Carson Mach 1: The Atlantis Ship by A. C. Hadfield Page A

finish your drink?”
    “Give it back, you fool,” the horan croaked.  
    The other horan stood and hissed. Mach threw the contents of the glass into his face, knowing they couldn’t resist a challenge once somebody compromised their honor.  
    Liquid dribbled off the horan’s chin. The one seated to the left sprang up, knocking the metal table over. Glass shattered across the floor. The fidian behind the bar gestured at his smart-screen and ducked.  
    Sanchez, true to form, didn’t wait for a seven-foot-tall horan to get in the first strike. He leaped forward and thrust his shoulder into the horan’s chest, sending them both skidding to the floor.  
    The horan facing Mach swung its scaly, clawed hand. Mach ducked, the swipe glancing off the top of his head.  
    Mach balled his fist, gritted his teeth, and slammed an uppercut into the horan’s stomach. It roared and smashed an elbow against his left shoulder.  
    Pain shot through Mach’s joint. He jumped up and forced the top of his head against the horan’s snout. The alien staggered back and a trickle of purple blood poured from its nostril.  
    Sanchez sat on the other horan’s chest. It bucked underneath him as he rained down punches.  
    Mach’s opponent twisted off a metal chair leg and held the jagged part forward. “You won’t live to see your home world, human.”
    The metal doors flung open. Two dark blue uniformed CWDF soldiers entered, lasers raised, shifting their aim between Mach, Sanchez, and the two horans.  
    Sanchez rolled free and held up his arms.  
    Mach raised his too, and with a panting breath said, “We don’t want any trouble.”
    One of the soldiers, an unusually stocky fidesian, moved around to the back of Mach while keeping the laser pointed at his head. “You come to Summanus and start a bar fight, you’re gonna find it.”
    The soldier pulled a cuff block from his belt and stuffed Mach’s wrists through the gaps. The cuffs automatically tightened around his wrists.  
    “Where are you taking me?” Mach said.  
    “You can cool down in solitary for the night. I want you off the planet in the morning—when we’ve charged your account, of course.”
    The other soldier cuffed Sanchez.
    The two men were pushed out of the bar, back into the driving, freezing rain. Mach kept his head down as he was dragged into the blocky Summanus prison. He glanced at Sanchez and shared a minuscule nod of accomplishment.

Chapter Nine

    Kingsley Babcock lurched forward, spilling his cup of coffee all over the printouts that had continued to spew forth from his ancient system for the past thirty minutes.
    He grabbed the pile of paper and dripped most of the liquid before mopping up the rest with a cloth.  
    “Kingsley, you need to be more careful,” he said to himself as he always had since he came to Minerva, a barren rock on the far northern edge of the Salus Sphere, over twenty years ago in exile. Though these days he could barely remember his life before coming here and setting up his HAB on the rocky planet.  
    The lights of his fabricated home, made from the modified fuselage of his destroyed ship, dimmed as the old computer system drew more energy and continued to spit out reports. Along with the paper copies, the solid-state drives were quickly filling with recordings of communications.  
    “Squid, what do you make of this, eh?”  
    The little hovering hexagon with eight articulated tentacles was half the size of Kingsley’s head and floated near his shoulder. It chirped a quizzical response.  
    “Don’t chirp at me like that, you infernal little machine, I’m asking you a question. Why is there so much Axis chatter? Why now? And what’s all this about an Atlantis ship sighting?”
    Two red lights, Squid’s eyes, blinked on and off and its small voice spoke. “It’s quite the coincidence, don’t you think, sir? The Atlantis ship appearance has rumors flying around the CW communications channels. I’ve filtered the