Wizard Zero by J.S. Morin & M.A. Larkin

Author:J.S. Morin & M.A. Larkin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781942642862
Publisher: Magical Scrivener Press

Kane had commandeered the conference room. His own quarters had been ruled out for giving away too much about him personally. The Operations center could leak background information about what was going on aboard YF-77 and down on the planet. Even with a good filter, he didn’t put it past the Earth Navy spooks to reconstruct the chatter in the room. Thus, Kane sat alone in a room designed to seat twenty. He had a plate of nachos and a thermal mug half full of coffee.

Any fool could juggle balls or bean bags with a little practice. Kane was trying for something infinitely more impressive. He was going to juggle starships.

A screen angled up from the table, meant to be viewed only from Fujita’s chair. Lucky for Kane, Princess Nepotism wasn’t around to kick him out of it. The image was of a rat-faced dog of an eyndar, missing part of an ear and with one lower fang that didn’t hide away when his mouth was closed. He was Captain Gruush of the Eyndar Star-Fleet Vessel Necksnapper—a direct translation of the painted eyndar scrawl on their hull.

And this was one dog who wasn’t having his day.

“Listen to me, ape,” Captain Gruush snarled behind the warble of his own primitive translation device. There was no species that had the eloquence of snarling, growling, and general guttural undertones of the eyndar. If it weren’t for the history of war between the two sides—and the fact the mongrel couldn’t speak a lick of English—Kane would have asked this guy to record his comm inbox greeting for calls from debt collectors. “If that mongrel vessel of yours opens fire, I swear by my mother’s ten teats you will be our first target of retaliation. Make sure that dim ape commander in charge over there knows that.”

“Listen, pal,” Kane said, spreading his hands where Gruush could see them. “I’ve got no pull over there. Not my pack. I’m no alpha. You’re the one with the guns and shields. They’re not going to pull any shit.”

A blinking indicator signaled another comm transmission.

Kane flipped channels.

“Captain Tishtak, how may I be of use to you?” Kane asked, keeping his head bowed.

The zheen chittered something. Kane waited for the translation to follow. “It has been 0.17 days with no resolution of the orbital situation,” Tishtak said. She was bright green with orange dots above her eyes. Kane didn’t even know whether they were natural, decorative, or indicative of rank. Usually, zheen vessels showing up was time to power up the weapons, not the comms. “Will you require an additional reminder at 0.33 days?”

Kane kept his eyes from making contact with the zheen captain’s. It said on the omni that they didn’t like eye contact with inferiors. “I don’t have a lot of leverage to change things out there. You and your big, fancy ship can look after yourself way better than I can.”

More gibberish zheen noises. “Our representative is on the planet surface,” Tishtak said through the translator. She resumed incoherent chatter as the English words came through.

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