Mercenary Instinct (a science fiction romance) (32 page)

“I’d like that too.”

The comm chimed, and Viktor sighed. At least
someone’s timing had been better today, even if it was still two
hours before his shift. Ankari kissed him, extricated herself, then
pointed toward the door that led to the latrine.

“Mandrake here,” he said, watching the sway
of her naked hips as she walked through the hologram to reach the
door.

“Thomlin, sir. We got word back from Felgard.
He refuses to meet you at a neutral location and sent the
coordinates for the shuttle port on his private island
instead.”

“He has his own shuttle port?” Viktor asked
dryly.

“Apparently so, sir.”

“All right. How long until we reach
orbit?”

“Less than three hours.”

“Good. Mandrake out.”

The comm fell silent at the same time as
Ankari padded back across the room, allowing his admiration from a
different angle this time.

She paused at the edge of the bed. “Do you
need to get up?”

Viktor lifted the blanket. “Not yet.”

Smiling, she snuggled in beside him, and he
wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin on her shoulder.

“You look like you were planning on going
into his base, not meeting in a neutral location.” Ankari waved
toward the maps hanging in the air.

“Yes, I just made the request so he would
believe we meant to deal straight, prisoners for money, that’s it.
He has all of the advantages in his own lair, so he can’t be
surprised that I’d want to do the exchange somewhere else. If I
hadn’t
made the request, he might have been suspicious.”

“He doesn’t have
all
of the
advantages, either way.”

Viktor arched his brows.

Ankari smiled and slid her hand along his
forearm, lightly tracing the muscles with her fingers. “You’re an
advantage.”

Her faith pleased him. He hoped he would
deserve it in the end.

“He’ll have good security too,” Viktor said.
“I had my men trying to dig up information on any meetings he might
be attending or public appearances, times when he’d be away from
his base and we could ambush him, but he stays in his sanctuary
these days, making others come to him. We’ll land and go in with a
small team, our prisoners’ escort ostensibly. I’ll have another
combat shuttle waiting over the mainland, ready to come in and help
if needed.”

“Do we need to do anything?”

Stay out of the way and don’t risk getting
hurt, he wanted to say, but she wasn’t the type to hide behind a
man’s battle armor. More than once, she’d said she was willing to
go in alone. Because she didn’t want him to feel obligated to help
or to risk his people on her behalf, he knew, but he hoped he had a
chance to show her just how valuable his people were. How valuable
he
was. When that had started mattering, he wasn’t sure, but
it did now, no doubt. He kissed her shoulder.

“Is that a no?” Ankari asked, amused.

“Talk to him if you like, distract him.
Figure out what he wants with you in the first place. If he’s busy
trying to get something from you, he’ll be less aware of us and
what we’re doing. Just don’t go off with him and let him dismiss
us. I don’t want to lose sight of you.”

“I’d definitely rather be standing at your
side. But if it’s possible we can reach an accord with him, make
him a legitimate client, I think it’d be wiser to pursue that
instead of jumping to violence. As you said, I’m sure he’ll have a
lot of defenses, a lot of security people around. My guess, the
only logical guess I’ve been able to come up with, is that he wants
to force us to work for him illegally, chained in some basement, or
to work on some project that we wouldn’t otherwise be willing to do
on our own. But maybe we can get creative and make a deal.”

Viktor’s arm had tightened around her at this
talk of forced service and basements. He made himself relax. “Will
you think me unforgivably bloodthirsty if I admit I’m hoping he
drives us to kill him?”

“You don’t think we’d ever be safe again if
we just walked away with a deal?”

“There’s that, but mostly I’m irritated that
he betrayed me to all those other bounty hunters. I’m irritated
that he’s caused you to be hunted and endangered, and I’m also
irritated that he’s ultimately the reason that I lost my doctor. I
want to jam a rifle down his throat and shoot. Many times.” His
voice had descended into a low hard register as he spoke, and he
checked Ankari’s eyes, worried he might have alarmed her. This
wasn’t exactly bedroom talk.

She wore a thoughtful expression rather than
an alarmed one. “She surprised me too. Your doctor. I think I
understand her now, but when she came to see us... I wasn’t
expecting her to become one of our would-be kidnappers.”

Viktor’s first instinct was to brush away
this topic, to steer Ankari back to their plans for Felgard, but
her words about understanding Zimonjic’s motivations made him
pause. He so rarely spoke of personal matters and private thoughts
to others in the company—even when he’d had Doc Aglianico, their
meetings had been infrequent and had usually involved alcohol—but
there were times, such as when he lost someone on his team, that he
wished he did have someone who could commiserate with him. Punching
the bag was an outlet, but when the anger waned, he was still left
with an emptiness that grew harder to ignore as the years passed
and the number of fallen comrades increased.

“I didn’t expect her to betray me,” Viktor
said. “I wouldn’t have included her in that board meeting if I
had.” Nor would he have authorized the use of deadly force if he’d
thought for a second that she would be on that shuttle. “She was
one of the inner circle. Even if she hadn’t been with us as long as
the others from Grenavine, she understood.”

Ankari twisted her head to look in his eyes.
“Can I speak openly about something?”

He frowned. “Of course.” It wasn’t as if she
was one of his soldiers.

“Since I haven’t known you that long, I don’t
know if it’s my place to... advise. Or, uhm, judge...”

“You wouldn’t be the first to point out my
flaws.”

“I don’t know if this is a flaw exactly, but
from what I’ve seen, you seem to put the Grenavine natives, the
ones who work with you, anyway, onto a pedestal. Well, not a
pedestal exactly. But I think you trust them more quickly and more
fully than you would someone from another world.” He opened his
mouth, but she rushed to add, “I don’t mean to imply that your
people aren’t trustworthy or quality comrades—even Zimonjic thought
she was acting for the greater good, protecting you from
yourself.”

He closed his mouth. He had gotten some of
the story from Sethron—the sergeant had been injured instead of
killed outright in the firefight, and Viktor hadn’t had the heart
to execute him after seeing Zimonjic on the deck. But he was still
struggling to accept what she had been trying to do and how he had
let himself become so unapproachable that she hadn’t thought they
could find a solution that didn’t involve mutiny.

“All I’m saying,” Ankari said, “is that you
seem to believe being from your home world and having shared the
loss that you had makes them automatically more dependable and less
likely to go against you. Even with me, you were only interested in
me after learning about my father and my past, that I’d come from a
destroyed world too.”

“It was the fact that you knocked Striker on
his ass that interested me.” Actually he had found her attractive
even when she was slumping against his chest, nearly unconscious
after that first crash.

“All right, but you started to trust me more
when you learned I was Speronian, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but also because you had learned
mashatui from your father and that I knew honesty and integrity
were always taught alongside with kicks and punches in that
art.”

“And then I kissed you so I could steal your
key,” Ankari said. “I wasn’t being all that honest with you.”

Viktor grunted. “You were a prisoner trying
to escape. Your actions didn’t mean you couldn’t still be a person
with integrity.”

“I appreciate that you were willing to think
well of me, especially if that’s what got me here now.” She smiled
and stroked the side of his face. “I just think it’s worth
remembering that we’re all... people, no matter where we came from
and what’s befallen us. We have all the failings of humans.”

He wanted to point out that he was very aware
of the failings of humans, but he kept his mouth shut, grudgingly
admitting that maybe her observations were worth considering.

“Perhaps this is too heavy a topic for before
breakfast,” Ankari said, dropping her hand to his shoulder and
rubbing the side of his neck with her thumb.

He didn’t mind heavy topics when they came
with rubbing. Unfortunately, he should get up if they were going to
be in orbit soon. There was still planning to do and meetings to
call. “I can offer you breakfast if the night’s exercises made you
hungry.” He shifted her aside so he could swing his legs over the
edge of the bed.

“Certainly, and we can discuss something
lighter while we eat. Such as... who this Willow fellow is.”

Viktor grunted softly. “I’d hoped you’d
forgotten about that.”

“Not in the least.”

“It’s what my parents named me. You’re
doubtlessly aware that trees, bushes, and flowers are—were—an
important part of Grenavinian culture and religion. Plants have
inspired a lot of names. I never found Willow to sound particularly
manly, and when I got out into the rest of the system, I came to
find it even less so. I wasn’t quite as brawny at eighteen—that’s
when I left home to join the fleet—as I am now, so I was worried
about being bullied. I signed up using the name Viktor, and that’s
what it’s been ever since.”

“Why did that monk know it?”

“I’ve worked for the Buddhists before. Even
though druidism was our official religion, there were a lot of
Buddhists on Grenavine, too, and many of the temples out there
today have Grenavinian roots.” He gave Ankari a significant
look—she hadn’t yet crawled out from beneath the covers. “Speronian
too. Anyway, they must have researched my past at some point,
because they have me in their databases. I think they just insist
on using the name because hiring a Grenavinian named ‘Willow’ is
more in line with their tenets than calling in an ex-Crimson Ops
soldier named Viktor.” He walked across the cabin to the kitchen
wall and fished out a pair of glasses along with a couple of
sausage-and-cranberry logs.

“Interesting. So your name changes, depending
on the needs of the caller.”

“Guess so.” He plucked an apple from one of
the trees, pulled out a few vegetables, and cut everything up for
the blender. He hit the coffee button, too, in case one experience
with his green drinks had been enough for Ankari. “What are
you
going to call me?” he asked a little warily as the
blender wound down.

“That’s a good question. I confess I’m
inordinately attracted to your soldier side...” A wry smile—or
maybe that was a concerned one—flitted across her face. Right.
Because being drawn to a killer wasn’t all that socially redeeming.
There were times even he found it repelling and thought of heading
off to pastures less bloodied. Unfortunately, he wasn’t qualified
to be much else. He’d been a troublemaker as a kid and an awful
gardener—nobody had been surprised when he had left home young to
join the military. “I do like the idea of you having a sweet poetic
side,” Ankari added.

“Hardly that.”

“A thoughtful philosophical side?”

“Hm.” Viktor took the glasses, mugs, and logs
to the desk. “If you find you like being here for breakfast often,
I can probably locate a chair.”

“The privileges of rank, eh?” Ankari shed the
covers and walked over to join him at the desk. He admired the view
and dearly hoped she wanted to spend more nights with him. Many
more. Distracted by the thought, he almost missed the twist to her
face—that was definitely wryness this time—as she picked up one of
the sausage bars. “Which do not, it seems, extend to receiving
better meals than prisoners get.”

He probably shouldn’t admit that he actually
liked the prepackaged food logs from Dekaron VI. He’d had various
kinds of shelf-stable field rations and found these tastier than
most, with all the requisite vitamins and minerals. Perhaps the
titling lacked flare, but he liked a thing that stated what it was
without pretension.

“Prisoners don’t receive fresh vegetables.”
Viktor waved to her glass.

Ankari picked it up. She didn’t sneer, but
she didn’t bounce with enthusiasm, either. “A perk only available
to those who sleep with the captain?”

“Actually, there’s a hydroponics room and
anyone on the crew can pick the vegetables and berries in there.
Even Striker could have snatched you some if you’d gone through
with your night of
amore
with him.”

Ankari had been in the process of taking a
sip and managed to snort some of the drink up her nose at his
comment. He smiled, pleased to have amused her.

“Did you just say
amore
? Maybe you’re
a poet after all.”

“When you’re done, we’ll meet with your
partners and my team and make our battle plan to maim, kill, or
otherwise slay Felgard.”

“Or... maybe not a poet.”

“No,” he agreed.

They chewed and drank in silence for several
minutes, made companionable by the way she leaned against him.

Eventually, she asked, “Will we be putting on
clothes for this meeting?” and gave him a pat on the butt.

“I do allow for a liberal dress code
here.”

“So, as long as we have a patch on our
shoulders, we’ll be acceptable?”

“Yes.” Viktor had actually gone to a command
meeting naked once. He decided that was a story for another time.
They had a lot to do before heading down to Paradise.