Mercenary Instinct (a science fiction romance) (22 page)

The animal noises of the jungle faded until
only the sound of the rain remained, pounding down on the mountain.
Lightning flashed, highlighting the backs of Tick and Viktor.
Lauren and Jamie, too tired to speak, followed behind Ankari, and
Hazel guarded their rear. Because she was right behind the two men,
Ankari heard their murmured conversation.

“Should be a monk up there on night guard
duty.” Viktor pointed to a tower poised on a corner that looked out
over the jungle.

“You been here before, Cap’n?”

“Not this particular temple, but others. Most
are laid out similarly. Similar protocols.”

“Like leaving the front door shut in a
storm?”

“I’m not familiar with that one.”

The road ended at wide steps that climbed
steeply straight up toward the door, which was propped open, with
lanterns mounted on the wall on either side of it. Flame appeared
to burn in the fixtures, fluctuating with the winds beating across
the mountainside, and Ankari wondered if it was truly fire or some
effect achieved with more modern technology. The place
did
look like an ancient habitat that could have predated the colonists
who reached the galaxy fifteen hundred years earlier.

The thick wooden door proved more ajar than
wide open, with a head-sized rock on the ground keeping it from
banging shut. Rifle leading, Viktor stepped inside first. Nobody
shouted or shot, and Tick went after him. Ankari stepped past the
rock, keeping her back to the wall in the small, irregularly shaped
courtyard that opened up. It was more like a walled balcony, rather
than a courtyard, with the cliff rising on two sides and a building
on the third, a simple rectangular structure, though a more
interesting pagoda sat on the next section of the ledge, behind it.
The only entrance to the temple appeared to be in the closest
building.

While the rest of the group funneled in,
Viktor and his tracker trotted around the courtyard, looking for
signs of what, she could only guess. A fight? The flagstone floor
wouldn’t hold footprints.

When Hazel came in, she took up a position
beside the door, so she could watch Viktor but also monitor the
route behind them.

Lauren slumped against the wall, and Jamie
crumpled to the ground beside her. Ankari stood next to them, not
wanting to get in the mercenaries’ way.

“I’m so tired,” Jamie said, keeping her voice
low. “And wet. I really hope we can rest here.”

“Is it horrible that I’m missing the brig on
their ship?” Lauren asked, her eyes closed.

Ankari, taking her cues from the men, didn’t
let herself relax beyond levering the packs off her shoulders. She
wished she still had her pilfered laser pistol. Maybe she should
have put up a fight when Hazel had taken it, arguing that she and
her friends might help if there was another attack.

Viktor and Tick stopped to bend their heads
over something near the front door. There weren’t any lights on in
that first building. Viktor pushed open the front door without
having to turn a knob or latch. It certainly hadn’t been locked.
Maybe the structure had been abandoned.

The two men disappeared inside.

“Someone’s looking for Jarlboro,” Hazel said,
gazing through the gap between the door and the wall.

“What?” Ankari stood on tiptoes to peer over
her shoulder. “Oh.”

The running lights of a ship burned bright
against the dark clouds. They outlined a disk-shaped vessel, one
Ankari had seen before. “That’s the one that was attacking your
ship.”

“Jarlboro’s
Golden Coin
. I wonder
who’s going to inherit it.”

“Someone who plans to take it off to some
planet with tropical islands on white beaches, while ignoring
bounties, I hope.”

Hazel quirked a lip. “I don’t know. Your
bounty would buy a lot of those fancy drinks with umbrellas.” Her
eyes weren’t exactly gleaming with calculation, but she definitely
gave the impression that this scenario pleased her.

“How much of a cut do
you
get?” Ankari
asked, morbidly curious. She remembered Striker talking about his
two percent.

“Two percent, same as most of the senior crew
members.”

“What do the normal crew members get?” Maybe
they would have less incentive to turn her in if they didn’t get a
share.

“Salary and a smaller percentage. There are
over a hundred people in the outfit.”

“How much does the captain get?”

“He’s supposed to get three percent, but I’ve
never seen him buy anything with it except weapons upgrades and new
equipment for the ship. He’ll
probably
be buying a new
shuttle this time.” Hazel slanted her a cool look.

“Some reward.”

“I’ll say, but the man doesn’t even own
furniture. He doesn’t seem inclined to hoard material goods, nor
does he ever talk about buying property and retiring somewhere.”
Hazel’s gaze returned to the sky. “Wherever that might be,” she
whispered, her words clearly only for herself. “I’ve yet to see a
world that can replace home.”

The disk-shaped ship was flying back and
forth over the jungle. Over the crash site, maybe. Walking through
the undergrowth had been disorientating, and Ankari couldn’t be
certain.

“The monks are gone,” Viktor said from behind
her.

Ankari jumped.

“Come in and get dry,” he added, then picked
up the packs before she could, slinging both of them over one
shoulder. He looked like he was thinking of picking up Jamie, too,
but she staggered to her feet with the help of the wall. Lauren
stumbled toward the door, where Tick stood, holding it open.

“Gone?” Hazel asked as the group crossed the
courtyard.

“We didn’t look throughout the whole temple,
but there’s no sign of them in the first three buildings,” Viktor
said.

“Where would they have gone? And why?”

“I think these are the monks who tipped off
Intel to Sisson Hood’s location. They might have feared
retaliation. And if Hood slipped through our people’s fingers,
they’d have a reason to fear it.” Viktor clenched his jaw.

Ankari bet he wished he had been with the
rest of his unit rather than hunting for missing shuttlecraft and
escaped prisoners. She frowned down at the flagstones. Even though
she didn’t regret trying to escape—and she’d have to try again as
soon as her friends were up to it—she did regret... something.
Inconveniencing him maybe. Or that their situations meant it was
never going to make sense for her to kiss him if she wasn’t trying
to steal something at the same time.

She rubbed her eyes, wondering why her
thoughts had gone there. As weary and battered as she was, kissing
should be the last thing on her mind.

“Markovich?” Viktor asked softly.

She was the last one standing outside in the
rain. She shuffled inside, glancing up at his face and finding his
thoughts difficult to guess, though there seemed to be a glumness
about him. Again, she told herself he was tired and she couldn’t
read too much into what she thought she sensed. For all she knew,
he was thinking about his three percent. And new shuttles.

Viktor prowled the halls of the temple,
searching for clues as to where the monks had gone. He had
appointed himself first watch, letting Tick, Hazel, and Ankari’s
group find rooms where they could dry off and get some rest. He had
set sensors and cameras that were linked to his tablet on the walls
and near the doors, so he would know if anyone approached the
temple—or tried to leave. There was food in the kitchen, including
bread that hadn’t gone stale, so the monks hadn’t been gone long.
The living quarters had closets with robes and undergarments, so he
didn’t get the sense that anyone had packed up for an extended
journey. In a big room with a granite Buddha statue sitting
cross-legged on a dais, a few candles were lit. They were fat
candles and could burn a long time, but he figured their presence
meant someone had been here within the last twelve hours.

After his first circuit of the temple, he
checked his tablet—the sensors were set so that nobody approaching
from the outside should notice them—but nothing had changed, so he
allowed himself a moment and walked into the shrine room. His
family and seventy-five percent of the people on Grenavine had
followed Novus Druidism, but there had been a few Buddhist sects on
the planet, so he had been in the temples before. He lit a new
candle and stood in front of it, his head bowed. Perhaps he might
receive some enlightenment if he pondered his problems here,
amongst the faint smell of melted beeswax.

The escaped Sisson Hood was a concern, as was
the missing man he had yet to account for, but the women were
foremost in his thoughts, Ankari in particular. What was he going
to do with them, now that he had this new knowledge, that bounty
hunters and mercenaries might be descending upon him in droves
until he got rid of them? The logical thing to do, for the safety
of his ship and crew, was to take them to Felgard and drop them off
as quickly as possible. But that was no longer the right thing to
do, because he no longer believed they were criminals or that the
bounty on their heads had been righteously placed there.

If he was honest with himself, he hadn’t
believed that since he had seen Ankari using mashatui against
Striker. Honor and integrity were always so closely linked with
that ancient art, with practitioners indoctrinating it in their
students at the same time as they taught the moves. Even if there
had been a doubt, Ankari’s words and actions had further implied
that she wasn’t a criminal. Perhaps not the pickpocketing—he smiled
ruefully—but he accepted her explanation of growing up on the
streets and learning those skills as a matter of survival. And it
made sense that she would use every talent she had in order to
escape from what could only be an unpleasant situation with
Felgard. Perhaps even death if Felgard discovered that their
research wasn’t a solution to whatever problem he sought to solve.
Or even if it
was
the solution. Someone who would set the
galaxy to hunting people for nothing but personal gain—and who had
essentially double-crossed Viktor as well—couldn’t be trusted to
let them walk free once he had what he needed.

No, Viktor no longer wanted to turn Ankari’s
team in.

The problem was that the crew
did
.
Everybody knew about the prisoners and had plans on how to spend
the bonus money. If this were the GalCon Fleet, and those men had
sworn oaths and there were military laws to ensure discipline in
the ranks, he could simply tell them that he had changed his mind,
knowing they couldn’t leave his command short of deserting, a
situation that, as he well knew, came with a lot of baggage. But
mercenaries were fickle men. He could probably explain things to
the old gang from Grenavine, but the rest? He risked losing people
over this, if not starting a mutiny. Not to mention that if he let
the women go and the bounty was still on their heads, he wasn’t
doing them any favors. If his own crew didn’t go after them,
someone else’s would, that was evinced by the risks Jarlboro had
taken in attacking an outfit that was bigger and better armed than
his own.

Viktor looked from the flickering light of
the candle up to the Buddha’s face where it hugged the shadows near
the ceiling. As in every depiction he had ever seen, the statue
emanated calm and serenity. It was strange, he acknowledged, that a
mercenary should look to the Buddha for advice, but he supposed he
hoped some enlightenment might come to him in this place.

It didn’t.

He picked up his tablet to check the sensors,
cycling through the cameras and pausing on the one watching the
hallway to Ankari’s room. Maybe he should talk to
her
. It
wasn’t his way to confide in anyone, some notion that a captain
should be inscrutable and unflappable, he supposed, but perhaps two
could find a solution where one failed.

Viktor left his candle burning and returned
to patrolling the temple. He hadn’t yet solved the mystery of the
missing monks when Tick relieved him from watch duty, but at least
he had an idea of where to start with his other problem.

* * *

Ankari woke up and immediately snuggled
deeper into her blankets, wanting nothing more than to return to
sleep. Darkness lay beyond the small window, and rain pattered on
the tile roof.

A soft knock sounded at the door, and she
blinked blearily in that direction. That must have been what had
woken her to start with. It couldn’t be time to get up yet. She
didn’t want to give up her bed or her blanket. Neither was
luxurious by galactic standards, but after the hard bench in the
Albatross’s
brig, their comfort could not be underrated.
Maybe her caller would go away if she didn’t answer. Except it
might be Jamie or Lauren, wanting to have a meeting to figure out
what they were going to do. As if she knew.

When the knock came again, louder this time,
Ankari reluctantly pushed the blankets from her shoulders. A cool
draft stirred against her legs. She was wearing some monk’s robes,
and there were a lot of air holes. It probably made sense for the
humid climate, but it made her feel a little naked, even if the
flowing garment hid most of her body. Not that it mattered for
Jamie or Lauren. She touched her jumpsuit and undergarments, which
were hanging from hooks to dry, but they remained extremely damp.
She had washed them—and herself—before falling into bed. The temple
didn’t have many modern amenities, but a shower room was
fortunately one of them.

The door opened as she was reaching toward
the knob. The flicker of lantern light brightened the hallway
outside.

“Ankari?” a soft voice asked.

Ankari froze. It was Viktor. And he was using
her first name. She couldn’t imagine what he wanted. No, that
wasn’t true. She could imagine what he might want just fine. But
she didn’t want it. The memory of their kiss flashed into her mind,
countering her thought and heating her body with a flush that
pushed all thoughts of sleep from her mind.