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

outcome if the Zuparti challenged him. The first option was, the weasel bastard would sic her Lumar on Silent Night, and it would turn into a great round cockup. The second option was, she’d try to sic the Lumar on Silent Night, and the Lumar would refuse to follow orders. Luckily Ifka took option three.

“Fine,” she said. “Will your pet Zuul fight?”

Alan suppressed the snarl of outrage he felt coming. Maybe he’d been around the kids too much. “My children are registered mercs with Silent Night Mercenary Company; they’ll follow orders.”

“Good,” Ifka said, and turned back to the Tri-V. “Since you are informed of the situation, I’ll outline my plan to get the filthy Vergola and their Cartography Guild off my planet.” The Tri-V showed a tactical battle map of the region where the mines were located.

Alan immediately noticed there were many more icons for mines identical to the one they were located at, except a different color. He asked about them.

“Those are played out mines,” Ifka said, annoyed at the interruption.

“So the Astatine-222 plays out quickly?” he persisted.

Ifka turned to shoot him a sidelong look. “Our mining methods for Astatine are proprietary,” she said.

“Was it proprietary to those you took this planet from?” Alan asked. He smiled, because he’d quickly caught onto something.

“We’ve had this holding for longer than your pathetic race has possessed the power of written language.”

“Perhaps, but someone had it before you. Those corridors weren’t designed for Zuparti.” Jill glanced at him, blinked, then grinned. He shot her a wink, and she suppressed a laugh.

“Who had it before is of no consequence.”

“It’s of more consequence than you think,” Alan said. “I’ve only been here hours, but I can tell you’re having trouble with the mine. Lots of it.”

“What makes you think that?” The question was asked by one of Ifka’s assistants. Elsewhere nearby, a pair of elSha techs had stopped their work and were watching the exchange.

“This planet is the only source ever found for Astatine-222, you’ve said?” Ifka gave a tiny nod. “Your display shows the dates of those mines,” Alan said, and gestured at the Tri-V. “It looks like you’re sinking a new mine every five to ten years. There’s no way this rate of new mines could exist on this world for even 20,000 years, the time between now and the First Republic. More than 2,000 mines in just that time? If this mine is an average example, the planet would be nothing but holes.”

“You Humans think you know everything,” Ifka said, almost quivering with rage. “But you know nothing of the efforts others do to provide you, and the rest of the galaxy, with simple luxuries like space travel.”

“Luxury?” Jill asked incredulously. “I’ve read what happened after the Great War when most space travel ground to a halt. How many trillions died when the luxury of space travel stopped?”

“We might not know everything,” Alan admitted. “However, I know you need us. My guess is, production has been falling, so the supply of Astatine-222 has decreased. Maybe the Cartography Guild isn’t here so much out of greed as because they think you’re squeezing them.”

Ifka was clearly conflicted. To Alan, it looked like she was trying to decide whether to scream at him or throw something. He watched an interesting internal battle play out on the alien’s face. The Zuparti had long been known as one of the twitchiest races in the galaxy. Paranoid, but with deep pockets. As the commander of a registered Human mercenary company, he was privy to a lot of yearly data concerning types of contracts, where they took place, and even who employed the mercs. On a rolling average, the Zuparti accounted for 10% of all contracts, with that number reaching as high as 25%, but never less than 5%. For all this prowess and money, as a species, they had a terrible collective poker face.

One of Ifka’s assistants leaned in and whispered in her ear. She was so focused on Alan that when her assistant spoke, she gave an audible squeak and jumped half a meter in the low gravity. Twitchy.

She reached out to the Tri-V and yanked a data chip from it hard enough to nearly topple the projector off its table. “Here are the details,” she snarled and threw it at him as hard as she could. Alan plucked it from the air with casual ease. It might have been a devastating throw to another Zuparti, but Humans had been throwing rocks at each other for a million years. Young children naturally took to baseball or other games of catch. Baseball was still a popular sport on Earth. Catching things was second nature to the hairless apes. “Be ready at the required time,” she screeched and left.

“Ever the diplomat,” Jill said, finally letting the laughter out she’d been suppressing for several minutes.

Alan wasn’t laughing. The situation was a lot more dangerous than he’d originally feared. If he’d learned anything in his lifetime as a merc, it was that if there was anything more dangerous than a poor race with nothing to lose, it was a rich race with everything to lose. Between the Pushtal and the Zuparti in one system…

“Get the officers and noncoms together,” he said. “We need to talk.”

 * * *

Shadow found the Lumar fascinating. They were more like koala than intelligent beings. Methodical and single-minded, they went at every task with 100% of their attention. When they ate, they ate. When they played, they played. And when they fought, they fought.

He hadn’t seen actual combat in person, yet. However, he’d watched thousands of hours on Silent Night’s Tri-V archives. Battles going back to the company’s founding. Lumar were there many times. Sometimes they were allies; sometimes they were enemies. In each instance, they fought with the same dogged determination and straightforward attitude. They didn’t give up unless