Mercenary Instinct (a science fiction romance) (36 page)

“
And I did have everything
I ever wanted after that,” Felgard went on, almost as if he were
confessing to some priest of old. “For the next twenty years, I had
it all. But not even the rich can escape the passage of time, the
disease it brings.” His eyes sharpened again, and he looked at
her.

Ankari composed her face, lest he see how
much his words had stunned her.

“
Needless to say, I’m
intrigued by what those alien microbes might be able to offer. My
problem...” He touched his abdomen. “I’ve always had problems—a
psychologist would doubtlessly point out I must have a guilty
conscience that troubles me—and the bacteria that plagues me, that
keeps coming back... the doctors understand what it is, how it
affects the system, how long I likely have, but they don’t know how
to rid me of it. It’s something I picked up in my travels.
Apparently those with compromised systems are more vulnerable, but
it’s problematic for many in the outlying, less civilized, worlds.
Aradica Trifilcarius.” he said, nodding at Lauren. “I’m sure you’ve
heard of it.”

“
Yes. It’s native to this
system, and resists our antibiotics, manual irrigation, and the
drugs currently on the market. It even kills nanobots. You’re
right, Lord Felgard, in that we do believe the alien microbiota
would deal with it. Those people were so similar to us, except that
they evolved here, or at least lived here long enough to find
immunity to many of the native bacteria. It’s highly likely that we
could help you.”

“
That was my hope. I’m not
a theist, you know. I don’t believe there’s an afterlife, a heaven
or hell. I never did, anyway. I suppose there are naturally doubts
when the end nears. Most people hope that a heaven exists, that
this isn’t the end. I only hope that a hell doesn’t exist. I’m sure
you can understand.”

Ankari was glad he was
talking to Lauren instead of her. Lauren wasn’t Speronian. She
might be appalled, but couldn’t be affected so deeply. Ankari
needed a moment to recover before she could speak to him without
rancor dripping from her voice. If his guilt was stressing his
system so that he had been more susceptible to bacterial plagues,
then good. He deserved it. He should have died twenty years ago,
when millions of others had.
He
should have died, and
they
should have lived.

Felgard had been right. Ankari never would
have worked with him if she had known. And now? Did she have a
choice? She looked at the guards, the androids, Viktor… wondering
if he had come in with a plan greater than walking off the shuttle
with men and guns and a vague hope of being able to use them.

For the moment, he appeared to simply be
waiting and watching Felgard. Absorbed in the story? Had Grenavine
been betrayed in a similar manner? She would have to ask
someday.

The displays showing the market tickers
blinked out, returning the windows to nothing more than windows.
Before Ankari could wonder what had happened, Viktor blasted into
motion. He was so fast that she wouldn’t have seen him move at all,
except that Lauren stumbled forward, flailing for her balance.
Flesh smacked against flesh, then a laser rifle fired, the beam
streaking wildly into the room.

Ankari grabbed Lauren and Jamie. “Down,” she
whispered and dropped to the floor. “Stay down.”

There weren’t any posts or any beams to hide
behind, or she would have scrambled toward them. Maybe they would
be safer near the wall?

More crimson beams fired.
Two of the white-uniformed guards were already down and not moving.
Ankari finally spotted Viktor, rolling to dodge fire from the other
guards in the room. He came up behind one of the androids—one of
the
unmoving
androids—using the broad-shouldered male figure for
cover.

Felgard slammed his hand against something
on his chair, then threw himself out of it, moving adroitly for a
man with less than a year to live. Lauren and Jamie were taking her
advice to heart, their eyes wide and their bellies to the floor.
Ankari spotted a gun next to a fallen guard. At the rate Viktor was
going, he might down the rest without a scratch, if the androids
didn’t start up again. She didn’t know how he had arranged the
power failure or how long it would last. Wait, it had to be more
than power if the androids were affected… The generator?

Felgard was sprinting out the back door.
There was no time to contemplate the hows further. If he got away,
neither she nor Mandrake Company would ever be safe, especially not
if he figured out a way to extend his life.

She crawled toward the fallen guard. Lasers
continued to fire, one beam biting into the floor not five feet to
the side of her. Scorched wood flew up, pelting her. She gulped and
veered around the new hole in the floor.

Ankari reached the fallen guard and grabbed
his rifle. Two of the androids had toppled, and Viktor was hurling
himself through the air, dodging more fire. She hesitated, tempted
to help him, but he must have been tracking where she was and what
she was doing, for he yelled, “Get Felgard,” even as he skidded
behind another android and fired at two men charging up the
ramp.

Ankari crawled toward the door, but realized
Felgard would be on another island by the time she caught him if
she continued at that pace. She risked leaping to her feet and
sprinted for the rear exit.

She charged outside onto a balcony, the warm
humid air smacking her in the face like a wet towel. Some of those
awful plants lined one side of the balcony and she gave them a wide
berth. A long, curving ramp led down to a lower level, but she ran
to the railing first, trying to spot Felgard.

There. He was running down the curving ramp.
She took a step after him, but Viktor blasted through the door
first, charging past her without hesitation. With a dagger between
his teeth, a pistol in one hand and a laser rifle in the other, he
raced after the finance lord, his face as determined as an
avalanche. But Felgard had a big head start. He was running at top
speed for the lower level. He must have something down there that
could save him. No, not down there… coming in from above. The drone
of a small personal shuttlecraft came from the sky. It was heading
their way. It had to be coming to pick up Felgard.

Ankari took a step toward
the ramp, but skittered back when the door was thrown open again.
The androids were awake.
All
of them. She backed up so far she almost ran into
the fanged man-killer plants. But the androids didn’t look at her,
didn’t
care
about
her. As one, all ten charged down the ramp after Viktor. Some had
lost their rifles, but others hadn’t. And they were as fast as he
was. No, faster. Shit.

When Viktor had almost
reached the bottom of the ramp—he must have heard those thunderous
boots racing after him en masse—he stopped and turned around.
Ankari gaped. He
stopped
? What was he thinking? She lifted her rifle, intending to
shoot at least one in the back, though she couldn’t imagine what
good it would do, but Viktor was already firing on his own. Not at
the androids, like she would have expected, but at the bridge
itself. The laser ate into the wood like butter, chewing holes and
blasting entire boards away. He was relentless, shooting with both
weapons, creating a huge gap.

The first android reached the chasm and
didn’t slow down. It leaped into the air, its legs carrying it
farther than a human’s would have. Viktor dropped something on the
bridge beneath him, turned and ran for the bottom of the ramp. At
the same time as the android landed on the far side, the wooden
boards beneath its feet exploded. The way it flew back upward made
Ankari feel she was reliving the last five seconds, except in
reverse.

The other androids stopped at the edge,
watching as their comrade flew up… then down. A human would have
flailed, hoping to find some branch or vine, but the android must
have analyzed all the possibilities, found them lacking, and
accepted its fate. It soon plummeted out of sight. Ankari couldn’t
imagine even such a sturdy construct would survive the fall to the
ground. She hoped it didn’t anyway.

After the grenade blew—where had Viktor
gotten that, anyway?—more of the bridge crumbled on both sides of
the chasm. The other androids leaped back, then turned, probably
intending to find another way across—or to simply return to the
balcony and jump down. That lower level was right under the railing
next to Ankari.

Though she was afraid that they would focus
on her, she lunged forward and shot at the top of the ramp. Boards
blasted away under the barrage, but it wasn’t going to be enough
damage fast enough, not when those androids could leap twenty
meters as if it were nothing. But something else sailed up from
below—another grenade? It landed on the platform at the top of the
ramp. Worried it would bounce right back off, Ankari shot at it,
hoping to detonate it first.

Her shot struck true. The grenade exploded
with a boom that shook the platform. Even a dozen meters away, the
shockwave threw Ankari onto her back. She landed hard, stunned,
barely managing to keep hold of the rifle.

A green vine waved into her vision. Ankari
squawked and rolled away before a giant fanged flower head could
follow. She scrambled to her feet to check on the androids, hoping
that blast had stopped them. She gawked at the charred boards at
the edge of the platform, smoke wafting from them. The entire ramp
was gone. And so were the androids.

Before she could pump her fist in triumph,
the whine of laser fire came from the platform below, rising above
the drone of the shuttle’s thrusters, which had grown much closer.
Ankari lunged to the railing. Maybe Viktor had shot Felgard, and
the shuttle would have nothing to do. Except Felgard would have had
the opportunity to run even farther in the time Viktor had been
busy with the androids. The platform below was much larger and
longer than the balcony Ankari was on, with plenty of room for an
impromptu landing pad at one end.

She spotted Viktor, not chasing after
Felgard, but on the ground, grasping at his shoulder. Ankari’s
heart sank into her boots. That shot must have come from Felgard.
He was running, pistol in hand, to the spot where the shuttle was
coming in.

Viktor wasn’t dead, not yet, and he
staggered to his feet, but that wound was clearly slowing him.
Ankari fired at Felgard, but didn’t take enough time; the laser
blasted into the boards near his feet but missed him. Alerted to
her now, he raced under her platform. He would doubtlessly use it
for cover, not coming out until he could run straight to the
shuttle.

With Ankari trapped on the balcony, twenty
feet above him, she couldn’t do a thing to stop him. Unless she
jumped over the railing. She knew how to take a fall—her father’s
training ensured that—but the height daunted her, nonetheless.
Besides, she had to do something in the next fifteen seconds if she
was going to keep Felgard from escaping. The shuttle’s landing
skids were less than ten feet from the platform, and the wind from
its approach was whipping up the air, rustling the leaves of more
of those plants lining a nearby platform.

Ankari stared hard at those plants, an idea
surging into her mind. She took careful aim and waited. Felgard
would have to run out… Where? About there? The pilot touched down
and waved.

She dropped to her belly, sticking her head
through the railing. There was Felgard, about to run for the
shuttle. She fired, not at him but at the edge of the platform
holding those pots. She wished she had one of those grenades, but
the laser bit into the wood effectively. She blasted several of the
pots as she sprayed fire.

Felgard must not have guessed her intent,
for he merely sprinted for the shuttle. As he ran out from beneath
the platform above him, a laser struck him in the side. It hadn’t
been her shot, but Viktor’s. He was was sprinting toward Felgard,
despite the injury. The shuttle pilot leaned out of a side hatch,
aiming at Viktor, who shifted his attention, firing preemptively.
Ankari kept her focus on that railing, those plants. Viktor’s shot
had taken Felgard to the ground, but he was squirming, trying to
get up.

A pot exploded under Ankari’s barrage. She
growled. Destroying the plants wasn’t her intent. But when the dirt
and greenery flopped to the platform twenty feet below, the plant
was still animate. The funnel head came up, like the snout of a dog
as it sniffed the air. Felgard was on the deck a few feet away. He
must have seen the danger right away, for he scrambled to his feet,
even though he clutched his side with his hand, and smoke was
wafting through his fingers. At that same moment, the platform
above his head gave away, finally damaged enough from Ankari’s
barrage of fire to collapse. Wood, pots, and plants tumbled to the
level below, crashing all around Felgard.

A piece of the railing slammed onto him, and
he crumpled beneath it. The pots broke when they dropped, but that
didn’t keep the hungry flowers from lunging for Felgard. No less
than four fanged trumpets clamped onto his body, ripping into
flesh. His screams pierced the air. Ankari looked away, ostensibly
to check on Viktor, but also because she couldn’t watch a man be
torn to bits by carnivorous plants, even if they had been his own
“botanical hobby.”

The shuttle reared away from the platform,
jumping into the air like a frightened cat. Blood spattered the
platform where the pilot had been leaning out.

Viktor gave Ankari a silent
salute, then lowered his rifle and walked toward Felgard—what
remained of the man. Viktor kept an eye on the shuttle, but the
pilot must have had enough of him, for the craft veered away,
heading straight out to sea. Felgard had stopped screaming, but he
was still twitching. Viktor pointed his rifle at the man’s chest
and fired. By that point, it was a mercy. They had wanted
to—
needed
to—stop
him, but Ankari shuddered, knowing she had been the one to do it.
In the future, she hoped to be able to stick to business ventures
and leave the killing to others.