Night Song (The Guild Wars Book 9)

by Mark Wandrey

  On the C ring, in ¾ gravity, she quickly located the bar she’d always come to when visiting Karma station. Ek’to Braga had been founded over 500 years ago by a retired Zuul merc as a quiet little place for members of his ex-company to come, drink, and tell stories about their exploits. In the centuries since his death, it had become the must-see bar for Zuul in the Tolo arm.

  When Chuuz entered through the ornate door, trimmed with wood from Ja, she found it nearly empty. She suppressed her disappointment and went to the bar. Like many such facilities, Ek’to Braga used robotic bartenders and autochefs. The current owners, while still Zuul, seldom visited the facility. She ordered a home-brewed ale and looked around the sparse crowd for a familiar face.

  At one end she spotted a pair of marines, recognizable by the unit insignia on their harnesses. Nearby, a booth with nine Zuul caught her interest, then she noticed they wore Human-designed vests. Her ears flattened, and she focused on the logo they all wore. They were all members of the Winged Hussars, one of the Humans’ Four Horsemen.

  As if it weren’t bad enough that Karma Station was lousy with Humans, she had to run into her own kind who worked for a Human merc unit. Her lip curled in annoyance, Chuuz moved further to the other side of the bar. She’d begun to consider going somewhere else when she finally spotted a familiar face.

  “Eshti, is that you?” The graying Zuul’s head came around and she was sure. “Kobo Ask’sha!”

  “Chuuz, it’s been many years.” The older Zuul male stood and tilted his head back, holding his arms out. They scented each other’s necks, then touched muzzles briefly.

  Chuuz let the scent of her old friend roll through her sinuses and smiled. “It is good to smell a familiar friend,” she said. Eshti gestured to one of the other seats, and they got comfortable. “How have you been? Are you still with Zi-Aakatal?”

  “Sure,” Eshti said. “Why leave the clan’s company?”

  “I didn’t have a choice,” Chuuz replied.

  Eshti flicked his ears forward, then shrugged. “You do what you have to do in order to survive.”

  Chuuz stared at the table for a long moment, then used the built-in computer to order a drink. A robot delivered it in moments. She’d decided to change the subject, when she remembered the odd encounter she’d had on Earth. “Speaking of clans, I ran into something weird on Earth.”

  “Earth?” Eshti grunted, one ear swiveling. “You were there?”

  Chuuz explained how she’d ended up in a logistics role with a Maki fleet, arriving just as the Peacemakers had swept in, stopping the war.

  “We heard about that. Amazing, the Peacemakers sided with the Humans.”

  “I’m not sure if that’s what happened,” Chuuz said. “However, it’s not the truce I’m talking about. It was the Zuul I met, who grew up on Earth.”

  Eshti’s muzzle crinkled in surprise as she detailed the encounter, fishing out the Human merc company’s card as her finale.

  “And she didn’t know her clan or home world or anything?” His ears flickered in confusion.

  “No,” Chuuz said.

  “What was her smell?”

  “That’s just it…I’ve never smelled the clan before.” Eshti looked doubtful. “She was clearly Fe Es’Ufu, a strange clan scent, and Joat, Jaf, Jal.”

  “Three base scent elements?”

  “Weird, right?”

  Chuuz nodded. A Zuul’s powerful sense of smell could identify a great deal about another Zuul from a simple sniff. Sex, caste, clan, and three sets of scent elements, each with six different identifiers. Using those smells, a Zuul could pick a fellow out of a good-sized crowd when away from their origin worlds or clans. Individual Zuul-specific scents couldn’t be described, but they could be recognized.

  “How about the world?”

  Chuuz grunted. A clan scent was linked with the world a clan came from. Most worlds had hundreds, or even thousands of individual clans. But the Zuul who called herself Ripley had a highly unusual world/clan scent.

  “I’ve only smelled it once before, a male from Ja.”

  “The home world?”

  Chuuz nodded again. Eshti’s tail thumped behind him, and without asking permission, he took the Human merc contact chip and made a copy.

  “Hey,” Chuuz complained. “What are you doing?”

  He tossed a 100-credit chit on the table and dropped his jaw in a grin. “See you around,” he said, tapping her on the shoulder as he left.

  Chuuz watched him hurry out of Ek’to Braga, ears flicking forward and back. She picked up the chit, shook her head, grumbled something about crazy old mercs, and ordered another drink, paying with the credit chit. Several beverages later, she struck up a conversation with a cute female, letting the encounter fade.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 5

  Brisbane Australia, Earth, Cresht Region, Tolo Arm

  Ripley checked the clock for the hundredth time, and like every time before, only a minute had passed. She loathed working the phone boards. Modern companies would possess an AVA, an autonomous virtual assistant. Silent Night operated on leftovers and obsolete equipment. Thus, an old-fashioned telephone board. Shadow had been on them for a while, but they were all being cautious of his getting enough rest, so she was here instead of in her flight sim. Exhausting.

  “You look like an old TV show.”

  She glared at Drake and his frozen Billabong. The smell of chocolate ice cream filled her nose. “You arsehole,” she snarled, though her tail waved softly.

  “Fine, I’ll eat this myself!” He grinned, and she stared at the treat covetously. He tossed it to her, and she snatched it from the air. Billabongs…did Earth make anything better?

  Drake sat on the counter with his tail tucked to the side and pulled out a second dessert. It had been a slow day on the field and didn’t seem likely to change. Silent Night had survived through sheer creativity and by operating as lean as possible.

  “Thanks, bro,” she said.

  “No worries,” he replied. “We heard a bunch of Veetanho were coming down in a shuttle?”

  “Where’d you get that furphy?” She barely looked up, her dessert taking most of her attention.

  “Same place other crap comes from,” he said and shrugged. “Now that the cafeteria’s done, everyone’s got a place to gossip again.”

  “Glad he went back to work even after Mom and Dad made him do reception,” she pointed out, licking chocolate off her muzzle with her long tongue. “It’s nice to get a break from the desk.”

  “After a week, the doc said he was fair dinkum. They just wanted to make sure he was doing enough work to pay back his debt.” Drake swiveled his ears to the side and shook his head.

  “Moral of the story; don’t boost Dad’s credits.”

  Drake snorted and blew chocolate on the counter, and she shoved him back off the desk. “Gross, idiot. Gross.”

  The phone buzzed, and she touched the control on her headset. “Silent Night.”

  “I need to talk to Dana Porter,” a woman said.

  “Sorry, there is no Dana, only Zuul.” She let her jaw drop open in a silent laugh. Drake doubled over in fits, losing the last of his ice cream on the floor.

  An hour later she had to apologize for her smart-assed comment when it got back to her dad. Even so, he had a tiny grin when he left the reception area. It was his own fault for making them watch old movies on family nights.

  She was still making dumb movie jokes in her head when a communication came in from a ship in orbit. “No jokes, only work,” she murmured to herself as she answered it.

  “ZMS Paku calling Silent Night Mercenary Company.”

  “Silent Night responding,” she said. “Go ahead, Paku.”

  “Requesting permission to land.”

  “Please state required services, Paku.”

  Ripley pulled up the proper menu on her slate and waited.

  “We would like to speak to Colonel Porter.”

  “What i
s the nature of your request? Contract negotiations need to be directed through the Terran Federation merc liaison office in Houston, Texas Republic.” She knew it was unlikely to be a negotiation; the Mercenary Guild’s moratorium on merc contracts was still in place, despite protests from Earth’s merc companies. Besides, the majority of Silent Night’s forces were still unaccounted for—she doubted anyone would come to them first.

  “I am a representative of the Zuul government. We wish to discuss the repatriation of five Zuul pups.”

  Ripley gawked at the radio and eventually remembered how to connect to her dad.

  * * *

  Alan and Dana stood at the edge of the tarmac as the shuttle fell into view. It shifted from a comet-like streak of light to a defined ship, firing its descent motors to prepare for landing.

  “I’m scared,” Dana said, her voice barely audible over the growing roar of the shuttle.

  “It’ll be okay,” Alan said. “One way or another.” Behind them, Ethan Tucker, the XO of Silent Night, stood at attention. They were all in their merc uniforms. A short distance away, near the main hangar where their only remaining dropship was parked, stood all their troopers still on Earth. Eighteen men and women, most too young or too old for any real battle. Alan glanced at them and smiled. They looked sharp at the very least.

  The shuttle’s engines rose to a deafening roar as it scrubbed off the last of its remaining velocity and hovered for a moment. The pilot followed the radio beacon and set down 500 meters away, taxiing toward them. It came to a stop perfectly in the center of the square painted on the black tarmac to indicate where a ship of its type should park.

  Dana turned wide eyes to him, and he wished he could reassure her. They’d never had their own children. The pups were their children, in every way. So they didn’t come from her body; there were plenty of families made outside the process of pregnancy.

  The shuttle’s engines shut down, and the jet turbines slowly spun to a stop. The sleek design had integrated variable-swept wings with four massive articulated engine pods, two on the wings and two on canards near the cockpit. The pods threw off heat shimmers which distorted the air above them into complicated mirages. Dana stared at them for a moment then looked away.

  A ramp slid out of the hull at the same time as the shuttle’s personnel door opened. Within seconds, a pair of Zuul came out and walked down the ramp.

  “Attention!” Alan barked, and even across the way, his troopers snapped to.

  The two aliens stopped at the bottom of the ramp and waited. Alan, Dana, and Ethan walked up to greet them. The two Zuul were similar in size, one dark brown, the other somewhat blonde, like Ripley. Alan couldn’t tell their sex.

  “Colonel Porter?” the blonde one asked, looking between Dana and Alan.

  “I’m Colonel Porter,” Alan said. “This is Captain Dana Porter, my wife and logistics officer, and Captain Tucker, my executive officer.”

  “Wife,” the blonde Zuul said. “I did not know your race had clans as well.”

  “We don’t,” Alan explained. “Some companies are family affairs, not clans. The leadership and some of the members would be related, sure.” He stopped and looked confused.

  “It’s complicated,” Dana said.

  The Zuul dropped her jaw slightly and nodded. “I am Uufek, representative of the K’lak, which you might think of as the Zuul mercenary governing body.”

  Alan listened to his translator finish rendering Uufek’s words into English before responding. “I was expecting someone else.” He was about to mention the Krif’Hosh and Coshke, whom Crent had spoken of on Gephard 14 years ago, when Uufek spoke again.

  “I have come to learn you have some of our pups?”

  “Yours?” Dana asked, moving forward. The tone of her voice cut like a razor.

  “They’re Zuul, you are not.” Uufek turned her ears toward them in what Alan recognized as polite confusion. His kids used that gesture often when he asked them to do something they didn’t want to do, and couldn’t imagine why he’d ask.

  “We don’t see it that way.” Dana’s voice chilled further. When that tone was aimed at him, Alan started scanning for exits. Unfortunately, these Zuul wouldn’t recognize it. He stepped between them.

  “This conversation isn’t useful,” he said. “Can you tell me why no one from your government responded before now?”

  “Our government doesn’t handle such matters; the clans do.”

  “I see. And who are you?” Alan asked, indicating the other Zuul.

  “I am Teef; I represent clan Insho’Ze.”

  “How many clans are there?” Alan asked.

  “There are many types of clans,” Teef said. “As my clan is a merc clan, I will assume you mean merc. More than a thousand. Though most are small, some are quite large and powerful.”

  “I think I understand. The clans are your families?”

  “And much more,” Teef said. “May we meet the pups?”

  Alan looked back at his wife. Dana’s eyes were hard and suspicious. His heart ached. They’d always known this day would come. Known, and feared it. “Follow us, please.”

  * * *

  Sonya crouched in the corner of their living room, watching Ripley pace around their oversized furniture. Her sister’s rapid prowl gave her something to focus on besides her own nerves. Drake and Rex arm-wrestled over the beat-up old game table, and Shadow sat in the middle of the couch with his eyes closed, so only Ripley gave her any useful distraction.

  Their parents had gone to meet the Zuul delegation, and they’d lost the brief but loud battle to join them. Sonya supposed they hadn’t fought that hard, truth be told. Shadow hadn’t even joined the argument—he’d been quieter since his accident. Still infuriating and charming by turns, as their smallest brother always had been, but…quieter.

  Sonya wrinkled her nose, eyes tracking Ripley without entirely focusing, and attempted yet again to wrangle her thoughts to one path. After nearly a decade and a half of silence, some Zuul had decided to follow up on their existence. She and her siblings had theorized over half a dozen conversations, and then ducked back away into their respective hobbies and chores. Even Rex could tell talking about it hurt Dana, and they wouldn’t be able to come to any conclusion until the Zuul—their…clan, maybe?—deigned to arrive, so what was the point?

  Beyond Rex’s occasional grunts, silence held between them. Shadow usually played the role of getting them talking. The quiet itched under her fur, and Sonya was considering leaping over the back of the couch and tackling Shadow just for something to do when the ambient noise outside their house changed.

  All five sets of Zuul ears pivoted toward the door at the same moment, and Sonya straightened from her squat. Rex ended the match with Drake handily, and the latter didn’t even snarl in disappointment. Ripley slowed, met Sonya’s eyes, and crossed the room to stand next to her. Only Shadow remained unmoved.

  “We should have done this in the debriefing room,” Sonya muttered, taking in their comfortable living space. What would the Zuul think? Did she care? A neutral space would have—would have—her thoughts sputtered to a halt, and for the moment it took the door to open, she strongly considered darting to her room.

  “We’ve got this,” Ripley murmured back, pressing her shoulder into Sonya’s before straightening and folding her hands behind her back. Sonya echoed her sister’s posture, and felt better for it.

  Their mother stepped in first, concern bleeding from her as she studied each of their faces. Dana composed herself before moving to the side, but even so, Sonya wanted to bound across the room to her.

  “They wanted to meet you in our house in order to show you how—” Alan had his command voice on, level and brisk. Sonya always appreciated it more when he aimed it at someone else, but at the moment her focus had locked on to the figures behind him.

  Two Zuul, one furred somewhere between Rex and Drake, one nearly as light as Ripley. Sonya’s nose twitched, but at first she couldn’t
pick out the two strangers’ scents, beyond how fundamentally different they were from her siblings.

  Different, but with a nagging thread of same she couldn’t place. One male, the other female, and something…Behind her back, her hands tightened around each other, as though she could wrangle the scent with her fingers. There was something right on the edge, the absence like a missing tooth, that she couldn’t place or even name. Ripley’s scent changed ever so slightly, and she knew her sister felt it, too.

  For their part, the stranger Zuul stopped short inside the doorway, eyes moving quickly from one of them to the other, stalling longest on Rex.

  They seemed surprised, which made no sense to Sonya. Did these…these aliens think they’d be weak and underfed, misshapen from growing up on Earth? That Dana and Alan had tolerated them, kept them on chains in a yard, and…

  “You thought we’d be smaller.” Shadow’s voice, serene, interrupted her ratcheting anger.

  “Younger,” the female replied, staring at him.

  “We started sending our messages fourteen years ago,” their father interjected, nearly as calm as Shadow.

  “That is not the communication that brought us here.” The light-furred female flicked her ears and stepped forward. “I am Uufek, young ones.”

  “And I am Teef.” The male looked expectantly at them before his eyes went back to Rex. They both assumed he was their alpha, because he was the biggest, and the fact that it was true galled Sonya enough to make her speak first.

  “Are you from our clan, then?” She put all the confidence she could muster into the question, determined to sound as though she knew the important things about her own kind.

  “I…” Uufek dropped her muzzle, eyes widening for a moment. “I do not believe so, young one. I am here as a representative of the governing body of Zuul mercenaries, the K’lak.”

  “Ah.” Shadow stood and walked across the room to them, brushing Dana’s hand on the way past her. “I’m Shadow. My brothers Rex and Drake, and my sisters Ripley and Sonya.” He paused, perhaps not as sure of himself as he appeared, and Sonya wondered if they would offer their necks, or choose to smell his.