Mercenary Instinct (a science fiction romance) (13 page)

His comm chimed.

No.

Blast all the suns in the galaxy, who was
bugging him
now
? Viktor wanted to ignore it, wanted to have
this moment—this
hour
—but some plucky young soldier would be
sent to find him if he didn’t respond.

“What?” he growled, hoping the sound of his
displeasure would drive whatever bridge minion was contacting him
to make it a
short
message. Ankari’s mouth had found his own
neck now, and his trousers were sagging from his hips, her hands
pushing them lower. All he wanted was—

“It’s Striker, sir. We have a problem.”

It was his team down on the planet, not
someone on the bridge. They wouldn’t have been patched through to
him directly if it wasn’t important. Viktor released Ankari’s
shoulders, pressed his hands against the wall behind her, and
struggled to focus on something else besides unleashing the cannon.
That was hard when her face was still buried in his neck, her
tongue tracing interesting patterns there, her teeth occasionally
coming out for a nip.

“What is it?” Viktor asked, hoping his voice
didn’t sound as husky to his soldier as it did to him.

“Tank and Rawlings are missing. And... so is
the shuttle.”

“
What
?”

“They were on guard back at the shuttle while
the rest of us were searching the forest. It’s real thick and
jungley down here, so the sensors don’t work very good. But we
captured two of Sisson Hood’s scouts, questioned them, and found
his camp. We were coming back to the shuttle to tell you to bring
everyone down for the invasion, but all that’s left are some laser
scorch marks on the ground and some charred up trees. It’s hard to
believe any local thugs could have taken down our men, but...
there’s nothing left here. Just some smoking wood. We’re lucky we
had all our field gear with us. I’m calling on the sat-comm. I
already talked to Commander Garland about tracking the shuttle, but
the chip was either removed or damaged. According to the bridge,
the whole craft has just disappeared.”

Ankari had stopped nibbling, pulling back to
listen and watch his... collarbone. It was good that she had
stopped distracting him, he supposed, but the faintly stunned
what-was-I-thinking expression that replaced the passionate one of
moments before was less good. He kept himself from delivering a
promise of “later,” not certain if she would be excited by that or
not.

“We could use some backup, sir,” Striker went
on. “Since we took those two scouts, Hood’s going to realize he has
missing men sooner or later. And then there’s our own missing
men.”

“I’ll get Thomlin on research and get the
rest of the strike team and come down,” Viktor said. He shook his
head, berating himself for not warning everyone about that bounty
hunter. But Goshawk didn’t have a very big crew. It would be
surprising if he was behind this. Maybe there were others. That was
an alarming thought. A whole legion of bounty hunters sent out here
to retrieve...

He looked down at Ankari, but her chin had
drooped to her chest, and she was avoiding his eyes. He stepped
back from her, though he couldn’t resist brushing his fingers
against her soft hair as he did so.

“Thomlin,” he called into his comm. “We need
to have a talk. I need some intel, and I need it fast. We need to
finish up and get to Felgard’s without delays.” He looked at
Ankari, wondering if he should warn her that there were more
parties looking for her, but there wasn’t time. Striker was right;
he needed to get down there with a team immediately. “Send Cutty to
the mess hall for... the prisoner too.” He hated calling her “the
prisoner,” especially when he had been so close to turning her into
his lover, and when he was doubting more than ever whether she
truly deserved to be anyone’s prisoner.

Not surprisingly, her mouth hardened and some
of the anger returned to her eyes at the words. Damn. He would try
to make it up to her later. Somehow.

Ankari followed the yawning, glaring, and
sighing Corporal Cutty through the corridors without thought of
escape this time. She was too busy running that strange dinner
meeting through her mind over and over again, trying to figure out
what that kiss—
more
than a kiss, she admitted, with a hot
flush swallowing her anew at the memory—had meant and why the
captain—
Viktor
, he’d said to call him—had been asking all of
those questions about her past.

Was it possible he had started to believe her
at some point and had been trying to figure out if she was indeed a
legitimate entrepreneur and not some sleazy villain? As much as she
would like to believe that, she doubted he could be thinking along
those lines when she had been pickpocketing, conniving, and
seducing his crew since she arrived. Well, she hadn’t exactly
seduced Striker, but Viktor might think she had been trying to
seduce him, especially since her hands had started wandering around
of their own accord, and she had been about to do a lot more than
the kiss that she’d originally had in mind to distract him. Good,
law-abiding citizens doubtlessly weren’t supposed to resort to such
tactics. But it wasn’t her fault she had been kidnapped. And she
needed to escape. Especially with him in such a hurry to finish his
mission here and tote her off to Felgard.

That had stung when he had told his man he
wanted to get to the finance lord as quickly as possible. When just
the moment before, he had been kissing her and acting like he
cared. Why had he told her about Grenavine, leaving her to assume
that he, like her father, had lost
everything—
everyone
—there? To win sympathy? Why? It wasn’t
as if she had been balking at his touch. She had been trying to
keep him from brushing against her pocket, yes, but she had been
all over him too. And the pocket... it hadn’t even mattered. He’d
known! Had he known all along? Made out the shape of the tablet in
her pocket in the gym? All night, she had been so afraid he would
figure it out, and he had known. And he hadn’t even cared. That was
the confusing part. If he wanted nothing more than to reach Felgard
and collect his money, why give them back the research equipment
and why let her have the tablet? Why give her access to all the
information she sought? He must not be thinking that she could
learn what she needed to escape, but why bother giving her anything
at all?

Cutty stopped to talk to someone at the
bottom of a ladder. Men in helmets and battle armor were running
through the corridors, gear and guns in their hands. They must all
be going to join that assault team, to get their men back, and to
do whatever they had to do on that moon. And get paid to do it.

They were, after all, mercenaries. Men who
were paid to fight. Men for whom money mattered more than
allegiance to any particular nation or idea. Ankari reminded
herself that the captain was one of these people too. Whatever he’d
been in the past, he was fighting for pay now. Presumably the more
pay, the better. Maybe that was why he was letting her team
continue with their research. He thought he could cash in somehow
on the work they left behind, or maybe he thought he could get
copies of everything before handing them over to Felgard. Even if
Dr. Zimonjic had scoffed at Lauren’s ideas, that didn’t mean
someone wouldn’t pay a lot for the research they had done.

Yes, that had to be why he was doing more
than keeping them locked up with nothing to work on. And maybe that
was why he had been asking about her businesses too. Trying to
figure out what she might be worth and if he could get even more
out of the deal than what Felgard was offering. And if he could get
in her pants along the way, even better, right? She might have
initiated that kiss, but he had been eager enough to return it.
That shouldn’t have surprised her, but it had. And it had excited
her too. She had lost control—and at one point, almost forgotten
her goal entirely. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been
so engrossed in anyone.

She rubbed her face—it was still hot and
flushed from their kissing. Her whole body was. She hadn’t even
realized she was that attracted to him until all that lean, hard
muscle had been molded against her body, his hands rubbing and
teasing her, his lips scorching her flesh wherever they touched,
making her insides heat up like a sun until she was throbbing with
the need to get even closer, to wrap her legs around him, to feel
him inside of her, to ride him like a Goran dragon.

“Come on, woman,” Cutty said, grabbing her
arm. “They’re going to need me on that mission, and I’m not missing
the shuttle down because you’re dawdling.”

Dawdling? He was the one who had stopped to
chat. She had just been... entertaining herself with her memories.
Damn, she might still hate Viktor for blowing up her ship and
trying to drag her off to her death, but she would be ridiculously
disappointed if they never got to finish what they had started.

Not here though. Not on his ship. She had to
escape. Maybe she could look him up once she had cleared her name
and dealt with Felgard. She would wait until she was filthy rich
from her business success, and then maybe she would call him up,
offering to hire him to be her escort. She snorted. Would a
mercenary ever get into the gigolo business? It would be a lot
safer than getting shot at. Maybe she should ask Cutty if he had
ever considered the line of work.

He palmed open the force field and shoved her
inside without waiting for her to walk in of her own accord. No,
she wouldn’t ask him about gigolo activities.

He slapped the force field closed again, then
ran off without a word.

“Looks like we’re not going to have a guard
tonight,” Ankari mused. If they were going to get off this ship,
this would be their best opportunity.

The lights hadn’t been dimmed, and Lauren and
Jamie had been lying on the floor, with their arms flung over their
eyes, but they sat up now.

“Are you all right?” Jamie asked. “You were
gone a long time.”

“I’m fine.” Ankari pulled out the tablet and
tossed it to her. “I’m hoping we can escape soon, so find that
technical manual and start speed reading, please.”

“Oh. Good.”

Ankari wanted to check to see if her friend
had mailed her back, too, but figuring out how to pilot one of
those shuttles had to be the priority at the moment.

“Ankari...?” Lauren was scrutinizing her.

“Yes?”

“You look like you’ve been kissed hard and
dropped off before you were ready to go home.”

“I—what?”
Did
she? Ankari hadn’t had
time to do much more than zip up her jumpsuit before that prompt
corporal had shown up. Her hair had been a mess to start with, and
she hadn’t been wearing any makeup that could have smeared. Viktor
hadn’t left bite marks anywhere, had he? She remembered nibbling on
him
...

“Girls can tell,” Lauren said, further
shocking Ankari because Lauren had always seemed oblivious to
people’s relationships.

“Who
was
it?” Jamie asked. “The
captain? Is he falling for you? Is he going to help us?”

“Not exactly.” Ankari recovered her
equilibrium, glanced back to make sure nobody had popped up at the
security desk, then pulled the electronic handcuff key out of her
pocket. “I’m not sure he’ll be talking to me again when next we
meet.”

Viktor might have forbidden her to take it,
but it had been so easy when he had been pulling her jumpsuit off.
With luck, he would be too distracted by his mission to think to
check for it. Maybe he would even change into some of that battle
gear and leave his trousers on the ship, so he couldn’t check for
it until he returned. At which point, Ankari and the others could
be long gone.
If
they could get out of the brig.

“Is that a key?” Jamie waved at the force
field. “Will it get us out of here?”

“No, but I’m pretty sure it’s tied in with
the doors around the ship. They all have little sensors for
something besides a palm print. Lauren, any progress with that
generator?”

“Not yet, but we had a guard on duty until a
few minutes ago, so I couldn’t fiddle with it too much. I’m not
that optimistic about it shorting out the force field anyway.”

“Try anyway, please.” Ankari sat on the bench
to think about backup plans if the generator didn’t work. That was
what she intended to do anyway, but her mind kept betraying her,
wandering back to her evening with Viktor. From that brief dialogue
she had heard, it had been clear his mission had gone to hell.
Would he be in danger down there? She’d witnessed his impressive
hand-to-hand combat skills, but how useful would they be in some
jungle with laser fire streaking all over the place? And when had
his safety started to matter to her?

* * *

The humidity dripped from the leaves and
fronds, the canopy overhead so dense that Viktor wouldn’t have been
able to see the sky if his team hadn’t landed in a clearing by a
stream. A few mossy ruins surrounded an old cement slab, almost
invisible because of the grass and weeds spurting from the cracks.
The structures were all that remained of what had likely been a
logging pickup zone once. The jungle hadn’t quite taken all of the
area back, but in a few years, the ruins would be impossible to
find. For now, Viktor had a view of the black clouds blotting out
the stars and Drang, the sister moon. One of the storms, for which
the moon was known, was heading in. The thick air crackled with
static longing to be unleashed, and the wind had already picked up
in the five minutes he had been on the ground.

“Because this night needs to get more
complicated,” he muttered.

“Sir?” Sergeant Hazel stood a few feet away,
decked out in battle armor and watching his back.

Viktor examined the scorch marks on the tree
he was standing next to, his Eytect sensor tugged into place to
give him night vision for his left eye along with local weather
conditions—as if he couldn’t tell a storm was coming. The tree’s
papery bark had been scored by laser fire, parallel lines.
“Double-barreled blaster,” he said. “MK-45 or 48.”