Mercenary Instinct (a science fiction romance) (16 page)

“Or did something hit
us
?” Lauren
added.

“I don’t know, but leaving is sounding like a
better idea all the time.” Ankari slipped the electronic key out of
her pocket. This was one of the few rooms she had seen that had a
lock on the inside as well as the outside, doubtlessly to put extra
obstacles in the way of escaping prisoners.

The door opened before she reached it. She
looked down at the key in confusion. Had it transmitted a code?

Then a number of hulking men in the corridor
stepped into view, none of them familiar. One thrust a gun through
the doorway. Ankari jumped back, kicking at it in midair. More by
chance than skill, she struck it, knocking the weapon from the
man’s hand. The hulking figures surged forward. Ankari slammed her
hand against the palm lock, hoping something would happen.

The door slid back shut. The palm panel
flashed, “Incorrect match. Access denied.”

Good.

Thuds sounded at the door, followed by the
whine of a laser weapon firing.

“What the hell—” Lauren asked, crouching
behind the desk. “Who are they?”

“If I knew, I’d tell you.” Ankari snatched up
the fallen gun and pointed it at the door, trying not to feel like
someone planning to halt a waterfall with a measuring cup.

More shots fired. Wisps of smoke wafted from
the lock panel.

“Anyone have any ideas?” Ankari asked.

“Go back in our cell and hide?” Lauren
said.

“Throw egg logs at them?” Jamie asked.

“I need to hire some security people,” Ankari
muttered.

“Or get the captain to retire and work for
you,” Jamie said. “He looks like he could knock down some
thugs.”

“Too bad he’s down on the moon.” Ankari
joined the others behind the desk. She doubted it would stop laser
fire for long, but it was the closest thing to a barricade the room
had.

More shots fired, then someone shouted. Or
was that a cry of pain? If those people were trying to sneak into
the brig to steal the prisoners, they were being rather noisy about
it.

Something thudded against the door, then a
scrape followed, almost like a metal fork on a metal plate. More
smoke flowed from the panel. Ankari waited, her finger tight on the
trigger. She planned to shoot anything standing in the doorway and
prayed she could hit them all before they hit her.

But then it grew silent.

“What happened?” Jamie whispered.

As if Ankari knew. As smart as her two
partners were—Ankari had seen their IQ tests—they were out of their
element when the fights started.

Rhythmic thuds sounded next. Footsteps?
Running footsteps? They came close to the door, but then passed it,
fading to nothing again. After many long seconds passed without a
noise, Ankari lowered the gun and stepped out from behind the desk.
The smoke still rising from the lock panel didn’t entice her to
touch it, not that her palm had done anything anyway. Remembering
the key, she waved it next to the wall. She didn’t expect
anything—even if it would have worked once, those men must have
melted the innards with their shots.

Surprisingly, the panel gave a sickly bleep,
and the door slid open. Ankari aimed the gun into the corridor, but
immediately knew there was no need. At least six unmoving men lay
on the floor, their weapons fallen at their sides. They were all in
black, and as she had thought at her first glance, she didn’t
recognize any of the faces. Intruders. How had they gotten on
board?

“Should we tie them up somehow?” Jamie
whispered.

“There were those handcuffs,” Lauren said.
“But only two pairs.”

“There are probably another ten pairs in that
Striker’s cabin.”

“I don’t think we need to worry about that,”
Ankari said, numbed by the unmoving figures, the open unseeing
eyes. “Looks like the Mandrake Company men took care of them.” She
forced herself to step into the hallway and pick up laser pistols
for Lauren and Jamie. One of the bodies didn’t want to release its
weapon, even in death. She let him keep it and found another
one.

Lauren and Jamie accepted them, all the jokes
gone from their lips as they realized the men were all dead. By
now, Ankari had a good idea of the layout of the ship, so she led
them straight to a ladder that would take them up to the middle
deck. She paused when more laser fire sounded, echoing from
somewhere above her.

“Maybe we should wait for Viktor’s men to
clear out the roaches,” she whispered.

Lauren and Jamie had squeezed into the bottom
of the ladder well with her.

“Who’s Viktor?” Lauren asked.

“The captain.”

“Oh.” Whatever Lauren thought about the
first-name basis, she didn’t mention it. She was too busy flinching
at noises.

Ankari climbed the ladder and was about to
crawl out of the well when a door opened somewhere down the
corridor.

“We get all of them?” someone asked.

“Better have, or the captain will flay us.
Don’t know why Tank sold out, but if Rawlings was in on it, he’s
going to be dead when Mandrake gets a hold of him.”

The voices were coming closer. Ankari scooted
down a few rungs, waving below her to warn the others.

The ship shuddered again. It didn’t sound
like it was in danger of flying apart at any second, but Ankari
gripped the ladder tightly.

“Can’t believe that little cruiser is picking
a fight with us.” Footsteps accompanied the words now.

Ankari hoped the men would continue on to
another ladder and that they needed to go up to the bridge and not
down to the brig.

“It’s just trying to distract us, I bet.”

“As if we wouldn’t notice these rats with
guns running around our ship.”

“I don’t get it though. Why were they
here?”

For me, Ankari thought, leaning farther away
from the corridor and the light spilling into the ladder well.

“Because the captain’s gone, and they think
they can take the ship? I don’t know.”

The men continued past the ladder, and Ankari
released the breath she had been holding. She listened intently
until their words and their footsteps had disappeared, then peeked
into the corridor. There weren’t any bodies on this deck, but those
men had been fighting with someone. Tank, that had been one of the
men Striker had mentioned as missing, hadn’t it? Along with a
shuttle? Ankari probably should have been paying more attention to
that conversation, instead of letting herself be distracted by the
tendons in Viktor’s neck...

“This way,” she whispered to the others. She
had a feeling they were going to find more bodies in the shuttle
bay. She hoped they found a shuttle too.

Voices drifted down from the deck above.
Those men had to be searching the entire ship, looking for more
intruders. They would doubtlessly have no trouble dealing with
escaped prisoners if they came across them.

Ankari waved the key in front of the shuttle
bay door pad and clenched her fist when it opened. The bodies she
had expected were there. Two more men in black lay in front of the
single shuttle in the open bay. She didn’t see any of Viktor’s men.
Good.

“Everyone in,” Ankari said, waving for the
others to join her so the door would shut again, then she jogged
down the stairs. The layout of the space was similar to that of the
cargo bay, minus the gym equipment. There were a few control panels
along the wall at the bottom of the staircase. “Think we can gain
access to the bay doors from inside the shuttle?” she asked
Jamie.

“You’d think so.”

“Your technical manual didn’t say so?”

Jamie gave her a flat look. “It was for the
shuttle, not the shuttle
bay
.”

They stopped in front of the door on the back
of the sleek black shuttle. It was open, and there were three more
bodies inside, two of them wearing the same black and killed with
laser fire. Smoke still wafted from some of the clothing. The third
man was bald and wore a leather jacket more in line with the
civilian clothing Viktor’s crew favored. His throat had been
slit.

“Any chance we can leave them... those...
here?” Lauren extended a finger toward the bodies.

Ankari might have thought the question
callous, but Lauren truly looked disturbed at the idea of climbing
into a shuttle full of dead men. Admittedly, Ankari wasn’t that
enthused about the idea, either. “If you’ll help me move them out.
Jamie, want to get up there and see if you can start this?”

“Starting it should be easy. Figuring out
what to press to get the shuttle bay doors to open might be more of
a challenge.”

Good point. Ankari doubted she could simply
wave the key at them.

“All those bodies are going to be blown out
into space when the bay doors open,” Jamie said. “Just so you
know.”

Ankari and Lauren stared down at the dead man
they had been about to move. She didn’t feel good about flinging
corpses into space, but... “That’s probably what the captain would
do with them anyway.”

Lauren grabbed the legs, leaving Ankari to
take the body under the armpits. She had seen dead people on the
streets as a child, but she had never touched a dead man before. It
chilled her to think how easily a life might be taken. Had these
people truly made this ultimate sacrifice just to try and collect a
bounty? Viktor’s mercenaries made similar sacrifices for money.
Most of them must not believe they would be killed, but either way,
Ankari found this willingness to fling oneself into battle for such
trite rewards hard to understand.

Without talking, she and Lauren moved the
bodies into the bay and sat down behind the cockpit. Jamie tapped a
button, and the shuttle door closed, sealing them into the gray
oblong can. There were seats for sixteen people and the pilot, but
it still felt claustrophobic. Unlike the cargo haulers she was used
to, these were lean, aerodynamic vehicles intended solely for
moving troops.

“I’d be worried that she has the technical
manual open on the console beside her,” Lauren murmured, “but she
flew us most of the way to the ruins like that.”

“I’m sure she’ll have this mastered in no
time,” Ankari said.

“They’re going to know on the bridge that
we’re here as soon as I depressurize the shuttle bay,” Jamie said.
“Are we—”

The white lighting beyond the view screen
dimmed, and red lights flashed. A series of warning bleats went
off. Clinks and clanks came from beneath the shuttle, something
securing them so they wouldn’t be blown out as soon as the bay
doors opened? Or were they already being released into space?

“Er, ready?” Jamie finished.

Ankari snapped her harness. “Ready.”

“Me too,” Lauren said.

A couple more clunks sounded underneath them,
and the craft lifted. The view on the screen switched from what was
visible out the front to what was visible out the back. The
departure process must have been automated, because Jamie wasn’t
touching anything.

“Bridge to shuttle bay,” a male voice growled
over the comm, “you don’t have permission to depart.”

“What do we say?” Jamie whispered.

Ankari was tempted to respond with something
sarcastic, but the bridge might have a way to stop them and bring
them back inside. They had equipped their science freighter with
tractor-beam technology for collecting samples; a mercenary ship
might have it too. For collecting wayward shuttles.

“My vote is for nothing,” Lauren said.

“Let’s go with that for now,” Ankari said.
They had already left the shuttle bay and were maneuvering away
from the ship. Jamie still hadn’t had to do anything and was
staring down at the console with a perplexed expression.

“Shuttle One,” a calmer voice said, though it
didn’t have any less steel in it, “this is Commander Garland.
Identify yourself or prepare to be fired upon.”

“They’re not going to fire on their own
shuttle, are they?” Jamie whispered.

A warning light and alarming beep came from
the console.

“What’s that?” Lauren asked.

“Either the ship is powering their weapons,
or the shuttle stores are out of egg logs,” Jamie said.

Ankari pushed her hands through her hair.
“Maybe we can buy time enough to get out of their range.” Good
idea, but how? “Uhm.”

“Shuttle One, this is your last warning.
Return to the shuttle bay now or—”

A blast of red light shot past a porthole.
Ankari stared at the view screen, certain the shot was meant for
them, but it skimmed past their nose without striking the
shuttle.

“That hit the ship,” Jamie said, frowning at
a display. “And it came from another ship.”

“Them again?” Garland asked someone—his voice
was distant now, as if he had turned from the comm. “Enough with
the warning shots. Blow them out of the sky before they can get
back into those clouds. And—” The rest of his words were lost, with
Garland or someone else cutting off the comm.

“I’m not entirely sure what’s happening,”
Ankari said, “but we have to take advantage of the confusion. Get
us down to Sturm, Jamie.”

“I am. Actually I’m
not
, but we’re
going anyway.” Jamie waved toward the view screen, which had
changed as they rotated around, thrusters igniting to take the
craft away from the
Albatross
. A glimpse of a black
disk-shaped ship occupied the corner for a moment, then it weaved
away, avoiding laser fire. The big round moon came into view next,
its dense verdant green visible, even though they were heading
toward the dark side of it. An angry band of reddish gray clouds
smothered the lower half of the landmass the shuttle was pointed
toward.

“That’s all the wild side, I think,” Ankari
said, punching up Sturm on the tablet. “Mostly loggers, miners, and
a few outposts over there. That’s probably where those raiders are
hiding out and where the captain and his people went. I’d much
rather disappear into a city than a jungle. Anchortown is... that
way.” She pointed toward the horizon where a halo of sunlight
promised dawn.