by Lyn Brittan
She avoided wine during her order and he did the same, though the thigh slapping, glass rattling ruckus from the next table threatened to have him call the server back. The only thing keeping him stable was her.
“My face is up here.”
“And it is just as beautiful.”
“Don’t you ever stop?”
Retzi shook his head and leaned over the florescent candlestick. “I can go all night. Really, I can.”
“Well I’m glad you’re having such a good time. This outfit is ridiculous. And I don’t need any more suggestive remarks from you,” she added hurriedly. “I don’t like being on display.”
He removed to top portion of his tunic and rose, bringing it behind her. She handled it with more grace than he did, lifting her body in a long, sensuous motion, before sliding her arms into the fabric. Before he sat down, one of the young men from the loud group raised his glass in her direction. “Modesty. Haven’t seen that around here. Care to join us?”
“No, she doesn’t.”
But the thin teenager wouldn’t be dissuaded. “The invitation extended to you both. You’re new here, aren’t you? You have the look of the place, but not the manner. Please sit.”
Retzi declined again and returned to his seat. “How’s it looking behind me?”
Anja smiled and laughed into her glass of water, but the tone of her whispered words didn’t match her stress free face. “Not good. His look says he doesn’t get told ‘no’ very often.”
“Any chance of starting dinner?”
Anja giggled for their growing audience and drew circles on his arm. “He’s young, drinking and surrounded by peons. Don’t think for one moment that I won’t rip out every single pin in my hair and lay this kid out, if he tries to keep me from my food.”
They got halfway through before the fool started up again. Retzi smelled the liquor reeking off him long before Anja kicked his shin beneath the table.
“I was only trying to be polite. Do you know who I am?”
“A child?”
“Prio Grantly the Third,” he said, so close to Retzi’s face that the boy’s spittle landed on his cheek. “My father will hear of this.”
Retzi knuckled a napkin across his face. “Is throwing around your father’s name your usual way of settling things? How does that help you when someone doesn’t know or care who he is?”
Retzi ducked a rather halfassed left hook and stood to teach the kid how one was properly delivered, sending a appropriately satisfying spray of blood across the table.
Chairs scraped across the floor and he heard omnitablets shooting and dialing nonstop. His picture would be plastered all over the quadrant before his next swing.
“Back up.”
Retzi’s head swiveled left to right at Anja’s scream, to see her gun trained on one of Grantly’s approaching lackeys.
“We need to get out of here.”
“We’ll we’re not going alone.” Retzi hoisted the knocked out boy over his shoulder, grabbing Anja with his free hand.
“Are you insane? Grantly will kill us.”
“A very real possibility anyway. At least now we’ve got something in our corner.”
By now, every omnitab in the room faced him. May as well use them to his benefit. “I imagine at least half the people here are broadcasting this to you live. Good. If you want your boy back, be at the port in fifteen minutes with enough money to hold my hand.”
Anja’s tugging on his tunic had him back to shuffling heel over foot, toward the door. She flagged down a hire before most of the restaurant pealed out behind them and he tossed in his comatose load. “My brother had too much to drink. Port please. Fast.”
The driver gave all three of them a look over before easing off the brakes. “Looks like Grantly’s boy to me. You did that?”
Retzi shrugged. “Is this going to be a problem?”
“Hell no. He had it coming, whatever he did. That boy never pays for rides. This one’s on me, just keep my name out of it, ‘eh?”
“Well I don’t mind saying it—”
“I mind hearing it, but good on ya.”
The driver got them there at blazing speeds, dodging all sorts of vehicular and pedestrian traffic. He alternated between laughing at the laid out Prio and checking for headlights behind him. True to his word, he hadn’t asked for payment, but Anja refused to let him leave without getting his fare.
“Oh, Anja, you’re sweeter than you let on.”
“Said one kidnapper to the other.”
“Details. Your secret has been revealed.” Then the bundle across his shoulder started to wiggle and moan. Retzi flipped him over and delivered a silencing punch to his temple, before picking up where he left off. “I think you’re far kinder than you want to be. It’s alright to be nice every once in awhile.”
“You don’t know me well enough to say one way or the other,” she said, checking the charge on her blaster.
“I think I do, but let’s not argue.” He paused to shift his bundle. “Beautiful night, you and me, under the stars.”
“And our guest, the half dead kid on your back.”
“Now you’re just exaggerating.”
“It is absolutely ridiculous that you think now’s a good time to flirt. You can’t be this way all the time.”
“True, but I’ve never had to be. Normal women give in at a wink and a tongue across the lip. You’re weird, but I persevere.” He rocked on his heels and lobbed his head back, resting it against the unaware warm pillow. “Gah, those twinkling lights. Can’t you find a single beautiful one among them?”
“Not the one I’m looking for.” She’d said it so low, that he strained to hear her. He waited, but she wouldn’t give any more without a little prompting.
“Sounds like a story, Anja.”
“One we don’t have time for.”
“Of course we do. Who knows when we’ll be alone like this again?”
He gave her a second to recover, genuinely enjoying her laughter. Like everything else about her, it wasn’t light or airy, but full bodied and robust. Too soon it passed and she wiped the corners of her eyes with the back of her hand against the approaching lights. “We’ve got company.”
“Stand back and get your gun in front of you.”
“You sure about this?”
“Try not to get overly excited about the view from behind.”
He left her slackjawed and shaking her head, to stand between her and the cruiser. If something went down, and there was a 99.9% chance it would, he wanted to at least give her a moment to save herself. Or try to, anyway.
Within seconds, the silver machine opened and out stepped three openly armed guards and one man he recognized from his OSA files. “Mr. Grantly.”
“You’ve made quite an entrance on my side of this moon.”
“Apologies, but I had to handle things as best I saw fit.”
The round man ran his hands over his slicked back gray hair. “By manhandling and kidnapping my son? Am I’m supposed to assume this has nothing to do with my prior dealings with Ert’zod?”
Huh. That one did throw him. Before he could come up with something clever to say, Grantly snapped his fingers and two more men emerged, each burdened with a bag on each arm. “You tell Attila not to send anymore of his whelps to do his dirty work and not to come after any of mine. He still alive?”
“Sure,” he said, giving the boy a pat as he laid him on the ground. “Back to Attila, he wants me to inform you that this makes it even.”
“And all that other mess is settled?”
“If it’s the right amount,” Anja said, piping to life behind him.
Grantly spit out an oath and had another goon drop a bag at Retzi’s feet. Not credits, actual money - five opened and stuffed bags of it. “You tell Attila this is it.”
“Will do,” she said.
“And I don’t want any other else said about it.”
“No problem,” Retzi added.
; Grantly cleared his throat and sent a couple of men over to pick up his son. He followed the lot back to the cruiser, but stopped to give Retzi one last piece of advice. “You won’t get far with that face, boy. Your father’s made a lot of men angry. Next time he sends you out, you might want to bring an army as backup.”
“Got one.” Retzi raised a thumb in Anja’s direction before waving them off. He didn’t get in a deep breath of air, however, until the rear lights disappeared into the dark.
“What the hell did he owe your father?”
“I have no idea. But I think we should get the ship back before we find out.” He gave her the handle of one bag and strapped the other four across his shoulders. “Stop grinning woman and let’s get out of here.”
Chapter Four
Anja gave up trying to figure how much was in the bags. They and their packages of clothing took up the remaining space in the hopper. “Based on just this one bag, we’re over a quarter of the way there already. I suppose it’s all moot if your father decides to call in whatever Grantly owes one day.”
“We’ll have a better story by then. Just in case, we say that Grantly saved my life and I wrote it off. For now though, it’s time for a celebration. We’re alive and we’re closer to saying that way. Can you reach my bag?”
“I’ve been wondering what’s clanging inside. You...oh...when did you buy these,” she asked, fingering the four purple bottles of wine.
“I accidently stole them.”
“How does one accidently steal three bottles?”
“I ordered them while you were in the necessary. Most expensive in the house and charged to Grantly’s table.”
“And that was an accident?”
“If I’d known who it was, I would have ordered more, wouldn’t I? I’ve always wanted to try these. They have digestible particles of platinum.”
She chuckled into her hands and shook her head. “How much are you planning to sell these for?”
His look was at once priceless, confused and disarmingly adorable. “That was just payback for the kid staring at you all night. Why would I sell those? C’mon, give us a sip.”
“Just a dram,” she said, uncorking and holding it against his lips. His tongue darted out, circling the rim of the bottle before going inside. She gave a halfhearted exasperated sigh, but only because she felt she was supposed to. But if she were honest with herself, she hadn’t smiled this much in years.
Anja Figue was being charmed and damned if she didn’t like it. On the other hand, her future was on the line and the blame could only claim residence on his shoulders.
His beautiful, square, well muscled shoulders.
She recorked the bottle and tried not to look, but there was little point. The man had a magnetic pull and her head, all on its own, turned. It just happened to be while he was looking at her too.
He winked. Of course.
She smiled. Of course
And he had the nerve to look victorious.
Of course.
He opened that full lipped mouth of his and she braced herself, eagerly anticipating a reminder of why she shouldn’t think of him that way.
“Tell me more about your star.”
That wasn’t it. Such a small thing to say, but she couldn’t remember the last time someone asked her about it. Then again, the only other person she’d ever told was her mother. She didn’t like what this little question of his did to her insides. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it does.”
“We should concentrate on who to go after next.”
He didn’t respond immediately, looking from her to the screen and back again. “I like kidnapping.”
“Good to know.”
“You know what I mean. Think about what we accomplished over dinner. We’re making great progress. No one got hurt. Much. It’s an inconvenience, but a quick turnaround with a pleasant resolution for all parties involved. I know just the person. Get my omnitablet and look up a woman named Fitzchow.”
Anja’s stomach twisted as she read the charges. “Clone slavery, but how is she free?”
“They couldn’t prove it in court. The five brought as witnesses never once stopped trembling and shaking. When the courts asked if she gave them regular payments, they all indicated she had, but there was never any financial proof. Or un-proof, as the case may be. We still don’t know what she had over them to keep them quiet.”
“Try again! Of course they were scared. Did you protect them? Offer them a place to stay? You have to try again.”
“The case is closed.”
“No it isn’t. Find new evidence and get those people to testify against her. You can’t let this go.”
He sighed and she knew she wouldn’t like what came out next. “Their rover exploded after trial.”
“Let me guess, she miraculously survived?”
“Yep. The good thing is that she doesn’t have any others. She’s can’t have non-human employees.”
“So? She still got away with it.” She tapped the screen and circled her face. “We’re taking her down. You need to change your heading to Rosoft.” Anja drobbed the omnitab in her lap to update the coordinates, giving him a thumbs up when done.
Retzi made some adjustments on his own and leaned back. “Done. The autopilot to Rofsoft is set. Look, I know this woman’s history is bothering you, but OSA will eventually get her for something.”
“I can’t stand the thought of people getting advantage of. That whole cloning program was disgusting, making people for free labor. It isn’t right.”
“I know and so does everyone else. They have laws protecting them now, it’s just a matter of clearing out the riffraff. Consider this our less than legal opening salvo against her. Now, tell me about your star.”
“I’d rather talk about the plan for Fitzchow.”
“I know.”
“It’s personal.”
“Coward.”
“If you laugh, I’ll kill you.”
“I never would,” he said. His voice was soft, low and devoid of humor. What his face read, she didn’t know and couldn’t chance the risk of looking at him to find out.
“I’m an Earth baby. I don’t remember much of it, but some things are really clear to me. My mother drew designs on my breathing mask. It started a trend at school and the very next day, everyone in my class had designs on theirs too, but the biggest thing I remember is a star I once saw.”
“From Earth? How?”
“We took a school excursion, I was in the fourth form at the time, but that trip was the only reason some people stayed in school. In fourth and eighth forms, certain students were chosen by lottery to visit a Meash Corp observatory. I’d never seen anything like it. The man there promised that if we were good, he’d let us see the stars. And we were so good. I didn’t pull a pigtail, speak out of turn or mess with anyone that day. We lined up against the wall – we’d never, ever, been that quiet before.”
“One by one, he led us up little steps and placed us in front of the biggest telescope I’d ever seen. None of us believed that it could go through the cloud, smoke or dust levels, but it did. Every one before me screamed when they saw the sky.”
“Then it was my turn. I got up there and I moved it. Everyone gasped, but I didn’t care. I wanted to see something different. My eyes settled on a green, shining thing. The most beautiful star I’ve ever seen. I cried when it was the next kid’s turn. That’s it,” she said, finally looking over.
He’d been watching her with his arm on the rest and his hand cupping his chin. “No it isn’t! You left out the best part. Which star was it? Oh...you don’t know.”
“Yeah. I cried so hard that I never thought to ask. My mother always said we’d go back, but you don’t simply march up to a Meash Corp building. After I joined Meash Three, I asked about that observatory, but the man was long gone. It was a stupid thing to try anyway; asking a man to find a random star out of the billions just for me.”
“You ca
n have mine.”
“What?”
“Lode Star, coordinates: RA 2h 31m 49s | Dec 89° 15.846. It got me though some tough times as a kid. I’m willing to share.”
Damn her, and him too, but she could feel the moisture pooling up in her eyes. His hand on her jaw prevented her from turning away. That same hand traveled upward, until a rough thumb wiped the corner of her eye. “You’re amazing, you know that? From Earth to Titan, just to find a star. ”
“I think it had more to do with escaping Earth and I didn’t exactly do it on my own.”
“Don’t belittle what you’ve done. I wish I could promise we’d find it, but I can promise that once this is over, you can take this hopper anywhere you want to go to look for it.” He kissed her, soft and questioning at first, but deepening when she didn’t pull back. He dragged her over, knees scrambling beneath her as she made her way to his lap.
She straddled him, grinding as he held her tight. He was salty, smiling against her lip, nibbling at her chin, while his hand made circles against her thigh.
Retzi hadn’t removed her belt, easily working around it. Oh, bless local fashions. He nosed around her chest, pushing the fabric aside to lap and suckle at her breasts. She think she moaned. She knew he did, a husky, deep throated thing.
Rough hands were everywhere, one still making those nerve exploding circles, the other, searching. His left hand moved up and up until it hit the apex of her thigh. Amoral fingers kneaded the juncture, tormenting her with possibilities. Further they went, until he brushed against her inner folds.
Then one slipped inside. An another. She struggled for breath as the rest of his fingers slammed against her while the two burrowed inside her again and again.
She bucked against him, demanding more. The slips of fabric separating them didn’t hide his hardness anymore than it camouflaged the moisture dripping in anticipation of him. She reached down to take his cock in her hand. There was a sharp intake of breath against her chest and his teeth slammed down, inflicting wonderful and stinging pain on the side of her breast.
She pumped, coating her hand with her own nectar, mingling her heat with his.
She pulled as he pushed his fingers into her. She could feel her insides clinching and despite her best efforts, she couldn’t concentrate on him anymore.