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

weeks. Sonya endeavored to control her face, which meant she kept her eyes locked forward. Of course, her eyes meant she had excellent peripheral vision, giving her a clear view of the mishmash of parts and missing wall panels in the corridor.

“No welcoming committee,” Ripley muttered.

“That a good thing, or bad?” Sonya answered, barely moving her mouth, both for professionalism and to minimize the station air passing through. It didn’t work, but she couldn’t help trying.

“Just keep your wits about you,” Alan said over his shoulder as he moved away from the lock. “Pushtal can be unpredictable.”

“Yes, sir,” the mercs from their squad intoned.

Bundles of wires looped from crookedly mounted bulkhead covers into gaps in the ceiling studded irregularly out down the corridor. The hallway had the feel of something she’d put together years ago, made of spare parts and salvage, soldered and re-welded within an inch of its life. This, however, was at the very least space worthy, which put it heads and tails above what she’d done.

Of course, she’d been eight. Still, interest took over enough of her thoughts that she could block out some of the smell. Pushtal might be interesting to meet after all.

Their hall spilled messily out into a crossing with six branches. The leftmost curved into darkness, the lights either missing or burnt out. Two more had as much debris as space for passage, which didn’t seem remotely safe, even given the state of everything else.

“This is where a welcoming committee would be good news,” Shadow said from behind her.

“Can’t you smell which way’s freshest?” Paulson asked, receiving a chorus of snorts or deep grumbles in immediate reply. “That good, huh?”

“Freshest is the funniest joke you’ve ever made, Paulson.” Drake’s tone made that almost a joke of its own. Sonya would have been impressed at her brother’s effort if she weren’t feeling jumpy.

Neither her father, Sergeant Bana, nor A’kef had seemed thrilled about docking here. She couldn’t figure out why they had, truth be told. They’d expected the space on this side of the gate to be empty, so there couldn’t have been anything they needed to trade for.

It clicked, belatedly. She’d blame the smell if anyone asked. They hadn’t expected anyone to be here. Someone was here. Ships had gone missing.

She stopped admiring the sheer stubbornness it took to put something like this almost-station together and braced herself. Taking a long, deep breath she mastered the sudden urge to gag, swallowed a few more times, and pointed to the rightmost corridor.

“That one’s got the most going on. Not sure it’ll take us where we need to go, but it might work.” It might not have been on her to offer any such thing, but if they stood in this twisted corridor any longer, she might start howling and that embarrassment she’d never live down.

“Lead on,” Alan said. He wore light combat armor just like everyone else. He even had a laser carbine slung over his back, a sign of the potential seriousness of their situation. In diplomatic meetings, it was more common for a merc commander to only wear a sidearm.

The knowledge that her father was behind her, and the eyes of her siblings and the rest of the squad were upon her, got her moving onward.

* * *

Rex’s muzzle rippled as he did his best not to breathe through his nose. The stench was unspeakable. He’d scented cats in Brisbane. There weren’t many because the little beasts had become an invasive species in Australia. In order to rid themselves of them, the government had instituted a series of released retroviruses that had sterilized every cat not given a medical supplement. It had proven exceptionally effective. So much so, few people had them anymore. He was glad; they smelled…nasty.

The station reeked of something-like-and-not-quite-cat on a level he could scarcely imagine. His combat armor included the ability to seal the helmet, a human-manufactured helmet custom made to fit his physiology. Once sealed, they could operate for up to 96 hours. Oh, how he wanted to seal his helmet, but if Sonya didn’t, he wouldn’t.

As they moved forward, following Sonya’s nose, he wondered what it would be like to fight the Pushtal. Father was worried it was all a trap, one the Starbright might have fallen into. They’d scanned the ragtag station and found no evidence of the lost ship, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. The Pushtal were big, and supposedly fierce. They didn’t scare him.

They turned another poorly-designed corner, and the sound of life overcame the ever-present whir and chatter of the life support equipment. Yowls, growls, and mews of the Pushtal. Showtime.

* * *

There was nothing so organized as stalls. Shadow found the patterns in things, from waves to Humans to cubby-lights in Zuul games. This…

This read as pure chaos however he tried to understand it.

Pushtal in various shades of fur moved through narrow aisles in twisted paths around towering piles of assorted salvage.

Upon closer inspection, salvage was too generous a term. Piles of junk was more appropriate, some more precarious than others in the large, open space. Off to the left, a small cluster of the tiger-looking beings sorted through one of the larger piles made of big pieces. To the right, several wore helmets and were potentially welding, though he couldn’t make any sense of what they were putting together or taking apart.

Ahead, studded between four more junk heaps, Pushtal moved or sat or yelled at each other or grappled, and none took any notice of them at all.

“I don’t think we’re getting any trade out of them,” Shadow said in his lowest register. Drake’s ears flicked back toward him in silent agreement.

“They’re ignoring us a little too obviously, don’t you think?” Ripley flattened her ears, the only sign her purely neutral tone was covering some level of discomfort.