A Soldier For All Seasons Ch. 12

Ana gaped at him even as she unbuttoned. "Nate, really, is now the time?"

***

Nate pushed his whore forward into the lobby, slapping her ass hard, her cheeks jiggling, bisected by the thin strap of her thong bodysuit.

"I want a fuckin' refund!" He yelled.

Five guns pointed at him instantly, but he kept his eyes on Sheila, the Madam.

"Who the fuck are you?" One of the thugs growled.

"I'm your daddy, who the fuck are you?" Nate bit back. "Madam, give me my money back. This bitch is worthless. I paid for an assfuck and she won't do it."

Ana shook her head wildly, breasts bouncing with her as Nate 'accidentally' pulled the strap from her shoulder.

"I won't do it!" She glared at the Madam. "I'm sorry, Sheila, but he's just too big. He'll rip me apart."

Pavel sighed, scratching his nose. "Damian, did I not tell you to clear the place?"

"I did! He musta been in the garden, in the poolhouse."

One of the thugs got a little close, the barrel of his blaster rotating and heating red in warning. Nate kept his sight on Sheila, trying to communicate with his eyes, but hers were still clouded in confusion.

"Brother, fuck off before we blow your head clean off." Damian said in warning.

Nate shook his head. "I'm not leaving without my assfuck. I paid for it."

Nate's eyes trailed to Ana's back and returned to the Madam. Come on, woman. Her eyes went wide, finally understanding.

"Take one of my other girls." She bit out, wiping the blood off her face. Pavel was looking at him, but she was looking at Pavel.

That could work.

"Hell," Damian said, gazing at Ana in awe. "If you don't want her, we'll take her. I didn't realize this shitty place had such babes, fuck."

Ana stumbled back into Nate as Damian approached her and Nate's hand reached out to support her.

And landed on the blaster he'd taped to her back.

He pulled it and fired. Once to tunnel melt through Damian's head and again to pierce the chest of the nearest thug.

"What the f—" Pavel got out before Sheila rose a long leg and heel kicked his gun from his hand. Ana dove forward to pick up Damian's discarded gun, using his body as cover as the other two nameless thugs fired back.

Nate had to retreat back into the kitchen, caught out in the open, one blaster shot singing his hair.

Nate, chandelier. Isabelle pointed out. Nate shot it and it crashed down, missing the two thugs entirely, but sending glass shards scattering into their shins. That was enough to distract one of them long enough for Ana to pop up and blow a hole in his chest.

Sheila was struggling with Pavel, nails clawing his skin, knee coming up to smash his balls, but he finally got his hand out to grip her throat, holding her up high so her feet dangled.

Nate clipped the last thug in the shoulder, only for Ana to finish him off, disturbingly firing through the hole in Damian's head to get a safe angle.

That's a Nate move. What have you done to our innocent Princess? Isabelle mused.

That left them in a standoff with Pavel, holding Sheila's throat as she gasped for breath, turning blue, feet twitching.

"Drop your weapons or she dies." He growled, moving Sheila in front of him to protect himself.

Nate paused. Ana didn't have a clean shot. Neither did he. The bodies on the floor made disgusting gurgling sounds as the blood and organs poured out, and if they were dead, they were lucky. One of them whimpered. Smoke rose up, from the barrels and from the bodies.

A distinct whining sound — the noise the blasters made when they'd been used.

Sheila kept trying to reach back, stretching for a vase she'd never reach.

"Pavel." Nate held his hands up. "You don't need to die today. We just want to talk to Sheila and we can't do that if she's dead."

Pavel, red with rage, tightened his grip as Nate walked forward. "Stay the fuck back, man! I'll kill this Lops bitch, I swear!"

"Pavel," Nate spoke softly. "Are you really going to kill the woman that popped your cherry? Don't you remember how gentle she was? She doesn't deserve to die."

Pavel howled, wringing Sheila's body back and forth, her eyes bulging. She didn't have long left. "You don't know nuffin man, don't talk like you know me. You don't know the shit I've done!"

"Pavel," Nate paused. "Sheila doesn't know where the girl is. You can go back to the Broker, tell him she didn't know anything. You can tell him you were attacked by a big gang."

Pavel's adrenaline was punctured for a second, his head jerking around to take in the sight of his friends. He choked out a sob, eyes glistening. "You killed my friends, man. My brothers. The people I got into this business."

"And now you can get out of it, Pavel. You can escape. Start a new life."

Pavel snorted, sniffled, wiped his eyes with his free hand. "Hatchet will never let me go."

"Pavel, listen to me." Nate spoke carefully. "There's a ship at Bay Three. Not much, but it's something. The bay phrase is 'pineapple paradise'. It's got the same easy-wiring that the old mustard Roller Rockets had, remember those? Do you remember the old mustard Roller Rockets, Pavel?"

He sniffled, grip loosening a little, a hint of a smile. "Yeah, I remember."

"Of course. The ship everyone learned to fly in. Get to the ship, wire it right, fly wherever you want. The Broker's not going to dig through the bodies that we leave, not when we burn this whole place up. Do you want to live, Pavel?"

Silence. A tense silence, only broken by Sheila's gurgles as her body went limp. Her ears went limp with her, laying across her head, like punctured balloons.

"Do you want to live, Pavel?" Nate repeated. Blubbers of snot came out of his nose as he sniveled, body convulsing in silent sobs.

He whispered something.

"I can't hear you, Pavel. Do you want to live?" Nate ordered in his best Captain voice.

"Yes, damn you! I want to live!" Pavel yelled, dropping Sheila to the ground. His face red, puffy, tears pouring down his face, eyes wide with grief and anger and hope.

Nate shot him dead. He fell backwards, hand clutching at the hole in his chest, staring at Nate like he wanted him to remember the betrayal in his eyes, lips stuttering out a curse, but the words never came.

Nate grimaced. He wouldn't remember him. Pavel never even looked at Sheila as she suffocated. Just another two-bit thug, in love with the glamor of power. Nobody would remember him.

Ana rushed over to Sheila, holding her up, trying to help her breathe. Nate stumbled through, taking deep breaths himself to try and rid himself of the rush, to steady himself. Sheila looked bad, blue and still.

Ana ripped the corset off her and Sheila sat up in a deep gulp of breath, gasping for air.

"Thank fuck." Nate grabbed a blanket off a chair and covered her with it as she took desperate breaths, color slowly returning to her.

Ana nursed her for a few minutes until she was able to sit up and finally breathe something out.

"Fucking corsets." Sheila said.

Ana giggled. "I quite like them but I haven't tried them since I grew these." She gestured to her breasts.

"It's not your chest that'll be the problem, they'll be half out anyway, it's the stomach. Can't breath." She wiped the spittle from her mouth. "Not that I'm not grateful, but who are you two?"

Nate decided to take a chance and be honest with her. They needed her help.

"I'm Captain Nathan Clancy of the Federation, on a mission to uncover Judge secrets."

"And I'm Princess Anariel of the Lunari. Jana sent us here, she seemed to know something was wrong. And she overheard we were looking into Judges."

Sheila looked at them in disbelief and then shook her head. "You two don't fuck about, huh? Excuse me, Princess."

"That's okay, I don't mind a fuck here and there." Ana said innocently.

Sheila snorted. "Just as sassy as that Jana girl, and just as smart too, I bet. I'll have to thank her. Had a girl come to me, friend of a friend of a friend. She wanted safe haven — said she had info about a Judge Jarek and was looking for a place to hide and a broker to sell to."

"And you put them in touch with the Cipher?" Nate guessed.

"By the light of Celeste, fuck no. If I had those sort of contacts, I wouldn't be running this place. I put her in touch with Hatchet — he's a bit of a brute, but he works for the Cipher sometimes and I thought he'd sell it up the chain."

Nate studied her. He hadn't taken the brothel madam as a religious woman, and certainly not one that belonged to the rather chaste religion of Celeste, but sometimes those that dealt with the worst sin needed to believe in the brightest of lights.

"What happened then?" Ana wiped the sweat of Sheila's head with a damp rag.

"I put the girl in a hotel, but some of Hatchet's thugs went after her before the scheduled meeting. Scared her off, chased her across half the rooftops in town by the sound of it. And when they couldn't find her, they found me instead."

Nate frowned. "That's not how brokers work, usually."

"Agreed, which makes me think that Hatchet is getting paid by other masters. If the Cipher started hunting down everyone that tried to sell him information in order to beat it out of them first, or beat them quiet, he wouldn't be the broker of brokers."

Sheila took Ana's hand to stand up shakily and turned to him, biting her lip. "I think that girl is in real trouble."

"We'll help her." Ana said decisively, nodding to herself. And then she cringed and turned to Nate with a pout. "We will, right, Nate?"

"We will. If she's got Judge info, we need to help her before they kill her to stop her from speaking." Nate grimaced as Pavel's blood spread across the floor, touching his shoes. "But how do we find her when she's gone to ground?"

"You don't." A voice from behind startled them. Nate whirled around to see Jana, scared and pale, stepping through the bodies as she came through from the kitchen. She embraced Sheila tightly.

"I'm so glad you're alright." Jana murmured. "The other girls?"

"They're fine, I sent them running as soon as trouble came. Did—"

"Alicia found me, told me everything. And I didn't know what to do, but when I saw these two in the bar and they were asking about Judges, I thought they could help." Jana gave him a shaky smile. "I thought any girl that looks at her man like that has to have a good one."

"Well, I'm glad you did." Nate said. "Although I could have done with more of a heads up." He gestured his head to the carnage around them.

"I'm sorry, sugar." Jana bowed her head. "The bar I work at has got a lot of ears and a lot of bad men — it's connected to Hatchet and others. I couldn't tip you off at all."

"But what did you mean about not being able to find the girl?" Ana asked, confused.

"She hasn't gone to ground." Jana took a deep breath. "She's been taken. This bounty hunter came to the bar, started bragging about how'd he caught this girl and earned enough credits for a year of drink. He's taken her to Hatchet's club."

"Then I guess we're going dancing. Where is it?"

"You don't know." Jana winced.

"He doesn't know." Sheila confirmed.

"What don't we know?" Ana frowned.

Jana and Sheila stepped carefully to the front door and pulled out the crowbars that held them shut. They opened the doors and stepped onto the streets. Then, they pointed at the sky.

High above, slowly shifting, a glowing beacon in the night sky, an airship slowly shifted, shaped like a bloated advertising blimp, shark-fins at its tail. Across its side, the neon lights were easy to read. THE LION'S DEN.

"Only one way in and one way out." Sheila laughed bitterly. "That's a suicide mission. She's as good as dead."

"Nate?" Ana asked worriedly.

"Go get yourself a club dress, sweetheart. We have a party to crash."