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

shuttle to ensure they were internalizing those words. She would not have to explain to Rex why something had befallen his human clan when Captain I’kik had promised them safety.

“Makori will stay with you until I have spoken with the captain.” A’kef stood at attention, though he offered no apology—such would be inaccurate in this moment, as A’kef had done them no wrong, and would right the issue as soon as he could.

“Rei’Shin,” Veska said, unbuckling her harness, and understanding swept through the Humans’ translators. “May I join you in speaking to the captain?”

A’kef regarded her for a long moment, then nodded. That she shared blood with the captain meant little in a clan, but the captain had trained her when she’d been a loose-limbed pup, and that counted for something.

She flattened her ears to any protest the Humans could make—they would do no one any good—and breathed herself to calmness as she fell into step behind A’kef. She also flicked her tail at Makori, emphasizing that she moved to command while he herded Humans—she’d never claimed to be perfect.

* * *

“The Humans remain in lockup until the contract is paid.” The captain spoke without turning around. “They have been impressive enemies, and I take no chances.” She stood tall, watching the controlled chaos of her crew, the graying of her white fur catching the light in threads of unexpected brightness.

“The Humans who came with us are not part of the contract and no enemy of ours.”

“Do you know Humans so well, A’kef? How did you come to have them infesting your ship? I don’t remember I’kik being fond of picking up strays.” She twisted an ear back as though they were in casual conversation, and not in the midst of a fight that had already disabled the Paku.

“They lost a ship, as we had lost you—”

“I am hardly lost,” she interjected dryly, gesturing to the display in front of them.

“And as you seemed to have gone missing in similar parts of the galaxy—”

Now she turned, jaw dropped and tongue lolling in evidence of humor, but ears flattened and eyes sharp. “You bring Humans onto my ship and claim them as allies, when they are the same mercenary group I have been engaged against all this time? And you assure me they are no enemy of mine?”

A’kef snapped his mouth closed, and Veska tucked her muzzle down, twisting to reveal her neck before she could catch herself.

“Captain Nillab, Ja-Insho’Ze, they are part of no contract. I swear on my honor. They and the other Humans have no stake in being our enemies. They sought only to find their clan.”

“Humans are not Zuul, youngling. Their mercenary groups are held together by credits, not bonds.”

“I have not seen that to be true with these, honored Captain.”

“She is correct. Their leader is father to several of his squad, and many of the mercenaries who have come looking have family missing, or family on the Humans’ assault shuttle.” A’kef had regained his balance and stepped forward to bring himself in line with her.

“No contract, but family ties.” The captain snapped her jaw, not quite mocking them. “It gets better with every word from your face, Rei’Shin.”

“They’ve made such ties with Zuul,” Veska said, and was rewarded by the captain pivoting to face her.

“What, in the small time they have traveled with you on the Paku?”

“No, of course not.” Veska twitched her ears in rejection of the idea. “The leader the Rei’Shin mentioned, he has raised five Zuul.”

“He did what?” The scoffing noise the captain made lifted the fur on the back of Veska’s neck.

“It was a contract before I was born.” Veska looked at A’kef, but he only nodded for her to continue. The captain was listening to her far more closely than she had to A’kef. “An accident of some kind, and the Zuul on contract left the pups with the Human mercenaries while they completed the contract. He raised them.”

“A litter of Human-ish Zuul are your surety of these Humans’ good behavior.” The captain stepped closer to her, one ear turned back to monitor her crew’s smartly ordered actions.

“The clan they’ve made between them is. Sei Isgono believes in it.”

“Of Cho’Hosh?” The captain’s voice sharpened so abruptly, Veska nearly bared her throat again.

“Yes.”

“What clan do these pups smell of?”

“They…” Veska again looked to A’kef, who only waited. “None that I know, honored Captain.” Intoxicating, on Rex.

“Describe it to me.” Her dark brown eyes bored into Veska’s own.

“They smell of Ja, and they are Joat, Jaf, Jal.” With every word Veska spoke, the captain leaned closer. Her gaze made Veska long to howl, though she couldn’t have said why. “I do not know their clan.”

“You wouldn’t.” The captain raised her scarred muzzle as though scenting for the Earth-Zuul herself. “No one has in too long.” She turned on A’kef. “They are Krif’Hosh?”

“That’s what their Human father said, but he didn’t know the weight of what he spoke.”

“It’s not something to cast into the wind until you are sure.” The captain nodded in understanding, and lightning shot through Veska at the import of the words.

A Hosh had been lost, unheard of in all of Zuul history.

But…had a Hosh been found? From Earth, of all places?

Slowly, the captain’s lip curled back in a triumphant snarl. Her metal-coated canines glinted in the warm light of the Gheshu, and she seemed larger than Makori.

“Krif’Hosh has been restored to us.”

“By Humans,” A’kef said, flicking his ears.

“That does complicate matters.”

* * * * *

Chapter 3

Silent Night Phoenix Dropship, E’cop’k System

“Ripley, Ripley, you okay?”

She slowly opened her eyes and let a low growl escape her muzzle. Bloody carnival ride, she thought. The dropship was spinning on all three axes. “Yeah,”