Mercenary Instinct (a science fiction romance) (15 page)

“Commander Thatcher,” he called to the
shuttle next door. “Are you there?”

“Of course, sir,” came the prompt reply.

“Lieutenant Sequoia is lamenting how little
he has to do over here. Would you mind running through some
navigational math problems with him? To help him stay alert.”

Sequoia’s mouth sagged open, an expression of
horror forming on his face.

“
Certainly
, sir. Given the potential
fluctuations in the ionosphere from the coming storm, it would be
an apt time to review linear equations useful for navigating
magnetic fields. Lieutenant, shall we begin with a discussion of
the Lorentz force?”

Viktor smiled, as much at the enthusiasm in
Thatcher’s voice as at the look of betrayal Sequoia launched at
him. “Not a good idea to call your captain a grouch,” he said and
jogged outside, trusting he wouldn’t find boots on the console
again anytime soon.

Hazel was waiting, stoic in the face of giant
raindrops splashing onto the cement landing pad around her. There
were already impressive puddles. Viktor was tempted to forget the
prints and go help the rest of the team, so the company could
complete its core mission more quickly, but the storm would wash
those tracks away before long. “We’re going to follow them for a
couple of miles, see if we find anything useful, and if not, we’ll
cut over and join the others.”

“Yes, sir.”

Viktor eyed the ever-darkening clouds. He
hoped the storm—and the communications—would improve soon, but he
wasn’t counting on it.

Zzzzpt.

The hair on the back of Ankari’s neck stood
up, but the force field didn’t flicker, or show any sign of
disturbance at all.

Lauren sighed. “It’s not fair to hire a
microbiologist and then expect her to blast her way out of
spaceships. I didn’t study that in school.”

“Technically, I didn’t hire you,” Ankari
said. “I offered you a share of the company.”

“What’s the difference?”

“You get paid less and you’re expected to do
more.”

“I knew I should have read the fine print on
that contract.”

“But,” Ankari said, lifting her hand into the
air grandiosely, “when we get bought out or make an IPO on the
galactic stock exchange, you’ll become a very rich woman.” She
caught a whiff of her armpit while it was up there next to her nose
and grimaced. “I need a shower.” She wondered if Viktor had
noticed. He was used to running around with sweaty soldiers. Maybe
she had been an improvement, even with her
three-days-since-the-last-washing fragrance.

“A cold one?” Jamie asked. “Because of your
need to cool down after your steamy kissing with the captain?” The
girl was decidedly intrigued by Ankari’s evening dalliance.

“No, I’ve recovered from that. I just want to
wash myself for hygienic reasons.” And so she would smell better
the next time she was entangled with someone. “How’s the research
going?” Ankari pointed at the tablet. “Can you fly the shuttle
yet?”

Jamie prodded the display dubiously. “Fly it?
I think so. As long as a lot of difficulties don’t come up.”

“I notice she didn’t say anything about
landing it.” Lauren pulled open the side of the compact generator.
“Ugh. So many circuits.” Strange that she wasn’t daunted by things
with trillions of cells, but a few colored wires could make her
cringe.

“Let me see if I can help.” Jamie scooted
onto the floor next to her.

Ankari grabbed the tablet. She had been
tapping her feet, eager for her turn so she could see if Fumio had
responded to her mail. When she logged into her account, the lack
of new messages made her slump back against the wall. It had been
twenty-four hours since she mailed him. She couldn’t believe he
hadn’t responded; he never checked out of the virtual world. It was
odd that she didn’t have any other messages, either. At the very
least, some greedy finance outfit or another usually sent daily
offers for lines of credit with exorbitant interest rates for her
various businesses.

Ah, but wait. The messages were starting to
trickle in now. That was more lag than usual. Odd.

She tapped on Fumio’s name, and his face came
up. She opted for a text version of the video since the security
cameras were presumably still rolling, even if the crew was too
busy to have anyone standing guard tonight. She also wasn’t
entirely positive she would want the other women to hear the
unfiltered news if something catastrophic—even more catastrophic
than their current situation—was on the horizon.

Ankari, sweet cakes, it’s good to hear
from you,
Fumio’s message read,
but you’re right: you’re in
an alarming predicament. Felgard placed a bounty on you and your
business partners two weeks ago, a legal one, not just a sub rosa
version for the entrepreneurial criminal element. You’re lucky the
police didn’t stop you and arrest you in some port along the way.
Or maybe you’ve been off the grid. You certainly haven’t mailed
me
in ages, and you know how interesting
I
am to talk to.
Regardless, the story that he’s offering is that you and your
colleagues broke into one of his electronics facilities, stole
information from the data banks, and killed his favorite guard on
the way out. Or maybe it was his favorite dog. I don’t remember.
There’s a rule about wanted posters being rushed through the
channels when someone gets murdered. I, of course, know this is all
a lie because he didn’t have any video or any concrete
evidence—there’s some doctored-up stuff, but anyone with more than
three brain cells could see through it. Also, the last I heard,
electronics weren’t anything you were interested in. Nor, pardon my
assumptions, could I see you successfully breaking into a
top-security electronics lab.

Ankari was shaking her head as she read,
confused by the whole story. It seemed so random. If Jamie and
Lauren hadn’t been listed on the bounty as well—her company was
mentioned by name, too—she would have assumed some
other
Ankari Markovich had crossed the lord’s path.

But Felgard, being a lord of finance, doesn’t
need to produce the sort of evidence mere mortals do to get the law
to issue warrants for arrest. Up until two days ago, there was a
one hundred thousand aurum reward for your capture. You and your
cohorts are wanted alive, if you didn’t already know. That recently
went up to two hundred thousand, and there’s a note here about you
being held by the Mandrake Company. Mercenaries, but I guess you
already know that. I looked them up, and they’re a scary group,
especially the captain. Ex-Crimson Ops. Be careful out there. It’s
not clear why Felgard increased the reward, if you’ve already been
captured by someone, and all I can assume is that Mandrake Company
decided it wasn’t going to give you up or tried to get more money
out of the lord. I don’t fully know how things work in that world,
but it sounds like Felgard has, in listing your captors, given the
system an open invitation to pay a visit and try to steal you out
from the mercenaries. Either way, I hope you’re safe. If you escape
them and need help, I can meet you on Orion Prime. Do you need me
to? Let me know. I already tried to hack into the net and get the
wanted poster removed, but because it’s going through the
government system, it’s particularly well protected. I’ll keep
working on it, but I think you’re going to have to see Felgard and
work things out with him. Standing by, Fumio.

Ankari didn’t know what stunned her more:
that someone was willing to pay two hundred thousand aurums to have
her—her, Jamie, and Lauren—delivered to his door or that the
captain hadn’t been willing to give her up. Of course, that was
just Fumio’s speculation. Maybe Viktor simply hadn’t liked the
terms he’d gotten from Felgard when they had spoken.

“So... interesting news,” she said. Maybe she
shouldn’t say anything. Would this worry the others unnecessarily?
Maybe, but they had a right to know.

“You downloaded a program for opening cell
doors?” Jamie asked.

“No. Is there such a thing?”

“I’m not sure.”

“The bounty on our heads has been increased
to two hundred thousand,” Ankari said. “And everyone in the system
knows where we are.” She waved to indicate the mercenary ship.

“What?” Lauren stared at her.

“
Why
?” Jamie added.

“We’re going to have to take that up with
Felgard. He really wants us. All of us. It must be related to our
business, but I’m perplexed since we haven’t done trials on
anything more interesting than mice yet.”

“Yes, but those mice had some amazing
results,” Lauren said. “Anyone who read the paper I published last
month would have seen the potential.”

“That’s the one you told me about that was
printed in
Specialized
Gastroenterology
Quarterly
, right?” Ankari
asked. “The peer-reviewed journal that three people read?” She
supposed it was possible that Felgard was a subscriber, but it
seemed unlikely for someone outside of academia to keep up with
such publications. Of course, journalists occasionally scanned them
for news stories.

“Yes,” Lauren said, “and it’s more like three
hundred people, thank you.”

“What was the name of the article?”

“Increasing Genetic Potential, Health, and
Longevity Through Ancient Alien Microbiota Transplants.”

That was less obscure than a lot of the
titles of articles Lauren had published. Ankari could see it
catching a reporter’s eye. Anything to do with the long-dead aliens
was always a hit with the popular press. She plugged the title and
author name into the news searcher and waited, drumming her fingers
on the side of the tablet. Why
was
there so much lag
tonight?

When the results came up, she groaned.
“Lauren, did you seriously not know about this? Because you’re
cited.” She turned the tablet toward her partner. A Chao Yu had
published an article called,
Alien Gut Bugs as Potential Life
Extender and Cure to Deadly Ailments
. It had been syndicated in
no less than five hundred news outlets. That had been just under
three weeks ago. And Felgard’s bounty had come out two weeks ago.
Coincidence? It hardly seemed likely.

Lauren’s face grew ashen as she looked at the
tablet. “None of you saw this earlier?”

“I don’t read the news,” Jamie said.

“I do—” the financial news, mostly, “—but we
were busy packing and bartering for used science equipment then.
And then we were out at the Bartoka Ruins for almost a week, and I
don’t know. We’ve been so busy.” Ankari tapped on one of the
articles to skim it. She doubted her name was mentioned, else
someone in her circle of friends would have forwarded it to her.
No, she wasn’t in there, and neither was Jamie nor the company, but
it wouldn’t have been hard for someone to research Dr. Lauren Keys
and find out where she was currently employed. And the name of
their company, Microbacteriotherapy, Inc. could certainly sound
promising to someone who had read the sensationalized article.

“This is all my fault then,” Lauren
whispered, looking around at the confines of the cell.

“No, it’s not,” Ankari said, “but if a
feeling of guilt helps you get that generator working in a way that
drops the force field, I’m willing to glare at you with
condemnation.”

Lauren didn’t manage a smile. Her face was
bleak. “We can try it now, but I don’t think it’s going to do
anything.” Her shoulders slumped.

Inspiring.

“Try it,” Ankari said. “If it’s not going to
work, we’ll have to think of something else.” What that something
might be, she had no idea. Since nobody was guarding them, there
was nobody to seduce or stab with a syringe, not that she had one
anymore.

Lauren and Jamie bent over the generator.
Ankari leaned forward on the bench, her hands clasped, her eyes on
the force field, hoping...

A deep hum came from the depths of the ship,
and the lights flickered. Ankari straightened. “Was that you
two?”

“I haven’t pressed the button yet.” Lauren
sounded bewildered.

The lights flickered again, not only in the
cell but in the entire security area. Ankari jumped to her feet.
She tapped the field, and it buzzed at her, sending an unpleasant
shock through her body. It was still up, but had it been when the
lights had gone out? She waited, ready to test it if the power
cycled again.

Darkness fell. Ankari swiped her hand through
emptiness. The field was gone.

“Come on. Grab your stuff. Hurry.” Ankari
snatched up her own bag, not certain how long they had—or what
would happen to someone caught in the middle of the force field
when it reactivated. She lunged into the corridor. Bangs, thuds,
and grunts of “ow” sounded in the darkness behind her, then she was
being jostled as the others bumped into her.

“Are we all out?” Ankari asked.

“Yes.”

As Ankari was feeling her way toward the
door, the lights came back on. She expected some announcement, some
explanation, but the ship’s communications system remained silent.
They needed to get out of the brig and to the shuttle bay as
quickly as possible, but she stopped at the desk, hoping she might
find a weapon inside. She didn’t know what was going on out there,
but she had a feeling it had to do with the three of them. And
their two hundred thousand aurum reward.

The desk drawers held two sets of handcuffs
and a number of unopened food bars. Ham log, turkey log, mixed meat
log. Maybe Ankari needed to start a new business in supplying
mercenary outfits with more appealing shelf-stable food items. She
stuffed them in her pack anyway.

Without warning, the ship shuddered. It
wasn’t enough to throw Ankari off balance, but she did put a hand
on the wall, not certain what was coming next.

“Did we hit something?” Jamie asked.