Mercenary Courage (Mandrake Company)

by Lionsdrake, Ruby

  Jamie smiled and waved with one hand. The other was clutching the hand of the man beside her, Sergei Zharkov. Ankari waved back at them, giving Sergei a nod, though she never knew how to act around him. On paper, he wasn’t any older than she, but his deep brown eyes seemed to have seen centuries rather than less than three decades. They brightened somewhat when he shared small, secret smiles with Jamie, but even her presence never quite alleviated the somber aura that he carried with him. If a stranger were making guesses as to his occupation, mortician would surely be on the list. Appropriate, perhaps, for one who specialized in taking lives.

  “I’m glad you could make it, Sergei,” Ankari said. “Was it difficult to escape?”

  She wondered if others might sneak off the ship if events necessitated it, such as if they were to stage a jailbreak for Viktor.

  “Not with Jamie’s help.”

  “You found some program to disrupt the androids’ artificial neural networks?” Ankari guessed, knowing Jamie had a knack for building and manipulating robots, a skill that might translate to androids, as well, even if they were more sophisticated.

  “Uhm, kind of. I asked them for directions to a different shuttle bay while Sergei sneaked out behind them.” Jamie shrugged sheepishly. “It wouldn’t have worked for most people, but Sergei could sneak past a guard dog on high alert, even if he had a steak hanging from his back pocket.”

  “I wore a sensor-scrambling suit,” Sergei said dryly, patting a satchel slung over his shoulder. “All I needed was for them to be looking the other way.”

  “A sensor-scrambling suit?” Ankari asked, as Jamie and Sergei stepped inside, the door closing behind them. “That could come in handy. Listen, Jamie told you that Viktor—Captain Mandrake—has been locked in a cell here, right?”

  “She didn’t have to. Everyone on the ship knows.”

  Ankari hesitated, wondering how Viktor would feel about that. She knew he and his paranoid streak worried about mutinies and lesser insurgencies that could cost him men, equipment, or time.

  “Are you willing to help us help him?” Ankari asked. “I intend to—”

  “Yes,” Sergei said.

  Jamie nudged him. “You’re supposed to wait for people to finish the question before responding. It’s polite.”

  “Even when you know the answer?”

  Ankari held up a hand. “It’s all right.”

  It was more than all right. By habit, she had started to try to talk him around to her way of thinking, but she had forgotten that the reason she had chosen him was as much because of his loyalty to Viktor as his loyalty to Jamie. Even if he was not from Grenavine, the way some of Viktor’s core men were, Sergei had served with him in the Fleet, and they experienced cruelties that had made them close. Ankari didn’t know the extent of those cruelties, for Viktor had never spoken of them in any detail, but she could guess the gist from the various terse comments he had made from time to time.

  “I’ve been trying to do some research on this supposed medical emergency that has had people dying in the shops and that has resulted in the quarantine—” Ankari waved to the holodisplay still hovering above the table, “—but there’s nothing on the news feed except that the authorities here are looking into it. I’d like to know what really killed the people and if we’re truly dealing with a disease or if, as I suspect, something else is going on. Do you think you could sneak into the morgue—or maybe the corpses are being stored in a research laboratory in the hospital wing—and take some pictures of them as well any data sheets that might have been filled out during the autopsy? I know that’s a grisly task—” Ankari would not have wanted to assign it to herself, “—but will it bother you? Poking around dead bodies in a morgue?”

  Sergei gazed blandly at her. “I usually make the dead bodies.”

  Jamie’s face crinkled with distaste. Sergei’s occupation had not noticeably deterred her from pursuing a romance with him, but she never appeared that enthused by the idea of “shop talk,” either.

  “I’ll take that as a no,” Ankari said.

  “This morgue research, it will help the captain?” Sergei’s eyebrows rose. “When you requested my assistance, I had assumed assassinations and jailbreaks would be involved.”

  “Well, I think Viktor would prefer simply being let out as opposed to leaving a pile of corpses in his wake, but I do want him out of there, one way or another, before all those Fleet ships show up for their conference. If we can get the quarantine lifted, it will be much easier to leave. I also think Viktor would want to...” Ankari stopped herself from saying something like “do good” or “solve a mystery for the greater good,” since she did not know how Sergei would react to that. “After your last mission, I think he wouldn’t mind a chance to do something noble,” she said, not certain that was any better. But if Sergei had known Viktor for years, he probably already knew about his captain’s honorable streak.

  “He always wishes that,” Sergei said simply. “I will visit the morgue for you.”

  “Thank you. While you’re doing that, Jamie and I will go see if we can sneak into the hospital and visit that pet store owner. I want to find out why she was locked in that vault, and I would also like to see if she remembers that Viktor hauled her out of it, saving her from certain death. If I can get a recording of such a statement for the news, perhaps they could be convinced to play it. Along with the original footage from last night. This morning.” She was losing track—already, it seemed that incident had happened long ago.

  Sergei frowned slightly, his grasp on Jamie’s hand tightening. Ankari thought he might object to being parted from her after such a brief reunion. But Jamie must have anticipated the objection.

  She squeezed his hand and said, “We’ll be fine. Ankari has practiced kicking men’s legs out from beneath them recently. Besides, I wouldn’t care for a morgue trip.”

  “I understand. Contact me if you run into any trouble.” Sergei touched his comm-patch, gave her a kiss that could have curled any woman’s toes, then strode out of the room.

  For a second, Ankari allowed herself to think wistfully of the man who curled her toes, but then she grabbed her tablet and headed for the door. “Let’s go question our lab rat supplier, shall we?”

  • • • • •

  “This doesn’t look promising,” Ankari whispered, prodding a button for a cup of hot chocolate.

  She and Jamie stood in front of a drink vending machine next to an open door, looking in on a bay of beds, some with people in them and others tidily made up, awaiting new occupants. The pet store owner lay on one at the far end, her eyes open as a nurse chattered and puttered around her station. She should leave eventually and not pose a problem, but the four gray robots with security logos painted across their chests were another matter. Though they stood still, their backs to the walls at different points in the room, their eyes glowed yellow, assuring Ankari they were on. They might not be programmed to respond to those who came during visiting hours, but Ankari and Jamie weren’t on the visitors’ list. They had sneaked past the front desk, which had been inundated by people coughing and sneezing and pointing at suspicious hives or other marks, asking if they had the plague. Nothing quite so exciting was happening in this room.

  “Any chance you can ask all four of those for directions while I talk to the lady?” Ankari asked.

  “Uhm.” Jamie slipped out her tablet, snapped a picture of the closest robot, and murmured a few commands.

  A pair of doctors in scrubs came around a corner and strode down the long corridor toward them. Ankari pretended great interest in the drink selection on the vending machine while she used her body to hide whatever Jamie was looking up.

  “...two more corpses being brought in for autopsies,” the female doctor was saying as she drew close.

  “Where were these found?” her male colleague asked. “The atrium is closed. Except for those terrorists that slipped in this morning to blow up a pet store. Pet store rats. As if that’s
the problem.”

  “Well, the bite marks are strange, you have to admit.”

  Bite marks? Ankari thought of the dead man from the pet store and the puncture wounds Viktor had found underneath the man’s wrist.

  “That’s information that hasn’t made it to the public yet, though. Those people couldn’t have known.”

  “Unless there was a leak. There are always leaks.” The woman stopped talking as they approached the vending machine. She frowned in Ankari’s direction.

  “No whip cream button?” Ankari asked, peering into her hot chocolate cup.

  “I don’t see one,” Jamie said. “You have to get a drink that comes with it. Like that caramel mocha carver.” She pointed to a picture of flavored coffee topped with whipped cream and drizzled with caramel sauce.

  “Are you sure you should be drinking such things?” Ankari made a point of not looking at the doctors, though she was aware that they had stopped talking and were slowing down. She hoped it was only because they wanted beverages too. “You won’t be twenty forever. Caramel sauce chubs up the hips.”

  “And whipped cream doesn’t?”

  “I was looking for the synth-cream. No calories, no sugar.”

  “No taste.”

  Out of the corner of Ankari’s eye, she spotted a pair of security guards coming around the corner at the end of the corridor, also heading in their direction. She hoped they were on an unrelated mission and not on the hunt for visitors who hadn’t checked in.

  One of the doctors brushed the back of Ankari’s shoulder, and she tensed, expecting a hand to clamp onto her arm. But the pair simply moved past them and headed into the bay.

  Ankari removed her cup and took a sip, facing the vending machine as the security guards approached. They were probably doing their rounds. Nothing to worry about. Except the fact that Jamie had schematics of the security robots up on her tablet. Again, Ankari shifted to hide the view.

  “Minimize that,” she whispered.

  The display was sucked into the tablet as the guards drew near.

  “The caramel one, right?” Ankari swiped her finger over the sensor to pay and select the drink.

  “Yes, please,” Jamie said.

  Like the doctors, the security guards slowed when they passed the vending machine. Maybe they were going into the bay too. One paused in front of the door, glanced inside, then glanced at Ankari and Jamie. His glance at them turned into a long look at Ankari. She pretended engrossment in the drink-ordering process and did not turn in his direction, not wanting to give him a better look at her face. At the same time, she ran through her options if, for some reason, the man grabbed her. Fight back? Run? Go along and feign innocence? How much trouble could she get in for not checking in at the front desk? Unless that Captain Xu had filed a police report on her, and her face had gone out in some morning bulletin of criminals at large on the space station...

  The guard finally looked away. He continued walking down the hall, but he murmured something to his comrade. Nothing good, Ankari feared.

  “We better get in and get out quickly.” Ankari could leave the questioning of the pet store owner to Jamie if she had to, but Jamie and Lauren might have been added as suspects too. Who knew what the Fleet captain had reported?

  “I think I’ve found an override that works on the Archon 7s.” Jamie nodded toward the bay.

  The two doctors had already left through the door at the far end.

  Ankari strode into the bay, trying to look like she belonged—or was at least a legitimate visitor. She headed straight for the pet store owner. As she passed by it, the first robot rolled forward, lifting an articulating arm.

  “This area is restricted to—” it started to say in a mechanical voice, but the arm lowered, and it did not finish the sentence. It rolled in a half circle, returned to its spot on the wall, and bumped into it. And continued to bump into it. Soft thuds echoed in the bay, as it kept trying to roll through the wall. There was a garbage or perhaps a laundry chute right next to it, but the robot did not fall through—too bad.

  “Subtle,” Ankari said as Jamie swiped her finger through her display, sending similar commands to the other mechanical sentinels. Not surprisingly, some of the patients woke up and frowned over at the robots.

  “You didn’t ask for subtle. Finesse takes extra time and a more decadent bribe than a mocha.”

  “What’s more decadent than a caramel mocha carver?” Ankari asked, continuing down the aisle in the center of the bay. She nodded toward the pet store owner, who was also staring at the malfunctioning robots.

  “A peppermint double chocolate-chip bomber.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” Ankari wondered what Viktor would say if she installed a fancy coffee-making machine in the leased shuttle, thus to bribe her engineer on a regular basis. Since he drank those awful pulverized vegetable drinks instead of anything caffeinated, he might object. Of course, if he asked the business to leave his ship altogether, there wouldn’t be any further modifications to the shuttle.

  Pushing aside the unpleasant thought, Ankari stopped at the foot of the pet store owner’s bed. Her long, brown-gray hair had been swept back from her face with a pair of clips, and someone had bathed her free of the soot and grime from the explosion and fire. A repair device attached to the side of her head hummed softly, but her brown eyes appeared bright and alert.

  “Ms. Ogilvy?” Ankari thumbed on the recording application on her tablet in case Ogilvy offered up something useful.

  “Yes?”

  Ankari barely heard her over the thumping of the robots. That would keep other people from overhearing their conversation, but it would also draw the attention of the next set of security guards passing through the corridor. “Jamie,” she whispered, “can you try to make the robots be still? Or at least figure out how to close the bay doors so someone can’t walk in?”

  “Peppermint bomber?”

  “Yes, so long as we’re not in jail by the end of the day. I hear it’s hard to get good drink service in there.” Ankari smiled at the pet store owner as Jamie jogged off. “Ms. Ogilvy, my comrades and I were at your store last night. Viktor—I don’t know if you remember any of what happened, but he was the one who heard you knocking from inside the vault. He managed to blow it open and carry you out. Do you remember that?”

  Ogilvy touched her temple, giving a start when her fingers brushed against the repair device, then lowered her hands to her lap. “I remember being in the vault... for days. It seemed like months. I guess it couldn’t have been more than two days. But I was so thirsty. I couldn’t move. I was sitting in my own...” She shook her head, then lowered her voice to a troubled whisper. “I thought I was going to die in there. That they would win after all.”

  “They?” Ankari kept herself from asking more, from seeming too demanding with her questions, lest the woman wonder who she was and what she and Viktor had been doing in her store to start with. As painful as the vault experience must have been, it was better for Ankari that Ogilvy dwell on that rather than on Ankari’s reasons for being here.

  “Those two men who were going around, trying to scare all of the store owners into paying a protection tax.” Ogilvy snorted. “As if Midway 5 is the slums of Novus Earth where muggings and drive-by shootings are the norm.”

  “Er, yes.” Ankari doubted anything would be gained by admitting to having grown up in those slums. “These men weren’t affiliated with the station?”

  “No, they were mafia, as far as I could tell. They said something about already offering their protection services to the store owners on Dock Seven and Fallow Station. They wanted fifteen percent of my monthly earnings. Fifteen. As if I’m selling high-margin items and can simply throw away that much money.”

  “So you told them no.”

  “I told them no and to go screw themselves.” Ogilvy’s lips thinned. “That was possibly not wise. But I thought they were just fishing for easy money. I didn’t truly think they could get a foo
thold on Midway 5. You’ve seen the shops. All of the best brands are out here—this is billed as the last civilized shopping experience in the system, and people come from both the inner and outer core to visit.”

  “You said they were approaching the other shop owners too?”

  Jamie returned to Ankari’s side, her brow wrinkled. “I stopped the robots,” she whispered, “but the doors won’t close. I spotted some security cameras, too, so we’re being monitored.”

  “Yes...” Ogilvy frowned, perhaps having caught a few of those words. “Who did you say you were?”

  “I’m Ankari. I work with Mandrake Company. Viktor, the captain, is the one who saved your life last night. But for some reason, maybe because he’s a mercenary, the media made him out to be a criminal, just as bad as those people who were threatening your store because they thought your rats were carrying the supposed plague.”

  “My rats?” Ogilvy asked, her frown turning to an expression of puzzlement.

  Had she not heard the full story? Maybe the doctors hadn’t wanted to tell her about the destruction of her store until she recovered.

  “Yes. I wonder if these mafia people might have goaded that group into acting,” Ankari said, trying to steer the conversation in a direction that would give her more information. “You didn’t happen to get the names of the men you met, did you?”

  “No, they didn’t tell me their names. They were too busy threatening to poison my animals if I didn’t sign up for their services. I told Security. We all did.”

  “Did you?” Ankari murmured.

  If Security knew about this already, then why did they think the bodies were part of an epidemic rather than something designed to scare off customers and harm the businesses? Was it possible they hadn’t made the connection? Or maybe they were being paid not to make connections.