The Shattered Empire (The Shadow Space Chronicles Book 2) Read Free Page A

back at Faraday for her actions during a mutiny aboard a Chxor ship and later during a ground attack against a planetary defense base. Neither of those put her remotely near as juicy a subject of discussion as a former pirate turned smuggler who’d once run with Tommy King.  Even that must be easier than actually being Tommy King.
    “Let’s go, I’ve locked down the ship, and there’s someone I’d like you to meet,” Mason said.  Lauren smiled slightly, glad to see the eagerness in his face.  His expression had looked so hard in the aftermath of the battle against the Chxor.
    “Who’s this, I thought you didn’t have any friends?” Lauren asked.
    He led the way through a doorway and then out into the crowded streets.  “I don’t,” Mason said, over his shoulder.  “He’s more like a teacher.”  Something in his voice suggested that their relationship was more friendship than he would like to admit.
    The industrial smell of the spaceport blended with the stench of unwashed bodies and the faint reek of an open sewer.  Lauren fought back a memory of her childhood raised under Chxor occupation.  She clenched her fists and blinked away sudden tears.
    She continued to follow Mason, though her enjoyment of being on a new world had vanished with the memories of the one she’d been born to.  She absently wondered if she would ever kill enough Chxor to make her feel better about her childhood.  No... not ever , she thought, not even if I could kill them all at once.  She’d become so caught up in her own thoughts that she nearly ran into Mason’s back when he stopped suddenly.
    The first thing she noticed was the sudden tensing of his shoulders.  “Mason?”
    He slowly set her duffel down, “Wait here.”
    He stepped forward and she saw his hands brush his prayer beads.  A moment later, those same hands came to rest on his holstered pistols.
    Lauren sidestepped into a nearby doorway and her hand fell to her own pistol.  The street Mason had led her down seemed to empty of people as she watched.  Mason had stopped, three or four meters away from the ornate entrance to a walled courtyard.
    As if on cue, three men stepped out of the shadows of the gate.  All three were big men and carried weapons.  The two flankers carried submachine guns, Lauren saw.  The one in the center held a drawn pistol, not quite aimed at Mason.  He was the one who spoke, “Took you long enough to get here.  Almost thought you hadn’t got the message.”
    “I hadn’t,” Mason said, “I’ve been… detained.  What’s this about?”
    Something caught Lauren’s attention above.  Her eyes flicked to the rooftops to where two men took up overwatch positions, rifles held ready.
    “Just a friendly chat,” the speaker said.  “Our boss had no bone to pick with the priest.  What happened here could have been avoided if he’d cooperated sooner.”
    Lauren drew her own pistol as she saw Mason’s body stance shift.  Even so, she barely had it out of the holster before his first shots rang out.  The three men in the doorway were down.  She had her pistol trained on the nearest of the men on the rooftop.  Even as she squeezed the trigger, four more shots rang out, so rapidly they might have come from a machine gun.
    One of the men fell onto the street, body limp.  The other, struck by her shots and Mason’s, flopped back out of sight. Lauren peered around.  Her heart beat rapidly.  The burnt smell of smokeless powder stung her nose.  “That’s all of them,” Mason said, his voice flat and emotionless as a robot.  There were times he scared the hell out of her.
    His cold blue eyes met hers and he frowned, “Are you alright?”
    Lauren nodded, “I’m fine.”
    Mason cleared his throat, “I… have to see this, but if you want…”  A part of her cringed at his tone, for she knew exactly what he expected to find in this place.  He hadn’t spoke of it much during the voyage, but the few words he’d