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

his fingers, and sprayed them with crumbs. Another hand shoved still more food into his big mouth.

The four siblings exchanged awkward looks. Sonya wasn’t sure what to do. As usual, it was Shadow who made the move into the unexpected, gesturing at the platter of meat.

Ulan cast a glance at him and grunted before pushing a plate over. All four of them had been smelling the food, which wasn’t the source of the burnt, rancid smell—thank goodness. Despite Chelsey’s warning, Shadow leaned closer, took a deeper sniff, grunted in satisfaction, and grabbed a piece of the pale flesh before chomping into it. Within seconds, all four of them were tucking in. Chelsey made a small noise of protest, but Sonya had long learned human and Zuul digestive systems had…different bounds of acceptance.

Sonya thought the meat had a slightly fishy taste, something she was familiar with from growing up in Australia. She’d always been grateful she was in Brisbane instead of, say, the United States, which had largely made meat illegal outside of startowns. Australians had always had a logical view of meat. It tasted good. She even enjoyed Cane Toad Casserole, something their mother had created when she’d found out they were immune to the animal’s poison.

“Not bad,” Rex growled around a massive mouthful of the meat.

“Pretty good tucker,” Drake agreed. They all chuckled, since their XO shared a name in common with the slang for food, something Captain Tucker was less than amused by.

“Better than witchetty grubs,” Shadow agreed.

Sonya’s jaw dropped down in a laugh. “Thought you liked the bloody bush tucker you bragged about when you were all woop woop.”

“You can live on it,” Shadow said between bites, effecting a thick, Human-sounding Aussie accent. “But it tastes like shit.”

“Shut up, Dundee!” the other three all intoned, and the siblings shared a laugh as the Lumar observed them with detached curiosity.

The laughter tapered off, and all four quietly ate. As usual, it was Shadow who spoke for their consciences. “I miss Ripley.”

“We all do,” Sonya agreed. Rex, Drake, and Chelsey bobbed their heads somberly.

“One of you Zuul go beyond?” Ulan asked.

Sonya didn’t know what he meant, but Shadow seemed to catch on.

“She’s not dead,” he said. “Got hurt bad on the dropship, shot by a laser. They said she’s going to be okay.”

“She’ll make it,” Chelsey said, nodding. She’d been watching the siblings have a piss up and grinning. Then her comms unit chirped, and she pulled it off her uniform. “I gotta run, doggos. You guys have fun with the Lumar, I’ll catch up later.”

In a second she was up and gone, and Sonya hoped they could find their way back to Silent Night’s area.

* * *

Alan had been listening to the Zuparti go on for what seemed like hours. He glanced at his slate sitting on the table and realized he had been sitting there for hours. Bloody hell. He let her drone on for another minute, then couldn’t take it any longer.

“Guildmaster Ifka, may I say something?”

The Zuparti stopped and looked at him, so deep in her dissertation she seemed to have forgotten Alan and Jill were even there. “Okay,” she said. A confused weasel was an interesting thing to see.

“My Second Company Commander, Jill Anderle, whom you already know, gave me a full briefing on the sitrep as soon as we landed. She also made it clear that you impressed upon her the necessity of signing a contract with the Engineering Guild, despite my merc company not being interested in working for you.”

“Essentially correct,” Ifka replied in her scratchy little voice. A trio of her Zuparti assistants nodded in agreement.

Toadies, Alan thought. “I fail to see why I should consider my newly-arrived forces part of this contract. I only have two squads, and one is apparently a prisoner of the forces opposing your claims here.”

“The contract automatically extends to your new forces,” Ifka said.

“I don’t see it that way.”

“Then you can leave,” she said. “Your ship should reach the next solar system with a stargate in about 95 years.”

“Mother fucker,” Alan growled.

Ifka looked down at her translator, hanging around her furred neck, and cocked her head in confusion. Alan would have laughed if he wasn’t so pissed off. Jill leaned forward and spoke.

“Maybe if you could offer us a specific departure window?”

“How am I to provide this with an active assault underway? The Zuul are bad enough, but the Pushtal are much worse! They nearly breached our defenses a week before you arrived.”

“Five of my newly arrived troopers are Zuul,” Alan said. “Maybe it would give us an opportunity—”

“What?” Ifka yipped. “You have Zuul with you?”

“Yes,” Alan said evenly. “Five of them. They are my children.”

Ifka spoke a word which didn’t translate, then she looked even more confused than when he’d cursed. “Children? Zuul? But you are—”

“Human, yes, obviously. We saved them on a contract. I couldn’t find out who to send them to when we got back to Earth, so my wife and I raised them as our own children. If you have a problem with that or say one bloody word about locking them up, you’re going to have a much bigger problem than a few Pushtal to deal with.”

He stared at the Zuparti with deadly intent. Jill looked from him to Ifka and swallowed. He could tell she’d been as diplomatic as she could, especially considering the situation she’d found herself in, and he couldn’t argue with her decision. However, he was here now, with most of his family. They might have been born Zuul, but they were his children, and he loved them just the same. One had almost died bringing them to the relative safety of the base. He’d be damned to hell if he’d let anyone touch his kids.

He considered the possible