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

“You won’t, I promise.” Alan glanced over at Akohn, who had taken an interest in what was happening. It was true, he didn’t want to get the elSha in trouble, and he’d bet working for the unstable felines was probably like living as a remora on the side of a shark—never sure when you’d go from helper to lunch.

He reached into an equipment pouch on his armor and removed an emergency oxygen cell, holding it out to the elSha as if he wanted help with it. “Just play along,” he said, sotto voce.

The elSha squinted as her own translator rendered the English into her own native language. “Play act,” she said, nodding and took the device. Using a set of micro tools, she opened it and let a few of the parts float nearby in the convenient zero gravity. “Your Zuul trooper said you were following your missing ship, Brightstar?”

“Starbright,” Alan corrected. “It’s an Enterprise-class Human merc cruiser.”

“Yes, I’m familiar,” she replied. “They were a ham-fisted attempt to copy the Izlian Kusha-class. Izlian designs don’t scale down well.”

“We bloody well know that now,” Alan grumbled. Only a year after Silent Night had taken delivery of Starbright, the company that had produced a total of nine of the ships had gone out of business. Cartwright’s Cavaliers had gone to the Winged Hussars and commissioned the Izlian, who designed the Akaga-class as its replacement. All well and good for a Horseman to replace a cruiser after only 10 years of service. He’d only paid off Starbright nine years ago, after 41 years of payments.

“Anyway,” the elSha continued, “I know it was an Enterprise-class, because I worked on a couple before. Did some refit work on one a while back.” She shook her head. “You Humans will cram together whatever tech you think will get the job done.”

“We’re a merc race,” he reminded her, though Humans did their fair share of design work. The CASPers were a good example of the hairless monkeys’ engineering prowess.

The elSha shrugged. “True, nobody expects your cleverness to extend much beyond killing.”

Bit of a bloody mongrel, isn’t she? Alan thought. “Did you have anything helpful to tell us?”

“Yes, if you can offer me something in return.”

Ah, here we go then. “With a missing ship, we’re not exactly flush with credits.”

“I’ll take a job,” she said, snapping the breather closed and handing it back. “Frankly, the Pushtal scare the crap out of me.”

“Sure,” Alan said, “standard merc guild technician rate, third class?”

“First class,” she countered.

“We seem to have agreed on second class, then?” A nod in reply. “Done. What’s your name?”

“Freena.”

“Okay, Freena, proceed with your story.”

“The Enterprise-class ship had damage to its shields. They came here trading for parts. The Pushtal had an old Opu-class shield generator. The Opu is a battlecruiser, but since the Enterprise was copied from the Kusha, which is a battlecruiser instead of a cruiser like the Enterprise, it would work. I arranged the trade. The Pushtal were happy because they got one of your powered armor suits. Since the Pushtal are paying me as a fourth class tech, I decided not to tell them the Humans had stripped the suit beforehand.”

Alan chuckled; he liked the cheeky bugger.

“I helped them move the shield generator over and spoke to their chief engineer.”

“What was his name?” Alan asked.

“Adams, I believe. Oh, and the Human was a female.”

“Adamson, but close enough,” Alan said.

“Well, in the course of helping the female integrate systems with the new shield generator, she mentioned their travails in getting home. They’d been trying for months, but because of the Mercenary Guild’s war against your race, they’d encountered several attempts to detain them. None succeeded, but damage to the ship was still an issue. They planned to cut through a seldom used route in order to reach your planet. The system of P’k’k.”

Alan finished up with Freena, including sending a message to the paymaster back aboard Paku. They didn’t have the money, but Freena wouldn’t have to be paid for a month. He gave the elSha instruction on boarding and turned to find A’kef. He didn’t have to search, the Zuul commander had floated over as soon as Freena departed. Akohn was still watching suspiciously, so Alan kept his voice down.

“Did you find out where your ship went?” the alien commander asked.

“The P’k’k system,” he told A’kef.

“That is a risky move,” A’kef said, his ears back. “The stargate there is unreliable. We got stuck once for almost a month while repairs were made. However, it still parallels with Gheshu’s last known whereabouts. I believe we should proceed to P’k’k.”

“We’ve come this far,” Alan said. “I concur, Commander.” The pups had floated over, having completed their searches and seeing their father talking with A’kef. He smiled at them. “Shadow found us a clue; we’re on Starbright’s tail.” All five of them howled in joy.

* * *

“There was a Raknar.” Drake said each word with precise deliberation. “On that excuse for a station. A Raknar. The Pushtal have a Raknar.” He took in a deep breath. “That you saw. And you didn’t tell us?”

Shadow twisted his ears back, but Sonya didn’t believe his attempt at apology. “It didn’t work, anyway.”

“According to the elSha.” Drake rolled his eyes and curled his lip back, frustration rolling off him in waves. “We’re just going to leave a Raknar behind us.”

“The Raknar isn’t the mission,” Ripley interjected, though she looked a little wistful as well. “Starbright is the mission.”

“We got a technician out of the deal,” Sonya added, knowing she was as transparent in her eagerness as Drake was in his annoyance. She couldn’t help but look forward to learning from an elSha. While she knew not every elSha was a mechanical genius in the same way every Human wasn’t a