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

might trump whatever agreement you had with the Zuul you rode in with. You know how loyal they are to their own, and I get a feeling the captain here is somebody big in their circles.”

“They’re loyal to what’s right.” Alan considered all he’d learned of the Zuul, between raising his children and the time he’d spent with A’kef and I’kik, and so many of their crew. “The captain stayed behind to make room for another member of my crew.”

“And they’ve seen that you had CASPers made for their kind.”

“They wouldn’t…” Alan stopped, considering. I’kik and A’kef would take nothing that belonged to his children. There was some sort of importance to them, something that interested the other Zuul. He trusted in that as deeply as he trusted in the quality of his company.

But these new Zuul, the ones under contract to the Cartography Guild…the ones Jill had been fighting so long. He didn’t know them. They might be nothing like A’kef and I’kik at all. Entropy knew, Humans could break any kind of way, and Zuul were no different.

Five Zuul CASPers in a fight balanced on a knife edge. Five Zuul CASPers that could give the secrets of the Human weapon to a race that outnumbered them easily.

Shit.

“So who runs this show, the Engineering Guild?”

Jill gave a grunting laugh and shook her head. “You aren’t going to believe it.”

* * *

Alan followed Jill as she headed toward some nearby buildings, moving in a graceful hop/slide motion that spoke of how long she’d been on the dwarf planet. For himself, he used the CASPer’s computer to recalibrate motion, letting the machine do most of the work. He cast a single glance at the medical team tending to Ripley, four reverse-kneed CASPers following close behind.

At one point in their walk, they passed a trio of large, turtle-like beings towing equipment sleds. Their heads regarded the Human and CASPer curiously. “What race is that?” he asked her.

“They’re called the Aku. I suspect our employers bought them as slaves, but I can’t confirm it.”

“Huh,” he said as they left them behind. Eventually the pair reached a building with a largish sealed room, allowing for removal of cold weather and breathing gear. It was big enough to allow Alan to get out of his CASPer and pull on the uniform tunic and pants he’d stowed in the armor’s leg. Of course, the uniform was as cold as the planet, leaving him shivering. He pulled it right over his haptic suit for some extra insulation.

“You okay?” Jill asked as he pulled on a duty hat.

“I’ll survive.” Being from Australia, the jacket he’d packed would be woefully inadequate to the task.

“Meet our employer.” She opened the door into a command center staffed entirely by Zuparti.

“Oh, this just keeps getting better.”

* * *

Shadow stared unblinking at the monitors reporting on his sister’s condition. Easier than studying the medics, trying to determine what this action or that speed said about her prognosis.

He lost count of how long he stood there, crowded against his siblings in their CASPers, surrounded by the scents of familiar unit members in a most unfamiliar setting. A sharp huff of breath made him blink for the first time in what might have been days.

“She’s going to be ok,” Sonya said, her ears pointed directly toward the long bed the medics were clustered around.

“How do you—”

“Breathe, idiot.” Sonya bumped him, though his CASPer kept him from feeling it.

Blinking again, he took a deep breath, parsing the smells around him. Sonya, Rex, Drake, normal and steady as ever, the sharp spike of anxious adrenaline fading from their edges. Then, over the smell of the Human members of Silent Night working on her, Ripley’s scent, cleaner, losing that ragged undercoat.

She had smelled like his vision. The realization would have staggered him if he hadn’t had an enormous metal suit holding him in place. Had it been warning him—that Ripley would—that they could…

No. He shook his head, eyes still focused on Ripley. She wasn’t dying, not anymore. And Zuul didn’t see the future. He’d extrapolated something, his senses putting together a story his conscious mind hadn’t finished reading yet, and whatever that last one had been was much, much bigger than his siblings, no matter how much each mattered to him.

Something was still coming.

“She’s going to be ok,” he echoed Sonya, flattening his ear toward her in acknowledgment. “Will you stay until she wakes up? I have to talk to Dad.”

“I’ll come with you.” Rex held up a hand before Shadow could form a protest. “A lot’s happened since you missed muster, but he won’t have forgotten. If you want to get to a point before you have to do laps, or I guess hops, around the whole dwarf planet, you’ll need backup.”

Shadow had to agree with that, though Drake’s snort of amusement didn’t help.

“I should tell you all, before we dropped out of hyperspace—”

Drake shook his head, gesturing toward the door. “Tell us after. Tell Dad, we’ll wait on Ripper, then you can tell us all at once.”

“Ripper?”

“She wouldn’t let us nickname her when we were little,” Sonya said, jaw dropping in a grin. “Feels like she’s earned it now.”

“Ripper,” Rex repeated, drawling it. “Yeah. That’ll do. She’ll be apples.”

“I don’t want to interrupt,” the chief medic said, “but would you mind losing the CASPers? It’s a little crowded in here.”

Shadow looked around and realized four CASPers in the medical bay were probably four CASPers too many. “Sorry,” Shadow said, and they shuffled out.

* * * * *

Chapter 5

Classified Engineering Guild Holding—E’cop’k System

Alan scanned the various Tri-V screens, trying to get a sense of what was going on. There were maybe 30 or so Zuparti sitting and standing next to displays,