Mandrake Company- The Complete Series

by Ruby Lionsdrake

  “Mandrake offered me the option of sitting in jail for the next year, or whatever the judges and lawyers decided on, or he would drop the charges if I joined his outfit for two years.”

  That wasn’t quite the information she had wanted—she was wondering what had prompted him to get into the skirmish in the first place. She believed his statement that getting into fights wasn’t usual for him. He didn’t seem like someone who would back down from a confrontation, but he didn’t seem like someone who would hunt out trouble recklessly, either. Except perhaps when defending the honor of naked women in an auction house.

  “I doubt he would have bothered with most people,” Marat went on, “but I had a military background and knew how to put out fires. He didn’t have anyone else in his company with that specialty.”

  “Put out fires? Real fires?” Ying wriggled her fingers to mimic the dancing of flames.

  “Yes. First wildfires back home, then on space stations and ships. I was a firefighter when I was in the Fleet.”

  So, he had been a soldier before becoming a mercenary. That wouldn’t have been her guess, even if he looked like someone who could take care of himself in a brawl.

  Ying dumped the ingredients in the pressure cooker and started water for the noodles.

  “I didn’t start out in the military,” Marat said, as if reading her thoughts. “I was going to the university on Novvy Moscow, studying to be an astrophysicist, if you can believe it.” The way his mouth quirked suggested he couldn’t. “But I always loved the outdoors. Did a lot of camping and star-gazing as a kid, and when we had a few drought years and there were a lot of fires breaking out in the wilderness, I signed on to help fight them in the summers. An army recruiter came to the university one day, talked some of us into joining up with promises of seeing the entire system. I was always a restless kid, and it appealed. My parents weren’t happy. I was one semester shy of finishing my degree. Always said I’d go back. They’re still waiting.” He found exactly two plates, dented and scratched and stained, in the cupboard. He set them on the table along with equally battered forks, spoons, and chopsticks.

  “Do you get along with them?” Ying tried not to envy him for still having his parents.

  He didn’t answer right away. He was paying particularly close attention to setting the table, making sure the forks and spoons were aligned just so. “We get along, but I’ve been avoiding them lately, especially Mama. It’s easier that way. Sometimes family means well, but they smother you with their concern, you know?”

  “I would give anything to have family around to smother me again.”

  He winced. “Sorry, that was a thoughtless comment.”

  Ying waved away his words, though it irritated her that he didn’t know how lucky he was to have his parents alive still. She was fairly certain he was older than she, but he hadn’t yet learned the lesson of appreciating something before it was gone.

  She finished preparing the meal in silence, and Marat returned to checking the camera. It couldn’t be that time-consuming of a task, but he probably felt he had offended her.

  “Hm,” he said, leaning close to the display.

  Ying brought over the noodles in the pan, since the kitchenette had a dearth of bowls. “Something?”

  “An android just walked through the lobby.”

  An uneasy lurch twisted her stomach. What would she do if they were found? Go along with Marat’s idea? Claim that he had stolen her and that she’d had no choice? What would Wolf’s men do to Marat if they believed that story? What would they do to him, regardless of any stories? Even if there hadn’t been any footage to identify Marat or Striker, Wolf could guess who had stolen her based on Marat’s interest at the auction.

  “An android that looks familiar?” she asked.

  “One that looks a lot like the one Striker blew up.”

  “It’s a common model.” Ying sat down beside him, waving for him to replay the video. Despite her words, her stomach sank further as she watched it walk out of the elevator and past the potted fern. The camera had swiveled to follow it. The fronds occasionally blotted out the display, but it showed enough. The android had walked to the display of the map where Marat had paid for the room. It was standing in front of it.

  Marat skimmed forward to real time. The android was still standing in front of the holodisplay, now talking to someone.

  “...security override required to obtain occupant names,” it was saying.

  The response, coming out of the android’s comm unit, was too soft to hear. It sounded like a male voice though. Wolf’s?

  “I am not certain, sir,” the android said. “The information on her last-known whereabouts was given to me by an untested informant. As you suggested, I paid him ten aurums, but I cannot be certain if this amount purchases accurate data from an unknown human being.”

  “Her,” Ying whispered.

  “Yes, sir,” the android responded to the comm. “Shall I wait here?”

  “No,” Ying said.

  Apparently, the android received a different response, because it turned its back to the wall and took up a guard position between the fern and the holodisplay. Ying hoped it wouldn’t notice the camera.

  “What do you want to do?” Marat asked.

  “I don’t suppose you have any more grenades?”

  Marat dipped a hand into a trouser pocket and pulled out a gray, bullet-shaped Mig-37, one of the more powerful hand-thrown grenades on the market, one definitely not approved for on-station or on-ship combat. “I thought it would be best to come back prepared for trouble.”

  Ying snorted softly and looked toward his trousers. “Oh, yeah? What else do you have in there?” As soon as the words came out, she realized she had set herself up for a dirty joke.

  Marat’s eyebrows did twitch upward. “I’m not sure we’ve reached the stage in our relationship where a man is supposed to reveal all of his armament.”

  She squinted thoughtfully at him.

  “You don’t agree?” he asked.

  “No, I agree. I was just trying to decide if that was dirty or not. I’m used to blunter men. Is that how astrophysicists make penis jokes?”

  His eyebrows did more than twitch this time. “No, astrophysicist jokes show a preoccupation with rockets and missiles. That was artillery humor. That’s the section I work in on the ship when I’m not putting out fires.”

  “So you blow things up, ensuring they catch fire, then you trot over and put out the flames?”

  “More or less. It’s a combination of positions that ensures job security.”

  Ying found herself wishing he would grin again. Or at least smile. Oh, his eyes were crinkling slightly at the silly conversation, but that earlier grin had apparently been a rare expression. Too bad. He had been quite handsome when it had been on display. Not that he wasn’t attractive otherwise, something she could well judge, since she was only sitting a foot or two away from him. There were a few flecks of gold in his light brown eyes, something she hadn’t noticed earlier, an interesting contrast to the solid, dark brown of her own eyes and those of the men from the Death Knot.

  Her father and most of the ship’s crew had been descended from one of the few Chinese colonies that hadn’t intermingled with the rest of the system, and everyone had spoken Ancient Mandarin as well as the American-Russian amalgamation that had become the standard after GalCon unified most of the system. Ying, having grown up on the commingled Grenavine, hadn’t learned to speak Mandarin until after joining her father. She had tried hard to fit in, but somehow, she had never felt as Chinese as the rest of the crew, something that had been driven home after her father’s death.

  “Is there something in my eye?” Marat asked.

  Ying shifted and looked back at the display. Fortunately, while she had been gawking at him, the android hadn’t moved. “No, sorry. I was thinking of—” home, she almost said. “It’s only been three months since my father’s death. A lot of things still make me think of him
.”

  “Sorry. I know what it’s like. Losing someone close.” He winced, and she wondered if she had assumed too much earlier when she was thinking he didn’t value his parents enough or hadn’t lost anyone important. “And it’s probably not a promising sign when a girl looks into your eyes and thinks of her da.” Marat’s lips twisted ruefully. He pushed his chair back, standing up.

  “It’s nothing like that.” Ying regretted that she had made him leave. Why had she said anything?

  “I’m teasing.” Marat grabbed the silverware, jammed it into his pocket, and headed for the kitchenette. “Let me see if there’s a container. We should go, but I’m not leaving dinner for Wolf’s team of androids.”

  “Does that mean you think we should run instead of blowing that one up?”

  “Well, if we’re not here when the pirate’s men bust down the door, then we could still try our story in the morning. Just because they didn’t find us, doesn’t mean we hadn’t found another spot where you could bash me over the head with lamps.” Marat gazed toward the bed. “Maybe we should even break a lamp before we leave. A cheap one. I don’t want a big damage fee to be subtracted from my account.”

  “Just a box theft fee?” Ying pointed to the container he had found and was pouring spaghetti sauce and noodles into.

  “Exactly.”

  “Perhaps if we left the lamp on the floor, unbroken, that would be sufficient.” Ying didn’t know how much it would matter, if the android was the one to inspect the room. It would doubtlessly remember stray lamps on the floor, but it might not start thinking of reasons they might be there.

  “Good thinking.” Marat stuffed the food container into the grocery bag and grabbed the security display. “Shall we find another place to finish the night?”

  “Yes.” Ying looked around, as if she might have belongings to pack, but she had brought nothing except those cuffs, and she had no problem leaving those in the disposal chute. She walked to the bed, plucked up the only lamp in the room—most of the lighting was simply diffused from the walls, according to a person’s preferences—and laid it artfully on the floor. She dropped a tacky vase next to it. “All right, I’m ready.”

  Marat was waiting by the door, frowning at the vid feed. “The android is talking again. And facing the display.”

  Ying considered the layout of that foyer. The potted fern was between the map and the hallway. “We can get out without it seeing, I think. As long as it doesn’t hear us.” It was a long corridor, and they were at the end, but androids did have enhanced senses.

  Marat nodded and opened the door. A laser pistol had found its way into his hand. He waved for her to come out and head for the ladder first.

  Missing her weapons very much, Ying glanced toward the foyer herself before trusting him. Nobody had come into sight yet. She hustled for the emergency exit, walking as softly as she could on the carpet. As she had done before, she poked at the button on the side of the hatch. Nothing happened. She shoved against it, but it did not budge. What had happened? Had the security override the android requested done more than give him access to the hotel computer? Damn, she wished she had a few tools.

  “Marat,” she whispered. “Any interest in blowing up a hatch?”

  “That’s a little extreme.” He eyed his pistol. “And the android will hear us.”

  “I—wait.” Ying ran back in the room, grabbed the laser scissors, and ran back out.

  Marat was stabbing at the button no more effectively than she had been. He backed up when he saw the scissors, waving for her to take his place.

  She wedged them open and tapped the button, changing the blade setting from cut to burn. A laser knife would have been better. She struggled to angle the scissors toward the side of the hatch, guessing where the locking mechanism might be.

  A faint beep sounded. Marat looked down at his vid feed, then toward the end of the hallway. “We lost the signal.”

  “Think it found the camera?”

  A pop and a clack came from the direction of the foyer. A crushed black ball rolled into sight at the end of the hallway.

  “A distinct possibility.” Marat crouched in front of Ying, his pistol aimed down the corridor. There were two other passages leading from that foyer that the android might check first, but all it had to do was lean a few feet to the side to look down theirs.

  The scissors cut into the seal around the hatch, but Ying worried she didn’t have enough time. Removing the flex-cuffs had taken an hour.

  Marat looked over his shoulder, probably thinking the same thing. He could make short work of the hatch with the pistol, but that would make a lot more noise.

  A faint hiss came from the foyer. The lift doors opening? Just as Ying was thinking that the noise had been her imagination, that she couldn’t possibly hear a door opening from that far away, gruff voices sounded in that direction.

  An irritated bleep came from the ladder hatch, and she winced. If she had heard the door, the android was sure to hear that.

  The whine of a laser pistol sounded right behind her. Marat crouched on one knee, firing down the hallway.

  Though Ying knew she needed to continue working on the hatch, she glanced toward the end. Two men were leaning around the corner, shooting in their direction. One was staring straight at her, and she dropped to her belly as Marat barked, “Duck!”

  A crimson beam lanced through the air, inches above her head. Out of habit, Ying reached toward her waist, where her gun usually hung. Only the rough fabric of her slave robe met her hand.

  A door opened halfway up the corridor. Someone in a bathrobe peeked out, then immediately jerked his head back. Other doors had opened, as well, and a few shouts came from rooms. Someone was bound to call security, if they hadn’t already. And Ying knew exactly who “security” would side with.

  Marat kept shooting toward the hallway entrance, but the men used the corner for cover, and only ducked around it long enough to fire. Though he tried to keep up the attack, he had nothing to hide behind except for a few trash bins and potted trees lining the walls. Whenever the men fired, he dove or dodged, but he couldn’t keep that up forever. As if to emphasize her thought, the pot closest to them exploded. Faux soil, leaves, and bark hit the ceiling before raining down on the carpet.

  “Shoot the hatch,” Ying ordered, frustrated that she didn’t have a weapon of her own. “We don’t have any cover, and the scissors aren’t working.”

  Between the noise of his own weapon and the shouts coming from the foyer, she didn’t know if he heard her. A grenade was lofted down the hallway. Ying cursed and started to back up, even as she knew there wouldn’t be time to evade it.

  But Marat fired and caught it dead on. Instead of sailing all the way to them and then exploding, a flash of white lit the hallway at the halfway point. It roared as it blew, and heat roiled down the corridor, warming Ying’s face even from forty yards away. The blast bashed down doors on either side and blackened the walls.

  Ying reached toward Marat, about to tell him again to shoot the hatch—or give her the weapon so she could do so—but more laser beams streaked out of the smoke from the explosion. The men were using the haze to advance.

  Marat dropped to his belly to avoid twin streams of laser fire streaking down the hallway. Ying flattened herself against the wall. He kept firing, and a cry of pain came from somewhere behind the smoke.

  “I just need—” She halted mid sentence, her gaze locking on a bulge on the side of his trousers.

  Remembering the jokes about grenades, she dove to the ground beside him. Even as he continued to fire, she groped for the pocket that held that bulge. Marat only glanced at her and did not stop firing. He did tilt his hip upward, so she had better access. She dug out a sleek black device. Fleet-issued ordnance. Good. She knew how to arm it.

  She rolled to the hatch, thumbed the detonator upward to activate the countdown, then backed away. The android they had seen on the camera earlier was striding out of the smoke, a gun
in each hand. Marat fired twice, striking it, but the sturdy construct’s step did not falter.

  “We need to get back,” Ying said, more worried about the bomb she had just set than the android.

  Marat waved for her to go with one hand and threw something down the hallway with the other. Another grenade. He scurried backward, moving more quickly than Ying, who had her eyes locked on the android, ready to duck if it fired. Marat grabbed her by the waist and threw her over his shoulder before she could blurt a protest.

  His explosive hit the ground in front of the android and went off. The boom rattled the floor and broke down doors, but was soon drowned out by Ying’s grenade going off.

  From Marat’s back, she twisted around, trying to see if it had been effective. She was almost struck in the head for her efforts. A warped piece of metal flew down the hallway. If Marat had not lurched to the side—either to avoid it or simply because the floor was buckling and he stumbled—it would have struck them.

  Even though smoke filled the air they had left, and heat flooded the hallway like molten ore, Marat ran back toward the hatch. He dropped her and ordered, “In. Go!”

  Ying needed no urging. Not only had the hatch been blown away, but the wall all around it had peeled back like flower petals. The vertical passage inside appeared undamaged, and Ying flung herself through the hole, hardly caring if the ladder remained intact or not.

  The warped, heated metal burned her through the robe. She gasped and fell several feet into darkness before managing to twist and grab for the ladder. Her knuckles slammed against the rungs, hitting three as she fell before she caught hold of one. She jerked to a stop so hard that it wrenched her shoulder.

  Lasers fired again up above.

  “Marat,” she called, “this way. There’s room.” She hated the idea of him getting hurt—or killed—because he was trying to protect her. She hated needing protecting. As soon as she got a chance, she would arm herself, whether she had to steal a weapon or not.