The Ruins of Karzelek (The Mandrake Company series Book 4) Page 11

  “You’ve been bunking with Striker too often,” Sedge told Tick.

  “Probably true. I’ll leave you with him next time, and I’ll go sleep with our employer.”

  Kalish had pulled out her tablet to study the maps again, specifically the area they were hovering over. If she had heard any of the penetration conversation, it wasn’t apparent. “He should have broken through by now,” she murmured. “Unless our cartographers weren’t very accurate.” She grimaced. “Given the pencil nature of those maps, that could be a possibility, but you would think they would strive for accuracy. They have to have good maps to program their mining ships to go in there, right? Lazy charts could mean a ship crashing into a wall.”

  “A reasonable argument,” Sedge said.

  “The laser has broken through,” Thatcher announced. “All of the dust is muting the sensors, but there’s at least an air pocket. Perhaps more.”

  Kalish leaned forward, her eyes intent on the view screen, even though the dust still hid everything—they could barely see the back of the other shuttle. She clasped Sedge’s hand. He wasn’t sure she was even aware of doing so, but the simple touch sent a spark of electricity through his body. He returned the handclasp, gently wrapping his fingers around hers. He rubbed his thumb along the back of her hand, enjoying the smooth warmth of her skin.

  Val’s fingers danced over her panel, and she eyed the display to the side of her seat. “Our sensors are working, Gregor. Definitely detecting a big empty space in there.”

  “Confirmed,” Thatcher said. “The laser caused a few rockfalls that we may have to clear along the way, but with sufficient pilot attentiveness, the hole is large enough for us to fly through.”

  “I promise to be attentive and not scrape up the captain’s shuttle,” Val said. “You can even send me a list if you want.”

  Tick snorted.

  Sedge barely heard the conversation. Oh, he knew they were about to head into the mountain, but he was far too aware of Kalish standing beside him to do more than follow the gist. The warmth of her hand, her shoulder brushing against his upper arm, the way her braids of hair fell over her shoulder and traced the curve of her breasts... It was a good thing Thatcher wasn’t physically present to observe this inappropriateness.

  “We’re ready whenever you are,” Val said when a couple of minutes passed without a comment from the other shuttle.

  “Excellent,” Thatcher said. “I am transmitting the list.”

  Val rolled her eyes and mouthed, “I was joking,” to Tick.

  “I don’t think that works with him,” Tick said.

  “Entering the orifice now.”

  A snicker from Striker drifted over the comm as the shuttle floated toward the gaping hole now visible in the side of the cliff.

  “I’ll refrain from further penetration jokes and let you concentrate,” Tick said. “Oh, there’s your list.” He poked at the comm panel, and no less than fifteen numbered items floated in the air beside Val.

  “Fabulous,” Val muttered, and eased the shuttle forward.

  “We’re going in. Finally.” Kalish squeezed Sedge’s hand and beamed up at him.

  Chapter 6

  Kalish did not remember grabbing Sedge’s hand, but she grew aware that she was indeed holding it as the shuttle slid into the dark passage, following the sleek, gray craft ahead of it, their landing lights reflecting off walls freshly burned into existence by the laser. She thought about retracting her hand. What must Sedge be thinking? But the discovery of a new place always sent shivers of excitement through her, and she enjoyed having someone to share that with. Since her mother and sister were still flying in from the nebula, it made sense to grab the nearest warm body, right?

  Except that for whatever reason, Sedge was a little more than that. She wouldn’t have grabbed Tick. Or Val. His hand was warm and dry, his fingers loosely wrapped around hers, and she found herself aware of his presence beside her. The memory of him in his cot came to mind, the way she had wanted to slide her hand along his bare torso. She kept her face toward the view screen, but eyed his chest out of the corner of her eye, the swell of pectoral muscles visible beneath his shirt. His clean, wrinkle-free shirt that was tucked neatly into his waistband. He looked like he had just showered and dressed for an interview, rather than that he had been sleeping in the wilderness and fighting off predators. Maybe he had a miniature iron in his pack, along with all of those other silly devices. What would it be like to sleep with him? Would he even wrinkle the sheets in bed?

  Sedge looked down at her, and she started, embarrassed for having been caught staring at his chest and thinking silly thoughts. Her first instinct was to look away and reclaim her hand, but he smiled warmly at her, not a hint of judgment in his eyes.

  “I hope you find what you’re looking for,” he whispered.

  There didn’t seem to be any artifice or secondary meaning to his words, an implication that he hoped she found what she sought so the mercenaries could profit too. He simply seemed to care. Why he would after only a couple of days together, she didn’t know, but she admitted that she liked that he did.

  Val and Thatcher were talking back and forth over the comm, exchanging warnings and affirming that lists were being followed, and Tick was watching the way ahead, but Kalish struggled to look away from Sedge, from the sweet earnestness in his eyes.

  “Thank you,” she murmured back. She wondered what he would do if she leaned against him and brought her other hand over to rest on his waist, to press her face against his chest, to learn what he smelled like, to feel the hard sinews of his muscles beneath his shirt.

  “Why is it cloudy?” Tick asked. “Shit, that isn’t that biological gunk the captain was talking about, is it?”

  The concern in his voice pulled Kalish away from her musings.

  It must have done the same for Sedge, assuming he had been having any musings of his own, because he let go of her hand and stepped forward, leaning over Tick’s chair. “What?”

  The lead shuttle had eased out of the tunnel it had burned and into a dark underground chamber every bit as vast as Kalish had imagined. A shaft of sunlight drifted in from a jagged hole far overhead, revealing a surprising amount of low, green foliage on the horizontal surfaces, ledges and rounded humps that thrust out from the walls here and there. The bottom of the chamber wasn’t visible yet, even with the shuttle lights angled downward. A hazy cloud hung in the air above them, stretching along the lumpy contours of the ceiling, hugging stalactites that hung down in varying lengths, some like swords and others like upside-down towers.

  “Sensor analysis shows the clouds to be pure water,” Thatcher said.

  Kalish relaxed. She didn’t know how Mandrake Company had secretly delivered its biological agent, but she would have had a hard time imagining it drifting this far from the mine entrance. There were enough things to worry about down here without adding elements.

  “How would clouds get inside a mountain?” Striker asked.

  “There must be water sources throughout the cavern system,” Kalish said and waved toward the ledge of greenery in view ahead of them.

  “There’s a slight wind too,” Thatcher said. “This complex must be large enough to have its own weather.”

  “It’s prettier than the outside of the planet, that’s for sure,” Tick said, leaning forward to admire the colorful bands of red, brown, and yellow running along the rocks. Water trickled down one striated wall to feed the growth on the ledge. “Who knew Karzelek had something greener than a pale thorny cactus?”

  “Just don’t make Thomlin go out there,” Striker said. “His nose will explode next to all that alien plant life.”

  Sedge sighed.

  Kalish nudged him with her elbow. “You should torment him back. He deserves it.”

  “Oh? I thought it was nobler to ignore him. Or maybe it’s just that I have a delusion that he’ll get bored of interacting with me if I don’t respond.”

  “I don’t think tha
t’s going to happen, LT,” Tick said. “He uses you for creative fodder. He has a comic strip character based on you. Ned the Nose. His secret power is shooting poisonous darts out of his nostrils.”

  Sedge blinked a few times. The comics had been mentioned before, but Kalish couldn’t imagine the brutish Striker picking up a pen and drawing something, much less thinking up characters and plots for a story.

  “I’m not sure whether to be more alarmed by the fact that I’ve been immortalized in his dubious publication,” Sedge said, “or that you’ve read it.”

  “They’re better than you would reckon. Lots of women, sex, explosions, and sex during explosions.”

  “Cerebral offerings, to be sure.”

  “I’m detecting some lifeforms in here,” Val said. “Something about the size of a small deer down on that ledge, and—” A small dark figure banged into the front of the shuttle, and she jerked in surprise. Kalish did too, especially when a dozen more creatures showed up on the view screen, wings flapping.

  The shuttle shuddered, hitting something.

  Val cursed and steered away from the stalactites. “Stupid bats.”

  If those were bats, they were the largest ones Kalish had ever seen. They did have dark bodies and wings, though, and must have been residing up on the ceiling before the shuttle had disturbed them.

  “You have your shields up, don’t you?” Thatcher asked.

  “Yes, yes,” Val said. “Don’t worry. No scratches to the shuttle.” She lowered her voice. “I wasn’t expecting bats.”

  “Shall I amend the list?” Thatcher sounded utterly serious.

  “No need. I’ll do it.” Val made a rude gesture at the list, then waved a finger through it, so it disappeared.

  “Commander Thatcher?” Kalish asked. “Can we find a spot to wait? I’m going to send the coordinates to my crew so our ship can join us in here too. I wasn’t sure if there would be room for the Divining Rod to navigate down here, but this place is immense. It looks like she ought to be able to go at least partway with us, if we can widen the entry tunnel so she can get in. I have a lot of tools on there that should be useful, and we have several months’ worth of food and water on board.” She decided not to mention that the converted freighter had been retrofitted with powerful engines and the strongest tractor beam available on the market, so that if the ruins proved as lucrative as they hoped, the Divining Rod could haul out a huge find.

  “Months?” Tick frowned out at the dark passages all around them. “You didn’t retain our service for that long, did you?”

  “No, but it’s good to be prepared if anything happens.”

  “Lieutenant, please head for that ledge,” Thatcher said. “I will open the entrance farther, but I should note that the shuttle was not crafted for such work, and it is draining on the lasers.”

  “I can do it if you want to split the drain between the two shuttles,” Val said.

  Thatcher hesitated. “No, I will handle it. Thank you.”

  “He’s too polite to make jokes about my aim,” Val told Tick. “But I suspect I’ll hear about those bats later.”

  She veered for one of the ledges. Natural trails and ramps ran along some of the walls, allowing wildlife access to lower levels of the caverns. When the shuttle dipped, its lights shining into the depths, a stream came into view, far below, meandering at the bottom of a chasm at least a mile deep.

  Kalish took out her comm unit and called the ship. “Have you made it back into the atmosphere?” she asked.

  “Almost,” her sister responded. “We’re coming in on the far side of the planet, so the miners won’t notice us. I hope.”

  “Good. I’m sending you some coordinates. We’ll wait for you.”

  “In the caverns? Did you find them? Do you see any ruins yet?” Tia sounded like she was bouncing up and down with excitement. Even if she had never studied history, beyond the cursory school requirements, she was always enthused at exploring new places. And blabbing what they were looking for to strangers. Oh, well. At this point, the mercenaries all knew about the ruin hunt.

  “We’re inside an entrance we made. So far, only bats. We’ll wait for you to explore further.”

  “Yes, I wasn’t going to talk to you for weeks if you went in with those mercs and didn’t take us. We’re much more fun.”

  Sedge was still standing near Kalish, and he raised his eyebrows at this proclamation. Some of her earlier thoughts came back to her, and she blushed. Whatever she had been thinking was silly. This wasn’t the time for dalliances. Where would a person find privacy even if she wanted dalliances?

  * * *

  A distant cry echoed through the cavern. It sounded like it came from something larger than a bat. Sedge, standing in the knee-height stubby plants of the ledge, dropped his hand to his pistol and looked in the direction of the noise.

  The two shuttles had landed, leaving only their running lamps on as they waited for Kalish’s ship to join them. Aside from a small amount of daylight filtering through a distant hole in the ceiling and the tunnel Thatcher had made, darkness filled the interior, and Sedge could not see a thing a hundred meters beyond their ledge. Whatever made that cry had to be adapted for the night conditions in here. He imagined a cavern equivalent to the big lizards that had attacked the night before, and his hand didn’t stray from his pistol.

  “More critters than you would think in here,” Tick drawled as he ambled up. He had been scouting around the ledge, which was about a half-mile long and a quarter-mile wide, while Thatcher finished enlarging the tunnel. “Seems funny, but I reckon these caves might be more hospitable than the cold and wind up top. Temperature isn’t bad. Wind is slight.” He chomped happily on his gum, as if he wouldn’t mind staying down here indefinitely. Of course, given his lack of enthusiasm for flying in combat shuttles and other small craft, he would probably be happy anywhere his boots were on the ground.

  Sedge did not feel the same way. He had taken his allergy medication before disembarking from the shuttle, and he hadn’t sneezed yet, but his eyes were watering, and a poky waist-high plant he had brushed against had raised hives on the back of his hand. When Val had checked for potentially toxic gases in the air, found none, and declared this part of the cavern safe for humans, Sedge had been moderately disappointed.

  He hoped the bumps went down quickly. Kalish wouldn’t want to hold hands with someone covered in hives. She was about a hundred feet away, looking for a suitable landing area for her ship. Since Sedge had yet to see it, he wasn’t sure how large it was. Presumably not huge if she thought it could maneuver down here. The cavern they had flown into might be expansive, but Sedge would be surprised if there weren’t tight spots ahead and passages that wouldn’t be accessible to ships.

  The area brightened as more lights shone out of the tunnel. A moment later, an older XJ-class freighter flew into sight, some of the brown paint being scraped off the round saucer as it escaped the narrow passage. Apparently the pilot hadn’t thought to raise shields, or maybe it wouldn’t have fit into the tunnel with them on. A rock was knocked free and tumbled thousands of feet before clattering to the floor below. The noise echoed oddly in the cavern and traveled far. If there were any hungry predators down here, they would know visitors had come.

  Kalish waved her ship down, then jogged back to join Sedge. Tick and Striker had come up to watch the ship’s approach too, so he allowed himself a modicum of satisfaction that she had come to stand beside him. That moment in the shuttle when she had been holding his hand and looking up at him, he had thought she might have something more than friendly camaraderie in mind.

  “Will you join us on the Divining Rod, Sedge?” Kalish waved to the approaching ship.

  “Yes,” he said promptly, before realizing he probably should have asked why. “Er, what do you need me for?” He doubted vigorous bedroom activity would be the answer.

  “You have the spots plotted on the map.” She smiled. Ah, he had been right.

  “
I can transfer that information to you.”

  “Really?”

  Had she expected him to withhold the data? Or want to trade it for something?

  “Yes, it’s easy,” Sedge said, teasing her a little. “I press this button here, and off it goes.”

  “I thought you or your commander might insist on leading the way.”

  “We’re your employees, not the other way around.”

  “Good. Then I would like you to come along with us on our ship. In case we need some puzzle-solving help en route.” Kalish winked. “I’ll even buy you dinner.”

  It was silly to hope she had more than business in mind, but Sedge’s mind did drift in that direction. He couldn’t help but notice that the freighter was large enough for crew members to have their own cabins, especially if the crew was as small as he believed it to be.

  Stow your hormones, boy. All she mentioned was dinner.

  “Then I most assuredly accept,” Sedge said. “Especially if you have something besides prepackaged ration logs.”

  “Hm, our rations are more of a brick shape than a log shape, but we do have some apples. My mom throws cinnamon and brown sugar on them and bakes them in the galley. Makes the whole ship smell fabulous.”

  “I look forward to it,” Sedge said, though a nervous jolt went through his belly at the mention of her mother. He hadn’t had to worry about impressing a woman’s parents for years, nor had he imagined family members in adjoining quarters when he had been picturing that private cabin. No, he would need to keep his mind on work and the dinner professional.

  With some guidance from Tick and Kalish, the freighter landed next to the shuttles, crunching some of the hive-inducing vegetation in the process. Sedge couldn’t feel upset about that.

  He turned, intending to grab his pack and tell Thatcher that he had been requested aboard the other ship, but he almost crashed into the commander’s chest. Er, how long had he been there? Had he heard them rambling about dinner plans?