Her brows arched, and he realized he had been staring at her, thinking too much, taking too long. She probably thought he was a nut case and was simply too polite to say anything.
“I lied about my age to get into the Fleet. My childhood was particularly miserable, and I couldn’t wait to escape. Fleet was the only escape for someone like me, and where I came from, nobody kept good records of things like births. Not to mention that I was born in a brothel, not some fancy hospital.” He wasn’t angling for pity and waved away what might have been a sympathetic comment, rushing to get to the important part. Before he lost his nerve. “I made it through the basic training fine and headed off to advanced infantry. I hadn’t had much in the way of formal schooling, so it was about all I qualified for. They give you psych tests early on, and it turned out that I had what it takes to become a Fleet assassin.” He twirled a finger to highlight what a prize that had been. Oh, he had thought it fabulous at the time, some sign that he was a particularly virile and promising warrior. It had been later when he realized the tests had been more about measuring his moral flexibility than any athletic prowess. “I did well at the training and was sent to my first unit. Usually, you’re at least eighteen when this happens, since you can’t enlist until your eighteenth birthday. Legally. I had just turned sixteen when I showed up on Sergeant Viktor Mandrake’s doorstep.”
Jamie didn’t say anything, but she was listening and seemed less tense and uncomfortable. Sergei took that as a positive development.
“He wasn’t enthused about having an assassin assigned to his unit. At that point, he was still a little idealistic about what all Crimson Ops was, and what they did, I think.” Sergei waved a hand to dismiss the comment, realizing she might not be that aware of what her father’s career had entailed, especially if he had retired before she was born. “He’s actually leading a much more honorable life now, though I don’t think he sees himself that way. Albatross, hell of a name for a ship. Anyway. I was a cocky young private, eager to prove myself better than all of the men in the squad, Mandrake included. We got sent off on some hairy missions early on, and I got my fill of blood, more than I’d ever wanted. The, uh, excitement and newness of it all wore off quickly.” He studied his hands, which were wrapped around the coffee mug he hadn’t taken a sip from. He wasn’t sure what it said about him that talking about how he had come to be an assassin who took countless lives bothered him less than those stupid counselors. No, he knew exactly what it said about him. Moral flexibility. He snorted and took his first sip, wishing it were alcohol instead of caffeine. He needed something bracing. “After the missions, we would be sent to see these women called counselors. They were always women, oddly. Or maybe that’s not odd. Women are supposed to be more empathetic, right?” He met Jamie’s eyes. “Did your father ever mention them?”
She shook her head.
“Maybe his encounters weren’t quite so, hm.” Sergei spread a hand, not sure what the gesture meant, just that he was struggling to explain things. “We had a couple who were assigned to the ship in the three years I was there. They had all manner of drugs and tools for psychiatric use. Supposedly, they were there to keep us fit for duty and to report if anything changed to make us not fit for duty. That was the official line. But this one… I swear, she enjoyed screwing with everyone. The whole ship was afraid of her. There wasn’t anyone to report these people to, mind you. They were outside of the ranking system yet at the same time, treated like admirals because they had a direct line to high command and could break a man’s career. Anyway, this one, she picked on Mandrake quite a bit, but I was a special project. I have no idea why. She would drug me and, uh…” He took another sip. He’d never told anyone about this, and it was even harder to be blunt than he had realized. “Force me to have sex with her,” he finally managed, not able to look at anything except the table as he did so. “More than that. She was all manner of evil. I know how that must sound, coming from an assassin, but…” Sergei realized he was groping in the air with his hand and forced himself to clasp it around the mug again. “Until then, I’d had this notion that I was a big brave man, even if I wasn’t yet eighteen. But after dealing with her, there were times I ran off crying. I even went to Mandrake a couple of times, begging him to do something, as if he wasn’t a victim too. He probably would have done something if he could, but they chip you, you know.” He touched the side of his head. “When you join the Fleet. For identification and location, they say, but they can use it for punishment, too, to keep you from—let’s just say that if you attack a superior officer—or a counselor—it’s not a pleasant experience.”
Sergei took a breath and forced himself to look up at Jamie’s face. He wasn’t sure what he expected there. Disgust? Condemnation? Disbelief? For some reason, it was beyond difficult to meet her eyes. Maybe she wouldn’t believe him and he would have bared his soul for naught. He didn’t think anyone would make up something like his past, but maybe he lacked imagination. Jamie didn’t look skeptical though. Her lips were parted, and her eyes were moist with unshed tears. He scratched his head. He hadn’t meant to make her cry. She barely knew him, so he didn’t know why she would.
She blinked and looked away. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to be caught getting emotional. That was understandable. He tapped his fingers on the table and looked downward again.
“That’s not all of it,” Sergei said. “We were down on a planet for maneuvers one night, getting ready to stage an assault. There were a bunch of officers with us, and she was there, too, keeping an eye on her troops. On me.” He ground his teeth, the memory so alive and real that he was seeing that night before him, instead of the table, the full moon in the sky highlighting the rock formations and saguaro cacti. He even smelled the juniper and sage and remembered the sound of lizards scurrying in the underbrush. “Somehow our secret staging location got leaked, and we were attacked, caught with our pants down. Majorly. Everyone was running to the guns, to the shuttles and fighters, trying to keep from being blown off the face of the planet.” Sergei licked his lips, knowing this was the part of the story where he was going to lose sympathy. He glanced around, making sure nobody was nearby, as if after all this time, someone might report the truth to the Fleet. Guiltily, he checked his camera feeds, too, remembering that he had forgotten to. With relief, he saw Ankari was still in the office, her briefcase laid open on the table as she talked to the doctor.
“If she hadn’t been screwing with me that night,” he said, “I would have done my duty, not thought of her. But I saw her tent get blown up, and I ran over to check. I wasn’t going to save her, no way. I was hoping I’d see her dead on the ground, empty eyes staring up at the stars, like—” He caught himself, heard the loathing in his voice, and glanced at Jamie warily before continuing. She was watching him, but if she had judgment in her mind, it didn’t show on her face.
“I spotted her running for an escape shuttle. I was so… frazzled, I guess is the word, that I didn’t care at that moment if the chip exploded in my head. I just wanted her not to torment anyone else. I took my rifle and… blew her head open. When I ran over to make sure there was no chance she would survive, I saw Mandrake. He’d just finished knocking out some enemy scouts who were trying to steal the shuttle. He saw everything. I joined the fight after that. What else could I do? But I spent the whole night knowing I was a doomed man. Somehow, I survived the battle—less than half the soldiers we had down there did—and I went back to the ship, still waiting. Either for the chip to kill me or for the MPs to drag me off for my court martial and then the firing squad. But nothing happened. Time passed, and I learned two things. First off, that the counselors had to have their controllers with them in order to use the chip for punishment; so they basically had to be focused on you and paying attention. Second, that Mandrake had reported the counselor as slain by enemy fire. That was it.”
Sergei took a deep breath and blinked his eyes a few times, the memories of that night, the realness of it, finally fad
ing and his awareness of the cafeteria, the clanks of dishes and the murmurs of other conversations, returning. “I worked up the courage to go see him a couple weeks later, to thank him, or try. He just handed me a bottle of vodka and told me to get so drunk I didn’t remember any of it.” Sergei managed a faint smile at the memory. “That didn’t quite work, but life went on. There were other counselors, but none as bad as that one, at least none that found me so intriguing. Maybe they were screwing with other young privates. Maybe they still are. I don’t know. Not long after that, Grenavine was annihilated and Mandrake deserted. He’d had a couple of years left on his tour, but I wasn’t surprised when he disappeared. Hard to stomach your home world getting utterly destroyed, especially when you’ve got a decent one. I’d probably be thrilled if the shit-hole station where I grew up was blasted from the stars. But anyway, I got transferred, did a couple more years in the military, then left when my tour was up. Honorable discharge, if you can imagine. It’s disturbing that Mandrake was labeled as a deserter and given a dishonorable discharge, when I was the one… I tried to retire a couple of times, but found I got bored or that I wasn’t educated enough to qualify for much else. Heard that Mandrake had started his own company and worked there for a while. Tried to retire again, after a run-in with a girl who said she’d never sleep with an assassin and how could I sleep with myself?” Sergei snorted. “Kind of regretted that I left the company over her. That didn’t work out. And that brings us up to now. When I saw the notice about the bounty, I had to warn Mandrake, and I realized that I’d missed being on the ship too. Even though I never really fit in, it didn’t matter. There are a lot of people there who don’t fit in. It’s still a family, in a way. And I missed it.”
Sergei leaned back in the booth and pushed his hand through his hair, looking at Jamie for the first time in a while. “I’m sorry for talking so much. I can’t even imagine what you must think, some near stranger telling you all that. I promise you it’s not something I talk about a lot. I just need you to know that what you heard was really just me trying to mess with that man’s head. I don’t know if Mandrake cares a whit about it one way or another, but he has my loyalty. Because of that night. Because of other stuff, too—that wasn’t the only time he saved my life—but especially because of that night.”
Jamie was the one staring into her coffee cup now. She looked up when he stopped talking, but wore the expression of someone who didn’t know what to say. Not surprising. His fantasy that she would join him on his side of the table and stroke the side of his face wasn’t realistic. He would settle for her believing him and not reporting anything untoward to Sergeant Hazel.
“He must know that then,” Jamie finally said. “The captain.”
“Know that I’m loyal? I hope so. But he’s always had a paranoid streak—I don’t imagine you survive long as a mercenary captain without that. And I’m sure he always meant more to me than I did to him. I was such a dumb young pest when I first showed up in his unit.” Sergei smiled—those memories at least weren’t painful. “I just needed you to know, because, uhm, I heard what Hazel was saying to you, about leaving me here. I want to fix this problem for Mandrake. Bounty hunters, assassins—they’re my world, and I know how to navigate it. And I owe him a favor. I want to do right by you all too. You and Ankari and, er, the one who never comes out from behind the curtain.”
For the first time since the lavatory incident, Jamie smiled slightly. “Lauren. She’s our microbiologist. She’s a little obsessed with her research. And her lab. And her lab equipment.”
Sergei finished his coffee and debated asking Jamie what she intended to do. But she had glanced at the surveillance display and slid out of the booth first.
“Looks like they’re done,” she said. “We should get back.”
“Yes,” Sergei murmured, though he would have liked to stay and talk with her for a while longer. Maybe learn more about her instead of spewing out his own sordid past.
But to what end? He had known from that first minute he had seen her that he wasn’t right for her. The best he could hope for was that she didn’t mention his dalliance with Zhou to Sergeant Hazel and that she didn’t stop talking to him forever, wondering what kind of mentally disturbed crazy man shared all of that with a woman he barely knew.
Sergei scooped up the surveillance display and followed her out of the cafeteria.
* * *
Jamie stood next to Ankari on the moving sidewalk, glad she didn’t have to use her legs. They felt numb. All of her did in the aftermath of Sergei’s… sharing. Why had he told her all that? Oh, she knew why. Because she had snooped and overheard that conversation, and he had worried she would tattle. But the whole thing had been so awkward. She grimaced, wishing she had simply stayed in the office. Sergei had looked miserable the whole time they had been sitting in the cafeteria, and even now, as he stood behind them on the sidewalk, his expression was more saturnine than usual, that cloak of gloom she had sensed around him when they first met more like a blanket now, a blanket that threatened to smother him. She resisted the urge to look back. He probably wanted his privacy.
“They took all of the specimens and the instructions for the transplants,” Ankari said. “They couldn’t pay much, but we’ll make a little profit on the deal. In the meantime, we have some more affluent private clients coming to the shuttle this afternoon and in the morning.”
“More affluent on the backs of the farmers downside?” Jamie asked.
“People lucky enough to be born up here, rather than down there, yes. Have you read any of the history of the planet?”
Jamie shook her head. She shouldn’t be judging when she knew so little about the world, but she couldn’t help but feel an affinity for anyone who worked the land. She shouldn’t be snide about it to Ankari though. Ankari had grown up in a slum on overpopulated Novus Earth and dug her way out of poverty with her entrepreneurial streak and hard work. She could doubtlessly understand the lives of those on the planet below even more than Jamie could.
“Two of the original colony ships from Earth landed here fifteen hundred years ago—from China and North America, I think it was. Each colony claimed one of the major continents, each on different hemispheres. They figured there was space enough for everyone, but within a couple hundred years, the American continent was struck by an asteroid and experienced some climate issues that were hard to deal with all around. The other continent had some troubles but had been better prepared. The Americans decided to move in. There was a war that ended up decimating a lot more of the planet. The Chinese won, but there wasn’t much left. That’s when they built the cloud cities, and they forced the losers of the war into serfdom down below, not caring how they lived their lives but demanding tribute by way of food, since growing space was limited up here. This worked more or less, if with strife, for centuries, until the Galactic Conglomeration formed, putting the first real system-wide government into place. They demanded their share of the food too. Now it’s a struggle for everyone downside. We’re a business—” Ankari lifted the briefcase, “—but we heal people too. Maybe we’ll at least be able to help some of the ill down there.”
“The more I see of the system, the more I’m realizing that we had it pretty good on Mercruse,” Jamie said. “Are we—”
A touch on her shoulder interrupted her.
“I don’t like the look of those downsiders waiting at our stop.” Sergei pointed between Jamie’s and Ankari’s shoulders to the platform they were supposed to disembark on. A big flashing Docks and Shops holosign hung over the heads of four gaunt men in the same grimy clothing those in the hospital waiting room had worn. “They’re watching us intently. You,” he added, speaking to Ankari.
“Is it possible they know about Viktor’s bounty?” Ankari murmured.
“Unlikely.”
Jamie hadn’t seen many downsiders on the way into the city, not that she had been looking then. Were they allowed up here unchaperoned? As far as she could tell, t
here wasn’t anyone accompanying these men.
“They don’t appear to have weapons,” Sergei said.
“This is the last stop,” Ankari said. “We have to get off here, or we’ll have a long walk back to the shuttle.”
Indeed, the sidewalk was already slowing, readying for its turn toward another side of the city.
“Don’t mind walking,” Sergei said, but he brushed past Jamie to stand in front of them.
He stepped onto the platform first, leveling a cold stare at the group of men. They shifted to the side to let him pass. Jamie waited for Ankari to go first, then hopped off the sidewalk last. Two of the men headed past her, as if to get on, and she started to relax. They were going somewhere else.
But the other two men lunged for Ankari. One grabbed onto her briefcase.
Sergei spun, launching a side kick at the man. Ankari reacted, too, leaping back and blocking a snatch from the other downsider. She turned the block into a wrist grab, pulled him off balance, then kicked him in the stomach.
Jamie wasn’t sure whether to try to help—maybe she could call the city security?—or just get out of the way. Someone grabbed her arm, and she belatedly remembered the other two men. They hadn’t gotten onto the sidewalk after all. She tried to pull away, but the grip was too strong. She was hauled backward and pushed to the ground. The two men ignored her after that, jumping over her to deal with Ankari and Sergei. They also tried to get the briefcase, but Ankari wasn’t letting it go. She used it as a weapon, slamming it into the side of one attacker’s head. Sergei had already dropped one man, and he plowed into the second, his arms pumping faster than pistons, smashing punches into his target’s face and abdomen. The man staggered back, almost stepping on Jamie.
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