Empire: Assignment Darklanding Book 12

  EMPIRE

  DARKLANDING

  Episode 12

  By Craig Martelle and Scott Moon

  This book is copyright © 2018 by Scott Moon and Craig Martelle

  Darklanding Series is copyrighted ©2017 and ©2018 by Craig Martelle

  All rights reserved.

  Cover art by Kevin McLaughlin

  Editing services provided by LKJ Bookmakers – lkjbooks.com

  Formatting by James Baldwin – jamesosiris.com

  Based on a concept by Diane Velasquez, Dorene Johnson, and Kat Lind who also provide developmental editing for the series

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  CHAPTER ONE: Above Ground

  Sheriff Thaddeus Fry walked into the light. Survivors of the recent collapse bustled around the loading docks and staging areas between the mines and the monorails. Rows of massive forklifts and trucks were parked like a forgotten column of armor down one side of the asphalt. It had been some time since more than a few of them were used to move material.

  Mast Jotham and Maximus moved with him, guarding his right and left flank. P. C. Dickles and Quark Guthrie followed with a locked crate on a cart.

  “Do you see Sharn or his goons?” Thaddeus asked. He’d expected an ambush. Proletan wasn’t rumored to fight fair. As the most feared enforcer of ShadEcon, short for Shadow Economy, the man was as skilled in stealth gear as he was in full combat kit. He was the real boogeyman that government leaders and industry magnates feared would kill them in their sleep. Curtis Sharn was the ShadEcon officer with the clout to summon the killer to the back-galaxy world of Ungwilook to deal with a troublesome sheriff and a Company Man who refused to get on board and follow the program.

  “I didn’t see ‘em, partner,” Mast drawled. Seven feet tall, but weighing less than Thaddeus, the Unglok deputy sheriff gazed over crowds of human workers with ease. “Oh, wait. I see the hooded assassin everyone is afraid will kill them, and their families, and all their friends.”

  “Mast, stop reading those books. Or better yet, stop trying to talk like you’re in a spaghetti western,” Thad said. “Where is he?”

  “It seems Sharn’s other tough guys are clearing a space around Proletan. Oh, look. Sharn is waving us over. Should we oblige them?”

  “Why not? How could this day get any worse?”

  “We could muchly die,” Mast said. “I do not see a way to avoid this man. And I believe it would be a good time to pay Mister Dickles’s loan.”

  Thad looked at Dickles. “Ready?”

  The man nodded.

  “Okay, let’s do this. Everyone knows the plan. If this goes bad, head for Transport Canyon to regroup,” Thad said.

  “I am certain it will go muchly bad,” Mast said.

  Thad grimaced. “Thanks.”

  “For Sharn and his enforcers,” Mast said, chuckling at his own joke. “See what I did there?”

  “Work on it. Humor is mostly timing.” Thad moved ahead of his friends. If this turned out to be another ambush, he’d give them a chance to get away.

  Mast removed a small journal made of local paper and jotted notes, muttering as he scribbled. “Humor is about timing. Is this, in and of itself, funny? Mast does not know. Mast should “work on it,” says the sheriff.”

  “I’m walking into a death match. Can you pay attention? Watch my back?” Thad asked.

  “Yes, Thaddeus. I am here.”

  Thad relaxed. A nervous thrill went up his spine. He’d been on the planet long enough to know that “I am here” was the most sincere and reassuring phrase an Unglok could speak.

  “Sheriff Fry,” Sharn said. “This has been a most unfortunate day for SagCon. They have lost the mines and will lose their sheriff if he doesn’t bow to the will of ShadEcon.”

  “The mines are better than ever. The water is receding,” Thad said.

  “True, but the sudden un-flooding of the mines is causing many collapses,” Sharn said.

  “Mines collapse all the time. Dickles and his crew know how to deal with it.”

  Sharn shrugged. “We shall see. Losing such a diligent and by-the-book sheriff will cause more problems for SagCon than the Company Man realizes. Don’t worry. I’ll be there to protect her.”

  Thad grabbed the man by his coat.

  Proletan crossed the distance between them with preternatural speed, smashing Thad back like he was a child.

  ***

  Yakti-droon was a thousand bodies and one mind. He was old, poisoned in both mind and spirit, and tired of quasi-death. Slaughtering the ship crew had turned out to be a mistake. Yes, the ship was a living entity that could operate without lesser beings, but it chose not to. What Yakti-droon hadn’t realized was that the ship lived to serve—but not to serve evil incarnate like Yakti-droon.

  Sleeping at the bottom of the shaft the ship had made when it came to this planet—Ungwilook, the people called it in his dreams—was no longer enough. The ship would not change its mind. Yakti-droon wasn’t worthy of space travel. Yakti-droon would never be allowed to rampage across the galaxy as he had for a millennia before getting trapped on this planet.

  I was so hungry, he thought. And bored. Images of the crew fleeing through the passages, memories of his thousand bodies slaughtering them and feasting on their fear and blood, caused Yakti-droon to squat down on his fifteen legs and listen to the sound of the primitive town—Darklanding, they called it.

  It wasn’t my fault. What could I do? I was made to slaughter, and the crew of the ship were made to be slaughtered. He shuddered at memories of the shaft, of darkness even he couldn’t endure, and of hunger.

  There was no need to remain hungry. This Darklanding place seemed full of bipedal creatures standing around waiting for him. They warmed themselves around fire contained in metal cylinders. Talking loudly, barely aware of their surroundings beyond their social circle, these creatures were exactly what Yakti-droon needed.

  He raised hundreds of hair-thin antennae to sniff the air for the Glakridozian. It had been here, but was far away now. Chittering his quasi-arachnoid laughter, he signaled his thousand bodies to move through the night like a dark wave.

  A female of his new food species walked alone. Yakti-droon was curious. She was different somehow, royalty perhaps or a great mother. He massaged the air with his largest cluster of antennae, then raised onto his back legs, making him nearly as tall as the…human. She was not a great mother, not yet. Her pheromones spoke of power and influence despite youth.

  I will follow. I will know her, Yakti-droon thought.

  ***

  Shaunte stopped, looked behind her, and frowned. No one used this street at night. A shadow moved in the corner of her vision. When she turned, it was gone.

  She slid her data pad from her handbag and checked Thad’s locator icon—still at the mines. She really needed an update from Thad or Dickles. The stress of her next meeting was causing her to see things. Paranoia wouldn’t play well in front of Judy Ortega and her secret collaborators.

  “Who’s there?”

  No response.

  “Everyone knows I carry a blaster in my bag. Go away.” She waited but heard nothing. Feeling foolish, she hurried toward her destination.

  Judy Ortega stood apart from her security detail—tough men and women in military-grade combat gear and reflective eyewear. Thad had told her the glasses concealed night vision optics, infrared sensors, and other technology. Shaunte wasn�
��t surprised. Ortega had been the target of corporate assassination attempts in the past.

  The shadows Shaunte had believed imaginary until now hesitated at the sight of the mercenaries, then retreated. “I’m not sure how relieved I should be,” she said under her breath.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Plastes. Did you say something?”

  Shaunte smiled and shook the woman’s hand. “I’m jumping at shadows tonight. Darklanding is a strange place until you get used to it.”

  “Agreed. Someone, or something, has been watching us since we arrived. I put Carter, my head security officer, on it. So far, he’s come up empty. No counter-surveillance detected. No human or Unglok-sized heat signatures moving this late at night. Animals. Apparently, you have a sizable rat problem.”

  “They’re not rats, Mrs. Ortega,” the only man standing near her said.

  “I heard you the first time. Give us a moment, please,” Ortega said.

  Carter took one step back and stood like a statue.

  “I’m here,” Shaunte said. “I’ve followed your protocol, despite my misgivings. Let’s do this.”

  “You remind me of the young woman I was. Ready and willing. A real take-charge girl out to change the galaxy,” Ortega said. “Working with you will be a pleasure. Shall we begin?”

  “Right here, in a vacant lot surrounded by creepy shadows?”

  Ortega laughed. “Yes. Carter and his people have swept it for surveillance devices.”

  “What about people? Devices are easy to detect with technology. Spies are sneakier.”

  “Very good, Shaunte. And yes, we have that covered.”

  Shaunte crossed her arms and waited for the woman to make the next move.

  “I wasn’t going to bring your father in…”

  Shaunte’s face flushed with anger. She’d told him what she wanted him to know and secured the help she needed from him and nothing more. The last thing she wanted was this woman’s interference with her very complicated parental relationship. But more important in the current moment was that Judy Ortega believed Shaunte didn’t want her father to have a piece of the pie.

  “Don’t worry,” Ortega said. “His involvement will come during stage two. We will need a real military presence in this sector once the economy takes off. There will be enough for everyone.”

  “My father already has enough of everything.”

  “True, but we will need TerroCom. Once this takes off, there will be people wanting to steal it from us.”

  “Fine. It’s time for details. You’ve been vague. I’m only willing to go so far on promises, no matter how incredible they are.”

  Ortega smiled and leaned close, lowering her voice. “One of my agents has confirmed, and this information is literally less than an hour old, the significant presence of A99 on Ungwilook.”

  Shaunte lost her composure for a heartbeat.

  “That’s right. No survey crew ever suspected its existence here. Normally, it can’t be found where there are other exotic ores, especially A19. But I’ve had it tested. We have A99 right here, right now. We have the galaxy by the balls,” Ortega said.

  Shaunte saw unprofessional greed in the woman’s eyes for the first time. “So what about the capital development plan and trading coalitions we discussed?”

  “Yes, of course. We’ll do all the things. A99 will make it better. Interstellar Enterprises will be building starships in the Wilok System, which means wealth to rival Melborn. Our reach just increased a thousand-fold. Build the ships here, then send them out farther than anyone has ever traveled,” Ortega said.

  “I thought this was about Ungwilook,” Shaunte said.

  “It is, it is. You will be in charge of the planet. Big promotion for you.”

  “I already run the planet for SagCon.”

  “You handle Darklanding and the mines. There is much more to the planet than that.” Ortega stood straighter and pushed her hair back over one ear, seemingly tired from her burst of excitement. “Let’s talk about what needs to happen to Ungwilook and its people before we begin.”

  CHAPTER TWO: Waterway

  Stars exploded in Thad’s vision. Air left his lungs as he landed flat on his back under Proletan’s weight.

  The ShadEcon enforcer’s face was a roadmap of scar tissue. Something was wrong with his fierce eyes. Thad guessed they were surgically enhanced and sheathed in state-of-the-art contact lenses. He’d heard rumors there were eyeball sleeves that could resist a knife slash. Each sensation hit his brain in a fraction of a second. He wasn’t taking time to evaluate what he saw.

  “You can't beat me,” Proletan snarled, pinning Thad’s neck to the ground with both hands as he pressed one knee into Thad’s gut.

  Thad shoved him back, twisted free of the knee, and rolled away. It wasn’t a pretty escape, all brute force and desperation, but it worked.

  Proletan stood, body relaxed despite the deadly heat in his eyes. He flicked the hood back into place. Shadows covered his scars. “I am more than a fighter, Thaddeus Fry. Call me an intelligent enforcer, despite what this looks like.” He motioned to his large, muscular body.

  Thad struggled to catch his breath. “Good for you. Let’s call it a draw.”

  “No. That isn’t possible.” Proletan moved so that Sharn was directly behind him. “You can’t put a bullet back in a gun once it’s fired.”

  Thad realized what the man was doing—he wanted Thad to see something without seeming to see it. What was it about Curtis Sharn that concerned Proletan? Why did he want Thad to see it?

  “You’re trying to distract me.”

  “I am not.”

  Thad launched a kick at Proletan’s torso, but the man retreated a step, just far enough to cause a miss and not a wasted centimeter farther.

  “You can’t win. But I can. My employers allow me to play with my victims. They like it. Gets them off. Makes them feel like big men,” Proletan said.

  Thad glanced past Proletan and saw Sharn’s hateful expression.

  Proletan launched a thrust-punch.

  Thad blocked it but the force knocked him off his feet. He scrambled back until he had room to stand. Dust filled the air around them, a change from the wet environment at the bottom of the mineshaft.

  “You disappoint me. Why can’t you see it?”

  It was like Proletan didn’t want to kill Thad. In fact, it seemed like he was looking for help.

  Thad attacked with a flurry of haymaker punches which Proletan blocked easily, giving ground in a calculated manner. He’d done this hundreds if not thousands of time.

  “Just…let me catch my breath.” Thad put his hands on his knees and spat between his feet.

  “You don’t need to catch your breath. Your conditioning is very good. I will, however, allow you to stall for a moment,” Proletan said.

  Thad didn’t want to look at Sharn again. That might give away the game he was playing with Proletan. With no revelation in sight and time running out, he peeked around the enforcer at Sharn.

  The small man held something in his hand. When the fight didn’t continue, he pushed a button on the device angrily.

  Muscles in Proletan’s neck and face twitched with electric shock.

  “Where’d they put the pain box, your spine?” Thad asked, spitting between words to maintain the illusion he was trying to catch his breath.

  “The location doesn’t matter. I only wanted you to know I have no desire to kill you,” Proletan said, then rushed forward.

  Thaddeus scrambled backward, acutely aware of his error. This man didn't want or need help, but was fulfilling some psychological need to speak of honor before doing the dishonorable.

  A left jab hit Thaddeus on the jaw like a sledgehammer. A right hook followed immediately, slamming him off his feet. He knew he should stay down, but that wasn't how he had been trained. His instincts were hardwired to get up as quickly as possible.

  He stood and put up his hands defensively. Proletan kicked him in the stomach, folding him
in half. The next strike was a hammer-fist to the back of Thaddeus's neck.

  Trying to slip away from the attacks, he felt more blows than he could see. His opponent was a master of hand-to-hand combat. Something told Thad that he wouldn't fare any better in a blaster duel. He wanted to counterattack, wanted to do something to at least show he wasn't a total punk. That was his pride speaking, and he knew it was a mistake.

  He might get one chance. Waiting for it was the hardest thing he'd ever done.

  Dickles and his miners gathered around Sharn and the other ShadEcon men and women. They shouted curses and shook their fists. Sharn yelled an order and pointed at the growing crowd. His goons drew weapons as they formed a firing line to keep people back.

  Thaddeus focused on his adversary, trying to ignore how badly he was losing. The only other person who mattered was the man holding the controls.

  Enraged at the growing size of the crowd, Sharn hammered the subcutaneous shock collar that restrained or motivated Proletan.

  Proletan flinched.

  Thad struck with everything he had, knocking the big man down. Without hesitation, he jumped on the man, raining down fists and elbows with every ounce of strength. When that wasn’t enough, he got angry—fighting like a berserker.

  The two men rolled across the asphalt as the fight continued. Sharn was forced to step out of the way.

  Thad shoved himself away from Proletan and tackled Sharn, twisting the shock device from the man’s hand. None of the bodyguards saw this because they were facing the crowd, not the fight.

  “Enough! Kill him! Now!” Sharn shouted.

  Thad faced Sharn and pressed the button, holding it until the master warrior turned ShadEcon enforcer behind him crumpled to his knees. He wanted to look back at Proletan but knew he needed to deal with the ShadEcon agent first.

  “Give that to me,” Sharn sneered.

  Thad leveled him with one punch, then handcuffed him while he was struggling for consciousness. He drew his blaster and aimed it at Proletan.

  What happened next surprised him.

  Proletan regained his feet, shook off the pain that had so recently twisted every fiber of his body, and glared at Thad with murderous intensity. “We’re not done.” He marched forward.