Mandrake Company- The Complete Series

by Ruby Lionsdrake

  She smiled, thinking of how surprised he had been, the stunned way he had stood there for a moment before responding. She had been on the verge of backing away, thinking he either wouldn’t do anything at all or would, in his haughty and proper way, inform her that this was completely unacceptable behavior, given their working relationship. Then, he had surprised her by kissing back. And it had been… nice. All right, more than nice. Sweet and gentle, but arousing too. Maybe, because of her traveling lifestyle, she’d gotten too used to meeting men in bars, horny men who pawed at her and were more interested in satisfying themselves than in worrying about her pleasure. That usually worked well enough—after those long months in space, she was often as horny as they, and wanted little more than a release—but Gregor had been almost… reverent. As if she was something special, not another lay in some random spaceport. She was doubtlessly reading too much into his touches. More likely, despite his words to the contrary, he had been worried they wouldn’t escape and he had also wanted to experience the taste and feel of the opposite sex one last time.

  Her rifle clunked on the side of the duct as they went around the corner. Val grumbled to herself to focus on the mission.

  “What?” Gregor whispered, glancing back at her. He had paused near one of those vents, and slashes of light played across his face. A handsome face with kissable lips. She snorted at her recalcitrant mind. So much for focusing.

  “I was wondering if we’re close,” she whispered back.

  Gregor nodded. “Yes. Two more turns, and we’ll be behind the generator room. The map didn’t show where all the vents were.” He tilted his head toward the slats next to him. “I hope there’ll be at least one in that room.”

  “It was a big room. You’d think there would be.”

  Gregor continued on without comment. Val crawled after him, careful not to let the rifle bump again. She hadn’t heard anyone walking or talking in the rooms they passed yet, but there would probably be guards in the hall near the generator room, as well as in the room itself.

  After a few more minutes of travel, Gregor stopped at a new vent. He peered between the slats for a long moment. Val itched to see for herself, but there wasn’t room for two people side-by-side in the duct. Eventually, he looked over his shoulder at her, held a finger to his lips, then pantomimed for her to stay there. He crawled away, disappearing into the darkness around a bend.

  Val inched forward. She peered through the vent to a dirty tile floor smashed with wads of old gray gum and had to drop to her belly to get a view of anything more interesting. She was straight across from the green base of a big piece of equipment. That generator? Had it been green? She tried to remember what the camera had shown them, but it had only displayed the room for a couple of seconds before it had been shot down. Ah, there was a chair—and a human leg—at the edge of her view. It was the generator room. Her duct must be on the side wall, perpendicular to the one with the double doors. They and the table full of men would be to her left, the way Gregor had gone. The admiral, if he hadn’t been moved, would be to her right, at the back of the room. Was Gregor trying to find another entry point closer to the guards? How were they going to push through the grates covering these vents, anyway? They were screwed to the wall with the screw heads facing the room. Gregor might be strong enough to throw an elbow and break through, but she was afraid she would only hurt herself—and make noise. It would be hard to find any leverage in the tight space.

  “How much longer?” a man asked from the table. Val couldn’t see the speaker, or anything except the one person’s leg, bland khaki pants and brown boots.

  “… think twenty minutes,” someone answered. The machinery across the room was humming, and Val had to lean her ear close to the vent to hear the second man’s words.

  “Good. I’m tired of sitting down here, especially now that we’re getting visitors.”

  “I’m tired of drugging an old man every couple of hours. What if his heart gives out and he dies?”

  “He’s not that old. He’s around sixty, isn’t he?”

  “That’s old. And you didn’t answer? What if he dies? We might not get paid.”

  “We’ll get paid. The Orenkans were probably just going to shoot him anyway.”

  His comrade grunted.

  Intent on listening to the men outside, Val didn’t notice Gregor making his way back to her until his face was only a few inches from hers. She twitched in surprise but kept her head from banging on the duct ceiling. A good thing, because the men at the table probably would have heard that.

  Gregor pointed at her ear, then crept closer. She knew he had whispering orders in mind, not kissing or nuzzling, but a flutter of anticipation stirred in her gut, nonetheless. Not the time for that… Val turned her ear toward him.

  “There’s another vent near that table,” he murmured, his breath warm on her cheek. “I’m going to break out of it and attack them. While they’re distracted, I want you to break through this one and go to the admiral. I think he’s unconscious, so you won’t be able to drag him back here, but at least try to drag him behind the generator and cover him until the fight is over.”

  Val grabbed his arm before he could pull away. She leaned close and whispered, “You’re going to fight a bunch of armed men with a canister of gas? That’s crazy.”

  “I would prefer a more elegant—and less dangerous—solution, but if the admiral is due to be picked up in twenty minutes, I don’t see that there’s time to hunt for better weapons.”

  He tried to pull back, but she didn’t let him go.

  “Wait,” she whispered. She wanted to tell him that it was foolish, that they could try to get the admiral at another point, that he shouldn’t risk himself… but realized she would have sounded like some lovelorn woman rather than a mercenary speaking to another mercenary. A commanding officer mercenary at that. Besides, she wasn’t lovelorn. They had kissed. So what? “How am I supposed to open this grate?” she asked instead.

  “You have a laser rifle. I’ll trust you to figure it out.”

  Oh. Right.

  This time, when Gregor backed away, Val let him go. Time to do her job, get the admiral, and hope being stuck in a freezer had qualified her for a combat bonus.

  Val scooted back in the shaft so shrapnel wouldn’t hit her when she fired. She wedged the butt of the rifle into the hollow of her shoulder and waited. Blasting the grate wouldn’t be the most silent way to enter a room, so she would have to hope Gregor’s distraction was enough. And that he wouldn’t get killed making that distraction.

  Seconds drifted past with nothing happening. Had he changed his mind? Or maybe he was having trouble getting his own grate off without announcing his presence prematurely. In the room, the men grumbled about cheaters and speculated on women. Val rubbed the trigger with her finger. If whoever was picking up the admiral came early, such as while she and Gregor were fighting people in the middle of the room, they might find themselves dealing with twice the number of enemies.

  A screech came from behind the table. Someone shouted, and chairs crashed to the floor. That had to be her cue.

  Val fired, the crimson beam lighting up the duct as it bit into the grate. As she’d anticipated, metal shrapnel flew everywhere, pinging off the sides of the duct. She buried her face to protect it. Fortunately, she was far enough back that nothing gouged her. The laser had obliterated the grate.

  Val rushed forward, shoving the rifle out first, her finger still on the trigger. A white cloud of gas from that tank filled the generator room. Smacks, grunts, and the whine of gunfire came from the direction of the table. Though Gregor had ordered her to rush straight to the admiral, Val glanced back to make sure the man was there—he was, and he still appeared to be unconscious—then rose to one knee and faced Gregor’s fight.

  Thanks to the white vapor, she couldn’t see half of the men, including Gregor, but two of the guards were standing back and shooting into the mess. Knowing she would only get one chance bef
ore they noticed her—she was surprised nobody had registered the blasting of the vent yet—she took a second to choose her targets. That one… then that one, yes. The overturned table and smoke made the others too hard to see, and she didn’t want to risk hitting Gregor. Her targets weren’t wearing battle armor, so her shots shouldn’t need to be precise. She fired once, then again, taking one man in the back and the other in the shoulder.

  The first guard flew forward and didn’t get up, but the second spun toward her, spraying laser fire. Cursing, Val hurled herself into a roll to the side. She should have anticipated counter fire. The generator was a good twenty feet away, so she couldn’t reach it for cover fast enough. Instead, she shot again as soon as her belly hit the floor, and her perspective was upright again.

  The guard’s first shots had flown high—he had probably expected a standing opponent—but he was adjusting quickly. She shot almost at the same time as he did. Something slammed into him a split second before he touched his trigger, and his beam went wide, gouging holes in the wall. Her laser grazed his thigh. He went down hard, less because of her attack and more because a heavy canister of gas had struck him in the forehead.

  Only then did Val realize that the fight was already over. The smoke was fading, revealing upturned furniture with several unmoving men scattered around the pieces. Gregor stood, his canister in one hand and a purloined rifle in the other.

  “Thanks,” Val said, chagrined that she had only take down one enemy when he had bested five, not to mention saving her life for the second time that day.

  “You are welcome.” Gregor pointed toward the back of the room, but walked to the front to lock the door.

  Right, her job had been to protect the admiral. Well, he looked all right. Gregor had handled the others before anyone could think of taking a shot at the prone man in the back of the room. A man who was breathing so shallowly, it was hard to tell if he was alive. She frowned at him. He was breathing, wasn’t he?

  She knelt beside the officer, touching two fingers to his throat as the thugs’ words about heart attacks floated through her mind. He might have gray hair and a weathered face, but he appeared more strong and fit than old and doddering. She found his pulse, but he didn’t respond to her touch. How were they going to carry him back up to the ship without attracting notice? For some reason, the admiral had come in his army blues, his rank, medals, and various other decorations on the jacket. Unless they stripped him, people would remember him if they saw him, especially out in this remote backwater. Even if they did find other clothes for him, he still had a military look about him, thanks to that short hair and a face that, even in unconsciousness, had a hint of arrogance about it, like he had been born expecting that people would obey his orders.

  Gregor jogged over and she smiled slightly, thinking of where else she had seen that type of face lately.

  “He is alive?” Gregor asked.

  “Yes. Are we carrying him out of here?”

  “That’s a possibility, but not an ideal one. Let’s take him to another level and wait until the drugs wear off before attempting to leave the station. We can acquire a costume for him, and if he can walk off the lift, he’ll be less memorable. We’ll—”

  The doorknob rattled.

  Gregor spun in that direction, his newly acquired rifle at the ready. He had abandoned the canister near the table. Maybe it was empty.

  “Into the duct,” Gregor amended his order.

  “Uh. They’re going to know we went in there.” Val waved at the grate she had blown away, but she stood at the same time, grabbing the admiral’s wrists so she could drag him toward the wall.

  Someone knocked hard on the door. “Baxter, let us in.”

  “I’ll get him. Watch the door.” Gregor nodded toward her rifle, then hoisted the admiral over his shoulder. The man was tall and muscular, so he couldn’t have been light, but Gregor didn’t have to go far. He reached the vent and climbed inside, doing his best to pull his load after him.

  “We aren’t going to be crawling far with an unconscious man with us,” Val muttered, but she followed, keeping her rifle toward the door as she had been ordered.

  Someone by the broken table lifted his head. She fired past his ear to convince him to stay down—maybe she shouldn’t have missed. She and Gregor were about to have all kinds of trouble. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to kill a man who was already down.

  Her shot must have been audible in the hall, because the knocks and shouts escalated. The door muffled the sound of laser fire from outside, but she heard it, nonetheless. The knob flew off, and smoke spewed into the room.

  “Gregor,” Val whispered, but he had already disappeared into the duct. Even as she called his name, the admiral’s boots disappeared too. With few options, she fired at the table a couple more times to convince those men to stay down, then she dropped to her knees and scrambled into the duct.

  She wished there were a way to seal the vent behind them, but it wasn’t as if the guards by the table couldn’t tell the story of what had happened, anyway.

  “I hope you know a secret way out of here,” Val whispered. Her knuckles smashed into the admiral’s boots, and she tried to help push him along, but it did nothing to speed up the plodding pace. As soon as the kidnappers realized where Val and Gregor had gone, they would figure out a way to cut off their escape.

  “I know several potential exit routes and am choosing one they may deem unlikely since it involves a vertical climb.”

  “And how are we going to climb vertically with our friend here?”

  They reached the first bend, and Val groaned, realizing how little ground they had covered. If anyone stuck his head through the grate, she could get laser fire up the butt.

  “He may waken by then,” Gregor said.

  “Given the fact that being shoved in a duct, twisted around a bend, and having his head hit the wall hasn’t woken him, I’m not sure the promise of a steep, scary ascent will wake him up, either.” Val hurried to round the bend so she wouldn’t be as vulnerable.

  “It’ll only be one level. There’s a maintenance elevator on Sub-basement Five that I think we can reach.”

  Laser fire shrieked behind them, echoing oddly in the duct. It blasted into the bend Val had gone around, burning through metal and stone, filling the air with caustic smoke. Her instinct was to push forward as fast as possible, even if that meant crawling past the admiral, but she curled into a ball instead, tucking her knees to her chest and trying to turn around. Her head clunked the side and she jabbed herself with her own rifle, but she managed the turn. The laser fire had stopped, but she heard the thuds and clanks of someone trying to crawl into the duct.

  With the rifle leading, she eased her head around the corner. Whoever was coming in shouldn’t be able to see her—it was pitch black at the intersection—but wild firing in her direction could kill her as easily as careful aim.

  The man who had been shooting was too busy crawling and dragging his rifle along to fire. His broad shoulders scraped the sides of the shaft, but that wouldn’t keep him from catching up to Val and the others.

  She aimed at him, but hesitated. Killing people hadn’t been a part of her life as a freighter pilot, aside from one run-in with pirates who had wanted cargo she hadn’t been willing to relinquish—herself. But she had little choice here. If she didn’t stop him, he would catch up and shoot her from behind. Shooting someone in the top of the head seemed cowardly, but she gritted her teeth and flexed her finger on the trigger. No choice.

  He looked up at that instant. She couldn’t see his face in the dark duct, only the silhouette of his body against the light coming in from the broken vent behind him, but she didn’t have any trouble seeing him jerk his weapon up. She fired twice and ducked back around the corner. At that range, she didn’t think she could have missed, but on the chance that his laser fire blasted toward the bend again…

  It didn’t. She peeked around the corner to make sure she had finished the
job. His rifle had dropped from his hand, and his head was slumped awkwardly to one side. He wasn’t moving. She couldn’t feel good about her accomplishment, but she backed away, knowing she’d had no other choice.

  “Brandt?” someone called into the duct.

  Val hesitated. Did she need to go back and stop that one too? No, they would have to pull out their comrade to come after her. That should buy them the time she needed. She squeezed into a ball once again and hurried to catch up with Gregor and his load.

  She couldn’t imagine they were moving quickly, but she reached a four-way intersection and couldn’t see anyone down any of the passages. The ducts were dark, but enough light filtered in from a vent a few meters in one direction that she should have been able to see shadows moving at least. But Gregor and the admiral were just… gone.

  “Gregor?” she whispered and glanced back. Judging by the distant thumps, the kidnappers hadn’t pulled their fallen comrade out of the duct yet, but it wouldn’t take that long. She would have to guess if she didn’t get an answer. At the worst, she could meet Gregor back at the ship, but it would be hard enough to get the admiral out of here with two people, much less one.

  Something brushed her hair, and she gasped and jerked back, thoughts of giant spiders flooding her mind.

  “Up here,” came Gregor’s soft call.

  Val looked up into pitch darkness. She had to wave her hand around to realize there was an opening. Her fingers brushed a rope. No, not a rope. One of those straps from the freezer. She hadn’t realized he had brought one with him.