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

“I’m not. They’re delightfully hygienic.”

  “Until they slam into your chest,” she muttered, though she shouldn’t be complaining. He was the one who had been shot.

  “They do so hygienically,” Sedge said calmly. “Cauterizing as they go.”

  A shadow fell across the tank, and Kalish thought they were both about to be cauterized out of existence, but the craft that flew into sight was a familiar sleek cylindrical gray. A forward cannon fired, blasting a missile into the stairwell on the neighboring building. The entire rooftop disappeared into a blaze of yellow and orange flames that seared the sky with so much heat that Kalish had to turn her back to it, ducking her head to her chest. The noise of the inferno thundered in her ears. Burning pieces of wood flew into the air, some pelting the roof of their building.

  Something flapped against her face, and she threw her arm out to defend against this new attack. Her hand grew tangled in rope.

  “What the—”

  “Climb,” Sedge barked. He put his hand on her back, guiding her toward the rope. No, it wasn’t a rope, but a net.

  She grabbed on and found herself being lifted into the air, her legs dangling below her. She glanced around, terrified that she was out in the open, that she would be an easy target. But the burning building had destroyed any attackers from that direction. Kalish’s soul ached with the knowledge that what she had wanted to be a stealthy incursion had turned into the full-scale killing of people and damaging of property.

  “Something you better wait to worry about later,” she whispered, craning her neck toward the wall. But the people there were occupied too, busy ducking laser fire coming from the back of the shuttle. The hatch hung open, with Striker and Tick leaning out with their rifles.

  Kalish had no idea when they had gone for the shuttle, but she swung her legs up, trying to reach the bottom of the net. She wanted nothing more than to fling herself into that armored craft and have it take her away from the carnage she had wrought. Without waiting for them to climb up, the shuttle left the roof, flying away from the compound. Wind buffeted the net, and Kalish worried she would lose her grip. Finally, after three tries, she caught the bottom with her boot. Once she had a foothold, she was able to inch her way upward, even though the swaying and bucking of the net kept her heart in her throat the whole time.

  Sedge clung to the bottom half, watching her progress.

  She paused, still ten feet below the hatch. “Is your side all right? Do you need help climbing up?”

  Not that she had any idea how she would offer it. He wasn’t a small man; it wasn’t as if she could simply grab him and haul him up with her.

  “I’m waiting for you,” he said, and waved for her to climb past him.

  “Oh. You’ll catch me if I fall?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I had no idea that was included in your fee.”

  “We aim to exceed expectations.” Sedge glanced toward the compound—they had flown over the wall, but another craft floated in the air, perhaps thinking of soaring after them, guns blazing. This wasn’t the time for banter.

  Kalish scrambled the rest of the way up the net. Before she had to figure out how to grab the side of the hatch and haul herself inside without falling, a hand clasped her wrist. Sergeant Tick pulled her up, then pushed her into the interior.

  Kalish aimed for the back row of seats, but her thighs were quivering from the climb—maybe from the entire night. She collapsed against the side of the hull and decided that was good enough for the moment. She tugged her legs in, so they wouldn’t be in the way and looked back, wanting to see Sedge make it in too. All of the mercenaries. Even if her dad’s life was at stake, the number of lives this mission had already consumed was far too high. And she had just gotten started.

  Striker and Sedge pulled themselves inside, the wind rifling through their hair. Striker slammed a control, and the hatch rose, snapping shut with a thud-hiss. Sedge collapsed next to Kalish. Maybe she wasn’t the only one with quivering leg muscles. Quivering everything.

  “Thomlin got himself shot,” Striker announced, striding past them and up to the front of the craft where Thatcher and Val sat in the pilots’ seats. “Anyone got a first-aid kit?”

  Tick had already taken a seat, but he dug into a bin that folded out of the wall. He yawned, as if this whole adventure had bored him. He hadn’t even lost his gum.

  The pained crease to Sedge’s brow said it was not quite as boring for him. He had his eyes closed, probably hoping someone would bring a sedative soon.

  “Which shot is it that your sensitive little blood cells can handle again?” Tick asked.

  “The imuglosarfrin,” Sedge said, opening his eyes and giving Kalish a sheepish shrug. “Allergies,” he added, as if it pained him to admit it.

  “Thank you for covering me back there,” Kalish said. “Do mercenaries always risk their lives for their clients?”

  “Uhm.” Surprisingly, he blushed. “Well, we hadn’t finished our Crucible game yet.”

  “Ah, that’s all it was, eh?”

  “I like closure.”

  Tick’s brows drew together as he crouched on Sedge’s other side, an injector in hand, but he didn’t comment on the conversation. Kalish looked away as the sergeant gave the shot, applied some regenerative salve to the wound, and dug out a repair kit. Once they returned to camp, she would take a closer look at the images she had scanned. And hope she had found something that would make all of this worth it.

  Chapter 3

  Sedge woke up on a cot, the air cold enough that puffs of breath formed in front of his face. He blinked a few times, trying to figure out where he was. Instead of the gunmetal gray hull of the shuttle, he was staring up at a beige poly-fabric ceiling. A tent? He couldn’t remember an attack that might have damaged the shuttle, but he had passed out after Tick had injected him with the painkiller.

  He shifted slightly, and a twinge came from his side below his rib cage, though it was nothing like the pain he had experienced before a repair kit had knitted the flesh back together. He was still in his boots and the clothes from the mission, but someone had draped a blanket over him. A camp light hummed on a compact desk, the only other furnishing in the tent, though a folded cot and some other gear had been dumped in the back. A small tablet sat next to the lamp and projected a large display in the air, one that took up most of the space in the tent. Sedge recognized several of the maps Kalish had copied, the individual pages connected and arranged in a three-dimensional display. Even now, the computer was working to fill in the details, using satellite data to estimate depths and other elements that wouldn’t have been apparent from the flat pages. He watched for a couple of minutes, wondering if any of those alternative entrances had been found; flying into the hole in the middle of the mining compound might be doable, but then they would have to worry about being shot at along the way and followed on their search.

  Sedge’s stomach grumbled, so he sat up, intending to hunt for a meal. He lifted a window flap above his cot to peek outside. A boulder rose a couple of feet away, limiting the view, but he could tell it was still night outside. That meant he had not been unconscious for too long. Of course, if they had flown back to the far side of the planet, it might just mean that night had barely started over here. He wondered why Kalish had erected a tent instead of simply setting up in her ship.

  “...going to comm them now, Mom,” came Kalish’s voice from outside of the tent.

  Sedge had been about to swing his legs off the cot, but he lay back down instead. Kalish pushed the flap open and walked inside, rolling her eyes as she entered. Sedge closed his own eyes most of the way, pretending he hadn’t yet woken up. The subterfuge was out of habit, a thought that he might gather intelligence because Kalish would speak more freely if she thought he was still unconscious. It was always a good idea to gain as much information as possible, whether dealing with enemies or employers. Or attractive women.

  “...bad was it? You didn’t explain
much before you sent us off,” the person on the other end of the comm asked.

  Her mother? Did Kalish have more people in her “crew,” or was it just the two of them? And perhaps a pilot? When Sedge had researched her company, there had not been much on the network about its members.

  “Bad.” Kalish walked through the hologram and glanced around like she was looking for a place to sit down.

  Sedge almost got up to offer her the cot, but he wanted to know what would follow “bad.” The infiltration had not gone as smoothly as his team would have hoped, but considering they had received inaccurate intelligence, he thought they had pulled it out well enough. Aside from the blast he had taken, neither Kalish nor the rest of the squad had been injured. But if she had hoped for utter stealth, getting in and out without being seen, then they had failed. Would that change her willingness to hire Mandrake Company for the larger part of her mission?

  “What do you mean, bad? Your message earlier said everyone was fine. We wouldn’t have taken off if we had known you were in trouble.”

  “No, no, I’m fine, Mom. The mercenaries are all fine.” Kalish glanced toward Sedge. “One was injured, but he seems to be all right now. But a lot of the miners...” She swallowed and turned her back to him. “There were fatalities,” she said, her voice low. “It was a big screw up in the end, and a lot of people got shot. Or blown up. This was supposed to be—” She cleared her throat, her voice thick with emotion. “I was willing to become a thief to get Dad back, but this? Even if we succeed, we’ve—I’ve—killed people. This is crazy. I’m a criminal now, a murderer.” She gripped the edges of the desk.

  Sedge blinked a few times, her distress making him emotional. He understood the feeling perfectly well. The mercenary company often chose a side in a war, killing for those who employed them. There had been times when he had known that his actions had been in the wrong, legally and morally, but penalties were few and far between. Out here, so far from the system core and the seat of the government, most of the Galactic Conglomeration laws were not enforced, with legislation instead falling under the jurisdictions of individual planetary governments. As far as he knew, Karzelek didn’t even have a government, just an office on the nearest space station that issued claims. If Ferago Enterprises wanted to pursue legal action, it would likely hire a bounty hunter to deal with Kalish. That information probably wouldn’t comfort her. Sedge decided to keep quiet and let her mother handle the comforting.

  “I was afraid something like this would happen,” her mother said. “I told you this wouldn’t be as simple as you thought.”

  Sedge frowned. That wasn’t very comforting.

  Kalish’s shoulders slumped further, and Sedge resisted another urge to get up, this time because he wanted to place an arm around her, offer her a hug if she needed one. But he was nothing to her; what solace would she take from his embrace?

  “I know,” Kalish said. “I was envisioning being caught and having to escape if things went bad, but not blowing up buildings and killing people. Dad... wouldn’t want this.”

  Sedge made a note to look up her father and try to find out what had happened to him. Get him back, she had said. From where? From whom? And how could prospecting amongst alien ruins achieve that?

  “I know. Are you sure you don’t want us to come back for you?” A few spats of static interrupted the words, and Sedge wondered where her mother was calling from.

  Kalish rubbed her face. “Are the mining ships still after you?”

  “Two of them turned back, and two are looking for us. Tia is certain we can lose them in the nebula.”

  Ah, her ship had left the planet.

  “Be careful. Go farther out if you need to. I want them to think we got what we wanted—or maybe that we didn’t get what we wanted—and that we’re gone. The mercenaries promised me that their ships have sensor shielding and that the miners wouldn’t be able to tell they’re still down here unless they’re right on top of them. There’s nothing that fancy on the Divining Rod, I’m afraid, so you’ll have to stay away until they’ve stopped looking.”

  “If we get much farther out, we’ll lose our ability to communicate with you. The nebula is already making things patchy.”

  “That’s all right. I’ll be fine down here. There’s a lot of data to go through here, and I sent the mercenary shuttles out to look for cave entrances.”

  That explained where Val and Commander Thatcher had gone then, off piloting the two shuttles. Had they taken Striker and Tick too?

  “I already told you,” Kalish’s mother said, “I don’t like the idea of you alone down there with them. I know Dad is at the forefront of your mind, but if you locate those ruins, and you find something even half as valuable as we anticipate, those mercenaries might suddenly forget what we’re offering to pay them, make us disappear, and take what they want for themselves.”

  Kalish glanced toward Sedge. He didn’t have time to close his eyes fully, but they had only been open to slits. He kept his breathing slow and steady, hoping the dim lighting would not let her see his eyes through his lashes.

  “We’re a long ways from having anything valuable,” Kalish said, “if there even is anything. Look, they’re around down here, so let’s not talk about this further. I need you and Tia to stay away until the miners have gone back to their regular schedules. Then only come back once the main mercenary ship is attacking them, and they’re too harried to notice you. The miners have more advanced security technology than we thought, so be careful. If you can’t make it back... I’ll continue with this team of mercenaries. Their little shuttles will be better equipped for going into the caves anyway. I expect some tight spaces down there.”

  “Did you talk to the Mandrake Company captain about the attack yet?”

  “Not yet. I will. We have to find a way into the cavern complex first, or there’s little point in the diversion.”

  A patch of static came over the comm. “Are you sure you don’t want to abort?” her mother finally asked. “If those mercenaries start blasting at the mining complex, even more people will be injured.”

  “I’ll tell them that’s not what we want,” Kalish said. “After the blood we’ve spilled, it would be even worse to give up empty-handed. I’d like to think that the find we make could be worth all of this, but even with the relic hunting aside, I’m going to get Dad back. I have to. Even if it means going to jail for the rest of my life.”

  Her mother sighed. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. We’ll figure something out. The laws out here... are more flexible than in the core. If we find what you’re looking for, we might be able to buy your record clean.”

  Kalish shook her head. “Does that make me any less of a criminal?”

  “We’ll figure it out.”

  “Great,” Kalish mumbled, so softly Sedge barely heard it.

  Her back was still to him, her chin drooping to her chest. Was she crying? Sedge wished he could say something to make her feel better, but he had made the choice to feign sleep. If he said something now, she would be startled and perhaps self-conscious as she wondered if he had been listening the whole time. A dilemma.

  A grunt came from outside, and someone tapped at the tent flap. “Ms. Blackwell?” Tick drawled. “Brought your equipment in. Might as well get your new command center all right and comfortable, eh? Can we come in?”

  Kalish wiped her eyes and didn’t answer right away.

  “She might be naked,” came Striker’s voice in a whisper.

  “Why would she be naked?” Tick whispered back.

  “We got dirty last night. Girls like to bathe when they get dirty.”

  “It’s a shame you don’t have that same habit.”

  “I clean Betsy. That’s enough.”

  Kalish walked to the flap and pulled it open. “Betsy?”

  “That’s his rifle,” Tick explained, walking in along with a draft of frigid air. He carried a couple of folding chairs, which he set up in front of the desk
. “One of them, anyway. He’s got a small to middling-sized armory in his cabin.”

  Striker ambled in after him, a portable heater in his arms. He looked Kalish up and down as he passed. “She’s not naked, Tick.”

  “Yes, I saw that.”

  “I’d gotten my hopes up there.”

  “No bathing facilities in the tent,” Kalish said.

  Tick hit Striker in the arm, then bowed his head toward her. “My apologies for his rudeness, ma’am. We’ve been trying to train it out of him, but the captain refuses to use shot therapy, and I’m of the opinion that’s the only thing that might get through his skull.”

  “Shot therapy?” Kalish asked.

  “Sure. He says something dumb, and you shoot him.”

  Kalish chuckled. Sedge held back a frown. He had wanted to be the one to say something that might make her feel better. Tick beamed a smile at her, and this time, Sedge didn’t manage to tamp down his frown. He wasn’t flirting with her, was he? Sedge wasn’t good at judging whether other men were handsome, but Tick had an easy-going manner that usually won him female company when on shore leave, unlike Striker who, despite his claims to the contrary, didn’t seem to be able to lure a woman to go off alone with him unless he waved a few aurums around first.

  Striker kicked the foot of the cot, jarring Sedge, and eliciting a fresh twinge of pain from his side. “You alive, Sniffles? Or did Tick stick the wrong needle into your arm?”

  “It was a medical injector,” Tick said, “and I’m certain I gave him the correct sedative.”

  Sedge rubbed his eyes and yawned. He felt disingenuous for pretending Striker’s kick was what had woken him, but he didn’t think Kalish would appreciate his eavesdropping. “I’m alive. And that’s Lieutenant to you, Striker.”

  Normally he didn’t bother attempting to enforce military courtesy with the mercenaries—especially with Striker—but he didn’t want the oaf calling him that stupid nickname in front of Kalish.

  “Lieutenant Sniffles,” Striker said. “Got it, sir.” He shared a wink with Tick.