The Assassin's Salvation (Mandrake Company)

by Ruby Lionsdrake

  He lay atop her and nuzzled her neck, then kissed her ear again, gently this time, as if to apologize for the bite. As if that bite hadn’t been delicious.

  “You are all I dreamt of,” he whispered, “and more.”

  The adoration in his words brought moisture to her eyes all over again. She rubbed her face against the sinews in his neck and kissed him. “I dreamed of you too,” she confessed.

  “Did you?” He didn’t sound like he quite believed her. He brushed his lips along her jaw and to her lips, smiling as if to tell her it was okay if she hadn’t.

  “After the spa. After licking your stomach.” She kissed him and met his eyes, hoping he knew she was telling the truth, that she thought he was amazing. “I woke up one night and rubbed myself with my hand while I thought of you.”

  “Huh.” He looked a little pleased with himself, and she was glad she had told him.

  He shifted his weight to the side, pulling out of her, but staying close. He laid his arm across her belly and kissed her shoulder. “I’d like to watch that sometime.”

  She blushed at the idea, but nodded shyly. It seemed fair. She had watched him.

  She snuggled into his arms, drowsy after the long day and—she smiled lazily—the long night, but she was enjoying the moment, the feel of Sergei against her back, and she was reluctant to let herself nod off.

  Sergei stirred after a time, not sleeping yet, either.

  “Jamie?” he murmured, nuzzling her neck.

  “Yes?”

  “We can wait for the morning to talk about it if you want, but I need to know soon if you still want to go down to Laframboise’s cloud city with me.”

  “Of course I do.” She kissed his arm. “Don’t you need me for the job application plan?”

  “With the whole company here now, Mandrake pointed out that we have more resources available to us. He also pointed out that you’re… not trained in combat the way the regular crew is and offered to send an engineer down for the robot-job ploy.”

  “Oh. Is there a female engineer on the ship?” She couldn’t think of one, but she was still learning names.

  “Er, I don’t think so. Does that matter?”

  “I asked Ankari to have her friend, Fumio, make fake identities for us, so we would appear to be from one of the cities. The job description said locals preferred, remember? I’ll have to talk to Ankari, but she said we should have them by… er, now, I guess. One for a woman and one for a man. We’ll need to dress in costumes, of course, but things get a little iffy when you’re trying to pass yourself off as the opposite sex. Especially for a big, brawny mercenary. Even Commander Borage is over six feet and has the shoulders of an ox.”

  “Ah, hm. Looks like I might have to take you.”

  “Disappointed?”

  “Not at all.” Sergei kissed her neck, then rested his head on the pillow beside hers. “I doubt Commander Borage is a good snuggler.”

  “He might be a decent masseur.” Jamie grinned over her shoulder at him. “Working with tools all the time, twisting and turning things… He probably has strong hands.”

  “I had no idea you were so enamored by massages.” Or a sixty-year-old engineer, his narrowed eyes said.

  “I’ve recently become so.”

  “If you mention Fergusson’s thug from the spa again, I’m going to bite you.”

  Her grin widened. “Promise?”

  For a moment, he looked like he would say something witty—or wicked—in response, but a fearsome yawn interrupted him. “Hm, perhaps not. Not right now, anyway. I will promise to give you a massage when we finish our mission. I also have strong hands.”

  “I’ll look forward to that then.”

  “Good.”

  Chapter 14

  When Sergei strolled into the mess hall with Jamie late the next morning, he had to bite his lip to keep from grinning like a love-struck fool. Even if he was one. The night before had been wonderful, and the morning’s shower ensured he would be in a brilliant mood all day, even if those cubicles were so tight that he had been in danger of having a soap shelf rammed up his butt the whole time. The awkwardness had been worth it, oh, yes. Maybe he would find a nice spa with warm pools and ample showers to take Jamie to for her massage, a very chaste no-orgies-allowed spa.

  Fortunately, there were only a handful of people at the tables, so it probably didn’t matter if a goofy smirk or two slipped out. Nobody was paying attention to him, anyway. Most of the diners were pretending not to notice the heated voices of Mandrake and Ankari. She was sitting at a table, finishing breakfast, while he leaned against the porthole beside her, gesturing and snapping out a few monosyllabic words in response to whatever she was saying—her tone was quieter and sounded more reasonable. Placating, almost.

  “That’s weird.” Jamie waved toward the arguing couple. “They weren’t doing that last night.”

  Sergei had no trouble guessing at what they had been doing after Mandrake’s near misses with the bounty hunters. Seeing Jamie hurt had definitely incensed Sergei and made him want to share his feelings with her all the more, not to hold anything back. He hadn’t meant to spurt out his love for her, but he was delighted that his brash impulsiveness had somehow turned out in his favor.

  Belatedly, he wondered at Jamie’s comment. She was already heading over for coffee and breakfast-themed meat logs, so he couldn’t ask, but maybe running into those two last night had prompted her interest in seeking him out. Well, he wouldn’t object. He would happily embrace whatever had brought her to his door. And to his bed.

  Mandrake looked in his direction, and Sergei realized he was grinning again. He tamped it down. Nobody would take a grinning assassin seriously.

  “Why don’t we sit over there?” Jamie had returned with two logs and two cups of coffee, his black and hers with cream—it delighted him to see that she had remembered how he liked his—and she nodded toward a table on the opposite side of the mess hall.

  Sergei accepted the cup. “Are we avoiding anyone?”

  He needed to tell Mandrake about the fake IDs and that he had to take Jamie on the mission. Mandrake was probably already irked that Sergei had made his first appearance of the day so late. Judging by the fact that he was wearing his typical I’m-on-duty leather duster and only had a coffee cup in hand, he had been up for a while and eaten breakfast long ago. Of course, he might be irked by something else. Ankari looked irritated as she jabbed a fork into the end of a yellowish-green omelet log.

  “No, not at all.” Jamie smiled brightly and very obviously avoided Ankari’s eyes when she looked in their direction. “I just thought you would like some privacy.”

  “Interesting. I haven’t known you long, but I can already tell when you’re lying.”

  “I’m not sure that’s much of a coup.” Jamie’s smile turned into a grimace. “I do it poorly.”

  “You didn’t walk in on them, did you?”

  “No,” she said quickly, almost huffily. “They walked in on me if you must know.”

  “Ah.”

  Her cheeks flushed a delightful shade of pink. Deep pink. “It’s more my shuttle than theirs. I’m the pilot and engineer and do all the maintenance and, and… a shuttle isn’t an appropriate place for lovemaking, anyway.”

  Once again, Sergei found himself struggling to hold back his smirk. “Not like a shower.”

  She glowered at him.

  He touched her shoulder. “You can sit over there if you like, but I need to report to him. That job fair is less than twenty-four hours away, so we’ll need a ride back planet-side soon.” As he walked away, he added, “Thank you for the coffee,” and smiled, curious if she actually would sit by herself instead of coming over to join them.

  Sergei didn’t know Ankari that well, but he doubted Mandrake would be fazed by having someone walk in on him—or vice versa. That had to have happened dozens of times in his career. In the close quarters of a military—or mercenary—ship, there weren’t a lot of secrets. The la
ck of women on an infantry troop carrier didn’t necessarily keep randy things from happening, either.

  “…don’t see why you can’t wait until after he deals with Laframboise,” Mandrake was saying as Sergei approached.

  “The senator wants to see me tonight—tomorrow their time. She pushed things around to work in a meeting before the Albatross is scheduled to leave orbit.”

  “We can stay longer if necessary.”

  “So I should wait to meet with the government representative until after you drop off those crates full of contraband?”

  “Food isn’t contraband,” Mandrake growled. “And I doubt a couple of gardening druids are going to offend anyone.”

  “For all they know, your druids are military advisors who want to help overthrow the government.”

  Sergei had reached the table, and they paused their argument to look at him. Both wore exasperated expressions. Maybe he should have waited to report until after Mandrake called him over.

  “Gardening druids?” he asked mildly, hoping to deflect their irritation away from him—and maybe from each other too.

  Neither answered for a moment. Jamie was still standing where he had left her, maybe waiting to see if he was invited to sit before coming over.

  “I talked to a local sect when we were on Orion Prime,” Mandrake finally said. “Found a couple of old Grenavinian volunteers to come show the farmers down there how to do forest gardens up in the mountains, plant perennial crops that don’t take much maintenance but that grow edible berries and leaves and starches that the finicky cloud city people won’t want. The volunteers can give the downsiders some advice for improving the soil under their fields too. They’re mono-cropping down there right now, relying on fertilizers to keep up with demand.”

  Sergei blinked a few times during this explanation. He knew Mandrake had come from Grenavine and the planet had been full of druids and back-to-basics farmers, but he found it exceedingly strange to hear his former-Crimson-Ops sergeant—and his current mercenary company commander, too, for that matter—talking about crops.

  “It’s a noble thing you’re doing, Viktor,” Ankari said, waving away Mandrake’s I’m-not-doing-anything-noble-it’s-just-good-business look, “and I’m not denying that, but the government may not be that pleased when they find out about it, especially if they misunderstand what your gardening druids are doing. For our business, it would be better to come in and make a deal before your scheduled drop-off. Besides, I don’t know if the senator would be willing to reschedule the appointment.”

  “There’s something fishy about that appointment,” Mandrake said. “Why does the government care about bettering the gut health of those people if they’re against letting them keep enough food to stay healthy in the first place?”

  Ankari sighed and sat back in her chair, as if they had already gone over this a few times. “They didn’t tell me their motivations. But we made a deal with the government-run hospital, and nothing bad came of that.” Unless she counted the people trying to steal her briefcase on the way back. “It makes sense that the government would want the workers healthier, and if we can get a large-scale deal with the senator, quite frankly, it would earn us a nice bonus that we hadn’t anticipated. Maybe we can buy our next set of research equipment instead of raiding medical facilities.” She smiled up at Mandrake.

  “It was an illegal medical facility,” Mandrake said.

  “Of course. That makes it completely fine.” She lifted a hand to her mouth and pretended to whisper to Sergei alone, “Is it any wonder there’s a bounty on his head on every other planet we visit?”

  “Only three,” Mandrake growled. “And those aren’t bounties. They’re simply police warrants or shoot-on-sight bulletins.”

  “Oh, much better,” Ankari said. “So, Sergei, about the largest bounty on my love’s cheeks—” she reached up and gave Viktor a subtle pat on said cheeks, even though his glower hadn’t diminished and it had to be akin to patting the ass of a Deruvian saber tooth tiger, “—are you still planning on taking Jamie down? Viktor said you might take an engineer instead.” She waved for him to sit across from her.

  “That was what I wanted to talk to you about.” Sergei sat down, ignoring Mandrake glowering at his shoulder—it wasn’t that hard to do, since Sergei had seen a lot more glowers from the man than smiles. “Jamie said—” he paused to give Jamie a come-over-please head tilt, “—your friend was making fake IDs with the two of us in mind? Or at least with a male and female in mind?”

  Ankari nodded and pulled out a tablet. “They’ve been done. I can send you the details.”

  Jamie slunk over and sat next to Sergei, setting her untouched breakfast log on the table. Her coffee didn’t look that touched, either, though her eyes focused on it as she mumbled a, “Hello.”

  “Morning, Jamie.” Ankari sounded puzzled and glanced at Sergei as if he might be responsible for her shy slump.

  Her look made him feel chagrined. The last thing he wanted anyone to think was that Jamie had suffered through a night with him.

  “Everything all right?” Ankari added.

  “Yes.” Jamie lifted her eyes slightly, searched Ankari’s face, but didn’t seem to see whatever judgment she had expected. She stole an extremely quick glance at Mandrake.

  Mandrake hadn’t stopped glowering, but it had grown somewhat resigned. He didn’t react to Jamie’s glance.

  “Male and female IDs?” he asked. “You didn’t mention this last night, Zharkov.”

  “I didn’t know about it then, sir. Jamie is the brains of the outfit. She just tells me the plan in time for me to poke holes into people.”

  Jamie flushed at his admission—Sergei decided he found her cheeks quite attractive when they were that shade of pink.

  “I don’t doubt it,” Mandrake grumbled.

  “I think I was just insulted,” Sergei told Ankari.

  She nodded back at him.

  “You want to go down there, Flipkens?” Mandrake asked.

  With him talking directly to her, Jamie had to look at him. Sort of. Her focus rested solidly on… his chin. “Yes, sir.”

  Sergei would have to ask her later if Mandrake had tattoos anywhere except on his arms.

  “All right, then Delta Shuttle can carry you down this afternoon, since it’s apparently going to an appointment.”

  Ankari beamed up at him. “Ladybug.”

  “Delta Shuttle,” Mandrake said firmly.

  “Ladybug?” Sergei mouthed, glancing at Jamie. She shrugged back at him.

  “You agreed to the rename last night,” Ankari said. “Temporarily of course. As long as we’re leasing it from you.”

  “I would have agreed to anything last night when you were—” This time Mandrake did let a glance toward Jamie escape, though he quickly turned his attention back to Ankari. “When I was under duress.”

  “Duress.” Ankari sipped from her coffee cup. “Really.”

  “Since the downside drop-off isn’t until tomorrow, I will accompany Delta Shuttle down to the capital city for its appointment,” Mandrake said, giving Ankari a stern I-shall-brook-no-objections-on-this-matter look. “A small infantry team will accompany me. If there’s trouble on Salt Cloud or in this finance woman’s city, we’ll be there for backup.”

  “Good,” Ankari said cheerfully.

  Mandrake looked like he had expected an objection, so her response made him pause. He finally returned her, “Good,” if less cheerfully, then left, dropping off his coffee mug in the dish-cycler on the way out.

  “You have to let them feel that they win some of the time,” Ankari explained to Jamie.

  “Aren’t you relieved to have him come along with some fighters?” Jamie asked. “In case there’s trouble?”

  “Oh, yes. I’m not sure why he thought I would object to that. I love having him standing at my back, being manly and fierce.”

  Jamie gave Sergei a shy smile, and he straightened in his seat. Yes, men enjoyed being manly
and fierce behind their ladies. The smart ones, anyway.

  “Perhaps I’ve been obstinate of late,” Ankari mused, gazing toward the door. “Do you think Ladybug was too much?”

  “I think it’ll be worth the cost of the ticket to see Mandrake and a brute squad, carrying all of their weapons and wearing battle armor, walking out of that pink shuttle,” Sergei said.

  “You didn’t seem to mind.” Jamie smiled at him again—she had relaxed noticeably since Mandrake left.

  “Oh, I felt emasculated all week, trust me.”

  “It didn’t show.”

  “Thank you.”

  Ankari sipped her coffee, looked back and forth between them, and said nothing. Though she did smile.

  * * *

  Jamie waited in line, her coveralls on and the pockets bulging with tools, in front of a pavilion manned by bored recruiters playing games on their tablets while earnest applicants explained why they should be hired. So far, nobody had gone over to the floor-cleaning robot in the back that had its front panel open and a box of parts resting next to it. She hoped that meant Sergei was successfully finding the competition and scaring it off before it got in line. Hundreds of people were milling around the job fair, chatting to recruiters in the dozens of colorful pavilions set up in the center of a sports stadium. Fortunately, the aspiring maintenance people were obvious since most were carrying toolboxes around. Jamie hadn’t wanted to risk losing her favorite tools, so she only had a handful of second-rate ones. She hoped they would do the job.

  “Next,” a recruiter called, and the line shuffled forward.

  The number of women waiting surprised Jamie. At the moment, there were only two men in line. She hadn’t looked at what the other jobs on the list were, but could only assume they didn’t involve heavy lifting or other labor where having manly muscles was useful. Maybe Laframboise—her name floated in bright letters above the pavilion—had a reputation for preferring women.

  The line moved forward again, leaving only two people in front of Jamie. She searched the surrounding area for Sergei. If he didn’t show up soon, she would either have to apply without him or go to the end of the line. It wouldn’t be much use getting accepted alone, because she didn’t think she could arrange anyone’s death, not even someone who was trying to have the captain killed. She still had nightmares about that assassin that had accidentally fallen on his own knife as a result of her actions.