Fugitive: A Space Opera: Book Five of The Shadow Order

by Michael Robertson

  Nothing.

  “Please, Logan, stop the car now.”

  “It’s from the Shadow Order?” the old man asked.

  “Yep. I’ve felt something following me since I got away from the base. I can’t keep running from it. Besides, if we’re going to fight, it’s best we do it here, away from civilisation.”

  Although he looked reluctant, Logan slowed the vehicle to a halt. They were in the shadow of the vast mech, which watched them the entire time.

  Seb opened the door, the sandy Danu winds flying into the dusty car. One foot out, he turned to his dad’s best friend. “Wait here. I can handle this.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Twice the size of the mech he’d fought at the Shadow Order’s base, Seb’s heart raced to look up at the huge chrome beast. Two arms, two legs, a head with all the features of a human face crudely depicted on it, and not much else. Its shiny body didn’t give anything away, the lowering evening sun glistening off the mech’s chrome frame. It magnified the glare, dazzling Seb as he searched it for a weakness.

  Then the robot charged forward, closing down the distance between them with its heavy steps.

  Seb thrust his arms out to the sides just to keep his balance. The vibration of the mech’s movement threatened to throw him to the ground.

  The world now in slow motion, Seb watched the large machine rush at him, the strong winds buffeting his ears. The mech raised a huge right fist, ready to strike.

  The beast might have been big, but what it had in power, it lost in speed. The punch came from a mile away, the expressionless brute driving it down into the ground.

  With plenty of time to get out of the way, Seb avoided the first blow. The impact sent a blast of rock shards towards him and he raised his arms in front of his face to protect against the stinging assault.

  Several pieces of shrapnel cut into Seb’s forearms. Thankfully he avoided the worst of it, and at least he kept his face covered. The beast might have been slow, but he couldn’t fight it blind.

  Seb tasted sand on the back of his dry throat. Despite the cold wind, sweat itched his armpits and around his collar.

  The mech pulled its fist up again and spun on Seb, its upper body moving while its legs remained stationary. It then jumped to allow its bottom half to spin around to catch up with its top. It sent a series of jackhammer blows against the ground. It might not be able to hit Seb, but it could try to take away his ability to evade it.

  Although Seb rode out the first few shocks, the third one robbed him of his footing. While he scrambled away from the follow-up impacts, he bounced around every time a metal fist connected. A pea on a drum, he just about managed to stay out of the gargantuan’s reach, every punch slamming down closer to him than the one before it.

  The mech paused and Seb took his opportunity. He charged over the uneven and dusty ground at it. A gap large enough to drive a car between its legs, he ran through it and punched its calf like he had with the last one he’d come up against. Although this time, the brute’s chrome body threw his punch back at him as if he’d just whacked something made from rubber.

  The mech jumped into the air, spun around, and landed with another earth-shaking boom. It charged at Seb again.

  The vibrations of the mech’s stampede ran through Seb and blurred his vision, but he managed to remain upright.

  When the mech drew close, it wound its right boot back. Seb dived out of the way, the boat of a foot sailing just over his head. It might have missed him, but the rush of air from the attack sent Seb rolling away from it.

  Sweat ran into Seb’s eyes, but he didn’t stop to rub them as he got back to his feet. Instead, he jumped backwards, avoiding a heavy stamp from the mech just in front of him. It shook the planet as if it could crack it, and lifted him several feet in the air.

  Despite having the wind driven from his body when he crashed down again, Seb jumped up and drove several punches against the top of the mech’s foot. It had gone down so hard, it had sunk into Danu’s dusty, rocky landscape. Again, the resilience of the mech’s chrome shell rejected his attack.

  Exhausted, hot, and the taste of sand clogging his throat, Seb gulped and stared at the large robot. There had to be some way to beat it. Then he caught sight of something. Around the brute’s wrists, he saw the slightest of lines. A shimmering line. A weak spot!

  This time Seb waited nearby to encourage the beast’s attack. He dodged the first punch, then the second. When the third landed, he jumped in time to stop the vibrations through the ground unsettling him, and he struck the mech’s right wrist.

  What had been a line of potential weakness now opened as a slight crack, revealing the wires within the behemoth.

  The mech—its expression as cold as ever—peered down at Seb, clasped its two large hands together and raised them above its head. It then brought them crashing down at him.

  Again, the beast moved too slowly to make contact, but the vibration through the ground knocked Seb over again. He swung at the brute’s wrists as he fell, but came nowhere near hitting it.

  Before Seb could recover, another punch crashed into the ground. It missed again.

  Seb rolled away, the rocky plains digging into him all over his body. He ran around the right side of the brute, tempting it to swing for him.

  As he’d hoped, the brute tried to hit him again. Maybe the pilot saw Seb’s plan. It tried a different approach. Instead of punching down, it swung for him, its fist running about a metre above the ground.

  As slow as every other attack it aimed at him, Seb jumped aside. The fist passed him and he swung for the wrist. His hard blow made contact, detaching the hand from the arm, flinging the fist away from the large beast.

  Both Seb and the mech paused to watch the huge metal body part fly through the air.

  The relief Seb felt at finding the mech’s vulnerability lasted less than a second. His body sank as he followed the fist’s trajectory, his stomach turning over against itself.

  One of the times where he hated his slow motion, Seb had to live every painful second of the metal object’s wide arc. It only had one destination.

  Before Seb could shout “Logan”, the fist had landed on his car, crushing it like a bug beneath a boot heel.

  The shock forced an involuntary gasp from Seb, and before he could say anything else, the crushed vehicle exploded into a ball of flames, the air lighting up with a loud whoosh! The force of the blast knocked him over with a wall of fierce heat.

  CHAPTER 33

  For a few seconds, Seb remained sitting down, unable to move as he stared at the burning wreck of Logan’s car. It felt like every muscle in his body had fallen limp. Logan wouldn’t have gotten dragged into this if it wasn’t for him.

  The black mushroom cloud dissipated, driven skyward on the back of tall orange flames. Despite needing some form of hope, nothing could have survived the twisted wreck the car had become.

  A whoosh of hydraulics caught Seb’s attention and he spun in the direction of the large mech. It remained in the same spot, but a vertical slit had opened up down the centre of it, running in a line from the top of its head all the way to its crotch. The join that looked so obvious now hadn’t been there just seconds ago. As the split spread wider, it reminded him of a huge metal sarcophagus.

  Seb stared into the mech and noticed spinning cogs and firing pistons. But he didn’t watch their synchronised dance as they pushed the robot’s two halves wider. Instead, he stared at the helmeted pilot. When she removed her lid, he ground his jaw and clenched his steel fists. “Reyes.”

  Even with his world in slow motion, Seb didn’t give himself a moment to think. Instead, he yelled so loudly it tore at his throat as he ran at the mech. “What have you done?”

  Because Reyes’ cockpit sat in the centre of the mech at an elevated position of about three to four metres from the ground, metal stairs folded out of the large thing to let her down. Seb didn’t stop running when he got to them, his feet hammering a loud beat. So mu
ch chrome, the sun continued to dazzle him, but he squinted through it and focused all of his rage on Reyes at the top of them.

  By the time Seb had climbed the staircase, Reyes had unstrapped from the cockpit. She pressed her hands together as if in prayer, her face wincing at his fury. “I’m so sorry, Seb, I didn’t mean for that to happen. Moses sent me here to bring you back, not to kill anyone.”

  But Seb had no words for her. Instead, he grabbed the front of her shirt, pulled her the rest of the way from the cockpit, and threw her off the stairs to the sandy ground below.

  Although Reyes screamed on the way down, something else took Seb’s attention. It started as a small pip. His jaw fell loose and he stepped away, glancing back at his path down the stairs so he didn’t fall. As the pulse grew louder, he looked into the cockpit at the glowing red light. It blinked in time with the noise and brightened with the increasing sound. Why hadn’t he thought about it? The failsafe if the pilot got forcibly removed. He leapt in the direction he’d recently hurled Reyes.

  The impact of landing on the hard and sandy ground ran up through Seb’s body, balling as a stinging pain at the base of his back and throwing him forwards. He fell into a roll and turned over several times before he managed to get back to his feet, gritted his teeth through the pain, and sprinted away from the large chrome monster. The throbbing pulse chased him away. Reyes had already taken flight.

  The explosion dwarfed the one that had just killed Logan. The blast hit Seb’s back, throwing him face first onto the sandy ground.

  A ball of fire swallowed the mech as Seb got to his feet and then dragged a gasping Reyes to hers. He held the front of her shirt in a clenched left fist and pulled back his right. “What the hell were you doing?”

  Wide brown eyes stared at Seb. Reyes sweated and sand clung to her damp skin. “I didn’t mean to hurt anybody.”

  “Why the hell were you trying to kill me, then?”

  A shake of her head, she looked genuine when she said, “I wasn’t. I knew I’d have to fight you just to get you to listen to me. You were hardly going to welcome me with open arms. I mean, look at it.”

  The flames had eased a little, revealing part of the large mech, which had already blackened from the explosion. Pain streaked through Seb’s jaw as he stared at it and gritted his teeth. He then turned back on Reyes. “And what have you achieved? I’m still not going to come with you. Hell, I should cave your damn skull in and leave you for dead. I should send you back to Moses in a coffin.”

  “Please, Seb, trust me when I say I didn’t mean to harm anyone. I couldn’t think of any other way to get you to come back with me.”

  The more she spoke, the tighter it wound Seb. His fist ached from where he continued to clench it while holding it in front of her. “Mistake or not, I can’t let it slide.” But before he could swing for her, a voice stopped him.

  “Now come on, Seb, is violence really necessary?”

  Seb let go of the front of Reyes’ shirt and turned to the burning car. Or rather, the man in front of the burning car. “Logan?”

  The old man—his long frame now carrying the slight stoop of his years—beamed a wizened grin. “Of course.”

  “But I thought you were in the car.”

  A look at the burning mech, Logan said, “When I saw the size of that thing, I knew I should wait elsewhere. Good job I didn’t listen to you, eh?”

  “Where did you wait?”

  “I hid behind a large rock, far enough away from the car that I didn’t get pulverised and then barbecued.”

  The sound of sirens ran across the Danu plains. Seb turned to look and saw a line of emergency vehicles heading their way. He looked back at Logan. “You think we should get out of here?”

  A shake of his head, Logan said, “No, I’ll get one of them to give us a lift back. We can say the mech was a test flight that went wrong, and that we’ve found the pilot. I’ll back you up. It’ll be a lot of paperwork, but seeing as no one’s dead, we’ll get away with it.” The old man’s brown eyes glowed when he looked at Reyes. “Hi, I’m Logan.”

  Reyes stared back at the old frant, her mouth wide with shock.

  “She’s called Reyes. You do realise she just tried to kill us, right?” Seb said.

  A scowl at Seb, Reyes shook her head. “I didn’t.” She looked back to Logan, “I’m so sorry you nearly got hurt.”

  Logan shrugged. “Being in the police force, I’ve had a lot worse happen to me. At least it was an accident. I suppose you’d best come with us.”

  “Where?” Reyes said.

  “Back to Seb’s house.”

  “My dad’s,” Seb cut in. “And I didn’t invite her.”

  “It’s yours now, boy, and don’t be a dick.”

  The sideways look from Reyes showed she hadn’t missed Logan calling Seb boy. Dick he could cope with, but boy? … and in front of her? Good job for her she decided to keep that observation to herself.

  CHAPTER 34

  As he stood in the front room of his dad’s house—the smell of smoke still in the air from the fire he’d left burning when they went to visit Davey—Seb stared out of the window and watched the final police vehicle pull away. Logan stood on the porch and waved his colleague off as he disappeared into the swirling dust.

  Silence hung between Seb and Reyes, the tension so thick it damn near choked him. The only sounds were the fierce winds outside and the stomp of Logan’s heavy gait up the corridor towards them.

  The second Logan entered the room, Seb said, “You should take Dad’s old car.”

  A deep frown pressed down on Logan’s soft brown eyes. He stared at Seb but didn’t respond.

  “You’ve lost your car because of me.” A sharp glare at Reyes, Seb said, “Because of her.”

  Reyes looked like she wanted to speak. At least she had the good sense to keep her mouth shut. Seb continued. “Dad’s has been outside doing nothing, and I have no intention of staying here. Especially now Davey’s gone.” Before Logan could reply, Seb added, “Besides, Dad would want you to have it more than any other being in this universe. More than he’d want me to take it. He knows you’d look after it better than anyone else.”

  Logan accepted the gift with a nod and didn’t try to deny Seb’s assessment. “Thank you. I’ll make sure I take good care of it.”

  “Anything’s got to be better than what I’d do with it.”

  Just to look at Reyes’ face wound Seb’s back tight and he went for her again. “Not that I’d need to replace your car if she hadn’t showed up with that ridiculous mech.”

  “Moses sent me,” Reyes said. “I had to do what he asked of me.”

  “You chose to do what he asked of you.”

  Although Reyes looked like she wanted to reply, she held her tongue again.

  “And you know what?” Seb said. “I’m not even sure I want you in my dad’s house. You still need to complete your mission, right?”

  A slight pause where Reyes’ eyes shifted from Seb to Logan and back again, she said, “Why don’t you just go and see him?”

  “Do you know what I did?”

  “You forced a prison break so you could get away from the Shadow Order’s base.”

  Seb nodded. “You know about our last mission?”

  “Carstic?”

  “Right. You heard about the parasites?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, they were created in a gene farm.”

  Reyes’ eyes widened slightly. “You think someone planted them there?”

  “They didn’t get there on their own. I think Moses planted them there.”

  All the while, Logan watched the pair as if ready to intervene.

  Reyes might have shaken her head, but she sounded far from certain when she said, “Moses wouldn’t do something like that.” It sounded like a question.

  “Someone did. If it wasn’t Moses, then I’ll find out who. If it wasn’t Moses, I’m sure the Shadow Order will want to do something about it too. With th
eir fight for justice and all that. Although, I don’t have the same faith as you do in the big man. I’m struggling to see it as just a coincidence that the Shadow Order profited from the tragedy.” Before Reyes could speak, he said, “I’m also going to find out who blew up the shuttle that left Carstic with the mine’s only survivors on it.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “There were three survivors. I bet you didn’t hear about them, did you?”

  The lack of response from Reyes said all it needed to.

  “No, I didn’t think so. It’s not Moses’ way to give more information than he needs to. You have to find out for yourself. The survivors were a family. The dad of that family had a theory that the parasites were planted on Carstic as a way to extort credits from the owners. Or to steal the production of ruthane for themselves. The attack happened shortly after the galaxy found out about ruthane and its worth. Now maybe Moses didn’t have anything to do with it, but there are too many warning lights flashing when I’m looking at this. If I’m to go back to the Shadow Order’s base, I need to know Moses isn’t a murderer. I can’t work for him otherwise.”

  “And how will you do that?”

  At that moment, the large phone Buster had given Seb rang. Logan had left it on the coffee table. Seb looked at it for a second, his pulse quickening. He then picked it up. “Hello?”

  Buster’s reptilian voice hissed through the device. The tinny sound tickled Seb’s ear. “We’ve found out who the supplier of the parasites was. These airwaves aren’t safe, so come back to Aloo and I’ll give you all the information.”

  It made sense that he didn’t want to reveal himself over the phone. Seb nodded. “Thanks.”

  The click of Buster hanging up popped through the receiver.

  Both Logan and Reyes were staring at Seb when he put the phone down on the sofa again. “I need to go back to Aloo. Buster has the details of where the parasite was created.”