The Pleasure Dome (The Science Officer Book 4)

by Blaze Ward

  Outwardly, Javier nodded calmly. Opening bid. Still several rounds before they got to the final hole card and the serious money.

  “Where is it?” he asked.

  That much money could only come from someone with planetary wealth at their command. The sort of people who could build a Land Leviathan and occasionally pack it up and take it to a new planet when this one got boring. People who owned whole planets, whole systems, in fee simple.

  Dangerous people. Usually quite vicious because nobody has ever been allowed to tell them No in their entire lives.

  “Shangdu,” she replied with a biting smile.

  “I’m not familiar with that planet,” Zakhar spoke up suddenly, in an earnest voice out of place with the man’s normally growliness.

  “It isn’t a planet, Sokolov,” Navarre replied, spitting the words out like a grain mill. “It’s a starship.

  At Xanadu did Kublai Khan

  A stately pleasure dome decree…

  Shangdu is the correct Chinese place name.”

  “I see,” Zakhar replied icily, giving Javier a dose of stinkeye for quoting ancient poetry at him in public.

  Javier, in turn, gave Lace a dose of the stinkeye.

  “Even bigger reward for recovering it?” he asked.

  “Indeed,” she agreed. “And I can get you the introductions to get you aboard, depending on your plan. Thoughts?”

  “I would like to spend a day or so aboard the Land Leviathan,” Javier replied. “Let us have dinner, and spend more time hammering out details. We can come to some consensus tomorrow.”

  “Excellent,” she said, rising. “I will get you situated, and we will convene for dinner in about five hours, gentlemen.”

  Javier rose, and followed Sokolov out and through the nicer parts of the vessel.

  Someone wanted to hire Navarre. Someone probably expecting a mass casualty incident that they could disavow later.

  That would be rude. Doubly so on one of the modern age’s largest starships, a private playground for the wealthiest elites.

  A great way to make a galaxy full of blood enemies.

  Javier couldn’t do that. Navarre couldn’t make him.

  But still, he was looking forward to visiting The Pleasure Dome.

  Again.

  Part Two

  Zakhar waited until he and Javier were nominally alone. The conversation could probably be recorded or transmitted, if that lady banker cared enough. Zakhar had no intention of discussing anything truly incriminating in a place like this.

  He was already here hat in hand. No reason to give her or them anything more with which to blackmail him.

  This salon was part of a private suite. Two bedrooms off of a central area that was somewhere between hunting lodge and salon. Comfortable, expensive furnishings just masculine enough to make it look tough, but just feminine enough to make it intellectual, rather than barbaric.

  Zakhar watched Aritza walk to the bar along one wall, pour a finger of something, and slug it back in a single, hard motion. He would have to wait to see if the alcohol helped or hindered.

  Instead, Zakhar pulled up a comfortable-looking leather chair and settled himself into it. Less confrontational, he hoped.

  “I got most of the story from Shepherd Teague, before she left,” Zakhar said, drawing Javier’s eyes and then his whole body around.

  Javier’s look was non-committal.

  “I doubt it.”

  He poured another finger of something, but held it this time, looking like a prop.

  “I have concerns about this proposed operation,” Zakhar concluded.

  Aritza looked angry. But he also looked human, which was good. According to Wilhelmina Teague, Navarre had turned the man into a monster from the cold, empty darkness.

  “Such as?” Javier finally drawled sarcastically before finishing the second shot and pouring another.

  “She specifically asked for Navarre,” Zakhar replied. “Based on what he did at Meehu Platform.”

  Javier just eyed him, so Zakhar plowed ahead.

  “That’s not the sort of reputation I desire,” Zakhar continued. “That’s not the sort of person I wish to be known as.”

  “You’re a pirate, Sokolov,” Javier snarled without ever raising his voice. “And a slaver. I don’t think you’ve got a lot of ground to stand on, here.”

  Zakhar stopped himself from jumping up to confront the man. This was why he had sat before he spoke.

  “I’ve done indefensible things, mister,” Zakhar agreed. “I’ll grant you that. But doing to Shangdu what you did to Tamaz is not something I will allow.”

  “It would be worth a tremendous amount of money, Sokolov,” his Science Officer, his slave, fired back angrily. “Enough that you’ll be that much closer to being done with me.”

  “I don’t care, Javier.”

  “Well I do,” the man growled, stopping to slug back the next finger of whiskey in the glass. “It’s that much closer to me being free.”

  Zakhar watched Javier pour another.

  “Anything to get away?” Zakhar asked.

  “Damned straight,” Javier replied.

  “You could have escaped, Javier,” Zakhar countered. “More than once.”

  “You don’t get to win, Zakhar.”

  That shot vanished into Javier’s mouth.

  He watched Javier pour another finger into the glass, two, heavier this time. He hammered it back in a single, ugly gulp and fixed angry eyes on Zakhar.

  “You have my ransom, Sokolov, my word of honor as a gentleman,” Javier continued in a nasty, vicious voice. “You will get your money. And there is nothing you can do to stop me. If this deal is too much for your squeamish stomach to handle, then you and I are going to have a problem.”

  “Javier, it is evil,” Zakhar said, nearly pled. “Nothing more. Nothing less. If you feel that strongly, I’m willing to walk away right now, and credit what would have been your share of the deal against your debt. I will not do evil.”

  An offer like that, and Javier didn’t even blink.

  “You don’t even know what evil is, Sokolov,” Aritza sneered at him.

  That brought Zakhar out of his chair.

  “Oh, no, Aritza. I understand evil,” Zakhar snarled quietly as the two men were nearly nose to nose. “I’ve been evil.”

  Javier stared at him for a moment, and then laughed.

  The son of a bitch laughed.

  Zakhar stood there, rigid with rage, not trusting himself to keep from strangling his Science Officer. Or punching him.

  Javier smiled, turned back to the bar, and grabbed a second highball glass, pouring a shot of whiskey in.

  “Good,” Javier said with a canary-eating grin as he handed Zakhar the glass and tapped the two together. “Because we’re going to do this my way, and see if we can pull off the caper of the century without a single person getting hurt.”

  “And Navarre?” Zakhar asked, suddenly finding himself on squishy ground.

  “Navarre was appropriate to dealing with Tamaz and Salekhard, Zakhar,” Javier said. “On Shangdu, most of them will be children with a lot of money but not the sense God gave a goose.”

  “And the rest?” Zakhar asked.

  “She might be the most dangerous person in the galaxy.”

  She?

  Part Three

  At least, Javier thought to himself, watching his assistant/minder/bodyguard, Ilan had turned into a pretty competent Machinist’s Mate. And the man could keep the chickens fed and safe for a week, and the botany station from catching fire, while Javier had been down on the planet.

  Ilan sat across from him now, happily munching a sandwich, of some sort.

  “So why did it take four days to do your deal, sir?” Ilan asked around a bite.

  Javier considered the casserole on the plate before him. Industrial cheese. Previously-frozen vegetables of uncertain ancestry. Meat-like substance.

  At least the rotini noodles tasted right. It was
really hard to screw up rotini. Not that he felt like challenging the cooks around here, or anything.

  Javier contemplated his fork like a man considering seppuku. Which wasn’t fair to the wardroom cooks. They were just working on a much smaller budget than Stewart Lace.

  He sniffed at the casserole anyway.

  “Sir?” Ilan hesitated.

  “Could have been done in two, Ilan,” Javier sighed. “But they had real, fresh cream.”

  “How fresh?”

  Ilan put his sandwich down and grabbed his glass of something to drink. Not a good vintage of wine, nor an exquisite Scotch-style whiskey.

  “They keep four cows in a small petting zoo, Ilan,” Javier said.

  Even a man who kept chickens in deep space could be awed at the cost and effort to keep cows.

  “You mean, like, real ones?”

  Ilan’s eyes got big. And this was the man tasked with making sure all of Javier’s fruit trees and vegetable gardens got watered regularly when he was off having adventures.

  Javier enjoyed being bribed with top notch food to consider doing a job he had already accepted in his head in the first five minutes.

  “Yeah,” Javier agreed. “Real ones.”

  Ilan started to say something, changed his mind, and fell uncharacteristically silent.

  Javier watched him grab his plate and glass, stand up, and vanish as if his ass was on fire.

  Weren’t many people could do that to Ilan.

  Javier waited.

  Sure enough, someone had silently planted an oak tree on the deck behind him. That made it even fewer.

  As tall as he was in the torso, Javier was still only looking at her belt buckle when he turned to glance behind him. Storm Gauntlet’s Dragoon, her master of close combat.

  Djamila Sykora.

  The Ballerina of Death.

  Javier let his eyes roam northward as she stood there.

  It had been a year since they had met, the first time she had shot him.

  Two point one meters of woman, built like a rugby player with muscles in places Javier wasn’t even sure he had places, and he was in better shape than most of this crew.

  Dressed today in black slacks, maroon shirt, and a black tunic. Black combat boots with a polish clean enough that Javier could have used them to shave with.

  Powerful thighs, reasonable waist, V-shaped torso with small breasts atop big pecs.

  The bones in her face were female. Not particularly delicate. Definitely not feminine.

  Brown hair worn short to fit inside an armoured lifesuit, buzzed very short on the sides and spiked into a petite Mohawk. The only thing petite about her.

  The only vaguely-female touch he could see was the collection of rings, studs, and stones in both ears. Nothing through the nose, though.

  She still reminded him of a PT instructor from the Academy. The one who liked to sing on twenty-mile hikes in full gear.

  “Captain tells me we have a job,” she announced quietly, standing there at a parade rest that made Javier’s feet hurt just thinking about it.

  The voice was a studied alto. Professional. Polite, even.

  She must be trying really hard to be nice today.

  “We?” Javier drawled up at her, Athena atop Olympus.

  She took that as an invitation and settled into Ilan’s abandoned chair with the precision of a combat drop.

  Sykora was like that.

  Surprise of surprises, she actually leaned forward, rested her elbows on the table, and rested her chin on her fists with a slight grin.

  Javier hadn’t known she had that posture programmed into her operations manual.

  “Someone hired Navarre, Aritza,” she said plainly. “That means they would be expecting Hadiiye as well.”

  “She’s gone, Sykora,” Javier smiled cruelly back. “Obviously to a better place. What makes you think you could replace her?”

  “Doctor Teague was good,” Sykora agreed. “With a little training and practice, she could have easily found a place on my combat force.”

  “This isn’t a raid, Dragoon,” Javier let his face grow serious. “If we do our jobs correctly, nobody will even get hurt. Can you replace ’Mina as an actress?”

  He really loved the angry scowl he could bring out on that woman’s face. Made getting out of bed in the morning worth it, all by itself some days.

  Her eyes narrowed to angry slits.

  “What did you have in mind, Aritza?” she asked.

  It was obvious from her tone that she was willing to go toe to toe with anyone on the ship, to prove she was better. Even if she had to spend two weeks in a crash course, twenty-four hours a day. She was the kind of woman who wouldn’t accept second place.

  Javier leaned back and smiled.

  “How are your tan lines?” he asked deceptively.

  “My what?”

  She leaned back as well, but that was surprise and defensive body posture.

  Javier had guessed that she might have a soft spot in her personal armor right there. Comments and things about body image were the clue.

  Javier let his smile turn feral.

  “Shangdu is the personal yacht of one woman, who has turned it into a flying resort for the wealthiest, the most elite in the galaxy,” he said. “It has a casino, and a couple of clubs and restaurants, for the hundred or so guests she allows at any time. But Shangdu is best known for the lake in the middle of the ship.”

  “Lake?”

  “Lake,” Javier agreed, watching doubt creep into those eyes finally. “A body of water in a rough elliptical shape, two kilometers long and a kilometer wide, with a nice island in the middle.”

  “Kilometers?” she sputtered. “But that’s…”

  “A little over six square kilometers of water,” Javier said. “Average depth ten meters. Nearly ten kilometers of beach around the outer edge.”

  “And tan lines?” she asked, slightly hoarse.

  “Most of the time, your entire costume would consist of a single piece of light cloth, a little over a meter long, and half that wide, wrapped around your hips and held in place with a small, gold clasp. A professional won’t have any tan lines at all.”

  Ye gods, could that woman scowl.

  Javier wanted to pinch himself, just to make sure she hadn’t just turned him to stone with that look.

  “You want me to be your doxy?” she hissed.

  Javier leaned forward and rested his own chin on his hands, eyes wide and innocent.

  Just how far are you willing to be pushed before you hit me this time, lady?

  “Hadiiye was a stone killer, Dragoon,” he replied mildly. “Pumping biological weapons into the life support system might have been my idea, but she fired the shot that did it. She killed them all.”

  Javier watched the Dragoon process that bit of information with a hint of surprise.

  Sykora had been out cold, and ’Mina obviously hadn’t said anything to her later on, letting Navarre take all the credit.

  “I have no doubt you could do the same, push comes to shove,” Javier continued. “But she was also very serious about being eye-candy on that operation. About using her tits and ass to distract people, keep them off-tempo. Wilhelmina’s first doctorate was in psychology. If you want to play, you’ll have to sell sex to rich degenerates. Whether you execute the sale afterwards is entirely up to you.”

  “Whore myself,” she snarled under her breath as her eyes seemed to turn red.

  “Perform your portion of the mission with the sorts of excellence you demand from everyone else, regardless of how personally distasteful you might find it,” he fired back, barely any louder, or warmer.

  She hissed. Nothing more. Snarled silently, lip curled and nose scrunched ever so cutely.

  “My last mission, you’ll recall,” he continued, “involved rescuing you from being tortured to insanity, and then killing everyone aboard that ship for you. I can do things I find distasteful.”

  Bingo.

&nbs
p; That strike went home.

  It was amazing how blind someone might be to their own, personal short-comings.

  Javier made no bones about his own screw-ups. Embracing them had let him discover how to be happy, happier anyway, than the driven, hard-ass, drunkard who had blown up a career in the Concord Navy and two marriages.

  Little Miss Perfect over there had never come to grips with that sort of thing. Had never locked herself and her psyche in a dark closet for a long weekend and really examined herself. And done it sober.

  Probably not many people could do it and retain their sanity.

  Of course, Javier never really claimed to be sane.

  He looked her in the eyes with a cold smile.

  There.

  Gotcha.

  That flash of angry green light.

  Realization that Javier Aritza might have drawn a line in the sand you weren’t willing to cross?

  Javier figured she’d go silent and internal at this point. She frequently had in the past when pushed this hard.

  She might not even realize she did it, vaulting away into herself to have some conversation with her own angry ghosts.

  Javier put his head down and attacked the casserole like there was a fuse burning somewhere close.

  It took everything Djamila had not to reach across the table and punch the man so hard he concussed against a bulkhead. She could do that, even seated.

  And the way he just ignored her and ate grated all the harder.

  Wasn’t it enough that he thought of her as just another dumb gun bunny? No, he had to add insult to injury and make her a common whore?

  Djamila flashed back to one of her brother officers offering to pave the way for her to be promoted out of her last dead-end assignment. To use his wealth and connections to get her into a better berth.

  If she would just do this one little thing for him…

  The top of Aritza’s head showed where his hair was very slowly receding, and just beginning to turn gray. He would probably still die with a full head of hair.