Mercenary Courage (Mandrake Company) Read online

  Had he been thinking of telling her the business had to go for a long time? Or was it because of how stressful and dangerous the Nimbus mission had been? Had he been influenced because he had lost men and nearly lost others? Or, even worse, could it be because he had overheard her mother’s objections? Just because Mom didn’t understand how good of a man he was didn’t mean Ankari felt that way. Even her mother had objected more to the ship and the lifestyle it enforced on Ankari than Viktor himself, especially after she had pointed out how much he meant to her and how much she cared for him.

  She turned the corner into the corridor that led to the atrium, but almost smacked into the shoulder of a security guard.

  “Oh, sorry,” she said, belatedly realizing that however Lauren and Jamie had found their way onto the floor with the pet supply store it had not been through the main entrance.

  “This area is off-limits for the investigation, ma’am,” the guard said, his voice hollow. He wore a mask that covered his nose and mouth, with a filter cartridge resting against his jaw.

  “Yes, I forgot.” Ankari peered past his shoulder. Whatever investigating was going on, it was not apparent. The atrium lights were also dimmed, with only a few leaves on trees exuding a soft nighttime glow. The usual squawk of the birds and those miniature dragons silent. The creatures had either been gathered up and stored somewhere else, or they were sleeping for the night. She did not see any people inside the area. “Thanks,” she added, and turned back the way she had come.

  Any route out of the main elevator would likely be guarded. Remembering the cargo elevator, Ankari wound through the corridors, trying to recall its location. Not all of the floors were laid out the same, however, and she had to stop to pull out her tablet to call up a map.

  “The cargo elevator? Or the stairs?” came Viktor’s voice from behind her.

  She jumped, nearly dropping her tablet. For a big man, Viktor had a knack for stealth.

  By the time she turned to face him, she had composed her face. “I thought I told you I didn’t need your help.” She sounded bitchy, and she knew it, but his words had stung her, and she could not bring herself to apologize.

  “Perhaps not,” Viktor said, “but do you deny that your microbiologist does?”

  “I hope she doesn’t.” Ankari grimaced. Lauren had sounded like she was either in trouble or in the process of getting herself in trouble. It was so out of character for her meek friend, that Ankari wondered if whatever scheme they were engaged in had been Jamie’s idea. Either that, or Ankari had underestimated how badly Lauren needed those rats. She couldn’t imagine why they were that important. Hadn’t the testing moved beyond rats? She could have sworn Lauren had mentioned something about starting human trials.

  Viktor’s brows twitched upward slightly.

  The familiar gesture—unless he was truly furious, he always showed only the slightest of displays of emotion—tugged at her heart. Damn him. Why had he started talking about kicking her off the ship when things had been so wonderful? At least, she had thought they had been wonderful. Maybe he had come to mean more to her than she did to him.

  “The cargo elevator,” Ankari said tersely.

  “This way.” Viktor stepped past her, leading the way around a corner and down a new corridor.

  “How is it that you know your way around when you just got here and I’ve been here for two weeks?” she snapped, more irritated at the morning as a whole than at his willingness to help. Wasn’t it too early in the day to have decided the morning as a whole had gone to hell? No, not in this case.

  “I saw the elevator yesterday when I was on this floor,” Viktor said without looking back. “The hospital takes up most of the starboard side.”

  Ankari’s step faltered. She felt like an ass. Viktor had been through hell lately, and she was giving him more hell. She took a deep breath and tried to lock her emotions—her hurt—into a closet in the back of her mind.

  Viktor had reached the cargo elevator and called it to their floor by the time she caught up. Wordlessly, they stepped inside. Though they stood side-by-side, facing the doors, they did not speak. It was much different than their previous elevator experience.

  On the sixth floor, they stepped out into a black corridor. At their movement, the opaque ceiling panels began to glow softly, but this area definitely had not seen visitors in a while. Viktor took them through a number of narrow, gray service corridors, glancing once at his tablet—ah, he did need a map, after all, for the floors he had not been on. They came out on the balcony overlooking the atrium and the tiers of shops below them, all closed, the lights dimmed. In the weeks Ankari had been on the station, she had never seen this area deserted. They were only one floor down from one of the casino levels, which were busy places at any hour of the day. Though a few beeps and dings drifted down from machines up there, she didn’t hear any signs of human activity. She recalled the guard’s mask and tried not to shudder.

  “Over there.” Viktor pointed to the far side of the balcony.

  Even on the sixth floor, the mighty oaks, aspens, and Grenavinian pines growing up from the bottom had thick trunks, with branches and leaves or needles filling much of the center space in the atrium, so Ankari had to take a couple of steps to the side and stand on her tiptoes to see through the foliage to where he was pointing. A throng of people had gathered in front of one of the shops. Even though the illumination was dim over there, flashlight beams danced about.

  Someone yelled, “We’re not going anywhere, not until the vermin inside there are incinerated, with the ashes jettisoned out an airlock.”

  “Uh,” Ankari said. “I’m starting to get a notion of why Lauren might be up here.”

  Why a crowd of people wanted to incinerate vermin, she had no idea, but if the only source of lab rats was in danger....

  Ankari jogged along the balcony, heading for the two-dozen men and women gathered in front of the pet store. Even if she had told Viktor she did not need his help, she was glad for his silent presence trotting along behind her. She had not missed that he had taken the time to snap on his weapons belt before following her into the station.

  As soon as she rounded the foliage and had a better view, Ankari recognized Jamie’s two blonde braids at the back of the crowd. The straight, dark, shoulder-length hair beside her had to belong to Lauren, though she was not wearing her usual white lab coat. Rather, it looked like she had come out in her pajamas.

  At the far side of the crowd, two reporters were covering the situation while small spherical cameras hovered in the air, recording them. Several security officers stood between the crowd and the reporters, some with shields and holding self-guided grenades full of tear gas, or perhaps sedatives. Ankari could not tell. They pointed at the knot of people, some shaking their heads, some arguing. Oddly, they did not advance on the crowd. The security men and the news people were wearing air-filtering masks. Some of the people in the crowd wore masks, too, and Ankari slowed down before she reached her people, her earlier fears of contagions coming to mind.

  “Lauren,” she called softly, not wanting to attract the news crew’s attention—not that she considered herself newsworthy. “Jamie?”

  Lauren did not seem to hear her, but Jamie turned and waved. Her eyes crinkled in what might have been a smile, but she, too, wore a mask.

  “We seem to be underdressed,” Viktor observed.

  Ankari waved for her people to join them. “We should have been buying masks instead of spending hours exploring the shower.”

  “Well, it did have the two heads. There was much to explore.”

  Usually, she appreciated Viktor’s dry humor, but she only shook her head now. “What’s happening?” she asked as soon as Jamie approached, dragging Lauren.

  “They want to kill all of the rats,” Lauren blurted. “Other rodentia and the Mustelids, too, but my primary concern is the rats.”

  “Why?” Viktor asked.

  She blinked up at him, as if he was crazy for
not knowing. Or perhaps a tad simple. “Because I need them,” Lauren said. “The store was closed yesterday and the day before, so I was unable to get the ones I need.”

  “‘Morning, Captain,” Jamie said, the first to acknowledge that neither woman had seen him for weeks. “She’s afraid those people will incinerate the rats she wants to inject with experimental gut bugs. Personally, I’m not sure which is a worst fate.”

  Lauren frowned at her. “Don’t be ridiculous. The last batch of rats lived twice as long as the average, and after six weeks, they were able to complete the maze tests eighty-four percent more quickly than before.”

  “I thought you were past the rat trials,” Ankari said, frowning at the back of the crowd. The person who had been shouting before was holding something aloft, a can with a string—or maybe a fuse—dangling from it.

  “That looks like a homemade explosive,” Viktor said. “It could take out the balcony at the least. At the worst, it could compromise the station.”

  “I was past them,” Lauren said, seemingly oblivious to the danger in the crowd. “But I’m ready to test the new strain I’ve put together, and I can’t access my men.”

  “Your men?” Ankari asked.

  “Actually, they’re his men.” Jamie pointed at Viktor.

  “My men?” Viktor asked blandly, though his eyes remained on the person with the bomb.

  “My volunteers.” Lauren crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Viktor. “Corporal Vukovic, Sergeant Journey, and Lieutenant Frog. They received the first course of suppositories before you announced your Nimbus mission. They were supposed to report in daily for follow-up examinations, not rush off into battle.”

  “Lieutenant Frog?” Viktor rubbed his head. “Suppositories?”

  Ah, so Lauren had moved on to human trials. It wasn’t that surprising that the men hadn’t informed their captain that they had volunteered to go first, but it was surprising that Ankari hadn’t received more details on this. She had been working alongside Lauren for weeks, albeit focusing more on marketing, lining up clients, and replying to inquiries.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you’d selected men?” she asked.

  “I did. I’m certain of it.” Lauren glanced at Jamie, who shrugged back. “Back when we were still on the ship, I mentioned it. I haven’t brought it up lately, since you’ve been busy mooning over your missing captain, but surely you’ve heard me grousing about the lack of reports I should have been receiving.”

  “Mooning?” Viktor appeared faintly pleased at this information.

  Ankari did remember grousing, but Lauren always groused. She had tuned much of it out.

  “You chose the mercenaries for the first trials?” Ankari asked. What if one or more of her subjects had experienced an adverse reaction on the eve of battle? Or during battle? She almost asked if the men who had died had been a part of the experiment, but no, the names Lauren had mentioned hadn’t been on the list of injured or killed.

  “Yes. They are mostly healthy, aside from all the alcohol they consume.”

  “Stay back,” the man with the explosive said, waving the device in the air. Several others echoed his warnings, they, too, clutching homemade incendiary devices.

  Viktor’s pistol had appeared in his hand, and he looked like he was thinking of shooting the ringleader in the back of the head.

  “Let Security handle it,” Ankari whispered. “People are looking for reasons to throw you in jail, remember.”

  “I haven’t forgotten. But we’re all at risk if—”

  “Lower your bombs and step away from them,” one of the security men ordered as he tapped a pistol at his belt. “We don’t wish to harm civilians, but your actions threaten Midway 5, and they must be stopped.”

  “What must be stopped is allowing vermin on this station. If there’s a plague, they’re the source. Rats have always been known for carrying disease.”

  A plague? Rats? Did this fellow know something Ankari did not, or was he reacting irrationally out of fear?

  “We demand that you open these shop doors and let us in to exterminate all of the rodents,” the man continued.

  “Even if we wished to give in to your demands, each storekeeper pays for the rent in our spaces and sets his or her own access code for the security barrier.” The security man waved toward the shimmering force field that allowed one to see the goods near the front of the shop but kept anyone from entering when it was up.

  “Then find the owner.”

  The security men and women conferred with each other.

  “I’m surprised they don’t just shoot that blowhard,” Jamie said.

  “If the explosive is made from unstable compounds,” Viktor said, “and that’s often the case with homemade bombs, it could go off if it’s dropped.”

  “Let them blow themselves up,” Lauren growled. “They don’t have any reason to threaten the contents of that store.”

  “Or the rats you want for your experiments?” Ankari asked.

  “The rats I’ve been trying to purchase for two days now, yes. I’ve sent written and voice messages, and have only received auto-responders. Can you help me get into the shop before anything untoward happens?” Lauren might have called Ankari that morning, but she was looking toward Viktor now. “There must be a back door.”

  “The coffee shop had one,” Ankari said, thinking of her adventure with the Fleet captain’s tablet. Viktor wasn’t the only one who should avoid gaining the attention of security and the news crew.

  “Any other doors would presumably be locked,” Viktor said. “Burglars and arsonists are usually bright enough to check the doors before creating a scene that draws reporters.”

  “But Jamie said she could bypass the door-locking systems,” Lauren said, turning her imploring gaze on her accomplice. Ankari could not believe these rats mattered so much to her. Couldn’t they put some traps behind the trash bins in the shuttle bay and collect a few that way?

  “I said I would download the technical manual for the security system that they’re using here,” Jamie said. “It failed to include a lock-picking section.”

  Viktor had been looking at the map on his tablet again. He snapped it shut, eyed the crowd for a long moment, like he was still thinking of shooting the troublemakers, but ultimately said, “This way.”

  He turned, heading back the way they had come. Ankari hesitated, both because she questioned whether it was worth it to poke their noses into trouble over a pet store and because she hadn’t invited Viktor along. Now he was in charge?

  She might have hesitated, but neither Lauren nor Jamie did. They trotted after Viktor, leaving her alone with the bomb-happy crowd.

  “Nothing good is going to come of this,” she grumbled, hurrying to catch up.

  Viktor turned down a narrow corridor between a manicure salon and a uniform store. A few dim lights were on in the clothing shop, and Ankari glimpsed a green-and-blue camouflage jacket-and-trousers set with vibrant orange lightning bolt patches on the shoulders. She couldn’t imagine who the clientele for that might be, but it plucked at her humor. Maybe she would get them as a joke for Viktor’s birthday—if he had not asked her to leave the ship by then.

  Grimacing, Ankari followed the others through a doorway to the right, surprised it was open, since a plaque read, Employees only. They followed a utilitarian corridor running behind the shops, parallel to the balcony. Viktor passed five doors before stopping at the sixth.

  “This is it,” he said.

  Unlike the front, which allowed the display of the shop goods while keeping people out, this was a normal metal door, the kind that automatically slid into the wall to open, assuming it recognized the person trying to walk through it. Not surprisingly, it did not recognize any of them.

  With her tablet in hand and the contents of a technical manual floating in the air above it, Jamie stopped in front of the door. She frowned as she peered at either side of it. “Oh. The control panel is on the inside.” She looked up
. “There’s a camera and sensor up there.”

  Viktor pressed something flat against the door, close to the jamb. The small metallic device stuck to the metal and a faint hum sounded from within it. It might look like nothing more than a magnet to a casual observer, but Ankari remembered seeing some of the richer gangs back home using something similar to break into houses and warehouses.

  “Is that a Lock Master 8000?” she asked, surprised that Viktor had brought such a thing with him. “I didn’t know the company specialized in breaking and entering.”

  “I haven’t broken anything.” A click and a hiss came from the door, and it slid aside. Viktor grabbed his device before it could disappear into the wall. “Sometimes the men get arrested on shore leave. Depending on the planet or station, it’s usually easier to break them out than deal with the legal system.”

  “Or pay fines?”

  “They usually want you to pay bail and agree not to leave the planet until the men have been tried. That doesn’t work with my schedule.” After a quick glance into the dark store, Viktor drew his pistol and put his back against the jamb so the door could not slide shut. “Security control panel is there.” He told Jamie and jerked his chin toward the inside wall. “Be quick. We’re not alone.”

  A questioning chirp came from somewhere in the store, followed by a growl and some chittering from a corner.

  “I could have told you that from the smell,” Ankari whispered, wrinkling her nose at the odor of animal droppings that wafted out. If the store had been closed for the last two days, and nobody had come by to tend to the furry, feathered, and scaled inhabitants, that made sense.

  “Human noises,” Viktor said, not taking his gaze from the interior as Jamie squeezed past him. Some light from the balcony bled through the force field, the crowd of people visible as silhouettes. “Inside,” he added quietly.

  How he knew, Ankari could only guess. She did not see anyone standing in the store, but shelf-lined aisles to either side blocked her view.

  “Ugh,” Jamie said, frowning at the security panel. “Less than a minute to input the correct code, or an alarm will sound.” She held up her tablet, some hacking program running. Ankari knew little about technological thievery; her expertise ended at pockets.