ManOnFire (3 page)

He frowned. The scowl made her heart stutter, but at least it stopped his feet. “A test? No.”

They stared off for a moment, both breathing hard, but with enough space between them that she could at least attempt to focus. A test made sense. She should have filed the report the second they got back to base—she’d wanted to think it. She fished for the anger again, tried to fan it into some kind of defense. Wells tilted his head and curled his lips into a smile.

“Why didn’t you file it?” He took a step closer.

Damn. She needed an offensive and more than just the wall to hold her up when he looked at her like that. He made a good point, though. She could have filed a complaint, could have ruined his career if the brass had believed her. Why would he have risked that, if not to test her? She snagged the thought and flung it at him. “Why did you do it?”

That brought him up. His eyes widened and a soft chuckle drifted down the track. Wells stepped forward again, one, two steps, until they could have touched. He let his eyes slide down, pointedly following the line of her poly-skin suit and then back up to meet hers. “Why?”

“Why? If not a test, then why’d you risk it?”

His smile faded. Something flashed in his eyes, but it was hard and steely. His jaw tightened. “Because I wanted to. Because I thought—”

Footsteps sounded below the ramp, boots clipping between the mats. Wells stiffened. He snapped his mouth shut on whatever he’d meant to confess. His eyes tried to finish the thought, bored into Amanda until she had to look away. She remembered to breathe, to cling to the fading ember of anger and to keep her hand firmly wedged against the track wall. He thought what? That she wanted him to kiss her? Had her out-of-control hormones been so obvious that the commander was obliged to kiss her? The warmth spreading over her face this time didn’t make her want to do anything but run away.

“Man? Is that you?” Hicks’ voice shouted from below the track.

“Yeah.”

Wells said nothing. She could feel him willing her to look up. The tension swelled and pushed at her, but she focused on the track, on the railing and the space where Hicks stepped into view.

“Big boss wants to see you.”

“Why?”

“How the hell should I know what the idiots in charge want? Oh, sorry about that, Commander. Didn’t see you up there.”

“At ease, Hicks.” Wells took a long step backwards. “Man.” He nodded once and spun on his heel. The track bounced as he launched into an all out run.

Amanda watched his ass. Marble. Who could blame her for it?

“You coming down, or not?” Hicks hollered.

“Yeah.” Coming down. More like crashing and burning.

Amanda bit her lip and watched Wells round the next curve. She needed a doctor, maybe. She needed to calm the hell down, definitely. At the moment, she needed time away from Commander Wells. Whatever he was about to tell her would have to wait. She hit the ramp at a trot, listening to the rhythm of his feet. Whatever it was, she was damn sure going to find out.

Just as soon as she found out what the big boss wanted.

The new Mercenary Defense Conglomerate offices orbited the secondary moon of Oxlyn Delta. This base meant new opportunities and a reach well into territories that the primary location couldn’t hope to service. It also required a long trip in cryo, but the pay raise had tempted six full units of mercenaries and a battalion of new recruits for on-site training.

Amanda had her suspicions about the brass, though. Standing outside the branch manager’s door, she pondered again whether the higher ups who made the trip were just offered bigger cookies, or whether the Corps had used the relocation to rid itself of less desirable members of its management team.

Devlan Tryn answered her knock with a curt, “Come in.”

When the door slid open, Tryn already stood at attention behind his slick, translucent desk. He carried the extra bulk of a humanoid bred on a low-gravity planet, every inch of it softened by years spent sitting behind a stack of paperwork. His chunky fingers whitened on the lip of his desk, no doubt, due to the presence of the other man in the room.

“Man,” Tryn’s voice warbled like a lunar sparrow. “This is agent Vines.”

Sure it was. People in Vines’ line of work didn’t use real names. Amanda stepped inside, but her heart pounded as the door slid shut. She snapped to attention, her eyes forward, but she’d already taken a mental picture of the agent. Tall and skinny, black suit and shiny, copper insignia—Vines reeked of government authority. He must have pissed off someone big, to get assigned to the far reaches and their little operation.

If she hadn’t already been sweating, just standing in the same room with agent Vines would have done the trick.

“This is the mercenary?” Vines spoke to Tryn directly. His gaze didn’t even twitch in her direction.

“Yes.” Tryn sighed and waved a hand wildly, an ambiguous gesture. The manager’s cheek twitched. His nerves didn’t care for Vines any more than hers did. “Can we sit down? Sit down, Man.”

She marched to the chair farthest from the agent and folded into it. Her hands settled in her lap. Her shoulders formed a line parallel to the chair’s back and just as unflinching. She stared at Tryn and waited. A government agent meant nothing but trouble. It meant trouble that had something to do with her. She’d do best to show no reaction at all—give them nothing to go on until they’d offered her an explanation.

“Agent Vines has a few questions for you.” Tryn cleared his ample throat. The sound of gravel and fear emerged. His eyes widened. “You will answer him as candidly as possible.”

“Yes, sir.” She’d landed in a mess, all right.

“You are one Amanda Rosario Antilla?”

“Yes.” She fought off the desire to cringe at her given name. Fix eyes forward, Man. Count the cracks in Tryn’s desk and pray this isn’t your exit interview.

“You go by Man?” He made it sound like an insult.

“Yes.”

“What do you know about Commander Wells?”

“Excuse me?”

“Did you not understand the question?”

Vines hadn’t sat. Now, he turned to face her and plopped his skinny butt right in the middle of Tryn’s desk. He couldn’t block the big man from view, but she understood the gesture just fine. He meant to intercede between them, to show her who was in charge of the situation.

“I don’t understand the relevance,” she said. “And I know nothing about Commander Wells. He’s only been in charge of our unit a short time.”

“You have no opinion on the man?”

“He gets the job done.” She bit the inside of her cheek, on the side Vines couldn’t possibly see.
Control.
He didn’t know shit or he wouldn’t be asking.

“He certainly thinks highly of you.”

“Huh?” Damn it, anyway. Did they have telepaths now?

“Wells’ reports list you as a rising star, Mrs. Antilla.”

Amanda ground her teeth together.

“He seems to have you pegged for a fast promotion.”

“News to me.”

“Your record agrees with him. And Mr. Tryn here concurred.” He leaned forward. The smile he offered did nothing to ease her nerves. “You’re a first rate mercenary,
Man
.”

“Sir.”

“A model soldier.”

“I do the job.” She shifted her weight and stuffed her hands under her thighs. He could kiss her…

“Exaclty the person I need.”

“What?”

“I have a sensitive operation on my hands, Mrs. Antilla.”

“It’s Man.”

“Man.” He ran his long fingers through thinning hair and nodded at her.
Condescending bastard all around
. She chewed her cheek again and smiled back. “I need someone inside Wells’ unit who can report to me if they notice anything…” he pursed his lips and wobbled his head slightly. “Let’s say anything unusual.”

“Unusual?” Like making out in a decoy air duct, perhaps.

“Anything about Wells’ behavior, his orders, just anything that might strike you as off.”

“You want me to spy on the commander?”

“Spy is an ugly word, Man, but in this case, accurate. Yes. I want you to spy on him.”

“And report to you?”

Vines stiffened. His lips twitched, exposing neat white teeth. The jackal wanted her to rat on Wells, to spy on her own commander, and he managed to look like
she’d
offended him.

“I was given the impression that you would follow orders,” Vines snarled.

“She will.” When Devlan Tryn stood up, the desk rocked forward.

Amanda watched Vines scramble to his feet with a grin she only half felt. Tryn gave her a look that begged for cooperation. Don’t make trouble, his eyes pleaded.

“I will, sir. “The half-truth tasted like bile. She’d report anything unusual, if they made it an order, but she’d leave the interpretation of
unusual
to her own mind.

“Good. We understand one another.” Vines pretended he’d been in control the entire time. “I expect you to report to Mr. Tryn here. He can get the information directly to me.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a shuttle to catch. Mr. Tryn?”

“Er, right. I’ll have Hicks escort you to the hangar.” Then Devlan bellowed out, “Hicks!” and the door opened immediately.

Amanda waited for the agent to leave. She didn’t turn, but she could feel Hicks’ eyes on the back of her head. His lips would be flapping before he made it half way back. She’d have to whip up one hell of a creative explanation. Maybe Tryn could help her there. He still trembled when the doors shut out Vines, when he wedged his bulk back down behind the desk and stared at his hands. Amanda cleared her throat and watched him jolt back to the moment.

“Oh, Man. Right. You’re free to go.”

“What is this about, Tryn?”

“How’s that?”

“What does he want with the commander?”

“I wish I knew.”

“He didn’t even give you a clue?”

“It’s government, Man. Your guess is as good as mine.”

She snorted and stood up. Like hell it was. She’d have bet her guess was leagues closer to the mark than his was. She’d have bet that her
guess
was dead-ass on.

Still, she didn’t want to think about that at all.

Chapter Four

The MDC kept some of the best-planted gardens in the galaxy. It said so right on the recruitment posters. Great pay, competitive benefits, lavish facilities with some of the most beautiful gardens in the galaxy.

Amanda didn’t know an orchid from a tulip, but she knew the gardens would be quiet at twelve-hundred-hours on an orbital space station packed with restless mercenaries. She’d tried sleeping early and failed. A walk seemed like the next best choice. She zipped her jumpsuit over her skivvies and took the lifts up to the domes that, while beautiful, offered little in the way of the sport, booze, or chatter that an off-duty merc normally craved.

The garden paths didn’t give like the track did. Each step in her heavy boots clicked, breaking the muffled atmosphere and making her wish she’d worn socks and could shed them and enjoy total silence. Despite her ignorance of botany, the plantings still impressed upon her a sense of the exotic. Arching glossy fronds packed the space below the clear dome, each thick leaf reflecting stars or the glow of the nearby moon. The air thickened with moisture and heat the deeper she wove into the dome. It set the skin on her exposed face and hands to tingling.

She didn’t want to spy on the commander.

Vines gave Tryn a directive and he in turn gave her the order. No way around that. They wanted her to report anything unusual.
Fine
. She wouldn’t exactly call the kiss unusual. Delicious, maybe. Sublime, intoxicating, out of this world…

The paths converged like spokes of a wheel under the apex of the dome. A clear spot there boasted an overblown statue of the MDC logo and a ring of benches. Amanda ducked a low-hanging branch and stepped into the open. She froze and stared at the nearest bench.

“Man?” Commander Wells looked down from his stargazing and blinked at her. His face softened.

“What?” She tensed and flexed her knees, still having a clear path to retreat down, any of several paths, in fact. “What are you doing here?”

“I come here every night.” His eyes narrowed a touch, but the smile still played over his lips. “I like the quiet.”

“Mercs don’t like quiet.” Her traitorous brain whispered,
unusual
.

“What are
you
doing here, then?” He stood up, tilted his head to one side and let his gaze wander over her uniform.

“I wanted quiet.”

“Sure.”

“It’s been a rotten day.”

One of his brows lifted into a high arch.

“No. Not what I meant.”

“Didn’t go well with the big boss? I can put in a word.”

“No!”

“What’s wrong, Amanda?” His voice carried through the dome, even though he spoke softly. His words held a gentle note. He wasn’t talking like a merc. “You’re wishing you’d filed that report? Or
did
you?”

“No.” She looked up too fast, blushed and gave her whole game away.

Commander Wells’ smile widened. “Walk with me?”

His eyes dared her. Mercenaries didn’t take dares lightly. She nodded and waited for him to choose a path. He outranked her, unusual behavior aside, and though it hadn’t had the ring of an order, it meant she got to walk with him. Who knew what could happen in a moonlit garden in the middle of the night?

He chose an outside pathway, one that ringed the plantings and offered a constant view of stars on one side. They kept silent for awhile, clipping as softly as possible along the surface at a pace she rarely even used for leisure. Tonight, she didn’t mind the crawl. She didn’t mind the dash of tingles each time Commander Wells’ shoulder brushed ever so slightly against hers, either.

Eventually, they paused. Amanda turned with him to gaze down at the glowing dome of Olin’s moon. Wells kept his voice as soft as that glow, kept his eyes down and pointed at the view.

“You never answered my question.”

“Didn’t I?” She frowned and tried to think fast. Was it usual for him to speak so candidly of disobedience? Was it usual when his fingers slipped ever so gently against hers?