Pain of The Lone Spectre Read online

  “Plant as many flowers as you want, but in hell they will all char to cinders.

  Whose fault is it that you burn in flames: your selves or your judges?

  And if wealth buys the way out of sin, would you kill to gain its favour?

  Love may count in the end, but the end can’t be reached without a start.

  Tis the ghastly beast they can see, their vote to set you ablaze.

  So here I ask again, is fire the world you wish to live in?

  Or a sea of breeze you need to strive your life with to be?”

  — The Silent Assassin —

  PREVIOUSLY ON BOOK SIX

  Audi Prabian travelled to Planet Bandar Prime to find a cure for Jane Drake, and a company named Simonovsky Tech has an answer. However, he was immediately pitted against Petit Fantome, a mercenary company with a mission to assassinate the company’s three directors and its CEO, Konstantin. Knowing Audi’s experience in combat, Konstantin made a deal with the boy: protect him from Petit Fantome, and he’ll give information about the cure. Audi has no choice but to accept.

  But his trouble does not end there. Petit Fantome’s stealth specialist named Charlotte Payne challenged Audi into stopping her from killing all the directors. When he realised that Princess Victoria, the last-in-line to the throne of The Crowned Confederacy, is amongst the directors, Audi went all-out in fighting Charlotte.

  In a strategic stalemate, Audi and Charlotte struck a truce when they realised Konstantin is creating a weather control superweapon capable of summoning a catastrophic-class hurricane. They failed to stop Konstantin, and the latter deployed the superweapon—destroying Benteng City, Bandar Prime’s planetary capital.

  Together with Charlotte and Petit Fantome, Audi is poised to stop Konstantin from delivering his superweapon back to The Cypriot Brotherhood, the faction responsible for the war in Planet Gleicherde three years ago.

  With this, Audi is about to enter one of the most decisive stages of his journey: will he choose to save the world, or let everyone die with it?

  A DARK SPACE OPERA NOVEL SERIES

  THE SILENT ASSASSIN

  ACT II: LAGOON BLUE

  BOOK SEVEN

  PAIN OF THE

  LONE SPECTRE

  © Adrian P. All rights reserved.

  CONTENTS

  PREVIOUSLY ON BOOK SIX

  CONTENTS

  PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  Chapter 1 / Part 1

  Chapter 1 / Part 2

  Chapter 1 / Part 3

  Chapter 1 / Part 4

  Chapter 1 / Part 5

  Chapter 1 / Part 6

  CHAPTER TWO

  Chapter 2 / Part 1

  Chapter 2 / Part 2

  Chapter 2 / Part 3

  Chapter 2 / Part 4

  Chapter 2 / Part 5

  Chapter 2 / Part 6

  CHAPTER THREE

  Chapter 3 / Part 1

  Chapter 3 / Part 2

  Chapter 3 / Part 3

  Chapter 3 / Part 4

  Chapter 3 / Part 5

  Chapter 3 / Part 6

  Chapter 3 / Part 7

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Chapter 4 / Part 1

  Chapter 4 / Part 2

  Chapter 4 / Part 3

  Chapter 4 / Part 4

  Chapter 4 / Part 5

  Chapter 4 / Part 6

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Chapter 5 / Part 1

  Chapter 5 / Part 2

  Chapter 5 / Part 3

  Chapter 5 / Part 4

  Chapter 5 / Part 5

  Chapter 5 / Part 6

  Chapter 5 / Part 7

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE CREATOR

  Visit the official website

  PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS OF BANDAR PRIME ARC (BOOK 06 – 07)

  AUDI PRABIAN—The main protagonist of the series: a 23-year-old mercenary many casually referred to as the ‘Bandana Boy’—a reference to his trademark look. He was the apprentice of The Silent Assassin, a mercenary of legendary status—feared by The Crowned Confederacy for instigating a galactic scale crisis decades earlier. In battle, he possesses neither unique powers nor advanced technology, opting for non-conventional gadgetries and pure wit to outsmart stronger enemies.

  CHARLOTTE PAYNE—A 21-year-old mercenary who specialises in stealth, infiltration, and assassination. As a teen, she escaped home after murdering his father. She ventured alone through the stars, until she was found by a mercenary team called Petit Fantome. Using her stealth suit, Charlotte is capable of instilling terror in the battlefield by wreaking havoc as an invisible enemy.

  VICTORIA SCYTHE TANUYA—The last-in-line to the throne of The Crowned Confederacy. Princess Victoria is merely 19 years old, but a significant portion of humanity looked up to her for protection against her cousin, Crown Prince Christopher, and his corporatist agenda. Victoria despises her status as a royal family, which have lead others into treating her as an inhuman apparatus of the state. She yearns to be treated as equal, especially by those whom she loves and cares for.

  BRYANT MCGOWAN—A hulking, yet light-hearted man with brute force to fear from. Bryant entered the mercenary occupation after quitting his previous job as a banker. He has a fiancée whom he cannot marry, as her parents will only approve him if he buys an expensive diamond ring for engagement. Bryant swears to do so, after which he’ll quit his mercenary job.

  CHRISTINA CASILLAS—The leader of Petit Fantome mercenary group. Her role in the team is a close-quarter specialist. Despite inferior in physical power, she’s capable of facing Bryant on equal ground due to her state-of-the-art exoskeleton armour.

  RACHELE CIANO—The ranged specialist of Petit Fantome. Within the team, Rachele often acts as a mediator between the radically strict Christina and the overly carefree Charlotte. She wields a powerful railgun cannon to battle, capable of wreaking havoc from afar.

  MATTHEW CAINSON—A mercenary who fought alongside Audi and Bryant in Book 06. However, he betrayed the latter two after they decided to side with Petit Fantome. Audi stunned him with a high voltage device, and his fate is unknown ever since.

  KONSTANTIN SIMONOVSKY—The main antagonist of Book 07. He was the CEO of a technology firm, Simonovsky Tech. At the end of Book 06, he was revealed to be a member of The Cypriot Brotherhood—a spacefaring civilisation bent on destroying The Crowned Confederacy once and for all. His Bionika superpower is Electromagnetic Manipulation.

  BOOK ViI

  PROLOGUE

  A spectre is haunting mankind—the spectre of revolution. Thousands of people swung their hammers and slammed the cavern wall, harvesting ores like farmers reaping crops with their sickles. It was dark despite the light. They ripped the skin of their hands after hours, days, and weeks of constant hard work.

  But for what? Konstantin lifted his heavy hammer and struck a rock pile in front of him. Tiny pebbles blasted out after his strike, scraping his sweaty singlet and shredded a tiny cut through it. He took another swing and struck. Struck. Struck a notch harder. His arms ached. His muscles sored. When his swing was halfway above his head, his grips lost their strength and the boy’s fingers gave up, releasing the hammer straight towards him.

  An old man kicked Konstantin away.

  Such timing; the hammer missed the boy’s head and crashed onto the ground. Konstantin fell, wincing as he saw the old man approached. He wore an ancient welding goggle with crimson red film filtering both lenses, blurring the shape and colour of his eyes underneath. His long, grey beard swung like a pendulum as he walked towards Konstantin.

  “That’s enough, little one, there’s no point in working so hard,” the old man spoke in Russian. “Had I been a few milliseconds late, that hammer wo
uld’ve crushed your skull to pulp.”

  “No…point?” Konstantin grimaced as he stood up, holding his back tightly. “Unless I keep working hard, I will never earn my reward: leaving this damned asteroid and meeting my family again.”

  “Have you ever seen anyone leave this place?”

  Konstantin paused.

  “We are but numbers and statistics in the eyes of The White Clan,” the old man said. “Rewards for working hard. Punishments for slacking. They are but impersonal carrot-and-stick method to ensure that we keep on working and be productive.”

  The old man approached a flatbed rock and sat. He grabbed a metal cup next to him and sipped the gravy within, splashing a few drops onto his beard. With a dirty handkerchief, the old man cleaned it through a power stroke.

  “Come here,” he said.

  Konstantin walked.

  “Tell me now,” the old man placed his palms on both knees. “How did you end up here?”

  “My parents and sister,” he replied. “They were sick.”

  “And?”

  “I wanted to pay for their bills. Food, medicine, others.”

  “By working here?”

  Konstantin nodded.

  “And how is that working out for you?”

  “I…am sure I’ll be able to collect enough money,” Konstantin opened his skin-torn hands which slightly bled. “Fulfilling my daily quota, and adding a little more on top of it. Working past working hour.”

  The old man sighed. “Foolish.”

  “Eh?”

  “I’ve seen you here since five years ago, when you walked through the gate of 22nd underground level,” he began. “The money you sent to your family; are you sure they’re being sent fully?”

  “Of course. Every month after paycheck.”

  The old man crossed his arms. “So you’re not here because you want to become a miner.”

  “I—“

  “What do you want to become?

  Konstantin bit his lips. “Does it matter? I can’t live however I want. In order for my family to survive, I have to work whatever job I can find—“

  “You’re not answering my question.”

  The boy kept silent for seconds. He tapped his index fingers on one another, trying to find a word to describe his dream. His vision. His existential goal. An all-encompassing term. He took a deep breath and opened his lips. “An inventor.”

  The old man stroked his beard and nodded. “Why? What kind of inventor?”

  “I want to create machines. Technology. Anything that can help our species progress and advance. Anything to ensure that we all have time to realise our dream, without being bogged down by menial jobs.”

  “I see,” the old man nodded. “So in reality, you hate doing this job.”

  Silence.

  “But menial job is how people survive under The White Clan,” he said. “Have you heard of The White Clan’s official ideology? It’s called The Hierarchy.”

  “Hierarchy?”

  The old man picked pebbles from around and placed them on the ground, forming a triangle separated by levels. “Those who are lazy are at the bottom, and those at the top are the ones that work hard. The successes of those at the top are supposed to inspire the ones at the bottom, so they want to climb up.”

  “That’s normal isn’t it?” Konstantin replied. “People who work hard will be rewarded more. So they naturally earn higher places in society, and—“

  Konstantin looked around.

  Miners swung their hammers non-stop, collecting ores and rocks into their steel basket. A man lost his leg. Another lost an eye. A teenager as old as him fell to the ground as people around him gathered. They checked his pulse. One shook his head. They carried the body onto the corner and placed his hammer on top of him, chanting a funeral’s oath.

  “Exactly, little one,” the old man smirked. “The White Clan disregards the fact that hard work cannot be quantified objectively. Administrators who sits around doing nothing can enjoy higher luxury than miners like us who are exposed to constant risk of death; every day, every night.”

  “No way,” Konstantin shivered. “Why…how…?”

  “I’m sorry, little one,” the old man said. “But a miner’s pay can only sustain our own survival, and even that’s barely scraping the surface. Your family is—“

  “Then what the hell am I doing? Working hard night and day?” Konstantin raised his voice. “Are you saying all the money I’ve sent were not enough? Are you saying all my hard work are worthless?”

  The old man nodded, and Konstantin shook. “Everyone here was born poor, and no matter how hard we work, there’s no way we can achieve the prosperity of those who were born in better conditions,” the old man continued. “We lack the means to obtain education, we lack the opportunity, we lack the spare time to dream for a better life amid our struggle for basic survival.”

  “Then we should work even harder! We should earn as much wealth as possible, so one day we’ll be able to help—“

  “Don’t bet on it,” the old man interrupted. “Once someone acquire wealth, they will be dismissive of us. Even if they were once poor.”

  “What...how?”

  The old man leaned back to the wall. “So long as The Hierarchy is the prevailing ideology, people will never feel obliged to share their surplus wealth, no, they will dismiss the poor, the failures like us as lazy bastards who won’t work hard like they did,” he paused.” They will correlate personal hard work with success, without realizing the many existence of external forces directing our destinies, which are far too strong for any individual to overcome.”

  The cave shook.

  Unstable rock formations on the ceiling fell, showering the miners with rains of pebbles. Tremor came in pulses like the beats of a war drum. Then it stopped. The emergency siren rung.

  “We are under attack by The Red Banner!” a speaker echoed a voice. “Arm yourselves! Defend this place with every inch of our lives against those lazy, entitled piece of shits!”

  The miners panicked as they scrambled. Buzzes of chats echoed throughout the caves. Confusion. Anxiety. Some ran deeper into the caves, but others remained stern on their place.

  The old man chuckled. “And here they come.”

  “Why would Red Banner attack us?” the boy asked. “This is just a mining facility. And the ore we’re gathering isn’t particularly valuable.”

  “Rest assured, it isn’t this facility they’re after.”

  “So…territory? This asteroid?”

  “The Red Banner isn’t strong enough that they have the time to carve territory. What is territory anyway?” the old man replied. “In the vastness of space, owning an asteroid like ours is not going to benefit them, even minutely.”

  Konstantin kneeled and snatched a sharp rock from the ground. He slammed it on the wall and ground it back and forth, gradually sharpening its edges like a spearhead. He grabbed a rope lying on his side and tied the rock onto the tip of his hammer.

  The old man stared at him. “And what are you doing, little one?”

  “Making my hammer a blunt and a sharp weapon at the same time,” he replied. “If they wear armour, I can smash them. For quick attack, I can stab them with it.”

  “Interesting,” the old man nodded. “For a boy your age, you are quite bright in weapons engineering.”

  “I told you I want to become an inventor,” the boy replied. “If I can’t solve simple problems like this, how am I supposed to create more advanced and complex machineries?”

  Armed soldiers with olive green uniform marched through the cave. Their coats were tight, and their rifles were attached to a thin belt diagonally slung across their torso. One of them carried a box filled with guns and dropped it to the ground.

  “Workers!” one soldier yelled. “Grab these guns and defend this rock! We are not letting those Reds claim any patch of space to be used for their evil purpose!”

  Miners swarmed towards the box and rushed to grab
the rifles. There were more miners than guns. When they realised it, a brutal fight ensued. Those who grabbed the gun early was unlucky, as the ones behind them jumped for an attack. Some rifles changed hands every five seconds. Many who obtained one tried escaping from the rumble, but the swift eyes of those unarmed caught them fast. They were dragged into the fight again.

  One soldier unveiled a box full of bullet magazines and poured the contents onto the floor. The battle for survival grew even bigger and fiercer.

  “Not getting any?” the old man asked Konstantin “They might run out, you know.”

  “I would be crushed,” Konstantin replied. “Why should I be injured now, if we’re going to fight The Red Banner soon?”

  “Good point, but you won’t have a gun. Fight to survive. Work hard. Remember The Hierarchy?”

  “I thought you hated The Hierarchy.”

  “I do,” the old man nodded. “But so long as you live under The White Clan’s authority, that is the rule of the game, no matter how much you disagree with it. People who refuse to play by the rule will be shoved to the bottom.” he paused. “That’s how The Hierarchy reinforces its legitimacy; systematic and cultural eradication of those who dare oppose it. Those who won’t…work hard.”

  Another tremor shook.

  The soldiers panicked. One picked up his communicator. “What do you mean they’re through?” he yelled. “I thought we’re fully fortified!”

  A man accidentally dropped and kicked his gun towards Konstantin. The boy kneeled and snatched it. “Lucky!” he loaded it to the rifle.