Chapter 12
The walls shivered, and fine dust sifted down from a fresh crack in the ceiling. The Orenkans had either recovered quickly from their earthquake, or they had sent all of their free forces here, anyway, perhaps trying to destroy Summers before he could enact any more plans detrimental to their continent.
Gregor paced back and forth in the small room, his hands clasped behind his back, wishing there were something he could do. He was in the guest quarters he had been given upon arriving at the base, but he had been searched and all of his belongings had been taken, save for his trousers, boots, shirt, and jacket. The door was locked. He didn’t know if there was a guard or not. He hadn’t heard anyone coughing or shuffling around out there, but it hardly mattered. He didn’t have any tools—or liquid nitrogen—to thwart the lock, and the sturdy metal door wasn’t anything he could kick down.
He didn’t know how long he paced, but it was long enough to develop an appetite and to wish he had one of his model ships to work on. Then a rap at the door made him jump. As yet, he hadn’t been told a thing. The armed men who had marched him away from the shuttle had stuffed him into the room without answering his questions. In particular, he was eager to know if Val and the rest of the mercenaries had been detained. Captain Mandrake wouldn’t be pleased if Gregor’s… impetuousness resulted in several of his men being tried in Icesphere’s judicial system. Gregor didn’t even know what the judicial system here might be. Would he be assigned a lawyer? Or taken into some dark tunnel and shot?
The lock clanked. Gregor turned toward the door, his chin up, prepared to face his fate.
Val’s head poked around the door, her soft hair tumbling free about her shoulders. A spark of hope lightened Gregor’s chest. Her presence on the other side of the door should mean she hadn’t been incarcerated. But when she stepped inside, two armed men came into view in the hallway behind her, and he feared his assessment had been premature. Maybe she was simply being moved into his room, so both prisoners could be guarded in one spot.
“Door open,” one of the men said.
“I heard you the first time.” Val gave the men one of her stunningly attractive but utterly sarcastic smiles—Gregor was getting better at recognizing them.
The men stepped out of sight, but didn’t go far—one’s sleeve was still in view. They lacked the muscled brawn one expected from security officers, and Gregor was fairly certain he had seen at least one of them walking around with the geologist the day before. The base probably didn’t have a dedicated security force. He took note, thinking he might overpower them if he chose to do so, but he did nothing for the moment. He wanted to hear what Val had to say, and until the shuttles were repaired, he wouldn’t have anywhere to flee to, anyway. Even after they were repaired, he might get himself shot trying to escape.
Val touched Gregor’s arm, a simple action he nonetheless appreciated, and sat on the edge of the bed. She made a face he couldn’t quite read as she pushed aside the fur blankets. He thought of her earlier suggestion that they might snuggle together under one. She doubtlessly would have no interest in snuggling with him when guards were standing a few feet away.
“So,” she said, dropping her elbows on her knees and threading her fingers together, “I’m being allowed one visit to explain things to you and urge you to accept their offer.” She twitched her eyebrows at the doorway, this expression as sarcastic as the smile had been.
“Yes?”
“At the moment, I’m not being held prisoner, nor is anyone from Mandrake Company, but we’ve all been warned that this will change if we attempt to break you out. The rest of the team is proceeding with repairs. Lieutenant Sparks still thinks we can have the shuttle ready to go tomorrow.”
“Has Captain Mandrake been made aware of the situation?” Gregor cringed inwardly, imagining this news being reported to the ship. He had never thought he would be the sort of officer who got into trouble on a planet and caused the mission to be delayed or otherwise inconvenienced.
“Yes, but I’m not sure what all was said. Lieutenant Frog called him, and Trainee Calendula wasn’t invited to listen in on important company discourse.” Her mouth twisted, and the way she’d spoken about herself in the third person made him wonder if that was a partial quote.
The other officers hadn’t worked with her as closely as he had; they didn’t know yet how much responsibility she had taken on during this mission, how faithful she had been to the outfit and to him. Maybe he shouldn’t have been so wishy-washy about his bias; she had performed satisfactorily, as he had said. Admirably, even. Gregor should have sent a message to the captain and recommended that she be given the position along with the rank she deserved. Too late now.
“As for your actual crime—” the word came with another displeased twist of her lips, “—from what I’ve been able to gather, the story the admiral is telling is that you assaulted him for no reason. He says you were trying to kill him, maybe because someone on the other side offered you payment to get rid of him. If anyone is suspicious of how you received this secret mission without anyone hearing about it, I haven’t been told about it. I don’t know if the base commander believes him—but you left Summers with a face so black-and-blue and swollen that his mother would have a hard time recognizing him.”
Val looked up at him, and he couldn’t tell if there was disapproval or judgment in her eyes. He felt shame himself. When Summers’s loathsome proposition had come out, Gregor had been so enraged that he had lost control of his mind, all thoughts fleeing, as if he were some animal rather than a thinking and rational human being. He had scarcely been aware that he was pummeling the admiral. Giving into anger wasn’t like him. He was so rarely emotional in any manner, that the fury had surprised him, and he was glad Val had called his name to stop him.
“I’m planning to talk to Anstrider,” Val said, “in case she would be willing to listen to another side of the story. It could be hard to get any of those people to believe their hero admiral would make a pest of himself with a woman.” Gregor frowned at her muted interpretation of what had appeared to be an attack, but he didn’t interrupt her. “Still, when we first landed, I got the feeling Anstrider wasn’t instantly in love with Summers. He was a prick to her. But I haven’t been able to get close to her for what would have to be a private conversation. Every time I’ve tried, I’ve smacked into Summers. It’s like he’s her new best friend. I don’t know what she thinks about that, but he’s always at her side, always heading me off. It’s almost as if…” She frowned at the floor for a long moment, then murmured, “Huh. I wonder…”
“What?”
“Let me tell you what the admiral wanted your punishment to be first, then I’ll run that thought by you. Since it’s wartime, almost all of their able-bodied citizens have been drafted into service. Summers suggested that you be given the option of sitting in this room for the next twenty-four months or flying for them for two years. Going out with their fighters and defending the base or wherever they need you, the same as their own pilots. Then, after those two years, they would consider that you had properly compensated them for your crime, and you would be free to go.”
Two years here while the rest of the company went off on their next assignments? Two years while Val went off? Would either she or Mandrake welcome him back at the end of that time, or would they forget about him? Find other officers to fill their needs? Just when, after all this time, Gregor had shared how he felt with Val and she had started to reciprocate those feelings, how could they be parted?
They couldn’t. He would have to break out of here and go back to the ship with the rest of the squadron. It wasn’t as if there weren’t other Mandrake Company mercenaries who had criminal records on the planets they had come from, or other planets whose populaces they had offended along the way.
Gregor glanced at the open door. He would keep those thoughts to himself for now. “What were you wondering before?” he asked.
Val looked at the hallway,
too, and seemed to debate a moment whether she should answer with an audience listening. “It’s probably crazy, or attributing him with too criminal a mind, but it occurred to me that Summers might have orchestrated all of that. Maybe he knew you were coming somehow, and he thought he could time it so you’d overhear him propositioning me. Maybe, after seeing us kiss, he guessed you’d be furious enough to attack him. Then he could have charges brought up against you. Oh, and it just happens that you’re a brilliant pilot and his people could use pilots, so he’d offer you that particular way to pay off your debt.”
Someone in the hallway snorted noisily. Gregor considered Val’s musings, but it was hard to imagine Summers putting his tactical mind to something so personal and manipulative. If he’d wanted Gregor, wouldn’t he have shown interest in him at some point? Perhaps attempted to hire him? “I do not have a history of violent crimes,” Gregor pointed out. “I wouldn’t think he could have predicted how I would react in that situation. I wouldn’t have predicted it.”
“I don’t insist on the theory,” Val said. “Especially since he wasn’t acting about wanting to, uh…” She made one of the system-wide hand gestures that indicated coitus. “It’s just something that came to mind. He’s a shifty old man.”
“That I will agree with.”
Val stood up, though she stuck her hands in her pockets and didn’t rush for the door. The walls shuddered again, dust shifting down from the ceiling. She looked up, noticed the crack, and eyed it for a long moment. “I guess I don’t have anything else to say right now. Don’t try anything,” she said, then mouthed an additional, “for now.”
Gregor nodded gravely.
“Goodnight.” She hesitated, glanced toward the guards again, then headed for the door. Had she been thinking of a kiss?
Hoping he had guessed right, Gregor stepped forward, intercepting her. Perhaps she did not care for an audience for private moments, but in case things didn’t work out and he didn’t get another chance… He caught her hands and lowered his mouth for a kiss, though he watched her eyes, still not completely believing she might want kisses from him. Her lips quirked into a smile, and she met him halfway. That smile was delicious, and so was she. If only the guards would close the door and let her stay. As wonderful as the kisses were, they always left him aching for far more.
All too soon, one of the men cleared his throat noisily, and Val broke the kiss, though she left her hand on his hip and didn’t step away immediately. “Captivity makes you randy, I see.”
“You make me randy.”
She rose on her tiptoes, so she could whisper in his ear. “If my chat with the base commander doesn’t work, I’ll find a way to break you out. There’s no way I’m waiting two years to get in your pants.” Her husky tone and fervent promise sent a rush of heat through him, and when she finished by sucking on his earlobe, it was all he could do not to charge over to the bed with her in his arms, the guards be damned.
But Val pulled away after that, her back to him as she headed for the door, and he was left with his arm outstretched, his body aching with desire once again. She gave him a long look over her shoulder before disappearing down the hallway, and he knew he would have to be content with that for now, with the knowledge that she wanted him as much as he wanted her.
* * *
Val woke up when the auto-hammer clunked to the deck. It was the third time she had dozed off and dropped the tool. She didn’t even know why she was holding it, since nothing needed to be hammered.
Jamie, the only one of the engineers still in the hangar and working, glanced over from her position under the navigation console. She was running tests on parts they had replaced earlier. “Why don’t you get some sleep?”
A yawn interrupted Val’s first attempt to respond. She wiped her eyes and said, “I told you. I want to stay up late enough that I can catch the base commander alone. The last time I went to the latrine, she was still in a meeting with Summers and a couple of other people. He’s been like a tick, stuck to her side all night. If I have to, I’ll wait until she’s gone to bed, then go to her room and wake her up to tell her the truth. I trust Summers isn’t sharing her bed. His tastes seem to run much younger.” Val scowled, looking around for something to hammer, but most of the panels had been closed, the wiring and components hidden away where they belonged again. Maybe she could simply beat against a wall for a while.
“Yeah, he’s creepy,” Jamie said, her words punctuated with soft beeps from her testing device. The noise seemed loud in the quiet hangar. It was after midnight, and most of the lights outside of the shuttle had been turned off or dimmed. The soft glow from their interior lighting didn’t spread much farther than the bottom of their ramp. “He’s given me some speculative looks from across the room,” Jamie added. “I would have fallen apart if he’d cornered me in a shuttle. Probably just stared at him with big rabbit eyes and let him maul me.” She scowled at her device, though whether it had to do with the test or with her opinion about her self-defense abilities, it wasn’t clear.
Even if none of the locals knew the real story yet, Val hadn’t held back from sharing the details with the rest of the mercenaries. To her relief, they had all believed her, even if it had less to do with their faith in her word and more to do with them figuring something truly crazy must have happened for their straight-laced commander to beat someone up in a fit of rage. She’d been a little chagrined when Lieutenant Frog had grinned and nodded at her, as if he knew all about Thatcher’s interest in her. She and Gregor must not have been hiding their feelings well.
“You seem too tough for that,” Val said. “You probably would have clobbered him with a wrench.”
“I don’t know. I get real nervous with men. I’m not used to all the attention I’ve been getting on the ship and, uhm, everywhere this past couple of months.”
“You’re not?” Val stared at the girl, her own problems forgotten for a moment. With her gorgeous blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and curvaceous frame, Jamie was striking. She dressed conservatively, in long sleeves and coveralls, but the clothes didn’t hide everything, and certainly not her face. Val couldn’t believe she hadn’t had men ogling her since she’d hit puberty.
“Well, boys back home maybe, but I grew up in a rural area, so there weren’t many boys per square mile, and the ones I knew were all afraid to do anything except talk. My dad’s so protective that he made it real clear that anyone who touched me would have some body parts lopped off. He was a Crimson Ops soldier before settling down with Mom, and he’s still pretty fierce looking. Real strict too. He only let me date boys that he was sure would be too afraid to kiss me, especially since his idea of dating was letting me sit on the porch with the boy while him and Mom were inside, within hearing range. It’s a little different here. It’s been great and I’ve learned lots, but like I was saying, I haven’t known how to deal with the men on the ship. Lots of them are handsome to look at, but they’re all so rough and, uhm, brazen.”
Val scowled, imagining someone like that Striker cornering Jamie in a hallway and trying to convince her to let him explore her tunnel of love. Wasn’t that what he’d called it? What an idiot. “I can see where it would be daunting, going from that lifestyle to this one, but you just need to learn how to defend yourself. Don’t be afraid to smack someone whose hands stray or give him a push back if he’s too close. Let them know that you like some space around you. You going to any of those unarmed-combat classes on the ship?”
“Not… yet. I wasn’t sure I wanted to put myself into a position to get pinned by big men.” Her mouth twisted.
“The instructor ought to put you with someone close to your size.”
Jamie’s “hm” was noncommittal. Oh, well. She would figure things out on her own given time.
“I’m going to get some sleep.” Jamie turned off the testing device and put it back in its case. “You staying here?”
“A little while longer. You want me to work on anything?”
“Not that involves hammering. You could go around the hull outside and make sure all of the panels have been tightened. It looks like we’re done out there.”
“Will do.” By the time Val finished, it ought to be late enough that Anstrider would be in bed.
After Jamie left, Val replaced her hammer with a multitool and grabbed a flashlight. She stuck a laser pistol into her holster, too, in case Summers decided to wander out and harass her again.
An unexpected creak came from the darkness as she walked down the ramp. She paused at the bottom, listening. Had it come from the hangar or from one of the adjoining tunnels? All except one of the half dozen passages leading from the big chamber had been dimmed for the night. The noise definitely hadn’t come from the lit one, which led to the kitchen and sleeping quarters. It had come from the opposite side, perhaps from the big tunnel that the aircraft used for a runway to exit the mountain. There was a door down there that was closed when it wasn’t in use. Maybe someone had left it open, and some draft had caught it, causing it to move and creak. Either way, the noise didn’t come again.
“Probably nothing,” Val muttered, though she decided to check the panels on the right side of the shuttle first; it was the side not visible from most of the tunnels or from anyone passing through the middle of the hangar. She kept her flashlight off, relying on touch and the dim illumination of the hangar to find the corners of the panels. The buzz of the sonic screwdriver made her wince, and she turned it off, using the manual option instead.
A soft scraping sound drifted across the hangar, as if someone were unscrewing the lid on an old jar. Val bit her lip. The first noise might have been nothing, but the second? She wasn’t alone in here. Maybe someone had left something out here and had come to retrieve it, but that first creak had left her uneasy. Nobody ought to be able to simply walk into the base from one of the tunnel entrances in the mountainside—there were people on duty out there, along with a shield that protected the mountain and denied access via that tunnel. Still, the noise had seemed to come from that direction.
Trial and Temptation (Mandrake Company) Page 18