Mercenary Instinct (a science fiction romance) (6 page)

Actually, it was possible a bounty hunter
would come in and take him down if Viktor’s people didn’t get there
first. Sturm was also on the way into the core worlds, where the
Albatross
was scheduled for repairs—their last assignment
had been long and bloody and run the ship down as much as the crew.
It would add two weeks to their travel to detour to Felgard’s and
then come back to the moon and the mission. Viktor had promised his
people they would be on leave by then. As he was so often reminded,
these weren’t soldiers in the army, men who had sworn oaths to
serve, protect, and kill in the name of GalCon. They were
mercenaries, and they expected to be paid and allowed to take
regular vacations, as promised in their contract. If the entire
crew was as restless and horny as Striker, he could have people
abandoning the company before long.

“I have other obligations, my lord. And with
all due respect, you won’t receive your prisoners if you’re not
prepared to relinquish payment, whenever I arrive.” Anticipating
Felgard’s irritation, Viktor added a conciliatory, “I’ll see that
my arrival is prompt, however. If it does look like we’re to be
delayed on Sturm, I’ll arrange to have them sent ahead.”

Felgard’s face had grown harder, all trace of
the earlier politeness gone. Viktor expected the lord to come back
with more arguments, but after a pause during which the light
blinked on his spectacles again, Felgard said, “See that your delay
is short, Captain.” Then he cut the communication.

That last blink stayed with Viktor after the
hologram faded from his desk. Maybe it was nothing. But maybe he
needed to make very certain he wasn’t delayed on Sturm. It was true
that Viktor could withhold the prisoners if Felgard tried to
withhold the payment, but the wealthy old entrepreneur had the
power to make life unpleasant for him and his company. He hated the
tap-dancing he had to do when dealing with these lords, but he
ought to be used to it. After all, hadn’t he tap-danced for the
senior officers in the fleet? He might have started his own
company, thinking it would be different if he was calling the
shots, but nothing had really changed. He could plot his own course
now, but the stars were always the same.

Feeling the familiar mix of longing,
frustration, and rage, emotions that often boiled near the surface,
Viktor hit a button. A ceiling panel opened, and a heavy punching
bag dropped down with a clank-thud. He spent the next fifteen
minutes pounding it. It was exercise, but it was a venting of
frustrations too. Better to take his feelings out on an inanimate
object than on his men.

When he was out of breath and bathed with
sweat, he hit the button, storing the bag again. He walked the five
steps to the other side of the sparsely furnished cabin. The lack
of chairs made it seem larger than it was—there were a few katas he
could do on the padded matting when he preferred calmer exercises
than what the bag offered—and didn’t encourage people to stay long
when they visited. He never sat himself, not having the personality
for such inaction, and only laid down for sleep and for time in
sickbay. The clock said it was time for one of those things now. He
couldn’t remember when he had last eaten, so he grabbed a meatloaf
log from the tiny kitchenette built into the wall and pulled out
the blender to make one of his “horrible green drinks,” as the crew
called them. A doctor and old friend had recommended the crushed
ice and vegetable concoctions to him long ago, since he had a habit
of avoiding leafy things at his meals. He always threw in an apple
from his trees, and that made the drink sweet enough to be
palatable.

As he stood at his desk with his meal,
smelling the blossoms on the flowering trees, the memory of the
gardens back home came to mind. Strange. It had been almost ten
years since his world had been destroyed and twenty since he had
walked those flower-, leaf-, and fruit-laden paths. Why think of
them now? Because of the trees? No, they were always in his cabin
and had been for years.

No, he knew the reason. That Markovich woman,
with her lilac and lavender-scented hair, had brought the gardens
to his mind earlier in the night. Viktor wished Felgard had let
something slip about his prisoners, about why he
wanted
them.

On the one hand, he could believe they were
criminals, even if they didn’t seem that polished, because he had
seen all kinds of people break the law, and it wasn’t uncommon for
those who sought to climb into the business world to be the first
to cheat and steal and do whatever they could to reach those lofty
heights. For those who made it all the way, being dubbed lords of
finance, the rewards and privileges were endless. Even those who
simply created a decently profitable business could live a much
nicer life than galactic standards.

On the other hand, that microbiologist was
passionate about her studies—Viktor had skimmed the abstracts of a
few articles related to what she had been blathering about, enough
to know that they were researching in a legitimate field and it
wasn’t all quackery designed to flummox dumb soldiers. Nothing
about her came across as duplicitous. Further, the young
mechanic-turned-engineer had struck him as innocent rather than
conniving. And the leader, Ankari Markovich... she seemed a
schemer, and he could see her as the brains behind a fraudulent
operation, but she had put on a good show when he had shown her the
tablet. If she knew she was a wanted criminal, she had feigned
otherwise convincingly. She had been a lot less convincing when she
had been feigning that she didn’t hate Viktor’s microbe-filled
guts. She might have smiled and been trying to interest him in her
ludicrous upstart—startup, whatever—company, but he’d read the fury
simmering in her eyes. She’d had that look for him since she
realized he was responsible for destroying her ship. He recalled
her eyes
before
she had realized that, when she had been
waking from her concussion and blinking up at him without artifice
or anger. Bedroom eyes. That was what they called it. She had
those. And she also had those nice curves that had been pressed
against him.

Viktor snorted at himself. Striker wasn’t the
only horny one around; that was a certainty.

Even allowing that he was attracted to the
woman, he couldn’t quite pin down why he found himself wanting to
go down to the brig to talk to her. He wasn’t intrigued by her
business, but he wanted to know more about her and what she had
done to irk Felgard. He had a fondness for people with the balls to
stick it to those megalomaniacal finance coots. Which probably
meant he
shouldn’t
go down to talk to her, or have anything
to do with her. The last thing he needed was to develop an
attachment for someone he was going to hand over to a man who might
shoot her once he got her.

Besides, Striker was already down there,
talking to the women. Viktor snorted again and took his dishes to
the cleaner. He ought to get the security feed later to watch that.
In part to make sure Striker didn’t violate his orders, and in part
to see how entertaining his rejection was.

In the meantime, he lay down on his bed,
thinking thoughts of lavender and lilac... and a home that was no
more.

Ankari woke up when the lights, which had
been dimmed for the night cycle, powered up to full strength.
Striker was back, standing on the other side of the force field and
staring at her. At Jamie, actually. It was creepy. How long had he
been there?

A pair of boots was visible on the desk at
the other end of the hall. Ankari found that reassuring, though she
didn’t know if she should. The crew might look the other way as
this Striker dragged a prisoner off to his cave for unspeakable
torments.

“You rethink my offer?” Ankari sat up. She
and Jamie had been sleeping on the floor, while Lauren took the
bench. Every surface in the cell was equally hard.

“Nah,” Striker said, “but the captain said we
could have sex.”

“Uh, what?”

Jamie was awake now, too, and hadn’t missed
the fact that the big brute was looking at her as he spoke. She
pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her
legs. With her eyes wide, glancing back and forth between Striker
and Ankari, Jamie appeared young and vulnerable. Ankari had been
anything but young at twenty, but when Jamie had spoken of the
small rural community she had grown up in and the strict father who
had shooed away boys, Ankari had gotten the impression that she
might still be a virgin without a birth-control implant or
anything. Not that anyone of any sexual experience couldn’t be
alarmed by Striker’s words.

“He said we could get horizontal if you
agreed to it.” Striker grinned. “Or vertical. I’m easy.”

That much was obvious. That the captain had
deemed it appropriate to let this thug wander down here and
proposition them gave Ankari one more reason to want to clobber
him. Still, this could turn out to be an opportunity.

“Who exactly are you propositioning?” she
asked.

“That one.” Striker pointed at Jamie, who
squeezed herself into a tighter ball. “But I’d poke any of you.” He
looked at Ankari’s chest, making her glad she wasn’t wearing
anything revealing. His pleased smile had all the charm of an
auto-tram barreling down the mountain at a woman tied to the
tracks.

“How magnanimous.” Ankari touched the
cylindrical lump inside her jumpsuit pocket. She hadn’t decoded all
of the options inside the syringe tool—the display showed the full
medical names rather than ones a layman might know—but she had
recognized a sedative. She had risked showing Lauren, for
verification, though she had been worried about the camera picking
up the tool.

“Who’s interested?” Striker puffed out his
chest. “I’m good at my job,
all
of my jobs, if you catch my
meaning.”

“Shocking,” Lauren muttered, her eye
lingering on Ankari’s pocket.

The real shock would be if this idiot had
ever convinced a woman to sleep with him without paying her. A
lot.

“No, thank you,” Jamie said politely. The
wariness hadn’t faded from her eyes. She must wonder, as Ankari
did, if the thug would take no for an answer.

Striker’s face remained unperturbed, or maybe
optimistic was the word, for he merely turned toward Ankari. “What
about you?”

“Where would we do it?” Ankari asked. “Do you
have a private cabin?” She gave the boots on the desk a significant
look. She couldn’t see around the corner to see the rest of the
security man’s face, but he had to be entertained by this
conversation.

“I
do
have a private cabin. I’m a
senior sergeant, been here since the beginning, you know. Got all
kinds of perks. But the captain said we’d have to do it in here.”
Striker tapped his fingers on the wall beside the door pad. “Shall
I come in?”

If he’d still been wearing the bandolier of
grenades, Ankari might have been tempted—surely the three of them
could have overpowered him, grabbed a few, and made a stand—but
blowing up the brig wasn’t what she wanted. She needed a chance to
roam free for an hour or two and find the ship’s library—if a
mercenary ship had such a thing—or someplace quiet to access the
net. She needed to get Fumio researching for her and to learn more
about Lord Felgard. She’d heard the name before, but had no idea
why he might be after her team. All she could think was that this
might somehow be related to their company, but they hadn’t set up a
clinic yet or taken on any clients. How could he have even heard of
their business? Aside from that handful of meetings Ankari had
arranged, they hadn’t told anyone what they were doing.

“Look, I might be interested,” Ankari said,
“especially if you might be willing to put in a word to the captain
on our behalf and perhaps get our samples and equipment returned to
us...” That ought to add a little verisimilitude. As dumb as
Striker seemed to be, he would probably be suspicious if one of
them jumped at a chance to ride his... poker. “But, I’m afraid I
prefer privacy for sensuous matters.”

“I can make it dark.” Striker thumbed a
panel, and the lights dimmed, then went up again. “And your friends
can turn their backs.”

Gee, how private. “Sorry, big fellow. I need
to be in the mood too. Privacy, romantic music, and a strapping
gentleman with a nice muscular chest.”

Striker’s brow had been furrowed, but it
smoothed at this. “I have a nice muscular chest.”

“I’m sure you do. And if we go up to your
cabin, you can show it off to me.”

“And you’ll show off your chest to me.”

“That’s generally how these things work.”
Ankari did her best to give him a flirtatious smile. No one had
ever accused her of being a great actress, but he wasn’t the most
perceptive audience, either.

“But the captain said...” Striker chewed on
the side of his lip. “Maybe we could...” He glanced back at the
boots. “I mean, of course we could. I’m a trusted part of this
crew. I can take a prisoner out if I want. Not like you’re going to
get away from me and run off.” He gave her a dismissive sniff.

Whatever got him to let her out of the
cell.

“Ankari,” Jamie whispered, “you shouldn’t...
I mean, you can’t really be thinking...?

Either Jamie hadn’t seen Ankari pickpocket
the tool, or she had little faith in her ability to use it on
Muscles over there. Or maybe she was playing along, making this all
seem more realistic to Striker.

“Aw, there’s nothing wrong with me. I’ll be
nice. Unless you don’t like nice.” Striker grinned. “I’ll even show
you my comics.”

“Er, how can a girl say no to that?” Ankari
asked.

“You can’t. You already agreed.” His
triumphant smile made her nervous. If this didn’t work and she
wasn’t able to sedate him, she had a feeling he wasn’t going to let
her change her mind later. Not easily anyway. She tried to draw
some strength from the fact that she’d had years of her father’s
training and had used it on the streets a few times. But this
wasn’t some brute from one of the roving gangs; he was a trained
soldier. He would have seen unarmed combat in all its variants at
some point in his career, and he would have an answer for her
attack unless she caught him off guard.