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

WHAM.

Sonya’s bottom half jerked one way as her head slammed back against the seat.

WHAM.

Before she could reorient from the impact, the ship spun violently, smaller impacts juddering the hull. She spared a thought for Shadow as her harness dug under her arms and into her skin.

“Breathe, and brace!” Bana shouted, calm and loud as ever.

Whatever scrum they’d gotten into had intensified. Had their attackers been the ones to pull them out of hyperspace, or had they just wandered into some warring titans in a forgotten corner of the universe?

WHAM.

A ragged howl pulled an answer from her before she registered that it was Drake, and a moment later, a chorus rose from every throat—Human and Zuul—in their bay.

Silent Night—they might not get to fight in the space battle, but come entropy or death, they’d scream into its face until the last.

* * *

I’kik kept her balance better than Alan could, leaning into and against each varying spin as the crew of the Paku kept her moving.

“Charvet, fire the CID.” I’kik tilted her head toward Alan, jutting her lower jaw to the side like one of his kids with a secret. “Charvet has the best control of the close-in-defense lasers you’ll ever see. No Human is a match for her.”

At a panel to his left, a darkly-spotted Zuul straightened and leaned closer into her panel of controls. Alan appreciated the boost to morale and the sentiment behind him, though they’d need a dozen more lasers and the multi-armed Lumar to spot them to have any hope of making it through the cloud of missiles inbound.

“Nuclear impacts at seven, thirteen, five.” Another crew member slammed his hand against his leg, the edge of a frustrated howl eating at his words. “No direct hits, but—”

The shuddering hits were immediately followed by the rapid spin of the ship, in a desperate attempt to present the most intact shields to the heaviest of the incoming bombardment.

Two more hits, harder and closer, and Alan knew it for what it was before the crew member confirmed, “Direct hits, two and six.”

“We’re down seventy-five percent of our shields.” The tallest of the Zuul on the bridge displayed nothing but calm. “I’ll keep spinning, but the incoming round is going to have double what the CID can handle.”

I’kik’s busy hands paused only a moment before the captain steadied herself and nodded.

“Stand by to abandon ship. Queue the alerts.” Her hands moved again, blurring like Charvet’s at the CID controls.

Alan knew the numbers too well to have to run them. He didn’t have room for both A and B squads on the one dropship they had. Starbright had most of their equipment, to go with most of their troops, but with the newly confirmed mercs, he was well over what the Phoenix-class dropship could handle.

I’kik swiveled an ear toward him, though her attention remained focused on the keys in front of her.

“Send however many you need to the third deck. Their path should be clear, and there will be room for at least ten. Eleven,” she corrected, pressing something else. “Essential personnel, stand by to abandon ship. The Paku may be out of the fight, but we aren’t losing her.”

Alan recognized a like-minded individual, no matter their actual species or background. The captain was giving up her seat on a ship to save more of her crew.

He’d long known Zuul didn’t surrender, and rarely retreated, but this struck harder. This was a captain who knew her responsibility toward the lives in her care, and offered her own to save one of his.

He saluted her, one commander to another, and she paused to return the gesture with a fist to her heart. Then she reached toward him, opening her hand, and pushed a data chip into his reflexively opening hand.

“Everything the drones put together on the system. I need time to get the Paku fighting ready.”

“Captain I’kik, I’ll get you that time.” With another sharp salute, Alan turned on his heel and left the bridge. The magnetic pull of his squad, and his children, increased his pace the moment the door slid shut behind him.

* * *

Shadow flexed his hands—or rather, attempted to, as he’d lost feeling in them half a dozen spins ago. His improvised fastenings had held, but he’d be paying for it in abused nerves alone, never mind whatever reaction his father would have to his lateness after his no show to muster earlier in the day.

Visions of death probably wouldn’t compel his father…though, if they managed to survive whatever was happening in the black outside the ship, maybe it would catch the colonel’s interest how quickly events had matched and followed his vision.

His mind circled around the unlikelihood of that a few more times, which made for at least some distraction from both the lingering dread of what he’d seen and the burgeoning pain in his abused limbs. Was there a technique he could learn to shut off the insistent alarms of his nerve endings until there was actually something he could do about them?

“Shadow!”

The shrilling alarm wasn’t his nerves, and he had to blame the repeated slams against the ship’s decking for his belated understanding. The pulsing noise hit the very edge of his hearing, meaning the Humans wouldn’t be able to hear it at all.

“I hear it,” he answered Rex, twisting in the general direction of his larger brother, “but I don’t know what it is.”

“Bloody Isgono could have taken a minute to teach us the damned Zuul alerts.”

“There was a safety briefing after we came on board,” Bana said, and the shifting of the ship was not kind enough to throw Shadow out of the reach of the sergeant’s glare. “There are three alerts inaudible to humans. What’s the pattern of this