Mandrake Company- The Complete Series

by Ruby Lionsdrake

To whom, Ankari had no idea. She couldn’t move her head.

  “These ladies are going for a ride.”

  It was the last thing she heard.

  13

  “Three thousand... fifty-two hundred... eight hundred and ninety... Is that everything? No, wait, forgot to charge you for those...” The merchant cheerfully recited a few more engine parts for his tablet to compute while a robot puttered around the shop, sucking wrappers, screws, and other floor detritus into its built-in trash receptacle. For the third time, it tried to suck up Viktor’s boots. He hoped the robots that were jetting around outside the giant view port, welding, scrubbing, and painting the hull of the Albatross, had their bolts secured more tightly.

  “Sure you don’t want to change your mind about that bounty?” Commander Borage asked. “I told you this was going to be costly.”

  “It’ll be fine. If Cosmos Circuits and Cogs doesn’t give us a fair price, we’ll torture and kill Cosmos, then blast our way out of the space dock.” Viktor gave his coolest, hardest look to the pasty-faced pencil pilot totaling the bill.

  “Erp?” The man blinked a few times, cleared his throat, and said, “There’s not actually a Cosmos. It’s just a name. I’m Ralph. And we have fierce security robots to deal with recalcitrant customers.” He pointed to two sleek, black human-shaped bots standing guard at the door.

  “Oh? What part of me will they try to vacuum up?” Viktor waved to the cleaning bot, which was in danger of running over his boot again.

  “Your wallet most likely,” Borage said.

  Viktor’s comm chimed. “Sir? This is Striker. Corporal Tungsten’s not at his post, and that lab is empty.”

  Viktor forced himself to take a deep breath and control the urge to run over and treat those security bots like punching bags. “How long?”

  “Not long, sir. I’ve been keeping an eye on the lab, just like you said.” Striker sounded worried. He better.

  “The tube’s guarded, right? All the shuttles still in the bay?” Viktor looked up at the ship, floating in space beyond the window, attached only by an airlock tube on the side opposite from him. He couldn’t see it, but he had more guards stationed there than usual and trusted they were at their posts. He couldn’t see the shuttle bay from here, either.

  “The women haven’t gone out the tube. Rubber and Jiang are there. I already checked with them. The shuttles... Sergeant Sethron is leaving the bay right now. Commander Garland cleared him a few minutes ago. He’s picking up medical supplies for Dr. Zimonjic.”

  Or he was kidnapping three women to sell to the highest bidder. Viktor growled deep in his throat. The merchant backed a few steps away.

  “Check the cameras and see if anyone except him walked onto that shuttle,” Viktor said.

  “I, ah, just did, sir. The data is unavailable. It says the camera was taken offline for repairs.”

  Viktor clenched a fist. “I’ll bet. Striker, I want a security team waiting for the sergeant when he lands.” Wherever that would be. This station had at least ten shuttle bays. “If those women are on the shuttle, I want them recovered and back in their lab within the hour. I left you in charge of security. This is your responsibility.”

  “Yes, sir. I got it. Uhm, if Sethron puts up a fight... how much force do you want used?”

  Commander Borage, who had been standing silently and listening to the exchange, raised his eyebrows at this and looked Viktor in the eyes.

  Viktor couldn’t be lenient, not with this. A slap on the wrist would only encourage others to try the same thing. This had to be a lesson to his crew. He didn’t want to lose a man, but if Sethron was stealing the women, he would have been lost anyway, kicked out of the company at the least. “If the women are there, use whatever force is necessary. Deadly force is authorized. Sethron won’t want to live to deal with me, anyway, if he’s stolen my prisoners.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Borage, I’m authorizing you to sign for the repairs. I’m going to find that shuttle.”

  “Viktor,” Borage said softly. “That vein in your forehead is throbbing, and you’re holding your gun.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “That you may regret actions taken in anger for something so trivial.”

  “It’s not trivial,” Viktor growled and stalked away.

  * * *

  Ankari had no idea how much time passed before she regained consciousness, but she awoke on a bed, or maybe it was a medical float stretcher. When her gritty eyes opened, she was staring up at a gray ceiling. Were they still on the ship? She hoped so. The stretcher didn’t feel like it was moving. When she tried to lift a hand, she found her wrist strapped down. Her legs were too. Not good.

  “Awake already?” a familiar voice asked. “You must have been farther away from the gas than the others.”

  Dr. Zimonjic’s face came into view. She peeled back Ankari’s eyelids and shined a light into them. Or maybe that was some kind of brainwashing wand. A bulging pocket brushed Ankari’s thigh. Picking a pocket would be difficult with her wrists bound, but she could try if Zimonjic stayed this close.

  “Afraid I’ll die?” she asked. Her mouth was dry, like she’d had a pair of socks stuffed in it for the last hour.

  “Your young friend went into cardiac arrest a short while ago. I resuscitated her, but anesthetics of any kind aren’t without risk, especially such a potent fast-acting one.”

  Ankari gulped. “Jamie?” She lifted her head. The doctor blocked much of her view, but she glimpsed two other float stretchers, a row of seats, and a control panel. They were in a shuttle. If they hadn’t left the ship’s bay yet, maybe there was a chance to escape.

  “She’s fine now.” Zimonjic tugged down Ankari’s collar and dropped a monitor onto her skin, the cold device sending a shiver through her as it took its readings.

  “It’d be a shame if you couldn’t deliver us alive, I suppose.” Ankari flexed her hand to the limit of the restraint, dipping her fingers into the top of the big pocket. She brushed the tops of several tools and tried to identify them while being careful not to nudge them. Since Zimonjic had already been pickpocketed once, it wouldn’t take much for her to realize it was happening again. Ankari couldn’t reach her own pocket, either, so she couldn’t hide anything she snatched. Maybe she could grab one item and cover it with her hand. It had to be the one item that could get her out of these straps. Ah, were those scissor handles?

  Zimonjic grunted and removed the monitor.

  “Why are you doing this?” Ankari rushed to ask, sure the doctor was about to move away. She couldn’t quite reach those scissors, damn it.

  “To save him from his own stupidity.”

  “Viktor?”

  Zimonjic’s eyes closed to slits, and she leaned closer to whisper, “Yes, Viktor. Captain Mandrake. He never invited me to call him by his first name.”

  Good job, Ankari. Piss off the person with access to all the deadly drugs... At least Zimonjic was close enough now that Ankari could squeeze the handle of those scissors between her index and middle finger. Just barely. She had to be careful pulling them out.

  She licked her lips. “Is this really about saving someone, Doctor? You just want to make money, don’t you? Not that I blame you. Two hundred thousand, that’d be enough to retire nicely on if one invested wisely.”

  “Please, Felgard would have me shot if I showed up at his door, whether I’m an upright GalCon citizen or not. Those finance lords are so high above the law that they’re probably not even aware it exists. I certainly don’t have the clout to ensure he pays, not without the rest of the company at my side, and Mandrake will probably kill me for this, but... it’s for his own good. I don’t know what he sees in you, but I’m not going to let his infatuation destroy all he’s built. Destroy him.”

  “What are you going to do then?” Ankari slipped the scissors out of the doctor’s pocket a heartbeat before the woman straightened up. She palmed them, using her body to hide them from above.
/>
  “Knock you out again, tie you up, and dump you in a trash bin somewhere. Or, if Sethron can find an outgoing ship that’s not guarded well, we’ll throw you in their cargo hold. I don’t care where, just so long as you can’t get back aboard the Albatross. I don’t know what you did to talk the captain into helping you, but I can guess.” Zimonjic’s lips curled into a frigid sneer. “It’s time for you and your friends to deal with your own problems, not drag us into your mess with you.”

  “I didn’t talk him into anything. I told him we’d go our own way if he’d just let us go. He’s the one who wanted to help.”

  Zimonjic didn’t deny the statement. From the wry twist of her lips, maybe she believed it was true. “Well, he’s not going to help. The company doesn’t need to start a war against someone with unlimited money and resources.”

  “Doctor?” A second face came into view, nobody Ankari recognized. She wondered what had happened to the guard who had been stationed outside of their lab. Bribed to look the other way? Drugged and locked in a cabin? “We’re cleared. We can unload.”

  Unload? Then they weren’t back on the ship after all, but already on the station. Ankari held back a groan.

  “Thank you, Sethron,” Zimonjic said. “Let’s get them out of here before anyone on the Albatross realizes they’re missing.”

  “It’s another hour until shift change. We should be fine.” The man—Sethron—walked to the control console, hit a button, and the rear door unlocked with a hiss and lowered.

  “Does he know you’re not planning to collect the bounty?” Ankari asked, speaking normally, so the doctor’s helper would be sure to hear. If he hadn’t been clued in yet, this might cause some dissent between them. “That there’s nothing in this for him except the captain’s irritation?”

  But Zimonjic calmly said, “He knows.”

  “Uh, then why would he agree to do this?”

  She lowered her voice. “He has feelings for me. Men will do foolish things for love.”

  After she recovered from her surprise, Ankari said, “So will women.”

  Zimonjic gave her a hard look but said nothing further.

  As soon as the door lowered, Sethron pushed the first stretcher out of the shuttle. Ankari glimpsed another shuttle and various loading and unloading machines on the deck outside. An indifferent robot rolled by, pushing float pallets full of boxes. This looked like a cargo bay rather than a concourse with regular human activity. When Viktor realized Ankari and the others were gone, he would go looking for them—she didn’t believe he would, as Zimonjic seemed to think, simply forget about her and continue on to the next mercenary mission. But if they were in some back alley of the space station, he would have trouble finding them. Unless Ankari could get a message to him somehow.

  As soon as Zimonjic turned her back to grab Lauren’s float stretcher, Ankari flipped the scissors, attempting to get the blades around the restraining cuff. A laser knife would have been much easier. Maybe that had been in the doctor’s other pocket.

  Zimonjic and her helper disappeared down the ramp. Ankari stopped being subtle and flexed her fingers backward, hacking with the blades as well as she could. She had always had flexible joints, otherwise she doubted she could have cut anything except a chunk out of her leg. Even so, it took dozens of snips before enough of the fabric broke that the cuff loosened. She yanked her wrist out, freed her other arm, and sat up, grabbing at the ankle restraints.

  Her captors and the other stretchers were out of view. As Ankari swung her legs to the floor, a man shouted something in the distance. Something about no guns? She couldn’t be sure.

  She took a step and nearly tumbled to the floor, her legs still heavy and quivering from whatever anesthetic Zimonjic had slammed them with. After catching herself on a seat, she took a moment to look around, rather than charging out. She had better arm herself in case Zimonjic and the guard had weapons. Unfortunately, there weren’t any laser rifles mounted on the wall. The doctor’s bag was sitting in one of the back chairs. Ankari rifled through it, grabbing the laser knife she had been hoping to find earlier. Not much of a weapon, but she didn’t know what most of the other things were.

  More shouts came from the cargo bay. Ankari stumbled to the door, beating at her thighs with her fist to try and get the blood flowing. Her feet could have been encased in cement blocks for all that she felt.

  Just as she reached the door, the whine of a laser rifle blasted through the bay. Ugh, what was Zimonjic doing? Getting in a fight with station security?

  Jamie and Lauren were still strapped to their float stretchers, but they’d been abandoned near a stack of blue crates. Neither the doctor nor Sethron was in sight. No, wait. There was Zimonjic’s sweater. She was hiding behind a crate, leaning around the corner.

  Ankari sneaked out of the shuttle, beelining for the first stretcher. Lauren lifted her head, her eyes wide. Jamie was starting to wake too. Ankari held a finger to her lips, then grabbed Lauren’s restraints, opening them as quietly as she could.

  Lasers fired somewhere on the other side of those crates. Zimonjic turned and ran back toward the shuttle. She stumbled when she spotted Ankari. With nothing better for a weapon, Ankari brandished the laser knife.

  “Don’t!” a man in the distance yelled at the same time as a crimson laser beam streaked between two stacks of crates and blasted Zimonjic in the back. She sprawled forward, hands outstretched, landing spread-eagle on the deck. Smoke wafted from the back of her sweater. She didn’t move.

  Lauren yanked her legs free of the restraints, and Ankari was lunging to tear off Jamie’s before it registered in her brain that the voice that had shouted that Don’t had been familiar. Viktor. Indeed, the next words were his, as well. “Just... secure the shuttle.” He sounded weary, defeated.

  A squad of armed and armored young men jogged around the crates, wearing the patches of Mandrake Company. Two ran toward her while the others ran into the shuttle. One planted a hand on Ankari’s shoulder, as if she had been planning to flee.

  “We’ve got them, Captain,” the man called.

  Viktor strode into view. He looked over at Ankari and the stretchers, his face a mask, but his eyes haunted. He went first to Zimonjic and knelt, his fingers touching her throat to check her pulse. This wasn’t what he had wanted. She could read it in his expression. He must have expected some other kidnapper, not the doctor. If Zimonjic had been speaking the truth, she had just died trying to help the company, however misguidedly it might have been. Ankari hung her head. Had it been misguided? She wasn’t even sure. From the doctor’s eyes, it surely hadn’t been. Ankari could all too easily see what had prompted the woman to take this action. She stared at the floor, reminding herself that she hadn’t asked for any of this. She hadn’t wanted to be picked up by Mandrake Company; she’d had no choice in the matter. All she had been trying to do all along was save herself and her partners, her friends.

  Even knowing that, she couldn’t help but feel guilty as Viktor stood up, shaking his head.

  “Load them up and take the shuttle back,” he told one of the mercenaries.

  “Yes, sir.”

  He walked away without looking at Ankari or the others again. She didn’t know if it was because he was shocked and distressed by Zimonjic’s death or... if something had changed. Maybe he realized he had made a mistake.

  14

  It had been two days since Zimonjic’s death. Ankari hadn’t seen Viktor since then. She, Lauren, and Jamie had been returned to the lab, again with a guard stationed outside, and they were still receiving meals, but she had no idea if the plan to storm Felgard’s island was still in effect, or if Viktor had changed his mind. Maybe he would simply drop them off and leave them to deal with the finance lord on their own. Maybe he wanted to forget about the time they had shared and back out of his contract with her—after all, they had only agreed to it verbally and with a handshake, not by signing anything that would hold up under legal scrutiny.

  She
missed his company and lamented that he had never made good on his promise of “later,” but Ankari didn’t know if she was even in his thoughts at the moment. Even if she hadn’t had any control over Zimonjic’s actions, she felt as if she might have disappointed him. She wasn’t sure when his favorable opinion of her had started mattering, but somewhere along the way it had.

  A poke in the shoulder roused Ankari from her thoughts. She was supposed to be marketing the business, not dwelling on mercenary captains. “We should be close to Felgard’s,” Jamie said. “Don’t you think you should find out what the plan is? Or if there is a plan?”

  “How would you suggest I do that? I’m stuck in here with you two, talking to all the same close-mouthed people.” Which consisted of a day guard and a night guard, neither of who knew much about what was going on. Or, if they did know, they weren’t answering the women’s inquiries.

  “Can’t you see if the captain will talk to you? At the least, I’d like to know if I should be trying to build weapons or booby traps that we can take in with us, or if we’re going to have an escort of well-armed mercenaries.”

  “Do you know how to build weapons and booby traps?” Ankari asked.

  “Uhm. Perhaps I should have said I’d like to know if I should be trying to learn how to build weapons or booby traps.”

  Ankari snorted.

  “It’s too bad that man came in and took our generator,” Jamie said. “I felt like we were close with programming it to make an EMF charge that could interrupt a power system.”

  Ankari must have been sleeping when that had happened. She didn’t remember any equipment confiscation. Did that mean Viktor was once again worried about them trying to escape? Maybe he had reviewed the brig video footage and figured out what they had been trying to accomplish that night.

  “I’ll try to get a meeting with the captain and figure out what’s going on.”

  Ankari knocked on the door, having learned before that it was kept locked. They were taken out if they needed to use a latrine, and escorted to do so. She hadn’t asked to be taken anywhere else to test the boundaries, but she couldn’t help but feel like a prisoner who had simply been moved to fancier accommodations. Maybe Viktor had changed his mind about everything and was now thinking how much easier it would be to turn her team over to Felgard and about how few men he would lose in such an exchange. Maybe he was thinking about the men…and woman he had already lost...