Mandrake Company- The Complete Series

by Ruby Lionsdrake

  He had to help that jumpsuit along, pushing it off her arms and down past her hips. She stiffened when his hands neared that pocket again. He almost snorted—as if he hadn’t already noticed the cargo inside. She caught his wrists.

  “I’ll get it,” she whispered.

  He had removed enough of the jumpsuit that it would fall to the floor on its own, anyway. He slipped out of her grip, pulled her hands back to his abdomen, hoping she would go back to taking his clothes off, and gave her a long, hard kiss, willing it to drive thoughts of subterfuge and theft out of her mind. But there was a stiff uncertainty in her stance that hadn’t been there before.

  “You can have the tablet,” Viktor said, his lips refusing to leave hers as he spoke. She understood anyway; he felt it in the spark of surprise that went through her body. “Not the key,” he added.

  Would she resent him for that? For realizing what she was up to?

  After a thoughtful moment in which he tried to kiss all such notions out of her mind, she returned his kisses again. She stroked his tongue with her own, running her hands across his back, running her fingernails across his flesh, and setting him on fire. A relaxed ardor guided her movements, as if she was relieved she no longer had to worry about that tablet. He wished he had said something before. Her hands returned to his belt and finished unclasping it. Yes.

  His comm chimed.

  No.

  Blast all the suns in the galaxy, who was bugging him now? Viktor wanted to ignore it, wanted to have this moment—this hour—but some plucky young soldier would be sent to find him if he didn’t respond.

  “What?” he growled, hoping the sound of his displeasure would drive whatever bridge minion was contacting him to make it a short message. Ankari’s mouth had found his own neck now, and his trousers were sagging from his hips, her hands pushing them lower. All he wanted was—

  “It’s Striker, sir. We have a problem.”

  It was his team down on the planet, not someone on the bridge. They wouldn’t have been patched through to him directly if it wasn’t important. Viktor released Ankari’s shoulders, pressed his hands against the wall behind her, and struggled to focus on something else besides unleashing the cannon. That was hard when her face was still buried in his neck, her tongue tracing interesting patterns there, her teeth occasionally coming out for a nip.

  “What is it?” Viktor asked, hoping his voice didn’t sound as husky to his soldier as it did to him.

  “Tank and Rawlings are missing. And... so is the shuttle.”

  “What?”

  “They were on guard back at the shuttle while the rest of us were searching the forest. It’s real thick and jungley down here, so the sensors don’t work very good. But we captured two of Sisson Hood’s scouts, questioned them, and found his camp. We were coming back to the shuttle to tell you to bring everyone down for the invasion, but all that’s left are some laser scorch marks on the ground and some charred up trees. It’s hard to believe any local thugs could have taken down our men, but... there’s nothing left here. Just some smoking wood. We’re lucky we had all our field gear with us. I’m calling on the sat-comm. I already talked to Commander Garland about tracking the shuttle, but the chip was either removed or damaged. According to the bridge, the whole craft has just disappeared.”

  Ankari had stopped nibbling, pulling back to listen and watch his... collarbone. It was good that she had stopped distracting him, he supposed, but the faintly stunned what-was-I-thinking expression that replaced the passionate one of moments before was less good. He kept himself from delivering a promise of “later,” not certain if she would be excited by that or not.

  “We could use some backup, sir,” Striker went on. “Since we took those two scouts, Hood’s going to realize he has missing men sooner or later. And then there’s our own missing men.”

  “I’ll get Thomlin on research and get the rest of the strike team and come down,” Viktor said. He shook his head, berating himself for not warning everyone about that bounty hunter. But Goshawk didn’t have a very big crew. It would be surprising if he was behind this. Maybe there were others. That was an alarming thought. A whole legion of bounty hunters sent out here to retrieve...

  He looked down at Ankari, but her chin had drooped to her chest, and she was avoiding his eyes. He stepped back from her, though he couldn’t resist brushing his fingers against her soft hair as he did so.

  “Thomlin,” he called into his comm. “We need to have a talk. I need some intel, and I need it fast. We need to finish up and get to Felgard’s without delays.” He looked at Ankari, wondering if he should warn her that there were more parties looking for her, but there wasn’t time. Striker was right; he needed to get down there with a team immediately. “Send Cutty to the mess hall for... the prisoner too.” He hated calling her “the prisoner,” especially when he had been so close to turning her into his lover, and when he was doubting more than ever whether she truly deserved to be anyone’s prisoner.

  Not surprisingly, her mouth hardened and some of the anger returned to her eyes at the words. Damn. He would try to make it up to her later. Somehow.

  6

  Ankari followed the yawning, glaring, and sighing Corporal Cutty through the corridors without thought of escape this time. She was too busy running that strange dinner meeting through her mind over and over again, trying to figure out what that kiss—more than a kiss, she admitted, with a hot flush swallowing her anew at the memory—had meant and why the captain—Viktor, he’d said to call him—had been asking all of those questions about her past.

  Was it possible he had started to believe her at some point and had been trying to figure out if she was indeed a legitimate entrepreneur and not some sleazy villain? As much as she would like to believe that, she doubted he could be thinking along those lines when she had been pickpocketing, conniving, and seducing his crew since she arrived. Well, she hadn’t exactly seduced Striker, but Viktor might think she had been trying to seduce him, especially since her hands had started wandering around of their own accord, and she had been about to do a lot more than the kiss that she’d originally had in mind to distract him. Good, law-abiding citizens doubtlessly weren’t supposed to resort to such tactics. But it wasn’t her fault she had been kidnapped. And she needed to escape. Especially with him in such a hurry to finish his mission here and tote her off to Felgard.

  That had stung when he had told his man he wanted to get to the finance lord as quickly as possible. When just the moment before, he had been kissing her and acting like he cared. Why had he told her about Grenavine, leaving her to assume that he, like her father, had lost everything—everyone—there? To win sympathy? Why? It wasn’t as if she had been balking at his touch. She had been trying to keep him from brushing against her pocket, yes, but she had been all over him too. And the pocket... it hadn’t even mattered. He’d known! Had he known all along? Made out the shape of the tablet in her pocket in the gym? All night, she had been so afraid he would figure it out, and he had known. And he hadn’t even cared. That was the confusing part. If he wanted nothing more than to reach Felgard and collect his money, why give them back the research equipment and why let her have the tablet? Why give her access to all the information she sought? He must not be thinking that she could learn what she needed to escape, but why bother giving her anything at all?

  Cutty stopped to talk to someone at the bottom of a ladder. Men in helmets and battle armor were running through the corridors, gear and guns in their hands. They must all be going to join that assault team, to get their men back, and to do whatever they had to do on that moon. And get paid to do it.

  They were, after all, mercenaries. Men who were paid to fight. Men for whom money mattered more than allegiance to any particular nation or idea. Ankari reminded herself that the captain was one of these people too. Whatever he’d been in the past, he was fighting for pay now. Presumably the more pay, the better. Maybe that was why he was letting her team continue with their resear
ch. He thought he could cash in somehow on the work they left behind, or maybe he thought he could get copies of everything before handing them over to Felgard. Even if Dr. Zimonjic had scoffed at Lauren’s ideas, that didn’t mean someone wouldn’t pay a lot for the research they had done.

  Yes, that had to be why he was doing more than keeping them locked up with nothing to work on. And maybe that was why he had been asking about her businesses too. Trying to figure out what she might be worth and if he could get even more out of the deal than what Felgard was offering. And if he could get in her pants along the way, even better, right? She might have initiated that kiss, but he had been eager enough to return it. That shouldn’t have surprised her, but it had. And it had excited her too. She had lost control—and at one point, almost forgotten her goal entirely. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been so engrossed in anyone.

  She rubbed her face—it was still hot and flushed from their kissing. Her whole body was. She hadn’t even realized she was that attracted to him until all that lean, hard muscle had been molded against her body, his hands rubbing and teasing her, his lips scorching her flesh wherever they touched, making her insides heat up like a sun until she was throbbing with the need to get even closer, to wrap her legs around him, to feel him inside of her, to ride him like a Goran dragon.

  “Come on, woman,” Cutty said, grabbing her arm. “They’re going to need me on that mission, and I’m not missing the shuttle down because you’re dawdling.”

  Dawdling? He was the one who had stopped to chat. She had just been... entertaining herself with her memories. Damn, she might still hate Viktor for blowing up her ship and trying to drag her off to her death, but she would be ridiculously disappointed if they never got to finish what they had started.

  Not here though. Not on his ship. She had to escape. Maybe she could look him up once she had cleared her name and dealt with Felgard. She would wait until she was filthy rich from her business success, and then maybe she would call him up, offering to hire him to be her escort. She snorted. Would a mercenary ever get into the gigolo business? It would be a lot safer than getting shot at. Maybe she should ask Cutty if he had ever considered the line of work.

  He palmed open the force field and shoved her inside without waiting for her to walk in of her own accord. No, she wouldn’t ask him about gigolo activities.

  He slapped the force field closed again, then ran off without a word.

  “Looks like we’re not going to have a guard tonight,” Ankari mused. If they were going to get off this ship, this would be their best opportunity.

  The lights hadn’t been dimmed, and Lauren and Jamie had been lying on the floor, with their arms flung over their eyes, but they sat up now.

  “Are you all right?” Jamie asked. “You were gone a long time.”

  “I’m fine.” Ankari pulled out the tablet and tossed it to her. “I’m hoping we can escape soon, so find that technical manual and start speed reading, please.”

  “Oh. Good.”

  Ankari wanted to check to see if her friend had mailed her back, too, but figuring out how to pilot one of those shuttles had to be the priority at the moment.

  “Ankari...?” Lauren was scrutinizing her.

  “Yes?”

  “You look like you’ve been kissed hard and dropped off before you were ready to go home.”

  “I—what?” Did she? Ankari hadn’t had time to do much more than zip up her jumpsuit before that prompt corporal had shown up. Her hair had been a mess to start with, and she hadn’t been wearing any makeup that could have smeared. Viktor hadn’t left bite marks anywhere, had he? She remembered nibbling on him...

  “Girls can tell,” Lauren said, further shocking Ankari because Lauren had always seemed oblivious to people’s relationships.

  “Who was it?” Jamie asked. “The captain? Is he falling for you? Is he going to help us?”

  “Not exactly.” Ankari recovered her equilibrium, glanced back to make sure nobody had popped up at the security desk, then pulled the electronic handcuff key out of her pocket. “I’m not sure he’ll be talking to me again when next we meet.”

  Viktor might have forbidden her to take it, but it had been so easy when he had been pulling her jumpsuit off. With luck, he would be too distracted by his mission to think to check for it. Maybe he would even change into some of that battle gear and leave his trousers on the ship, so he couldn’t check for it until he returned. At which point, Ankari and the others could be long gone. If they could get out of the brig.

  “Is that a key?” Jamie waved at the force field. “Will it get us out of here?”

  “No, but I’m pretty sure it’s tied in with the doors around the ship. They all have little sensors for something besides a palm print. Lauren, any progress with that generator?”

  “Not yet, but we had a guard on duty until a few minutes ago, so I couldn’t fiddle with it too much. I’m not that optimistic about it shorting out the force field anyway.”

  “Try anyway, please.” Ankari sat on the bench to think about backup plans if the generator didn’t work. That was what she intended to do anyway, but her mind kept betraying her, wandering back to her evening with Viktor. From that brief dialogue she had heard, it had been clear his mission had gone to hell. Would he be in danger down there? She’d witnessed his impressive hand-to-hand combat skills, but how useful would they be in some jungle with laser fire streaking all over the place? And when had his safety started to matter to her?

  * * *

  The humidity dripped from the leaves and fronds, the canopy overhead so dense that Viktor wouldn’t have been able to see the sky if his team hadn’t landed in a clearing by a stream. A few mossy ruins surrounded an old cement slab, almost invisible because of the grass and weeds spurting from the cracks. The structures were all that remained of what had likely been a logging pickup zone once. The jungle hadn’t quite taken all of the area back, but in a few years, the ruins would be impossible to find. For now, Viktor had a view of the black clouds blotting out the stars and Drang, the sister moon. One of the storms, for which the moon was known, was heading in. The thick air crackled with static longing to be unleashed, and the wind had already picked up in the five minutes he had been on the ground.

  “Because this night needs to get more complicated,” he muttered.

  “Sir?” Sergeant Hazel stood a few feet away, decked out in battle armor and watching his back.

  Viktor examined the scorch marks on the tree he was standing next to, his Eytect sensor tugged into place to give him night vision for his left eye along with local weather conditions—as if he couldn’t tell a storm was coming. The tree’s papery bark had been scored by laser fire, parallel lines. “Double-barreled blaster,” he said. “MK-45 or 48.”

  “Fleet issue, but there are a lot of those available in surplus stores,” Hazel said, her gaze roving the trees all around.

  The three shuttles that Alpha, Charlie, and Delta squads had come down in sat in the clearing, each with a well-armed pilot waiting inside. Striker and the rest of the fighters had already tramped off to the east to deal with Sisson Hood and his band of merry outlaws. Viktor itched to join them, but not until he had his missing men and his other shuttle back.

  “In other words, it could be anyone.” Viktor faced the clearing, eyeing the churned mud around the landing pad. “But I’ve only seen evidence of hand weapons so far. Nothing that would have come from a ship.” He raised his voice to address the third soldier skulking around the clearing with them. “You find any tracks yet, Tick?”

  “’Bout fifty million left by our own people, Cap’n.” Sergeant Tick tossed a baleful look over his shoulder. He’d asked Viktor to keep the men in the shuttle until he could have a good look around, but with that storm rolling in, Viktor hadn’t wanted to delay the core mission. He had made sure the squads funneled out of the clearing in a single file, so as to minimize the disturbances.

  “Fifty million? From forty-five people?�
�

  “Forty-five people with real busy feet,” Tick said around a wad of that caffeine gum he was always chewing. He grinned, his balefulness forgotten in less than ten seconds, like usual. When it came to tracking, he liked a challenge, anyway. “Lot of critter traffic too. All agitated with this storm coming, I reckon. This the planet with the dinosaurs?”

  “It’s a moon,” Hazel said.

  “Fine, this the moon with the dinosaurs? It was nice of those aliens to terraform so much of this system for us, but they did get a might creative when they were adding the wildlife.”

  Viktor had seen the “dinosaurs” on a previous stop here—there was a zoo in the capital city. They were predators that had reminded the early settlers of velociraptors from the Old Earth fossil record. They had been known to kill men wandering in the jungle alone, but he doubted any would be out in this weather. He was more concerned about humans armed with laser rifles than feathered dinosaurs with pointy teeth. “Just let me know if you find sign of our men or our shuttle thieves.”

  “Working on it, Cap’n.”

  Viktor stalked around the clearing, too, poking under fronds and searching for broken branches or other signs that someone had pushed through the dense undergrowth. He hadn’t grown up with wolves or bears or whatever Tick was claiming this month, but he’d taken all of the prerequisite survival training courses as a part of his recruitment for the Crimson Ops.

  “If there weren’t any ships firing, someone had to have come on foot,” Hazel said, following him. She would probably figure out the solution with her head before either Viktor or Tick found enlightenment looking at the ground. “So someone came in on foot and surprised our people.”

  “Except that shouldn’t have happened. Standard operating procedure is for the pilot to wait inside the shuttle, in case someone needs a fast pickup. The shields are impenetrable to hand weapons. Heavy artillery might make a dent, but there’s no evidence of that.” Viktor waved at the ground. He didn’t need Tick to tell him that nothing heavy had been dragged around out here.