Trial and Temptation (Mandrake Company)

by Ruby Lionsdrake

  “What are we talking about?” Zephyr asked.

  “Some high and fancy admiral got kidnapped. Yesterday, I think it was. Something to do with the fighting going on down on the planet.”

  “Oh, that doesn’t matter to me. So long as they keep their fighting down there.”

  Val had hoped for more curiosity from the man—better him asking his friend nosey questions than her—but his tone was one of dismissal. She tapped her fingers on the faux wood bar, searching for a way to dig more information out of Duffs.

  “You say he’s in the basement?” Zephyr asked after a moment.

  She had said bowels, randomly pulling the word out of the ether, but she shrugged and said, “I think so,” because he was frowning, cogitating hard on something. Maybe some remembered tidbit that would be useful to her?

  “That might explain why Sub Six was closed off this morning,” he mused.

  “Enh?” Duffs asked.

  What was Sub Six? A basement level? Val didn’t ask but gave the man an inquisitive look.

  “It’s mostly storage down in the sub-basements, spaces you can rent for the week or month, and some of the environmental stuff is down there too. Air and power, I think. I was supposed to pick up some cargo from the freezers down there, but Six was closed for maintenance this morning. That’s what a sign said. I didn’t think much of it, except to be irked, because it’s going to delay me. Can’t get back in the lanes and deliver cargo I haven’t got in my hold.”

  Val filed the information away even if it didn’t sound that promising. It seemed more likely that the floor might have been closed for maintenance for legitimate reasons, especially if the environmental systems were down there. Doubting she would get more from the old spacers, she took another sip of her drink and twisted in her seat, about to explain that her date had arrived. But Thatcher was busy entertaining someone else: the three pool thugs.

  “Pardon me, boys,” she said, laying her palm on the bar reader to pay for her drink. “I need to help the fellow who’s supposed to buy me dinner tonight.”

  Duffs grunted. “He doesn’t look like he’ll survive to buy you anything. Better stick with us.”

  Despite their words, the men didn’t try to stop her when she slid off her seat. She kept herself from sprinting toward the door—barely. One of the big men had just jabbed a finger into Thatcher’s shoulder. Running would draw attention, and besides, she had to figure out how she was going to stop them from pummeling her commander before flinging herself into the imminent fray.

  “Maybe he wants us to call him sir.” One man snickered.

  “I’m going to call him a pancake if he doesn’t apologize.”

  Damn, had Thatcher spoken to the brutes? Thrown insults? Why? He was supposed to be a genius, not an idiot.

  “For what would I apologize?” Thatcher asked. “I merely suggested you might aspire to a higher-paying job by increasing your education and spending less time gaming in bars. Then you wouldn’t need me to pay for your drinks.”

  Ah, they’d tried to bully money out of him. Still, he could have handled them better, instead of using that patronizing tone of his. The thought made her pause. This wasn’t the place for revelations, but for the first time, it occurred to her that Thatcher’s patronization wasn’t simply of her and of junior officers but of everyone. Maybe he didn’t even know he was doing it. Was it possible what she had always considered arrogance was… obliviousness?

  “Nah, beating drinks out of teat suckers is more fun.” The speaker grinned and threw a punch.

  Val winced; she’d hesitated, and now it was too late to talk the men out of attacking.

  But Thatcher caught the punch out of the air and returned one of his own, his fist striking like lightning. The thug’s nose splattered, the crack of cartilage audible over the bar din—or maybe it was that the din had disappeared as everyone stopped talking to watch the fight.

  Thatcher launched a side kick into the gut of a man lunging at him from the side. The brute reeled back, bumping into a table full of people and sending a chair flying. The last thug was trying to grab Thatcher from the other side. Thatcher snatched a wrist before the grasping hand found him, twisted it so hard the man howled, and dipped, hurling his attacker over his shoulder. He flew into the thug who had earned the ire of the table patrons, and they both tumbled to the floor.

  The leader released his nose—blood smeared his lips and chin—and roared, throwing himself at his new nemesis. Thatcher dodged so quickly, Val barely registered it. The thug struck the wall instead of his human target. Thatcher lunged in, slamming his elbow into the man’s vertebrae. Val gulped. That one wasn’t going to move again without attention from a medic. The others pulled themselves to their feet, but at a few snapped words from the bartender, slunk out, avoiding Thatcher’s eyes as they went.

  Thatcher straightened his jacket and cocked his head at Val. “Have you finished applying your charms?”

  She was gaping at him, but couldn’t stop herself. Of course, she understood that combat training was part of Mandrake Company and that Thatcher would have had military training once, as well, but so had she, damn it, and she couldn’t catch a punch out of the air. Not one going five hundred miles an hour with the force of a torpedo behind it.

  “I, uh, we might want to get out of here,” Val finally managed.

  Several tables of people were looking at them—no, at Thatcher—and the bartender was scowling in their direction too.

  “Agreed.” Thatcher stepped toward the door, paused, considered her, then offered her his arm.

  She had implied he was her date. She almost laughed, but it would have had a maniacal, stunned quality to it. Instead, she linked arms with him and strode out the door. Where she intended to walk with him, she didn’t know, but she led them to the right, onto the main thoroughfare, where numerous shops sold food and trinkets. Thatcher didn’t seem nearly as flustered as she was. He didn’t seem flustered at all.

  Val tried to remember what she was supposed to be talking to him about, but mostly she was finding herself with a new awareness of the ropy muscle beneath his sleeve, of the closeness of his lean form next to hers. She tried to ignore that awareness. It wasn’t seemly to be attracted to someone just because he had proven he could pummel bigger, brawnier men into the ground, nor because the muscles of his chest had gleamed nicely beneath the lights shining between all the models he had hanging around his cabin. A personality; that was what mattered, right? And his grated on her. Although… she was still reeling from the revelation that he grated on everyone. All those times she thought he had been picking on her, had he simply been speaking to her in as normal a manner as he could manage? She squinted up at his face, as if the answers to all of her questions might be written there.

  “Did you acquire information from the men at the bar?” Thatcher asked, clearly unaware of her revelations or the fact that she was still holding his arm and probably didn’t need to be at this point.

  Val managed to return her focus to the mission. “I’m not sure it was anything that useful. One of the spacers had heard something about the kidnapping of a military officer, so we’re in the right place at least. And another said Sub-basement Six was unexpectedly closed for maintenance this morning. Is there anything on your list that’s down there?”

  Thatcher stopped and put his back to a wall—nobody was paying much attention to him, but there were doubtlessly spies and pickpockets among the passing travelers. He pulled out his tablet and poked his map and list to life again.

  “Sub-basement Six contains frozen cargo storage—publicly accessible—and environmental systems—private access only. A generator room in the latter section is on my list. Number seventeen.”

  “Shall we make it stop number one?”

  He frowned at the list.

  Val was starting to recognize that slight wrinkle to his brow as less a sign of genuine puzzlement and more his attempt to figure out how to make the craziness of the rest of th
e world fit into his realm of logic and order. In other words, she was starting to understand him. A scary thought, that. In this case, it was logical to check their lead first, so she could only guess that the order was the problem. Some longing to adhere to a more linear process?

  She licked her finger, as if she were going to erase a charcoal mark on a piece of paper rather than some digital list hanging in the ether, then prodded the number seventeen and swept it to the top of the list, which automatically rearranged itself to put the number one next to the new entry.

  “Better?” she asked, tongue-in-cheek.

  Thatcher snorted softly, but he did appear mollified as he snapped the tablet shut and returned it to his pocket. “Sub-basement Six. There’s a lift back this way.”

  He didn’t offer his arm again as they walked off—the bar had dwindled from sight behind them, so there was no ruse to maintain—and she told herself it would be silly to find that disappointing. She stuffed her hands into her pockets and merely observed the station around her, checking news feeds flickering in store and restaurant windows and making sure none of the people they were passing looked like trouble. She did find herself curious about Thatcher’s fighting prowess, though, especially since he wasn’t saying a word about the skirmish. There had been no beaming with pride after the fact. If anything, the way he had hurried out of there without looking back made her wonder if he had been embarrassed to be caught in that situation. Again, her mind wanted to add, though of course, she couldn’t know for sure.

  The lights of a bank of lifts came into view ahead, and Val decided she had best ask her question soon; they would be busy with work in a few more minutes.

  “Sir, I remember my mandatory combat training in the academy, and it was… sufficient, I suppose you could say, but they knew they were ultimately training us to sit in chairs and that there wouldn’t be many situations where we’d actually have to dodge punches. Were your skills back there—” she waved behind them, “—something you’ve gained from being with Mandrake Company? And will I have to drill that much as a new recruit? Until I can beat up piles of thugs in bars?” That wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, but she had mostly added the last two questions so he wouldn’t think anything odd of her inquiring about him. She didn’t want to feel like she was resting her chin across her interlinked fingers and sighing up at him while batting her eyelashes and asking, “However did you learn to fight so well?”

  “The captain doesn’t expect the pilots and engineers to be super soldiers,” Thatcher said, “but we are required to come to the evening or morning unarmed-combat drills twice a week and to the firing range once a week.”

  “There’s a firing range on the ship?”

  “It gets set up in the cargo bay.”

  “There’s already a gym in the cargo bay. It’s quite the multipurpose room.”

  “Yes. Oddly, there’s rarely cargo in the cargo bay.” Thatcher smiled at her in a way that made her wonder if he’d been trying to make a joke.

  She smiled back, on the off chance it would please him.

  “As to my own fighting experience,” Thatcher said, “my mother enrolled me in boxing, wrestling, and martial arts when I was five, and I kept up the martial arts even after I left for the academy when I was fifteen.”

  Val didn’t point out that the usual minimum age for the academy was twenty, which had to include a four-year university degree or some form of apprenticeship that was its equivalent. Most people were closer to twenty-two when they entered, though brainy types who had no interest in business often headed for the army at an early age, since it was another potential path into the elite social classes.

  “So she already knew by the time you were five that you’d be getting beaten up a lot if you couldn’t defend yourself?” Val grinned, imagining his mother trying to figure out a way to keep her precocious child from being picked on by bullies.

  “She said it was so I would get exercise. I had a tendency toward indoor hobbies.”

  Her grin widened. “And you believed her?”

  “For… most of my youth.”

  They reached the bank of lifts, and a light blinked to let them know one was on its way. A couple of janitors ambled up, leading sweeping and floor-polishing robots. When the doors opened, everyone headed for the lift. It would have been big enough for all, but Val did a subtle body-block to keep the janitors from entering with them—she and Thatcher didn’t need any witnesses if they were going to roam around on floors where kidnapped admirals might be lurking. One grunted a protest, but she gave him her most winning look-at-my-charms smile, and he sighed and waved for another lift.

  “Are your parents still alive?” Val asked after the doors closed.

  “Hm?” Thatcher had his map out again and was studying it thoughtfully.

  “Your mother and father?” She supposed she should focus on the mission, too, but he hadn’t asked for further input from her.

  “Yes, they’re alive. They still live on Paradise. I haven’t visited often since leaving the fleet. They do not approve of my new career choice.”

  Val tried to decide if there was any pain in his voice. She could imagine that it would have been difficult for parents to go from having a star military officer who’d been one of the youngest instructors ever at the academy to having a mercenary for a son. Thatcher had sounded matter-of-fact though. Maybe he had come to terms with any familial disappointment that existed. Val couldn’t imagine not visiting her parents often… if they were still alive. Years had passed since Grenavine fell, but she still felt the loss. It was part of why she was trying so hard to help her brother, even if he hadn’t asked her to, even if he had never tried as hard as she to keep the bond between them alive.

  “You are prepared?” Thatcher’s hand was pressed against the sensor that kept the doors shut and didn’t let anyone call the lift back.

  Val blushed, hoping he hadn’t asked twice as she stood there, lost in thought. “I’m ready.”

  The doors slid open, and Thatcher led the way into a tunnel with rounded walls. Unlike the open concourse above, the gray, windowless passage had a stark, utilitarian feel. No vendors hawking cinnamon cakes down here. Not that there would have been anyone to sell them to. Judging by the emptiness in both directions, Sub-basement Six didn’t get a lot of visitors.

  Old parallel scars marked the floors where mine tracks must have once run. Those scars made her imagine an installation where every aurum was hoarded, human workers were chained to the walls, and no technology greater than carts on wheels existed. It was the sort of place her brother would end up in if she couldn’t help him in time.

  A large sign on the wall pointed toward the right and read “Cryo Storage” in several languages. The air was already chilled—apparently nobody bothered heating the sub-basements—but large freezer doors in that direction promised it could get a lot colder. The passage to the left wasn’t labeled, but an “Employees Only” sign marked the wall a few meters down.

  “Interesting.” Thatcher pointed to yet another sign, this a temporary one placed in the center of the hallway on the cryo side.

  “Closed for maintenance,” it read in GalCon Standard. Most of the system spoke it, but for those who didn’t, the sign also held a picture of someone touching a force field and getting a shock. A light flickered in the distance, threatening to go out. Another was already out. The evidence of delayed maintenance made Val skeptical that there was truly something as sophisticated as a force field blocking access, but Thatcher had turned in the other direction, so she didn’t trot up to check.

  “The generator room is this way,” he said.

  Val followed him, but she looked back over her shoulder. It had been the maintenance notification—one that might have been falsely placed to keep people from roaming past kidnapped admirals—that had brought them down to this floor. She almost pointed that out and suggested that they search in that direction first, but if Thatcher’s map didn’t have any likely prison
cells in that direction, she supposed it made sense to check the generator room first. Besides, if the only thing in the other direction was freezers, then their legendary admiral would already have icicles around his heart.

  Doors started appearing on the sides of the tunnel, each one set into an alcove in the rounded cement walls. They were smaller and less insulated than the ones in the other direction.

  Thatcher stopped at the first one. A little plaque read, “Janitorial.” He opened it and stepped inside. Though surprised by the choice, Val joined him. Mops, brooms, scrubbers, and two powered-down robots waited inside the compact space.

  “I don’t see any generators,” Val whispered. Maybe Thatcher had decided to check all of the small rooms on the floor? A closet wasn’t a very spacious spot to store and guard a hostage—and it might be visited a couple of times a day by workers—but who knew? “Or did you bring me in here for a quickie, sir?”

  Thatcher hadn’t been looking at her—he was fishing in one of his pockets—but his surprised gaze lurched to her face now. “What?”

  “A, ah, quick round of sex. It was a joke. Because, uhm, that’s what people, couples, do in closets. Sometimes.” And so she uttered more lines that were totally inappropriate in a commander-cadet military situation. Val shook her head at herself; she was going to have to do some fancy flying later to impress him.

  Despite her explanation—and attempt to dismiss the joke—he was looking around, his brow still faintly crinkled. “It appears uncomfortable. I’ve… always preferred beds.”

  Well, at least he wasn’t a virgin. At this point, that wouldn’t have shocked her. But no, he probably had women fling themselves at him every time he beat up thugs in bars.

  Thatcher pulled out a small black sphere with a couple of sensors in its side. “I intend to launch a spy camera.”

  At his touch, an interface appeared in the air above the contraption. He adjusted the settings, and it floated out of his hand, leaving a small remote on his palm. He opened the door, letting the camera flow into the tunnel. It drifted up to the ceiling, hugging the shadows farthest from the light fixtures. It floated deeper into the complex, and he closed the door. He thumbed the remote, and an image of the tunnel came to life in front of him.