Mandrake Company- The Complete Series

by Ruby Lionsdrake

  “That’s just the specimen number she gave me for her reports.”

  Besides, she had looked at his face when she’d said, “Evening, A27.” They’d made eye contact. For at least a second! That was progress, Tick was sure of it. Usually, she had that distracted I’m-contemplating-my-science look on her face when she walked about the ship, and she didn’t notice anyone unless she bumped into them. Even then, the noticing wasn’t guaranteed. As he could attest, since he had “accidentally” bumped into her a few times.

  “Specimen number.” Striker sniggered and looked at Hemlock when the man joined them. “You ever heard anything crazier than letting a woman do science experiments on you, just so she’ll touch your butt as she’s shoving alien bacteria up there?”

  The scarred veteran flushed slightly, an unexpected reaction for a man who’d made a living as a hardened bounty hunter before joining Mandrake Company.

  “She also pays a small stipend to those who volunteer,” he said, his voice gravelly, as if he had been on the wrong side of a garrote once. Maybe he had.

  Striker’s forehead wrinkled.

  “As of last week, Hemlock is A32,” Tick said dryly.

  The corporal’s flush deepened. “I’m saving money so I can buy a new spaceship.”

  “I’m sure being a lab rat in science experiments is the way to fame and fortune,” Striker said.

  “I don’t want fame or fortune,” Hemlock said, his eyes growing steely with determination. “Just a new ship.”

  The comm-patch on Tick’s shoulder bleeped.

  He tapped it, feeling a rush of guilt. He had let himself be distracted from his duty.

  “Yes, sir?” he asked, adjusting the rifle on his back and heading toward the copse.

  Thousands of sparkles of light glittered on the lake, reflecting the brilliance of the distant orange sun. This tiny moon was far out from the core worlds and shouldn’t have been as warm as it was, but the aliens who had terraformed the system long before human settlers arrived had done impressive work on some of the rim worlds. Some were still glacial ice fields, but he could imagine himself settling down someplace like this one day, retiring and doing some hunting and fishing. If he had someone with whom to share that life.

  “Find any trouble?” Captain Mandrake asked over the comm.

  “Not yet, sir. But I do have an itch.”

  “Apparently, Dr. Keys won’t help him with it,” Striker called, sticking close enough to eavesdrop.

  Tick chomped on his gum, hoping the captain would berate Striker for being unprofessional.

  “That’s unfortunate,” was all he said, his tone dry.

  Tick chomped harder, refusing to let his own cheeks flush pink, though it was mildly distressing that the whole ship seemed to know he had a… an interest in their resident microbiologist. Even more distressing that said microbiologist didn’t know. Or knew and didn’t care. He sighed.

  “Might want to give me a few more minutes before landing, Cap’n,” Tick said. “Can’t see that anything bigger than sage rabbits has been frolicking around here, but you did detect that blip on your sensors on the way down, and I do have this feeling...”

  “The ship waiting by those trees might have accounted for it,” Mandrake said. “Farley’s not trying to hide.”

  Tick nodded. He’d seen the glorified gypsy wagon, its hull painted with people dancing under trees and stars around a campfire. If the shuttle possessed a single weapon, it hadn’t been apparent. That craft they knew about, as the captain was supposed to meet the owner for some intel, but he’d sent Tick’s team down early and on the sly, being suspicious of the trader’s intent. The woman had refused to deliver the intel she’d teased him with over the network.

  Tick found his eye drawn to the lake again, and a sudden flash of insight or intuition or maybe just his imagination came to him. With his mind’s eye, he saw a combat shuttle hiding deep within the water’s depths, nestling between algae-slick boulders on the bottom, a sensor-blocking net fastened around its hull.

  “Tick?” Striker poked him on the back of the shoulder.

  Tick blinked and tore his gaze from the lake’s surface. It still gleamed serenely in the sun, not hinting of anything hiding underneath its placid waters. “What?”

  “You all right? You froze up there.”

  “Fine, but—” Tick tapped his comm-patch again, making sure the line was open. “Cap’n? Might want to scan the lake up close before you land. My itch says some trouble might be hiding down in it.”

  His itch. Whatever that image that had flashed into his mind had been, it had been different from any intuition he’d experienced before.

  Had it been his imagination? Would the captain ask him to explain further, and if he did, what would he say? He’d seen a vision? Mandrake would think all the squirrels caged in his brain had gotten loose. He crossed his fingers that the captain wouldn’t ask. After all, Tick had been his tracker for ten years. Mandrake knew he had a knack for seeing things others didn’t. Granted, those things were usually in plain sight, to those who had an eye for the looking. They didn’t—or until now, hadn’t—come to him in visions.

  He took the minty gum out of his mouth and eyed it. Lert had been his favorite brand for years, and the caffeine hadn’t caused visions yet. But maybe he ought to cut back.

  “We’ll fly low over the lake on the way in,” Mandrake said. “Meet us at the copse.”

  “Yes, sir.” Tick hoped the captain’s shuttle would be able to detect the other craft through that sensor shielding he’d seen. Either that, or he hoped the vision had been his imagination and that nothing more inimical than ornery fish lurked down there.

  The smell of wood smoke tickled Tick’s nostrils as he, Striker, and Hemlock approached the copse. The painted shuttle rested in the shade of the trees, and Farley, a chubby woman in overalls, sat on a nearby stump, her gray and brown braid of hair hanging to her butt. She wore a pistol in a holster at her belt, but overall, the crackling campfire and innocuous shuttle hardly bespoke danger.

  “Maybe she’ll scratch your itch,” Striker said as they approached. “She doesn’t look like someone with high standards.”

  Farley heard them approaching, stood, and waved.

  “Given your preoccupation with itches, Sergeant, perhaps you’re the one who needs a scratch,” Hemlock said.

  “You offering?”

  “I thought you didn’t like things inserted in your ass.”

  “No, but I’m not overly fussy about who handles my hardware, especially given how few women we got on the ship.”

  “Even fewer who want anything to do with Striker’s hardware,” Tick said, keeping his voice low, since they ought to be within the trader’s hearing now. He hoped she hadn’t been expecting any particular couth from mercenaries. Of course, if those were her buddies in the hidden combat shuttle, then he wasn’t overly worried about offending her sensibilities.

  A sleek, gray bullet-shaped shuttle zipped out of the clouds, heading toward the lake. Farley’s eyes narrowed as she tracked it, and Tick noticed a tenseness to her shoulders. Worried about meeting with mercenaries? Or worried that Mandrake Company had figured out she’d set a trap? The captain had a couple of bounties on his head, most from crime barons he had irked on backwater planets, but he’d also been a part of killing a couple of finance lords who’d had powerful allies, and he knew a few secrets that the Galactic Conglomeration military wouldn’t mind getting their hands on. Still, he had that Crimson Ops background, and Mandrake Company itself had a fearsome reputation. Not many people crossed them.

  “That’ll be the captain,” Tick said, putting more of his backwoods drawl into his voice than typical. That usually set the ladies at ease.

  Farley did not respond. She merely stuck her hands into the front of her overalls and watched the shuttle as it swooped low over the lake. Her shoulders were definitely tense.

  Tick turned away from her, pretending to scratch his ear. “Trouble,” he
mouthed so that Striker and Hemlock could see.

  Hemlock made a sour face. Striker fondled his rifle and grinned.

  Alpha Shuttle landed in the grass in front of the trader’s vessel. A moment later, the rear hatch opened, and Captain Mandrake walked out in his duster with an Eytect scanner over one eye. For weapons, he carried only a pistol at his waist, but he wore his mesh combat armor under the jacket, definitely having the look of someone who expected trouble.

  Sergeant Hazel walked at his side, her height and muscled form making her as intimidating as any of the men on the ship. She carried an assault rifle as large as Striker’s and also had a couple of knives in sheaths on her forearm and a pistol holster strapped to her thigh.

  “Captain Mandrake,” Farley said, her hands still in between her overalls and her shirt. Maybe she had a weapon stashed in there? “Always good to see you. But we’re old friends, aren’t we? You’ve brought some fierce-looking men along with you, considering I only invited you down for a peaceable chat.”

  “Fierce men?” Striker asked. “They talking about me or Sergeant Hazel?”

  Hazel squinted at him but said nothing. There wasn’t much love lost between those two, probably because Striker had asked her to handle his equipment one too many times.

  “They like to get off the ship now and then,” Mandrake said. “Smell the flowers.”

  “Now they’re talking about you,” Striker said, nudging Tick with his elbow.

  Tick was about to whisper a response when another vision flashed into his mind. He saw the shuttle on the bottom of the lake stirring, its engines flaring quietly to life as it eased out from between those two boulders. The sensor-dampening netting remained around the craft.

  “...said you have information for me,” Mandrake was saying. “How many aurums is it going to cost? I assume you insisted on meeting face to face because you want a purse full of physical coins.”

  “You know me well, Captain.”

  Tick looked toward the lake, his hand dropping to the pistol at his waist, though a pistol wouldn’t do anything against an armored spacecraft. Striker’s grenades might, but the team would be better off jumping into Alpha Shuttle for such a fight with another ship. Here on the ground, they would be easy targets, especially if their enemies did not mind taking out a copse of trees to get at them.

  He caught Mandrake looking at him, his eyebrows arched slightly. Tick needed to warn him—if something was going to happen. But he hadn’t seen or heard anything yet, not with his regular senses. His real senses. How could he know his mind wasn’t playing tricks on him? It wasn’t as if he’d ever had visions before, not unless one counted the times in his youth when he had experimented with Digaroo Mushrooms.

  “It’ll cost you two hundred aurums, Mandrake,” Farley said. “I promise the information will be worth your while. There’s a war brewing out on Gora. They’re looking to hire mercenaries for some ground fighting.”

  “War sounds promising,” the captain said.

  “Only a mercenary would say that.”

  “Lots of people profit from war. Who’s involved, and who’s hiring?”

  Farley drew a hand from her overalls and held it out, her palm up. “Like I said, information doesn’t want to be free.”

  As she made the demand, the woman looked back at Tick, Striker, and Hemlock, perhaps wondering if Mandrake would try to force the information out of her without paying. Nothing about the captain’s reputation should have suggested he would. Mandrake was one of the few honorable mercenaries out there; Tick wouldn’t have stuck with him so long if he weren’t.

  “Two hundred is a lot for a few words,” Mandrake said. “Wars don’t stay quiet once they break out. With a little research of my own—”

  The image returned, more intense than ever, and Tick didn’t hear the rest of the captain’s words. In his mind, he saw the underwater shuttle tilt toward the surface, pointed to the southern end of the lake, toward the copse of trees. Its energy torpedo ports flared white, weapons arming. Tick stared out at the lake, but he couldn’t see a damned thing with his eyes, not even any bubbles floating up to the surface.

  He tightened his hand on his pistol, indecision making him hesitate. As someone who didn’t believe in gods or mysticism of any kind, he didn’t trust the vision, not one bit. But if they were caught by surprise out in the open, they might lose men before they could find cover. The shuttle would be vulnerable, too, since it was on the ground, its hatch open and its shields down.

  One last image popped into his mind. This time, he seemed to be inside of the pilot’s head, seeing the watery world through the man’s eyes. The light ahead grew brighter as the craft neared the lake’s surface. Excitement thrummed through him—no, through the pilot—as he anticipated blowing Captain Mandrake and all of his minions off the face of the moon.

  “Sir,” Tick blurted. “There’s an attack coming. From the lake. Get in the shuttle!”

  He sprinted for the captain, his pistol turned toward the lake as he ran.

  After ten years working with Tick, Mandrake didn’t hesitate.

  “You heard him,” he barked to his men, jerking a thumb toward the open hatch.

  As Tick ran toward it, Mandrake lunged for the trader, who was spinning away, her braid flying behind her as she turned toward her own craft. He caught her around the waist, her pudginess not keeping him from lifting her over his shoulder with one arm.

  Tick paused at the ramp to the hatch, in part to lay down cover for the captain if necessary, and in part because he couldn’t help but doubt his vision. Was he about to be made a fool?

  “Put me down, Mandrake,” Farley roared at the same time as something shot out of the lake.

  The enemy ship.

  It roared out of the water, droplets streaming from its hull, and it arrowed straight toward them. The energy-dampening netting that had hidden it from sensors did nothing to hide the craft from the human eye. The torpedo ports that Tick had seen in his vision—how in all the hells in the galaxy had he seen that?—glowed white, an attack imminent.

  As soon as the captain ran up the ramp with his prisoner, Tick spun to follow. The charge from his laser pistol would bounce harmlessly off a spaceship hull. Hazel and Hemlock raced inside on his heels.

  “Shields,” Mandrake barked to the pilot, Commander Thatcher. “Get us off the ground.”

  “Is everybody inside?” Up front, Thatcher’s hand hovered over the button that would close the hatch. They couldn’t take off or raise shields until that was secured.

  “Striker,” Mandrake yelled. He hadn’t set his captive down yet, and she was kicking and shouting, almost drowning him out. “Get in here.”

  Thatcher was watching the enemy ship on the view screen, and he must have decided they couldn’t wait. He hit the button to withdraw the ramp and close the hatch, then swiped his hand through a holodisplay above the panel.

  Tick ran to the hatchway. What was that idiot Striker doing?

  A suck-thump noise came from the base of the ramp, then Striker raced in, wobbling as it rose underneath his feet.

  “She’s firing,” Hemlock warned—he had charged up to the front and crouched behind Thatcher.

  Striker ended up diving inside, almost crashing into Tick. Tick scrambled aside as a boom erupted from over the lake. A flash of white light filled the shuttle, and then a shockwave battered them, the deck vibrating under Tick’s feet.

  “Shields are now up,” Thatcher said calmly. “Lifting off to engage in evasive maneuvers.”

  Only Thatcher could manage to sound like an emotionless android as an enemy vessel bore down on them, torpedoes launching.

  “Might not be anything to evade,” Striker said, jogging up the aisle between the chairs. “Did Thumper hit him?” He patted his grenade launcher lovingly. “Had my sights lined up good, but then the ramp started lifting under my toes.” He shot an accusatory glare toward Thatcher.

  Tick shoved Striker toward a seat. Assuming the grenad
e hadn’t blown the enemy shuttle out of the sky, things were about to get rough. Tick wasn’t crazy about flying under the best of circumstances, and the trip back to the Albatross wouldn’t likely be the best of circumstances.

  Striker let himself be shoved—it wasn’t as if he could fire more grenades from inside—though he had to remove some of his weapons before he could buckle himself in. Just as Tick reached for his own harness, the first torpedo struck their shuttle. The shields were up, but the force of it still nearly knocked him out of his seat.

  “Damn,” Striker said, “guess I didn’t hit him a good one. Why’d you have to lift the ramp, Thatcher? You know you got to let the Chief of Boom do his work.” He thumped himself in the chest.

  “Commander Thatcher,” their pilot said calmly without looking back. His hands flew over the controls, both physical and holographically displayed, and the shuttle banked sharply as another torpedo screamed past. A boom sounded as it struck the ground somewhere below them, dirt clods shooting up high enough to appear on the view screen. Now that they were in the air, Thatcher would be harder to catch than a greased pig, and Tick took some comfort in knowing he was one of the best pilots out there. They should be all right. Unless the enemy pilot was also one of the best. Or better.

  Tick grimaced and gripped the armrests of his seat. Ground combat didn’t faze him, but this? Flying around in the back seat of a shuttle where he was helpless to protect his fate? Tracking and fighting skills were useless up here.

  “Still want those two hundred aurums?” Mandrake asked.

  He had secured his captive in one seat a few spots up the row from Tick and Striker, and he sat across from her, his harness fastened as he calmly pointed a pistol toward Farley. Apparently, he wasn’t angry enough to wrap a hand around her throat—yet.

  “Always want aurums, Mandrake,” the woman said, glowering at him. “You know how hard it is to survive out here on the rim, especially when you’re just a girl without an army of big louts to guard your back.”

  “Who’s she calling a lout?” Striker asked.

  “Is it hard to sound indignant about being called a lout when you’re fondling your grenades?” Tick asked, trying to distract himself from the way the ground and the sky kept alternately coming into sight on the view screen. Did Thatcher have to spin so much? The artificial gravity kept them from being thrown about inside of the cabin, but Tick’s stomach still protested.