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

working on slates, or seemingly waiting to do something. Alan had never seen so many in a room at one time. Every one of them looked up when he came in, jerkily examined him, and went back to whatever they were doing.

You couldn’t run a merc company in the Tolo arm and not be employed by the Zuparti at one time or another. The Zuparti purchased a massive number of merc contracts and were widely considered shifty and paranoid. Silent Night had worked two contracts for the Zuparti during Alan’s tenure as CO. One was an escort job for offloading some mineral or another. There’d been some risk, but it had gone off without a hitch. The other had been a garrison on a rare earth mine on the most boring planet in the galaxy.

The biggest threat on the latter contract had been falling asleep on guard duty and having one of the planet’s mildly venomous tiny snakes crawl into your CASPer’s cargo compartment and lay eggs. The Zuparti had been convinced the whole time that they were about to be set upon by hordes of ravenous Tortantula shock troops. The reality was, the mining operation was so borderline profitable, Alan doubted even the Pushtal would have tried to claim jump it. After they’d completed the contract, he’d wondered how the Zuparti could afford so many mercs if their business acumen was as horrible as it seemed.

However, if they controlled the galaxy’s supply of Astatine-222, that answered a lot of questions. First off, where they got all their credits. The mine probably made millions of credits a day, or more. Second, why they were generally so paranoid. Should anyone find out about the secret stash—well, now they could see what that would mean first hand.

“Who’s in command?” Alan asked Jill. His second in command gestured to an older Zuparti reading a report on a slate.

“Her name is Ifka,” Jill said. “She’s called Guildmaster.”

“Not taking herself too seriously, is she?” Alan asked. Jill gave him a jaundiced look. The one thing he’d learned about the various races in the galaxy was how seriously they took their positions within guilds, regardless of how powerful or even profitable the position was. Jill stepped ahead and addressed the alien.

“Guildmaster Ifka, this is my commanding officer, Colonel Alan Porter.”

To most Humans, the Zuparti resembled big, bipedal weasels. Many races in the Galaxy bore some resemblance to terrestrial animals and insects. Some seemed fusions of multiples. Of course, in many cases, it was simply the Human mind looking for the familiar. The Zuparti were a wonderful example of this. Because they had a rather long torso, short legs, and a pointy face, the Human brain immediately said, Weasel! When you really examined the Zuparti, you saw there were more factors to them that weren’t weasel-like than those that were. Their fur had a strange, wool-like quality about it. Their eyes were black on black, with no irises, and a novel feature allowed them to go opaque without an iris. Their ears were hairless. The arms were disproportionately long compared to their legs. They didn’t have whiskers. The disparities went on.

Ifka looked Alan up and down and gave him a most Human-looking frown before speaking. “I believed Jill Anderle to be the commander.”

“I explained I was the senior officer in charge,” Jill corrected.

“You accepted the contract,” was her rebuttal.

“And you made it clear if I didn’t, we’d be imprisoned for the duration of this conflict. And, well, you offered a lot of credits.”

“Yes, you Humans love credits.”

“As do the Zuparti,” Alan said. “Good to meet you, Guildmaster.” Alan finished with a respectful bow.

Ifka returned the bow, a tiny smile on her face. I can play the game with the best of them, Alan thought.

“The guildmaster approved our rescue op of your dropship once we picked up its IFF transponder,” Jill explained.

“May I inquire why you were aboard a Zuul ship?” Ifka asked. “You realize there are Zuul working for the Cartography Guild in their illegal attempt to take over our mine?”

“Well, the Zuul were with Insho’Ze, which I understand is the unit that opposes you. I also understand this situation was not an existing contract, but happened because of ongoing hostilities here in E’cop’k?” The Zuparti nodded slightly. “We were working with Insho’Ze when we were…” he searched for the words, “brought here by the stargate interdiction.”

“What were you doing with them?”

“Looking for both our lost ships, both of which happened to be in the same area at the same time. We came across the Pushtal and their holding at Klbood, which led us to pass near here, and we were snagged.”

“I understand now,” Ifka said. “The Pushtal, with the assistance of the cursed Vergola, were equipped to take Klbood from us. Afterward, we had no link to the outside world. We’d long had an arrangement with the gatemaster in Klbood. A profitable one. However, once Klbood was taken…”

“The Vergola made the gatemaster a better deal?” Jill offered.

“So it would seem,” Ifka said under her breath.

Alan and Jill exchanged knowing looks before Alan spoke. “I don’t suppose we’ll be allowed to leave?”

“I think not,” Ifka said, as if she were denying someone an extra slice of pie. “The contract with your Silent Night is extended to all of your allied forces in the system. The Zuul ship was disabled and has slunk off to lick its wounds further outsystem. Two other dropships escaped and have since rendezvoused with enemy forces.”

“I have people on those ships as well,” Alan said, his brow wrinkling in concern. “Another squad and technical staff.”

“Then they are either dead at the hands of the Zuul or Pushtal, or prisoners of the Vergola.”

“I don’t believe the Zuul commander would allow my men to be killed,” Alan said, as much to assuage the look of alarm on