A soft chuckle. “Suri, must I remind you again? You are not…”
She said the rest with him. “…where you come from.” Oh, shit. This was going to be one of those stupid misunderstandings.
“A tart is luscious, delicious. A woman who enjoys sex, who doesn’t simply endure as so many women seem to. I can have any woman I want. I am a Darya, I have power, wealth. They throw themselves at me.” He paused to lick his lips. “But you did not throw yourself at me. You were my prisoner and you hated me. Worse, you despised me. And you intrigued me. Do you know how long I’ve wanted you? No, you could not because I knew you would reject me. And then when I finally succeeded, it was better than my fantasies. You wanted me. You gave yourself to me, enjoyed my body as I enjoyed yours. A tart. And then you disappeared.”
She was a challenge, a game. The unattainable. He would play with her until he became bored. And then he would move on to the next challenge, or maybe he’d catch some of those women who threw themselves at him. Maybe not so long ago she could have played that game, too, used him up for his great body and great sex. Like Coreb or some of the other boyfriends of the past. But Ravindra had pierced the armor plating that protected her heart. Another strike and it would shatter. Best to patch up what she could.
She looked at the table top between them. “Look, it was a mistake. I’d had too much to drink. I never should have let it happen. It was stupid. I’m sorry.” Every word was true. But she would remember that brief encounter forever.
He frowned, eyes narrowed. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying it won’t happen again. Srimana.” Her heart was a lump in her chest.
His lips tightened and then he was on his feet, skirting the table, reaching out a hand to her. “Suri… Morgan—”
A distant sound, a foreign intrusion in the jungle night. Morgan enhanced her hearing. Oh shit. Double shit. She leapt up. “A copter. Coming down the river, if I’m any judge.”
He scowled. “Get dressed, quickly,” he said, grabbing for his jacket. He snatched up the clasp and shoved it in his pocket while Morgan pulled on her boots.
The copter had shaped to land, hovering above the tavern, landing thrusters roaring, by the time they were dressed.
“Over the balcony.” He swung over the rail in one graceful movement and climbed down the support pole.
She followed more slowly, heart thudding with a mixture of frustration, resentment and nerves. The ground seemed a long way down. Ravindra leapt the last remaining meter and stood looking up at her. Enough of this girlish twittering, get on with it. She scrambled over the balcony rail and clutched the support with both hands. Feeling with her feet, she walked herself down until she was low enough to jump. She staggered, weariness fighting with adrenalin.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Lakshmi swung out of the copter casting a glance over the building in front of her. They called this a tavern? Nothing more than a few walls and a roof. Best get it over with. Then she could get on back to civilization.
She strode up the path to the bar, ignoring the stares of the locals. The barman straightened. Wary yellow eyes fixed on her face for a moment then slid away. “Hai Suri?”
“I’m looking for strangers. A tall man with blue eyes with a woman. She might have strange, light colored skin, but she’d certainly have silvery eyes.”
The fellow bobbed at her. “A tall man, Hai Suri. Not blue eyes.”
A woman as wrinkled as he was edged over to stand next to the man. “She have silvery eyes.”
Ah. Selwood, at least. Lakshmi grabbed the man’s shirt, dragged him toward her over the benchtop. “Where are they?”
He raised a hand. “Upstairs, Hai Suri. We know nothing.”
Lakshmi let him go and whirled. “Get them.”
Three men were already running up the stairs, boots clattering on the wooden risers.
****
The copter’s engines were winding down.
“This might be our chance, if they’re careless. They can’t know we’re here.” Ravindra ran, swift and agile, to the corner of the building, weapon in hand. Morgan followed as fast as her aching muscles allowed and crouched behind him.
Lakshmi alighted and strode up the path, three men at her heels. The pilot stayed with the copter while the other two men covered the corners of the building. As soon as they moved one of those men would see them.
“Can you stop it taking off?” He murmured the words.
She concentrated. The copter had a computer system that could connect to a satellite, so she could connect to it. The machine would have a fault diagnosis routine. A check of the database to find the error codes. She sent an error. A light flashed in the cockpit, stark and bright in the darkness. “Done.”
“Wait.” He fired the pistol and ran. The man in front of him crashed backwards, a hole in his chest. A blue bolt of energy lanced through the night from the other side of the building but Ravindra was already gone. He’d rolled and fired, accurate and deadly, before the man had time to try again. Two down.
“Now.”
Morgan raced after him, heart in mouth, expecting a bolt in her back any minute. Lakshmi’s shrill shriek followed her. He was already at the copter. The pilot managed to fire once before Ravindra hauled him out and shot him. Morgan leapt into the pilot’s seat and cleared the error code. The copter lifted off before Ravindra was completely inside. He fired a few shots at the remaining soldiers before Morgan dodged the machine behind the trees.
****
Lakshmi screamed as the copter soared away. This wasn’t over yet. She’d ring the base, ring Asbarthi, get reinforcements. If that wasn’t Unwyn, then who was he? What other man had the bitch persuaded to help her?
She pulled out her sanvad. At last, a signal.
Asbarthi answered almost straight away. “Lakshmi? Where are you?”
“A hovel in the jungle. Riverport, they call it. Huh. I almost had them, but now they’ve stolen my copter and escaped.”
“Who escaped?”
She stared at the sanvad. Who did he think? “Selwood and some other fellow. Not Unwyn.”
“Not Unwyn.” He sounded thoughtful. “Do you know what he looked like?”
“I’ll find out.”
Leaving the three soldiers to tend their companions she charged back into the hovel and turned on the fellow behind the bar. He quivered, as well he might. “The man. What did he look like?”
“Tall. Short hair. A scar on his face.” The barman drew a finger down his face to illustrate. Not blue eyes.”
Huh. Not anybody she recognized. “Tall, short hair, scar on his face,” she said to Asbarthi.
“Mala. Ravindra.” Asbarthi snarled the words. Most unlike him to swear, too.
Lakshmi gaped at the sanvad. “Ravindra? Are you crazy?”
“I gave him the scar. A down-payment. And I cut his coti off. He has escaped. She must have helped him. Stay there, Lakshmi. I’m on my way.”
Chapter Forty
“So, Admiral. Where to now? And before you ask, the main thing I need is sleep. I’m running on empty right about now.”
Morgan sagged in the seat, her eyes dull and underscored with dark shadows. That last sprint had done for her. Damn Lakshmi to every pit of hell. She should have been in his arms, not charging off on yet another chase. At least, after he’d changed her mind. What had happened there in the room? He could smell her and then… Women. Later; he’d think about it later.
“Follow the river downstream. We’ll set down somewhere and work it out from there. But stay low, as low as you can. Can you prevent them from tracking this machine?”
“If I turn off all the comms.”
“Do that.” Lakshmi would call for reinforcements, fresh machines, fresh legs. They would have to disappear for a while.
“Srimana.” She flicked a few switches but kept the local tracking system running.
The river gleamed, a silver ribbon in the light of a gibbous moon, winding it
s way through dark forest. The machine tracked at a meter above the water’s surface around an S bend. He searched the screen. Somewhere not too far from the sea, where they could set down.
The river began to split, breaking up into narrow tributaries. Morgan slowed the copter down, weaving between the encroaching trees.
“There.” He jabbed a finger at the screen. The river wound around a massive, flat rock, itself overhung by trees, before it gurgled its way through a rapids.
Morgan turned the copter around, and set down on the outcrop. He climbed out as the engines shut down. Twenty meters away the river rushed around the impeding rock, wet and glistening, before the water tumbled on into darkness. Twenty or so klicks to the sea. It would have to do.
He checked the vehicle for emergency equipment while she slumped in the seat. A pack contained a lantern, rations, flares, a shelter.
“Morgan.”
Her eyelids opened a crack.
“Put this machine on auto-pilot, aim it that way,” he waved a hand across the river, “and have it crash in the jungle a long way from here.”
That woke her. Her jaw dropped. “But—”
“They’ll be looking for it. I want them to find it. Then they’ll have to search for bodies.”
She nodded, her sort of ‘yes’. After a few moments she climbed down. The machine rose, creating a temporary breeze that fluttered his clothes and hair. Then it tilted and forged off, the hum of the engines fading as it flew.
He slid an arm around her and helped her toward the trees, pushing through the thick undergrowth along the edge into the darkness beyond, the lantern’s beam a welcome path. While she sat with her back against a tree he placed the shelter pod in a clear space and activated the trigger. The shell flipped out and expanded, a two-man igloo. He had to wake her to get her to crawl through the entrance. She collapsed.
He settled her as best he could. She’d been asleep before she’d lain down. So much for his long-anticipated reunion with her. He fastened the entrance and lay down next to her. The shelter wouldn’t keep out a determined predator but he needed sleep, too. He’d done things in the last few days he hadn’t done in years. Just as well he kept up his fitness and his weapons skills. His scar had begun to ache, probably an infection, a common enough occurrence in climates like these.
It was all such a colossal waste of time, trapped in the midst of one little planet’s internal politics when out there the Yogina menace grew.
She sighed, stirring in her sleep. What had he said? What had he done? He’d watched her face change, as if she’d raised shields to keep him out. Was that yet another unexpected talent? When she kissed him in the cave he could have had her then, on the spot. Perhaps he should have. He would have to win her, all over again.
Sleep beckoned. He closed his eyes, the noises of the jungle night an unlikely lullaby.
****
Ravindra awoke to the whistles, chirps, grunts and howls that drifted in from outside, the jungle starting a new day. Morgan still slept, her chest rising and falling, one arm flung out. He’d never seen her so vulnerable, long lashes draped over soft gold cheeks, a few strands of hair straggling over her ear. Damn it. She should have been nestled against his chest. Ah well. He crawled out of the shelter and stood, stretching his back. The rapids chattered beyond the curtain of undergrowth. High above his head branches interleaved to form a thick canopy. Vines hung down in festoons, almost as though they’d be put there deliberately to decorate the dimness. He couldn’t see more than a few meters into the trees on either side. Anything could be in there and he’d never know. A whole new experience. He’d never spent much time in real jungle. They’d have to walk but with a bit of luck, by the time they got to the base, the searchers would have given up.
He took the chance to pee behind a tree. When he returned to the shelter Morgan had appeared, stretching her back as he had, her breasts straining the material of the blue shirt she wore. She saw him looking and crossed her arms over her waist. Shutting him out. She looked much better; her eyes were bright and the bags under them had gone but the shields were up. Words hovered behind his lips. Morgan, I love you. Don’t do this to me. But now was not the time.
“Well, here we are,” she said. “What now, Srimana?”
“We head for the base.” He assumed his military persona and pulled a map tablet out of the emergency kit. “This is where we are, by the river. And this is where we want to go. A good hundred klicks. So about two and a half to three days.”
“Uh huh. Food?”
“Rations. We have two water bottles.”
She stared at him, silver eyes gleaming. “Have you done anything like this before?”
“No. Have you?” Space was his home ground. And hers. The infinite darkness with its stars and nebulae and endless distances. Not like this claustrophobic stuffiness. Humidity clung to his skin but no breeze penetrated down here to cool his body.
She huffed a sigh and grinned. “Isn’t this fun? Well, come on, Admiral. Break out breakfast.”
A ration bar each. He set the shelter to deflate and repacked the emergency kit while she topped up the two water bottles at the river.
Before they set off, she lifted her head, listening. “Three ships, going slow. A long way away, over the river.”
At a guess the ploy had worked. It would buy them time. “Good luck to them.”
He shouldered the pack while she carried the map tablet. They set off, away from the river. Leaf litter lay deep and spongy beneath their feet. Ravindra’s boots, no longer white, sank into the spongy ground, while Morgan’s soft footfalls were barely audible. Gloomy and oppressive, a world where everything looked the same. After the morning chorus the silence was remarkable; some chirps and rustles and squeaks up in the branches of the trees, but down here, nothing. Occasionally, bright red fungus and greenish-black mold gleaming on fallen branches relieved the monotony and once a huge insect with four fragile wings droned past his ear. The scent of earth and growing things filled the air.
They zigged and zagged between the trees, checking frequently to ensure they were headed in the right direction.
“It’s an amazing place,” she said. “So many different types of trees.” They skirted around a huge trunk, its soaring column supported by arched roots as thick as a man’s arm. She yelled in fright as half a dozen flowers on the tree trunk took flight as they passed.
Overheard, a whistling cry was returned from further away. He noticed a flash of crimson. There certainly seemed to be a lot of insects. They flew around his face, settled on any bare skin. Morgan seemed worse off in that respect. She slapped several times to kill them.
“They sting,” she said. “Not you?”
“No.”
“Huh. An advantage of thicker skin. Lucky you.”
Sound seemed dead here, as though it was absorbed into the undergrowth. Light, too. He turned on the lantern just for effect and found luminous plants and strange growths, red and yellow and sickly green, iridescent in the beam, but even the lantern couldn’t penetrate far into the forest. He switched the light off. “Can you see far in this?”
“No. It’s too dense. You look past one tree and there’s another tree. And another. And all this stuff hanging down. Weird.” She wrinkled her nose.
They stopped for a break when they’d walked for two hours. She leaned her back against a tree and drank water from the bottle.
He took a few steps into the forest. A man could get lost here in moments; it was all the same, in each direction. Troopers were expected to fight in this. Then again, they would have had modern camouflage suits fitted with conditioning. His ill-fitting uniform was starting to rub as well as smell. Sweat dripped from his forehead and collected under his arms. The humid heat sapped his energy. The sooner they were out of here, the better. Morgan wouldn’t be disagreeing with him. Her hair hung lank around her shoulders.
His heart leapt when she shrieked and jumped to her feet.
“Errk. Some
thing slithered over my hand,” she said, her face screwed up in distaste.
He reached out a hand but she stepped back, wiping her hand on her filthy pants. He almost heard the unsaid words. ‘Don’t touch me’. Don’t do this to me, Morgan. He kept his tone normal. “Did it bite you?”
“No. Just…ugh.”
He looked but whatever it was had disappeared.
They pushed on. Rain started falling, dripping off the leaves and branches, soaking the ground, soaking them.
Water trickled down his chest and his boots began to squelch. His sodden shirt stuck to his skin. Her clothes were the same. She noticed his stare and lifted her lip in a parody of a smile, blowing a drop of water off her nose. Soaked to the skin, bedraggled, stuck in a jungle. All because of him.
“Do you regret it?”
“What?” She pulled her boot out of the mud, took another step.
“Rescuing me.”
She mashed her lips, thinking how to answer. His heart sank. He should have kept his mouth shut.
“I could have been dry, comfortable and Queen of the Orionar. Oh, what fun. No, Admiral, I don’t regret it. No. Not for a moment.”
He saw her lip quirk in a sad little half-smile. What did that mean?
She shrugged. “Yes, conditions here are bad. But it’s as bad for you as it is for me. Maybe it’s something I’ll be able to brag about in a bar sometime.”
Would any of the women he’d bothered with over the years have done what she did? Take such risks? Certainly not his wife. Toward the end they were barely civil to each other. I love you. Sometime he’d get the courage to tell her. “My given name is Ashkar.”
“I know.”
Of course she did. “Use it. Can’t we at least stay friends?”
“Sure.”
He ground his teeth. Shields up, full defense mode. If she imagined he would accept that and let it go she didn’t know him very well.
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