moses said, “why don’t you all go away and think about it? I understand there’s a lot to digest.”
Seb got to his feet and shook his head. “I’ve already told you … I don’t need to think about it; I’m not doing it. I’m not the hero you’re looking for. I’m tired of watching people die en masse.” He looked at his friends again. “I’m supposed to be the chosen one, but I can be beaten by a magnet now—thanks to you. I’m not taking that burden on anymore, and I’m not going to do any more work for you.”
A look down the line of his friends, Seb saw the resolve on their faces. His stomach sank.
Reyes said, “I’ll do it. I don’t need to think about it. My dad trusted you, and I do too.”
Moses looked at Sparks next.
“I’ll do it,” she said. Seb saw her twitch as if she had to fight the urge to look across at him.
Bruke looked to be in physical pain when he looked from Moses to Seb and back to Moses. “Me too.”
And finally SA. Something had been off when Seb had sat down next to her. Maybe she knew what he’d say. Maybe she’d already made her mind up about what she planned to do. Whatever the reason, she now refused to look at Seb like Sparks and Reyes had, dipping a nod at Moses instead.
Earlier on in their relationship, Moses might have worn a jubilant expression at the victory. But now he just looked sad when he regarded Seb. “We can only play the hand we’re dealt. The prophecy is on your shoulders whether you like it or not.”
All of them looked at him again. More heat rose through Seb’s cheeks. What would he be walking away from if he turned his back on them now? But what would he be walking into if he didn’t? He couldn’t carry the weight of another friend’s death. “You’re right, Moses, and I’m choosing to fold. Game over for me. Sorry, guys, but I’m out. Good luck with it all, yeah?”
What little strength he had in his legs threatened to give out as Seb stood up and walked out of the room. As much as he hoped SA would say something to him, she didn’t. Maybe she saw
the futility of trying to change his mind.
Chapter 5
Where Seb had expected the door to the conference room to slam behind him, it didn’t. Any hope that SA might have been the one following him vanished the second he saw the hulking frame of Moses on his tail. A tall doorway, but still not tall enough for the large shark to pass through without ducking.
As he watched him, Seb sneered. “Did you design this place?”
Instead of replying, Moses simply stared at him.
“You’ve got doorways that are too low for you to walk through. Bit of an oversight, maybe?”
“Fair point.” It might have been a smile on Moses’ face. Hard to tell with all the sharp teeth. Either way, he definitely wasn’t taking the bait. While pointing at one of his many scars, this one in the centre of his forehead, he said, “For the first six months of being in this place, I whacked my head on everything. The amount of times I nearly knocked myself out cold … Anyway, that’s not why I’ve come after you.”
“I’ve made my mind up, Moses.”
“Good,” Moses said.
“Huh?”
“Well, if you’ve made your mind up, you won’t mind taking a walk with me. If you’re certain of your decision, it doesn’t matter what I have to say, so you might as well hear me out. Unless you’re not certain?”
Seb pressed his lips together to hold back his response.
“Come on,” Moses said and walked off down the long metal corridor.
Their gunmetal grey surroundings were lit up by bright strip lights in the ceiling. Seb shivered. No matter how much time he spent in the place, it always chilled him to his core. Unable to hold his words back, he said, “I’ve done enough for the Shadow Order already.”
“You’ve done more than enough,” Moses said.
“Then why do you want extra from me?”
“It’s not about what we want, it’s about what’s needed to combat the threat out there. It doesn’t matter how much we’ve all done if there’s still something to fight. The end comes when we’ve either won or lost, not when one of us gets too tired.”
The Shadow Order - Books 1 - 8 + 120 Seconds (The complete series): A Space Opera Page 99
