Mercenary Instinct (a science fiction romance) (37 page)

Speaking of others…

She gripped the railing, wanting to run down
and check on Viktor—or to fling herself into his arms—but with the
ramp destroyed, she didn’t see another way down. Unless she jumped.
Or… her gaze fell upon a vine dangling over the edge of her level.
It belonged to one of those awful plants, the ones still lining the
back edge of her own balcony, but the vine itself might not be that
dangerous, especially if she didn’t touch it for long. Maybe.

“
Are you all right?” Viktor
called up. His left arm hung limply at his side.

“
Me? I’m not the one who
was shot. Are
you
all right?” Before she could talk herself out of it, Ankari
swung over the railing, grasped the vine, and slid down it as if it
were a rope. It had a tacky almost sticky flesh that tore at her
hands, so she switched to climbing down, arm under arm. Something
snapped above her head, and she let go, dropping the last ten feet
and landing in a deep crouch, her butt bumping the planks
underfoot. Not the most graceful move, but at least she didn’t hurt
herself.

She spun, intending to race toward the spot
where Viktor had been standing, but he had run to her while she was
dropping, and she smacked into his chest. He wrapped one arm around
her, pulling her hard against him.

“
An unusual method of
entering a room,” he remarked.

Relief and other feelings she wasn’t ready
to acknowledge made a lump in her throat, so she didn’t try to say
anything. She threw her arms around his waist and buried her face
against his shoulder, the uninjured one. She might have flung her
legs and everything else around him, but didn’t want to disturb his
injury. The scent of smoke clung to him, his flesh and jacket
scorched from the laser fire.

“
Shall we see if your
friends escaped?” Viktor asked.

Yes, that was important, but she kissed him
first, needing him to know she cared that he had been injured, that
she cared that he—they—had defeated Felgard, and… just that she
cared.

His hand slid up her back to tangle in her
hair as he returned the kiss. “Or we could stay here,” he murmured
against her lips.

“
All right.”

He snorted softly and pulled back, though he
captured the side of her face with his hand. “I wasn’t truly
suggesting that. There are a lot of people still alive around here
who may not take kindly to their employer’s death.”

As much as Ankari would have liked to
continue with the embracing, kissing, and gazing into Viktor’s
eyes, she had to concede to that logic—there was probably something
twisted about smooching while a pile of carnivorous plants were
finishing their human lunch nearby too.

“
How do we get back up
there?” she asked.

Viktor tapped his comm-patch. “Sequoia, you
still at the helm of that shuttle?”

“’
Course I am, sir. Just
sitting here, working on some navigational math problems Commander
Thatcher assigned me at
someone’s
request.” The pilot’s cough wasn’t
subtle.

“
We’re ready for a pickup.
Backside of the biggest building here. Grab the others on the
way.”

“
Yes, sir.”

“
He sounded a little
bitter,” Ankari said when the communication ended. “Should we be
worried that he’ll forget to pick us up?”

“
No, pilots need to be
mentally challenged. Commander Thatcher would be the first to tell
you that. Have you met him?”

“
I don’t remember.” Most of
the crew was still a blur to Ankari.

“
You’d remember him.”
Viktor smirked.

“
In a good way or a bad
way?”

“
Can the answer be
both?”

“
Ah, maybe?”

She must have appeared concerned, because
Viktor said, “Perhaps you should have spent more time learning
about the eccentricities of my crew before making us partners and
agreeing to set up your labs on my ship.”

“
Oh, but I look forward to
learning about those eccentricities.” Ankari smiled and gave him
another kiss.

“I’ll admit, this is much better than I’d
imagined,” Lauren said, stroking some kind of fancy cryo-electron
microscope with the fondness one usually reserved for a lover. Or
at least a cat or puppy.

Ankari thought the lab felt claustrophobic
with all the new equipment packing the counters and shelves and
cabinets in the small environmental cabin on the
Albatross
,
but Lauren had the space to herself now, so maybe she didn’t mind.
Ankari had a small desk—with a chair—in Viktor’s cabin. Since he
was on shift twelve hours a day, she could work there without being
disturbed, and by the time he came home at night, they were both
ready for more physical activities.

“The equipment?” Jamie asked from the
doorway. She had been apprenticed to one of the lower-ranking
engineers and was getting on-the-job training when Lauren didn’t
need anyone to repair or make alterations to her equipment. “Or our
new position on the ship in general?”

“Mostly the equipment, but this isn’t any
worse than the freighter with the shaggy carpeting.”

Ankari cleared her throat. “Let’s have a
little respect for the deceased and departed.”

“
De
-parted is right.” Jamie
snickered.

“Ha ha.” Ankari swatted at her. “Shouldn’t
you be down retrofitting our new shuttle, so the interior won’t
scare off the clients?” Viktor had agreed to let them fix up the
craft that had been damaged on Sturm and install some medical
equipment, so they could zip off to meet with clients whenever
Mandrake Company had a mission in the same area. “Seeing laser
burns on the walls and an array of guns bristling from the front of
the craft might not fill someone with the calm serenity we want our
customers to feel.”

“I just came up to double-check your paint
choices.” Jamie held up a tablet. “I’ve got a couple of robots
working on it, but it’s not too late to change things, if there was
a mistake. Did you really want the exterior to be… pink?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. I thought that might be... an error.”
Jamie sighed in obvious disappointment.

“I didn’t want Viktor to be tempted to borrow
our shuttle if his were maimed, blown up, or otherwise indisposed.
With as much expensive equipment as we’re putting in there, it
should not be used to carry thugly mercenaries down to a battle
zone.”

“I suppose that makes sense.”

Since Jamie wasn’t enthused with the color,
it probably wasn’t surprising that Ankari’s comm-patch chimed a few
minutes later with someone else’s input.

“Markovich,” Viktor growled. Though the
entire ship was aware of their relationship, he still called her by
last name in public—and when he was irked with her. “Why is there a
pink
shuttle in my shuttle bay?”

“Because I’m a girl and I like pink,” she
responded cheerily.

“This is unacceptable.”

Ankari tried to decide if he was truly mad or
simply blustering. Maybe he had to look good—suitably surly and
authoritative—because one of his men had walked into the shuttle
bay with him. “Really, Captain, you never stipulated that the
shuttle remain its utterly boring gray color. In fact, you gave it
to me without stipulations at all. It’s not as if I have my
own
spaceship that I can paint and decorate to suit my
needs.” She winked at Lauren and Jamie. As guilty as Viktor felt
about that incident, she could probably use it as a trump card in
arguments for years to come.

He growled again, though no audible words
accompanied the noise this time.

“Does he growl that much in bed?” Jamie
asked.

“Yes, but it’s a different kind of growl.
Much more enthused.”

“We’re not interested in those details,”
Lauren said, her head once again bent over her new microscope.

“I might be a little interested,” Jamie
said.

“Ah, Jamie, we might have to see if we can
find you a nice young man here so you can have details of your
own.” Too bad the ship had a lot more bitter, middle-aged men who
thought women were something to be rented by the hour.

“Just not that Striker.” Jamie’s nose
wrinkled. “He keeps accidentally bumping into me and trying to
invite me to his cabin to look at his comics.”

“I’m sure we can do better than that for you.
Now, shall we see how that paint job is commencing? I want to make
sure it’s a very vibrant shade of pink.”

THE END

Thank you for giving
Mercenary
Instinct
a read. I hope you enjoyed the story!

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