The Ruins of Karzelek (The Mandrake Company series Book 4) Read online

  The Ruins of Karzelek (Mandrake Company)

  Title Page

  Foreword

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  The Ruins of Karzelek

  (a Mandrake Company novel)

  by Ruby Lionsdrake

  Copyright © 2014 Ruby Lionsdrake

  Foreword

  Thank you for picking up a new Mandrake Company adventure. As with the other novels, The Ruins of Karzelek can be read as a stand-alone, but a couple of our previous heroes are back as side characters, and there are a few references to the earlier stories. I hope you will enjoy revisiting some of the gang.

  Thank you to my beta readers, Cindy Wilkinson and Sarah Engelke, for their help with the manuscript. In addition, Sarah took on the role of editor this time around, so an extra big thank you to her.

  Chapter 1

  Kalish Blackwell had never planned a heist before. As she studied the satellite images, Mercrusean tangleworms wriggled and writhed in her stomach, and she worried that she would throw up. Again. The ship’s compact floor-cleaning robot buzzed and whirled, dealing with the last mess.

  “Some thief you are,” she muttered.

  “Kalish?” came her mother’s voice from the freighter’s rear hatch.

  “In the library.” Kalish took a deep breath and wiped her brow, not wanting her mother to see her nerves, not when she had been arguing and promising that they could make this work.

  “Library?” Mom ducked to step through the hatch, her single blonde-gray braid swinging past her shoulder. “Your insistence in calling three books and a computer terminal a library is odd, don’t you think? Especially considering there’s a lavatory in the corner.” She smiled, though it was not a heartfelt gesture. The pistol, laser knife, and multitool belted at her waist spoke of her military past, as did the tattoos running up her lean forearms, but uncharacteristic uncertainty lurked in her blue eyes, eyes tight with worry, the creases at the corners deeper than usual.

  “There are thirteen books,” Kalish said. “Fifteen if you include the atlases.” She kept herself from saying anything further, from bristling with her natural instinct to defend the ship. It might not be some finance lord’s yacht, but she owned it outright as of six months ago, and she was damned proud of that fact.

  “No argument about the lav, though?”

  “It folds into the bulkhead. You barely notice it. And I know you were glad it was there the other week when Tia had that stomach bug and was doing dreadful things in the main lav.”

  “I suppose.” Mom frowned at the images of the mining camp displayed in the air above Kalish’s tablet. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  No. “It’s the only way to get Dad back. I thought we’d agreed to that.”

  “I know. We did. I’m just worried about you. Those men in there—” Mom waved at the thick walls of the compound that were displayed in the three-dimensional map, all of them lined with antipersonnel and anti-spacecraft armament. “I’m sure it’s been months, if not years, since some of them saw a woman. If you’re captured...”

  “It’s a mining camp, Mom. Not a prison.”

  “What’s the difference out here?” Mom jerked her head toward the ceiling, or perhaps to the stars and the pinkish-red Rimfire Nebula stretching above Karzelek, the dust ball of a planet they were visiting. “If anything other than the supply ship visits them regularly, I would be shocked.”

  “I know, and I understand your concern, but—” Kalish stopped herself from saying the miners would probably just shoot the intruders instead of worrying about rape. That wouldn’t comfort her mother. Instead, she finished with, “It’s not as if I’ll be going in alone.”

  That was the wrong thing to say too. Mom’s lips twisted downward so far that they were in danger of falling off her face. “Oh, yes, you’ll have a band of musclebound mercenaries at your back. I’m so comforted.”

  “I chose them carefully.” Sort of. Mandrake Company was one of the few outfits that had a reputation for snubbing finance lords, and they had been finishing up an assignment nearby. Finding quality people out here in the hairy armpit of the system wasn’t easy.

  “Mercenaries are mercenaries. They work for money. If they get one sniff of what you’re after, they’ll turn on you faster than a jackal on wounded prey.”

  “Have I mentioned how much your positivity warms my heart and buoys my soul, Mom?”

  “Not recently.”

  “There’s a reason for that.”

  Mom smiled, however forced it appeared, then came forward to clasp her hand. Their skin contrasted, Mom’s ivory fingers around Kalish’s brown. “I know how much you’re worried about your father and want to save him. Trust me, I’m worried too, even if we haven’t talked that much of late. I just wish you’d given me a chance to work the numbers more, find another way.”

  Kalish turned the handclasp into a hug, but couldn’t keep from objecting. “Another way to come up with a million aurums? I know you’re a finance specialist these days, Mom, but you can’t magic numbers like that into the company bank account.”

  “A loan might have—”

  “We don’t have that kind of collateral, and you said yourself, nobody’s going to finance treasure hunters, not even treasure hunters with a proven record for finding valuable loot. It’s going to cost us enough to hire these mercenaries.” Over two years’ profit, to be precise. In addition to finding the item Dad’s kidnapper wanted, Kalish hoped they might find some relics her family could sell so they might break even somehow.

  “I’m just worried that—”

  “Kaaaaylish,” came Tia’s drawn-out call from somewhere near the front of the ship. They probably could have heard her from anywhere on the planet.

  Mom stepped back, brushing the back of her hand over her eyes. Kalish’s stomach clenched anew at the realization of how worried her mother was. She had always been so tough, so... soldierly, even after retiring from the Galactic Conglomeration Fleet and switching careers. To see moisture in her eyes rattled Kalish.

  “Your sister’s calling you.”

  “Yes, I heard,” Kalish said dryly.

  “You don’t always. When you’re engrossed in research.”

  “Oh, I always hear her. I just don’t always respond.” Kalish walked to the corridor, ducking her head and stepping through the hatchway.

  “Kaaaaylish,” Tia repeated, this time even more loudly.

  “I heard you, I heard you. And those miners will too, if you yell any louder.” Her little sister was twenty now, but sometimes she seemed like the same twelve-year-old girl she had been when Kalish first left home.

  “Just figured you’d want to know your mercenaries are here.”

  More nerves squirmed through Kalish’s belly, but she managed a calm, “Thank you,” and turned for the exit hatch on the side of the ship, rather than the bridge.

  She opened the locker in the bulkhead and pulled out her weapons belt, complete with laser knife and two laser pistols. She stuck one of the ship’s comm units to her collar and also eyed the rifles, thinking about taking one of them, too, but she had a suspicion one shouldn’t greet one’s potential employees with arms. Not with really big arms, anyway.

  Kalish waved at the sensor by th
e exit, and a shish-clank sounded as the seal disengaged. The hatch rose upward, catching on something. It continued upward, but the grinding scrape made her wince.

  Kalish tapped the button-sized comm, ostensibly to test it but mostly to complain. “You landed a little close to the boulders, don’t you think?”

  “You said to make sure we’re as hidden as possible,” Tia said brightly.

  “Hidden is good, but so is being able to take flight again. It’s tough to leave orbit with one of your hatches missing.”

  “You’re so fussy, Kay. I’ll send a bot out to fix it. Now go meet those big boys. Maybe you’ll find one to replace Mingus, and you won’t be so grumpy all the time.”

  Kalish snorted and stepped outside. As if this was the time to shop for boyfriends. Even if Dad hadn’t been in danger, she wouldn’t have been eager to jump into bed with any man after dealing with the betrayal of that slug-sucking ass Tom Mingus.

  She climbed the boulder, glowering at the fresh scrape in the granite, courtesy of their hatch. The chill, dry air of the planet wrapped around her as soon as she escaped the ship’s environment, and she shivered even with her jacket and radiant-heat thermal unders. When she reached the top of the boulder, the wind struck her as well, harsh air that scraped across the rocks, blowing tumbleweeds and dust. The field of boulders stretched for miles in all directions, punctuated occasionally by spiky cactuses sprouting in protected alcoves. She glanced back at the ship to make sure the camouflage system she had paid handsomely for was in place. The Divining Rod’s usual color was a dull gray-green, but it matched the dusty brown of its surroundings now. From twenty feet away, Kalish had no trouble picking it out, but to a ship flying by overhead, it ought to blend in with the boulders. A sensor-dampening shield protected the hull as well, so from a distance, it should appear as nothing except boring ground to a ship’s computers.

  She started across the top of the boulder, toward a small field a quarter of a mile away, the coordinates she had given the mercenaries. But the hatch opened again, and she paused. Mom walked out with a laser rifle cradled in her arms, her face grim.

  “I’m your backup,” she said to Kalish’s look of inquiry.

  “You think a bunch of musclebound men will be intimidated by one woman?”

  “They’ll be intimidated by Carl,” Mom said, patting the rifle. “You talk to them. I’ll be out here, watching your back.”

  Kalish smiled and nodded, knowing her mother was still a fine shot.

  But in the meantime, she had better hurry. The mercenaries had not been paid yet, and standing out there in a boulder field might make them impatient. Kalish scrambled across the rocks, grunting as she banged her knees and scraped her hands on the uneven boulders. Now and then, her noises scared lizards basking in the meager sun, and they scuttled into holes and crevices. Some of them were poisonous, she had read, but it was the creatures under the planet’s surface that she needed to worry more about, assuming they got to that point in this mission.

  “Hullo, pretty lady,” came a man’s drawling voice from off to her side.

  Kalish jumped, nearly pitching off her boulder. She had been focused on the clearing ahead and hadn’t thought to watch for people earlier than that. Still, that didn’t keep her from spinning, her pistol leaping into her hand with speed that would impress an Old Earth gunslinger. The Fleet might have rejected her for having a couple more inches around the waist than their sleek, athletic female soldiers were supposed to have, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t take care of herself.

  “Easy, pretty lady,” the voice came again, and a big man ambled out from the shadows between two rocks, his hands held out, though he wore an unconcerned smirk. Fine mesh battle armor covered his torso, so her laser probably wouldn’t do anything anyway, unless she struck him in the face. The ugly, spiky hairdo wouldn’t protect him from having an eyeball burned out.

  “You with Mandrake Company?” Kalish asked, not lowering her pistol. She doubted he was a miner—they wouldn’t have battle armor that expensive—but she found herself hoping he wasn’t one of her mercenaries, especially when his gaze slid down her body, lingering on her breasts. Maybe Mom had been right. Maybe this was a big mistake.

  “Sergeant Striker, Chief of Boom,” he said, then bowed.

  Kalish snorted. She had thought only the Chinese mercenaries bowed—they had a reputation for being polite right up to the moment they shot a person. At least he was only a sergeant; maybe that meant someone higher ranking had come down too. Someone who could slap him on the head for his wandering eyes. Wishful thinking perhaps, but she said, “Take me to your leader, Sergeant Boom.”

  “Sergeant Striker,” he corrected. “Chief of Boom. I’m your munitions expert. I can make your world explode.”

  Before she could decide if she wanted to respond to the idiotic comment, a quiet voice sounded over the sergeant’s comm-patch. “Striker, you’re not harassing our employer, are you?”

  It was a woman’s voice. Kalish’s hopes rose. Maybe there was someone who could and would slap Striker in the back of the head.

  “‘Course not,” Striker drawled. “Just greeting her. Like Commander Thatcher said to do.”

  “He said to locate her, not greet her. You are not the welcoming committee.”

  “Well, she’s pretty.”

  Kalish shook her head at this logic, or lack of it. She started across the rocks again, assuming the rest of the mercenaries were waiting in the clearing. Unfortunately, Striker hopped onto her boulder and matched her pace, smiling down at her.

  “All the more reason for you not to be in charge of welcoming her,” the woman said, her voice dry. “Escort her to us, please.”

  Kalish had already caught sight of the top of someone’s head. She ignored Striker’s proffered arm, climbing down the last boulder on her own. The woman and three other men waited in the clearing, all carrying rifles, all waiting calmly. They wore civilian clothes rather than any sort of uniform, with the tree design on the comm-patches on their shoulders the only thing that identified them as part of the same unit. The rifles, the battle armor, and the muscular, athletic builds of the men made them look like they could take care of themselves.

  The woman wasn’t quite as lean, with an ample chest not unlike Kalish’s own, but she seemed comfortable in the situation and knew how to hold the rifle in her arms. She appeared to be in her early thirties. Two of the men looked older, though Kalish doubted any of them were over forty, but she hoped the woman was in charge.

  It was one of the men who stepped forward to speak. “Greetings, Ms. Kalish Blackwell,” he said, his tone as formal as his words. “I am Commander Gregor Thatcher.” He was tall and lean, appearing slightly more academic than brawny, and he paused, tilting his head to regard her. It was almost as if he expected her to recognize his name. As if she kept abreast of mercenary officers.

  “Hi,” Kalish said.

  The woman elbowed Thatcher in the ribs.

  “I am the senior officer here as well as the most skilled Mandrake Company pilot,” the commander continued. “I am a combat flight specialist with over ten thousand hours in the cockpit and more than a thousand kills on my record.”

  “He’s real modest too,” the man in the back said, a broad, muscular fellow who was chewing on something. Gum? He offered a friendly wink.

  Thatcher looked coolly at him. “Ms. Blackwell requested two pilots. I am merely informing her of my qualifications.”

  “I’m the other pilot,” the woman said. “Val Calendula. Most of my kills on record involve dangerous dust bunnies creeping out from under the controls in my old freighter’s cockpit, but I’ve gotten pretty good at distracting enemies so Thatcher can swoop in and more effectively annihilate them.”

  This time Thatcher frowned at her, though his gaze was significantly less cooler. “You do yourself a disservice by underselling your capabilities.”

  “Maybe so, but I thought it would be a nice contrast to the overselling you
did.”

  Thatcher tilted his head again. “I merely stated the truth. My kills are a matter of public record.”

  “Never mind.” Val pointed at the gum-chewer. “That’s Sergeant Tick, infantry soldier and tracking and sneaking specialist.”

  Tick, chewing happily at his gum, touched two fingers to his brow in a semblance of a salute. “Ma’am.”

  “You’ve met Sergeant Striker,” Val said, “who could be a gentleman and take a few steps to your side instead of breathing down your neck and staring at your chest.”

  Striker frowned and took a small step to the side.

  “And finally,” Val said, pointing to the last mercenary, a man who stood behind the group, either taking sensor readings with his tablet or playing a game, “this is—”

  The man interrupted her with a sneeze.

  “Lieutenant Sniffles Thomlin,” Tick said around a grin.

  Thomlin lifted his eyes, glowered briefly at his comrade, then said, “I prefer Sedgwick, thank you.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Striker muttered.

  “He’s intelligence,” Val explained. “You asked for someone with security hacking experience. Well, Thomlin loves computers.”

  “And they love him,” Striker said, snickering.

  Another sneeze interrupted Thomlin’s attempt to turn his glower onto Striker. He glared balefully at a stunted cactus with a flower starting to bloom on its tip.

  “Thomlin is allergic to plants,” Val said, “and, ah...” She looked at him, raising her brows.

  “Dust, moss, mold, pollen, dogs, bees, perfume, gold, chromium, shellfish, sulfites, peanuts, mangos, and strawberries.” He scratched his head. “Did I say cats?”

  “Oh, that was a given,” Tick said.

  The list of weaknesses surprised Kalish, because Thomlin didn’t look at all frail. He appeared less rough-and-tough than the other mercenaries, because of his button-down shirt and pressed jacket and slacks, but he had broad, powerful shoulders, a tall frame, and a strong, angular face with a jaw sturdy enough to take a few punches. His bronze skin, gray-green eyes, and short, black hair suggested a mixed heritage, perhaps not unlike Kalish’s own.