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

by Michael Robertson

  At Reyes’ words, even SA gripped onto the headrest of the seat in front of her. Her throat dry, Reyes chewed her bottom lip as she concentrated and dropped the ship by a metre. She’d practiced landing blindfolded in training. Even with an audio guide, it had been a nightmare.

  Every time Reyes dropped the ship a little lower, she winced at the anticipated connection with the ground. It hadn’t come yet.

  It took several more drops before the sound of snow rubbed against the bottom of the metal ship. It dragged on their progress and kicked more white up onto the windscreen.

  A loud clunk then hit the bottom of the vessel, sending a shockwave through it.

  “What was that?” Bruke asked, finally on his feet again after the fall.

  Another one.

  “We’re hitting the ground beneath the snow.” A quick check of her dials, Reyes added, “I don’t think it’s done any damage though.”

  When Reyes looked back up again, she saw it the second SA said, Look out, and Bruke shrieked.

  They’d dropped below most of the cloud, which gave them a slightly better view than before. It showed Reyes they were nearly out of space to land. If she didn’t stop them soon, they’d drop hundreds of metres onto an expanse of needle-like rocks.

  Reyes pressed the flight stick forwards, digging the front of the ship into the powdery ground. It kicked up even more snow, sending it rushing over the screen in a thick wave. Her teeth clenched, she pushed down harder, the ship still not slowing enough as it bit deeper into the powder.

  “What are we going to do?” Bruke said.

  Sweat itched Reyes’ collar and she pushed forwards again. “We’re going to hold on tight.” She gulped. “It looks like we’re going over.”

  Chapter 23

  The bottom of the ship touched down against the small piece of rock they’d aimed for with the delicacy of a bee landing on a flower. Seb patted Owsk on the back. It stung the palm of his hand. Not only did the troll look to be made from stone, but he felt like it too. “Amazing! I think you might be even better than Reyes at flying these things.”

  If Owsk responded, Seb didn’t notice. He’d done his best to ignore it up until that point, but now they’d landed, he couldn’t look anywhere but at the water surrounding them. The piece of rock they’d settled on looked to be the only land on the cursed planet. It sat just slightly wider than the base of their ship.

  Seb felt Sparks watching him. She must have been sensing his anxiety, so he might as well stop trying to hide it. “And you say there’s no more land than this?”

  “Nope.” She shook her head. “This is it.”

  Something about the sparkle of her purple stare set Seb off. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

  She shrugged like she wasn’t … yet the sparkle remained in her eyes.

  Owsk stood up from the pilot’s seat, stretching as he said, “You can bet they have this piece of land under surveillance for any visitors. The sooner we get into the water, the better.”

  The voice of his mother came to Seb as a memory. If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. Nice, productive, helpful … the words seemed interchangeable when it came to the saying. A deep inhale to settle himself down, he kept his mouth shut, stood aside to let Owsk past, and then followed him to the back of the ship. He focused on putting one foot in front of the other. Let his mind go too far into the future and it wouldn’t return.

  Owsk opened the back door, inviting in the fierce wind. It blew harder than it had on Aloo. The salt in it both smelled and tasted richer. It did little for Seb’s already cotton wool mouth.

  When Sparks nudged Seb, he looked down at her and then her computer. A dot flashed red on the screen. “This is where we need to get to.”

  “It still looks far away.”

  “It is. But this is the closest place we can land. The only place we can land.”

  Deep breaths helped Seb push his panic down. He didn’t reply to her. Instead, he followed Owsk onto the rock outside.

  Exposed to the elements, Seb screwed his face up against the saline onslaught and turned on the spot. It looked exactly as it had from inside the ship; they were surrounded by water on every side.

  A splash to Seb’s right, he turned to see Owsk had dropped one of their submarines into the water. “No way,” he said and shook his head. “We have a much better sub than that one. We should take the one Moses gave us.”

  For a moment, Owsk and Seb stared at one another while Sparks hopped down onto the rock. Owsk then pressed another button to release the sub supplied to them by the Shadow Order.

  Still no words between them, Seb waited for Owsk to retrieve the Piscents. When he didn’t, he shrugged. “You’re just going to leave it there?”

  Owsk removed his blaster. A handgun—unlike the semi-automatic Seb liked to use—he pointed it at the Shadow Order’s sub.

  “What are you doing?” Seb said.

  By way of reply, Owsk shot the sub. The glass over the top of it shattered with a loud splash and rained down on the leather interior. When he looked back at Seb, he had his lips pressed tightly together, almost daring him to speak again.

  And Seb did. “Is that some kind of special laser or something?”

  “No.” He pointed at the damaged vessel with his gun. “That sub isn’t designed for battle.”

  Both subs floated next to one another in the water. Only one of them would go beneath the surface now. The Shadow Order sub had a thick cannon on the front of it. It protruded from it like a battering ram. “If it’s not designed for battle, why does it have that beast of a weapon on it?” Seb then added, “For what good it is now.”

  “What use is a cannon if the sub can’t take a hit? I’d rather run away in that thing than risk getting shot—cannon or not.”

  As Seb looked at the Piscents, he shook his head. “I got that sub back to you because I felt sorry for you, not because I value it. You can’t tell me that thing will do any better in a fight. It hardly looks battle-ready.”

  “It isn’t.”

  Seb threw his arms in the air. “So why destroy the better sub?”

  Owsk pointed his blaster at the Piscents and shot it several times. Each blast bounced off the glass covering it. They didn’t even leave a mark.

  During their conversation, Seb had an awareness of Sparks in his peripheral vision. She’d watched the back and forth like a spectator at a table tennis match. “Uh, Seb?” she finally said. “I’m with Owsk on this one.”

  A normally stoic creature, Owsk smiled ever so slightly. He then pointed his blaster at the Shadow Order’s sub again.

  “Fine,” Seb said. “Let’s use the Piscents.”

  The smirk broadened into a full smile as Owsk shot several more holes in the inferior vessel. They all watched it sink much like the Piscents had the day Seb shot it.

  After Seb had watched the sub vanish from sight, he looked at Sparks with her computer in her hand. She controlled the ship they’d flown in on remotely, closing the exit hatch from where she stood. “We need to make sure we remove any evidence of being here,” she said. “If they haven’t already noticed our arrival, I don’t want to give the game away by being complacent.”

  She typed on her computer, bringing the ship to life. The engines shook and rumbled, sending a vibration through the rock they stood on.

  As Owsk got into his sub, Sparks sent their ship into the air and said, “I’ll make sure it’s waiting for us when we get back.”

  Not somewhere he’d ever want to go, at least Seb had the two people he trusted the most to take him underwater. With Sparks on navigation and Owsk piloting, they might just make it.

  The Piscents bobbed on the surface of the rough sea, daring Seb to slip if he tried to step in. Although, if he waited any longer, he wouldn’t go at all. He had to have faith it would work out. Better to imagine a positive outcome to their mission. They could deal with the negative if they had to. He put one foot inside the shifting vessel
before kicking off against the rock with the other.

  When Seb sat down in the cramped space, Owsk turned to him and grinned. “You ready?”

  Seb looked around the inside of the small sub, the spray from the sea throwing cool pinpricks against his skin. Another deep breath, he closed his eyes to block out his surroundings as Owsk started the engine. A heavy vibration ran through his seat, and he pushed his eyes more tightly shut. If you can’t say something nice …

  Chapter 24

  The vibrations ran through the ship as it hit the harder ground beneath the snow again and again in quick succession. Each shock blurred Reyes’ vision and shook the flight stick, but none of the impacts felt like they’d done major damage yet. Not that it mattered, if they went over the edge, the rocky needles below would smash them into thousands of pieces.

  Reyes knew ships, but she didn’t know this one well enough yet. It took for SA to lean forwards and point at a button.

  “Of course,” Reyes said and slammed her hand against it.

  The pooft of an anchor sounded as it shot out behind them. Although Reyes braced for the sudden halt, they continued to slide forwards like a hockey puck destined to beat the goalie.

  Bruke whined louder than before.

  Then it came—twang! Reyes flew from her seat. Although she had an awareness of SA and Bruke being catapulted forwards with her, she lost it the second she hit the windscreen. A skeleton-jarring shock, she then fell to the floor, the other two crashing down on either side of her.

  Reyes got up first, gasping as she looked out of the front of the ship. Just a few metres of snow sat between them and the drop. A look to her left at SA, then to her right at Bruke, she let go of a hard sigh, her cheeks puffing with the exhale. “Well, that was close!”

  After retrieving the computer Sparks had insisted they take with them, Reyes walked a wobbly line towards the ship’s back doors. SA and Bruke followed her. Bruke limped from a pain he must have picked up from the crash.

  The second Reyes opened the ship, thick snow rushed in, chilling her instantly and coating the place with white. She did her jacket up, put her gloves on, and turned to the others to see them do the same. The small computer in her hand, she showed them the pulsing red dot. “We’re close enough to walk. Hopefully the weather won’t get any worse.”

  SA looked her usual serene self while Bruke stared out into the storm with wide brown eyes. Although he didn’t speak, he looked like he wanted one of them to suggest they wait where they were.

  Reyes exited the ship with SA close behind her.

  While Reyes and SA walked around to the front of the ship, she heard Bruke jump out into the snow. She looked at the drop they nearly flew off, her stomach lurching as she stared down. “That was close.”

  The reality of the drop sent Reyes’ head spinning, so she turned around and headed back to the ship. The metal cable of the anchor hung from the back of it like a tail. It held taut. The thick snowstorm made it hard to see what the grapple hook had anchored to. A look at SA and Bruke, she said, “Hopefully that’s embedded in rock and not ice.”

  It looked like Bruke was trying to find his legs in the deep snow as he walked, lifting his knees high with every step. He moved closer to the cable and gave it a gentle tug. “At least it stopped us.”

  “Yep. I just hope we have a ship to return to is all.”

  Bruke’s eyes glazed when he looked in the direction of the drop. He shivered and repeated, “At least it saved us.” He then spun on the spot to take in their surroundings. “Why do beings live this high up anyway?”

  “It’s the only breathable air,” Reyes said. When Bruke and SA looked at her, she elaborated. “Sparks told me that if you go down too low on this planet, the toxic air makes your lungs haemorrhage. She said you’ll drown in your own blood within seconds.”

  As he looked from Reyes to SA and back to the drop, Bruke whined. “So even if we had survived the fall …?”

  Reyes shrugged. “Let’s not worry about what could have gone wrong. As long as we stay up here, we’ll be okay. Come on, let’s get moving before we get buried in this snow.” Then to SA, Can you tell them we’ve landed and we’ll be at our destination shortly?

  A nod to acknowledge the request, SA’s eyes glazed as she pulled into herself to contact the others.

  Chapter 25

  We’re just checking in. We’ve landed and we’re safe. Just about.

  Regardless of his current surroundings, Seb perked up to hear SA’s voice. As the three of them plummeted into the watery depths in a sub designed for two—two beings smaller than a human—it did him good to connect with her. What does it look like where you are? he asked.

  Bleak.

  Like it had been when they were in the depths on Aloo, the water had turned dark on every side. They’d plunged deep enough for the light above to be barely perceptible. But everyone’s okay?

  For now, yeah. Are things good with you?

  For a moment, Seb didn’t reply. Not only had they gone past the point of no return if they got into trouble, but the low glass roof of the Piscents forced him to bend his neck forwards in his seat. It sent a sharp pain into the base of his skull. As if being bent over where he sat wasn’t enough, he also had a squirming Sparks on his lap, her bony little arse digging into his thighs. Yeah, things are fine. He looked around them again and still saw nothing. So—

  Get back in touch when you need to.

  A strange silence filled Seb’s head. The sound of SA’s absence. When Sparks squirmed on his lap again, he spoke to her through clenched teeth. “Will you sit still?!”

  She wriggled, pushing down so hard against his thighs, he could feel them numbing.

  “I swear, Sparks, if you do that again, I’m going to force you out of here through the glass roof.”

  “You’ll drown too.”

  “It’ll be worth it.”

  “Watch yourself, Seb.” Sparks held her computer in his direction, showing him the end that fired electricity. “You’re not in a position of power here. One shot from this in the wrong place, and SA will be none too pleased with me.”

  It robbed Seb of his fight and he stared out of the window.

  Sparks then went on to say, “I’m the navigator; Owsk is piloting this thing. You’re a passenger, so just sit back and enjoy the view, yeah? Oh, and try not to get in the way.”

  Maybe the silence showed Sparks she’d gone too far. Softening her tone, she held her computer up at Seb again, showing him the information on the screen. “This shows us heat and movement signatures. Although creatures generate heat when they move, Reyes insisted on us being able to see both because of what happened to her dad. Not that she told me any more than that.”

  The vibration of the ship’s engine ran through Seb’s seat as he shook his head. “She doesn’t like to talk about it. Although I heard it was something to do with the Faladis.”

  “The Faradis?” Sparks said.

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  “She was on there?”

  “Apparently. So was her dad.”

  “Oh.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. If she doesn’t want to talk about it, I think we should respect that. I didn’t think anyone survived, that’s all.”

  “Come on, Sparks, don’t leave me hanging. What happened?”

  While waving her device at him, Sparks moved the conversation on. “The point I was trying to make is that if anything’s out there, we’re going to see it on here.” A tap against her screen, she turned the image on it from two-dimensional to three-dimensional. A cluster of red dots pulsed on the map. They were still quite far away from them. What looked like a wall separated them and their target. “It looks like we need to make our way through a maze of tunnels to get to the other side.”

  “Tunnels?” Seb looked up at the darkness above them. It held the slightest glimmer of daylight. In a tunnel, he wouldn’t even be able to see that. As his panic rose inside him, he dropped his hea
d with a sigh and closed his eyes. “I should have gone with Reyes.”

  Chapter 26

  Reyes hugged herself for warmth and squinted against the snowy onslaught. When she looked at the other two, she saw them do the same. They’d all put their ski masks on, and although it helped protect against the cold press of melting snowflakes against her exposed skin, it did nothing to improve her vision.

  Close enough to the other two to see them through the snow, Reyes said, “At least we didn’t go over that cliff.” Then showing them her computer, she added, “Our destination isn’t far.”

  Reyes looked at SA, who nodded, but when she looked at Bruke, she gasped to see his hollow stare. “Are you okay?”

  Both Reyes and SA were shivering, but the state of Bruke looked to take it to a whole new level. His voice wavered and he clearly struggled to get his words out. “So cold … I can feel it in my heart … in my blood.”

  A look at SA, Reyes saw her own anxiety in her friend’s eyes. She then patted the large lizard on the back and said, “Let’s get moving. Hopefully it’ll get your heart pumping faster.”

  Her computer in her hand, Reyes led the way and SA took up the rear. With Bruke in his current state, they needed to keep him in the middle. Some creatures just weren’t built for the cold. Although it seemed like something more with him. As a lizard, he probably had cold blood to begin with, but it looked like something deeper than a drop in temperature haunting his gaze.

  Each of Reyes’ steps sank into the deep snow. The crunch and pop ran through her feet as she progressed. With no more than a couple of metres’ visibility, she kept checking her computer. The heat signatures and movement showed her a lot of bodies ahead. Were the weather better, the journey would have taken a matter of minutes. She hoped they had nothing in their path that would slow them down too much more.