by Justin Sloan
Shadow Worlds
Justin Sloan
DEDICATION
To all of my amazing fans who allowed me to go full-time in this amazing writing gig, and to my family for supporting me through all of this.
SHADOW CORPS TEAM
Beta Editor / JIT Readers
Kelly O'Donnel
Alex Wilson
Jackie Weaver
Becky Young
Holly Lenz
Leo Roars
If I missed anyone, please let me know!
Editors
Calee Allen
Shadow Worlds (this book) is a work of fiction.
All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.
Complete Book is Copyright (c) 2017 by Justin Sloan of Elder Tree Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Justin Sloan.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Epilogue
Author Notes
What Next?
About the Author
1
Foreign Planet: Unknown
A blast singed the edge of Samantha’s cloak and she pushed back against the wall, pissed. Even with all the training and fighting she had gone through, the cloak hadn’t actually been damaged.
Until now.
To make it sting that much more, she had been fighting a simple Kolack when she had been hit. Those little bastards seemed to breed like rabbits, inhabiting many of the planets Hadrian sent Samantha to for her skill-point grinding.
Still, she couldn’t help but wonder if the creatures were capable of such accuracy.
They weren’t the only enemy she had faced lately. Whenever she had the urge to go charging in and blasting something to bits—or cutting through hordes like a hot knife parting butter—she had the ancient magi send her to planets such as this.
But now, not only did she have a reason to be pissed, she also had cause to be somewhat worried. Glancing at her blackened cloak, she doubted the creatures were actually capable of such accuracy. Whatever had just shot her had been a skilled shot, so she was pretty sure it couldn’t be Kolack.
In fact, she was fairly certain she had seen a human staring back at her from under a helmet, their visor partially fogged. Kolack could occasionally be found wearing such gear, but it was rare.
A glance down at the cloak confirmed that the material was already healing itself, glowing slightly before being restored to its original condition. The dark fabric flowed around her as though she were submerged in water. The cloak was easily the best gift she’d ever received, and she had her teammate Dex to thank for it.
Time to show this human what this gift can do, she thought, turning and springing forward. The robes flowed behind her as the shadows made her one of them. Dark cloths fluttered and spiraled in the air, and then she was descending on the human, slamming him against the rock wall as she raised her left forearm and triggered her shield.
The effect was a blast of electricity that held her opponent tightly as it sent its helmet flying, exposing purple skin like that of an eggplant.
Not a human at all, then.
The creature snapped at her with its sharp, pointed teeth, and Samantha jerked back to avoid being bitten. With another thrust of her shield she released the Kolack, allowing only a moment before her shield’s next electric shock sent the creature slamming even harder against the rock. It collapsed to the ground.
Damn. She needed to get her mind straight. Stop seeing things that weren’t there. This was not the first time she had thought she’d seen a human that had turned out to be a Kolack or some other alien creature.
When she had told Napalm about it, his fiery eyes had narrowed. He had shaken his head, muttering something about leftover effects from their run-ins with Karstrack, the corrupt magi. Some sort of echo in her brain from the stress, perhaps. Or maybe she was thinking too much of her own team, back on Earth.
But there seemed to be more than that going on here. At times she was certain she had seen a face looking back at her from the darkness. More than once.
Samantha pulled her thoughts back to the moment and focused on the very real issue at hand: the sound of more Kolacks coming at her from behind. She spun to see two of them, wearing body armor similar to that worn by the Syndicate Marines. A well-trained group—she guessed from the way they moved as a team—they covered the corners in a way that made her highly doubt they lacked intelligence as Ferder or the others claimed.
Wrong side of the war? Yes. Completely stupid sacks of blood with no purpose other than to serve as cannon fodder for the Great Deceivers in this war against the allies and all that was good and holy in the universe? Not sure.
One of the Kolacks made a clicking sound and gestured her way, and a second instantly threw himself to the floor, firing two rounds in her direction. This time she took advantage of her upgraded grip skill and ran for the wall, her robes gathering the darkness around her so that the enemy shot wildly in their confused state.
She reached the wall and ran across it, sword out and sparks of electricity trailing behind it. Blue lines sizzled through the air as her sword came down upon the lead Kolack, cleaving his helmet in two and filling him with volts so that he skittered smoking across the floor.
Damn, it felt good having the electricity skill tree maxed out. That’s what months of training did, after all.
The other Kolack rolled out of the way, coming up on his knees to shoot. He managed to get off a blast, and Samantha had to throw herself backwards to avoid getting hit. Since the sword would need to recharge before it could fire electricity again, she decided it was time to try one of her newly upgraded skills.
She chose ‘Static Stomp.’ Peering at the icons on her HUD, it looked like fun. Hell, fun was her middle name when it came to fighting these little bastards. From what she could tell, all she had to do was lift her leg up high and then stomp down in her opponent’s direction.
Sam’s foot hit the ground, and a blue light flared as a shockwave of energy rippled outward. It threw her opponent back, momentarily stunning him while she stumbled a bit as well, not used to the force of the upgrade.
That would come in handy someday, she thought, regaining her feet. But maybe it needed a little more practice. Right now might be a better time for some good old-fashioned hand-to-hand combat.
Quickly sheathing her sword, she kicked off the wall and leaped forward. The power from her robes gave her an extra push that sent her fist cracking through the enemy’s faceplate. Her brawling skills weren’t on par with her weapon techniques, so she liked to get some practice in private, where none of the Shadow Corps team could see if she messed up.
Like now, as she lost her balance going for a roundhouse kick to the broken faceplate. Falling on her butt was embarrassing enough
without the stupid Kolack sneering at her.
He’d get an extra punch or two for that, she decided, as she started to pick herself back up.
A kick caught her in the side, and then the Kolack’s blaster rifle was descending on Samantha to slam into her helmet. She raised both arms and formed a small force field around herself, a blue light that fizzed on impact while still keeping her protected. As soon as she moved her arms, it was gone. But she was now on the offensive.
“Kick me while I’m down, huh?” she shouted, coming at the Kolack with wild, haymaker punches. Against Dex or Carma, Samantha’s punches would’ve been laughable. But this Kolack had gotten overconfident and, since its faceplate had fallen off, each metal-gloved punch sent him reeling back.
He lay wheezing against the wall, purple blood dripping down his face. He stared up at her and held out a hand, a pleading look in his eyes.
It was almost enough to make her doubt herself, to pull back and let him go. Until she saw his other hand sneaking up toward her, finger wrapped around the trigger of a small blaster.
“Dick,” she said. “I was almost feeling sorry for you.” She kicked the blaster away, pulled out her sword, and ended the little bastard.
Since she didn’t see any other signs of trouble, she took a moment to pull down her HUD. This little excursion had apparently earned her thirty new skill points. That was just enough to upgrade her shield for a tethering charge, though she didn’t know exactly what that was. She decided that, after having lost her balance in her fight with the Kolack, maybe she should choose a few more hand-to-hand improvements before trying something new.
She assigned several of the points to strength and dexterity, then felt the alien biotech of her suit go into action as the upgrades took effect. The armor grew denser in spots and firmer at support areas around her legs. After a few seconds, her helmet told her the upgrades were complete.
Sam was about to assign the other remaining points and see if her sword had any available upgrades when a voice echoed through her hood. It was not quite in her head, but not quite outside of it, either.
Dex.
Hadrian has returned. He wants us all back, the voice said.
She spun around to see her friend. Like hers, Dex’s robes flowed as if submerged in water, though the fabric was thicker and more layered than Sam’s. Dex’s race also didn’t have sexes. So, as much as Samantha hated thinking of Dex as it all the time, the alternatives didn’t quite fit.
I’m on my way, she sent back, allowing her faceplate to clear so that Dex could see her smile.
Good training? it asked.
Ups and downs, she replied, her head spinning a bit as she did so. No matter how much they spoke like this, mentally, it always felt unnerving to her.
He nodded, but did not respond. Together they walked to the faint light that formed ghostly outlines of themselves. Stepping into it, they were instantly sent back to the training caves of Entono Fos Prime.
Training on Entono Fos Prime wasn’t so different from the training conducted on Hadrian’s ship. In addition to the natural obstacle courses, Ferder and the other locals had shown Samantha a series of caves lined with training weapons, strength exercises, and sparring areas. Hadrian had taken advantage of this spot to set up his training gateways.
What was different was that, while before Samantha had been anxious to train and improve her skills, she was now anxious to get back into space and hunt down her enemies.
She understood that their skill-point grinding was in actuality part of the fight. The gateways took them to enemy planets, where they could fight real enemies as a means of leveling up skill trees and weapons. They had to be making a dent in the number of Kolack out there, at least. But they had been at this for months.
The war against the Syndicate was still going on back home, and there were two more ancient-guardians-turned-evil-space-dragons out there that needed to be stopped.
“Where did Hadrian go this time?” Samantha asked Dex aloud.
Dex’s robes shuffled in the silence as they walked.
A response finally came, like words floating on the wind. Hadrian has much to look after, much to plan for.
As if that was an answer, Samantha thought, looking at the new buildings on the edge of the town. The locals had mostly rebuilt the city after the large space dragon had crashed into it. While no one could truly replace Orlean on the Elder Council, the rest had moved on after a short grieving period. Now they were hard at work, planning and strategizing. This was war, although Samantha could almost believe it wasn’t, what with all the waiting she had been made to do.
They entered the city to find Ferder conversing heatedly with some others of his race. He didn’t seem to notice either one of them as they passed by to meet up with the rest of the team.
At the square just inside the city, the other members of the Shadow Corps were already gathered. Everyone except Kwan. Samantha figured he was off with the Red Company, as he often was lately. The square was lined with tall buildings of white and gold, as well as several statues of old leaders. In the middle was a fountain with a statue of Orlean, the late Elder. The marble sculpture had been there even before she had died, but now it was surrounded by the pink and purple oversized flowers so plentiful on the planet.
Samantha wondered if it was a coincidence that the people on Earth—like these aliens—all chose flowers at memorials. Was it possible aliens had influenced their cultures over the years?
Hadrian had certainly visited Earth numerous times, even before the Syndicate invasion. He had told her so. If he had visited, undetected, why not others?
Samantha saw Carma, who was standing facing Napalm. Even wrapped in armor like the other Shadow Corps members, Carma managed to exude a sexuality that made even Samantha uncomfortable. Samantha couldn’t imagine how the guys dealt with it.
Napalm glanced back at her with his fiery eyes, and Samantha nodded, stopping next to the group as Napalm went to converse with the two former guides, Agathe and Voira. They were now effectively members of the Shadow Corps, though their role was still mostly to serve as guides in areas of the universe less well known to the rest of the team.
“Get your kill quota in for the day?” Carma asked. She glanced at Napalm, her expression somewhat disapproving. It likely had to do with the fact that she generally despised men. Lately, she had been better around the team, at least, but sometimes took a bit of warming to. She must’ve just woken up or had her butt handed to her in training.
“Kill quota?” Samantha asked. “I’m pretty sure that’s not a thing.”
“It’s not,” Napalm replied. “Feel free to ignore our dear friend here, she’s feeling a bit anxious at her lack of privacy.”
“There’s always some guard or somebody in the palace,” Carma spat, glaring at him. “How’s a girl going to get some alone time?”
“Go on, tell us.”
Carma’s face went pale. “You heard?”
“As if you’re shy to begin with,” Napalm replied with a chuckle.
Carma shrugged, but didn’t deny it. “Still, one such as myself shouldn’t have to hide, but I understand the norms here. So what if I escaped to the caves below.”
“I heard some of the miners of the dragon material caught you in the dragon.” He bit his lip to stop from laughing.
“I’m not following,” Samantha said with a frown. The huge space dragon they had defeated weeks ago was a large mining operation now, as the inhabitants of this and many other planets believed the body of a dragon held magical properties.
Hadrian had expressed his displeasure with this many times, mentioning Orion’s belt and something about the Three Kings. But he had always seemed so distraught by it all that she didn’t ask for an explanation, yet. There would be time for that.
“Maybe it’s better you don’t.” Napalm glanced at Samantha as if just then remembering who he was talking to. He had the look of one who had just realized he was saying something inappropri
ate in front of a teenager.
She rolled her eyes, and turned to Carma.
“Remember what you saw when you first met me that day on the ship?” Carma asked. “Yeah, alone time.”
Samantha felt her cheeks warm, and she cringed. “Wait, actually in the dragon? And you were caught.”
“Agh, it’s not such a big deal as all that.” Carma put her hands on her hips, eyeing the group as if daring them to say anything more on the subject.
Wanting nothing more than to change the conversation, Samantha shifted her gaze over to Dex and then back to the palace. When would Hadrian arrive?
Finally, Ferder held up a hand, hissed something to the others with him, and came over her way. “Samantha. Good.”
“What’s up?”
Ferder frowned, turned to look at the sky, and shrugged.
Samantha laughed. The translation device in his ear worked well, but it still had problems with slang. “I mean, what’s with the drama?” she clarified.
With a shake of his head, he leaned in and said, “Someone overheard the Elders talking, and it’s not good. Talking about you all as if you should be disbanded, not given free rein to run around wild. Maybe even locked up.”
“What?!”
He held out a hand. “Shh, shh. Just, let’s all keep our guard up. Right?”
Samantha frowned. “And Hadrian? Was he in on these conversations?”
Ferder shook his head. “Off on one of his self-appointed missions, as he often is. It doesn’t help the situation that he’s not being open with where he goes or what he does.”