Mandrake Company- The Complete Series

by Ruby Lionsdrake

  “There’s a water tank in the corner,” Sedge said. “We’ll use it for cover.”

  “Until what happens, exactly?” She couldn’t imagine how being on the roof was safer than being inside the building, unless he had a rappelling kit in his pocket, and they could swing over to the wall and escape down the outside.

  Sedge didn’t answer. He had already climbed out and was sprinting across the roof. The firing hadn’t ceased; she could only assume it wasn’t pointed at him. Tick must still be down in the streets, drawing the defenders’ ire. And Thatcher and Striker must be out there too. Were they still outside the wall or had they come in to contribute to the chaos?

  Kalish poked her head out before committing herself to streaking across open ground. A few antennae poked up from the flat roof, but the metal water tank was the only thing large enough to hide behind. Sedge crouched there now, his rifle trained toward the sky as he watched her.

  She was about to follow his lead and sprint to the tank, but a laser cannon boomed from the wall behind it, ten meters away from the side of the building. Armed men were running along the parapet, shooting toward the street. The laser cannon hit with force, its massive beam blasting away the shadows and tearing into pavement below. Shards of rock flew up so high they were visible from the top of the building. Fortunately, the men weren’t looking in Kalish’s direction, and there weren’t any lights on the rooftop. Staying low, she ran toward Sedge.

  Before she reached him, a dark figure stepped out from behind the back side of the tank. Laser fire streaked overhead, and Kalish had no trouble seeing the rifle in the man’s arms, the rifle pointed straight at her.

  She fired wildly at him as she hurled herself to the roof. She rolled, trying to reach the closest side of the tank, hoping she might duck behind the corner and find cover. But it was too far. She thought her shot had grazed his thigh, but if he had not been seriously injured, the miner would have an eternity in which to aim at her.

  Wincing in anticipation, Kalish lunged to her feet as soon as her momentum slowed. She was sprinting for the corner before she realized the dark figure had never fired. He had crumpled to the rooftop, the rifle falling from his fingers. Sedge had blasted him in the chest.

  Now, he turned toward the opposite corner of the tank, the one Kalish was running for, at the same time as a second man came into view. This one didn’t step out into Sedge’s sights. He knelt, using the corner for cover, and aimed at the easier target: Kalish.

  His rifle’s crimson beam burned toward her chest at the same time as something slammed into her. Someone. Sedge’s weight forced her to the roof. Laser fire squealed in her ear, and she thought she was dead, her head about to explode. But Sedge pulled her up before she knew what was happening. She glimpsed her attacker’s unmoving form as he dragged her toward the tank again. Somehow Sedge had shot the man even as he was knocking her out of the way.

  There was no time to thank him. Their skirmish had drawn the attention of the men on the wall. People fired just as she and Sedge finally obtained cover behind the tank. Orange and crimson beams streaked across the roof to either side of the tank. Panting, Kalish pressed her back to the cold metal, praying it was thick. More rifles fired, slamming into the other side of the structure. The tank shuddered with each blow.

  “I hope this thing’s sturdy.” She crinkled her nose, a burning scent filling her nostrils.

  At first, she thought the building might be burning, but with the light from the next round of lasers, she spotted smoke wafting from Sedge’s side.

  “You’re shot,” she blurted. Then, feeling she needed to do more than state the obvious, asked, “Are you all right? Do you need help?” She had a first-aid kit in her pack. But was there time to dig it out? The tank shuddered again under the barrage of fire, and metal shrapnel flew up from the roof itself, shards flying in every direction. Water dribbled from leaks in the tank. The miners didn’t seem too worried about damaging their facility.

  “No.” Sedge tapped his comm-patch. “Commander Thatcher, in case you were uncertain, this is indeed the ideal time for a heroic rescue.”

  “On my way.”

  Another explosion went off, this time something on the wall blowing up. Tick’s work? From her hiding spot, Kalish couldn’t see what had been hit, but she hoped that cannon was out of commission. If the miners brought that to bear on their rooftop cover, it would obliterate the tank—and half of the building with it.

  Laser fire came from a new direction, the building across the alley from theirs. It skipped off the roof, not a foot in front of Kalish. Sedge was firing before she spotted their new attackers. Two men had stepped out of a doorway on the rooftop over there. Sedge pierced one in the chest. She winced. She had not wanted to hurt anyone—she hadn’t even wanted to be noticed here.

  The other man ducked back into the protection of the stairwell, but did not close the door or stop firing. Kalish dropped to a crouch as a laser burned through the air above her head. She tried to make herself as small a target as possible, but she thought about taking the risk of exposing herself to sprint back to the trapdoor.

  Sedge caught the other man in the chest, and he flew backward, smoke wafting from his torso. Movement in the stairwell promised there were more armed men to take his place.

  “You’ve got good aim.” Kalish added her pistol fire to Sedge’s more precise shots, doing her best to spray the ground and the doorway, hoping wildness would drive them back as surely as accuracy. “Must not be allergic to lasers.”

  “I’m not. They’re delightfully hygienic.”

  “Until they slam into your chest,” she muttered, though she shouldn’t be complaining. He was the one who had been shot.

  “They do so hygienically,” Sedge said calmly. “Cauterizing as they go.”

  A shadow fell across the tank, and Kalish thought they were both about to be cauterized out of existence, but the craft that flew into sight was a familiar sleek cylindrical gray. A forward cannon fired, blasting a missile into the stairwell on the neighboring building. The entire rooftop disappeared into a blaze of yellow and orange flames that seared the sky with so much heat that Kalish had to turn her back to it, ducking her head to her chest. The noise of the inferno thundered in her ears. Burning pieces of wood flew into the air, some pelting the roof of their building.

  Something flapped against her face, and she threw her arm out to defend against this new attack. Her hand grew tangled in rope.

  “What the—”

  “Climb,” Sedge barked. He put his hand on her back, guiding her toward the rope. No, it wasn’t a rope, but a net.

  She grabbed on and found herself being lifted into the air, her legs dangling below her. She glanced around, terrified that she was out in the open, that she would be an easy target. But the burning building had destroyed any attackers from that direction. Kalish’s soul ached with the knowledge that what she had wanted to be a stealthy incursion had turned into the full-scale killing of people and damaging of property.

  “Something you better wait to worry about later,” she whispered, craning her neck toward the wall. But the people there were occupied too, busy ducking laser fire coming from the back of the shuttle. The hatch hung open, with Striker and Tick leaning out with their rifles.

  Kalish had no idea when they had gone for the shuttle, but she swung her legs up, trying to reach the bottom of the net. She wanted nothing more than to fling herself into that armored craft and have it take her away from the carnage she had wrought. Without waiting for them to climb up, the shuttle left the roof, flying away from the compound. Wind buffeted the net, and Kalish worried she would lose her grip. Finally, after three tries, she caught the bottom with her boot. Once she had a foothold, she was able to inch her way upward, even though the swaying and bucking of the net kept her heart in her throat the whole time.

  Sedge clung to the bottom half, watching her progress.

  She paused, still ten feet below the hatch. “Is your side all
right? Do you need help climbing up?”

  Not that she had any idea how she would offer it. He wasn’t a small man; it wasn’t as if she could simply grab him and haul him up with her.

  “I’m waiting for you,” he said, and waved for her to climb past him.

  “Oh. You’ll catch me if I fall?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I had no idea that was included in your fee.”

  “We aim to exceed expectations.” Sedge glanced toward the compound—they had flown over the wall, but another craft floated in the air, perhaps thinking of soaring after them, guns blazing. This wasn’t the time for banter.

  Kalish scrambled the rest of the way up the net. Before she had to figure out how to grab the side of the hatch and haul herself inside without falling, a hand clasped her wrist. Sergeant Tick pulled her up, then pushed her into the interior.

  Kalish aimed for the back row of seats, but her thighs were quivering from the climb—maybe from the entire night. She collapsed against the side of the hull and decided that was good enough for the moment. She tugged her legs in, so they wouldn’t be in the way and looked back, wanting to see Sedge make it in too. All of the mercenaries. Even if her dad’s life was at stake, the number of lives this mission had already consumed was far too high. And she had just gotten started.

  Striker and Sedge pulled themselves inside, the wind rifling through their hair. Striker slammed a control, and the hatch rose, snapping shut with a thud-hiss. Sedge collapsed next to Kalish. Maybe she wasn’t the only one with quivering leg muscles. Quivering everything.

  “Thomlin got himself shot,” Striker announced, striding past them and up to the front of the craft where Thatcher and Val sat in the pilots’ seats. “Anyone got a first-aid kit?”

  Tick had already taken a seat, but he dug into a bin that folded out of the wall. He yawned, as if this whole adventure had bored him. He hadn’t even lost his gum.

  The pained crease to Sedge’s brow said it was not quite as boring for him. He had his eyes closed, probably hoping someone would bring a sedative soon.

  “Which shot is it that your sensitive little blood cells can handle again?” Tick asked.

  “The imuglosarfrin,” Sedge said, opening his eyes and giving Kalish a sheepish shrug. “Allergies,” he added, as if it pained him to admit it.

  “Thank you for covering me back there,” Kalish said. “Do mercenaries always risk their lives for their clients?”

  “Uhm.” Surprisingly, he blushed. “Well, we hadn’t finished our Crucible game yet.”

  “Ah, that’s all it was, eh?”

  “I like closure.”

  Tick’s brows drew together as he crouched on Sedge’s other side, an injector in hand, but he didn’t comment on the conversation. Kalish looked away as the sergeant gave the shot, applied some regenerative salve to the wound, and dug out a repair kit. Once they returned to camp, she would take a closer look at the images she had scanned. And hope she had found something that would make all of this worth it.

  3

  Sedge woke up on a cot, the air cold enough that puffs of breath formed in front of his face. He blinked a few times, trying to figure out where he was. Instead of the gunmetal gray hull of the shuttle, he was staring up at a beige poly-fabric ceiling. A tent? He couldn’t remember an attack that might have damaged the shuttle, but he had passed out after Tick had injected him with the painkiller.

  He shifted slightly, and a twinge came from his side below his rib cage, though it was nothing like the pain he had experienced before a repair kit had knitted the flesh back together. He was still in his boots and the clothes from the mission, but someone had draped a blanket over him. A camp light hummed on a compact desk, the only other furnishing in the tent, though a folded cot and some other gear had been dumped in the back. A small tablet sat next to the lamp and projected a large display in the air, one that took up most of the space in the tent. Sedge recognized several of the maps Kalish had copied, the individual pages connected and arranged in a three-dimensional display. Even now, the computer was working to fill in the details, using satellite data to estimate depths and other elements that wouldn’t have been apparent from the flat pages. He watched for a couple of minutes, wondering if any of those alternative entrances had been found; flying into the hole in the middle of the mining compound might be doable, but then they would have to worry about being shot at along the way and followed on their search.

  Sedge’s stomach grumbled, so he sat up, intending to hunt for a meal. He lifted a window flap above his cot to peek outside. A boulder rose a couple of feet away, limiting the view, but he could tell it was still night outside. That meant he had not been unconscious for too long. Of course, if they had flown back to the far side of the planet, it might just mean that night had barely started over here. He wondered why Kalish had erected a tent instead of simply setting up in her ship.

  “...going to comm them now, Mom,” came Kalish’s voice from outside of the tent.

  Sedge had been about to swing his legs off the cot, but he lay back down instead. Kalish pushed the flap open and walked inside, rolling her eyes as she entered. Sedge closed his own eyes most of the way, pretending he hadn’t yet woken up. The subterfuge was out of habit, a thought that he might gather intelligence because Kalish would speak more freely if she thought he was still unconscious. It was always a good idea to gain as much information as possible, whether dealing with enemies or employers. Or attractive women.

  “...bad was it? You didn’t explain much before you sent us off,” the person on the other end of the comm asked.

  Her mother? Did Kalish have more people in her “crew,” or was it just the two of them? And perhaps a pilot? When Sedge had researched her company, there had not been much on the network about its members.

  “Bad.” Kalish walked through the hologram and glanced around like she was looking for a place to sit down.

  Sedge almost got up to offer her the cot, but he wanted to know what would follow “bad.” The infiltration had not gone as smoothly as his team would have hoped, but considering they had received inaccurate intelligence, he thought they had pulled it out well enough. Aside from the blast he had taken, neither Kalish nor the rest of the squad had been injured. But if she had hoped for utter stealth, getting in and out without being seen, then they had failed. Would that change her willingness to hire Mandrake Company for the larger part of her mission?

  “What do you mean, bad? Your message earlier said everyone was fine. We wouldn’t have taken off if we had known you were in trouble.”

  “No, no, I’m fine, Mom. The mercenaries are all fine.” Kalish glanced toward Sedge. “One was injured, but he seems to be all right now. But a lot of the miners...” She swallowed and turned her back to him. “There were fatalities,” she said, her voice low. “It was a big screw up in the end, and a lot of people got shot. Or blown up. This was supposed to be—” She cleared her throat, her voice thick with emotion. “I was willing to become a thief to get Dad back, but this? Even if we succeed, we’ve—I’ve—killed people. This is crazy. I’m a criminal now, a murderer.” She gripped the edges of the desk.

  Sedge blinked a few times, her distress making him emotional. He understood the feeling perfectly well. The mercenary company often chose a side in a war, killing for those who employed them. There had been times when he had known that his actions had been in the wrong, legally and morally, but penalties were few and far between. Out here, so far from the system core and the seat of the government, most of the Galactic Conglomeration laws were not enforced, with legislation instead falling under the jurisdictions of individual planetary governments. As far as he knew, Karzelek didn’t even have a government, just an office on the nearest space station that issued claims. If Ferago Enterprises wanted to pursue legal action, it would likely hire a bounty hunter to deal with Kalish. That information probably wouldn’t comfort her. Sedge decided to keep quiet and let her mother handle the comforting.

&
nbsp; “I was afraid something like this would happen,” her mother said. “I told you this wouldn’t be as simple as you thought.”

  Sedge frowned. That wasn’t very comforting.

  Kalish’s shoulders slumped further, and Sedge resisted another urge to get up, this time because he wanted to place an arm around her, offer her a hug if she needed one. But he was nothing to her; what solace would she take from his embrace?

  “I know,” Kalish said. “I was envisioning being caught and having to escape if things went bad, but not blowing up buildings and killing people. Dad... wouldn’t want this.”

  Sedge made a note to look up her father and try to find out what had happened to him. Get him back, she had said. From where? From whom? And how could prospecting amongst alien ruins achieve that?

  “I know. Are you sure you don’t want us to come back for you?” A few spats of static interrupted the words, and Sedge wondered where her mother was calling from.

  Kalish rubbed her face. “Are the mining ships still after you?”

  “Two of them turned back, and two are looking for us. Tia is certain we can lose them in the nebula.”

  Ah, her ship had left the planet.

  “Be careful. Go farther out if you need to. I want them to think we got what we wanted—or maybe that we didn’t get what we wanted—and that we’re gone. The mercenaries promised me that their ships have sensor shielding and that the miners wouldn’t be able to tell they’re still down here unless they’re right on top of them. There’s nothing that fancy on the Divining Rod, I’m afraid, so you’ll have to stay away until they’ve stopped looking.”

  “If we get much farther out, we’ll lose our ability to communicate with you. The nebula is already making things patchy.”

  “That’s all right. I’ll be fine down here. There’s a lot of data to go through here, and I sent the mercenary shuttles out to look for cave entrances.”