Eradication: A Space Opera: Book Four of The Shadow Order

by Michael Robertson

  “Wow,” Seb said. “What a way to thank someone.”

  SA placed a hand on her hip while she stared at the man and cocked her head to the side.

  But the man didn’t respond, a mixture of anger, shame, and fear twisting through his chubby face.

  Seb looked at SA and shrugged. “If he wants to go, we should let him. I’m sure his escape plan from this wretched planet is much better than ours. Who wants a lift out of here when you can walk through the radiation desert up there?” Together, they stepped aside to let the man through, revealing Sparks in her fitting, convulsing, and furious state.

  Only small, but occupied with a vicious rage, Sparks continued to snap at the air as if trying to get to the three people. More beings around her—especially humans, it would seem—had clearly stirred her up. Although the fact she felt calmer around the other Shadow Order members suggested she had some recollection of who they were, that some small part of Sparks remained in the monster Seb saw when he looked at her.

  The man with the gun led the way and the woman followed behind him. She helped the little girl, who had a crude splint on her leg. Seb hadn’t noticed it until that moment. Probably because he had a gun in his face. Now he looked at the splint, he saw a few long shards of rock had been used to hold her leg in place. They’d been bound to her with what looked to be an old coat.

  When the man with the gun drew level with Sparks, he moved too quickly for Seb or SA to react, catching them off guard as he raised his weapon and pointed it at her face. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice getting louder with his clear panic, “but I can’t let this monstrosity live. I’ve seen an entire complex wiped out by these things. They have to be eradicated.”

  CHAPTER 41

  SA reacted before Seb could. A flash of movement, she exploded to life and rugby tackled the man around his waist.

  Slower than SA again, Seb’s world slipped into slow motion as he watched the podgy man take the impact like he’d been hit by a train.

  They slammed down on the hard ground, the man’s chubby body bearing most of the blow. He let out a bark-like, “Oomph.”

  Before the man could do anything else, SA had taken his blaster from his hand and slid it across the ground to Seb. He picked it up and put it in his pocket.

  Although Seb watched SA and the man, he noticed the woman drag the small girl back into the cave they’d emerged from. A raised hand to halt them, he said, “We’re here to help. Please trust me when I say we really don’t want to hurt you. As long as you don’t try to harm us, you have nothing to worry about.”

  A look down at the podgy man and Seb watched him writhe and twist beneath SA, who currently sat on him. “I’d give that up if I were you. Ten times out of ten she’d kick your arse, so you might as well save your energy.”

  Although he regarded Seb with a hard scowl, the man fell slightly limp beneath SA’s pressure as if he’d taken the advice.

  When Seb looked at the woman and the girl, he saw they hadn’t pulled any farther away, so he walked over to the man and crouched down next to him. Soft words, he said, “We don’t want to harm you. You need to trust that.”

  The man looked up at Sparks, his eyes wide in his red face. He continued to stare at her while he spoke. “It’s not you I’m worried about.”

  “Yeah, well, you just have to accept her. We’ll keep her away from you and your family. Look at her, she won’t get out of those bonds any time soon. And even if she does, have you seen the size of Bruke’s arms? She isn’t going anywhere. Now tell me, what’s happened to the girl. Is she your daughter?”

  “Yes. She’s called Hannah, and my wife is Alison. My name’s Wilson.”

  “What happened to Hannah’s leg?”

  “A boulder fell on it. I think it’s broken.”

  Just the thought of it sent Seb’s hands tingling. He could finally put them to use. “Okay, Wilson, you stay there and I’m going to help Hannah, okay?”

  Another shake as if he could buck SA from him and Wilson’s voice rose in pitch. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to help her. Not that you have any choice in your current predicament, but you need to trust me.”

  The man stared at Seb but didn’t respond. The expression on his face showed his acceptance of what he couldn’t change, but he looked a long way from trusting him.

  Seb walked over to the girl, his hands buzzing so hard he expected them to hum.

  Frozen to the spot, Alison stared at Seb, the same mistrust on her face as her husband’s.

  When Seb dropped down next to them and put his hands on Hannah’s leg, Wilson shouted at him, “What the hell are you doing to my daughter?”

  But Seb didn’t answer. Instead, he felt the buzz in his hands and breathed through it as he visualised the bone in Hannah’s leg knitting back together.

  A deep warmth ran through Seb’s hands, and when he looked up at Hannah, he saw the relief on her withdrawn face as he took her pain away. Although the small child trembled at his touch, he could see her slowly relax and trust him much quicker than either of her parents had.

  After just a few seconds, Seb pulled away from her and smiled. “Better?”

  Hannah smiled back and Seb saw Alison relax a little at her response. A firm nod and the girl said, “Yes.” After she’d looked at her mum and dad, she looked back at Seb. “Much better. Thank you.”

  “You’re like them,” Wilson said, awe and fear in his tone as he sat up, SA having moved away from him.

  “Like who?”

  “The grubs.”

  “What? I’m nothing like them!”

  A shake of his head and Wilson raised his hands defensively. “No, sorry, I didn’t mean that how it sounded. You can heal wounds like them. I’d never seen any being with an ability to heal until I saw them.”

  A look at Sparks, and although Seb couldn’t see the spot that had healed after the grub had gone in, he remembered it. “I’ve seen it too. So they all heal the wounds they’ve made?”

  “That’s my experience,” Wilson said.

  “Almost as if—”

  “They want to preserve their host for as long as possible,” Wilson finished for him.

  Seb stood up from his crouch beside Hannah’s leg, walked over to Wilson, and reached down to help him get to his feet. “Let’s start again. I’m Seb; this is SA, Bruke, and Sparks. We’re from the Shadow Order and we’re here to help you.”

  Although he looked at Sparks like he expected her to attack him—and he should feel that way because she certainly wanted to—Wilson let Seb help him up and said, “Thank you. I’m sorry I got spooked.”

  “It’s understandable, she wants to bite your face off.”

  Wilson looked at Sparks again.

  “Now tell us,” Seb said. “How did you end up here?”

  CHAPTER 42

  “We were eating in the canteen with most of the community at the time,” Wilson said. “It was dinner, and you could always guarantee that at least eighty percent of us would be there.”

  “And the others?” Seb asked.

  “Working. This place ran all day and night. A licence to print credits, the Camorons wouldn’t have a moment where the mine wasn’t capturing ruthane.” After a pause as if managing the trauma of what they’d been through, he said, “We were lucky to be close to the door when everything kicked off. It gave us the chance to run.”

  “So why run into the mines?”

  “The insanity was kicking off the other way. The grubs came in from outside.”

  Seb nodded.

  Wilson pointed at a sledgehammer resting against the wall in the alcove. “On our way down, we picked that up. I knew about the small cave, and with a dead end down that way”—he pointed down the tunnel—”it seemed like the best place to hide.”

  “And cave in the entrance so nothing could get to you?” Seb said.

  “I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “And that’s how Hannah got hurt?”
<
br />   Wilson let go of a deep sigh and dropped his attention to the ground. “Yep. A rock landed on her leg. I should have been more careful.”

  When Seb looked at Hannah, he saw Alison stand up from where she’d removed the splint from her daughter’s leg. The girl smiled as she swayed from side to side, testing out her ability to stand. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. If it wasn’t for your quick thinking, your family would be dead. We’ve not found any other survivors down here.”

  A sad twist ran through Wilson’s features. “I worried I’d crippled her for life.” He looked up at Seb, a glaze of tears covering his eyes. “Thank you so much for helping her. And thank you for helping us out of here. Another day or so and we would have died of thirst.”

  Seb looked at the deep red cracks in Wilson’s lips. A white tinge of dry skin ran across them.

  “Although,” Wilson said, “I would have rather died of thirst than get taken over by those things.” A gasp and his eyes spread wide. He looked at Sparks. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say that. I—”

  But Seb waved the comment away. “We’ll get you all out of here. We just need to clear this section and then we’re ready to go.”

  “Do you have any water?” Wilson asked.

  Seb shook his head. “Sorry.”

  After he’d looked at Sparks again, the vicious little creature spitting and hissing at him, Wilson turned back to Seb. “Tell me if I’m being out of line, but why are you keeping her alive?”

  “I can’t kill her,” Seb said. “Not until we’ve taken her to our base and have them try everything they can to bring her back.” The memory of Gurt threw him off and a lump rose in his throat. After he’d cleared it, he added, “We’ve been through a lot together and I can’t give up on her.”

  “You would if you’d seen what we have.”

  Seb shook his head. “No, I wouldn’t. We’ve just fought against them and have first-hand experience of what those creatures are like. It’s different when there’s just one though, eh? Especially one so small and easy to restrain. A complex full of them and there’s nothing for it but to kill them.”

  “Not necessarily,” Wilson said.

  “Huh?”

  “I have a theory. I’ve had a lot of time to think over the past few days and I think I know how to help the people with parasites in them.”

  “Go on.”

  “These creatures behave like they’re of one mind, right? Hunting as one, driving their hosts to kill as one.”

  “Right.”

  “Some creatures with the same mentality have a queen. Something driving their hive mind.”

  “So the zombies have a queen?”

  “Zombies?”

  “Humour me,” Seb said. “So if they do have a queen, and if we kill it, then we’ll get Sparks back?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  Seb looked at SA and Bruke as he replied to Wilson. “Well, we need to take the grubs down anyway, so we’ll make sure we find the queen and kill her.”

  “Now, it’s just a theory.”

  “But you’re confident it will work?”

  “I’d bet on it if I was a betting man, but confident? No.”

  Hope lifted through Seb’s heart. “It’s as good a plan as any. And it’s what we have to do anyway. Let’s go and find the queen.”

  “It shouldn’t be hard to find her,” Wilson said.

  “Oh?”

  “Although they came in from the hangar, I think they’ll hide their queen as far from the complex’s entrance as they can to keep her safe.”

  Another look at SA and Bruke, Seb then said, “Okay, we have to go down into the mines anyway. You’ll be safer with us than without, so let’s do this.”

  CHAPTER 43

  SA led the way, walking a few metres ahead of Seb and Wilson. Behind them walked Wilson, Alison, and their child, Hannah. Bruke kept Sparks a safe distance even farther back.

  Because he had SA’s eyes up ahead and the early warning system Sparks had become, Seb didn’t quite relax, but felt comfortable that he’d get at least a slight heads-up on the next attack.

  Although, when Seb looked back at Sparks as she shook and spat in her clear desire to get at Wilson and his family, he tensed up again. Maybe the presence of the other humans would make her alarm ineffective. SA would notice any problems up ahead though, and surely the grubs would have made their presence known if they’d passed or approached them up until that point. Whatever threat remained in the mines, it had to be farther down the dark tunnel.

  After another wary look back at Sparks, Wilson turned to Seb and said, “So why do you have a Thrystian with you? They’re a typically antisocial and ruthless race.”

  “Oh, she’s ruthless all right,” Seb said. “But she’s probably quite different from your average Thrystian. She got away from her home world as soon as she could. She hated the place.”

  After he’d looked at Sparks again, staring at her as if she could slip her bonds and attack his family, Wilson returned his attention to the dark tunnel in front of them.

  “Let me ask you something,” Seb said to the man. “If you had this theory about the queen and what killing her would do, why did you try to kill Sparks? I mean, you think she can be saved, right?”

  More vehement than ever, almost as if she’d heard Seb’s question, Sparks shook and twisted as she fought to get at Wilson’s family.

  “Because of that,” Wilson said. “I have a wife and daughter I need to protect. It’s nothing personal against … Sparks? Is that her name?”

  Seb nodded.

  “Just more that I want to make sure my family doesn‘t get hurt. That’s always going to be more important to me than the life of a stranger.”

  Another nod and Seb looked down the tunnel again. SA still seemed on top of things.

  The farther they went into the mine, the darker it got. They’d had the bright shine from the open doors leading to the recreational area behind them, but they were now stepping out of its reach. Had they not loaded the doors with dead bodies, making it impossible for them to close, they wouldn’t have even had that.

  “And a shantarac,” Wilson said.

  “Huh?” Seb said, ruffling his nose as a particularly strong hit of ruthane smothered him.

  “Your green scaly friend is from a planet called Raunce. He’s a shantarac. They’re a peaceful race, but if you provoke them, they flip into a berserker rage. It takes a lot, but when they go, you’d best get out of their way.”

  Seb looked from Bruke back to Wilson.

  “Have you seen him lose it?” Wilson said.

  Seb couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah.”

  A widening of his eyes and Wilson’s entire flabby face lit up. “Quite impressive, isn’t it?”

  After he’d watched Wilson for a few seconds, Seb nodded. “It really is. Although it takes a lot to get Bruke to that point.” He then checked SA again.

  “And the scarpist,” Wilson said.

  When Seb saw him looking at SA, he said, “What do you know about her?” Maybe he sounded too keen.

  “Not much. They’re a very agile race that comes from the planet Delvin. Most of them are deadly and graceful. They have a calm temperament, almost zen-like.”

  As Wilson described SA, Seb continued to watch her. Her body moved like a cat’s, graceful and almost silent as she travelled down the tunnel on high alert. “They’re amazing, aren’t they?”

  When Wilson didn’t reply, Seb looked across to see the man smiling at him. “Anyway,” Seb said, heat rushing through his cheeks, “how do you know all this?”

  “I was a scientist here. I helped extract the ruthane and store it.”

  Seb didn’t reply, waiting for more information.

  “In my spare time I studied different races and species. I spent hours reading about them. There’s only so much to do down here.” Wilson stared into the darkness and spoke with a quieter voice, clearly trying to keep Hannah and Alison from hearing him. “I loved to
travel. I only took this job when Hannah came along because it gave us stability. Those things become important when you have a baby.” He sighed. “Sometimes it makes sense to give up on your dreams.”

  “Maybe when you get off this planet, you can do a bit more?”

  “If we get off this planet.”

  “We will,” Seb said. “So you know about the grubs because of your studies?”

  “Yep. They seem consistent with many other hive-minded creatures I’ve learned about. I’m almost certain that killing the queen will also kill the grubs. And because they heal their host, hopefully your friend will be okay when she gets the dead thing out of her body.”

  “Hopefully,” Seb said and glanced behind at the furious little Sparks again.

  Before Seb could ask any more questions, SA tensed up in front of them. At the same time, Sparks whipped up into even more of a rage.

  Wilson froze and Seb pushed him back to be with his wife and child. “Stay there,” he said, and stepped towards SA.

  Two steps forward and Seb heard the whoosh of grubs rushing over the soft ground towards them. He couldn’t hear the footsteps of infected people. Maybe all the zombies were down.

  With such limited visibility, Seb relied on his ears. The grubs sounded close, but not yet close enough to attack.

  Sore eyes from refusing to blink, Seb’s world slipped into slow motion, his heart pounding. A deep breath and he continued to watch the inky darkness in front of them. Any moment now and they’d be fighting what would hopefully prove to be the final wave of the vile things.

  CHAPTER 44

  Seb moved forward to be next to SA and stared down the tunnel. He still didn’t hear any footsteps in the oncoming rush. That had to be a good thing, right? Every time he’d taken one of his kind down, it twisted the knife in his heart. Not that the swoosh of the grubs racing over the muddy ground offered any comfort.

  Then Seb saw one. Several light bulbs down, it moved through the splash of light as it closed in on them.

  Seb watched the lead grub plunge back into the shadow before he saw it in the next weak pool of light. Like a dolphin vanishing beneath the sea and then bursting from it again, the grub vanished and reappeared, getting closer every time he saw it.