Chapter Ten
Toombs took a tight rein on his anger, accepted the data that the robed figures provided about the contract and then left the building as quickly as possible. He hated being backed into a corner and he was afraid of what he might do if he did not conclude the business quickly.
The flight back to the Undertaker occurred in complete silence. Toombs had gone to the meeting for the money, and come out of it with an unwelcome contract along with a threat against his ship. Bastards! They knew exactly which buttons to push, he fumed.
Upon reaching the ship, he parked the shuttle and then left without a backward glance. He needed to hit something and he wasn't sure he trusted himself around Kyra and Mare until he had worked out that anger. As he stormed away, he heard Kyra mutter something to Mare, and then the younger woman followed him.
"Toombs…" she called after him after he had gone a few paces without slowing.
"Not now, Kyra," he said curtly. Without slowing, he continued his progress to the gym attached to his quarters. Once there, he stripped off his shirt and shoes and began working over a hapless punching bag with a vengeance, using only his bare knuckles. In his mind, he visualized it wearing a long dark robe and speaking in a melodious voice. Kyra had followed him, but he ignored her in his need to work through the frustration of being forced into a job he didn't want.
For a long time, he pounded and kicked the bag, oblivious to everything else. Eventually, he ran out of energy and anger. He was left with only a vague feeling of helplessness. He sank to his knees beside the bag, head down, breathing heavily. He heard Kyra move from where she had perched on a weight machine and approach him cautiously. Apparently, she had waited throughout his session with the bag; he hadn't expected her to do so, but he found that he was exceedingly pleased that she had.
"Toombs?" she said softly as though testing to see if he was back to himself.
He raised his eyes to her face and the concern that he read there moved him. He offered her a weak grin and said, "Hey, baby. You know, you didn't have to stick around through all that."
"I wanted to," she assured him with a crooked grin. She then closed the remaining distance between them until she stood directly in front of him. She reached out and ran her fingers across his forehead; her touch was soft, soothing. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her to him, burrowing his face into her midsection and inhaling her scent. She threaded her fingers into his hair and gently massaged his scalp. Her mere presence was surprisingly comforting and he held her for a long time just enjoying the sensation.
"You're a pretty damned amazing woman, d'ya know that?" he said at last with a chuckle.
"Of course," Kyra answered with a laugh. "I'd have to be to put up with you."
"Put up with me, huh?" he asked as he felt some of his normal humor returning. He looked up at her with an evil grin; then before she could react, he swept her up in his arms eliciting a shriek of surprise from Kyra. He carried her toward the door that connected the gym with his sleeping quarters and growled, "Get the door."
Kyra wiggled delightfully in his grasp and stretched to reach the lock panel for the door. As she extended her arm, she exposed a large expanse of her chest. He ducked his head and traced a path, running his tongue from the cleft between her breasts to the hollow at the base of her throat. Kyra finally hit the switch and the door swished silently open revealing the sleeping chamber beyond complete with a large bed. She wrapped her arms around his neck with what sounded like a purr and pulled his face to hers. They kissed deeply as he walked toward the bed with her.
He tossed her lightly down and then stretched along side her allowing his hands to rove over her body. "Gonna teach you about puttin' up with me, you impertinent female."
Kyra woke several hours later. Toombs was still sleeping, and she didn't want to wake him. However, nature's demands forced her to untangle their limbs for a trip to his bathroom.
When she returned, Toombs had his hands pillowed behind his head. She paused in the doorway, admiring the picture he made. She saw his gaze rove along her body as he, too, blatantly admired her naked form. "Hey, hot stuff. Wanna put up with me again?" he said with a smirk.
"Jesus, Toombs! Don't you ever think of anything else?"
"No, not really. At least, not when I have a naked woman handy."
Kyra shook her head and flopped on his bed. "Just this once, try to focus on something else. I wanna talk to you."
"Talk, talk, talk…" he grumbled. "Oh, alright."
She looked at him seriously. "Toombs, I wanted to ask you about today. What do you plan to do about the job?"
"Do the fucking job," he answered without hesitation.
Kyra was a bit taken aback: "But that kid. She didn't do anything to anyone."
"That don't enter into it," he said with a frown. "Merc's creed, culpable responsibility. The person laid out the contract is responsible for whether or not the target is actively wanted for an investigation. Damn, Kyra, you know this shit. Why you even bringing it up?"
She could tell her line of conversation was irritating him, but she couldn't let it drop: "But, we can't just—"
"Look, Kyra, we have a contract, we fulfill it. We're mercs; it's what we do. The law's pretty fucking clear on that point. You don't have the stomach for it; maybe you're in the wrong line of work," Toombs said harshly. "And regardless of anything else we do with one another, you're my fucking Security Chief. I need you with me 100 percent on this thing. You start going all squeamish on me, I'm gonna start wondering if I made a bad choice for the job."
His words hit her like a slap to the face. Her eyes widened and she felt anger rising inside her. "You bastard," she hissed as she rolled off the bed and began pulling her clothing back on. Her shirt had somehow gotten lost earlier when he'd removed it, so she grabbed one of his, which he had discarded over the back of a convenient chair.
"Kyra, it ain't personal," he growled as she dressed. "You don't have to go getting all pissed off about this."
"Fuck you," she snapped and then pressed her palm to the lock and stormed out of the room. She stomped along the corridor not really going anywhere in particular, just needing to put some space between her and Toombs. She rounded a corner and spotted two hapless mercs who were yelling at one another.
She barreled down on them just as one decided to escalate the issue by taking a swing. As she reached the pair, she pivoted and kicked sideways with her left leg catching merc one in the chest knocking him onto his ass several feet away. She lowered her leg, shifted her weight forward and then snap kicked the second guy in the head, dropping him as well. Both stared up at her in shock, but were smart enough to stay down.
"There's no fighting on this goddamn ship, understand me?" she roared. Both men nodded with similar expressions of fear in the face of her fury. "Get the fuck out of my sight, and I don't want to see either of you again, or I'll personally break both of you!"
Without waiting for them to respond, she stormed past. Both men shrank away from her as she moved by them in the narrow corridor. She glanced back at the pair who began scrambling in the opposite direction. Then she turned around and almost ran headlong into Mare.
The woman wore a bemused expression as she looked down the hallway at the fleeing mercs. She then turned her attention back to Kyra and quirked an eyebrow. Kyra was quite familiar with that expression.
"Not now, Mare," she said with a curt shake of her head. Mare shrugged and stepped to the side and then gestured with a flourish for Kyra to continue on her path. Kyra gave her a tight smile and a nod of thanks for not pushing the issue and then continued down the hallway.
She went to one of her favorite spots on the ship, a long view port that looked into the depths of space—although currently it provided a breathtaking view of Aquila Three spinning slowly beneath them. She paced back and forth along its length for some time seething over her argument with Toombs. How dare that motherfucker question my abilities as a merc! Ask a simple question and he threatens my job! The unbelievable bastard!
Eventually, she forced her self to stop pacing. She took a deep breath to steady herself and began to step through a slow meditative form, trying to recenter her emotions and work through the hurt and anger he'd called up inside of her. When she finally felt more at ease, she curled down into a lotus position and stared at the beautiful vista before her. She fought to understand why his words had touched such a nerve in her, and why his opinion seemed to matter so much to her.
"Fuck!" Toombs yelled as the door closed behind her. He rolled out of bed and quickly began searching for his own discarded clothing, intent on following. When he was dressed, he charged after her, guessing at which direction she had taken from his cabin.
In his rush, he almost knocked down a pair of crew who were hurrying in the opposite direction. "Get out of my way, you fucks," he snarled as he roughly shoved them to the side and then rushed past. In his rush, he completely missed the twin expressions of terror on their faces as they cowered from him.
He charged around a corner and spotted Mare who was walking toward him: "You seen Kyra?"
"You fucked it up, didn't you, Gabe?" she asked without preamble, effectively answering his question.
Toombs growled in frustration then bit out, "I don't need your analysis, just answer the fucking question."
"She went that way," Mare said, pointing down the corridor. Without another word, he moved past and stalked down the hallway. She called after him, "She's pretty pissed. You better watch yourself. You should have seen what she did to a couple of crewies who got in her way."
He waved a hand in thanks but didn't turn back. He had a good idea now of where Kyra had gone. When he arrived at the gallery, Kyra was moving gracefully through a tai chi form. He stopped and silently watched her, marveling at the catlike beauty of the woman in motion.
As he watched, she finished the last careful movement and then folded herself to the floor. He waited for a while to see if she would turn and notice him; however, she seemed to be deep in her own thoughts and showed no inclination to acknowledge him. Deciding to take the initiative, he walked cautiously toward her, not wanting to startle her into combat mode. He knew the moment she heard him because her back suddenly tensed, but she didn't turn around or speak.
"Kyra?" he said tentatively. She still didn't speak. He knelt behind her and lightly rested his hands on her shoulders. She didn't lean into him as she normally would've, but she didn't pull away either. "Baby, I'm sorry for how that went down. Your question surprised me and I didn't handle it well. I didn't mean to hurt you."
She didn't speak, but he felt some of the tension flow out of her shoulders. "Listen, I want you to know, I'm not apologizing for what I said. It needed sayin'. But I was out of line in how I said it. This contract's got me on edge too. I don't like it any more than you do, but a job's a job and we do the damn job. There ain't no reason it has to come between us like this unless you let it."
She finally relaxed back against him with a deep sigh and then said, "Toombs, you're an asshole."
He grinned, wrapped an arm around her, crossing her collarbone, and pulled her firmly against him. "Fuck, Kyra, you knew that the first time you met me. And here ya are saying it like it's some kind of net bulletin."
"No, it's no bulletin. I just occasionally have to remind myself of the fact," she agreed and he felt her run her hands across his arm and then she wrapped her arms over his returning his hug.
"So are we good?" he asked hopefully. She sighed and nodded then snuggled her head against his arm.
He chuckled and pressed a kiss to the back of her neck. "Come on, sweetheart, let's go clean up and then grab some grub. I dunno 'bout you, but I'm pretty damned hungry after all that."
Three days later, they broke orbit and laid in a course for the Helion system. The trip took several weeks, during which Toombs took his time selecting a team of mercs for the job. In light of their argument, he considered leaving Kyra out of the operation even though she was one of the best in his organization. She changed his mind by confronting him directly.
"Put me on the team, Toombs," Kyra said without preamble as she walked into his office.
"Ya sure?" he asked as he leaned back and regarded her with raised eyebrows.
"Yeah. You were right about what you said. I've been in this business my whole life and I know how it works. I don't know why I went all squeamish on you," she informed him.
"Okay, you're in. And I'm glad, baby. This is a pretty delicate situation and I need someone I can trust," he said with a grin.
"So who else you taking?"
"Thought I might go with Jones and Sanchez. Don't know either of them that well, but they both have good records, so…" he said indicating a data reader on his desk. "What do ya think?"
Kyra moved around and perched on the edge of his desk. Toombs waited expectantly as Kyra picked up the reader and perused the information on the two mercs. He knew well what the files said. They had both joined the crew about three months earlier when Toombs did a turnover of a large portion of the mercs who had worked for Chillingsworth. At that time, he'd off loaded about 90 percent of the old crew, a total of 125 mercs and brought in about 30 new people. Dropping the crew contingent had been one of Jericho's suggestions to decrease their ongoing, operating expenses and Toombs had embraced the idea whole-heartedly.
She finally looked up from the reader and gave him a non-committal shrug. He chuckled and asked, "What the fuck is that supposed to mean? I want your real opinion."
"They'll do. I'm not crazy about Jones as a human being—he's an unrepentant slob and he generally smells—but he is good at his job. And Sanchez seems like a good man even if he is a little young and high-strung."
Her analysis amused Toombs. He knew that the 'young' Sanchez was in fact three years older than Kyra herself. "Good, then I guess we have our team. We should hit the Helion system in another week. We'll break off in the Purgatory and head to H-Prime. We're supposed to drop the target on H-5, so Mare'll take the ship there and wait for us. Hell, if all goes well, I'll get to go thank Riddick for stealing my damn shuttle by the end of this month."
Kyra laughed at that: "God, Toombs. Obsessive, much? Have you considered seeing a counselor about your Riddick fixation?"
"It ain't obsession… I just don't want folks thinkin' they can get away with that kinda shit around old Toombs," he explained with a rakish grin.
"I dunno, Toombs. It still seems kinda obsessive to me…"
"Kyra, don't make me have to spank you."
She lowered her eyelids and stared at him from between her eyelashes, with a pout that made his groin tighten, and then she purred, "Promises, promises."
With a growl, he pulled her roughly onto his lap and fulfilled his promise while she wiggled delightfully.
A/N: Thanks again to everyone who's reading. I just wanted to let everyone know that my introduction of the Jack/OMC pairing DOES NOT mean that Jack won't get together with Riddick in the end.
Also, I had to edit this chapter from it's original version in order to comply with the ratings restrictions of this web site. I think it reads pretty well in it's edited for, but I'd love to hear how you feel about it. Please let me know if anything seems too choppy or abrupt, and I'll see if I can smooth the edges.
