Mercenary Instinct (a science fiction romance) (4 page)

The expression, directed at the humorless
captain, surprised Ankari. Maybe they were lovers or had been
once.

The captain’s eyebrow ascended a millimeter,
but that was the extent of his acknowledgment of the doctor’s
teasing. A hint of wistfulness entered Zimonjic’s expression as she
turned back to her patient. Ah, not lovers, but she might wish they
were. Hard to imagine. The captain looked like he’d be about as
cozy in bed as a Deruvian fang lizard.

“How did you come to be here?” Ankari asked
the doctor.

“The army decided I was no longer
trustworthy, and, thanks to the notes they wrote on my discharge, I
had trouble finding work as a civilian.” The doctor took out a
repair kit and punched in a few codes, then lifted Lauren’s shirt
and affixed it to her ribs. While that was doing its work, she
turned her attention to Jamie.

“Why weren’t you trustworthy?” Not a failing
in her doctoring skills, Ankari hoped.

Zimonjic’s lips flattened. “Because of where
I’m from.” Her expression didn’t invite further inquiries.

A man ambled into the corridor to join the
captain. Ankari recognized him as one of the brutes who had been
along on the mission, the spiky-haired thug with all the knives and
guns, the one who had tried to capture her. Striker. That had been
his name. She wondered how big the crew was. From the back of the
shuttle, she had glimpsed the gray outline of a winged ship before
they had docked. It hadn’t been a small craft, but she had no idea
whether it held fifty people or two hundred and fifty. She had seen
a half dozen new faces on her way to the brig. The idea of escaping
past all of them was daunting, and she didn’t even know what they
would escape in, with the
Marie Curie
left on the planet.
One of those shuttles? What was their range? Could Jamie fly
one?

“They going to live, sir?” Striker asked,
taking up a position that mirrored the captain’s on the opposite
wall.

“Looks like.”

“That’s good money being offered for them.
I’d hate to lose my percentage.”

The captain grunted. A real chatterbox, that
one.

If they were mercenaries and money was their
prime draw, maybe they could be tempted by the allure of more. The
promise of fossilized poop might not have tickled their greedy
spots, but could something else work? Ankari didn’t have a lot of
free cash after buying all of that equipment, but maybe the
mercenaries could be enticed by a share in the company. Those
shares weren’t worth much now, but if Lauren’s second round of
tests went as promisingly as the first, they could have a high
value someday. That knowledge made Ankari reluctant to give them
away, but this situation called for desperate moves.

“How much
is
the bounty?” she
asked.

“I showed you the poster,” the captain
said.

“My eyes were busy crossing at the time.”

“A hundred thousand aurums,” Striker said
cheerfully.

Ankari stared at him. A
hundred
thousand
? Who would pay that much for her team? And why?

“And as Chief of Boom, I get two percent of
that,” Striker added. Chief of Boom? Was that some way of saying he
was an artillery specialist without using so many pesky syllables?
“Once we finally get our shore leave, that’ll buy a lot of drinks.
And women.” Striker gazed thoughtfully at Jamie and smiled. Aside
from the doctor and Sergeant Hazel, Ankari hadn’t seen any women on
board. That must not leave the men with many mating options during
the long months in space. Striker turned his thoughtful gaze on the
captain, as if he meant to ask if these particular women might be
available.

It was a silent question, but the captain’s
lack of a response wasn’t reassuring. He was simply staring into
the cell. Actually, he was staring at
Ankari
. Something else
that made her nervous. It wasn’t a lascivious stare, the way
Striker’s was; it was more like he was scrutinizing her. Why? What
exactly was on that wanted poster anyway? For the fiftieth time,
she wished she had gotten a better look. If she could find a way to
a computer, she needed to do some research.

“You have teams picked out for Sturm?” the
captain asked, finally looking away from Ankari to meet his
soldier’s eyes.

“Yes, sir. Alpha and Charlie for sure, but
maybe Delta too. Waiting for intel to get me a report on our
thief’s most recent hideout, but it sounds like he’s got a big
bunch of uglies working with him. You coming down with us on this
one?”

“I might.”

Ankari had to take advantage of the captain’s
attention shift. The doctor was bent over Lauren, checking the
repair device, and her pockets were accessible. Ankari touched the
knot on her head with one hand, drawing Zimonjic’s eye, and said,
“I could use some attention from your devices, too, Doctor. Got a
lump bigger than most of the ruins on that planet.”

In the seconds that Zimonjic was looking at
her face, Ankari’s other hand went shopping in her pocket.

“What were you looking for in the ruins?”

“Fossils.” Ankari met the doctor’s eyes and
didn’t look at what she had fished out of the pocket, but it felt
like one of those syringes that stored a number of medications in
the handle. Either that or it was a sonic toothbrush. Ankari
doubted the latter would get them out of the cell, so she decided
to hope for the former.

“Poop fossils.” Striker snickered. Amazing
that the captain would consider putting someone with the maturity
of a toddler in charge of a combat mission.

Both of the men were staring through the
force field again. Ankari slipped her stolen medical tool—or tooth
tool—into her pocket to examine later. They had been searched
before being shoved into the cell, so another search shouldn’t be
forthcoming. But there were doubtlessly video monitors; since
Striker had left the desk, she hoped that meant nobody was watching
the feed.

“We were collecting samples for the R&D
department of our company,” Ankari said, extending a hand toward
Lauren, who managed a wan smirk despite her weary visage. “If you
get excited by two percent of some grubby mercenary earnings, you
should see what a percentage of our company would be worth, if you
were to partner with us, Mr. Striker.” She might not be able to
promise anyone a hundred thousand aurums, but she could promise
more than two percent of a hundred thousand. She smiled at Striker,
though she glanced at the captain, as well, wondering if he might
be intrigued. His flat stare didn’t suggest it.

Striker, however, did perk up, his gaze
shifting from Jamie to Ankari. “Yeah?”

“We could use a weapons expert for our
business, as is doubtlessly apparent.” Ankari made a gesture to
encompass her team and their forlorn position inside the cell.

“That much is obvious,” Striker said. “What
kind of money are you making now?”

The captain’s eyes narrowed, but he watched
the exchange in silence. He either had to think Ankari was brazen
for trying to steal one of his soldiers away in front of him or...
stupid. And maybe she was. She didn’t truly expect anything to come
of her offer, but one never knew. There were two sets of ears in
the area besides the captain’s—all it would take was for one to
find the offer intriguing to make something happen.

“We’re a pre-revenue startup at this point,”
Ankari said, “but we’ve talked to a number of biotech firms, and
they’ll either pay us enormously when we deliver or they’ll buy us
out.” Granted, only two of the twenty firms had actually listened
to the idea, while the others had laughed Ankari out of their fancy
gold-gilded reception halls and slammed the doors behind her.

“Pre-what?” Striker asked.

“They haven’t made any money yet,” the
captain said.

“Oh. Well, honey, I ain’t real interested in
a percentage of nothing.” Thus Striker proved he had a better
understanding of math than Ankari would have guessed.

“What’s your company do?” Dr. Zimonjic asked,
removing the repair kit from Lauren’s ribs and giving Striker a
little frown. That frown didn’t extend to the captain, even though
his flat statement had been nearly as sarcastic.

Lauren, who must be feeling better now,
straightened on the bench. “You’re interested? It’s fascinating,
really. As a doctor, you’re of course aware of the importance of
human intestinal microbiota in determining a person’s overall
health, including his ability to combat aggressive microorganisms,
and properly digest foods and produce certain key vitamins,
yes?”

Striker’s lip curled in confusion, or maybe
that was a sign of incredulity at how disinteresting he found the
subject. They would probably have to look elsewhere for a burly
security guard to cut in.

“Yes...” Zimonjic said.

“Depending on your specialty, you may also be
aware that there’s been research done, tying epigenetic
changes—such as those that might cause a person to merely be a
carrier for a certain autoimmune disease versus actually expressing
it—to a person’s overall gut health. The human microbiota—the tens
of trillions of microorganisms that live in our intestines—” that
aside seemed to be for the soldiers, “—can be drastically different
from person to person, with an individual’s particular makeup being
determined by a great many things, with diet and environment lying
at the top of the list. We’ve been debating for centuries what the
optimal mixture and population of intestinal flora is for a human
being—did you know that there are scientists that argue that we’re
not even human anymore, not in the sense that the original
colonists from Old Earth were, because our microbiota has changed
so much as a result of the existing microbes in the system we now
call home? Up until two years ago, the focus of my work was in
healing people with gut dysbiosis issues that were affecting their
health. I would transplant the microbiota from an individual with a
healthy gut into that of the ill person, often to fantastic
results. Then, after meeting Ankari through my clinic—”

When Lauren gave her a cheerful wave, Ankari
forced herself not to grimace. She didn’t particularly want to talk
about all the pathogens she had picked up as a result of growing up
on the streets and being so often forced to eat and drink from less
than optimal sources. Fortunately, Lauren didn’t go into that.

“—we got to talking about the microbiota of
the aliens who lived in this system thousands of years ago.”

“Is that so?” The doctor’s eyes dulled at the
mention of aliens; yes, she would sympathize with those eighteen
companies who had shown Ankari the door when she had brought up
their company’s latest research. At least Zimonjic was still
working. She had scanned Ankari’s bump and laid a repair kit
against the side of her head, before shifting her attention again
to Jamie. The device hummed softly, reverberating in Ankari’s skull
as it amplified her body’s own ability to heal the injury.

“
Yes
,” Lauren said, not noticing the
doctor’s tone, thanks to her own enthusiasm—or just because she
never could understand that people wouldn’t be as fascinated by her
work as she was. “As you’ve doubtlessly heard, the archaeologists
who’ve been studying the remains of the original inhabitants of
this system have declared that they were remarkably similar to us
in body and brain makeup, and even in culture and thought, except
that fossils and other evidence suggest that they were faster,
stronger, and physically superior to us in most aspects and that
they lived two hundred years or more. They rarely fell to disease,
instead dying of old age or because of intra-system wars.
Our
studies have been fascinating.” Lauren pointed to Ankari
as well as herself, even if Ankari was more the marketing and
business side of the enterprise and, after throwing out the initial
idea, had done precious little actual studying. “They suggest that
the secret to the aliens’ long and healthy lives was their
intestinal microbiota, rather than any superior genetics they might
have possessed. Think about it: if genetics alone held the key to
health and longevity, as people thought for so long, we’d have
already
made
the superior human being. Our company is
working on isolating—”

Ankari stopped her partner with a hand on the
shoulder. Striker looked like he was about to fall asleep; Zimonjic
had long since decided Lauren was a quack; and the captain was
checking something on his tablet. Probably something really
important. Like what the ship’s cook was making for dinner.

“They haven’t signed a non-disclosure
agreement,” Ankari said. “Let’s not give away too many of our
secrets, eh?”

Lauren’s eyes widened. “Oh. Of course.”

Zimonjic plucked the repair device from
Ankari’s head and stepped back, tucking her tools away. “You three
will live. Until you get to your destination, anyway.” She stepped
out of the cell, nodding toward the captain.

He folded his tablet and palmed the force
field on again. The screen stretched across the cell with a flash
of blue and a hint of ozone before becoming a clear barrier that
one wouldn’t notice until one touched it.

“That was boring as hell,” Striker muttered,
his voice not quite low enough to be indistinguishable. “But that
one’s tits bounced nicely when she was waving her arms about with
all that crazy enthusiasm.”

Ankari couldn’t make out the captain’s
response. She supposed it was too much to hope that it was along
the lines of, “Get your mind out of the brothel, and try reading a
book and learning to think about more than sex some time.”

“Captain,” Ankari called before he
disappeared around the corner. She smoothed her face and smiled—no
loathing here, no, sir. “If you’re not committed to whoever made
that bounty offer, I’d like to discuss with you the potential of us
buying out the contract.”