Night Song (The Guild Wars Book 9) by Mark Wandrey (best ereader under 100 .txt) 📕

though none of them were likely a danger to anything except themselves.

“Risk assessment?” Captain I’kik asked.

“Very little,” what Alan assumed was the tactical officer responded. “Even if we’re off on the facilities’ offensive capabilities by an order of magnitude.”

The captain nodded and spoke to the Pushtal again. “We would like to dock and trade.”

“Why?”

“You said you are a trading station. Are you or not?”

Alan could hear the Pushtal mumbling something, and he imagined a Bengal tiger grumbling about its prey. The thought didn’t make him smile.

“Permission granted,” the Pushtal said and cut the line.

“Helm, maneuver for the station.”

“This should prove interesting,” Alan said.

“Interesting at the least,” A’kef agreed. “I suggest you prep a squad of your troopers for action. Not many encounters with Pushtal end in anything other than violence.”

* * *

“What’s going on?” Sonya asked for the third time.

“I said I don’t know,” Rex replied, also for the third time. He’d gotten the same message from their father as the rest.

“Report to the squad room, draw light combat armor and hand weapons. Stand by for orders.”

“I heard one of the crew say there are pirates in this system,” Shadow said casually. Rex noted he then repeated the sentence in Zuul. Rex’s translator only gave incorrect replies on the word pirates. Of them all, Shadow was working the hardest to learn their new language. He seemed beyond driven—especially when Drake showed the most natural affinity. That drove Shadow crazy, which Drake only made worse by pointing out that Shadow spent all his time sniffing Isgono’s butt, not listening to his mouth. What Shadow had failed to notice was exactly how fast Drake seemed to be picking up the language.

Getting geared up in light armor while in freefall was an order of magnitude easier than getting into a CASPer in the same situation. Even though the CASPer would be locked against a bulkhead so it didn’t move around, you were forced to contort yourself without the benefit of gravity pulling you. He’d thought it would be easier in space; he was wrong.

Squad Sergeant Bana came floating into the bay. He was, annoyingly, already fully geared up and ready to roll. Of their squad, only their two experienced members were more-or-less ready. Corporal Plesh and Private Dyffid were simply checking retention clips and armor segment positioning.

“Corporal, why isn’t everyone ready?”

Plesh blanched as she looked around, seemingly realizing the non-ready status of the squad for the first time. “Sergeant…I didn’t—”

“Exactly,” Bana snapped. “You didn’t.” His voice took on the sharp, cold edge soldiers knew and dreaded. Shit was about to happen. “We’ll be drilling in light combat armor donning drills once this fiasco is over, until the squad can be battle ready in under five minutes. Do I make myself clear, Corporal?”

“Yes, Sergeant!”

“And the rest of you shovelheads?”

“Yes, Sergeant!” they all shouted.

“Great,” Ripley whispered to them. They all glared at Corporal Plesh, who was visibly grinding her teeth in anger. “We’re going to pay for her screw-up.”

Rex did his best to ignore the drama and work as quickly as he could. It didn’t help that the light armor had been modified from Human types, so many of the parts simply didn’t fit well. He missed his beautiful CASPer. At least the other young Humans appeared to be struggling, as well.

Dyffid began moving among them to help. He hadn’t waited for anyone to say anything, just jumped in. Rex wondered why Plesh got the extra strip, and not Dyffid. He was the medic, and looked like he was more squared away.

“Thanks,” Rex grumbled as Dyffid helped adjust one of the modified chest straps on his armor. The Zuul chest was bigger around and longer than Human physiology.

“Piece of piss,” Dyffid said and slapped Rex’s armored shoulder. “Good to go.”

In another tense five minutes, they were all geared up. Sergeant Bana looked ready to yell at them some more when their father floated in, cutting him short.

“They ready, Sergeant?”

Bana looked them over for a moment before nodding. “Took some extra work, sir, but they’re geared up.”

The ship began to spin, and everyone arrested the rotational momentum by whatever came to hand. “We’re going to be rendezvousing with an improvised trading station in this system,” their father explained. “Yes, the system is supposed to be empty except for a stargate. That intel proved flawed.”

“Is it Pushtal?” Dyffid asked. At Porter’s nod, he added a simple, “Ooof.”

Their dad raised a hand to calm them. “There have been no overt signs of hostility. Commander A’kef and I decided it was worth gathering intel. The station is at least a year old, maybe a bit more, and if Starbright came through, they would have seen her.” He took out his slate and used the Tri-V to show them the station.

“Looks like a rotating junk pile,” Ripley said and laughed.

“Not far off,” their dad agreed. “It’s functional enough to maintain some rotation and life support. It even has a few weapons, though not many.”

“Just a bunch of ships tied together,” Bana said and shook his head. “Pushtal are a pain in the ass to deal with. They still want to act like they’re players.”

* * *

As the airlock opened, Alan moved into the station proper. “Wow,” he said as he looked back and forth, then gestured behind for the rest of the squad to follow, which they did.

Sonya’s muzzle wrinkled the moment the airlock seal broke. She’d meant to keep a professional merc demeanor, but that was difficult when one’s nose tried to crawl back into one’s skull.

Stale air layered with a multitude of unfamiliar scents, none of them welcome, crowded into her, and she longed for the closed system of her CASPer.

They moved out in disciplined formation, as though they’d trained together for months instead of bare