Wrath of the Void Strider (5 page)

The maugal straightened and smiled steeply with a flicker of dignity.  It stomped back toward the shadows.  “Thanks.”  It paused and turned around.  “I won’t see you again, bludder,” it added before vanishing from sight.

Gavin exhaled, relieved, and he glanced to his stunned companion.

Takeo stared at him with wide eyes, his mouth slightly open.  “How…?”

“I’ll explain after we’re back on the road.”  He nodded toward the looming brick edifice of Supernova Express before turning sharp eyes to his friend.  “Wait.  When the hell did you start carrying a gun?”

Takeo regarded the three surviving attackers.  “I’ve always carried a gun.  You never noticed.”

“Are you serious?” 

“Since I was sixteen.  My father insisted on it.”  One by one, Takeo dragged the assailants to the curb and retrieved a bundle of zip ties from Gavin’s toolbox.  After he had bound their hands behind their backs and their feet at the ankles, he returned to Gavin’s side. “I need to ask these guys a few questions before the police arrive.”  Fogg took the form of a parking meter crowned by a rotating blue and red lamp.  “Maybe you should go get Taryn while I do that.”

Gavin nodded and clapped Takeo’s arm.  “We’ll be right back.”  He turned and hurried along the sidewalk, closing quickly on the club.

Bright light flashed from the east as the sun crested the horizon, and it lit up the indigo sky.

He slowed as he approached the front doors, where a bulky, horned rhidorm served as bouncer.  Around the corner of a nearby building, next to a pair of trash bins, Gavin noticed a huddle of people keeping out of sight.  His eyes flitted over the shadowed group.

A very tall woman with carnation pink hair whispered, “It’s not an exact science, Captain.  He’ll be here.  Trust me.”  Her eyes tracked directly to Gavin, and she held his gaze.

Zerki asked, “Is that the man you saw?”

Valerie nodded slowly.  “I think so.”

“We’re in the right place, and we’ve seen the stone man.  What about the flying truck?”

“I… don’t know.”  She studied Gavin as he walked away.  “But I’m sure that’s him.”

Gavin felt her eyes fixed upon him.  He rushed the last few steps to the club’s entrance.  “Hey, Chris,” he said to the bouncer.  In a whisper, he asked, “Do you know who those people are?”

“Hey, Gavin,” rumbled the bouncer.  “I do not.  They’ve been hanging out by the trash bins for about an hour.  I thought about calling them on loitering, but they’re technically outside the property line.”  He pulled open the door, and thumping dance anthems spilled out into the night.  “Thought I heard some gunshots a minute ago.  You have anything to do with that?”

“Just some firecrackers.”  He raised his brow.  “Takeo and I were letting off some steam.”

“You know, fireworks are illegal for a reason.”  He pondered.  “Still, I swear it sounded like gunfire.”

“Firecrackers.”

Chris’s thick, gray skin wrinkled deeply as he winked.  “Sure it was.  Go on in.”

Gavin stepped through, and the door closed behind him.  A young woman with matted blonde dreadlocks waved him past the ticket booth, and he muttered his thanks.  He scanned the foyer for Taryn.

He hardly had time to seek before she stumbled into him.  “I’m so glad you’re here,” she breathed.  “The guy I came with was a total creeper.  He was literally all over me.”  She paused.  “Okay, not literally, but you get the idea.”

“Are you alright?”

Taryn nodded.  “He wasn’t hearing no, so I bent back his fingers.  Maybe broke one or two, not sure.  The jerk ditched me after that.”  She smiled brightly.  “So… I figured it’s been a while since I’ve seen you, and I really wasn’t in the mood to call a cab.”
  Taryn Sikes looked taller than she was, lean and strong of build, yet elegant besides.  She was ospyrean, proud and fierce.  Snowy down blanketed her birch-white skin, and brilliant red feathers cascaded from her head, tied up loosely at the shoulders.  Her keen eyes were more golden than brown.  She wore knee high steel-toed boots draped in buckles, tattered net leggings under ripped shorts and a threadbare black T-shirt over a tight, long-sleeved gray undershirt.

“Stop dating humans,” he chuckled.

“Fat chance.  Is Takeo with you?”

Gavin nodded.  “Fogg is too.”  He led Taryn back to the entryway, smiled toward the woman with blonde dreadlocks and pushed open the door.  “We should hurry.”

Taryn glanced about.  “Where are they?”

“See you, Chris,” Gavin said to the bouncer, and he pointed further down the block toward Fogg’s rotating police light.

“Hasta.”  Chris dipped his massive forehead horn toward Taryn.  “Ma’am.”

She gasped as she took note of the bound assailants, of Takeo looming over them in the distance.  “Oh my god!  What happened?”

Gavin laughed quietly as they stepped out into the cool morning air.  The door closed behind them, and it was suddenly and deafeningly quiet.  “That’s part of why we need to hurry.  We got mugged by a maugal and his crew of human thugs, but it’s alright.  We took care of it.”

“We’re so lucky Takeo’s our friend,” she said.

“And that he agreed to come,” Gavin added. 

She nodded, whistling silently.  “Seriously!”

A quiet moment passed as they walked.  “You were right about Gwen.”

Taryn’s expression saddened.  “Oh, Gavin, I’m so sorry.”  She squeezed his hand.  “What happened?”

“I broke up with her.”

She teased, “You’ve gotten pretty good at that.”

His expression flattened.  “Anyway.”  After a few more quiet steps, he said, “Takeo took out the thugs, but I talked down the maugal.”

Taryn smirked.  “Yeah, right.”  She squeezed Gavin’s hand again, quickly kissed its knuckles and held it close against her chest.  “Not everyone gets to be a hero, and you don’t need to impress me anymore.”

“I really did!  Right after I got my ass kicked by one of his goons.”  He pulled free his hand.

Taryn stopped and stood directly across from Gavin.  “No more stories—you promised.”

He breathed out heavily.  “I’m not lying.  I swear.  Not to you.”  His ears were red, and his shoulders sank.  “I swear.”

She nodded and returned to his side as they resumed walking.  They passed by Zerki and her crew.  “Fine, I’m choosing to believe you.  How did you do it?”

Gavin stole a glance toward the huddle and shivered to find Valerie staring at him.  He leaned in and whispered, “I told him there was a radio signal broadcast as soon as Takeo took his first shot, and that there was a Yakuza special weapons team already en route.”  He looked at her sidelong.  “I sort of charmed him after that, and he left.”

Taryn huffed, amused.  “Only you, Gavin.  It still counts as lying, though.”

Gavin shook his head gravely, gesturing as if cutting his throat and mouthing “no” repeatedly.

“What?  There’s no Yakuza weapons team.  So you lied, but in this case, I can excuse it.”  She winked, before suddenly noticing his growing panic.  “What is it?”

“
Now you die
!” roared the stone giant as it stepped back into view on the far side of Gavin’s truck.

“Maugals can hear through the ground,” breathed Gavin, and he swallowed visibly.

“No more of your tricks!”  The maugal looked up and down the street.  It ignored Takeo as he drew his gun and ordered the granite thug to stand down.

“We should run,” advised Gavin.

Taryn’s eyes went wide.  “Good idea!”

They reversed course, dashing back toward the club as music spilled from its momentarily opened doors.  With rising panic, they raced toward a group of club goers that had just exited.

From behind them, they heard Takeo bellow, “Gavin, Taryn—
look out
!”  They heard the creek of the Rhino’s shocks, the groan of its metal as the maugal lifted it off the ground.  Takeo emptied his gun into the truck near its fuel tank, but none of the bullets struck home.

Startled by the gunfire, the small crowd of club goers screamed and scattered.

Like a cannonball, the pickup rocketed through the air toward Taryn and Gavin.

Taryn twisted around in time to behold Gavin’s massive vehicle on a direct course for his back.  She stumbled and fell.  Breathing out, she closed her eyes and hit the sidewalk hard.  Gavin dove with arms outstretched, and he landed protectively on top of Taryn.  Terrified screams filled the air, but they abruptly stopped.

They were replaced by astonished gasps and whispers of, “That’s impossible!”

Gavin rolled away with Taryn in his grip, tumbled into the alley and came to rest with her atop him.  Her eyes met his only briefly however, and she fixed her attention on where the two of them had been a moment ago.  Suspended in the air, nearly as high up as the street lamps, was his Hulkr Rhino.

Thunderously, it crashed down, a burst of broken things, skewed wheels and a shower of glass.

Gavin breathed out and closed his eyes.  “My truck.”

From the huddle, Valerie stepped into view wearing an interested smile as she regarded Gavin at her feet.  “Told you he was going to be here, Captain.”

Booming, the maugal resumed his mad charge toward Gavin.

Boldly, Zerki stepped out onto the sidewalk.  Leveling a snub firearm that glowed brightly of orange along its top ridge, she squeezed the trigger, and a searing line of white and yellow intersected the maugal.  In a flash, the gun was sheathed, and the maugal crumbled into a heap of white-hot molten rock.

Another round of screams erupted, and the scattered club goers took cover where they could find it.  Chris promptly threw open the doors.  He began escorting them back inside.

Breathless, Taryn sat up on Gavin’s legs.  “That’s… that’s impossible!”

Zerki ordered, “D’Arro, take your team and bring me his other friend.”

“Aye, Captain,” said D’Arro, and he nodded toward a few others in the huddle.  D’Arro towered over most every other creature he met.  His body feathers were bright green and white, his head feathers massive, colorful, and extravagant.  He and his associates dashed along the sidewalk, where they soon reached Takeo.

Zerki turned her attention to Krane.  “Please warm up the shuttle.”

“On it,” said Krane, and he loped away.

Looking to Valerie, she said, “I really do have the best psychic in the galaxy.”

“Damn right, you do.”  She crossed her arms and wore a playfully smug smile.

With a warm laugh, Zerki regarded Taryn and asked, “Are you alright?”   She pulled her up to stand.

Taryn nodded and brushed herself off.  “I’m fine.  Who are you?  What’s going on?”

“I’m Zerki Ibarra, captain of the
Sanguine Shadow
.  There’s a lot to explain.”

Chapter 04

Gavin got to his feet and regarded Zerki’s plasma pistol nervously as he brushed himself off.  He glanced toward D’Arro as the ospyrean giant closed on Takeo.  Protectively, he stepped in front of Taryn.  Leaning toward her, he asked, “Taryn, are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”  Defiantly, she crossed her arms.  Her chest heaved.

Narrowing his eyes, Gavin asked, “Are you kidnapping us?”

Zerki laughed uneasily.  “No, we’re not kidnapping…  No!  Gavin, look, I need your help.  I heard you were really good at what you do, and… well, I wanted to skip the middleman and talk to you directly.”

He studied her.  “You talked to someone at the Space Flight Center?”

“Yes, of course.”  Glancing toward Valerie, Zerki exchanged a knowing look.

Valerie closed her eyes.  She opened them a moment later and retrieved a thin clip wallet from her purse.  So only Zerki could see, she tugged a folded 20-credit bill into view.  Looking pointedly at it, she nodded toward her captain.

Zerki mouthed, “Bill…”  She cleared her throat and brightened.  “Yes, Bill gave you a glowing recommendation.”

A mix of surprise and confusion twisted Gavin’s face.  “He did?”

“He said you were the best.”  She stood with arms akimbo.

Chris charged from the club entrance.  “Gavin, are you okay?”  From around the corner, tires screeched as a vehicle abruptly stopped at the ruins of Gavin’s Rhino.  “I saw the whole thing.  That big guy came after you.”  He glanced to Zerki.  “Hey, thanks for saving his skin.”  Eyeing her weapon, he asked, “You military?”

“Merchant star navy.”  Zerki glanced around at the slowly forming crowd.  “Who are you?”

“Christoph Deciros.”  His thick gray skin crowded upon his brow.  “I work for the club.”

Gavin rested his hand on Chris’s massive biceps.  “I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

He nodded.  “You can head back.  I’ll holler if I need anything.”

“I’m right over there.”  He took Gavin’s shoulders into his enormous hands.  “Okay?  Right over there.”

“Thanks, Chris.”  He watched the bouncer return to the entrance.

Twisting around, Zerki retained her cheer as she said, “Hey there.”  She watched Takeo approach.  D’Arro and his associates followed a few paces behind.  “I met your friends, Gavin and Taryn.  You are?”

“Takeo,” he answered and stored his firearm in the small of his back.  “What’s going on?”

Zerki puffed her cheeks.  “I need Gavin for an urgent job.  I’ll explain it all, if you’ll let me, but I need to do it aboard my starship.  We don’t have a lot of time.”

Takeo raised his brow.  “Your starship?”

“My star freighter, the
Sanguine Shadow
.  She’s registered with the merchant star navy.  Here, see for yourself.”  She retrieved a card from her utility vest, and a holographic image of Zerki’s hauler sprang to life over its surface.  A seal marked “SecGen Certified” turned bright green.  “See?”

Gavin dryly laughed.  “I don’t think so.”

“Please.  It’s the least you can do for me.”  Zerki’s pale blue eyes glinted.  “Come on, I saved your lives.” 

Taryn frowned.  “How about a nice ‘thank you’ from us, instead?  You’re star navy.  Isn’t protecting the innocent part of your job?”

Valerie answered, “Actually, that’s called the police.”

The sides of her jaw bulged as Taryn glared at Valerie.

“I’m sorry,” grumbled Takeo, “but this whole thing feels staged.”