The Ruins of Karzelek (The Mandrake Company series Book 4)

by Lionsdrake, Ruby

“No,” Kalish said, numbness creeping through her body.

  Sedge, a murderer? Of course a mercenary was a hired fighter and would shoot others in the heat of battle, but to kill his own commanding officer? A man he worked with and knew? She could not know what had happened down on that planet, but the report hinted of a callousness that she would not have guessed Sedge capable of. As her mother suggested, he might not be sharing his true nature with her.

  “Did you bring him up to the bridge, or did you find him here?” her mother asked, squinting suspiciously at the control panels.

  “I found him here,” Kalish admitted.

  “Doing what?”

  “Looking at the view, he said.”

  “The view? Kalish, you can’t be so naive. I understand that he’s handsome, but that just makes him all the more effective as a spy. You better check those computer records.”

  A fire kindled in Kalish’s heart that had nothing to do with arousal. If Sedge had been snooping around in her private files, she would be furious. She would know he couldn’t be trusted.

  “I’ll check,” she said shortly.

  “Good.” Her mother headed for the hatch. “Kalish?” she added more softly. “I know you think I’m a tough woman, but I’m not young anymore, and you and your sister... look, if those mercenaries turn on us, we would have trouble. You need to think about if we really need them, or if it would make sense to send them back the way we came before we find the ship.”

  Kalish rubbed her face. “I don’t think we’ll be able to get the ship out on our own, if we even succeed in finding it.”

  “You better hope they don’t think they can get it out without us either, then. That’s a prize that makes what we’re paying them seem paltry. It would pay all of their salaries for a year, if not years. You better believe that they would turn on us to take it.”

  “I understand, Mom. I won’t be... naive again.”

  Mom hesitated, her hand on the hatch wheel. “You can be naive on vacation somewhere, once the family is back together and nobody around knows what your occupation is. Or that you’re good at it.”

  Kalish nodded. “I know.”

  She didn’t hear the hatch clang shut. She was already diving into the computer files, searching for signs of intruders, not wanting to find them, but afraid she would.

  * * *

  Sedge sat on the edge of his bunk, staring down at the jacket folded neatly in his lap, his thumb hovering over the Mandrake Company comm-patch attached to the shoulder. He could not know for certain what Kalish and her mother were talking about on the bridge, but he guessed that the older Ms. Blackwell had somehow found out about Sedge’s snooping. Maybe she had been monitoring the bridge from her cabin or had checked the files for some reason. Either way, he dreaded the look on Kalish’s face when she found out he had been investigating her past. If he was lucky, he would get a chance to explain his motivations, but would she give him that? Or would it even matter? She hadn’t been pleased when she had found out he had been feigning unconsciousness while she talked to her mother, and this was worse. Much worse.

  Should he call the ship and try to get someone to investigate Dirk Cometrunner? Or should he pretend he had never seen those records?

  As if he could do that. As if he could forget the humiliation he had felt when Kalish had come in and started stroking his hair, clueless to the fact that he had been breaking into her computer files. He had wanted to make an excuse and leave, knowing it was craven to sit there and indulge in her touch when he had been snooping behind her back, but his body had been too weak. And aroused. As soon as she walked in, clad in nothing more than socks and silken pajamas that hugged her every curve, he hadn’t been able to think of anything except making love to her. He could still taste the sweet warmth of her lips, feel her soft smooth skin beneath his hands, remember her heavy breathing as she ground against him in the chair, wanting him as much as he had wanted her.

  “Stop it,” Sedge growled to himself, annoyed at the insistent erection that refused to disappear, despite his predicament. He was certain the mother had noticed more than her daughter’s unbuttoned pajama shirt when she had been scouring them with her gaze, such as the way Sedge had been standing there in stupefied silence, his penis trying to leap out of his trousers.

  He ignored the discomfort now and waved at the comm-patch. He had lost track of what time it would be on the Albatross, but he trusted someone would be on the bridge to answer. But nobody responded to the comm’s signal. There were probably too many miles of rock overhead for the unit to breach. He tried Bravo Shuttle instead.

  Several long seconds passed before anyone answered, reminding him that this was the middle of the night. Since he hadn’t been included in the watch rotation, he hadn’t been certain which shuttle would have someone up, but he needed to talk to Thatcher for this.

  “Thomlin?” came Tick’s groggy voice. “Everything all right?”

  “Yes. No. Sort of.”

  “That’s specific.”

  Sedge snorted. “I know. Is Thatcher there? Are you able to comm the ship from over there?” The shuttle would have more powerful transmitters than his tiny patch.

  “I think so.” Tick yawned noisily. “I’ll get him.”

  A moment later, Thatcher’s voice came out of Sedge’s patch. “Yes, Thomlin? Do you have information to report?”

  Sedge hesitated. Did he? Kalish wouldn’t like it, but he said, “Yes. I need to get a message to the captain too. Are the shuttles still in contact with the Albatross?”

  “Yes. The reception is poor, but I gave him a report before bed.”

  “Good. I need to get this information to him, in case he’s in a position to do something about it.”

  “Tell me.”

  Sedge took a deep breath and explained everything he had read in Kalish’s file and shared his suspicions that their duty might be complete if they could simply get the father back.

  “Interesting,” Thatcher said. “I would very much like to see an ancient alien ship. I have models of them, but the manufacturers who made them were largely speculating.”

  Sedge scowled at the patch. “That’s not the most important thing here, sir.”

  “You believe the company should attempt to retrieve Ms. Blackwell’s father? This is not the mission we were hired for.”

  “No, but the mission she hired us for would be unnecessary if her father were returned to her.” Though Sedge didn’t think money was Thatcher’s prime motivation for being a mercenary, he added, “I’m sure she would still pay us for our time.”

  “But this is not her request, correct? You have obtained this information without her knowledge.”

  It wasn’t an accusation, not exactly, but Sedge’s face heated anew. This whole night had been a mess. Why hadn’t he simply gone to bed?

  “Correct,” he said tersely.

  “I understand. Your diligence to the mission will be noted. Thatcher, out.”

  “Diligence?” Sedge mouthed after the transmission had been cut. He felt like a coward and a traitor, and Thatcher was praising him.

  Sedge dropped the jacket onto the deck and rolled onto the bed, again wishing he had gone to sleep earlier instead of snooping.

  Chapter 9

  A frosty silence greeted Sedge when he walked onto the bridge late the next morning. He had stayed in his cabin long after sounds in the corridor had informed him that the three women were awake. Perhaps wisely, the cold looks he received from Kalish and her mother implied. Whatever the senior Ms. Blackwell had told her daughter, none of the attraction from the night before remained on Kalish’s face. Tia didn’t look back at him at all. She was busy at the helm, piloting the freighter into an expansive darkness that had grown so wide, neither the walls, floor, nor ceiling of the cavern were visible.

  “Our sensors confirm,” came Thatcher’s voice over the comm. “There is a large platform ahead that is not a natural construct.”

  Kalish and her mother turned th
eir attention back to the view screen. The two Mandrake Company shuttles were visible at the edges, flanking the Divining Rod and flying just ahead. Three sets of light beams swept back and forth and up and down in the darkness. So far, nothing was visible, but Sedge leaned forward, knowing they should be nearing the first location his program had found. If they were lucky and this was the place Kalish was looking for, maybe she would forget her ire with him and simply be enthusiastic about successfully reaching her find. But then, nothing would remain to keep her here. She would leave the planet and Mandrake Company forever, and Sedge would never see her again.

  Bats flew through the Divining Rod’s light beams, and Tia flinched, her hand jerking on the flight stick. A shudder ran through the ship.

  “I hate those things,” she grumbled.

  “Just be glad we haven’t run into anything worse yet,” Kalish said.

  Something glinted up ahead, a shuttle’s search lights reflecting off something at the edge of their range.

  “What is that?” Kalish stood, her palms flat on the control panel, as if she would leap through the view screen if she could.

  Another set of lights joined the first, and the outline of a platform came into view. The hairs rose on the back of Sedge’s neck. He wasn’t yet ready to proclaim this an abandoned alien outpost, but Thatcher was right. It was not natural.

  The platform stretched at least a mile wide and a mile deep, with structures atop it, buildings he would call them, though they reminded him of a cross between geodesic domes and amorphous blobs rather than anything typically constructed by humans. Vertical protrusions that might have been chimneys or smokestacks rose from the tops of the structures. Mounds of rubble—ore, he supposed—were piled all around the three buildings in the center. Here and there, large machines that might be the equivalents of cranes and bulldozers rose above the hilly landscape.

  “At a glance, I read titanium, diamonds, iridium, tripytarium, and bowshen crystals in those piles,” Thatcher said. “Tons and tons of valuable ore, carefully extricated from the rocks here. There’s even more underneath the platform.”

  His shuttle’s lights swept downward, and Sedge gaped at the mountain of ore that rose almost as high as the platform. The accretion of the centuries covered most of it, dulling the valuable minerals to a drab gray, but the sensors would be capable of seeing through that. The base of the mountain disappeared in the darkness below the platform, and he guessed that they were looking at a pile of precious ore more than a mile high and perhaps just as wide.

  “Is that spillover?” Val asked, her tone shocked. “Look at those piles on the platform. They go right up to the edge.”

  “That does appear to be a possibility,” Thatcher said. “Ore was collected here, perhaps by automated mining ships, the same as we use, and deposited on the platform. And when the people who worked in the refinery left, the ships may have remained, continuing to deliver their loads for countless years or even centuries before succumbing to the rigors of time.”

  “Succumbing to the rigors of time?” Striker repeated. “Thatcher, when are you going to stop talking like a poet who got hit by a dictionary?”

  “You don’t think your comics would be improved by the use of pretty phrases?” Tick asked.

  “Nah, nobody would read them if I used stuff like that.”

  “Does anyone read them now?”

  “Yes, of course.” Striker sounded stung.

  “More than ten people?”

  “Uhm. The captain reads them. And you read them. And a boy from Targos VII sent me a message, asking which flamethrower is the best to buy. I’m pretty sure he found me through the comics.”

  “So,” Tick said. “Three people read them.”

  “At least!”

  “Look,” Val said, and the other shuttle’s light beams lowered, sweeping away from the platform and down to one side of the rubble mountain. A compact oval-shaped craft with a large open bed in the back had fallen atop the ore it had presumably been delivering. It, too, was partially obscured by a layer of limestone that had formed over it, but its outline was clear. That had been a mining ship.

  Tia bounced in her seat. “Kalish, is that going to be good enough for Comet—” She glanced at Sedge. “For the mission?”

  Kalish looked back at Sedge, too, her stare still icy. “You can say what you mean, Tia. Our spy already knows everything.”

  Sedge sagged against the bulkhead beside the hatch, wishing he could disappear. As he had suspected, they knew about his snooping. He had thought he had hidden his tracks better than that, but he had been in a hurry.

  “Well, is it enough?” Tia asked.

  “Scan it, but I don’t think so. It looks like a fancy version of a mining cart. I would be shocked if it was capable of breaking orbit, much less faster-than-light travel.”

  Tia tapped at a few buttons.

  “Still, it may be worth dragging out of here,” Kalish said. “Especially if we can’t find something better. The few scraps of alien technology that people have uncovered over the years have always sold for a lot, and some have proven invaluable to scientists and engineers. We’ve made more than a few breakthroughs, thanks to the snippets we’ve glimpsed from their era.”

  “Lieutenant Calendula,” Thatcher said, “bring your shuttle to a stop while we more thoroughly assess the area.” His shuttle had already halted, disappearing to the side of the Divining Rod. “Ms. Blackwell, I suggest you stop as well.”

  “What kind of assessing are we doing?” Val asked at the same time as Tia looked to Kalish and said, “Are we stopping? I want to check it out. That place looks brilliant.”

  “There are millions of aurums worth of ore sitting there,” Thatcher said, “and this area is on the miners’ map, is it not, Thomlin?”

  Shit, that was a good point. Sedge gripped the back of Tia’s seat. “Stop the ship.”

  “But—”

  A distant metallic rasping sounded, something reminiscent of a knife being sharpened. It was loud enough that they heard it through the ship’s hull. Hundreds of spinning metal circles sliced across the cavern, gleaming as they zipped through the lights from the shuttles. An alarming crunch came from the cargo area of the ship, and Sedge jumped.

  “What the blast was that?” the mother demanded, her pistol in her hand.

  “Those are weapons,” Thatcher said, his voice calm. “Retreat now and raise shields.”

  Tia hunkered over the helm, her hands flying as she reversed the thrusters.

  Kalish’s mother ran down the corridor, and Sedge followed her, worried about that crunch. They pounded into the empty cargo area. If it had held more than a few crates tied to the walls, they might not have seen the foot-wide serrated disk that had lodged in the deck. Cursing, Ms. Blackwell aimed at the ceiling with a flashlight. Since it was dark outside, they couldn’t see any light shining through, but she spotted the entry point. A foot-wide missing slice stood out against the dark gray paint of the hull.

  “Unbelievable,” she muttered, then yelled, “This boat isn’t space worthy until I get this fixed.”

  Sedge jogged back to the front to warn the others. The spinning disks were still zipping past the view screen, some horizontally, some diagonally, and some vertically.

  “Those cut right through the hull, sir,” Sedge said, assuming they were still tied in with Thatcher and the others.

  “I saw,” Thatcher said. “They’re an unfamiliar alloy, traveling almost as fast as lasers, and spinning at hundreds of thousands of revolutions per minute.”

  “Will our shields protect us?” Val asked.

  “I’m running some calculations, but I suggest we not risk it. They’re different from the energy weapons that the shields excel at absorbing and deflecting.”

  “Should have had that thought earlier,” Kalish grumbled, thumping her fist on the control panel. “Of course the miners would have looted this place as soon as they found it if it wasn’t protected. Mom, are you going to be abl
e to repair that? The gas readings outside aren’t dangerous, so a hole doesn’t matter right now, but it would be nice to leave this planet someday.”

  “I’ll fix it,” came the terse response. “Just stop next time when the mercenaries stop.”

  “Sorry,” Tia said meekly.

  “At least you have a new ancient alien artifact,” Sedge said.

  He smiled tentatively at her. Kalish gave him an annoyed who-said-you-could-talk look. He sighed. Maybe he should keep his mouth shut.

  “Can we go around?” Val asked.

  “Go around?” Striker asked. “With millions of aurums out there?”

  “It’s not as if we could carry it all out anyway,” Val said.

  “I bet I could fit a huge pile in my pockets.”

  “Probably true,” Tick said. “You don’t have much else down there taking up space.”

  “What? I got plenty down here.”

  Sedge tried to ignore them, especially when Striker started bragging about the size of his stalagmite, though he was vaguely impressed that Striker knew what a stalagmite was. Instead, he focused on the view screen. If Kalish had any interest in that mining ship, he would like to find a way to get it for her. It might not be the find they sought, but who knew if they would chance across anything better?

  He watched the disks zipping past the view screen, trying to spot gaps in their routes. Had he seen thousands of disks shooting across the cavern, or was he seeing the same hundred or two that were being reused in some cycle designed to keep anyone from approaching the platform? If the deadly ammo were spitting from the walls by the thousands, a ridiculous amount of storage space would be needed, and there should be disks sticking out of the rock all over the place.

  “Val,” Sedge said, guessing she might be the most likely to follow his suggestion. “Can you try to find the walls with your lights? See if you can figure out where those things are landing? If they’re landing.”

  “Uh, I can try. You’re fixing my hull if it gets breached, right?”

  “You’ve got Tick on your shuttle, don’t you?” Sedge asked. “He ought to be able to patch you up with all of that chewed gum of his.”