Lana's Comet (Outer Settlement Agency) (2 page)

“It’s okay to do that.” He started to stand but she stopped him with a hand to the shoulder. “Let me clarify. It’s okay to make an ass of yourself. It is not okay to go. I didn’t give you permission to do that.”

Plush, full lips parted in open laughter and something hinted that he didn’t do that very often. “Ask permission?”

“You’ll be denied. You don’t get told what to do, do you?”

“It’s been some time.”

“I see. You like telling people what to do.”

“Don’t over analyze, Doc. It’s my job.”

“Here’s the thing, soldier. I’m about to begin a new phase in my life, one where people will be telling me what to do for a very long time.”

“Unfortunate.”

“Quite. So before that happens, allow me to tell you what to do for just a little longer.” She leaned over close enough for her lips to brush his ear. “Order me a Sladq Surprise.”

When he didn’t turn at her command, heat warmed her face. Ordering a Sladq here was like getting dark rum on Earth. If he didn’t agree to the liquor based aphrodisiac, well, she’d roll out of there, embarrassed as hell and slink on back to the dorms, bottle in hand.

He took his own sweet time to work out what he wanted. She wasn’t looking for anything serious, though she did want to get to know him better. Maybe. Still, Titan was one of those wild moons, the kind suited to her – where women took what they wanted without reservation.

“I’m not built for relationships,” he said after an eternity.

“I didn’t ask for one. Wait whatever. It was good to meet you, Cyprus. I’m going to head back. I hope you have an awesome night and do me one big, huge favor.”

“What’s that?”

“Learn to relax or at least promise you’ll try. Doctor’s orders.”

Cyprus brought her hand to his lips before turning away without a backwards glance.

Humiliation wasn’t the right word. This was something a degree or eight beyond that. Such a word had to exist – she just didn’t know what it was.

Or maybe it hadn’t been invented yet. Possible. Because on the scale of things, this ranked pretty frigging high. Mortification came close...ish.

“Everything okay?” Michi’s flushed faced popped up as she neared the door.

“Fine, but I’m going to head back. I need to get my rest.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I do.”

“I don’t and neither does he,” she said, pointing to the massive man stalking towards them. By the time she turned back, Michi was gone.

“Would you like me to walk you back?”

“Change of heart?”

Cyprus shoved his hands in his pockets and rolled his tongue across his lips. “I like a challenge.”

“Oh, you do?”

“This is me loosening up.”

“Oh, it is?”

“I’m not very good with women?”

“Shocking. Really, I am gobsmacked.”

Cyprus’s chuckle was deep, rich and warming. He threw his arm around her shoulder and she instantly melted against his heat. “Yep and I was thinking – get down!”

She didn’t have much of a choice. He shoved her to the floor. She flipped over in time to dodge a chair sailing overhead while Mr. Serious Soldier popped up swinging. He lunged for the man, wrapped both hands behind his knees and threw him to the floor. Things may have stopped there.

Should have stopped there.

Would have stopped there, if not for the fact that Chair Thrower had minions. Soon, brawlers from all factions filled the floor. Chair throwers, bottle swingers, people launchers and all various groups in between. What happened next was anyone’s guess. Curses were thrown, punches were caught by unsuspecting jaws and omnitablets flashed at the carnage.

Omnitablets? The last thing she needed was to have her picture taken. She ran her hands through her hair, shielding her face on both sides. Half drunk, tail up in the middle of a bar fight isn’t an image she wanted on the screens of every omnitablet in the Quadrant. She tried to scramble to her feet, but Serious Soldier held her down with one hand, while disconnecting a jaw with the other.

“Let me up. I can’t get caught up in this.”

“Me neither.”

They shared a look.

They shared a grin.

They locked hands and took off, ducking as drunken shouts ordered calm to little effect. One thing she could count on, no lunar or planetary sheriffs would be called out. With so many OSA guys involved, no one would want this to go any higher than it already was.

A large, calloused hand tugged and she followed, crying out as a glass of something sticky landed on her chest. She didn’t stop though. Couldn’t. She had a future to protect. They ran to the lift, but the line was long of panicked screamers waiting to get in.

“Stairs,” he shouted.

Countless steps and flights separated them from the safety of the ground floor, but the heady mixture of alcohol, adrenaline and adventure had her legs pumping the whole way down.

Well, maybe not the whole way.

A few flights down, her lungs seized and calf muscles started to quiver. She waved him on, but her soldier didn’t stop. Nope, he tossed her, breathless and giggling over his shoulder and continued their flight to freedom.

A warm night breeze hit her face, but that didn’t signal an end to being carted around. She merely shifted, until she was right side up and cradled against his chest. “Much better view. That cleft chin of yours is definitely working for me.”

“You can thank the scientist who made my grandmother for that.”

“Ugh, that side’s back again? You must be sobering up. I like you better drunk.”

“Maybe you should take me out sometime.”

“I don’t date stuck up guys.”

“I’m working on that, remember?”

It was all the advanced notice he gave her. Next thing she knew, her back was against the side of a building and her chin was being tilted up to his. Lips came next. No, he wasn’t the most graceful kisser, but then he didn’t try to be. He tasted, sampled, sucked and went back for more. Their tongues met in a frenzy of twists and twirls, fighting each other for domination.

This was as much an act of lust as an act of war.

Well, good thing she was OSA...almost. She met his volley head on, doubling down the assault by cupping his very hard butt with one hand and grabbing a fistful of hair with the other. His soft locks presented another surprise, a warm tacky substance. “Bleeding.”

“They have injections for that.”

“Not me. You! Get on your knees. Save the smile. This is serious.” She handed him her omnitablet to use as light while she started her investigations. “Superficial, but it still needs to be cleaned. Hand me the black compartment in my purse and pull out the yellow straw.”

“You keep a medipack in your purse?”

“You never know when you’ll get in a bar fight.”

“Damn, that’s hot.”

“Always prepared for action.” She cringed as soon as she said it. It was one of the oldest Meash Corporation mottos, dating as far back to the first terraforming operations. Cyprus stiffened beneath her fingers. She may as well be working on a statue. Was this idiot actually holding her responsible for something that happened on another planet’s moon before her birth? “I said a Meash slogan. So what?”

“Are you about finished?”

“I have a bioengineered arm, you know.”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what? It’s called conversation.”

“I can think of something else to call it. Does that in any way make you what I am? Or excuse Meash Corp for what they did?”

“Meash technology gave me this arm...the very arm that’s working on your head. Meash technology terraformed this Quadrant, this whole moon that you’re standing on right now. Not all Meash agencies are the same. Some are...worse than others.”

“You sound like someone with experience. What are the bastards up to now?”

“They’re just not all the same. Kinda like some Earthlings, myself included, are better than others. Some Kin, like yourself, are bigger jerks than others.” She threw up her hands and shrugged. “What are ya going to do?”

One side of the full-lipped mouth rose. “I am going to apologize.”

“Sounds rare. Downright mythical.”

“Yes, my family would agree.”

She rocked on her heels and tapped her fingers against crossed forearms. “But that wasn’t an actual apology. I’m still waiting for that.”

“Wow. Okay, I am as sorry as I am grateful. I do mean that. I, hell, um...in a month I’ll be back, when things settle down at work.” He checked his omnitablet and started typing. “I’ll be here at this point at exactly this time, forty two days from now. Will you?”

“Maybe.”

E
verything hurt. Between the drinking and kissing and high-heeled running, her body painfully voiced its displeasure. It was already shaping up to be the worst day of her life and it hadn’t even really started.

“I’m so excited.” Michi jumped around in her white recruit suit and Lana slid back under the covers.

One friggin’ humiliation after the other. While not exactly see-through, they made every dimple, divot and waves-back-at-you pound of flesh annoyingly visible. Unless, of course, you were Michi, nineteen and damn near weightless. “Remind me why I’m doing this again?”

“Because you’re tired of working for the evil corporate machine and you want to work for the soul sucking government.”

“Right. And why are you doing this?”

For the first time since she’d met the girl, Michi’s perpetual smile wavered. “I’m not really sure.” She looked at her, dead on, with not a trace of joy on her face. “What I mean is, I really have no choice. I’ve been to a million OSA retirement parties and a million and one OSA graduations. My whole family is in deep with this.”

“You’re an adult. Think for yourself. Who says you have to do whatever they tell you?”

Michi shrugged and the side of her lip tilted up. “Maybe I should run away and join with an Ert’zod. A whole family of space pirates, five generations—”

“There was an OSA agent in there.”

“Every family has a reprobate.”

“I met him once, Sheriff Retzi.”

“No!”

“Years ago, back when I first started with Meash Two. Older guy, but gorgeous.”

“Better looking than in the pictures?”

“Down, girl. He’s old enough to be your grandfather. To be clear, you’re not
actually
considering a life of crime, are you?”

“A woman can dream. C’mon, we’d better hurry. If we’re late the first day, they’ll kill us. Never give them any reason to make an example out of you – good or bad.”

Though they had time to spare, recruits skidded down the sparkling white halls with omnitablets in hand. Where there’d been laughter and shrieking during the moving in, the clomp of boots on floors greeted her ears.

Blinking arrows signaled where they were meant to go. Every time someone veered off course, a helpful hand from a fellow recruit would pluck him at the collar and signal the correct corridor. She came up on the central gymnasium faster than she expected. Eighty people in one room and not a peep heard.

She and Michi picked two spaces in the back, stood on the outlined footprints and waited for their biochips to be recognized by the system. Blank, silver walls and no windows – they may as well have been in a coffin about to be shuttled out through an airlock. She turned to her roommate, but the girl’s face had gone blank. She stood ramrod straight with her eyes to the front, even if it meant a view of the back of the guy’s head in front of her.

Well, she made one small movement. The fist at Michi’s hip uncurled and her index finger pointed forward.

Right.

She took the correction and adopted Michi’s posture. That didn’t stop her eyes from moving all over the place. Lord, she’d walked into hell.

She took back everything she’d thought about her fellow recruits. Younger? Sure. Smarter? That too. She’d prepared with a few extra trips to the gym, expecting her credentials to carry the weight of her acceptance. But everywhere her gaze landed, she saw clean suits, bobbed hair, planted feet and jaws impossibly clenched. What happened to the annoying kids from a few days ago?

Something changed in the air – like an inaudible hum weaving through the crowd. She stood on the tips of her toes and made out a pop of blond hair walking around the perimeter of bodies. A blue and yellow insignia colored his sleeve. This man would control their OSA future. Police? Military? Central Command? Logistics? It was all up to him.

Save her. No, she was definitely going to medical. All she had to do was get this largely unnecessary qualification program behind her. Then she could get started on her true mission.

The blond moved again, this time along the left side of the formation and closer to where she and Michi stood. She threw back her shoulders and followed Michi’s last second advice of pointing her chin to the back of the head of the person in front of her.

New heat on the side of her face. The man, her new commanding officer, was here. She wanted to move, wanted to turn her face, but kept her eyes forward until the man went away.

*****

U
nfuckingbelievable.

He went out one time – ONE – and managed to run into a trainee. Was this a trick? Something Vin had come up with to throw him off his game? No, not even his brother was that reckless.

But her, as a trainee?

He continued his inspection, walking down the line of would be agents, and scrolled through the list of names on his roster. Every season they had two or three older folks, usually disillusioned Meash workers. When he sorted the data file by age, he found her. High-level physician and brilliant, according to his notes.

Cyprus tried to be clinical about the whole thing, even as his palms went wet. He swallowed past the lump in his throat and walked on, determined to keep his composure.

Had she noticed him?

Sure as shit, she did.

This led to a far greater question. Did she plan this? Not the fight, of course, but she’d been the one with the heavy hand, approaching him at the bar. If she meant to curry favor, the chick had better think again.

A misplaced button caught his eye. He held his omnitablet to the twerp’s arm and waited for the biochip to bring up his name. Cyprus added the misstep to the boy’s permanent file. “Do you not appreciate my uniform, scum?”