Trial and Temptation (Mandrake Company)

by Ruby Lionsdrake

  A screech came from behind the table. Someone shouted, and chairs crashed to the floor. That had to be her cue.

  Val fired, the crimson beam lighting up the duct as it bit into the grate. As she’d anticipated, metal shrapnel flew everywhere, pinging off the sides of the duct. She buried her face to protect it. Fortunately, she was far enough back that nothing gouged her. The laser had obliterated the grate.

  Val rushed forward, shoving the rifle out first, her finger still on the trigger. A white cloud of gas from that tank filled the generator room. Smacks, grunts, and the whine of gunfire came from the direction of the table. Though Gregor had ordered her to rush straight to the admiral, Val glanced back to make sure the man was there—he was, and he still appeared to be unconscious—then rose to one knee and faced Gregor’s fight.

  Thanks to the white vapor, she couldn’t see half of the men, including Gregor, but two of the guards were standing back and shooting into the mess. Knowing she would only get one chance before they noticed her—she was surprised nobody had registered the blasting of the vent yet—she took a second to choose her targets. That one… then that one, yes. The overturned table and smoke made the others too hard to see, and she didn’t want to risk hitting Gregor. Her targets weren’t wearing battle armor, so her shots shouldn’t need to be precise. She fired once, then again, taking one man in the back and the other in the shoulder.

  The first guard flew forward and didn’t get up, but the second spun toward her, spraying laser fire. Cursing, Val hurled herself into a roll to the side. She should have anticipated counter fire. The generator was a good twenty feet away, so she couldn’t reach it for cover fast enough. Instead, she shot again as soon as her belly hit the floor, and her perspective was upright again.

  The guard’s first shots had flown high—he had probably expected a standing opponent—but he was adjusting quickly. She shot almost at the same time as he did. Something slammed into him a split second before he touched his trigger, and his beam went wide, gouging holes in the wall. Her laser grazed his thigh. He went down hard, less because of her attack and more because a heavy canister of gas had struck him in the forehead.

  Only then did Val realize that the fight was already over. The smoke was fading, revealing upturned furniture with several unmoving men scattered around the pieces. Gregor stood, his canister in one hand and a purloined rifle in the other.

  “Thanks,” Val said, chagrined that she had only take down one enemy when he had bested five, not to mention saving her life for the second time that day.

  “You are welcome.” Gregor pointed toward the back of the room, but walked to the front to lock the door.

  Right, her job had been to protect the admiral. Well, he looked all right. Gregor had handled the others before anyone could think of taking a shot at the prone man in the back of the room. A man who was breathing so shallowly, it was hard to tell if he was alive. She frowned at him. He was breathing, wasn’t he?

  She knelt beside the officer, touching two fingers to his throat as the thugs’ words about heart attacks floated through her mind. He might have gray hair and a weathered face, but he appeared more strong and fit than old and doddering. She found his pulse, but he didn’t respond to her touch. How were they going to carry him back up to the ship without attracting notice? For some reason, the admiral had come in his army blues, his rank, medals, and various other decorations on the jacket. Unless they stripped him, people would remember him if they saw him, especially out in this remote backwater. Even if they did find other clothes for him, he still had a military look about him, thanks to that short hair and a face that, even in unconsciousness, had a hint of arrogance about it, like he had been born expecting that people would obey his orders.

  Gregor jogged over and she smiled slightly, thinking of where else she had seen that type of face lately.

  “He is alive?” Gregor asked.

  “Yes. Are we carrying him out of here?”

  “That’s a possibility, but not an ideal one. Let’s take him to another level and wait until the drugs wear off before attempting to leave the station. We can acquire a costume for him, and if he can walk off the lift, he’ll be less memorable. We’ll—”

  The doorknob rattled.

  Gregor spun in that direction, his newly acquired rifle at the ready. He had abandoned the canister near the table. Maybe it was empty.

  “Into the duct,” Gregor amended his order.

  “Uh. They’re going to know we went in there.” Val waved at the grate she had blown away, but she stood at the same time, grabbing the admiral’s wrists so she could drag him toward the wall.

  Someone knocked hard on the door. “Baxter, let us in.”

  “I’ll get him. Watch the door.” Gregor nodded toward her rifle, then hoisted the admiral over his shoulder. The man was tall and muscular, so he couldn’t have been light, but Gregor didn’t have to go far. He reached the vent and climbed inside, doing his best to pull his load after him.

  “We aren’t going to be crawling far with an unconscious man with us,” Val muttered, but she followed, keeping her rifle toward the door as she had been ordered.

  Someone by the broken table lifted his head. She fired past his ear to convince him to stay down—maybe she shouldn’t have missed. She and Gregor were about to have all kinds of trouble. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to kill a man who was already down.

  Her shot must have been audible in the hall, because the knocks and shouts escalated. The door muffled the sound of laser fire from outside, but she heard it, nonetheless. The knob flew off, and smoke spewed into the room.

  “Gregor,” Val whispered, but he had already disappeared into the duct. Even as she called his name, the admiral’s boots disappeared too. With few options, she fired at the table a couple more times to convince those men to stay down, then she dropped to her knees and scrambled into the duct.

  She wished there were a way to seal the vent behind them, but it wasn’t as if the guards by the table couldn’t tell the story of what had happened, anyway.

  “I hope you know a secret way out of here,” Val whispered. Her knuckles smashed into the admiral’s boots, and she tried to help push him along, but it did nothing to speed up the plodding pace. As soon as the kidnappers realized where Val and Gregor had gone, they would figure out a way to cut off their escape.

  “I know several potential exit routes and am choosing one they may deem unlikely since it involves a vertical climb.”

  “And how are we going to climb vertically with our friend here?”

  They reached the first bend, and Val groaned, realizing how little ground they had covered. If anyone stuck his head through the grate, she could get laser fire up the butt.

  “He may waken by then,” Gregor said.

  “Given the fact that being shoved in a duct, twisted around a bend, and having his head hit the wall hasn’t woken him, I’m not sure the promise of a steep, scary ascent will wake him up, either.” Val hurried to round the bend so she wouldn’t be as vulnerable.

  “It’ll only be one level. There’s a maintenance elevator on Sub-basement Five that I think we can reach.”

  Laser fire shrieked behind them, echoing oddly in the duct. It blasted into the bend Val had gone around, burning through metal and stone, filling the air with caustic smoke. Her instinct was to push forward as fast as possible, even if that meant crawling past the admiral, but she curled into a ball instead, tucking her knees to her chest and trying to turn around. Her head clunked the side and she jabbed herself with her own rifle, but she managed the turn. The laser fire had stopped, but she heard the thuds and clanks of someone trying to crawl into the duct.

  With the rifle leading, she eased her head around the corner. Whoever was coming in shouldn’t be able to see her—it was pitch black at the intersection—but wild firing in her direction could kill her as easily as careful aim.

  The man who had been shooting was too busy crawling and dragging his rifle along to
fire. His broad shoulders scraped the sides of the shaft, but that wouldn’t keep him from catching up to Val and the others.

  She aimed at him, but hesitated. Killing people hadn’t been a part of her life as a freighter pilot, aside from one run-in with pirates who had wanted cargo she hadn’t been willing to relinquish—herself. But she had little choice here. If she didn’t stop him, he would catch up and shoot her from behind. Shooting someone in the top of the head seemed cowardly, but she gritted her teeth and flexed her finger on the trigger. No choice.

  He looked up at that instant. She couldn’t see his face in the dark duct, only the silhouette of his body against the light coming in from the broken vent behind him, but she didn’t have any trouble seeing him jerk his weapon up. She fired twice and ducked back around the corner. At that range, she didn’t think she could have missed, but on the chance that his laser fire blasted toward the bend again…

  It didn’t. She peeked around the corner to make sure she had finished the job. His rifle had dropped from his hand, and his head was slumped awkwardly to one side. He wasn’t moving. She couldn’t feel good about her accomplishment, but she backed away, knowing she’d had no other choice.

  “Brandt?” someone called into the duct.

  Val hesitated. Did she need to go back and stop that one too? No, they would have to pull out their comrade to come after her. That should buy them the time she needed. She squeezed into a ball once again and hurried to catch up with Gregor and his load.

  She couldn’t imagine they were moving quickly, but she reached a four-way intersection and couldn’t see anyone down any of the passages. The ducts were dark, but enough light filtered in from a vent a few meters in one direction that she should have been able to see shadows moving at least. But Gregor and the admiral were just… gone.

  “Gregor?” she whispered and glanced back. Judging by the distant thumps, the kidnappers hadn’t pulled their fallen comrade out of the duct yet, but it wouldn’t take that long. She would have to guess if she didn’t get an answer. At the worst, she could meet Gregor back at the ship, but it would be hard enough to get the admiral out of here with two people, much less one.

  Something brushed her hair, and she gasped and jerked back, thoughts of giant spiders flooding her mind.

  “Up here,” came Gregor’s soft call.

  Val looked up into pitch darkness. She had to wave her hand around to realize there was an opening. Her fingers brushed a rope. No, not a rope. One of those straps from the freezer. She hadn’t realized he had brought one with him.

  She grabbed it. “Is it secure?”

  “I have it,” Gregor whispered.

  Val took that as a yes, even though an image popped into her head of him gripping the strap and sliding toward the hole as she tried to climb up. But when she curled her legs up, stood, and started pulling herself up, the strap didn’t budge.

  “You did well to watch our backs,” Gregor said.

  As much as she was glad he had noticed that she had done something right, Val didn’t want to dwell on the man she had shot. She let a grunt be her response. Several grunts, actually. It had been a long time since she had climbed the walls and the ropes of the academy’s obstacle course. She made it to the top, but resolved to spend more time in the gym if she got this job.

  The next horizontal duct was larger, nearly three feet wide. It seemed spacious after their previous passage.

  “We’re between the levels,” Gregor said. “The admiral is still unconscious. Help me drag him this way.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  For a second, he didn’t move, and she wondered if her “sir” had surprised him. It had surprised her, flowing out of her mouth more easily than any of the other sirs had been over the last few days. It was odd, though, since she could have Gregor-ed him now.

  He moved off, the admiral’s clothing rasping against the floor as he was dragged along. Val put the pointless musings out of her mind. This duct was wide enough for two people abreast, so she wriggled her way past the admiral to help pull.

  Rapid heavy thuds sounded above them. Footsteps? Someone running?

  “Think those are the admiral’s kidnappers?” Val asked as they worked together to drag the man along.

  “I’m hoping they will be unaware of the vertical passageway between levels until they’ve had time to study a map,” Gregor said.

  “That wasn’t a yes or a no.”

  “No, it’s impossible to say.”

  “Maybe a janitor is rushing off to deal with a leaking toilet,” Val said.

  When she didn’t get a response to her admittedly poor attempt at humor, Val focused on moving, crawling, and pulling. Despite the chilly basement air, sweat broke out across her brow. She was going to be sore tomorrow. She supposed it was uncharitable to wish the admiral had missed a few more meals in his life.

  “Here,” Gregor said.

  A few squeaks sounded, followed by weak light filtering into the duct from above. Gregor lifted an access panel, poked his head through, and looked around. He climbed out and reached down for the admiral. Val did her best to help, shoving the big officer toward the hole. By the time she crawled out, it was crowded, and she ended up with her nose pressed against Gregor’s shoulder.

  “Another closet?” she asked as he nudged the floor panel back into place while trying to keep the unconscious admiral propped against a wall between two cleaning robots.

  “It was a logical place to come up, especially given that we’ve heard people running through the halls out there.” He waved toward the door.

  “So long as you don’t have quickies in mind again. I don’t like to perform in front of an audience.” She looked at the admiral, again wondering how they were going to get him to a lift and out of the station.

  Gregor’s mouth opened and closed. By this point, he couldn’t be stunned by her mentions of sex. Maybe he wasn’t sure which of her illogical comments he wanted to deny first. It wasn’t as if an unconscious man would be much of an audience.

  “I believe you were the one thinking of swift and uncomfortable closet intercourse,” he finally said, then pressed his ear to the door.

  “It’s possible. I can be a randy girl.”

  Even though Gregor was clearly trying to concentrate on their mission, his eyes grew round at her admission. She really ought to stop teasing him. She knew it was inappropriate, but getting the surprised expressions from him was… fun. She wanted to see more expression from him. But not now. She propped one of the admiral’s arms over her shoulder and gripped the back of his belt, knowing they would have to carry him out together. She kept her rifle ready in her free hand.

  “Someone else just ran by,” Gregor said. “The lift isn’t far. We’ll hope for luck, but if we don’t get it…” He looked at her rifle and gave her a grim nod.

  “Understood.”

  He opened the door and joined her on the other side of the admiral. They hauled him out, the man’s legs dragging behind him. Val wasn’t tall enough for this—Gregor and the admiral were both over six feet—and the experience was twenty shades of awkward. She did her best to match Gregor’s long-legged pace. They paused at an intersection, so he could look around a corner.

  “Clear,” he whispered.

  They headed around the bend, and, if not for her burden, Val would have danced with relief when she spotted lift doors at the end of the hall.

  “Almost there,” she whispered as they drew closer. Maybe they could jam the lift for a while and try to revive the admiral. But he had yet to groan, snore, or do anything that suggested he was close to consciousness.

  They were less than five feet from the lift doors when they opened. At first, she thought they might be automatically responding to their approach, but a man and woman wearing gray station-security uniforms stood inside.

  “That’s them,” one blurted, and both jerked their weapons up.

  Val had never lowered her weapon, and she got her shot off first. Gregor’s whine
d at the same time. She couldn’t have dodged if she needed to, so she was fortunate she and Gregor were both aiming at different people and that neither security person got a shot off.

  She was on the verge of complimenting Gregor on their efficient teamwork, but he was shaking his head, a grim expression on his face.

  “Unfortunate,” he said, though he didn’t hesitate to stride for the lift. “Mandrake Company does not make a practice of shooting law enforcement officers. I regret having to deviate from that standard.”

  Val let the admiral go as soon as the lift doors closed behind them. “These particular officers were looking for us and tried to shoot first. They must have been paid off, because there’s no legal reason they should abet the admiral’s kidnappers.”

  “I am aware of that, but it does not make the situation less unfortunate.”

  “I know.” A part of her wanted to explain that killing people didn’t sit well with her, either, and that she appreciated that he felt the same way, even if he was in a mercenary outfit. But there wasn’t time. The lift engaged, heading upward. Val hit the emergency-stop button. “The woman’s about my size. Think you can fit into that one’s clothes?” Never mind the still smoking holes that had been burned into the clothing—and the people…

  “You wish to emulate police officers?”

  “It might make explaining our prisoner easier if we look like the kinds of people who could believably be walking around the base with a prisoner.” Val knelt to unbutton the woman’s jacket and belt.

  “It’s not a big base. The people on the force will be familiar with their colleagues.”

  “I know, Gregor, but from a distance, we might pass. It’s just to buy time. Besides, if most of the police are down here in the sub-basements, looking for us, there might not be any on the main concourse level. Or at least not many.”