Mercenary Instinct (a science fiction romance)

by Ruby Lionsdrake

Copyright © 2014 Ruby Lionsdrake

Thank you for trying out a new adventure by a
new author. Before you jump in, please let me thank my editor,
Shelley Holloway, as well as Sarah Engelke, Cindy Wilkinson, and
Samantha Nolan for offering feedback on an early version of this
novel.

Ankari Markovich dangled from a rope, making
faces as she chiseled fossilized gunk from the walls of a
twenty-thousand-year-old latrine shaft. It wasn’t as if the bumps
and nodules she was scraping into sample containers smelled after
all this time. It was just that she hadn’t imagined herself with
such a hands-on role when she had incorporated her latest business.
She was the marketing specialist
and
the majority
stakeholder, not the—she scraped a particularly large piece off and
into a bag—ancient alien feces collector. At least her mother
wasn’t here to sigh with disappointment at yet another “foolish
scheme,” as she called Ankari’s dreams.

The rope shivered. A nervous jolt ran through
her, and Ankari forgot her indignation.

“Someone coming?” she whispered toward the
hole at the top of the crumbling shaft.

“No,” Lauren Keys, microbiologist and
business partner, whispered back. “I mean, I don’t think so. Two
more ships have landed while you’ve been down there, but nobody’s
come this way yet. I was just shifting my weight.”

Two more ships. What was that now? Six total
in the area? Six ships full of treasure hunters who had come to
scavenge the ruins, but who would gladly scavenge the contents of
the
Marie Curie
for the valuable scientific equipment
inside. Not to mention scavenging her and the other two women in
her crew, as well.

“Warn me next time, will you?” Ankari tapped
a button on her mechanical rappelling harness. It whirred softly
and lowered her a few more inches, so she could scrape at a new
spot.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know I had to update you
when I was scratching my backside.”

“Just... if you’re doing it vigorously.”

Ankari shined her flashlight on the stone now
visible underneath the patch she had scraped free, then rubbed it
with her sleeve. It gleamed dully, interesting threads of green and
silver shooting through the dark black. Andorkan Marble, or this
world’s equivalent. A half ton slab of low- to middle-grade quality
sold for two thousand aurums on the stone and metals market. With
the gold and artifacts largely stripped from the ruins, someone
would doubtlessly be down here with excavation equipment, going
after the marble before long.

“Ankari?” Lauren whispered. “I heard
something—a shifting of rocks over the hill.”

“I’m almost done.” Ankari lowered herself
further, until she reached the uneven earth at the bottom. “You
said to get some samples from down here, right?”

“Yes, and I also said we should do this at
night.”

“We barely found this hole by day.” They had
spent two hours dodging treasure hunting teams, hiding in the
ruins, and following a map neither was certain was accurate to find
the midden heap. Ankari scraped as she spoke, rushing to fill her
collection bag. She was as worried as Lauren. This was some
corporation’s protected planet, and there weren’t any
settlements—or any police—on it. Anyone they encountered would be,
at the very least, a trespasser and likely much worse. “I’m done.
I’m coming up.”

Lauren didn’t answer. She must have ducked
behind that wall off to the side to hide. Ankari debated whether to
go up or to wait until she got the all-clear from her partner.
Seconds ticked by.

“Lauren?” she whispered. “You better not have
wandered off. You’re the one who knows what to do with this
fossilized poop.”

When she still didn’t get an answer, Ankari
touched the comm-pin stuck to her vest and thought about contacting
her that way, but there might be unscrupulous people out there,
listening in on the various frequencies. She didn’t hear any voices
or scuffs drifting down from above, so she tapped her harness, this
time having it reel her up. Slowly. She kept her ear trained toward
the hole’s entrance as she approached. Nothing.

At the top, she poked only her eyes out of
the shaft.

The wind scraped across the remains of
towers, buildings, and walls, most crumbled into barely
recognizable shapes. Thorny vines meandered here and there, one of
the few plants that grew in this dry desert zone, but there wasn’t
much foliage to hide behind, only the ruins themselves. Ankari
looked upward. Days were short on Libra, and the sun had moved
across the hazy blue sky in the short time she had been down in the
hole. Before long, it would be dark, and their third crew member,
Jamie, who was back on the
Marie Curie
, would be wondering
about them.

She risked tapping her comm. “Lauren, are you
all right?”

The sound of someone speaking came from a
pile of rocks a few feet away. Ankari flinched, her hand whipping
to the Tiger 420 pistol strapped at her waist, before she realized
what she was hearing. Her own voice being echoed back to her. A
comm-pin identical to the one on her chest lay in the dust beside a
rock. Lauren’s medical records and identification were encoded in
that pin, and Jamie could have tracked her with the ship’s
sensors... if she were wearing it. The sturdy fastener wouldn’t
have fallen off on its own.

“Not good,” Ankari mumbled.

She didn’t take her eyes from her
surroundings as she picked up the pin and stuffed it in her pack.
She unbuckled the rappelling harness and thrust it and the rope
into the pack too. She wasn’t sure whether to search for Lauren
here or run back to the ship, where they could search from the air.
Unfortunately, the
Marie Curie
had the same problem down
here that she did: as soon as it left its hiding spot, it would
become a target. The bulky modified freighter wasn’t exactly a
warship. It was possible would-be captors would be too busy
laughing at its rainbows-and-flowers paint job to attack, but
Ankari would prefer not to test that hypothesis.

She tapped her comm again. “Jamie? Are you
listening? Have you heard from Lauren?”

A splatter of static answered her.

“Wonderful.”

Ankari slung her pack over her shoulder and
turned around. She halted before taking a single step along the
path that led back to the ship.

Six well-armed people stood on the ridge, all
with cold, hard faces, most displaying a fearsome collection of
tattoos, piercings, and scars. One was a woman, dark-skinned and
broad-shouldered, with a build just as muscular as that of the men.
They all had the miens of soldiers—or ex-soldiers—even if they
weren’t clad in anything resembling uniforms now.

Ankari’s shoulders slumped. The man on the
far side held Lauren, his meaty hand wrapped around her arm, as
yielding as a shackle. His laser pistol was pressed into her
temple.

Ankari was a decent shot, but didn’t doubt
that these people could blast her before she got her own weapon
out. And, depending on what they wanted, they might kill Lauren if
Ankari ran or dove for cover. Or twitched in a way they didn’t
like.

“If you’re looking for aliuolite, I can
direct you to a good source.” Ankari pointed toward the midden hole
rather than mentioning the samples stashed in her pack. Fossilized
alien feces were only worth a few aurums an ounce, but there were a
lot of ounces down there.

The burly thugs looked to the person at the
center of the group, a broad-shouldered man in a leather duster and
boots that seemed antiquated next to his intricate mesh vest armor
and a digital scanner he wore over one eye. The armor, which could
deflect bullets and lasers, was standard issue for police and
Galactic Conglomeration Fleet soldiers. Ankari doubted the man was
either. He was handsome, in a cold and aloof way, with green eyes
that stood out from his olive skin and short black hair, but there
was nothing friendly about his face as he considered her words. Or
perhaps he was considering what fancy dinner he might treat himself
to with the money he got from selling her into slavery.

“What’s aliuolite?” the man holding Lauren
whispered. He was a squat tank with bronze skin and almond-shaped
eyes.

The woman squinted thoughtfully, like the
term might be familiar, but ultimately she shrugged and didn’t
answer.

Without taking his eyes from Ankari, the
leader said, “Old alien shit.”

“That’s what aliuolite is?” Lauren’s captor
asked. “Or that’s what we’re standing in?”

“Probably both.”

“If you were known for your sense of humor,
Captain, I’d assume you were joking with us.”

Captain? Maybe this was some kind of military
outfit after all. Either that, or treasure hunters these days had
delusions of grandeur. But nothing about the man’s grim face,
scarred hands, or hard eyes said he was a poser. He looked like a
veteran who had survived a lot of battles, including some that
hadn’t gone his way.

“It’s used in the jewelry business,” the
captain said, surprising Ankari with his knowledge—it wasn’t a
widely known piece of trivia. “For those who can’t afford real
gems. Or just like quirk.” His eyebrow twitched. He was still
staring at Ankari, and she wondered if that was a dig. Did he think
her a freak because she was collecting the stuff? He couldn’t
possibly know what her team really wanted it for, so he must. She
scowled at him. As if collecting fossilized poop was any less noble
than kidnapping people.

“It worth anything, Captain?” Lauren’s captor
asked, speculation narrowing his eyes.

Another man snorted. “How much can shit
earrings be worth? I think you’re right, Corporal. The captain
is
joking.”

Most of the men smirked, their faces losing
some of their hardness, though it was difficult to find them
anything but menacing when the corporal still held a gun to
Lauren’s head.

“Enough,” the captain said. No smirk had ever
softened his face. “Striker, get the girl before those vines start
growing up our legs.”

Ankari took a step back, lifting a hand
toward the spiky-haired man who approached her. He wore no less
than four guns, numerous daggers, and what looked to be a chain of
grenades on a bandolier across his chest.

“You’re right,” Ankari rushed to say—her hand
wasn’t doing anything to stay the brute. “Aliuolite is used for
jewelry, and it’s actually trading for more on the market this year
than it has in the past twenty.” A true statement. “There’s a
fascination with all things related to the ancient aliens, you
know.” Also true. “And there’s enough aliuolite down there that you
could make a small fortune.” That was less true, but wouldn’t it be
brilliant if they all dove down that shaft in their eagerness to
get at the stuff? “Far more than you’d ever get for us.”

The captain snorted. “If you think that, you
don’t know how much you’re worth, girl.”

The comment surprised Ankari. He couldn’t be
talking about anything other than the slave trade, but she couldn’t
imagine she would command any great price on the auction block. She
was attractive enough, she supposed, but certainly wasn’t some
stunning virgin beauty that could be served up on a platter to some
self-proclaimed backwater prince or horny old finance lord.

Though she was confused by the comment,
Ankari reacted before the walking knife collection could grab her.
She leaped backward, landing in a fighting stance. It was more by
habit than rational thought—her father had insisted on training her
as a mashatui practitioner all through her childhood—because what
could she possibly do against so many armed men? But a clatter
arose from behind a wall of ruins on a nearby ridge, and all except
one of the brutes turned toward it, their weapons shifting from her
to the noise.

The man who had been tasked with grabbing
her—Striker—didn’t falter. He lunged for her hand, pulling out a
gun as he did so. With the others distracted, Ankari felt more
brazen—less like she would get herself and Lauren in trouble for
defiance—and jumped back. He was as fast as she and might have
caught her wrist, but his toe smacked against a rock. She snatched
up a handful of sand and threw it at his face, then scrambled up
the side of what had once been a small tower.

She glanced back as she went over the top and
into the broken structure. His gun was pointed at her, and he could
have fired, but he grumbled and didn’t. Ankari didn’t question her
luck. She jumped down and squeezed out through a dog-sized opening
on the back side of the tower, trying for silence in the hope that
he would think she was staying inside to hide.

A low wall ran off to either side of the
tower, and she scrambled along the back of it on hands and knees,
trying to avoid his view. If he thought she was running, he should
expect her to go the other way, but she angled back toward the
group. If some trouble came from up on that ridge, and there was a
chance she could use it to her advantage and get Lauren, Ankari had
to try. Not only would she feel horrible about getting Lauren
captured by slavers, especially after talking her into coming out
to help collect samples, but unemployed microbiologists didn’t
wander into her orbit every day, and the business was useless
without one.