Carson Mach 1: The Atlantis Ship Read Online Free

They must have either laughed or cried when they saw what crawled out of their egg. It’s no wonder you were chucked out of the Axis Combine.”
    Through his temperature filter, he saw the horan’s body continue to enflame. Ralex pushed away from the bar, swiping the barstool violently to one side with his thick, barbed tail.  
    This was what Mach was hoping for; he spotted the black matte blade attached to the end of the tail; the bastard was equipped with a stun knife. One hit from that, and Mach would be paralyzed.  
    Better make this one quick , he thought.  
    He turned to the bartender. “You better duck for cover while you make me a cocktail. I’m gonna need a drink after this,” he said in Salus Common, an amalgamation of English and Fidesian that had become the majority language all across the Salus Sphere.  
    She blinked her beautiful eyes and did as he suggested, moving in her elegant way. She really was quite a special one and the sole reason why he had spent the last six standard months drinking away his gambling winnings here… totally nothing to do with forgetting about his court-martial with the Commonwealth Defense Force, and totally nothing to do about his broken, now nonexistent marriage, and least of all the loss of pension and earnings.
    Letting the Gasmulch help with his denial, and sheer stupidity, Mach picked up a shot glass and threw it with his cybernetic right arm toward the horan. As soon as the glass left his hand, Mach rolled to his right, falling to the ground.  
    Ralex roared as the glass struck him on the face. The horan leapt up onto the bar with the spring of a Salusian wildcat, smashing his tail left and right, the stun tip sparking as it struck against the wall of bottles, each one smashing, sending fragments of glass spraying around the bar. His robe, although looking thin, was a mesh of graphene and deflected the shards as though they were nothing more than seeds in the wind.  
    Coming out of his roll, Mach rose up on one knee and pulled the Stinger from his hip holster. The horan likewise had raised a weapon: a small laser blaster from a hidden compartment on his forearm.  
    “Sneaky fucking lizard,” Mach muttered as the scenario started to slow down for him, the BuzzKill stim finally reacting to his adrenalin. He got off a shot before the horan could aim the laser.  
    Both men fired… and missed. Mach’s blast flew over Ralex’s left shoulder. The horan’s laser bolt struck a fidesian somewhere behind Mach in the shadows, the yelp telling him it was a young male.
    Ralex leapt off the bar with a low hiss.  
    Mach staggered back and ducked below the swipe of the tail. He dodged to his right, rolling over a table and firing his second blast from the Stinger. The shot hit this time, catching Ralex on the ribcage. The blast sent the horan crashing to the ground, clutching his wound as the disruption bolt ate away at the muscle and sinew.
    A loud explosion erupted from behind Mach. He swung around to see three massive silhouettes appear in a nonlethal cloud of paralyzing gas.  
    Shit, Invidian security droids!
    Although not unexpected, they were quicker than he had hoped. Someone must have set him up; they didn’t normally give a crap about bar fights, or… anything, really. The planet Invidia was the place that let anything go, which was one of the many reasons why Mach liked it here… well, like was a strong word, but few planets would allow the likes of Mach to stay around for long. He was the portent of trouble, after all; the Ill Wind, some factions had called him; Bleach, by others for his ability to go in and clean up a situation no matter how dangerous or risky it might be.  
    Just like this one , he thought.
    Before the droids could open fire, Mach used his heightened senses to locate the exits now that the droids had cut him off from his previously planned route. There was a door to the staff office in front of him and behind the horan that stood in his