Mercenary Instinct (a science fiction romance) (25 page)

The smell of blood reached his nostrils—they
must have rolled close to that pool beneath the window—and it
incensed Viktor. He roared and tore through the man’s last
defenses, finding his skull with both hands. With adrenaline
surging into his muscles, Viktor gave a great twist. Bone crunched,
and a shudder coursed through his foe’s body.

A soft clunk came from above him. Viktor
reared back from the fallen man, yanking another knife free, ready
for another opponent. But it was Sergeant Hazel, crawling through
the window, coming in from outside. Where had she been? Up on the
roof? The windows looked out over the cliff. She landed on the
floor with a grunt.

“What happened?” Viktor wanted to interrogate
her about Ankari and the others, but noticing the way she strained
to sit up and lean against the wall, grabbing her shoulder, he
rushed to her side, bumping something with his foot. The lamp. It
skidded and hit the base of the wall. “Are you all right, Hazel?
Are there more men?”

“Not out there,” she said. “That’s why we
went.”

Another person slid through the window and
landed on the floor, robes swirling at her feet.

Viktor was fairly certain it was Ankari—her
movements were much more lithe and athletic than those of her
friends—but he turned on the lamp and stuck it on the desk before
going to her. She was busy helping someone else inside, anyway, the
engineer.

Sergeant Hazel held up the hand she had been
clutching her shoulder with, and blood dripped from her fingers. “I
could use some first aid, sir. A glug of whiskey, too, maybe.”

“I can find at least one of those things, if
our attackers are all down. Two men, is that all you saw?”

“I only saw one,” Hazel said. “The one who
threw a knife in my shoulder. Tick jumped him, and then I think one
more came after him. Do you know if he’s...” She looked toward the
door. “I wasn’t sure whether to help him or guard the prisoners.
Since I was injured, I thought I’d at least get them somewhere
safe—” Her gaze shifted to the window. “Safe-ish, then come
back.”

“Tick is alive.” When the microbiologist
appeared in the window, Viktor added, “Looks like we all are.” He
met Ankari’s eyes, wanting to rush over and give her a hug, but she
didn’t appear injured, or even all that rattled—what was a climb on
a roof after all they had endured that night?—and he had to make
sure his soldiers were taken care of first.

“We need to get them dropped off at Felgard’s
as soon as possible, sir,” Hazel added, bending over and clasping
her hand to her shoulder again. “Our company can’t survive all
these attacks indefinitely.”

“We’ll figure it out.” Viktor gave Ankari a
nod before leaving to check on Tick and find the first-aid kit,
wanting to make sure she knew he had spoken truthfully to her and
still meant to find a way to help her with Felgard, not simply turn
her in.

She nodded back, her expression wry but not
afraid or displeased.

After digging into his gear and pulling out
bandages, a scanner, and a medical repair device, Viktor went first
to Tick, since he had no idea what his injury was—for all Viktor
knew his back could be broken. While he was checking his old
friend, Hazel’s voice drifted out of the other room, a weird note
in it, “Sir?”

Viktor tensed, expecting more trouble.
“What?”

“You got a picture of what Sisson Hood looks
like?”

“There’s one on my tablet.”

“Because I think you may have just killed
him.”

Huh. “I suppose that would explain why
Striker and the rest of the team didn’t find him in his hideout.”
And why these men were running around in hoods.

“Abandoning his people for a more lucrative
prize?” Hazel asked. “Not particularly true to the legend.”

After identifying a concussion—and a
fist-sized lump on Tick’s head—Viktor left the repair device
fastened to Tick’s skull, so it could work, then toted the rest of
the gear into the room, pausing only long enough to tug the hood
off the other fellow crumpled in the hall. He was dead—a laser shot
had burned off half his throat—but his face was still identifiable,
and Viktor thought he was familiar too. He would have to check the
database of wanted posters.

“At least we’ll be paid well for this
diversion,” Viktor said, stepping into the room to help Hazel, who
had lain down on the bed.

“That is good.” Hazel closed her eyes. “I’m
more than ready for shore leave. A nice one. Not a few nights at
some dented tin can of a town with more gambling halls than
restaurants.”

“Most of the men
like
those
places.”

Hazel mumbled something unintelligible.
Viktor unrolled the bandages to dress her wound while he waited for
the repair device to finish on Tick. There was a lot of blood loss,
and he’d need more supplies from the others’ first-aid kits—but
this would be a stopgap.

“Need any help?” Ankari asked, sitting on the
end of the bed. Her monk robes were almost as wet and grimy as her
other clothing had been, and a fresh smear of dirt smudged her
cheek. It was hard to stay clean when one had a bounty on one’s
head.

Viktor nodded. “Apply pressure here,
please.”

Hazel’s eyes opened. “Sir? Did you just say
please
?”

“Yes.”

Hazel’s gaze flickered back and forth between
Viktor and Ankari. He didn’t think he was giving moon eyes to
Ankari or doing anything that would suggest they had spent time
together in a non-platonic-prisoner-captor sort of way, but Hazel
sighed and shook her head.

“We’re not going to get that two hundred
thousand, are we, sir?”

Ankari’s brows rose.

Viktor didn’t have a good answer, so he
didn’t respond. He gave Hazel a sedative. That probably wouldn’t
work for the rest of the crew. Oh, well. He would figure out
something.

* * *

Sleep was elusive after the attack. Ankari
kept trying to think of what she might offer Viktor—more
importantly, his
crew
—that could mitigate the loss they
would feel if two hundred thousand aurums didn’t flow into the
company’s coffers. She had this vague notion that she might
hire
the company, but she wasn’t exactly rolling in gold
nuggets at the moment and none of the mercenaries had been
intrigued by the idea of a share of her “pre-revenue” business yet.
Still, now that she knew about that free publicity she was getting
from Lauren’s article, they might be able to make some money based
on current acceptable practices. The reproduction of the complete
alien microbiome was years out, but they could certainly perform
already established medical procedures and improve the health of
individuals plagued with persistent diseases and infections. She
could vouch for the efficacy of that herself.

Ankari shifted her weight, the hard stone of
the floor digging through the blanket she was resting on. Lauren
and Jamie were next to her, having no trouble snoring. Sergeant
Hazel was sleeping on the bed, and Tick was recovering in the
chair. Not, he assured them, sleeping, though his head kept listing
to the side, until he twitched alert again, his eyelids leaping
open. His gum fell out during one of these episodes. He didn’t
notice.

Viktor was sitting on the floor near the
door, his eyes closed, his rifle in his lap and his tablet at his
side. One lid peeled open every few minutes to check the alarms, so
Ankari didn’t think he was sleeping. If they had been alone, she
might have crawled over and snuggled against his side. Or in his
lap, though she would have had to compete with the rifle.

There were rooms and beds enough for
everyone, but nobody had suggested they split up again. If more
attackers came, Viktor was the only one still largely uninjured and
capable of fighting at full capacity. Though even he must be tired
by now. When his sensors chimed, he rose without a word and walked
out of the room. Tick’s head jerked up, and he smacked his lips a
few times, yawned, then grabbed his rifle and left too.

Viktor hadn’t seemed all that alarmed. Ankari
hoped that meant he recognized whoever had shown up on the camera.
Maybe his shuttle was circling and looking for a place to land.

Since she wasn’t sleeping anyway, she left
the room and padded after the two men, the stone floor cool against
her bare feet. The warmth of the thick air kept it from feeling
unpleasant, but she hoped her socks and underwear would be dry
before it was time to leave.

Voices came from a chamber ahead. Were
Viktor’s men already inside? Ankari stopped at the mouth of the
hallway, expecting to see people wearing jackets with Mandrake
Company patches. Instead, a file of at least twenty men and women
in monks’ robes shuffled through the room, heading for other
hallways.

A lean, brown-skinned man in his sixties or
seventies had stopped to talk with Viktor and Tick. He had wispy
white hair that stuck out in tufts, and he might have appeared
reverent and wise, if not for the tattoo collection peeking out
from underneath the rolled sleeves of his robe. Some of them
depicted images more lurid than anything Ankari and Viktor had been
doing the night before. She gaped at a pair of men performing
erotically—and acrobatically—with a woman on her hands and knees
and wondered if: a) that was illustrating consensual sex; and b)
exactly what kind of temple this was. True, the tattoos were old
and faded, perhaps from a long-forgotten and much rougher time in
the man’s life, but there were ink removal procedures one could
pursue...

“...of course we seek to avoid violence and
the taking of life whenever possible,” the tattooed monk was
telling Viktor, “but I do appreciate you ridding our moon and our
temple of that murdering, raping, con artist, Willow. I was very
tempted to return to my more belligerent ways in regard to him, but
apparently I am not the—what was it Xueqin called me?—the
ass-kicking, kill-happy bastard I once was.”

Ankari blinked, trying to imagine the spindly
man happily killing much of anything, and she was also confused as
to who Willow was. Hadn’t that been Sisson Hood that Viktor had
taken down? Maybe the other man had also been some infamous
villain, though that name hardly sounded like something that would
drive fear into enemies.

“It should not please me to see mutilated
corpses in the trash heap,” the monk continued, “but there is a
certain satisfaction in knowing a villain’s crimes will not
continue.”

“They weren’t mutilated,” Viktor said. “Just
dispatched.”

“Yours was mutilated a bit, Cap’n,” Tick said
helpfully.

“His neck was broken.”

“That’ll mutilate a man.”

“Just because you shot yours...”

The monk smiled cheerfully during this
conversation. Ankari wondered if she should walk out and join the
men instead of eavesdropping from the shadows.

“I do appreciate you cleaning up the blood
and moving the bodies, however mutilated, out of the temple,
Willow,” the monk said. “Some of the younger inhabitants who were
born into this way of life are disturbed by such
unpleasantries.”

“How odd,” Tick said. “Cap’n, you know your
prisoner is spying on us, right?”

“Yes.”

Ankari flushed as all three men rotated to
face her.

“Maybe you should punish her,” Tick said,
smirking.

Ankari wasn’t sure if that was an inside joke
or an innuendo or what. The tracker didn’t sound serious, and
Viktor only snorted.

“I was just wondering who Willow was,” Ankari
said. When in doubt, deflect the attention off to someone else.

Tick’s smirk deepened. “Right, who’s that
Willow fellow? Going to share that with her, Cap’n?”

“No. Tick, it’s dawn. Get on the comm with
the ship and make sure someone is coming to get us. Ling, have we
earned some breakfast?”

“Yes, of course. All we have to offer is
yours.”

“So rice and vegetables?” Viktor asked.

“Fruit also.”

Tick elbowed Viktor. “You can mash it all up
in one of your drinks.”

“Wonderful. Ankari, breakfast?”

Tick’s brows rose, but he walked off to do
Viktor’s bidding without comment.

“I believe you are already familiar with the
temple, but the kitchen may be found in that direction.” The monk
extended his arm. The motion made the bodies in the erotic tattoo
wiggle. “I must contact the government and inform them that Sisson
Hood and his bandits are no more.” He inclined his head toward
Viktor, then walked in another direction.

“Do your friends want to eat?” Viktor asked
Ankari.

“They were sleeping when I left. I’m inclined
to let them rest. I can bring them something.” Besides, she was
more interested in the conversation she might have with Viktor in
private. Presumably, he didn’t have sex on the mind if he was
leading her to a cafeteria, but that was fine. She needed to run
her ideas by him. “I’ve been thinking about a solution to your
problem.” It seemed presumptuous to call it
their
problem,
even though he had stated an interest in working together to deal
with Felgard.

Viktor gave her a sidelong look as they
walked down the hallway the monk had indicated. “It’s only been
three hours since I mentioned that problem. You were busy climbing
on the roof during one of those hours. And climbing on... something
else during another.” His eyes glinted.

Since a pair of monks was walking out of the
dining room doorway as they entered, Ankari kept her grin sly and
secret, but seeing that humor on his face warmed her heart. And
other things, as well. “Which left me another hour for
mulling.”

“All right. Tell me in a minute.” Viktor
waved her to a table, then disappeared into a small kitchen.

None of the monks was having breakfast yet,
so she didn’t know what he would find back there. Ankari sat down
on a bench at the rectangular table, leaving it up to him whether
to sit across from her or next to her. He returned soon with cups
of coffee and two bowls of instant oatmeal. He considered his
seating options, then leaned his hip against the end of the table.
Ah, right. The standing habit. One that left her staring at his
crotch. Hm.