Victory Conditions (15 page)

“I don’t chatter!” Merced said.

“Captain, tell me why I should believe you. Or trust you.”

Merced glowered a moment, glanced from side to side at her fellow privateers, and—getting no encouragement—finally shook her head. “I suppose…I suppose you have no reason to, other than my…my record.”

“Your record,” Ky said, “emphasized that I would find you troublesome. I won’t quote it—”

To her surprise, Merced laughed. “Oh, go ahead. I wager everyone who knows me could come close without even looking at it. Stubborn?” Ky nodded. “Thought so. Defiant, resists advice, reckless, combative?”

Ky could not resist her own chuckle. “Pretty much. ‘Quarrelsome, disrespectful, hypersensitive, argumentative, reckless.’”

“You know I was kicked out of Spaceforce Academy in my second year thirty-one years ago,” Merced said. “Unable to maintain military courtesy under pressure, they said. I decked a senior cadet.”

“And you surely know I was kicked out,” Ky said.

“But you were in the Honor Squad. You were the goody-two-shoes kind; I heard about you. Vatta’s daughter, straight arrow—”

Ky leaned forward. “You can always spend the rest of this war in custody here, which will be no fun at all—”

Merced did not flinch. “I can’t be a straight arrow. I can’t be a butt-kisser. I can fight like blazes—anyone, anywhere, anytime—but I can’t just sit back and be given stupid orders by a—” She stopped again.

Ky pulled out her Rossi-Smith and laid it on the table in front of her. Utter stillness in the room; eyes shifted from her to Merced and back. She pushed up one sleeve, showing the sheath of one of her knives. “If you feel it necessary, Captain Merced,” she said, “we can adjourn for an hour to the gym assigned to our crews, and you can find out just how straight-arrow I am these days. This—” She touched the Rossi-Smith with her index finger. “—is my personal firearm. I won’t notch a bloodbeast-tusk grip, but I assure you it’s been blooded more than once. And this—” She touched the sheath. “—is just one of my personal knives. I gutted a man twice my weight with the big one, fighting hand-to-hand in zero gravity, to save my ship. So if my being too innocent worries you, get over it. One on one—” Ky looked Merced up and down. “—you wouldn’t stand a chance.” She had no doubt of that. The older woman was fit, and no doubt had won her share of brawls, but Ky had seen enough to know Merced lacked the training she herself had.

Ky—and she was sure everyone else—saw the realization come slowly to Merced’s expression that Ky was as formidable as she claimed. “It might be…fun…to find out,” Merced said. “But you said we had a war to fight.”

“We do,” Ky said. “Do you want in on the fight?”

“I suppose—” And then, as Ky continued to stare her down, Merced nodded. “All right, yes. I do. And I’ll try to be good—”

“No,” Ky said, correcting her. “I need your best performance, and your record says that comes not from being good in the traditional sense, but from being the wild card.”

Merced’s face lit up again. “I don’t have to stay in pokey formations?”

“Sometimes, but not always. When we get to specific battle plans, I’ll tell you about it. But now—” Ky looked around the table again, collecting everyone’s attention. This time it wasn’t hard. “—I need to know, from all of you, whether you can commit fully to this. It’s not like privateering. We intend to fight, and we must fight as a coordinated force.”

“I’m in,” Merced said before anyone else could. The others all nodded, with varying degrees of enthusiasm and not a few glances at the pistol as Ky picked it up, spun it for emphasis, and reholstered it.

After that long day, Ky headed back to
Vanguard
to see how Hugh was coming along in preparing the ship to go to refitting and acquire its modular CCC. She knew she would have to move to quarters on Cascadia Station—and Stella’s guest room was already full—but not tonight. She was tired but excited at the same time. At last there would be a joint force, and—she grinned to herself at the thought—she had handled the Slotter Key privateers, even Merced.

“Isn’t that Rafe Dunbarger?” Hera Gannett, Ky’s escort, spoke suddenly.

CHAPTER

EIGHT

R
afe in a perfectly tailored business suit still looked like Rafe, but without the familiar edge. Was it just his clothes? He also looked older, and tired, and in some subtle way defeated. His smile, though, when he met her eyes, was much the same. Her heart raced.

Ky nodded to him, trying to damp the excitement she felt. “Rafe,” she said. She choked back the
At last
that would have been natural, along with the very unmilitary desire to grin like a fool. After all, she’d told a roomful of dignitaries that she had no feelings for him. She must not be seen by anyone, even her bodyguard and his, making the opposite obvious.

“Ky. I’m glad to see you,” he said. No mockery in the tone at all; he might have spoken to a casual acquaintance as calmly. She felt her heart lurch in her chest. Did he feel nothing? Was she being a silly schoolgirl?

“You are—?” Changed? No longer interested? Someone else entirely wearing Rafe’s face?

“Well,” he said. “Quite well. And you?” Still that tentative, gentle tone, as if she might shatter.

“I’m fine,” Ky said, slightly annoyed. He should know her better than that. What kind of game was he playing? “And your family?”

His eyes sagged shut briefly; his smile now seemed forced. “They’re much better. My father’s recovery is still progressing, albeit slowly. Penny—my sister—is working for the company now.”

They might have been distant acquaintances, politely reintroducing themselves. Ky felt a surge of impatience. Couldn’t they get beyond that? “So…you’re here for the conference?”

“Yes. ISC and the Nexus government are, as I’m sure you’ve been told, closely related. Nexus has depended on our—the ISC’s—fleet for a long time, and they are not pleased to find out it’s not very good. And as Stella may have told you, one of our subsidiaries here holds a license to manufacture the new ansibles on Cascadia. So my presence was considered necessary.” He said nothing more. The awkward moment lengthened; the obvious bodyguard at his side stared at Ky and then murmured something to Rafe, who startled. “Oh—sorry—Ky, I want you to meet Gary. He was instrumental in rescuing my family.”

Gary looked like a very hard case indeed. Ky could feel Hera Gannett’s alertness like a radiant heater. The man smiled suddenly, a remarkably open smile for someone so obviously dangerous. “Gary Marrin,” he said. “Rafe knew me a long time back. I have—had—a private security company; now I’m working mostly for him, something I would never have expected.”

“Rafe can be quite unexpected,” Ky said. She felt Hera’s slight relaxation.

“That he can,” Gary said. He glanced at Rafe, a look somewhere between fatherly and mischievous. “But I understand you, too, can be unexpected.”

“It’s considered appropriate in commanders,” Ky said, rocking back on her heels for a moment. “Surprise being one of the principles of successful warfare.”

Rafe snorted; this time his grin looked natural. Gary shook his head. “You told me, Rafe, but I didn’t believe it. And this is the woman—”

“Enough,” Rafe said. “Or I’ll be late for the meeting. Ky, you’ll excuse me. If the alliance holds, we may meet again to discuss the status of the ISC fleet.” He nodded, turned away; Gary shrugged and followed.

“
The woman—?”
Hera said. “Is he talking about you, Admiral?”

“Rafe has probably told him that I’m an innocent child-warrior with a ramrod up her rear,” Ky said, more annoyed than she wanted to admit. “And he’s surprised to find that I’m not sixteen or something.”

“I’m not sure I like this place,” Hera said, leaving that topic firmly behind. “It’s so polite, I keep thinking something else is going on.”

“Trade and profit,” Ky said. “I know that much.”

“Where there’s money, there’s trouble,” Hera said. “Spies, thieves, crooks of all kinds…if Turek doesn’t have agents here, I’ll be very surprised.”

“He certainly did,” Ky said. “Toby fell in love with the daughter of one, and there’s no knowing if the locals ferreted out all of them. But I don’t think they’ll do anything on the station, do you? Not after they caught Zori’s father.”

“If they can. Get rid of you, they’ve gotten rid of someone they already know is a dangerously efficient commander.” Hera paused. “Ma’am, if you don’t mind…what do you really think of that man?”

“Rafe’s bodyguard?”

“No…Ser Dunbarger. He’s…he’s different than I remember him. What do you think?”

“I think he’s gotten stuffy and boring,” Ky said. She was appalled at her own honesty, but she went on. “He was a rogue, that much was obvious before, but at least he was entertaining, and he’d quit treating me like an imbecile. And he gave me good advice. But now—I guess he’s distancing himself from all that—from everything in his life as it used to be, and I’m—I was—part of that life. I don’t think it’s just the present diplomatic problem.” She felt sad, even hollow. It wasn’t as bad as what Hal had done, but it hurt in the same places.

Hera started to say something, then very obviously stopped herself. Ky didn’t want to think more about Rafe, about the bond she had been sure they had, but she could not quite push him out of mind.

“Quite a woman,” Gary said, when they were out of earshot. “So that’s the infamous Ky Vatta…”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Rafe said. Seeing Stella again had been difficult enough, but for both of them their official positions as heads of their respective enterprises had enforced a business attitude. No doubt at all that Stella was well over him, that he could not shake her sense of self—not that he wanted to, these days—and he had never been that connected to her. But seeing Ky—realizing that he had not forgotten the least detail of her face, her expressions, even her smell—that shook him. It was impossible.

“She’s not what I expected,” Gary said.

“And what did you expect?” Rafe asked.

“From your family and the gossips at ISC, some hard-faced, overmuscled criminal type. From her cousin, a juvenile military martinet.”

“How did you read her, then?”

“I’m not sure. The military part shows, and clearly she’s young—in years anyway—but there’s something else. I’d say she’s a natural killer—”

“She is,” Rafe said.

“And you would know. Yes, well, she’s not as one-dimensional as your family and her cousin seem to see her…she expected more from you, you know.”

“I know.” Rafe walked on. “I expected…I don’t know…that it would be different.”

“What? You, her, the meeting?”

“All of those.” Once, he had imagined a meeting that ended with a life together, a life that suited both of them.

Gary gave a sharp nod. “You want her.”

“I…did.”

“Do. Come on, Rafe, I’ve known you for years. Even the years you weren’t there, I’ll bet I could name the scams you pulled, the messes you got into…”

“You always did have good intel,” Rafe said. He could feel the back of his neck heating up.

“Did you ever try with her?”

“Once. She dumped me on my back.”

“You are doomed,” Gary said. Rafe glanced at him; he was grinning, without losing any of his concentration on their surroundings. “Man like you, woman who can meet him head-on…you are doomed. She might be the making of you, though.”

“I can’t,” Rafe said.

“Why? You’re not that much older; it wouldn’t be cradle-robbing.”

“She has her life; she needs to concentrate on it…and politically, right now—you know how the Vattas are regarded on Nexus.”

“And maybe she wouldn’t want you? Or maybe at some level you wonder if your family’s right about the Vattas?”

“Not that. Never that. Not about the Vattas as a whole, and absolutely not Ky. But I can’t subject her to that kind of situation, where others are suspicious of her.” He took a breath. “And anyway, she’s busy.”

“And you’re busy, and the beauteous Stella is busy, and everyone’s busy…right, there’s a war on, I’m not forgetting that.” Gary’s opinion of that excuse stung.

“I thought at first…she was too young, too straitlaced…I really didn’t have any interest in her beyond teasing her, trying to get her off balance—”

“I tell you again, Rafe, you’re doomed.”

“It’s not me. I haven’t been…that way…”

“In love?”

Rafe felt the heat in his neck rise to his face. “Whatever you want to call it. Interested in that way, anyway. For a long time, if ever. I never thought about marriage—what did I have to offer, renegade of the family, living on the edge? And why would I, anyway? I was having too much fun.”

“I understand,” Gary said. “When I finally settled down, it came as a surprise to me, too. And now I have children—”

“You?”

“Yes. Carefully kept away from the business. But I see them whenever I’m not on a job. Their mother—well, she’s not exactly like your Ky—”

“She’s not
my
Ky.”

“Yet. Thing is, men like us have to find women who understand men like us, and will stick with us anyway.”

“She’s not—”

“Rafe…” Gary shook his head, then went on. “You may not be the snake I thought you were—at least, not to people you care about—but you still don’t get it. That’s a remarkable woman. She was looking at you that way—”

“I didn’t see it—”

“Your body did.”

Rafe struggled with the combined desire to scream out loud or clobber Gary, neither of which was a good idea on Cascadia. He tried to pull the Ratanvi identity out of its drawer and put it on, but it didn’t fit now. He was here as himself, as his father’s heir, the head of ISC. What worked with Stella, the CEO persona, wouldn’t work now.

“Tell me,” he said, hating the timbre of desperation in his voice, “that she didn’t see that.”

“Oh, I don’t mean that way,” Gary said. “You can relax about that part.”

“Thank you.”

“But I’m trained to read people and I read them very well. The little signs…they were all there. You knew, or your body knew, that she knew that she wanted you, and you chose to ignore it. She’s not going to be happy about that.”

She wouldn’t be. She would think he’d snubbed her. She would try to explain it to herself as her fault—she’d mistaken the earlier interest, it was all on her side. She would, being Ky, take herself in hand, lock down her shields, blaming herself…

“I should talk to Stella,” Rafe said.

“You should put your head in a meat grinder, you mean,” Gary said. “Talk to the family? Now I know for sure you’re doomed. The old Rafe would know better than that without thinking about it. It’s not even lust—it’s love.”

“It’s a mess,” Rafe said. “And I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You let her alone,” Stella said. They had scheduled a meeting to discuss the manufacture of the new ansibles; the Nexus government wanted them badly enough to pay a premium for the right to have them made on Nexus. That business done, Rafe had mentioned that he’d met Ky briefly. Stella stiffened at once and pounced.

“I’m not doing anything,” Rafe said.

“No? You’re certainly exuding interest in that direction. And she doesn’t need to be hurt again.”

Rafe felt a surge of irrational anger. “Who hurt her? You mentioned that once before—”

“It’s none of your business. It happened while she was in the Academy—or rather, after she was kicked out.”

Rafe sat very still, refraining from saying that though it was none of his business, Stella seemed ready to share the gossip.

“I don’t know much about the man,” Stella went on, lacing her fingers. “A fellow cadet, I know that much. I heard her father telling my father about it…he approved, I think. Family not as wealthy as ours, but respectable. Ranked very high, like Ky. Hal, I think his name was; I don’t remember the rest of it. My father said he might be after Ky for her money, but her father said not.” She looked at Rafe. “Am I boring you?”

“No. But you said it wasn’t my business.”

“It’s not. It’s just…I saw the letter. She forgot, left it behind in the ship after she transferred to Osman’s. As a breakup letter it was about as nasty as you can imagine. Clearly distancing himself from whatever trouble she was in. Insulting—even sent back her class ring all mutilated.” Stella quoted a few of the juicier phrases. “I kept it, in case she ever remembers she left it there and wants it.”