Mandrake Company- The Complete Series

by Ruby Lionsdrake

  Hazel quirked a lip. “I don’t know. Your bounty would buy a lot of those fancy drinks with umbrellas.” Her eyes weren’t exactly gleaming with calculation, but she definitely gave the impression that this scenario pleased her.

  “How much of a cut do you get?” Ankari asked, morbidly curious. She remembered Striker talking about his two percent.

  “Two percent, same as most of the senior crew members.”

  “What do the normal crew members get?” Maybe they would have less incentive to turn her in if they didn’t get a share.

  “Salary and a smaller percentage. There are over a hundred people in the outfit.”

  “How much does the captain get?”

  “He’s supposed to get three percent, but I’ve never seen him buy anything with it except weapons upgrades and new equipment for the ship. He’ll probably be buying a new shuttle this time.” Hazel slanted her a cool look.

  “Some reward.”

  “I’ll say, but the man doesn’t even own furniture. He doesn’t seem inclined to hoard material goods, nor does he ever talk about buying property and retiring somewhere.” Hazel’s gaze returned to the sky. “Wherever that might be,” she whispered, her words clearly only for herself. “I’ve yet to see a world that can replace home.”

  The disk-shaped ship was flying back and forth over the jungle. Over the crash site, maybe. Walking through the undergrowth had been disorientating, and Ankari couldn’t be certain.

  “The monks are gone,” Viktor said from behind her.

  Ankari jumped.

  “Come in and get dry,” he added, then picked up the packs before she could, slinging both of them over one shoulder. He looked like he was thinking of picking up Jamie, too, but she staggered to her feet with the help of the wall. Lauren stumbled toward the door, where Tick stood, holding it open.

  “Gone?” Hazel asked as the group crossed the courtyard.

  “We didn’t look throughout the whole temple, but there’s no sign of them in the first three buildings,” Viktor said.

  “Where would they have gone? And why?”

  “I think these are the monks who tipped off Intel to Sisson Hood’s location. They might have feared retaliation. And if Hood slipped through our people’s fingers, they’d have a reason to fear it.” Viktor clenched his jaw.

  Ankari bet he wished he had been with the rest of his unit rather than hunting for missing shuttlecraft and escaped prisoners. She frowned down at the flagstones. Even though she didn’t regret trying to escape—and she’d have to try again as soon as her friends were up to it—she did regret... something. Inconveniencing him maybe. Or that their situations meant it was never going to make sense for her to kiss him if she wasn’t trying to steal something at the same time.

  She rubbed her eyes, wondering why her thoughts had gone there. As weary and battered as she was, kissing should be the last thing on her mind.

  “Markovich?” Viktor asked softly.

  She was the last one standing outside in the rain. She shuffled inside, glancing up at his face and finding his thoughts difficult to guess, though there seemed to be a glumness about him. Again, she told herself he was tired and she couldn’t read too much into what she thought she sensed. For all she knew, he was thinking about his three percent. And new shuttles.

  10

  Viktor prowled the halls of the temple, searching for clues as to where the monks had gone. He had appointed himself first watch, letting Tick, Hazel, and Ankari’s group find rooms where they could dry off and get some rest. He had set sensors and cameras that were linked to his tablet on the walls and near the doors, so he would know if anyone approached the temple—or tried to leave. There was food in the kitchen, including bread that hadn’t gone stale, so the monks hadn’t been gone long. The living quarters had closets with robes and undergarments, so he didn’t get the sense that anyone had packed up for an extended journey. In a big room with a granite Buddha statue sitting cross-legged on a dais, a few candles were lit. They were fat candles and could burn a long time, but he figured their presence meant someone had been here within the last twelve hours.

  After his first circuit of the temple, he checked his tablet—the sensors were set so that nobody approaching from the outside should notice them—but nothing had changed, so he allowed himself a moment and walked into the shrine room. His family and seventy-five percent of the people on Grenavine had followed Novus Druidism, but there had been a few Buddhist sects on the planet, so he had been in the temples before. He lit a new candle and stood in front of it, his head bowed. Perhaps he might receive some enlightenment if he pondered his problems here, amongst the faint smell of melted beeswax.

  The escaped Sisson Hood was a concern, as was the missing man he had yet to account for, but the women were foremost in his thoughts, Ankari in particular. What was he going to do with them, now that he had this new knowledge, that bounty hunters and mercenaries might be descending upon him in droves until he got rid of them? The logical thing to do, for the safety of his ship and crew, was to take them to Felgard and drop them off as quickly as possible. But that was no longer the right thing to do, because he no longer believed they were criminals or that the bounty on their heads had been righteously placed there.

  If he was honest with himself, he hadn’t believed that since he had seen Ankari using mashatui against Striker. Honor and integrity were always so closely linked with that ancient art, with practitioners indoctrinating it in their students at the same time as they taught the moves. Even if there had been a doubt, Ankari’s words and actions had further implied that she wasn’t a criminal. Perhaps not the pickpocketing—he smiled ruefully—but he accepted her explanation of growing up on the streets and learning those skills as a matter of survival. And it made sense that she would use every talent she had in order to escape from what could only be an unpleasant situation with Felgard. Perhaps even death if Felgard discovered that their research wasn’t a solution to whatever problem he sought to solve. Or even if it was the solution. Someone who would set the galaxy to hunting people for nothing but personal gain—and who had essentially double-crossed Viktor as well—couldn’t be trusted to let them walk free once he had what he needed.

  No, Viktor no longer wanted to turn Ankari’s team in.

  The problem was that the crew did. Everybody knew about the prisoners and had plans on how to spend the bonus money. If this were the GalCon Fleet, and those men had sworn oaths and there were military laws to ensure discipline in the ranks, he could simply tell them that he had changed his mind, knowing they couldn’t leave his command short of deserting, a situation that, as he well knew, came with a lot of baggage. But mercenaries were fickle men. He could probably explain things to the old gang from Grenavine, but the rest? He risked losing people over this, if not starting a mutiny. Not to mention that if he let the women go and the bounty was still on their heads, he wasn’t doing them any favors. If his own crew didn’t go after them, someone else’s would, that was evinced by the risks Jarlboro had taken in attacking an outfit that was bigger and better armed than his own.

  Viktor looked from the flickering light of the candle up to the Buddha’s face where it hugged the shadows near the ceiling. As in every depiction he had ever seen, the statue emanated calm and serenity. It was strange, he acknowledged, that a mercenary should look to the Buddha for advice, but he supposed he hoped some enlightenment might come to him in this place.

  It didn’t.

  He picked up his tablet to check the sensors, cycling through the cameras and pausing on the one watching the hallway to Ankari’s room. Maybe he should talk to her. It wasn’t his way to confide in anyone, some notion that a captain should be inscrutable and unflappable, he supposed, but perhaps two could find a solution where one failed.

  Viktor left his candle burning and returned to patrolling the temple. He hadn’t yet solved the mystery of the missing monks when Tick relieved him from watch duty, but at least he had an idea of where to start wi
th his other problem.

  * * *

  Ankari woke up and immediately snuggled deeper into her blankets, wanting nothing more than to return to sleep. Darkness lay beyond the small window, and rain pattered on the tile roof.

  A soft knock sounded at the door, and she blinked blearily in that direction. That must have been what had woken her to start with. It couldn’t be time to get up yet. She didn’t want to give up her bed or her blanket. Neither was luxurious by galactic standards, but after the hard bench in the Albatross’s brig, their comfort could not be underrated. Maybe her caller would go away if she didn’t answer. Except it might be Jamie or Lauren, wanting to have a meeting to figure out what they were going to do. As if she knew.

  When the knock came again, louder this time, Ankari reluctantly pushed the blankets from her shoulders. A cool draft stirred against her legs. She was wearing some monk’s robes, and there were a lot of air holes. It probably made sense for the humid climate, but it made her feel a little naked, even if the flowing garment hid most of her body. Not that it mattered for Jamie or Lauren. She touched her jumpsuit and undergarments, which were hanging from hooks to dry, but they remained extremely damp. She had washed them—and herself—before falling into bed. The temple didn’t have many modern amenities, but a shower room was fortunately one of them.

  The door opened as she was reaching toward the knob. The flicker of lantern light brightened the hallway outside.

  “Ankari?” a soft voice asked.

  Ankari froze. It was Viktor. And he was using her first name. She couldn’t imagine what he wanted. No, that wasn’t true. She could imagine what he might want just fine. But she didn’t want it. The memory of their kiss flashed into her mind, countering her thought and heating her body with a flush that pushed all thoughts of sleep from her mind.

  “Can I come in? I need to talk to you. In private.” Viktor poked his head around the door, looking not at the bed but directly at her.

  She didn’t remember making a noise, but he had known somehow that she was standing there. She licked her lips. “All right.” It came out as a whisper.

  Talk. Was that truly all he wanted?

  Viktor stepped inside, shutting the door behind him. He had changed out of his battle armor and wet clothing, and stood before her in clean black trousers and T-shirt. He must have showered, for the mud and grime—and blood—were gone from his body, and his short dark hair was clean and combed, his face shaven. For the first time since she had met him, he wasn’t armed, at least not visibly. Jamie hadn’t misspoken; he was a handsome man, especially with the grim-faced soldier left somewhere else for the moment. She swallowed, again aware of her bare legs and the unflattering monk’s robes. Her hair was probably a tangled mess, too—she had gone to bed with it wet.

  Not that it mattered. For talking.

  “Uhm.” Ankari spread a hand toward the simple wooden desk chair. It was the only place to sit in the room, aside from the bed, and she wasn’t going to invite him to join her there.

  He rejected the desk with a flick of his fingers, only resting his lantern on it, then he leaned against the wall. Oh, right. His no-sitting thing. She folded her arms across her chest. She would stand, too, then.

  “I have a conundrum,” Viktor said. “Several of them, and you’re at the center of most of them.”

  “I hope you’re not looking for sympathy, because you’re the one who picked me up.” Ankari decided not to complain about her destroyed ship again, since she might have cost him a combat shuttle. It was probably worth more than her rainbow junker with its shag carpet in the lounge. Albeit, the scientific equipment might make it a draw.

  “Not sympathy. Just... tell me what you want to do about Felgard.”

  “Avoid him?” Her voice rose in a question, because she wasn’t sure what he wanted to hear. It was as if he was giving her some kind of choice, but that couldn’t be right.

  Viktor gazed into her eyes. “I no longer believe that you’re a criminal.”

  Her reflex was to snap that it was about time, but she kept her mouth shut, realizing the simple words might contain more than their literal meaning. Dare she hope that he no longer wanted to turn her team in?

  “But because my whole crew knows I have you, letting you go when there’s such a sizable bounty on your head would be... problematic. I’m sure you don’t care if I’ll have a hundred well-armed soldiers with their hackles up, especially if I let you go voluntarily, but it’s a problem for me. Also... I’m not convinced that letting you go would be doing you any favors, when there are so many dangerous men after you.”

  Ankari listened, barely breathing, barely daring to hope that he was contemplating releasing her instead of turning her in. Most people wouldn’t care whether someone deserved a bounty or not when that much money was on the line. Was it possible he actually cared what happened to her? She couldn’t imagine what she had done to win that regard—she wasn’t that good of a kisser, and she had been a pest to him from their first meeting—yet his words intimated that her life or death mattered to him for some reason.

  “I don’t know if I have a solution when it comes to mutinous mercenaries, but they wouldn’t have to know that you let us go voluntarily. You could just look the other way, couldn’t you?”

  His lips twitched into a wry smile. “So they’d think me incompetent? I’m not sure that would save me from their ire.”

  “I’ve escaped a couple of times,” Ankari pointed out. “They couldn’t be all that surprised if it happened again.”

  He snorted but didn’t deny it.

  “As to the rest... I appreciate that our welfare seems to matter to you, but I don’t expect anything from you. This is our problem, however unfair it was of the universe to dump it on us, and we’ll have to figure something out. Find a place to hide out. Maybe we can create fake identities.” She had little experience with such things, but if they found their way back to civilization, a real city, she would feel more confident in her ability to take care of herself.

  “And spend the rest of your life hiding?”

  “Maybe Felgard will forget about us.” That sounded overly optimistic, but after a couple of years, maybe...

  “Even if other passions catch his fancy, as long as he leaves that bounty out there, the rest of the galaxy won’t forget about you.”

  Ankari closed her eyes. He was right. She had never met this Felgard, but she already hated him. As long as that bounty was out there, her life would never be hers again. Her dreams for her business, for other businesses, for taking her family off Novus Earth and giving them the safety and security they’d never known... Nothing would come to fruition. Sooner or later, she would end up in another bounty hunter’s brig.

  Moisture gathered behind her eyelids. “I guess we’ll have to confront him somehow. Figure out what he really wants and hope it’s not... despicable. Or impossible.” If Felgard had read that sensationalist article, he might very well expect them to be able to do something they couldn’t, not yet. Maybe not ever.

  Ankari lowered her chin, not wanting to open her eyes or admit to the tears there, not with Viktor watching on. This wasn’t his problem.

  “In sending the galaxy to my door,” Viktor murmured, surprising her because his voice was closer than it had been, and because she hadn’t heard him move, “Felgard has made an enemy of me. If I were given the opportunity, I would shoot him for this.”

  Ankari blinked a few times and did a quick rub of her eyes before looking up. Viktor was still a step away from her, but he was close enough that she could smell the soap he had used to wash, the clean scent of his shaving cream. He lifted an open hand. An offer. What exactly was he offering? To go with her to confront Felgard? Why?

  She took the step toward him, sensing that was what he wanted, and asked, “How do I give you this opportunity?”

  “That’s something we have to determine, but I find myself wanting to help you, to protect you.” His hand found its way to her back, and h
e drew her into a hug.

  Even though this new turn surprised her, Ankari didn’t resist. The defiance had seeped out of her; there was no reason for it now. If he spoke the truth, he was no longer the enemy. He might even be an ally. She laid her cheek against his chest, feeling the warmth of his body through his T-shirt. After the constant angst of the last few days, it felt good—incredible—to lean against something. No, to lean against him.

  “That’s strange,” Ankari murmured, “considering all of the things I keep stealing from you.”

  He chuckled softly, a pleasant sound, one she hadn’t heard before, one she immediately liked.

  “I know,” Viktor said, lifting his other hand to the side of her head and stroking her hair. “But in a world where people are constantly trying to kill me, having a woman sticking her fingers in my pockets isn’t as much of an invasion as you’d think.”

  His own fingers worked their way through her hair, combing it away from her face, grazing her scalp and sending delightful shivers down her neck. The kiss from the day before—or had it only been the evening before, a part of this endless night?—returned to her thoughts. He had asked her to suggest a solution to their mutual problem, though, not to rub lips with him. She should concentrate. She definitely shouldn’t be admiring the curve of his pectoral muscle beneath his shirt, or the way his nipple poked against the fabric. The urge to rub her face against his chest, to nibble at him through the shirt... it was silly and should be ignored. He had said something, hadn’t he? About fingers in his pockets. That only made her think about her fingers and letting them wander. Not to his pockets, but to other places. Wait. Solutions. That’s what they were supposed to be working on.

  “You probably just feel guilty because you blew up my ship,” she said. Hm, that wasn’t a solution.

  “I am feeling contrite about that at this point.” Viktor rubbed her through the robe, strong fingers kneading the muscles of her lower back, muscles that were sore and tight after that slog through the mud, and she groaned softly, hot pleasure radiating through her. “This would be a good time to ask for a favor,” he murmured, his voice close to her ear, soft and secret, just for her, “if you’re so inclined.”