“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 is 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
