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.”
A hard scowl, Seb shook his head. “Anyway, I still don’t trust you.”
“I understand. That’s going to take a while. I wouldn’t expect you to change your mind about me overnight.”
A few more seconds passed—the tap of their feet hitting the metal floor—before Seb held his hand up for Moses to see. “Look.”
Moses looked.
“I’m so tired I’m shaking. I feel like I have no energy left. How can I go against something larger than we’ve already faced when I feel like I’m going to break?”
At first Moses didn’t reply, returning his attention to where they were heading. “It’s okay to be afraid, you know.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“We’re all afraid.”
The section of corridor they entered must have been cleaned recently because a waft of bleach forced Seb to scrunch his nose up. “What do you know of fear anyway? You’re not being told by everyone you meet that you’re the galaxy’s saviour. And you’re not going into battle with the people who mean the most to you by your side.”
A sharp right turn led them down another corridor that looked much like the one they’d just left. Moses nodded. “That’s a heavy burden for sure. But just because I’ve not had that specific pressure on me, it doesn’t mean I don’t understand fear. It doesn’t mean I don’t know what it’s like to lose someone. Like you, I’ve always been a fighter. I came into this galaxy with nothing, and I fought for everything. For power … for notoriety. Hell, as a pup, I even fought for food. I was good at fighting. I am good at fighting.”
“When you use magnets,” Seb said.
“I was afraid not to fight,” Moses said, ignoring Seb’s dig.
<
br /> “How was fighting a problem for you? You look to have done all right from it.”
“And I’d trade it in a heartbeat to get my wife and son back.”
“You have a wife and son?”
“I did.” Moses sighed and his proud frame sank. “To be a family man, you have to be vulnerable. You have to show your weakness. You have to let people in and live with the fear that they might not be there forever. That’s where true strength comes from. I learned that too late. I kept the walls raised, even when alone with my family. Do you realise how hard it is to have a relationship with someone who spends their time defending against a future pain that hasn’t yet happened? To be around someone who sees every interaction as a battle?”
To think of his dad lifted a lump in Seb’s throat that stopped him replying.
“Some nights I cry myself to sleep. But it’s too late to show my vulnerability now. They’re gone.”
Seb found it hard to read Moses when he looked at him again. His black eyes gave nothing away. How could he trust someone he couldn’t read? “So why don’t you go to them now?”
“Even if they weren’t dead, they wouldn’t have me.”
“Dead?”
“The Countess took over a planet and slaughtered every being there so she could install a new regime. It was the planet they lived on.”
“Yet you still worked with her?”
“When I started working with her, they were already gone. What could I do? I want to stop beings like her permanently. Of course I wanted to make her suffer, and I’m not sad that she’s dead. But I need to play the long game to effect lasting change. Acting on impulse won’t fix much for long.”
The corridor they walked along came to a dead end up ahead, and Seb recognised where they were. The viewing windows looking down on the rooms below gave it away.
The first training room they came to stopped Seb in his tracks. He pointed down through the window. “Is that the—?”
“Piscents,” Moses said.
“Owsk’s sub. But how? That was at the bottom of the sea.”
“We retrieved it. It had a tracking device in it, so we used that to locate it and pull it up.”
“You can go to the bottom of the sea?”
“No, we used a powerful magnet to lift it to us.”
A look between the submarine and the toolbox next to it, Seb half-smiled. “And you’ve fixed it?”
“Yep. It’s as good as new. Now come on, I want to show you something else.” Moses walked off again and Seb followed.
The dead end opened up into a hexagonal spectator area. A window at the bottom of each wall afforded them a view of six different training rooms. The last time Seb had been in one, he’d fought Reyes in her mech. He watched on as rookies fought different kinds of machines, mechs, and each other. “What would you have done had Reyes killed me?”
“I knew she wouldn’t.”
“But she could have.”
“She wouldn’t have.”
No point in continuing the argument, Seb watched the rookies. Each room was stark and brightly lit. One of the rookies fought a flying bot that fired lasers at it. Another one attacked a humanoid that looked designed to defend against every assault the poor kid could throw its way, parrying and dodging its advances with ease. One of the rookies hopped along a series of platforms, getting progressively quicker as it made its way around the room. Another one chased it. It reminded him of the room with the sharks at the gene farm. The memory of that day wound his chest tight. His ability to swim had been one of the many things the Shadow Order had taken from him. “Why have you brought me here?”
Seven rookies, Moses pointed at them one at a time. “Orphaned at twelve. Orphaned at eight. Orphaned at ten. Orphaned at twelve. Orphaned at fourteen. Orphaned at eleven. Orphaned at fifteen.”
Nothing to say to the beast, Seb squinted against the bright glow coming from the rooms below. The silence lasted for a few seconds before he finally said, “What are you trying to say? An orphan like me can save orphans like that?”
But Moses ignored the question. “There’s something else they all have in common. They all killed their parents. They’re all from Solsans. They’re rescued slaves, taken from the Countess before she could move them somewhere else. Do you know how we managed to rescue them?”
Before Seb could say anything, Moses walked over to a button on the wall and pressed it. When he spoke, his voice echoed through the training rooms below. “I want you all to stop what you’re doing.”
The flying bot with the lasers froze; the rookie fighting the humanoid stopped; the two running around the obstacles halted. All of the rookies in all of the rooms looked up. All of them looked exhausted from the training.
As Seb spun on the spot to take them all in, Moses said, “I want all of you to meet Seb Zodo. I’m sure you know who he is.”
In unison, all of the orphans dropped to one knee and continued to stare into the viewing area.
“This is the difference you’ve made, Seb. Sure, we haven’t effected major changes yet, but all of these kids would be slaves somewhere were it not for you.”
“They’d still be orphans though.”
“That’s the next step. That’s the big move we need to make. We need to stop these kinds of atrocities at the roots. We’ve had to make sacrifices along the way, but don’t think we’re not making a difference … because we are.”
For the first time since he’d met Moses, Seb saw a slight change in the beast’s demeanour. Maybe he even saw something in his dark glare. It looked like a sadness at the reality before them. He cared; he truly did.
“I can’t save my family anymore, but I can help save hundreds of other families,” Moses said.
But Seb couldn’t shake the exhaustion in his bones. Just walking felt like too much of an effort. He couldn’t release the weight in his heart from Gurt’s death either. He shook his head. “I can’t do it. I’m sorry, as much as I want to, I just can’t. I’m too tired, Moses, and I can’t lose any more beings close to me. You’ll need to find someone else to take the baton. I’ve done what I can.”
“I hate to say this, Seb, but there isn’t anyone else. The team isn’t the same without you.”
The cold shoulder he’d got from SA didn’t suggest that. Forgetting about his swelling, Seb rubbed his face and winced at the contact. He dragged air in through his clenched teeth. “I’m not doing it. Sorry.”
Unable to look at the orphans anymore, Seb turned away from them and walked back down the cold and grey corridor. He listened to Moses speak through the tannoy at them. “Okay, you lot, get back to it.” Footsteps down the corridor to catch up with Seb, he said, “Let’s go and tell the others your final decision.”
The words weighed heavy on Seb’s heart. But what else could he do? He didn’t have it in him to lose another friend, and the prophecy had already taken its pound of flesh.
CHAPTER 6
Back in the gunmetal grey corridor, his feet giving off a small tap against the hard floor with every step, Seb looked at Moses. “Sparks said something to me recently that struck a chord.”
Moses walked with long strides. Each of his were worth one and a half of Seb’s. It made Seb feel like a child trying to keep up with his dad. Moses didn’t reply.
“She said that you’d always find a way to get me to do what you wanted. That I was naïve to think I’d get away from your control because you could always reel me in. I hated her for saying it, but she was right. How do I know that whole thing with the rookies wasn’t staged? After all, you are the being who threatened to risk Bruke’s life if I didn’t go to Carstic.”
For a few seconds, Moses still said nothing. Then he drew a deep breath that lifted his broad chest. “I can see why she’d say that.”
“Would you have sent Bruke off with Reyes?”
“Yes.”
The coldness of Moses’ reply stopped Seb dead. Every time he thought he might be able to trust the shark, Moses reminded
him he couldn’t.
A few paces later, Moses also pulled up and turned back to look at him. “Unlike you, Seb, I happen to have a lot of faith in Reyes. You don’t know the things that girl’s done. As a rookie, she got her platoon to safety on a planet they had no right leaving. And what she went through when her dad died … well, she doesn’t talk about it, so I won’t. However, what I will say is that girl’s tough, smart, and a valuable asset in the field. You’d do well to recognise that.”
“I’ve defeated her twice when she’s come at me with a mech.”
“Once.”
Seb scowled, but before he could reply, Moses elaborated. “The second time she chose to stop. I gave her instructions to bring you back to me. I handicapped her. Believe me, that machine she piloted the second time would have torn your head off had she let rip on you. You’re good, Seb, but you ain’t that good.”
With a petulant shrug, Seb moved off again. When Moses caught up with him, he said, “Anyway, how can I trust what you’re telling me about your family? How do I know you had a wife and son? You need me to do something for you, and our history together tells me you’ll do whatever’s necessary to make that happen.”
For the first time since he’d met him, Seb saw something in Moses he’d not witnessed before. He looked vulnerable, shaking as he pulled a small square frame from his pocket. He handed it to Seb.
A silver border to the small rectangle, it looked like a picture frame. The shine had been worn dull in several spots, like it had been handled a lot over the years. Seb stared at the still image. A family of shark-creatures, he looked at the mum, dad, and baby. The dad certainly looked a lot like Moses. Slimmer, but the same being. The frame had a small button along the bottom of it. The largest dull patch of wear clustered around the button. Seb pressed it and watched the image come to life.
It showed a smiling Moses, a truly smiling Moses. Not the grimaced attempt he’d seen from the haggard creature next to him. This Moses positively beamed with paternal joy as he tossed the small shark in the air and caught it. When laughter burst from the device, Seb jumped and nearly dropped it. The sounds came from Moses, his wife, and the high-pitched chuckle of a baby. Seb looked up at the Shadow Order’s leader again. The joy captured in the memory seemed light years away from the broken being in front of him now.
Enigma: A Space Opera: Book Six of The Shadow Order Page 3