Mandrake Company- The Complete Series

by Ruby Lionsdrake

  “…excuses, Sparks,” Mandrake’s voice drifted through the open door to the bridge.

  As Kor stepped inside, Chanda right behind him, he almost bumped into the backs of other men. He recognized the chief engineer, Borage, second-in-command, Garland, and several others in addition to the main bridge crew.

  “I know, sir,” came a voice over the comm. Lieutenant Sparks from Engineering? “We should have—there.”

  The lights came back on.

  “Give me a complete systems check, Lieutenant Frog,” Mandrake said to one of the pilots sitting at navigation.

  Mandrake stood in the middle of the bridge, his arms folded across his chest. As usual, he wasn’t sitting down. There wasn’t even a seat there for him to do so.

  “I want to know what happened, Sparks.” Mandrake scowled at the open comm, then looked over at Borage.

  The gray-haired engineering chief, his shirt as rumpled as ever, lifted his hands. “I haven’t been down there since this started.”

  “Something chewed through some wires, sir,” Sparks said over the comm.

  “Chewed?” This time, Mandrake looked at Kor.

  Kor resisted the urge to also lift his hands in innocence. Mandrake’s gaze shifted to his side, and his eyes narrowed.

  Chanda stood there, the quashi and more apples than Kor had expected gathered in her arms.

  “Let me take some of those,” he whispered, feeling guilty that he hadn’t realized she was struggling with so many. How had she made it up the ladder rungs?

  “That thing have teeth, Malhotra?” Mandrake asked.

  Was that Chanda’s last name? Kor was surprised the captain knew it. And a little embarrassed that he didn’t. But nobody had formally introduced them down in sickbay. Kor was glad for Mandrake’s knowledge, though, as he would hate for poor Chanda to simply be referred to as “girl” or “assistant.”

  “According to Dr. Blackthorn’s diagram, and the half-eaten apple in the grow room, yes,” Chanda said.

  Mandrake made an exasperated noise in the back of his throat. He was either suffering from rhinitis or displeased with the idea of laboratory animals—or were they considered pets?—noshing on his cables.

  “I find it unlikely that any of the quashi could have made it to Engineering, Captain,” Chanda added. “They have stubby legs and can move, and apparently climb a little, but I can’t imagine them traversing the ship for any reason. Unless there are apples in Engineering.”

  “That’s not where we usually grow them,” Borage said, turning—as several other officers had—to look curiously at Chanda and her furry charge.

  A couple of the men gave her a longer look up and down than was needed, and Kor gritted his teeth. He’d been on the verge of clobbering Grunter when he had walked into the grow room and had found him with his arms raised, looking like he meant to grab Chanda and drag her off. Like a space orc indeed. He understood that men outnumbered women ten to one on this ship—and the women that were among the mercenary crew had as many muscles as the men—but they had just had a stopover at a station. Anyone who was feeling horny could have procured the services of a prostitute there.

  “It’s probably a glitch in Engineering, sir,” Kor said, resisting the urge to step in front of Chanda and block the men’s considering gazes. Mandrake wasn’t considering her. Mostly, he looked annoyed. Not with her but with the situation, presumably. “Nothing to do with the animals,” Kor added.

  “Nevertheless, I want you to grab a life-signs detector and go down to Engineering to see if any extra readings come out from behind the machinery. If nothing else, Ms. Markovich and Dr. Keys will be pleased to get their missing animals back.”

  Kor doubted that. Neither of the women, and especially Dr. Keys, had been excited to become the recipients of the quashis—what was the proper plural for that word?—in the first place.

  “Me, sir?” Kor asked. “I’m your doctor, remember? Don’t you have a tracker who is more qualified for hunting down animals?”

  No need to mention that he had recently been on his hands and knees helping Chanda locate her missing animal.

  “There’s nobody in need of your services in sickbay at this time, and you are the one holding apples for the creatures.” Mandrake pointed at his hands.

  “Ah, yes, sir.”

  “Though I trust Lieutenant Sparks and Commander Borage will also be working on getting to the bottom of our glitch in Engineering,” Mandrake said, his gaze shifting to the chief engineer. Borage quailed a bit under the stern green eyes.

  Kor assumed Sparks was still on the comm and also quailing a little.

  “A life-signs detector,” Kor said. “Yes, sir. I’ll see what I can find.”

  “Good. Dismissed.”

  As Kor walked off the bridge, Chanda followed him and whispered, “Sorry about that.”

  “About what?” Kor asked, waiting for her so they could walk down the corridor together. He wasn’t sure when he’d started wanting to do that. Walk places with her. Possibly as soon as he’d seen her T-shirt. But definitely after she’d mentioned space orcs.

  “Following you onto the bridge and making you hold my apples. I’m sure that’s why you’re stuck with this assignment.”

  “You didn’t make me hold your apples. I wanted to hold them.” Kor smiled and shifted his armload of them.

  Chanda quirked an eyebrow toward him. “That kind of sounded dirty, but I guess monks don’t say dirty things, right?”

  “Depends on the monk. I was something of a rebel. I didn’t wear robes at the Paradise temple.”

  “They didn’t mind you being nude?” Her other eyebrow rose as she gave him a leer up and down.

  Even though it was a playful leer, it flustered him, and he stumbled, almost losing a few apples. Was it possible she was starting to enjoy walking places with him?

  “I wasn’t nude,” Kor said. “There were shorts. Underwear. Occasionally sandals.”

  “That’s it?”

  “It was a tropical climate.”

  “Hm.”

  Chanda looked at his chest, then smiled up at him. Kor tried to decide if she was flirting with him and imagining him shirtless. It had been a while since he’d been the recipient of sexual interest. Even when he’d wandered around the temple shirtless, it had rarely earned him ogles from his fellow monks.

  In case she was flirting, he tried his best winsome smile as he turned into the ladder well to head down to Engineering. Unfortunately, he was busy looking at her and clipped his shoulder on the corner. He pitched forward, lunging to catch a foot on a rung before tumbling into the hole. Somehow, he managed to keep ahold of all the apples, but he did clunk his head against the bulkhead.

  Chanda arched both eyebrows again at this display of clumsiness. He sighed to himself. If she had been flirting, he’d likely put an end to it.

  5

  “Are you sure you didn’t miscount?” a woman was asking as Chanda headed up the ramp of the pink shuttle to its open hatch. She didn’t think it was Ankari or Dr. Keys.

  “I do not miscount.” That was Dr. Keys.

  Chanda stepped inside, relieved to see the pink decor ended at the hatchway. The interior was a warm off-white with passenger seats and the navigation area up front, with cabinets, counters, and a curtained-off clinic along one side, the aisle on the other.

  “Is that one of the missing ones?” A young blonde-haired woman in grease-stained coveralls pointed at the quashi in Chanda’s arms.

  “No.” Ankari sighed as she looked back at Chanda. She, Keys, and the blonde woman were gathered outside the curtained clinic. “That’s our demo one. What are they called again, Chanda?”

  “Quashi. Or quashis. I don’t think Ko—Dr. Blackthorn found a definitive answer on how the plural is handled in his encyclopedia entry.”

  Chanda’s cheeks warmed as she worried one of the women would notice the name slip. Not that she was one of the mercenaries or part of the crew. Nobody had told her she had to addr
ess the people here by last name. And nobody had said she couldn’t start to find a particularly helpful and game-playing doctor charming.

  “Are they as soft as they look?” the blonde asked. “Can I pet one?”

  “More might escape if their cages are opened for handling.” Dr. Keys sniffed.

  “That one’s already out.” The blonde grinned and walked toward Chanda. “Hi, I’m Jamie. Are you the new girl?”

  “Chanda. I’m here on a provisional basis.”

  “That involves carting apples around?” Jamie tilted her head, noticing the fruit gathered in Chanda’s arms in addition to the quashi.

  Chanda was ready to put her load down somewhere. Unfortunately, Kor had parted ways with her to find that detector the captain had asked about. She had nobody else to carry things for her. And nobody else to tease about nudity.

  “I’m the animal wrangler today.” Chanda, aware of Ankari listening, was careful not to sound like she was complaining. In truth, she wasn’t. Feeding a cute furry animal certainly wasn’t the most arduous of tasks, though she hoped the company settled down to regular business soon so she could start proving her worth.

  Jamie reached out and ran a hand along the back of the quashi, careful not to bump its antennae. It—she, as Kor had arbitrarily decided—trilled. A chorus of answering trills surprised Chanda. They came from behind the curtains.

  Dr. Keys shook her head and muttered something. Chanda thought she caught the word “ridiculous.”

  “They may want some apples too,” Chanda said and walked forward to peer between the curtains.

  No less than two dozen more quashi waited in the clinic, the cages stacked haphazardly on a counter and exam table, some improvised from less than ideal materials. Still, the animals weren’t large and with only a few in each cage, they had plenty of room. Though it appeared they liked to hang out in clumps with their bodies pressed against each other. Kor had said they were from a freezing climate so they shouldn’t be cold. Maybe they simply liked each other’s company.

  “Can I help you feed them?” Jamie asked.

  “Of course.”

  “I grew up on a farm, but I’ve never seen creatures like these.”

  Ankari cleared her throat as Chanda and Jamie passed through the curtains. “I know it’s not exactly what you signed on for, Chanda, but could you go hunt for the three missing ones? I’ve got a bunch of calls I need to return before we’re too far out to speak to people without hours of lag, and Dr. Keys needs to… grumble.”

  “I need to collate my data for the promotional material you’re writing,” Keys said. “You are the one who requested actual data.”

  “This is true,” Ankari said. “Accuracy in marketing is good to have. Makes people more likely to trust you.”

  Chanda turned attentively toward Ankari, wondering if it was too soon to ask her questions about her marketing techniques, about how she had gotten the word out about her services. And how she’d convinced people to pay enough to make sure all the employees were compensated and her business grew profitable.

  “Ladies?” came a familiar voice from the ramp before Chanda could open her mouth. “Can I come in to look at your quashis?”

  “Did that sound dirty to anyone else?” Ankari asked.

  “No,” Keys said as Jamie said, “Yes.”

  Chanda stuck her head through the curtains and waved for Kor to come in. He’d snapped a small device to the side of his tablet—the life-signs detector the captain had mentioned?

  “Dr. Blackthorn practiced saying dirty things while he was at a temple where clothing wasn’t required,” Chanda explained as he walked in, his broad-shouldered form filling the aisle.

  His eyebrows twitched upward. “That’s not exactly how I explained my monastic days.”

  “No? That’s what I took away from the story. There are lots of quashis in here.” Chanda ducked back into the cage-filled clinic where Jamie had found a knife—no, that was a scalpel—and was cutting slices of apple. Happy trills sounded as she inserted them into the cages. The quashis shuffled forward, almost as one, and squished themselves together around the treats.

  “I need to take readings from one to get a baseline.” Kor turned his tablet toward the one Chanda had been carrying around.

  Even though Chanda wouldn’t mind having her arms free, she hadn’t yet stuck the animal in a cage. After all the time she had spent with the creature, she was tempted to name her.

  “So, you only want to see one of our quashis?” Jamie grinned over her shoulder.

  “Why do I get the feeling that the women in this shuttle would find anything dirty?” Kor asked.

  “Not all of us,” Keys muttered.

  Chanda set the fluffy quashi on the exam table for him.

  “I have gifts,” came a male voice from the hatchway.

  “Put them with the others, please,” Ankari said.

  Chanda looked up as one of the mercenaries walked through the curtains with a quashi tucked under each arm. He chomped on something as he entered. Gum? A fake strawberry scent wafted from him.

  “Where would you like your escaped critters?” he asked Jamie, then gave Chanda a curious look.

  Chanda didn’t think she had met the man yet, but that applied to most of the mercenaries on the ship thus far.

  “Ankari?” Jamie asked. “Just put them in the cages?”

  Ankari poked her head into the crowded clinic. “Yes. Thank you, Tick. Lauren promises to reward you copiously and vigorously tonight for your assistance in this matter.”

  “I—what?” came Dr. Keys’s startled voice from the back of the shuttle.

  Tick grinned. Was that truly his name? How awful.

  “I’m sure of that,” he said.

  “Does this mean my services won’t be needed?” Kor asked as Tick stepped in, handing the creatures off to Jamie to slip into cages with the others. They trilled cheerfully at the reunion.

  “Your services, Doc?” Tick asked. “Did some of them have ouchies?"

  “Not that I’m aware of, but the captain decided I should go looking for the missing ones.” Kor waved his tablet.

  “Oh? Did you piss him off? That seems like a job for a tracker. Or a private.”

  “I don’t think so,” Kor said. “Though it’s possible I didn’t express enough enthusiasm for his green drinks when he offered to share one with me.”

  Tick’s nose wrinkled. “Nobody is enthused about those. Not even Ankari, and she actually cares about his feelings.”

  “I drink them occasionally,” Ankari said. “They’re not that bad. Tick, there’s a third one missing. I don’t suppose you caught sign of it too?”

  Tick shook his head. “Just these two. They were moseying around the shuttle bay out there. Good thing nobody was planning to take off, or they would have been blown out into space.”

  Chanda shuddered at the idea of the small creatures being killed.

  “The computer would have sensed it if there were life-forms in the shuttle bay,” Jamie said, “and wouldn’t have let the air out.”

  “You sure those count as life-forms?” Tick asked. “And not ambulatory mops?”

  “They move a lot for mops.” Ankari looked to Kor. “Doctor, maybe if you ran your detector out in the shuttle bay, you could find our third one. We appreciate the help, by the way. I didn’t mean for Viktor—the captain—to be inconvenienced by our delivery.”

  “That isn’t the delivery we ordered,” Keys called in. “He wouldn’t have been inconvenienced by my rats.”

  Ankari waved dismissively toward her. “Do you want Chanda to help you search, Doctor? I haven’t had a chance to set up a project for her to work on yet, so she’s available.”

  “I’m available,” Chanda said agreeably, forgetting marketing thoughts for the moment. She ought to wait to start questioning Ankari until she had been here a while anyway.

  “Reckon the doc will be glad to hear that.” Tick winked. “Or he would be if he wasn’t all
monkly. Striker, at least, will be glad to hear about the availability of an extra female.”

  “I’ve met Striker,” Chanda said.

  “Have you? I guess that means you’re not available to him then.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Amazing how quickly that man alienates women.”

  “Not just women,” Kor murmured, waving his detector over the quashi on the table.

  Jamie had tucked the two others into cages and was doling out more apples.

  “I’m ready,” Kor told Chanda.

  Chanda nodded and followed him to the shuttle exit, leaving her furry friend behind, though with some reluctance. She’d already grown attached to her charge.

  She trailed Kor around the bay as he pointed his detector under and behind the vessels parked within. Several gray shuttles displaying prominent weapons were lined up next to the pink one. They were far more what one would expect from mercenary craft.

  “I don’t detect any more quashis in the shuttle bay,” Kor said after completing a circuit. “Not that I expected to find one Sergeant Tick had missed. He has a good reputation as a tracker and for finding things in any city or wilderness. On one’s own ship seems a fairly easy environment to search.”

  “The problem with the chewed cables arose in Engineering, didn’t it?”

  “Yes, we’ll head there next. I just thought we should look where the others were found. The article mentioned that they’re social animals rather than solitary creatures.”

  “Maybe a particularly fine-smelling apple in Engineering lured one away from its brethren.” Chanda looked at Kor as they left the bay, tempted to ask why he’d left a tropical temple on Paradise. Had something lured him away?

  But it only took a few seconds to walk to Engineering, and three mercenaries worked inside, so Chanda didn’t ask her question.

  A thunderous bang came from off to the side, and Kor whirled, almost dropping his tablet as he whipped out a pistol and pointed it.

  “Sorry,” a young man said, lifting his hands. He was up on a catwalk above large machinery and had accidentally dropped a huge toolbox over the side.