Mandrake Company- The Complete Series

by Ruby Lionsdrake

  “As I mentioned, Captain,” Hailey said, sliding into the seat at the head of the table, “I need a ride to Sturm, which should be a simple matter, but then I also need help locating a group of people on the surface.”

  “I’m not aware of any Grenavinians on Sturm,” Mandrake said, “though there may be some at the various monasteries.”

  “I’m not looking for Buddhist monks. I’m looking for druids, specifically the technology-loving druids who abandoned a space station they built ten years ago. It blended advanced tech with the genetic engineering of flora they had taken from their home world. I have reason to believe that they went to Sturm.”

  “Are you talking about the Midway 5 space station?” Ankari asked. “We were just there a couple of months ago.”

  “Were you?” Hailey smiled innocently, as if she hadn’t known. Right. Her career choices were dubious, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t intelligent and didn’t know how to do research. “Ah. Then you’ve seen their work.”

  “What remains of it,” Ankari said, her eyes narrowing slightly.

  She probably also realized Hailey knew of the company’s past and where it had been. Perhaps that history had something to do with her choice to seek out these particular mercenaries, though Lauren wagered that it didn’t hurt that Captain Mandrake was Grenavinian—did Hailey think he had connections to those technodruids?

  “Nobody knows where those druids went after they left Midway 5,” Mandrake said.

  “Not nobody.” Hailey winked at him. “The druids know, certainly. And as I’ve learned, some of them got tired of living in seclusion and have returned to the system as a whole. In fact, I may have even had drinks with one recently.”

  “Just drinks?” Ankari muttered—Lauren barely heard it, but she snorted softly. It seemed her business partner had caught on quickly to Hailey’s modus operandi.

  “He even looked a bit like you, Captain. Fewer muscles, more gray hair, but the same rugged handsomeness.”

  Mandrake folded his arms over his chest. “He give you precise coordinates to locate the others?”

  Even though Lauren hadn’t had much reason to speak to the captain in the past, and wouldn’t exactly consider him a friend, she appreciated that Hailey’s charms seemed to bounce off his gruff exterior.

  “He gave me imprecise terrain features,” Hailey said, not fazed by Mandrake’s gruffness. “But he identified the moon where they live, said they’re in a cave deep on the jungle side and near the mountains. Using his clues, I’ve pinpointed three likely locations.” She pulled out a tablet, laid it on the table, and murmured, “Sturm map.”

  An atlas of a portion of the moon appeared in the air, contour lines superimposed on satellite imagery. The map rotated slowly on a vertical axis to display its contents to everyone in the room. Three areas had been circled with a red highlighter, all canyons and all in that forsaken jungle. Lauren wondered if her sister knew about those man-eating raptors that roamed around, screeching and flashing their fangs.

  “I’ll need a team to go down with me and help me search the various locations,” Hailey said. “I’m also in need of protection.”

  “From the raptors?” Ankari asked.

  “Ah, from whatever or whomever may wish to impede my progress.” Hailey smiled again.

  Lauren tried to decide if something else lay under the smile. Concern? Apprehension? Hailey fidgeted with the hem of her lab coat, something she had always done when nervous, but Lauren didn’t know if she was nervous about this meeting and getting the captain to agree to work for her, or if something else was bothering her. A couple of men with guns could keep those raptors away. It wouldn’t require a whole mercenary company. Hailey hadn’t gotten herself into some kind of trouble, had she? Enough that people were after her?

  “What makes you think the druids want to be found?” Mandrake asked.

  “Oh, I doubt they do, but I’ll handle talking to them when the time comes. You needn’t involve yourself in my negotiations.”

  “Negotiations for what, exactly?” Lauren asked, curious despite her resolve to have nothing to do with Hailey’s expedition.

  “Information. Volunteers.”

  “Volunteers to be inoculated with certain microflora?”

  “That may be part of it.”

  “I told you I’m not giving you any of the strains I’ve developed,” Lauren said. “That’s private and secret information.”

  “Secrets don’t stay secret for long,” Hailey said cryptically, then added, “Though I still don’t understand why you won’t share. A few more men and women in the trial seems logical.”

  “When I’ve completed my current trial and determined that the specimens aren’t experiencing any untoward side effects—” Lauren glanced at Tick and caught a grimace on his face, “—I’ll consider increasing the sample size, but I’m still waiting for the GalCon Pharmaceutical and Pharmacogenomics Advisory Council’s approval on human trials, as it is. So far, only my rats are officially sanctioned.”

  Mandrake blinked a few times at this. Lauren hadn’t admitted the information to anyone except Ankari, the subjects who had enrolled for the tests, and the colleagues on her shared server. It might be years before GalCon got its act together and granted approval. Ankari had been enthusiastic about flouting the GalCon standards so that their business could get to the point where they could start selling the procedures more quickly. Besides, GalCon and its approval barely mattered out here in the rim worlds. The only thing it ultimately would do was allow her to submit articles to peer-reviewed journals and work with hospitals on the core worlds.

  “You rethinking being a lab rat yet?” Striker whispered across the table to Tick, smirking.

  Tick had been touching his stomach uncertainly, but he scowled back at the question. “Not at all. In a couple more weeks, I’ll have the power to fry your balls with my mind.”

  “Oh, so very scary. My balls are quivering.”

  “Sounds uncomfortable.”

  Lauren resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She had detailed all of the risks and the state of the GalCon approval in the paperwork she had given her subjects to sign. If they hadn’t read everything, whose fault was that?

  “I do hope you’ll change your mind once we’ve spoken more, Lo,” Hailey said. “Your approval and sanctioning of my project would mean a lot.”

  “Too bad,” Lauren said, doubting her sister cared about her approval. If she had, she would have taken Lauren’s advice years ago and gone into a more respectable career, one where she could be of service to humanity as a whole and where she wouldn’t be wasting the intelligence her parents had given her. “We worked very hard to acquire the right combination of bacteria.”

  “We?” Ankari asked. “I’m the one who had to rappel down a ten thousand-year-old toilet shaft in order to scrape fossilized alien poop off the walls.”

  Hailey perked up, her smile returning. “Ah, is that how you found the right blend?”

  “I assure you there was more to it than that.” Lauren sent Ankari a quelling glare; they didn’t need to share their business secrets with possibly hostile competition.

  Ankari offered an apologetic wriggle of her fingers, perhaps having already realized the same thing.

  “Why do you need the technodruids?” Mandrake asked. “There are displaced Grenavinians living all over the system. For that matter, why do you need Grenavinians specifically? We’re not any different from the humans from any other planets.”

  “Your ancestors tinkered with your eye color through genetic engineering.” Hailey waved toward Mandrake’s green eyes, green eyes that Tick and A32—Corporal Hemlock—shared. Borage and Garland did, too, Lauren noticed as she looked around the table. Hazel did not, and Corporal Salix—A29—did not, but she knew at least fifty percent of the remaining population did. “They also supposedly made some adaptations to your ancestors to better help them survive on your planet before genetic engineering became feared throughout the system
and was largely abandoned. I aim to ask those technodruids what else was done, because my research has revealed some interesting information that isn’t in the GalCon network database. It’s not in the secured military database, either, as I’ve recently learned. Yes, you’re as human as the next person, Captain, but it’s possible those adaptations from long ago are the reason that your people, and not the others in Lo’s experiments, are developing extrasensory perception when exposed to the alien microflora.”

  Captain Mandrake’s gaze flicked toward Tick.

  “There’s been absolutely no testing done to confirm your hypothesis about anyone developing ESP,” Lauren said. “I can’t even fathom how you’re so certain about that just from looking at brain scans.”

  “I hope you’ll allow me to explain further and to run some tests,” Hailey said. “While we’re on the way to Sturm. What makes a long voyage more fun than playing with Zener cards?”

  “It’s not that long of a voyage,” Striker said, then whispered to Sergeant Hazel, “What’s a Zener card?”

  She shrugged back at him.

  “Something from Old Earth,” Lauren said, struggling not to pinch the bridge of her nose. She felt a headache developing. “The captain hasn’t agreed to be your guide and protector yet,” she pointed out, half hoping Mandrake would stop this before it started.

  Oh sure, Hailey would find another way if she was truly determined, but Lauren didn’t see what she could do without the microflora. She fully expected Hailey to try to get a sample by bribing Ankari, or perhaps by even sketchier methods. All Lauren knew for sure was that Hailey couldn’t offer to sleep with Ankari in exchange for access. Well, technically she could. Lauren just didn’t think it would work. Ankari seemed enamored with all of Mandrake’s big manly muscles.

  “I’m certain he will.” Hailey removed her tablet from the table and whispered something to it to pull up another display. This one she kept in privacy mode so Lauren couldn’t read it. Hailey walked to Mandrake’s side and showed it to him. “My offer, Captain.”

  His expression did not change, but he did admit, “That’s a lot of money for what you’re asking. Either you expect more trouble than you’re hinting at, or—”

  “I highly value you.” She smiled at him.

  “Please,” Ankari muttered.

  Lauren sighed, not surprised her sister had found rich backers. After all, a finance lord had put a huge bounty on Lauren’s head when he’d learned of her research. ESP notwithstanding, the health, longevity, and improved physical and mental aptitude that the alien microflora promised were enough to entice many people.

  Mandrake looked around the room, meeting the eyes of his department heads. “Any objections to the mission?”

  “No complaints from the engine room,” Borage said. “Doesn’t sound like the Albatross is likely to see much trouble. You’ll go down to the moon in shuttles, right?”

  “Likely,” Mandrake said.

  “Sounds less expensive than a war,” Garland said with a shrug.

  “Agreed.” Mandrake didn’t sound that happy. He liked to shoot things. Maybe he would have preferred a war.

  “I’m always ready to fly, sir,” Commander Thatcher said, his fingers threaded together on the table, his posture perfect, his clothing pressed and tidy, a distinct difference from the slouching Commander Borage next to him, whose rumpled shirt held engine grease and coffee stains. Apparently, Borage wasn’t a fan of material with Gar-zymes threaded in.

  “Tick?” Mandrake asked.

  “Sir?” Tick sounded surprised to have been called upon.

  “Think you can track some technodruids?”

  “I can track anything, Cap’n. You know that.”

  The two men gazed at each other for a long moment, Tick looking faintly confused, Mandrake looking… assessing. Lauren recalled that Tick had mentioned the captain witnessing his prescient moments.

  “Just want to make sure you’re comfortable doing so,” Mandrake said.

  Tick hesitated. “Sure, Cap’n. Always comfortable doing my job. It’s what you’ve got me here for, isn’t it?”

  “Nobody’s going to ask me and Hazel if we’re comfortable doing our jobs?” Striker asked.

  “Aren’t you always comfortable blowing things up?” Mandrake asked.

  “Of course. Will there be things to blow up?” Striker smiled brightly at Hailey.

  She spread her hands. “Perhaps?”

  “If nothing else, those raptors live down there,” Ankari murmured.

  Lauren shuddered. Maybe she would be able to get some quality research done while the company was down tramping around on the moon. Hailey’s new interest in the technodruids also had Lauren wanting to research them specifically. What had her contact told her about their history? What databases had she found to access that had specific information regarding Grenavinian genetic engineering of the past?

  “Will you and Dr. Keys come along?” Mandrake asked Ankari quietly.

  A surge of alarm ran through Lauren. What? Why should she have to go?

  “Yes,” Ankari said at the same time as Lauren blurted, “No.”

  Ankari frowned at her. “Yes.”

  “No.”

  “You can stay in the shuttle and work in the lab in there. If you’re worried about the raptors, I’m sure we can take some tranquilizer guns with us. Viktor, don’t you even have some aerosol tranquilizers in your armory? No aim required?”

  “Some aim is required,” Mandrake said dryly. “And those are expensive. They’re for subduing enemy mercs without killing them.”

  “We can use them for subduing enemy raptors,” Ankari said brightly, gripping Lauren’s shoulder.

  Mandrake’s lips flattened, but he did not object.

  Lauren didn’t care. She didn’t want to see those raptors, subdued or not.

  “There’s no reason why I should go,” she whispered, aware of all the eyes in the room upon her. “You know I hate field work.” And she hated—loathed—that damned jungle. The night she had spent down there with Jamie and Ankari had been the most terrifying in her life. She still woke up from nightmares about those raptors and falling out of the trees and nearly being killed by kidnappers.

  “We may need your expertise,” Ankari said, “and it won’t be like last time. We’ll have strong soldiers to protect us.”

  “I’ll be happy to protect you, Doc,” Striker said and wriggled his eyebrows at Lauren.

  That did nothing to reassure her. Lauren slumped back in her chair, feeling defeated.

  “We’ll protect you,” Tick said firmly, giving her a nod.

  She couldn’t manage a smile or a return nod for him, not with this bleakness washing over her. She hated the field, and she knew her sister was up to something. This would not go well, not at all.

  5

  Tick sat in the back of the shuttle that Microbacteriotherapy, Inc. had leased from Mandrake Company. Unlike the rest of the sleek gray and deadly combat shuttles in the outfit’s bay, this one was painted pink. The interior was afflicted with fuzzy, spotted seat covers, and the curtain that separated a small lab from the bank of seats along the wall sported pink and purple polka dots.

  Most of the mercenaries going down to the moon had jostled for spots in the other two shuttles, leaving empty seats and more space in this one. Tick had never felt manly riding in the pink craft, but privately admitted that it was more comfortable than the rest of the shuttles. A coffeepot burbled happily, filling the air with its pleasant aroma as Jamie Flipkens piloted the shuttle toward the vibrant green foliage of Sturm.

  Hailey and Ankari sat up front near Jamie while Lauren puttered in the lab. Corporal Hemlock and Sergeant Striker rode in the back with Tick, Hemlock fiddling with a dice game and Striker waving his fingers in the air over his tablet doing who knew what. Navigating his porn collection, perhaps. Tick and the other men were along to defend the women if their craft ended up split off from the other Mandrake Company shuttles. Tick doubted that
would happen—despite some inhospitable wildlife on this side of the moon, Sturm was controlled by a relatively stable government run by a collection of corporations, and the only people who flew around down here were usually miners and loggers. Still, he didn’t mind riding along with Lauren, unmanly pink shuttle notwithstanding. He figured that if his brain went on the fritz, she would be the most likely to be able to help him. Besides, he felt more of a kinship toward her now that he knew that she had lost most of her family too. Aside from him, only his sister had been off-world when Grenavine had been destroyed, and while he wouldn’t consider his relationship with her cantankerous, she was a determined and reckless woman who was always off on adventures and rarely had time for him.

  Tick wondered if Lauren would mind if he slipped behind the curtain and offered her his company. Even if she wasn’t interested in sex, it was nice talking to women once in a while and not always—

  An elbow found its way into Tick’s ribs as Striker leaned over. He waved his tablet. “Want to see the comic I’m working on this week? The panels are coming out great. I’m getting better at virtual art.” He wriggled his fingers.

  “Does that mean your strange alien women now have three distinct breasts rather than that strange oblong mono-boob?” Tick asked.

  “All of my breasts are excellent.”

  Lauren walked through her curtain in time to hear that comment. She cocked an eyebrow, glancing at Striker’s chest. He proceeded to tastelessly look at her chest and give her a lurid wink. Ignoring him, she strode to the front to speak to Ankari about something.

  “She’s so frigid,” Striker said. “You better give up on that one.”