Arissa moistened her lips.
“The real question is, why don’t you like soldiers?”
She looked down and took a deep breath. “I’m from Niue.”
He looked at her blankly.
“It’s a small world, barely bigger than a large moon,” she said softly. “It’s not even on most star charts.”
And then something clicked into place in Berg’s head. Some scrap of dusty intel about a little world chewed from top to bottom by two pirate factions each looking for a place to call their own and the innocent population that was caught in the middle.
Berg opened his mouth. “I’m—”
“What?” she snapped. “Sorry?” She shook her head and drew a deep shuddery breath. “No, strike that. I’m sorry. This isn’t about you. It’s just hard for me to remember that sometimes.”
“Is that—I mean, when you mentioned Katrina—”
She looked up sharply and those gray-green eyes told him there were still some questions she would not answer.
That’s OK, he thought. No more questions. He wasn’t going to be just one more soldier that hurt her.
Gently he reached out and took her hand in his.
• • •
Sometime in the middle of the night his watch buzzed insistently, tickling the inside of his wrist. He swam slowly back to consciousness. Arissa was a lump of soft warmth pressed against his back. He took a moment to answer the summons, allowing himself the indulgence of remembering the brush of her lips against his, the feel of her body under his hands, the smell of her filling him up.
It was all he could do to make himself get out of bed.
He found his comm and flicked it open, read the message. One of his troopers, Corporal Toggleson, had been detained by Ship Security on a D-and-D.
Then he glanced down and saw something by the dim blue light of the comm’s screen, something not right. The corner of a currency note stuck out from one of Arissa’s dresser drawers. Curious, Berg slowly pulled the drawer open and picked up the note. Five hundred bones.
Circinian currency.
A currency that was useless anywhere but the Federation.
He glanced down into the drawer. It was hard to tell in the dark, but there was maybe twenty, thirty thousand bones in all. Far too much money for the pleasure of a woman’s body. He glanced over at Arissa sleeping in the bed.
No matter how beautiful the woman.
What had Negdren said? My money is as good as anyone’s. Berg remembered the man’s combat tattoos. Tattoos that suggested Negdren should be a major, or more likely, a colonel. Now why would a Circinian colonel pretend to be a captain? Maybe because he didn’t want to draw attention to himself while he was running an operative.
“What is it, Douglas?” Arissa asked in a slurred voice that told him she was still half-asleep.
He dropped the note back in the drawer and quietly slid it shut. “The ship picked up one of my men on a drunk and disorderly. Gotta get him out of the dock.”
She sighed in her sleep. “Hurry back,” she whispered.
Yes, thought Berg bitterly, hurry back said the whore to the mercenary. If love and duty could be sold like commodities, why not trust as well?
• • •
As soon as he had dressed and left Arissa’s quarters, Berg pulled out his comm and punched in Sully’s access code. It took eight rings before a groggy voice said, “Ye—”
“Sully, this is Berg. Toggleson’s gotten himself in some trouble. I need you to go get him out of the dock.”
“Look, Dougie, I don’t think I can—”
“This is a red tactical tasking, Lieutenant Sullivan. Noted and logged. Berg out.”
Red tactical tasking. That meant an automatic court martial if Sully failed to come through. Berg hated to pull rank on his friend, but he couldn’t afford to have someone from Ship Security call Arissa’s quarters looking for him.
Berg moved quickly to a staircase that led to a mezzanine that looked down upon the row of rooms where Arissa’s was located. When he reached the top he ducked down behind the railing.
He didn’t have long to wait.
Ten minutes after making the call to Sully, Captain, or rather, Colonel Negdren appeared at Arissa’s quarters and rapped on the door. Berg’s stomach clenched and his mouth tasted dry. So much for Arissa being half-asleep.
So much for a lot of things.
He slipped back down the stairs and hid behind the bend in the wall.
Negdren was only inside for five minutes. Not enough time for anything fun.
Only enough time for a pick-up.
The door clicked open and Berg stepped out from his hiding place. “Hey, you son or a bitch. What do you think you’re doing?”
Negdren looked up sharply and then a smirk stole across his face. “Well, what do you think I’m doing, Captain?”
Berg pointed a finger at Negdren. “She’s mine. You stay away from her.”
Negdren held his hands out in an expansive gesture. “She belongs to anyone who has the asking price.” If possible, his smile grew even bigger.
Berg smiled back and then he kicked up and in, the toe of his boot contacting solidly with Negdren’s groin.
The air went out of the Circinian, but the colonel was a tough old bird. He didn’t go down as Berg had expected. Instead he came out swinging.
Berg blocked the first punch and the second, and then he staggered back, his ear ringing and one whole side of his face numb. Third time’s a charm.
Berg delivered a long, sweeping kick, hoping to knock Negdren’s feet out from under him, but the colonel nimbly danced away from Berg’s boot and then hammered home with one of those roundhouse punches.
The world went black for a moment and when Berg managed to get his eyes open, Negdren knelt over him, his topknot draped over his near shoulder, an insufferable smile warping his tattooed face. “You shouldn’t fight dirty with a pirate, Captain. We invented it.”
Berg tasted
