Mercenary Instinct (a science fiction romance)

by Ruby Lionsdrake

  He occupied a seat across from her—apparently his standing-only preference had to give in to the seats-and-harnesses-required rule of shuttle flight. He appeared grim and fierce, clad in his mesh battle armor, with pistols and knives strapped at every imaginable access point. The butt of a laser rifle sat on the deck between his legs. The soldiers at his sides were similarly armed and sat in similar positions, none of them craning their necks to see out the front of the shuttle like Ankari was. Nor were any of them wiping damp hands on their clothes. Jamie and Lauren were the only other people displaying signs of nerves. Lauren had the look of someone who needed a paper bag to breathe into, and Jamie kept fiddling with the straps of a backpack. She and Lauren had supposedly managed to cobble together some booby traps.

  “Did you ever find out what happened to our generator?” Jamie whispered.

  “It didn’t come up,” Ankari said.

  “You were gone all night.”

  “Not talking about generators.” At Jamie’s disapproving frown—more for the lack of a generator update than the fact that Ankari had spent the night with Viktor, she was sure—Ankari asked, “Captain? I suppose it’s too late to do anything about now, but we were wondering why one of your people took our portable generator.”

  “I had it sent to my engineer and worked on,” Viktor said.

  “Worked on?” Jamie asked.

  “It should take down a brig force field now,” Viktor said. Ah, yes, he had been reviewing that security footage after all. “That may come in useful down here.”

  “I hope we can avoid being thrown into cells,” Ankari said. Maybe that was a delusional hope.

  Viktor gave her a quick, tight smile that she didn’t know how to read.

  Ankari and her friends couldn’t carry any weapons of their own in, not when they were supposed to be prisoners. She had objected to that, but Viktor had pointed out that they would likely be funneled through a security screening and that he, too, might be deprived of his weapons. He had growled a little at that notion. Maybe that would keep him from trying to kill Felgard. Ankari didn’t know how good of an idea that was. Even if a finance lord could buy all the lawyers in the system and thus get away with committing crimes, that didn’t make him a criminal in the eyes of the law. If it were known that Mandrake Company had made the man disappear, there might be... retribution.

  “Looks like we’re going to have an escort to the coordinates, sir,” the shuttle pilot said.

  “Not surprising,” Viktor said.

  “What? Old Felgard thinks we might ignore his landing instructions and drop down on his rooftop instead of in his shuttle port?” Tick asked. The tracker sat beside Viktor, chomping on his gum and stealing occasional peeks through the porthole behind him. He had muttered a few longing words about tropical beaches and rum.

  “Maybe we could just drop the girls out in chutes and take us a nice long dip in one of his swimming holes,” Striker, who was sitting on the other side of Tick, said.

  Joke or not, Ankari wasn’t sure she liked that attitude from one of Viktor’s elite men, chosen to help protect her team. “I guess he’s gotten over his interest in you if he’s willing to dump us so easily,” Ankari muttered to Jamie.

  “I’m fine with that.”

  The shadow of wings flashed past a porthole behind Viktor’s head.

  “Mandrake Shuttle,” a voice sounded over the comm. “This is Starstrike Alpha. Proceed to the assigned coordinates. We will escort you.”

  “And my guess is proven correct,” the pilot muttered, then raised his voice to respond with a clipped, “Acknowledged.”

  “Starstrike?” one of the soldiers near the back said.

  “Someone has an inflated opinion of the ferocity of his civilian security craft,” someone else muttered.

  The nose of the shuttle dipped, and a lush green shoreline came into view, lined with a sandy white beach. Trees of impressive stature rose from the verdant inland, some hundreds of feet tall. Ankari thought she saw structures in some of them, but maybe they just had interesting branches and foliage. She had never been to Paradise, but had heard about it, one of the only planets in their trinary star system that had been hospitable—pleasantly so—for human life and showed no sign of the past terraforming. Her pre-mission reading had told her Felgard’s island had been a global park and wildlife preserve for most of its history, until he had found some loophole, dumped a whole lot of money, and purchased it.

  “That’s an island?” someone asked.

  “Looks like a continent to me,” Tick said.

  “It’s just under a million square kilometers,” the pilot said.

  Tick grunted. “Oh, is that all?”

  “Must be nice to have all that money. Think of all the women you could buy.” Striker eyed Jamie, having apparently not forgotten about her, after all. “Or maybe women would throw themselves at you, on account of the lavishes you can give them.”

  “You don’t give lavishes, you idiot,” Tick said, “you lavish someone. With things.”

  “Whatever. I bet women are jumping on Felgard’s dick every hour of the day, hoping for lavishes.”

  Tick elbowed Striker. “Try harder to be crude, will you? It’s not coming through as clearly as it could.” He gave Ankari, Lauren, and Jamie apologetic looks.

  “What crude? I can’t talk about dicks because there are females listening?”

  “Quiet,” Viktor said, his voice soft, but cutting through the snickers and whispered speculation. “We’ll be landing shortly.”

  A soft beep came from Ankari’s pocket. Her tablet. Paradise must have planet-wide net coverage. She almost ignored it, figuring it was something mundane, like her mother wanting to know why she hadn’t written lately, but decided to check it in case it was important. Her own research hadn’t brought up any more interesting information on Felgard, but she had sent Fumio a note that morning, letting him know that she was going to confront the finance lord and asking if he had found out anything new.

  When she pulled up the message program, she did, indeed, find a response from her friend.

  No time for a long chat, Sweet Cakes, but I had a fresh thought on the way to work this morning, and took the liberty of investigating. We’ve been focusing on Felgard, not his companies. Felgard’s past has been shrouded and obfuscated, and his present isn’t all that clear, either. But in a testament to how much the corporations take preeminence in the system, it’s harder to obscure the records of a company than it is to hide a man. I’m not sure if it’ll mean anything to you, but his first company, Trak Teck Enterprises, originated on Spero. Standing by, Fumio.

  Ankari stared at the words. She hadn’t thought to look up the company, either, not beyond the basic information out there on the public exchange, but should have poked deeper. Spero. Just a confidence? Or did it mean something? That Felgard came from the same planet as she? If that were true, then wouldn’t they be all the more likely to be allies rather than enemies? The new information was interesting, but Ankari didn’t know how it could help her, especially at this late stage in their plan.

  Aware of Viktor’s gaze upon her, she handed him the tablet. He read the message in silence, then handed it back to her. If he found anything enlightening, it didn’t show on his face, which remained as hard and grim as ever. Even if Felgard did prove to be a victim of a destroyed world, nothing in Viktor’s eyes said he was interested in extending the same solicitude to the finance lord that he had to her.

  “Landing, sir,” the pilot said.

  Ankari put her tablet away. She was out of time for speculation.

  Tall green grass waved in the ocean breeze as the craft touched down on a brick landing pad next to a hangar. The bricks looked to be gold-plated; they gleamed beneath the strong equatorial sun. At least twenty armed men waited outside, all wearing crisp white uniforms, and there were ambulatory robots as well, with built-in protrusions that looked like weapons. They floated a couple of feet above the landing pad, idling at
the corners.

  Ankari took a deep breath. This was it.

  Viktor unbuckled his harness and stood behind the pilot for a moment, looking alternately at the view screen and the displays on the console.

  “Big welcoming party,” the pilot said.

  “Big island,” Tick said. “You’ve got to have a big staff, or people will just think you’re scrimping.”

  Ankari eased out of her seat. At least the security men—and robots—didn’t look like they were preparing to shoot anyone who stepped out of the shuttle. No, of course not. She was wanted alive. All three of them were. She probably wouldn’t be shot until after she rejected Felgard’s demands.

  “We’re clear, sir,” the pilot said.

  “Drop the door. I’ll go out first. Striker and Tick after, then Ankari and the others. Sergeant Aster, follow with your squad. Keep them protected.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You keep the engine running, Sequoia. I’ll be in touch if we need one of your special pick-ups.”

  The pilot glanced back, a hint of a smile stretching a face that was oddly boyish and unscarred for a mercenary. “Yes, sir. I packed the parachutes and thruster bikes, just in case.”

  “Good.”

  Viktor was all business, none of the humor from the morning on his face, but he gripped Ankari’s hand and met her eyes before passing her and heading out of the shuttle. Ankari was glad he hadn’t suggested that she and her friends be handcuffed. She might not have a weapon, but she wanted to be able to act if she had to, even if that just meant running and hiding. With all the hulking soldiers, Viktor must have assumed it would be believable that they wouldn’t bother binding their prisoners.

  After he went out, the rest of the men herded Ankari, Lauren, and Jamie after him. Ankari tried not to feel useless surrounded by the sea of armed soldiers, but all she could do was clasp her hands behind her back and walk across the brick landing pad—it was gold-plated. How superfluous. The scenery stretching around them was beautiful, though, palm trees, a beach in the distance, and the brilliant blue sea beyond. The thick vegetation inland reminded Ankari uncomfortably of Sturm—she hoped there weren’t raptors—but the trees were different. Towering hundreds of feet in the air, they were amazing, some with trunks broader than the shuttlecraft. Long vines snaked down the sides from branches that stretched for what seemed miles to either side, creating a latticework between the trees.

  There wasn’t much speaking between the two teams of men, Viktor’s squad of twelve and Felgard’s white-uniformed contingent of over twenty. A hover truck waited, and with a few grunts, Mandrake Company and its prisoners were ushered into the big cargo bed in the back. Viktor sat beside Ankari. He was busy scanning the foliage for danger and keeping an eye on the Felgard men, who had also climbed in the back with them, so he didn’t make eye contact with her, but she appreciated his solid presence, the reassuring touch of his shoulder against hers.

  The truck wound into the darker interior of the island, following a gravel road, even though the hover feature would have allowed it to go anywhere. The trees grew up all around, the wide bases of their trunks blocking out the horizon and the tall thick shafts stretching up like skyscrapers. An innuendo-tainted joke floated into her mind, and she would have shared it if she were alone with Viktor, but she was well aware of all the eyes watching him, those of his people and those of the white-clad men, as well. Prisoners probably weren’t supposed to trade penis jokes with their captors.

  When the truck stopped, it didn’t seem as if they had arrived anywhere. They were still on the road and in the middle of the forest. A couple more armed men stepped out from behind the closest tree. For a moment, Ankari thought they had been dragged out into the woods to be shot, but the men waved the truck off the road. It stopped beneath a square of green moss that didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the forest floor. Before she could lean back and examine it further, the truck started rising. Fast. She grabbed Viktor’s arm, realized what she was doing, and tried to find a spot on the bench to grip instead. Of course, Lauren was grabbing her arm, so maybe no one would think twice of her alarmed snatch.

  With speed that inspired vertigo, the entire craft rose two hundred feet, then halted next to a wooden platform. An entire city of platforms spread out on multiple levels with myriad pathways leading between them, some lined with huge potted plants and others with stark, narrow stretches without so much as a railing to protect one from the fall.

  “Felgard lives in a tree fort?” Striker asked as the truck floated onto the closest platform, a large loading and unloading area that included a vehicle garage. “That’s not in line with the kind of super villain abode you usually see in literature.”

  “You’ve read literature?” Tick asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Was it graphically represented?”

  One of the other men snickered, muttering about Striker’s extensive comic collection.

  “Every panel has sentences on it, you meatheads. It’s literature.”

  “Ooooow-splat isn’t a sentence,” Tick said.

  Ankari tried to decide whether she was reassured that Viktor’s men were calm enough for this banter or if she was concerned that they weren’t taking Felgard as seriously as they should.

  When the truck stopped, Viktor was the first out again, his rifle in his hands. Ankari kept expecting someone to tell them they had to leave their weapons behind. She couldn’t imagine the men strolling into Felgard’s tree mansion—or inner sanctum, whatever super villains had—fully armed.

  A man in a less military version of the white uniform walked out of the vehicle house. “This way, Captain Mandrake.” He pointed toward one of the bridges, a wide one, fortunately.

  Viktor waited until Ankari and her friends were out, along with the rest of his soldiers, before starting across it. Ankari shouldn’t have looked over the edge, but she couldn’t help it. A dizzying jumble of trunks stretched downward, vines dangling from their branches and blocking much of the view, but she glimpsed some ferns far, far below. A drop would be deadly, no question.

  “Walk precisely where I walk, Captain,” the butler said when they came to a platform checkered with light and dark squares of wood, each about two feet wide. He picked his way across in some pattern only he knew.

  Ankari thought Viktor might snort at this ridiculousness, but he grabbed a head-sized pine cone and tossed it on a random square. When it first struck, nothing happened, but then it bounced onto another square, which flipped open from invisible hinges. The cone disappeared, falling into the depths below.

  Without a word, Viktor strode after their guide, hurrying to catch up so he wouldn’t lose the pattern. The other men also rushed to follow, Ankari included.

  Three steps in, her heel landed on an edge, and a trapdoor fell open. Even without having her weight on it, the sudden gap and view of the distant ground made her heart jump into her throat. She dropped into a fight stance, more for stability and balance than any thought of fighting, and let out a slow breath, composing herself. She caught Viktor looking in her direction, his eyes intense, as if he would have leaped across the intervening squares, chancing trapdoors, if he’d needed to catch her. The concern touched her, but she was relieved he hadn’t acted on her fumble. If he were the one to fall...

  She gulped. This wasn’t the place to contemplate what he had come to mean to her.

  A few more heels caught, causing trapdoors to fall open, but the Mandrake soldiers kept their calm and reached the other side without anything more disturbing happening. The guide continued up a ramp to a new platform where he waited for them. Viktor looked back across the checkerboard—trying to memorize the safe route?—for a long moment before joining the man.

  Several more men in white butler-style uniforms waited on the new platform, each carrying a bucket in one hand and a long fork in the other. Odd. A bridge stretched ahead of them, lined by huge pots housing strange green plants the size of trees. Their thick stems we
re more than six inches wide with vines that twisted and writhed in the breeze—or maybe they were doing that independently of the breeze? Trumpet-shaped flowers bigger than a man’s head swayed with their movements. Ankari couldn’t guess if they were genetically engineered, someone’s pet project, or native plants. After all, the trees were enormous too.

  At the end of the long bridge, a big building with numerous conical wooden roofs rose up from an elevated platform. Felgard’s mansion?

  Once all of the soldiers were gathered on the platform, the guide nodded to the men with the buckets. They exchanged long looks with each other, took deep—bracing?—breaths and inched out onto the bridge. Each man stabbed a fork into his bucket, pulling out what appeared to be fresh raw steak. Ankari stared, puzzled, until the trumpet-flowers rotated toward the men, revealing sharp protrusions that she could only think of as teeth. Fangs.

  One of the flowers lunged, taking a proffered steak with a strange undulation, not unlike a jaw snapping shut. Others descended on the steak-carrying men. Ankari had heard of plants that ate insects, but this was crazy.

  “Hurry,” the guide said, waving for them to follow. “They’re not sated for long.”

  As the guide hustled forward, staying in the middle of the bridge, his shoulders hunched inward, his nervousness didn’t seem like it was for show. One of the men leading the way, feeding the plants, jumped in surprise as a flower snapped close to his arm. He thrust a steak at it, and the trumpet shifted, swallowing the offering and leaving him to hurry onward.

  Lamenting her lack of a weapon more now than before, Ankari trotted after the mercenaries—they were all hustling now, crowding the guide and the men doing the feeding. Those steaks disappeared with alarming rapidity. A big serrated dagger had appeared in Viktor’s hand, in addition to the rifle strapped across his chest.

  Halfway across the bridge, someone behind them snarled, a mixture of rage and pain. One of the flowers had clamped onto a mercenary’s shoulder. He jerked back, shooting at the trumpet point blank. More plants reared and undulated toward him, like sharks roused by the scent of blood. A huge flower from the other side of the bridge darted in, clamping onto the mercenary’s ribcage.