The Oriflamme sat down beside her. “Everyone has a fusion plant,” he said, with a quick laugh, but his eyes were teasing.
“Yes, but yours is sufficient only for your visible needs. You also extensively energy-mine the moon’s volcanism. Why? To power the hidden parts of your operation, of course.”
He nodded, impressed. “Bravo, Mademoiselle. You are beautiful, resourceful, intelligent…” He leaned forward, close enough for her to inhale the strong perfume on his face. “Most of all, you are suspicious. I like that in a woman.”
He sat back, and she saw the triumph in his eyes. He had meant what he said. He admired her, which to him made it all the more exciting that he was also outwitting her. And that confirmed what had until then been only a strong suspicion: the Oriflamme did not intend her to leave this moon alive.
She blew out her cheeks in relief, blowing too her game of pretending to be a cultured sophisticate. While most of the company had been enjoying the lavish party earlier that night, she’d ordered two squads to freeze their fur off, getting into position on the plateau that curved around the northern end of the base. Now that she was sure the Oriflamme was going to betray them, Blue felt better about her mercs sweating in their suits as they hauled enough heavy weapons to blast away the base’s anti-ship batteries.
There was a standard twelve-hour handover clause in the contract, which would expire in half an hour. After that, neither party owed an obligation to the other. Things would get interesting real quick.
She moaned with pleasure, her steady breath racing into gasps. She couldn’t help herself. It was the Oriflamme—he was so very, very delightfully wicked. But Blue wasn’t going to let him blow her ship out of orbit. And if there was one thing sexier than a very bad man, it was a bad man she was in the process of outsmarting.
She licked her lips at the prospect, but then shook her head furiously to clear it. Too soon! She had to wrench herself back into control of events. It was the drink—it was firing her up too soon.
“I know your other secret,” he said. “Your teenage nanite experiment went wrong. Your pleasure centers are permanently wired to the max. You’re a thrill addict. That’s the only reason why I agreed to meet you here.”
“You should try using nanites yourself.”
“I do well enough without them,” he replied and then scowled. “Where is your sister? I expected the pleasure of you both.”
“She had to run an errand first.”
“But she will be here?” He frowned, disappointed.
“Oh, trust me. She will be here. She’s not a helpless thrill junkie like me, but she can’t stop herself from keeping an eye out for her sister.”
He held her gaze, unsmiling.
Fear started to sober Blue. Was he suspicious enough to kill her now? She began looking around for a weapon, but the Oriflamme’s expression softened. “Some music,” he asked, “while we wait?”
The roaring log fire disappeared—or rather the illusion of it did—to be replaced by a Tri-V virtual music library.
She walked over to the controls, making sure the Oriflamme had a good view of her rear profile.
“I’ve heard bad things about you,” she said as she rifled through his collection.
“I expect they are all true.”
“You know what afflicts me,” she said quickly and hotly. “I’m easily excited but I can never get enough. Tell me all the bad things you’ve done.”
“No.”
“At least tell me how you arrived at your name.”
He looked away, briefly ashamed. “It is an embarrassing legacy of my youth, rather as your teenaged years, Captain, left you with the legacy of your nanites. For me to assume that name was a crass masculine boast, a reference to the royal standard of my native France. In the medieval period, when the King of France ordered the Oriflamme to be raised on the field of battle, it was a signal no prisoners would be taken. The sight was said to drive enemies fleeing in terror from the battlefield. Captain Blue, do you feel afraid?”
She turned her face and closed her eyes, letting out a gasp of pleasure. “I won’t wait for my sister. She’ll be here soon enough.”
He laughed. “You are most passionate, Mademoiselle.”
“Oh, you have no idea. Come, Oriflamme, let me steal you before my sister arrives…”
Chapter 4
“Human not permitted here,” growled the Lumar. The four-armed mound of muscle blocked Sun’s route along the passageway, its four fellows taking up aggressive positions behind.
Lumar weren’t too bright in her experience, but they excelled at looming. There was no way she could push past or through them. Instead, Sun raised her hands slowly. “Easy, big bears. I’m a guest. Your boss authorized me and my sister.”
“Not in this zone,” the alien replied, scratching idly at the back of its neck.
“I’ve been a mercenary for nearly 20 years,” said Sun. “It’s too late for you now, but it’s my professional observation that unauthorized intruders should be shot first and debated with later.”
The Lumar growled, its lips rolling right up to reveal the full length of its teeth. “I am not debating. I am telling you to leave.” It drew its laser pistol. “Now!”
“Oh. Fair point. My mistake. And in the interest of full transparency, I will admit I’m not so much debating as distracting you. Here’s a little question for y’all—paws up anyone who felt a little prick in the back of their necks a few moments ago?” The Lumar commander’s eyes bulged in horror.
“Oh,” said Sun sweetly. “I’m sorry. I forgot. You can’t lift anything. Your limbs are already paralyzed. Drone! Set safe mode, then return.”
As the micro drone made its way back to the pouch on her shoulder, she clicked her tongue in frustration at these annoying Lumar. Even paralyzed, the alien guards still blocked her way.
“Sorry, boys,” she said, and gave the leader a hard shove to its chest, sending the whole group crashing to the floor like bowling pins.
After rifling the still-living Lumar, she came away with a key tab. A few seconds later, and she was at Branco’s cell. He looked up at her in surprise, which only grew when she opened the door and extended the ladder down to the pit in which he was trapped.
“Why?” he asked.
“Your little speech about loyalty worked better than you realized. The Midnight Sun Free Company has fulfilled our contract with the Oriflamme, and the contractual handover period will expire in just a few minutes, after which we will be open to negotiate fresh contracts. Is it possible Binnig Corporation might be in need of a mercenary company to retrieve you, and would pay extra for information on the Oriflamme’s activities?”
“Yes! Yes!” shouted Branco in triumph as he climbed the ladder.
“Did you have a company in mind?” asked Sun innocently.
Branco paused for breath at the lip of his pit. His face was bloodied, and his wince of pain suggested bruised ribs, but he looked game for an escape bid. In fact, there was a coldness to him, a tension in those muscles that made her think the Oriflamme had miscalculated by not killing this man when he had the chance. She approved of revenge.
“On behalf of Binnig Corporation,” he said, “I wish to contract you to get me home to Earth. Safely. Alive.”
Sun shrugged. “Regrettably any such contract must be sanctioned by an authorized Merc Guild representative. As none are available at this present time, I must decline your request.” She accessed the timer in her implants. “However, in these exceptional circumstances, in about 20 seconds I shall be available to negotiate an agreement, which we can formalize as a contract later under proper guild rules.”
“Fine, let’s do that. Now cease yapping, and let’s get out of here.”
They jogged down the passageway, Branco trying to ignore the pain in his ribs but not entirely managing it. As they stepped over the cooling alien corpses, Sun nodded with approval as Branco bent over to loot a laser pistol. He clearly wasn’t intending
to be a passenger or a victim.
“I’ve an errand to run first,” she told him.
Branco looked up from the Lumar and blinked at her. “A fucking what?”
“I’m going to collect the Oriflamme. We’re bringing him with us.”
“No. No, we’re not. This is important. No heroics. No madness. Not a game. We just go home.”
“Well, that’s the problem, Saisho Branco. If we don’t kidnap the Oriflamme first, none of us will leave Cap-Soufre alive.”
Chapter 5
“Until the viral rewriting went wrong, we looked identical, my sister and I.” Blue cocked an eye ridge. “Now that we don’t, do you prefer me or my sister?”
The Oriflamme pushed himself up on the bed and regarded the naked form of Captain Sue Blue, the woman he thought he was toying with. His scrutiny was bracingly honest.
“I’d have to see you together first,” he said, practically licking his lips in anticipation.
Yeah, like sis would ever play that sort of game, thought Blue. But she hid her thoughts and wriggled under the attention. “But you do like me…despite my condition?”
“Mademoiselle, you are an exquisite jewel, as I have already remarked.”
“Prove it,” she said with a teasing wriggle.
He laughed and moved down to kiss her belly.
“I think it’s about time to let my hair down,” she announced, wriggling and squirming as she lifted her hands up and fiddled with her topknot. “Funny thing,” she said as she loosened the thick strands of midnight blue coiled atop her head. “The idea that the hair would fall out all over my body, except for the very top of my head. Don’t you think that’s strange?”
“It is a…wonder.” There was horror in that last word, as the Oriflamme suddenly guessed something was wrong.
He looked up just in time to see Blue’s heel smack into his nose. He roared in pain and anger.
“I thought you liked it rough, Oriflamme. No prisoners, remember?” Before he could struggle up to a position from which to attack, she whipped the blue strands across his back, driving a scream from his body.
“Oh, the hair is real,” she explained. “It’s my sister’s, dyed blue.” She cracked the whip across his back, sending a surge of electricity through his organs.
“And the ELH7 electro-whip inside…do you think that’s real, my exquisite jewel of a man? Let’s see, shall we?” As he lay gasping, sprawled on the bed, she wrapped the whip around his neck and delivered electric pain, jerking a hand back and screaming herself when a power backwash jolted into her.
“Tricky things, aren’t they? But I bet you hurt a whole lot worse than me.”
“Stop, please, I beg you!”
“No,” she replied and sent him pain that left him spasming on his own bed.
“And that’s another funny thing,” she said. “Your security didn’t strip me naked. I just wanted your guards to convince themselves I was unarmed. And no one thought to question why I had no clothes.” She made him scream again. “Oh, dear, Oriflamme. Do try to remember. You don’t take any prisoners in here. I bet your CASPers out there are incapacitated with laughter at your noisy frolics with the exotic-looking merc woman. Now, you’ve been a very bad man. Stealing equipment and secrets from those nice people at Binnig. Tell me everything…”
Chapter 6
“What can you see?” whispered Branco.
Sun’s eyes bore through him like a full-spectrum security scan, and yet it wasn’t her perceptiveness that impressed him most. Major Sun Sue was beautiful, and her eyes, blazing like black sapphires, were impossible to ignore. But as much as he wanted to appreciate her eyes, her lithe physique, and her cheekbones that were sharp enough to cut steel, those qualities were cold data points, as uninvigorating as height or blood pressure. He bit his lip hard. The joys of life had been driven from his body for a good reason.
“Here,” said Sun, adjusting the front of her armor to draw virtual glasses out of an inner pouch.
Branco donned the glasses, telling himself to ignore the warmth Sun had supplied them with from her body.
The spy drone was only 20 paces away, bouncing a tight microwave comm beam off the polished stone bulkheads to the hidden recess behind a stairwell where they hid. Reception was perfect, and the two CASPers standing guard outside the Oriflamme’s chamber showed no sign they were aware of their surveillance—a failing he’d have to report back to the Binnig labs…if he ever got back.
The thought made him shudder. Those CASPer suits weren’t just eight-foot high monsters of super-dense steel and advanced composites, which held operators who would kill him without compunction, they were prototypes stolen from the heart of Binnig’s most secure facilities. How the hell did the Oriflamme get hold of them? And why? Maybe the mad sisters were right to go for broke and kidnap the Oriflamme too. Whatever was really going on here was bigger than any of their lives.
Pushing those thoughts away, Branco let his training wash over him and concentrated on the scene.
From a marbled observation deck that offered spectacular views of Phobetor’s colorful atmosphere, a pair of ornate stairwells swept down to a carpeted hallway where the two CASPers stood guard with perfect fields of fire. Behind them was a wooden door covered with ornate metal bands. Oriflamme’s personal rooms lay beyond.
Taking off the glasses, Branco raised the gun he’d looted from the Lumar—wincing from his abused ribs—and then glanced meaningfully at Sun’s still-holstered CL32 Peacemaker.
Sun smiled innocently as she replaced the glasses, and then grabbed something from a hip pouch.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Branco whispered, staring wide-eyed at the pair of EMP grenades she was holding out. “Have you even fought CASPers before? The suits are hardened against that kind of attack…although, in this case, you might knock out the jump-jets.”
“Relax, Spy Boy. We’re just the distraction here. My sister shares my brains even if she lacks the looks. She’ll have this Oriflamme jerk under wraps by now, and she’s armed with something that will take even a CASPer offline long enough for us to get away with the prize.”
“Armed with what? Witty banter?”
“A customized DiHong Industries ELH7 superconducting electro-whip, with enough Jaha energy clusters to set smoke coming from those mercs’ teeth.”
“I don’t know. Those are Mark 8-bis suits. Binnig was working on hardening the EMP shielding, though I don’t know how far they got.”
“Mark 8 who?”
“Mark 8-bis. That’s why this is so serious. It’s an abandoned prototype model. Abandoned but supposedly secret and secure.”
“I do understand, you know? CASPers give Earth just enough muscle to stop the rest of the galaxy from walking over us at will. If Binnig’s been compromised, maybe our suits have too. Our mecha might be as much use as wearing rubber gimp suits. So stop yapping, and let’s pick up the bad guy already.”
“Shouldn’t we wait for the rest of the company?”
“No, because…talk of the devil…” Her eyes glazed as her attention shifted to something unseen and unheard.
An alarm rang out throughout the base.
Shit!
“Venix tells me he’s done the hard work and is sending us a spare squad,” reported Sun, untroubled by the wailing noise and flashing lights. “He’s left nothing standing to shoot at our ship. All we’ve got to do is pick up this Oriflamme and get the hell out of Cap-Soufre.” She tossed her grenade over the stairwell in a graceful arc aimed at two CASPers who, thanks to the alarm, were already alerted to the prospect of a fight.
“You coming?” she asked, raising an eyebrow in challenge. Without waiting for a reply, she sauntered out from behind cover over to the CASPer guards.
Branco watched her, speechless. Was Sun Sue a brilliant tactician or the most stupid person he’d ever encountered? He opened his mouth to deploy his secret weapon, to save her from her own audacity. Then he thought better. Audacity was who Sun was,
and he wanted to see her shine in her own way. He lobbed his own grenade and scrambled to catch up. Brilliant or stupid? Didn’t matter which she was, he decided. Sun was magnificent in either case.
The scene he emerged into was truly bizarre. Against the unlikely backdrop of a low-gee mansion thinly disguised as a research base, a barely-armed Major Sun Sue confronted two Mark 8-bis CASPers. She held her Peacemaker out vaguely, not wanting to look too threatening.
“Surrender immediately,” commanded the amplified voice from one of the CASPers. The arms of both suits shook in uncontrolled spasms, which meant the EMP grenades were interfering with the signals from the haptic suits the mercs inside were wearing. It was the only explanation for why Sun hadn’t been shredded by the lasers mounted in the mecha arms. But even as he formed his assessment, the spasms eased as the troopers regained control.
Then the metal-banded door burst open, and Blue ran out, wearing nothing but a shirt several sizes too big for her. It was one item of clothing up on the Oriflamme, though, who sprawled naked at her feet. Blue rushed one of the CASPers, lashing out with the customized ELH7. In the instant before the electro-whip hit, sparks leapt from the weapon to the mecha suit. Then it snapped against its target, full force. Branco’s teeth hummed so hard he felt sure they would shatter, but to the trooper inside the suit it would feel like sticking your head inside a neutron star. He doubted the trooper would be hurt badly, but the haptic connections to his suit must be fried to a crisp.
The other CASPer fired up the jumpjuice and flew high out of the whip’s reach. The suit twisted around in mid-air to get a good shot at Blue, and Branco decided it was time for him to intervene.
He opened his mouth and…said nothing. There was no need. The CASPer’s jets spluttered and cut out.
For a Few Credits More: More Stories from the Four Horsemen Universe (The Revelations Cycle Book 7) Page 19