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

by Michael Robertson

  Better to go down with you beside me than alone. The blast grew brighter as it gained charge, swelling into another red orb of destruction.

  When it had grown close to the size of the previous shot, the red ball of laser throbbed like it had the last time. The vacuum of space silenced any sound it would have made, but the glow of it dragged Seb in, hypnotised as he watched the swelling silent death.

  The red ball exploded with a bright flare and sent another wide bar of laser towards them.

  Seb’s slow motion gave him time to think. Maybe too much. But instead of screaming panic, he felt calm. For maybe the first time in his life, he felt ready for it if it came. Maybe he almost wanted it. He’d told SA how he felt, and with the prophecy on his shoulders, maybe this would be easier than what he might have to face.

  But then the radio crackled through his headset. The lights in his turret came on. The ship hummed and a vibration ran through his seat.

  Just before the blast crashed into the back of them, Seb felt the pull of the ship thrusting away from it, his seatbelt snapping taut across his chest.

  A millisecond later, the stars in the sky turned into long white lines as they jumped into hyperspace. The red bar of laser fire released by the Shadow Order’s ships turned into one long pinprick like all of the others.

  The jump always made Seb giddy. Time travel messed with his physiology. “What just happened?” he called through his mic, his head spinning, his words slurred.

  “I made them think we were vulnerable so they’d stay back and take another shot at us,” Reyes said. “The first shot they fired destroyed our shield and there was no way it would recharge before they shot us again. I tricked them into giving me the time we needed to get out of there.”

  Seb laughed. “Wow! Well done, Reyes. You can fly us again any time.” The sound he then heard through the speakers in his helmet might have been a grumbling of interference, but it sounded much more like a disgruntled Sparks. Always the best flier in the group, she’d now met her match.

  Before Seb could say anything else, the ship suddenly stopped, throwing him against the back of his seat. He heard Bruke scream from where he’d clearly been thrown across the ship, the only one of them not strapped in. Seb called back to him, “You okay, Bruke?”

  “He’s fine,” Reyes said. “He’s just landed in the cockpit next to me.”

  Although Seb heard what she’d said, he didn’t reply, his attention now on the planet just below them. Green and blue, it had a tiny moon orbiting it. They’d reached their destination.

  CHAPTER 45

  All of them had left their cannons and were now gathered around Reyes in the cockpit as they broke through Earth’s atmosphere and headed for the ground. Sparks—although still clearly not a fan of her—sat next to Reyes. Seb, SA, and Bruke stood behind her, the ship shaking with the turbulence of coming in to land.

  “There it is,” Reyes said as she pointed down at what looked like the only building with any functionality in the decimated wasteland.

  The gene farm took up most of what Seb could see. A large green rectangular building, it must have been half a mile long and about as wide. It looked like it had been dropped from space and just happened to land where it did. “I suppose it must be much easier to drop a workplace in a wasteland than build it from the ground up. Although, I don’t rate the design of the place much.”

  “Functionality above aesthetic,” Reyes said.

  A shake of her head, Sparks added, “Heathens.” Although she stared at Reyes as she said it.

  Seb watched the slightest smile lift the sides of Reyes’ mouth and he smiled too.

  Where the abandoned city had clearly been ruined by age, plants, vines, and weeds slowly pulling the place apart brick by brick, the gene farm looked to have contributed to the destruction. Easy to see it had been dropped on the place because the area surrounding it still bore the signs of impact from the large structure. It even straddled a wide river, the banks crumbled from where it had crashed down.

  Seb scanned the area below. When he saw where Reyes intended to land, he said, “Is it flat enough there?”

  Clearly concentrating, Reyes bit down on her bottom lip, the ship shifting and moving from side to side. “It’s the best place in this area. Not ideal, but I can’t see many other options in the vicinity, and I don’t want to have to schlep across the city to get back here.”

  A look around, Seb shrugged. He couldn’t see anywhere either. “The city looks like it was abandoned a long time ago. Have you ever been here before, Reyes?”

  She shook her head as she dropped the ship lower. “I heard the air became unbreathable. An overpopulated planet, the human race chewed it up, spat it out, and then left it like proverbial rats. Despite this being the birthplace of my ancestors, I’ve had no desire to come down here before.” She then fell silent, sweat running down her temples as she closed in on the ground.

  The vibration of the ship touching down shook through Seb’s feet as it made a loud clang. He watched Reyes release a long breath and sag in her seat. “Done!”

  With the same angry glare as before, Sparks continued to watch Reyes as if waiting for her to turn and look at her. When she didn’t, Sparks snorted contempt at her anyway. “I’d have done that better.”

  After sharing a look with Bruke and then SA, Seb shook his head at the angry little Thrystian’s remarks. Because Reyes hadn’t bothered to acknowledge her, none of them needed to either. Still, he leaned forward and clipped her around the back of the head, knocking her glasses off. Before she could react, he said to her, “Hey, how’s the air out there?”

  Although she scowled at him while rubbing the back of her head, Sparks still turned on her computer and tapped the screen. She spoke to him through a clenched jaw. “It says it’s breathable. Although, after what you just did, I wouldn’t tell you if it wasn’t. How about you go out and test it, yeah?”

  “Come on, Sparks,” Seb said, “Reyes is a better pilot than you. By far. You don’t need to sour the mood because of that. Besides, no one knows tech like you do. Don’t worry, we’re not trying to replace you.”

  Sparks might not have responded, but she did visibly relax at being reminded what she brought to the team.

  The back of the ship opened with a whoosh and light flooded in. From how the place had looked on their approach, Seb expected it to stink. But as the smell of fresh grass and flowers cleansed the vessel’s stale hull, he suddenly realised the city was beyond decomposition. Despite the look of the place, Earth was waking up again. A deep inhale of the clean air and he gasped on his exhale. “Oh my …”

  It’s beautiful, SA finished for him.

  Seb stepped out of the ship first, his view of his mum’s home planet opening up before him. His jaw fell loose. The tinted windshield had dulled the beauty of the place. Grass and vines everywhere, flowers sprouting from cracks in rocks. A vibrant and lush green, the wind continued to blow fresher than any he’d ever felt. He closed his eyes as it pushed his hair away from his forehead.

  The ruins of the city contained a history Seb might never know anything about, but at that moment, it felt like he’d never grow tired of looking at it. Of trying to understand it.

  What looked like old fountains sat nearby. They were now dry and overflowing with pinks, blues, and yellows from where flowers had made them their beds. A huge stone pillar stood in front of them. It had been snapped off, leaving a jagged edge where the top should have been. At about five metres tall, it looked like it used to stand much taller. What had once been on there? It must have been important to stand over the grand city.

  The pillar had a huge square stone platform at its base. Stone creatures sat on each corner of it. They looked like they might have been lions. Hard to tell with all the chips and cracks running through them. Time had taken its bite from them like it had everything else.

  A look behind them, Seb saw the remains of what had once been an old building. It had pillars running across t
he front of it like smaller versions of the broken one surrounded by lions.

  Vibrancy and life all around him, Seb reached across to SA, grabbed her hand, and squeezed it. I feel like I could stay here forever.

  Welcome home, sweetheart.

  Before Seb could continue the conversation, a loud roar called across to them from somewhere in the city. Somewhere behind them. It spiked his pulse and his breathing sped up. He looked around but couldn’t see anything.

  There!

  Seb followed where SA pointed to and his stomach flipped. A lion. At least, it had been a lion at some point. He’d seen them in zoos before, and although large and magnificent creatures, they were half the size of the brute running at them. It also had two heads. One looked like a lion, the other looked like a burned and blistered dragon’s head. Both heads had wide-open mouths loaded with what looked to be razor-sharp teeth.

  CHAPTER 46

  The end of Seb’s cry to the others dragged out in his mind as his world flipped into slow motion, mid-shout. “Come ooooooooooon.” He led the way in the direction of the gene farm, watching where he put his feet on the debris-strewn ground.

  Fortunately the mutant creature came from behind them and not between them and the farm. The vast structure stood as an eyesore against what had been a beautifully desolate city. But it now represented sanctuary.

  Although Seb led the way, SA quickly overtook him and arrived at the closed farm doors first. By the time he’d caught up with her, fighting to keep his breaths even, she said, I can’t see a way in.

  Seb looked at the large double doors. Other than a slit down the middle, they had nothing. Neither can I.

  Sparks caught up with the pair next, then Bruke, then finally Reyes.

  “You’re not very fast,” Sparks said to the ex-marine, a sneer of derision on her small face.

  “How about we focus on that thing, yeah?” Seb said, pointing at the lion creature. Still about twenty-five metres away, it was closing down on them fast. While he watched it, he noticed Sparks turn to look at the locked doors. If anyone could get them in there, it would be her.

  The creature closed down on them.

  Sparks stepped back from the doors and pointed up. “The electric panel’s up there.”

  “You think you can get in if you have access to that?” Reyes said between gasps.

  “Does a two-headed lion-dragon thing like humans for breakfast?”

  “Huh?”

  “Yes, dammit. But how can I get up there?”

  About twenty metres of crumbling ruins between the group and the creature now. Seb’s heart sped, but before he could say anything, he heard Reyes say to Sparks, “Get on my back.”

  “What? No! I’m not some kind of circus monkey.”

  “I can climb up there. If you get on my back, I can still climb up there. You being so small and all.”

  Fifteen metres away.

  A slight pause—barely noticeable even with his world slowed down—Seb then listened to Sparks climb onto Reyes’ back, grumbling as she did so.

  Ten metres between them and the lion. Seb briefly looked away from the creature to see Reyes start to climb the side of the structure. Although she found small cracks and crevices to cling on to, it looked like she moved up it as if her hands and feet stuck to the walls.

  Before Seb could do anything about the creature, Bruke yelled, the primal sound lighting Seb’s skin with gooseflesh. To see his friend flipping out helped him relax. If only the stocky beast could turn it on at will. It would be wonderful to be able to rely on his talents.

  A regular Jekyll and Hyde, when Bruke flipped into beast mode, nothing could stop him. As he charged forwards, Seb jumped aside so he didn’t get trampled.

  Both Bruke and the creature met a few metres away and halted in front of one another. Despite dwarfing Bruke, some of the beast’s confidence had clearly left it. The aggression of seconds ago had been ever so slightly diluted in the face of Bruke’s fury.

  The lion then leaped forward and Bruke’s yell turned into a roar. It rang louder than anything the mutant creature had managed so far.

  The lion stopped again. Even Seb wouldn’t want to fight Bruke in his current frame of mind.

  Then Bruke went off. A whirling mess of limbs, he charged at the lion, landing several blows, the beast flinching away from each one.

  Mesmerised by the spectacle, Seb smiled when SA said, There’s something beautiful about Bruke in this state. Like watching a sadistic ballet.

  Not that they could enjoy it for long. Bruke annihilated the creature, turning both of its noses into a pulpy mess. The lion head turned limp. Another blow and the dragon head did the same. The large body of the beast then fell sideways.

  Seb opened his mouth to congratulate Bruke, but the sound of rolling thunder cut him short.

  “Oh no,” Seb said, looking in the direction the first beast had come from. Seven more of them appeared. No way could Bruke take them all down. When he looked at SA, he saw she’d drawn her gun. Knives didn’t have the range. You think you can get them all?

  No. I’ll try, but no.

  I’m going to stand beside Bruke. However, before Seb could take off to aid his friend, Sparks called down to him.

  “Here, have this.”

  A look up at Sparks and Reyes, Seb saw they’d paused their climb and Sparks waved her blaster at him. She then tossed it down.

  Seb caught the weapon. Semi-automatic like the one he’d taken into Carstic’s mines, he pressed it into his shoulder and looked at the creatures down the barrel of it, his left eye closed. He’d fight them hand to hand if he needed to, but if he could battle them from a distance, even better. A wall of sharp and snapping teeth headed their way. Best to be as far from them as possible.

  A look at SA to see she stood ready, Seb nodded at her and she nodded back. He then called out, “Get down, Bruke.”

  The stocky brute faced the approaching pack, shoulders hunched and fists clenched like he’d fight them all. Although, when he heard Seb’s call, he dropped to the ground.

  The gun kicked in Seb’s grip as he squeezed the trigger and sent the pulse of green laser fire into the beasts. SA did the same.

  Seven in total, Seb dropped two of them in quick succession. Both times he hit the lion head of the two, and both times the creatures fell, their dragon side biting at the air, but handicapped by their inability to move.

  Four shots and four kills, SA kept her blaster pressed into her shoulder when Seb turned to her and said, I love you.

  She smiled.

  The final beast came close to Bruke, who still remained crouched down. Too close for Seb to risk trying to shoot past his friend. “You’re on your own for this one,” he called out.

  Bruke had positioned himself like a frog, lying on his belly. Spread out on the ground, he looked ready to leap. When the final beast came close, he jumped up, driving a hard uppercut into its dragon head’s chin. The crack of its jawbone snapped through the deserted city like an explosion, and the dragon hissed in clear agony.

  Yellow mist hung in the air from where Bruke had connected with a boil on the dragon’s chin and the beast flew backwards from the force of the blow.

  But it got straight back up again. The dragon head limp, the lion still looked ready to give it a go. It leaped at Bruke and Seb’s stomach sank to see it knock his friend over, the large monster pinning him to the ground.

  Before Seb could do anything, a green blast shot towards the creature and sank straight into the lion’s face, covering Bruke in the beast’s red blood.

  SA stood still with her gun pointing at the now dead monster.

  More could come, so Seb ran across to Bruke to help shove the heavy creature off him.

  Once they’d got the large and ugly thing free, Seb looked back at the gene farm. The large double doors were now open and Reyes currently climbed back down the side with Sparks on her back.

  After he’d shoved the creature free, Seb held his hand down to
Bruke. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  CHAPTER 47

  The foyer of the large and ugly building looked as bland and uninspiring as its exterior. A vast space lit with bright white lights in the high ceiling. They shone so brightly, it took Seb a few seconds to blink the blind spots from his sight. They’d left the doors open behind them, the sun doing very little to temper the fierce glow from above.

  A wall in front of them cut off the rest of the complex and had a door nestled in it. The door looked more like a shutter. Made up from horizontal strips, it looked as if it should roll up to open, much like the doorway into Buster’s warehouse. The only other feature in the bland space was a pipe running up the right side of them.

  The others waited. Apparently Seb should lead the way. He took the first step across the plain and hard floor, his boot heel sending a click across the empty space.

  Just before he took his second step, a loud voice cut him short. Authoritative and hostile, it boomed through the room as if from a thousand invisible speakers. “What do you want?”

  Although Seb looked around the space, he couldn’t see how they were speaking to them. Plain walls, a plain ceiling, a plain floor. No speakers or cameras anywhere.

  The berserker rage had left Bruke, who wrung his hands as he spun on the spot. He must have been looking for the same things as Seb. His blank expression suggested he couldn’t see the devices either.

  Seb cleared his throat, the sound echoing through the cavernous room. “We need to find out who bought the patent from you for a parasite—”

  The tannoy cut him off. “We don’t give away confidential information.”

  The others looked at Seb, who straightened his spine, pulled his shoulders back, and said, “I’m not asking you. We need that information.” Before the tannoy could respond, he added, “And we intend to take it.”

  Silence.

  Seb took another step towards the shutter door and the others walked with him.