Mandrake Company- The Complete Series

by Ruby Lionsdrake

  “It’s not my favorite,” a male voice said from the entrance of the room.

  High-pitched trills, almost shrieks, came from the quashi. Chanda glanced in its direction, then looked uneasily toward the entrance. She could make out a man’s figure through the leaves of trees. One of the crewmen popping in for some fresh fruit?

  “I’m shopping for a friend,” Chanda said, not sure if a response was expected.

  More alarmed trills came from the aisle, and Chanda jogged back to where she had left the quashi. A big man in a black leather jacket stood inside the doorway, frowning down at the quashi. It had made its way almost to the door, and Chanda realized it might have escaped if the automatic doors opened for such small beings. She wasn’t sure. She also wasn’t sure about the man glowering down at it. She didn’t recognize him. Not surprising. Nobody had given her a tour of the ship yet or introduced her to anyone.

  “What is that?” the man asked. “And who are you?”

  “That’s a quashi, and I’m Chanda, the new assistant for Microbacteriotherapy, Inc.”

  He gave her a blank look.

  “I understand you mercenaries own a percentage of it.”

  “Oh, right. The captain’s girlfriend’s thing.” He looked her over. “Seems like a kook’s endeavor, but I’m glad to see there are more women on board.” He eyed her chest.

  Chest ogling seemed to be the mercenaries’ idea of a greeting.

  Chanda sighed and picked up the quashi. It was much stiffer than before and continued to make high-pitched objections. To the newcomer? If so, she found herself agreeing with the assessment.

  “Want to get some dinner with me at the mess hall?” the man asked. “Name’s Grunter.”

  Grunter? Who had named these people?

  “Thanks, but I’m on a mission to find something edible for the quashi.” Chanda waved the asparagus stalks and lemongrass and would have walked out, but the man—Grunter—blocked the door.

  “I’m sure that it would wait. Or bring it along. We’ll see if it likes mess hall food. It’s mostly awful, but sometimes that new cook makes something good for us. Real food, not out of a box or a package. Come on. I’ll show you.” He lifted an arm and stepped toward her.

  The quashi trilled in alarm, and Chanda stepped back.

  His eyes narrowed, and he stepped after her, reaching for her arm. “Look, I doubt you’re supposed to be wandering the ship alone. You better come with me.” He glanced at her chest again.

  The door slid open, and another man stepped into the grow room, this time one she recognized.

  “Dr. Blackthorn!” Chanda blurted.

  He had a tablet out, a holographic display hovering over it, and he looked through it to frown effectively at Grunter, the dark circles under his eyes somehow lending menace to the expression. “What’s going on?”

  “Just looking for some fruit to have after my meal, sir.” Grunter clasped his hands behind his back. “Not sure about the girl. I’ve never seen her before and was skeptical about her having free rein of the ship.”

  “Which is why you wanted to drag me off like a space orc grabbing an adventurer by the ponytail and taking her back to his asteroid cave to mate.”

  Grunter blinked. “Space-what?”

  “Never mind.” Chanda blushed at her simile. She should have made a comparison the average non-gaming person would grasp.

  Blackthorn’s eyebrows rose. “Stellar Dragons?”

  “Er, yes,” Chanda said in surprise.

  “Hm.” Blackthorn stepped farther into the room and made a shooing motion toward Grunter as he tilted his head toward the door. “As I recall the space orcs are too ugly to attract mates, even from their own species, and have no choice but to steal female adventurers.”

  “Just as goodly female adventurers not wanting to be stolen have no choice but to raid their lairs and shoot them. They usually have some rare loot.”

  “I remember they have a chance to drop a silver moon harp.”

  “That permanently speeds up your ship, yes. It’s worth camping their caves just for that.”

  Grunter, who was looking back and forth between them with his forehead furrowed, said, “On second thought, I can get some fruit later.”

  He scurried out. The quashi’s muscles grew less stiff, and its trills became less agitated.

  Blackthorn smiled slightly, then lifted his tablet. “I came because I finished reading up on the quashi and thought you would find it useful to know that though they’ll eat many kinds of grass native to the system, humans have discovered that they’ll eat some Old Earth vegetables too, including—” his gaze lowered to the tablet as he read, “—radishes, asparagus, broccoli, and apples.”

  “Hm, I have some asparagus.” Chanda lowered a stalk to the creature’s front, still not sure where its mouth was.

  “It uses its antennae for tasting—for just about everything. So you might want to hold it up to them.” Blackthorn swiped his finger through the display to bring up a diagram of a quashi. “But the mouth is actually underneath its body between the two sets of legs.”

  Chanda eyed the diagram, getting her first feel for what the creature would look like without its fur. “Huh.”

  She touched the asparagus stalk to one of the antennae.

  The appendage stiffened, stretched out straight, then slid along the vegetable, reminding her of a dog’s nose sniffing something in an investigation. A questioning trill followed.

  “Does that mean I’m supposed to insert this in its mouth?” Chanda asked.

  “Maybe just set it on the deck with the stalk and see what it does.”

  As Chanda did so, a beep came from the comm unit in her pocket. She pulled it out, not sure who would be contacting her. She had been too far from the core planets for days to receive real-time messages. Which was probably a good thing, otherwise her mother would want to know how her “interview” had gone and if she now had a promising job suitable for a young scientist.

  “Chanda?” It was Ankari’s voice.

  “Yes, I’m here. In the grow room. We’re trying asparagus on the quashi.” Chanda felt the need to explain. She hadn’t been gone that long, but what if Ankari thought she was frittering around somewhere?

  “How many do you have?”

  Chanda looked down at the two asparagus stalks on the floor, momentarily confused by the question. “How many… quashi?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just one. The same one I had before.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes…” Chanda looked down again, intending to make a joke about her ability to count to one, but her furry charge had disappeared, leaving the asparagus untouched on the deck. Damn, how had it moved out of the aisle so quickly? She lifted her eyes toward Blackthorn, but he was poking at his display again and hadn’t noticed.

  “Lauren counted the ones still in the box earlier—she’s a stickler for taking inventory—and she’s moving them into cages now. There are three that aren’t accounted for. We’re not sure how they could have gotten out of their box, but we’ll look around the shuttle bay. The little fluff balls can’t move that fast, right?”

  “Er.” Chanda peered around pots and racks, looking for her lost charge. “I wouldn’t think so.”

  “Ankari, out.”

  Chanda stuffed the comm unit in her pocket and wandered deeper into the grow room to hunt. “I don’t think it was a fan of the asparagus, Doctor.”

  “Oh, hm.” Blackthorn lowered his tablet and walked after her. “You can call me Kor, by the way.”

  “Is that short for anything?” Chanda cocked an ear, listening for trills, but the quashi had fallen silent. She hoped there weren’t any vents that it could escape through. She was positive the door hadn’t opened.

  “Hickory.”

  “You’re Grenavinian?”

  If so, that might explain why he’d been drawn to Nature’s Wrath. She wasn’t Grenavinian, but she had always loved nature and had been horrified
when their lush green home world had been destroyed. Way back at age fifteen, she had started designing the game.

  Of course, his heritage wouldn’t explain his knowledge of Stellar Dragons. He had clearly played before. Not just that, but he knew the game well. She wished she hadn’t lied to him earlier. Would he be more interested in her if he knew she was the designer and self-taught programmer who had invented Nature’s Wrath? Did she want him to be interested in her?

  When she’d first met him, she’d thought him brutish and a little scary, but she already sensed that wasn’t the case.

  But she had just gotten here. Surely, she shouldn’t be looking for a boyfriend, especially not from among these mercenaries. Besides, hadn’t Striker said something about Kor being celibate? What had that been about?

  “Yes,” Kor answered after a long pause. The word sounded muffled and came from the deck.

  Chanda peered past vertical shelves full of different types of lettuces and spotted his back. He was on his hands and knees, peering under racks. He was helping her search. She bit her lip, pleased. Since he was such a large, rough-looking man, she’d had a hard time believing he could be a doctor—or would be someone to drop to all fours to help in a search for a misplaced animal.

  “Did you grow up there?” she asked, then wondered if she shouldn’t have. Most Grenavinians were understandably upset about the loss of their home world, even ten years later. She hadn’t met many that wanted to discuss it.

  “Yes. As a boy, I found all the peace and serenity and tree hugging very boring. I couldn’t wait to leave and enrolled in the fleet as soon as I was old enough. I was a lot like Mandrake—I suppose you don’t know him well yet. We were young and dumb and looking for action. I joined the fleet and the Crimson Ops without ever questioning what I would be doing for them.” He shifted to check behind a clump of potted fruit trees. “It was a mistake and led to me doing a lot of things I regret. I changed careers after a couple of years, became a military doctor. But I was still in the fleet, still doing GalCon’s bidding, whether I believed in their mission anymore or not. I owed them another five years since they gave me my medical training. As soon as I could, I got out. I spent the last year as a Buddhist monk.”

  Ah, so that was where the celibacy comment had come from.

  His tone turned dry. “You didn’t ask about all that, did you?”

  “I don’t mind hearing about you. I mean, about the people here. The crew.” Chanda wasn’t sure why she’d added that. She certainly didn’t care to hear about Grunter or Striker or anyone else she’d met with a thugly name. “My father was a soldier before he got out and became a security guard at my mother’s university, a job he says is boring and mindless but suits his nerves these days. The most stressful thing he experiences now is when the break room runs out of donuts before noon. He wasn’t Crimson Ops, but I know he saw some battle and had some rough times in the fleet too.” Chanda had learned at a young age not to make loud noises in the flat or startle her father. “Are you still a monk?”

  “Technically, yes. But I found temple life wasn’t all I’d hoped.” Kor rose to his feet, dusting dirt off his hands, and pointed. “I think I saw something in the corner back there.”

  “Dust bunnies or a quashi?” Chanda headed in the indicated direction, though she had to squeeze past kiwi vines overflowing with fuzzy green fruits.

  “There’s not a lot of difference that I’ve noticed.”

  An excited trill came from the back corner of the room. Chanda hurried between stalks of sugar cane and peered down, expecting to find the quashi on the deck, perhaps lost and afraid. Though that trill had sounded far more triumphant than afraid. Could she assign human emotions to the noises the creatures made?

  “See it?” Cane rattled as Kor came out behind her.

  “No.” She peered down the aisles leading from the corner, but the deck was devoid of everything except a few wilted leaves fallen from plants.

  Kor tapped her on the shoulder and pointed, not to the deck but to a few trees in large pots, the lips almost coming up to her waist. The blue-furred quashi sat in one pot packed with soil and a fruit tree. A couple of apples had fallen into the dirt, and the quashi was almost on top of one. Happy, contented trills came from it.

  “I believe it’s eating that apple,” Kor said.

  “How did it get up there? Can they climb?” Chanda, remembering the short stubby legs, couldn’t imagine how. But she also couldn’t see another way it could have gotten up into the pot.

  “Apparently.” Kor pulled out his tablet again and opened the article on the creatures. “It says here that quashi have a knack for getting to wherever they wish.”

  “But it doesn’t say they can climb?”

  “Not specifically. Maybe they pull themselves up by their antennae.”

  The trills changed to almost a cooing, and one of those antennae rubbed the apple. Chanda could smell the scent of the fruit and spot nibbles that had been taken out of the skin and flesh.

  “I think it prefers apples to asparagus,” she noted.

  “Who doesn’t?”

  A hum reverberated through the deck, and the lights went out. There weren’t any exterior portholes in the grow room, and full darkness filled it, save for a couple of tiny green indicators that glowed on equipment along one bulkhead. A gurgle sounded, as some sprinkler came on. The ship must still have power. Maybe someone had simply turned off the lights. What if that Grunter had come back, hoping to find her in here? In here alone?

  “Hm,” Kor said. “Let me by, and I’ll check on the panel by the door.”

  He found her shoulder in the dark, gave it a pat, and stepped past her. Chanda waited, not sure what to do. She couldn’t leave without the quashi, and she was supposed to be finding food for the others back in the company’s shuttle. The contented trills and coos continued to come from the creature. Either it wasn’t aware that the lights had gone out, or it didn’t sense light. Or maybe it just didn’t care, not when it had such an appealing dinner.

  The soft hiss of the door opening sounded.

  “The good news is that we’re not locked in,” Kor announced. “The bad news is that the rest of the ship appears to be dark too.”

  A faint beep came from his direction, the comm patch sewn onto the shoulder of his jacket.

  “Senior staff to the bridge,” came Captain Mandrake’s voice. No mention of the lights being out.

  “I’m not sure if that’s me or not,” Kor said, “but I’m curious about what’s happening, so I better go.”

  “All right.” Not wanting to be left in the grow room alone, Chanda plucked a half dozen apples out of the soil, hoping they were suitably ripe, then patted around to locate and scoop up her charge. “I’ll see if I can make my way back to the shuttle bay in the dark.”

  She wasn’t sure if Kor had left yet or not. Then his voice came from the doorway. “Why don’t you come with me to the bridge? Just in case… just in case.”

  Chanda remembered that he had walked in on that Grunter attempting to lure her—or force her?—to join him for dinner. She didn’t want to be a burden or come across as someone who needed an escort, but she, too, was curious about what was going on. And she didn’t want to stay here. She also wouldn’t mind sticking with Kor and learning more about him—and finding a way to admit that she’d lied earlier and that she played Nature’s Wrath. More than played it. Maybe a real Grenavinian would have some ideas about monetizing it in a way that kept the integrity of the game and didn’t offend players with advertising. What little she made from the subscriptions went to pay the programmers and for server space. Given the game’s success, she couldn’t help but feel she ought to make enough to pay herself a salary.

  “Is the quashi invited?” Chanda asked.

  “Of course. If we leave it here—do you know its sex?—it could eat all the apples in the place. Captain Mandrake puts those in his drinks. He might get grumpy if they all disappear.”

  “I d
on’t know its sex, no,” Chanda said. “You’re the one with the encyclopedia article and the diagram. I think assigning its sex will be your job.”

  “Let’s just call it female. Girls are more amenable than boys.”

  “Very scientific reasoning.”

  “I thought so.”

  Chanda made her way along the bulkhead toward the sound of his voice, careful not to drop her load. She couldn’t tell if the quashi was upset at having its meal interrupted, but she did have several more apples for later. Though it—she—would have to share with her buddies back in the box. Or a cage. Wherever they had been moved.

  As she followed Kor into the corridor, which was as dark as the grow room, Chanda wondered if it was possible that the missing creatures had something to do with the light problem.

  She shook her head, dismissing the idea. That didn’t make sense.

  4

  Kor climbed off the ladder onto the top level of the ship where the officers’ cabins and the bridge lay. It was still dark, and he could hear Chanda’s soft grunts as she maneuvered up the unfamiliar rungs behind him. He waited, dropping to a knee to offer her help if needed. He’d been on the ship for several weeks now, and was familiar with it for the most part, but she probably didn’t even know where they were.

  Heavy footfalls sounded as two men jogged up the corridor, their tablets turned into flashlights. The beams bounced off the deck and walls, and Kor silently berated himself for not thinking to light the way with his. He found Chanda’s shoulder—he hoped that was all he was grabbing—and helped her out of the ladder well, careful not to squish her furry burden.

  Something thudded to the deck, and he jerked his hand back, afraid she’d dropped it.

  “Thanks,” she said, sounding sincere.

  “I… trust that means you didn’t drop the quashi?”

  “An apple.”

  “Ah, I didn’t realize you grabbed some.”

  More men jogged past, glancing at them, but heading for the bridge without slowing. Kor and Chanda walked after them, and he removed his tablet and turned on the light beam. Better late than never, right?