A Darkside Interlude: Darkstar Mercenaries Book 0.5 Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Epilogue

  A Darkside Interlude

  Darkside Mercenaries 0.5

  Anna Carven

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  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

  Epilogue

  Also by Anna Carven

  Author’s Note

  This book is set after Brilliant Starlight, the final novel in the Dark Planet Warriors series. It can be read as a standalone, but be warned, it may contain some spoilers for the previous series.

  If you haven’t read the original series and would like to start from the beginning, grab a copy of Dark Planet Warriors and get stuck in.

  If you’re already familiar with the DPW world, welcome back! The Darkstar Mercenaries series kicks off with this novella, A Darkside Interlude (Book 0.5).

  Book 1, Taming Chaos, a full-length novel, is scheduled for release next month.

  Chapter One

  Humans wanted to erase the night.

  That was the conclusion Iskar reached as he stared down at Teluria, one of the vast cities humans had built in the middle of the desert. A dazzling network of lights stretched out before him, obliterating the darkness.

  For a moment, he was blinded. Iskar blinked as his light-sensitive eyes adjusted to the glittering spectacle.

  “Astounding, isn’t it?” To his left, Torin Mardak leaned against his hover-bike, crossing his arms.

  Like Iskar, the First Division warrior wore a black jacket with a hood. A pair of strangely comfortable trousers—jeans, the humans called them—completed his outfit. According to the human women in the General’s new Cultural Advisory Department, this attire would help them blend in amongst the crowds.

  As Kordolians, there were times when they wanted the world to know exactly what they were, but there were also times when they wished to go unnoticed. Having just been appointed High Commander of the Kordolian soldiers—correction, mercenaries—stationed on Earth (with the exception of the notorious First Division, who answered only to the General himself), Iskar definitely didn’t want to be recognized in Darkside.

  That was a difficult feat, considering he’d already appeared at several diplomatic events. His face had been broadcast all across Earth’s infernal Networks.

  A soft snort escaped him as he glanced at Torin. “Astounding? I don’t know whether that’s a look of admiration or bemusement on your ugly face, Mardak.”

  Torin gave an enigmatic shrug. “I don’t know either. Humans are one of the strangest species I’ve encountered in all of the Nine Galaxies. They’re so fucking contrary.”

  “And yet one of them has snared the Indomitable One.” Of course, Iskar was referring to his superior, General Tarak al Akkadian—former leader of the Kordolian military fleet, instigator of rebellion, and the man Iskar had pledged his complete allegiance to.

  They all owed Akkadian their freedom. The General was untouchable.

  “The General’s found his mate,” Torin agreed, “as have several of my brothers. From what I’ve observed, human stubbornness seems to be a good counterpoint to our innate… tendencies.”

  “Counterpoint, or complement? Seems to me that Akkadian’s claiming of a mate was the catalyst for the downfall of the Empire.”

  “The plan was in place long before that, but maybe you’re right. Who knows? You’re never going to figure out what’s going on inside his head.”

  “I know. Believe me, I’ve tried.” Iskar wryly shook his head as he activated the reflective visor of his helmet, concealing his features behind impenetrable nano-glass. “He won, though,” he muttered, getting onto his hover-bike. “The bastard always wins.”

  “Much better to be on the winning side, isn’t it, Commander?” Torin bared his fangs. Unlike Iskar, he didn’t wear any sort of protective helmet, because a near-invincible First Division warrior had no need for such things. Still, Iskar didn’t envy Torin his freakish healing ability. It had come at a terrible price.

  He hit his hoverbike’s start-pad. The machine hummed to life, rising slowly into the air. Primitive thing. He would have much preferred his own glider to this slow, clunky, oversized human machine, but the sleek Kordolian craft would have drawn too much attention.

  There was a time and a place for everything, and Darkside wasn’t the place to advertise their identity to the world.

  Not when this was supposed to be a quiet observational visit.

  Not when the spooked humans were still getting used to the idea that the Kordolian armed forces weren’t going anywhere.

  And certainly not on the night humans called New Year’s Eve—supposedly one of the busiest times in Darkside. Humans had this odd cultural tradition where they celebrated the passage of time.

  A gust of warm air rose from beneath the rocky outcrop. It intensified into a strong headwind as Iskar and Torin sped down the cliff, heading for the aerial traffic lanes. Although night had fallen, it was still disgustingly hot, and Iskar was grateful for the temperature-regulating skinshirt he wore under his jacket.

  Thankfully, the General was in the process of negotiating a partial move of their operations to Earth’s frigid—and mostly unpopulated—southern pole. For Iskar, the move couldn’t come fast enough. Like all Kordolians, he hated the heat.

  They joined the slipstream, weaving between delivery drones and hover-cars and aerial signal-surveillance bots. Their presence would be logged, but not flagged. The General’s human tech team had developed an anonymizer chip that made their profiles appear as ordinary as white Vaal ice.

  “We’ll head for the so-called Glory Strip.” In spite of the traffic noise, Torin’s voice was crystal clear over the comm. “Then you’ll see what I was talking about. They can become spectacularly disinhibited. They willfully abandon self-control.”

  “Why?” For the life of him, Iskar couldn’t understand why anyone would want to give up self-control, but then again, he was a military man, and his entire existence was ruled by self-discipline.

  “I don’t know. Maybe this is what freedom really tastes like.”

  “You and I both know that freedom is an illusion,” Iskar said quietly as he throttled the hover-bike’s speed, slowing to a crawl. As they neared Darkside, the air-traffic became a disorganized mess of bots and drones and hover-vehicles, all jostling for space in the narrow flight-lanes. “The Universe needs order.”

  “Just as order needs chaos to define it.”

  Iskar rolled his eyes at his friend�
��s answer. It was typical Torin; enigmatic, careful, and too clever for its own good. “So what does that make us? Are we the order, or the chaos?”

  “We can be either, depending on the situation. It is our choice, no?”

  “Hm.” Behind his visor, Iskar frowned. He was still coming to grips with his new appointment on Earth. The thought of a long-term posting on this messy, confounding, primitive backwater of a planet filled him with a strange mixture of dread and anticipation.

  He would have much preferred a job closer to home, perhaps within the First or Second sectors, but the General had specifically requested that Iskar take command of the Kordolian forces on Earth.

  Why me? He’d mulled over the question a thousand times in his head, but he still couldn’t understand why Akkadian had chosen him. Out of the five commanders, surely the brash, straight-shooting Jerik or the proud, gregarious Tarkun would have been better suited to dealing with these humans.

  Diplomatic relations had never been Iskar’s strong point.

  “Take some time to understand them, Iskar. You may be surprised.” Tarak’s advice had been delivered with a dangerous half-smile, and Iskar had no choice but to accept.

  After all, Tarak al Akkadian was asking—correction, ordering—and only a fool would refuse the General.

  That was why he was entering Darkside disguised as an ordinary human on a hover-bike on fucking New Year’s Eve. The ever-curious Torin had convinced him that this would be a good time to study the nature of these contrary beings, because knowing one’s enemy—correction, ally—was of the utmost importance if they wanted to keep them in check.

  “We’re here for the long haul, might as well get to know the natives.”

  Despite his irritable mood, Iskar agreed wholeheartedly. It was important for him to develop a good understanding of these humans and their culture.

  All the better to intimidate them with.

  For some reason, these humans seemed to think Kordolians were their allies. Ha. That misperception suited Iskar just fine. By the time he was done with this forsaken planet, he would understand Earth better than humans themselves.

  He was meticulous like that.

  Iskar cursed as Torin abruptly found an opening in the traffic jam and sped off, leaving him behind.

  Bastard! He gunned the throttle and shot after the warrior. A cluster of hover-drones scattered before him like vakkandik flies, emitting useless beeps in his wake.

  Torin became a dark speck in the distance, disappearing into a dazzling man-made forest of tall buildings and fluorescent lights.

  “You First Division bastards are all the same,” Iskar muttered under his breath as he sped after Torin, pushing his hover-bike to breakneck speed. “That’s the problem with being un-killable. You forget that we ordinary folk aren’t like you.”

  “I never forget, Commander. You were being slow, that’s all.”

  Typical Mardak. Iskar let out an irritated grunt as he sped over vehicles and rooftops and narrow alleys, unfazed by the dizzying altitude.

  A high-pitched whine escaped the machine as he pushed it beyond its limits, until Torin’s broad back came into view. Any other mortal might have balked at such terrifying speed, but Iskar threaded his bike through the narrow opening with surgical precision, ripping past a line of hover-cars. A loudspeaker blasted a threatening warning in some unknown Earth language, but Iskar left the sound in his wake.

  The hover-bike might be an ungainly thing, but he was in complete control, demanding maximum performance from it. He wouldn’t fall. He wouldn’t crash. Iskar was as uncompromising with the machine as he was with his troops, and it rewarded him with speed.

  As he came alongside Torin, his fellow Kordolian smiled, appearing as calm as a Vaal ice-sheet in deep underwinter. The bastard wasn’t even wearing an eyeshield. Iskar glared through his visor and summoned even more speed, shooting past the warrior.

  The quiet sound of Mardak’s ironic laughter echoed through his comm, but Iskar was too preoccupied to respond to his friend’s needling.

  A fascinating sound had captured his attention. It reached his ears over the hum of his bike, and he had no choice but to head in its direction.

  Voices. Not hundreds, but thousands of them. Shouting, whispering, laughing, cursing, chattering.

  Melding together to form a rich tapestry of human-speak.

  Then there was the music. Primal, pulsating, hypnotic, punctuated by the sound of thousands of footsteps and the hum of millions of machines.

  Chaos.

  Like most Kordolians, Iskar had exceptionally good hearing, and he used it to try and form a mental image of the world he was about to enter.

  He failed. Even with all his experience—he’d held posts in all sectors of the Nine Galaxies—he couldn’t fathom what lay beyond the haphazard collection of buildings that made up the Glory Strip.

  “The sound of humanity,” Torin observed. “Noisy bastards, aren’t they?”

  “Hm.” Iskar could only nod in agreement as he veered toward the glittering skyline.

  These humans seemed to be everything he wasn’t, and once again, he found himself wondering what the hell he’d gotten himself into.

  In the wake of the Empire’s downfall, life had suddenly become very unpredictable, and that didn’t sit well with a military man like Iskar Gar-Kurai.

  With Akkadian’s blessing, he would just have to bring a taste of Kordolian order to this strange blue-and-green world. The old Empire might be finished, but everyone who entered the Ninth Sector would soon understand that the Kordolians weren’t going anywhere.

  Chapter Two

  Mari scanned the crowd, searching for a decent mark. Her instincts were good enough that she could usually tell the difference between native Darksiders and tourists.

  She was looking for the latter. Newbies were usually easy to spot. They either walked too fast or too slow, and they stared too much.

  Newbies were easy to steal from, too.

  In contrast, Darksiders were terrible people to steal from. Firstly, they rarely had any items of value, and secondly, they were wily.

  Darksiders weren’t always what they seemed. Lord help you if you foolishly slipped your hand into the pocket of a Darkside gangster.

  These days, there were fewer of them around, but you just never knew when you might run into one of those sharks.

  Mari shuddered. She couldn’t think of anything worse. Ever since the North Ward had amalgamated with Teluria, triggering a Federation-initiated crackdown on organized crime, the Syndicate had gone deep underground. The criminals in Darkside had become desperate, and desperate people were capable of doing terrible, vicious things.

  She sighed as she ran her hands down her thighs, smoothing down her almost-indecent miniskirt. As her fingers skimmed the bare skin of her thighs, a gust of warm desert wind swept through the noisy street. Mari straightened, her electric blue hair fluttering in the breeze. On sky-high heels, she strutted forward, her hips swaying.

  People—both men and women—stared.

  Mari knew exactly what she looked like.

  The sleek bob of blue hair, the sinfully red lips, the fuck-me heels, the sheer amount of skin on display—it was all an illusion, a distraction, carefully curated for maximum impact.

  There you are.

  Mari’s pulse quickened and a familiar thrill crawled over her skin as her gaze landed on a couple of strange looking tall guys. Although they were dressed like ordinary Darksiders, there was something different about them. They were about half a head taller than everyone else, and their faces were hidden beneath gauzy scarves and dark glasses. The deep hoods of their jackets were up, concealing the color of their hair. That sort of attire wasn’t unusual in Darkside; most people here valued anonymity, but despite their disguises, these men walked around like they owned the place.

  They’re not from around here.

  How did she know?

  One thing in particular gave them away.

 
Who the fuck wore sunglasses at night?

  Tall, exotic, confident, and almost able to blend in, but not quite. The only difference between the two men was that one was broad and powerful, and the other was lean and sharp; a blade in physical form.

  Dangerous. The thought crossed her mind, but it didn’t take root. She couldn’t afford to shy away now. Time was running out. The Collector was waiting for his cut, and nobody went to the Collector empty-handed.

  These marks were far too juicy looking to ignore, and besides, how much of a threat could these guys be when she could just slip into the crowd at any time and disappear?

  A Darkside gangster might be able to catch her, but these outsiders never would. They didn’t know the streets.

  “Hello, payday,” she murmured, sauntering through the throng. She avoided groping hands and sweaty bodies with ease, disarming onlookers with a confident smile.

  Mari stared straight ahead, trying to capture the attention of her targets.

  Look at me.

  They did just that.

  Static rippled across her bare arms, raising goosebumps as the mysterious duo looked in her direction. One of the men in particular seemed to watch her with great intensity, his stare burning into her from behind dark lenses.

  That intensity wasn’t something she could read in his face; after all, his features were hidden. It was more of a feeling.

  He stopped dead in his tracks.

  Gotcha.

  This was the reaction she’d been hoping for. Mari was a good looking woman, and she knew it. She’d long ago learned to use her appearance to her advantage, because along with her wits, it was all she had.

  Survival. That’s all it was.