Voyage of the Sanguine Shadow 1: Shadow Galactic Read Online Free Page B

ground.
    “Fogg, I could use some help!” urged Takeo, as the
mechanical pup playfully dodged the swirling melee.
    Gavin threw all his might into a punch aimed at
the fourth hooded man.  It failed to connect, and he found himself cast to the
ground, his feet swept out from under him.  His head spun as his back struck
the concrete, knocking the wind out of him.
    Several loud pops filled the night air, flashes of
light as bullets streaked through the darkness.  Gavin heard joints crack, saw
guns and knives hit the ground as he tried to regain his senses.  He rolled
away just in time for the stone man’s fist to crash down on where his chest had
been a moment earlier.  Another pop from Takeo’s gun resulted merely in a
waterfall of embers.
    Grimacing, his lungs on fire, Gavin forced himself
to breathe in and struggled back to his feet.  He watched the stone man stomp
toward his friend.  Takeo dove behind a trash bin, but the attacker smashed it
flat with his massive fists, sending garbage in every direction.
    Gavin opened his mouth to shout, but a raspy
squeak came out.  Clearing his throat, he finally bellowed, “ Maugal !”
    The stone attacker paused, and it pivoted to
regard him.
    Glad for the reprieve, Takeo bolted to the space
behind an unhitched semi-truck and set to reloading his pistol.
    “You’re a maugal, right?”  Gavin took in the
towering, pitted and cracked, blue stone skin of the thing that now lumbered
inexorably toward him.  The other four attackers writhed slowly on the ground,
moaning in pain.  To Gavin’s surprise, Takeo jumped protectively between Gavin
and the moving slab, his gun leveled.  Fogg trotted to his human’s feet and
promptly sat.
    “I’m impressed,” spat the maugal.  “You even got
the pronunciation right.”
    Gavin slipped past Takeo and pushed against the
attacker’s chin with his loosely balled fist.  “Hey, beautiful,” he grinned,
and he slowly shook his head as the monolithic thug focused on him.  His heart
pounded in his ears.  “I’ve never actually seen a living maugal.  Word on the
wire is the Union’s done with you.”
    “Choose your next words carefully, bludder,”
seethed the glowering, blue cliff face.  “This doesn’t have to be painless.”  One
of the human attackers hunched up to his knees, leaned over on his hands, and
Takeo promptly kicked him out cold.  “Call off your guard dog.”
    “He’s my friend, ghyl’la sorna (Old Maugal
slang meaning, “One who serves as a warning to others.”  Highly offensive).  Not
my guard dog.  Look, you’re an ancient, noble thing, and the wonders you’ve
seen would put any one of us humans to shame.  We’re beneath you.  Far beneath
you, but here you are, relying on human trash just to get by.”  Gavin held the
maugal’s baleful glare, though it demanded every scrap of courage he had to do
so. His voice cracked slightly as he whispered, “How disgraceful.”
    It snarled, “Now it’s personal!”  And it drew back
an earthen fist.
    “You’ve killed me,” announced Gavin.  “I’m dead on
the ground.”
    “ You’re about to be !” it roared.
    He shook his head.  “No, maugal, I’m dead!  We
both are.  Takeo and I are two red stains on the drive.  Dead as dead.”
    One of the hooded thugs weakly gripped his gun,
and trembling, pointed it at Gavin, but the maugal backhanded the battered
assailant into a nearby parcel truck hard enough to dent its side.  “I can
handle these two pieces of worthless bludder drek without your help!”
    “And you have,” said Gavin, his tone almost
soothing.  “Now what happens?”
    “I kill you!”
    He shook his head.  “We’ve established that.  Now
what?”
    “I… kill.  I…”
    “Right, we’re dead.  What a mess!”  Gavin held his
opponent’s stone gaze.  He leaned in and asked, “Now what?”
    “I… take your things.”
    “Wrong.  Ever heard of Hohiro Sato?  Probably not,
so I’ll tell you.  He works for