Trial and Temptation (Mandrake Company)

by Ruby Lionsdrake

“Very well. We’ll try it.”

  Val supposed she should have waited for him to approve the idea. Instead, she had already stripped out of her trousers and blouse. Even with another lift working, someone might get suspicious if this one was stopped for very long. While removing the man’s clothing, Gregor glanced at her—Val was dressing quickly, but she was in nothing but her bra and panties at the moment—and she blushed, even though he returned his attention to what he was doing right away.

  “Thinking of quickies, yet?” she asked, stuffing her legs into the policewoman’s trousers. She rolled her eyes at herself. Why couldn’t she keep her mouth shut or think of him as the superior officer he was in this situation? No, not just this situation. For however long she worked with the mercenaries—if she got the job.

  “No,” Gregor said, pulling on the officer’s jacket.

  She found that vaguely disappointing—along with the fact that, because his T-shirt wasn’t thick or obvious beneath a jacket, he was able to change into the uniform without removing it.

  “Perhaps less hasty encounters,” Gregor admitted. Oh? Val bit back a grin, until he added, “Neither would be appropriate.”

  He didn’t frown in admonishment or change his tone to one of disapproval—maybe he even sounded wistful—but she knew he was right, either way. She needed to keep her lips buttoned on the topic for the rest of the mission. “I know.”

  A soft bonging filled the lift, and a red light flashed. “The elevator will be reactivated in thirty seconds,” a stilted computer voice said.

  “Are you almost ready?” Gregor asked, his clothing changed and his hand on the emergency-stop button.

  “Yes, but you might want to take the admiral’s jacket off too. He’ll still look like he’s in the military, but maybe less so.” Val did her best to shift the flaps of her own jacket so the burn hole wouldn’t be noticeable.

  Gregor took her advice and removed the admiral’s highly decorated uniform top, leaving him in a long-sleeve undershirt. Val released the hold on the elevator. As the lift climbed out of the basement levels, they hoisted the admiral’s arms over their shoulders, sharing the burden again. This time, the man groaned. Val didn’t know if that was a good sign or not; he might become a different type of obstacle once he was conscious, especially if he thought two police officers—on a shady station where the police were bought—were dragging him off to a new prison.

  The concourse was as busy as before, with several people standing in front of the lift exit with luggage and shopping bags. They frowned at Gregor and Val, as if they had been waiting for an eternity and knew exactly whose fault the delay was, though the frowns faded when the people noticed the police uniforms and the “prisoner.”

  Val and Gregor hurried past, and the crowd parted. She pretended to look straight ahead, but scanned the big, open facility at the same time, searching for other people in uniform. Unfortunately, she spotted two female police officers on the other side of a bank of chairs right away. Val avoided looking at them. All too many curious eyes were already turning in her direction. In the admiral’s direction, more specifically. She wondered if anyone recognized him. She had known the name before this mission, but couldn’t remember if she had ever seen his face on the news. Not that she watched a lot of news, especially related to the military. She hadn’t had much interest in it after she had left.

  The officers pointed in their direction and spoke to each other. That didn’t look promising.

  “Are we, by chance, heading toward a police station?” Val asked, figuring Gregor might have memorized the map for the whole station.

  “No,” he said. “It’s in the opposite direction.”

  Ah, making this ruse even less convincing. Why would police officers be taking an unconscious man for a random stroll through the concourse?

  None of the patrons they passed said anything, but the female officers would be suspicious. Val didn’t dare glance back to check on them. That would be even more suspicious. She looked for their airlock, but it was still hundreds of meters away, and she couldn’t see it through the people, chairs, and kiosks. She hoped nobody had connected their ship to their kidnapping of the kidnapped victim yet. They didn’t need a firefight at the airlock.

  Running footsteps sounded behind them. Val had been letting the laser rifle droop at her side—it wasn’t a standard police weapon here, so it was yet one more thing that made them stand out—but she tightened her hand on the grip. A second later, she loosened it. She didn’t know if these police officers were on the criminals’ payroll, and she didn’t want to shoot them. Hell, she didn’t want to shoot anyone else, regardless, not with the intent to kill.

  “Stop right there,” a woman said.

  This time, Val did glance back. Yes, the two officers had caught up with them.

  “What’s the problem, Corporal?” Gregor asked. He didn’t stop, so Val didn’t, either. The spattering of brass stars at the women’s collars hadn’t meant anything to her, but he had apparently interpreted them correctly, because the speaker didn’t correct him. Not about that anyway.

  “Who are you two? Which squad? I don’t recognize you.”

  “And where are you going with that man?” the other asked.

  That man. Good, they didn’t know who he was. But the rest of the questions were still a problem.

  When Gregor didn’t respond right away, Val tried the line she had prepared in the lift. “The gentleman had too much to drink at the Moon’s Orifice,” she said, naming the bar she had been in earlier, “and asked us to take him to his ship.”

  “You didn’t identify yourselves, and I said stop, damn it.” A hand landed on Val’s shoulder.

  Gregor spun around, surging into motion, so Val did the same. She dropped the admiral and turned toward the officer, throwing a kick at the woman’s knee. The hand fell away from her shoulder, but the policewoman evaded the attack and whipped a laser pistol out of her holster. Val slapped at it, knowing she couldn’t let the woman fire, and managed to knock the officer’s hand aside. Unfortunately, the weapon didn’t go flying out of her grip as Val had intended. She charged, hoping to land a punch before the woman recovered her equanimity, but her foe leaped back, giving herself time to raise the weapon again.

  Gregor slammed into her from the side. He struck her with so much force that she was flung several feet backward to crash into a kiosk selling tours of the moon. She broke through the thin wall and tumbled into the robot manning the station.

  “Do you wish to book the moon crater exploration or the chasm spelunking expedition?” the robot asked blandly.

  Gregor held up a pistol—the police officer’s weapon. Val hadn’t seen him grab it before hurling her across the concourse, but he had another one already stuffed into his belt. His other opponent was already sprawled flat on the floor and not moving. “Let’s go.”

  “Right with you.” Val grabbed the admiral’s arm again, and they were soon hustling off, ignoring the wide-eyed, slack-jawed stares from nearby people. “I’ll have to attend more of those Mandrake Company workouts so I can get better at flattening people quickly,” Val added, gasping a little as she spoke. Their two-hundred-pound burden was taxing her more than if she were loading an entire cargo bay without a float truck.

  Thumps came from the kiosk. The woman hadn’t been knocked unconscious and was trying to get to her feet. She might be missing her pistol, but she would be calling for backup soon.

  Val tried to run faster, but her tired muscles were flagging, and she knew it.

  “We’re almost there,” Gregor said, his tone encouraging. He was trying to support more of the admiral’s weight.

  Val hated that she was slowing him down. Excuses floated to her mind, but they wouldn’t help anything, so she used her lips for breathing instead of talking. Another fifty meters. She could do this. She had to.

  She was panting, sweat streaming down the side of her flushed face, by the time they passed the last kiosk before the airlock. There w
eren’t legions of police waiting, as she had feared, but it wasn’t clear, either. An agitated robot rolled back and forth in front of the tube entrance.

  “Halt,” it said, swiveling to face them. “An impound has been placed upon your vehicle, and you may not leave until—”

  Gregor shot the robot in its mechanical torso. One of the smaller pistols might not have damaged the machine, but he used the big laser rifle. It melted a hole in the middle of the robot. He and Val squeezed past it and charged into the tube.

  “If they’ve linked us to the kidnapping, we may face aerial resistance when we leave,” Gregor said.

  The hatch sensors recognized them, and the shuttle entrance opened.

  “It’s somewhat alarming that you sound excited by that,” Val said.

  “I am a combat pilot.”

  She was glad he wasn’t suggesting that she fly out past the “aerial resistance.” With the muscles in her legs trembling, Val wasn’t even sure she could have made it to the pilot’s seat. She had to force herself to take the last few steps into the craft before letting go of the admiral and collapsing on the deck.

  Gregor kept the man’s head from hitting anything and hoisted him into a seat. “Strap him in. I’m going to get us out of here.” He was already in the cockpit, smacking the button that shut the hatch.

  “Strap him in,” she muttered. She didn’t have the strength to strap herself in.

  The shuttle surged forward with a snap and a lurch, and she flung a hand out, catching a seat. If she had been standing, she would have pitched to the deck. “Did you just break free from the airlock with the clamps still attached? That is not the technique you taught us in the academy.”

  “Due to the impound, the station automation refused to acknowledge the command to release the craft. I was forced to employ unsanctioned departure techniques.” He sounded excited by that too.

  “Crazy bastard,” Val muttered, rolling to her knees to stand.

  She intended to strap in the admiral, then strap herself in—this looked like it was going to be a bouncy, if not bone-cracking, ride—but a small black square pointing at her made her eyes cross. Why, yes, that was the barrel of a laser pistol. Without moving the rest of her body, she lifted her gaze toward the person holding it. The cold, frosty face of the man they had rescued looked back at her.

  “Uh, Gregor? Sir? We have a problem.”

  The shuttle tilted too quickly for the artificial gravity to compensate, and Val was almost thrown into the admiral’s lap. That probably would have gotten her shot. It was a good thing she had a vice-like grip on the seat beside her.

  “You’ll have to deal with it,” Gregor said without looking back. He had already strapped on the headpiece that would give him a multidimensional view of the combat field around the shuttle. No less than three sleek, fast single-pilot fighters streaked past the view screen in front of him. She grimaced to think how many he was seeing.

  “Who the hell are you people?” the admiral demanded. He hadn’t lowered that gun.

  “Mandrake Company.” Val decided that explaining her provisional status in the unit wasn’t necessary or wise at the moment. “We’re here to rescue you.”

  The shuttle tilted in the other direction, then back, the nose thrusting in the air as Gregor evaded who knew what out there. This time, Val lost her grip on the seat. She flew backward, smashing against the door. Her head bounced off with a thud that made her glad she had some hair back there for protection. It didn’t help much though. How was it that the admiral, who wasn’t belted in, either, didn’t go flying out of his seat?

  “Mercenaries,” the man grumbled, saying it like a curse. “I was wondering where in the hell you people were.”

  Not the most appreciative rescued person Val had met. She wanted to give him a sarcastic response—maybe if he hadn’t gotten himself kidnapped and missed the rendezvous point, he could have had a more fulfilling experience with Mandrake Company—but reminded herself that he was an admiral. He wasn’t likely to invite her to call him by first name, nor was he likely to care that she was a civilian and not under his command.

  “We’re here now,” she said, “and if you’d stop pointing that pistol at me, I’d be happy to strap you in, and I wouldn’t mind strapping myself in too.” The shuttle swerved, this time performing some maneuver that wasn’t even on the books. It probably wasn’t there because it made her stomach drop into her boots.

  “I can strap myself in,” the admiral snapped.

  Val gritted her teeth. She had only offered because she thought he might be partially disabled from the drugs.

  “What’s your rank, soldier?” He sneered at her purloined police jacket.

  “This week… cadet. I’m a new recruit. Well, I haven’t been recruited yet. I’m… being assessed.” Why was she explaining this? The admiral’s exasperated scowl said that he didn’t care. He just wanted something to call her. Maybe she should be flattered he hadn’t opted for something more derogatory than soldier.

  The admiral was less disabled than Val would have expected. He stuffed the pistol into his belt and strode to the front of the craft, using the seat backs to stay upright as the deck bucked and dipped. His alacrity made her wonder if he had been feigning his unconsciousness, at least in the end, because he hadn’t wanted them to know he was awake until he was sure they weren’t enemies. She didn’t know when he had gotten that pistol, but it hadn’t fallen into his hand while he had been knocked out.

  “What the hell are you doing to this craft, pilot?” the admiral demanded, dropping into the co-pilot’s seat. “This is a shuttle, not an Airshark 8000.”

  “Evasive maneuvers and departure, sir,” Gregor said with admirable calmness, considering he was both piloting and dealing with a sanctimonious prick.

  Val pushed herself to her feet. She had a feeling she should try to get the admiral to sit down and not distract Gregor, but surely an officer with that much experience would figure that out on his own. Or maybe not. The admiral’s hands were twitching toward the auxiliary panel, as if he meant to wrest control from Gregor.

  Val grabbed her laser rifle, which was wedged under a bank of seats, and jogged to the front. She sat down behind Gregor and let the weapon rest on her lap, where the admiral couldn’t miss seeing it. He glowered back at her, as if he were reading her thoughts. Good.

  Chapter 7

  Gregor was aware of Admiral Summers’s presence, of him grabbing the co-pilot’s headpiece and watching Gregor’s every move. He didn’t let it rattle him, nor distract him from the eight fighters slicing through space all around them. Even if there weren’t that many men who outranked him on the Albatross, he’d had years of experience piloting with senior officers breathing down his neck.

  Lasers fired, scorching the starry sky with white and red beams, and trying to scorch the shuttle, as well. He kept it in constant motion, watching all of the enemy fighters, not letting his craft line up in their sights. He had to pay extra attention to the pair of two-seater fighters; they had overhead mounted guns that could swivel 360 degrees and wouldn’t need to be lined up with a target to shoot.

  Gregor was tempted to loop back and engage the enemy craft, instead of simply evading them, to show the Orenkans—and maybe the admiral, too—what this clunky combat shuttle could do. He had flown it in battle numerous times, and what it lacked in agility it made up for with superior armor and weapons. But getting Summers to the drop-off point had to be the priority. Trying not to feel disappointed, Gregor veered away from the moon’s slight gravitational field and angled toward the planet. Staying near the base wouldn’t have been a good idea, anyway; if the forces there had mustered eight fighters on short notice, they might be able to spit out another twenty more.

  “Heading to the planet at these coordinates,” Gregor informed the admiral, flicking a finger to display the longitude and latitude, as well as a map that showed mountains smothered with ice. In the past, he had observed that senior officers were rarely c
ontent to let a pilot do his job without comment, often demanding to be kept informed each step along the way.

  “That’s the base I’m expected at,” the admiral said. He had been sniping at Val earlier, but must have realized the gravity of their situation. He was being, if not contrite, then at least unobtrusive now. It could have something to do with the fact that she was sitting behind Gregor and holding a rifle.

  “Yes, sir.” Hoping his information had won him a few minutes of uninterrupted work, Gregor returned his full focus to the fighters. They were forming up behind him, intending, he feared, to chase the shuttle all the way to the planet. They nipped at his sides with deadly intent. He swooped erratically, unpredictably, doing just enough to evade their attacks without sacrificing much speed. If they followed him all the way, that could be problematic, because the planet itself might provide more obstacles: more ships. Mandrake Company was supposed to be in orbit somewhere, distracting the other mercenary unit, but there would still be native ships to deal with. Gregor hoped the Malbakians had defenses spread out over those mountains.

  The moon base was scarcely out of sight when more trouble appeared. He had been worrying about the planetary forces prematurely. Another squadron of fighters flew out from behind the moon’s curvature, as if it had been lying in wait for him.

  “Hang on,” Gregor said.

  He plowed ahead with determination, but knew they would take hits. Nothing in all of his experience promised he could successfully evade sixteen fighters at once. The shields were at full power; he would have to hope that was enough.

  “President Morrikhan promised I’d be slipped in stealthily,” Admiral Summers grumbled. He tapped his headpiece. “You want me firing over here, or what?”

  The co-pilot’s seat had auxiliary controls and access to another bank of weapons. Gregor didn’t want anyone—legendary admiral or not—touching the thrusters or navigation equipment, so he didn’t relinquish control over them, but he did stab the release switch that would allow Summers to fire. “Go ahead, sir. I’m concentrating on keeping us from being hit.”