Mercenary Courage (Mandrake Company) (16 page)

“You mean your lack of being interested in dealing with customers.”

“I do prefer interacting with robots and engines.”

“What did they want?” Ankari couldn’t imagine what would have caused so many calls, unless Xu’s people had been harassing her team. But no, Jamie would have mentioned that and warned her.

“Microbiota transplants,” Lauren said. “Many people who believed their immune systems were not at one hundred percent, and that an intestinal microflora imbalance might be part of the problem, were suddenly eager to sign up for our service.”

“You didn’t publish another article, did you?”

“No,” Lauren said as they entered the hotel lobby. “These people want to be in the best possible condition if there
is
a deadly virus.”

Ankari shook her head as they walked down a hallway that was not as deserted as it had been at five in the morning. She watched for Fleet uniforms as they headed for her room. “I’m not convinced there
is
a virus anymore.”

“That would be a relief,” Jamie said. “But what makes you think that?”

“The woman locked in the vault of her own store.”

“Uh. That’s the person the captain was carrying out?”

“Yes. I’m still not sure how he got the door open—” Ankari recalled Viktor running around the counter and toward the center of the store, where that second explosive had clanged off a rack. Was it possible that he had grabbed it and planted it close enough to the vault to tear open the door when it exploded? If so, that woman was lucky she had survived. “But somehow she was locked inside a vault behind the counter, knocking and wanting to get out. I suppose I don’t know for sure that it’s the owner, but that ought to be on the news already.” She dug out her tablet and nodded at an android pushing a cart full of folded towels.

It returned the nod and did not otherwise react to her. Not that she had expected it to, but she was feeling twitchy, worried that she was underestimating Xu and that he might have men waiting at her door here too.

“How does a locked up store owner negate the possibility of a virus being present?” Jamie asked.

“It doesn’t seem fishy to you? Someone had to stick her in there. Why?”

“What if she was trying to save herself from being contaminated by locking herself in?”

“Seems drastic.”

They reached the door to the suite without running into any Fleet officers. Ankari swiped them in, even though she was already thinking of a dozen places she wanted to go. Such as to wherever autopsies of those bodies were being done. And to the hospital to question the vault lady as soon as she recovered. She should get in touch with Viktor’s other men, too, the ones also on the station. They would need to know he had been arrested, and he had mentioned something about someone on the ship researching the quarantine, the details that weren’t on the news. She wished she could visit Viktor, too, but showing up at Security headquarters would not be a good idea, right now. No, she would start with network research, and she could do that from her room. If the news people were not publishing anything helpful, then she would go digging.

As soon as they walked in, Ankari flipped on the holodisplay in the main room. She sat at the desk where only a few hours earlier she had spoken with her mother, trying to convince her that she was not in any danger out here. That might have been overly optimistic.

“There’s the captain.” Jamie pointed at the holodisplay.

It was showing the footage from the pet store—some of it. A reporter spoke of the radical group attacking the shop in an attempt to eliminate the animals inside, and also of a mercenary outfit that may have had something to do with the damage inside. Viktor was shown, his face grim and his jaw set as the security officers cuffed him. Ankari scrolled back, but the video did not show him walking out, carrying the woman. The woman was mentioned, however, with a picture of her in a hospital room, her eyes closed as a doctor hovered nearby. The reporter gave her name, Diana Ogilvy, and confirmed that she was the shop owner, but nothing else that came out of the person’s mouth was of use.

“They made him sound suspicious,” Jamie said. “Like a criminal, not a hero. Why would they do that? Wouldn’t a mercenary who saved ladies from vaults and fires be a good story?”

“Someone’s out to get him,” Ankari said, feeling an iciness burn through her veins as she imagined this someone, whoever he or she was. She wanted to hurt that person. “I intend to find out why.”

She wondered if there was anything she could do to get the media to revise their story and share the truth. Probably not. Even before she had committed a crime here, Ankari hadn’t exactly been a powerful member of society with connections. Unless one counted mercenary connections.

She pulled out her comm unit, thinking she should talk to Garland and see if his people could come up with anything. Unless... She drummed her fingers on the table. Would it be unwise to alert the ship to the captain’s situation? Most of the old crew, those who came from the same destroyed home world as Viktor, seemed loyal to him, but there were others who might take advantage of the fact that he was missing. Was it possible someone would stage a mutiny and convince enough of the crew to go along with it? With Viktor detained on the station, they might simply take the ship and leave. If Viktor ended up being sentenced with some crime, would that even be illegal? To take his ship?

She rubbed her head, groaning at the idea of figuring out mercenary law. No, Garland might not be the best person to contact. Viktor’s second-in-command was usually running the ship during the nightshift, so she had not spent much time with him. She did not know him well. Someone else might be a better bet, someone with a tie to Viktor and also to
her
. Or at least to someone in her business.

“Jamie?” Ankari asked. “Can you get in touch with Sergei?”

“Of course. Is there something you want me to ask him?”

“Yes. Does your stealthy assassin think he could sneak onto a secured and quarantined space station?”

“From what I’ve heard,” Lauren said from across the room where she was dropping small pieces of an egg log into her rat box, “he’s been contemplating trying anyway.”

“Because he’s missed the captain?” Ankari asked, though she knew that was not the case.

“Because he’s missed
someone
.”

Jamie’s cheeks colored, but she did not deny the statement.

“The risks people will take to engage in coitus are mystifying to me,” Lauren said.

Thinking of the elevator, Ankari’s cheeks colored, as well.

• • • • •

Viktor paced the brig, alternating between thinking and wishing he was better at thinking.

Why did Fleet want him incarcerated? He could understand it more if they wanted him shot. Was it Admiral Petrakis specifically who wanted him, or had he, as the highest-ranking military man heading to the meeting, been given the task by someone above him? Viktor had never crossed paths with Petrakis and couldn’t summon an image of what he looked like in his mind. Mandrake Company stayed away from the military and never targeted their ships in its operations, but Viktor could still have killed some friend of the admiral’s or ruined some Fleet officer’s plans. It was possible one of the finance lords Mandrake Company had taken out had been tied to the military in some way.

The letter that Ankari had acquired had said Captain Mandrake
and
the
Albatross
would be dealt with when the admiral arrived. Was it possible someone wanted his ship? Or wanted for him not to
have
his ship?

He growled at the idea and paced faster. Did someone believe that with him gone, the ship might be taken? The crew inspired to mutiny and leave him? That was always a possibility in a mercenary outfit, but the last few months had been lucrative, despite the Nimbus debacle, because of the deals he had struck. Right now, Mandrake Company was receiving a share of Ankari’s business and also a share of the treasure-hunting business that Lieutenant Thomlin had left to join. Thomlin and his new female friend Kalish Blackwell apparently made an excellent team, because in their first month working together, they had unearthed the remains of one of the original twenty colonies, the one that had been lost when an asteroid struck the planet shortly after the colony ship had landed. Thomlin and Blackwell had uncovered valuable historical artifacts and were in the process of auctioning them, with Mandrake Company receiving a percentage of each sale.

Viktor halted, a new thought lurching into his mind. “Thomlin. Of course.”

During the mission where Thomlin had met Blackwell, Mandrake Company had helped them pull a couple of ancient alien spaceship engines out of a cavern system, along with a projector that produced far more realistic holo images than the current technology could manage. When the device had created a fleet of alien ships in the air, they had appeared real on the sensors, and Thomlin had said it had been possible to walk about on the hull of a ship that had been on the ground. Of course, the treasure hunters had needed to trade the device and one of the engines to Commodore Parsons in order to escape the Fleet’s clutches, but Viktor had insisted a schematic be made before releasing the projector. During the Nimbus fighting, his engineers had been too busy keeping the
Albatross
together to work on creating a physical version, but the information was still in the ship’s database.

“Or maybe they’re after the engines?” he wondered.

But Mandrake Company did not have either of those. Commodore Parsons had taken the one, and Thomlin and Blackwell had taken the other engine to sell. Viktor doubted either Thomlin or his new partner would have blabbed that Mandrake Company had kept a copy of the schematics for the projector, but he couldn’t rule that possibility out—he had only interacted with Blackwell a couple of times, so he did not know her well. It was also possible someone in her family had blabbed. Still, Commodore Parsons had the original device, so the Fleet should have access to that. Why would anyone care if a mercenary had a copy?

Viktor stroked his stubbled jaw. “Unless... Parsons didn’t turn his goodies in.”

Maybe he hadn’t even told his superiors that he had acquired them. Parsons might have known that the Fleet would not approve of the way he came by those artifacts. After all, he had allowed Blackwell, a criminal in GalCon’s eyes, and her ship to escape in exchange for them.

“So, does Fleet even know Parsons has the devices?” Viktor murmured. “Or did Parsons imply that
we
had them?”

Footsteps sounded in the drab gray corridor outside Viktor’s cell. He did not think much of them, since guards walked by in pairs frequently, but a familiar pair of faces came into view.

“He’s only been incarcerated for a few hours, and he’s already talking to himself,” Commander Borage said. “That’s a sign of looming insanity, isn’t it?”

Sergeant Azarov came into a parade rest stance at his side, hands locked behind his back, and said nothing. Fleet had doubtlessly taught him not to say anything derogatory about his commanding officer, not to his face, anyway. He did give the squinty eye to one of the tall enviro-hance trees that dotted the corridor, its leaves brushing the ceiling. He might have been reading the display on the pot that showed how much CO2 the tree was absorbing each hour. Or he might have been looking for spiders on the leaves. There was a web up in the corner of Viktor’s cell, but he had not received any visitors yet.

“The company know I’m in here?” Viktor asked, ignoring Borage’s dig.

The guards had taken his comm-patch, along with his jacket, belt, boots, and weapons. They had not allowed him to contact anyone before thrusting him into the cell, telling him they were too busy to follow all the protocols. He had watched as numerous men and women from the pet shop incident had been locked up in adjoining cells. By accident or design, the one across from him remained empty. Maybe Security didn’t want him conspiring with anyone.

“I told Commander Garland,” Borage said. “Striker and Frog were lurking nearby, and they gossip like women playing Anchors and Asteroids, the drinking version.”

“So the answer is yes, the company knows I’m here.”

Viktor hadn’t intended to sound irritated or terse, but it must have come out that way, because Borage smoothed his wrinkled and coffee-stained shirt and stood taller, a more business-like expression on his face.

“Yes, sir. We came to see if...” Borage glanced up the corridor, probably at some security guard outside of Viktor’s sight. “We came to see if you had any orders you wished to give us.” Borage widened his eyes slightly at the force field keeping Viktor inside the cell. Implying that he would plan a jailbreak if Viktor wished it?

As much as he did not want to be in the exact place Fleet wanted him in when the rest of their ships showed up for the meeting, this wasn’t some minor mafia-run station held together by spit and rust. Some of the plant technology may have deteriorated without the druids here to monitor it, but Midway 5’s brig looked modern, with the guards appearing neither greedy or slothful. Breaking out would not be a simple matter, especially with the quarantine in effect.

“One order,” Viktor said, shaking his head slightly at the force field. “I want you to do some research for me. Figure out where Commodore Parsons is right now, and see if you can find out if anyone has been scanning the
Albatross
or making any inquiries about her since we’ve been docked. Especially about her databases.”

Borage nodded. “I know what you’re wondering about, sir, and Azarov and I have already been doing some research. Well, I researched while he stood guard by the door to the library and looked threatening.”

The fact that his men had been working pleased Viktor, though he was mildly surprised, given the rooms Ankari had generously purchased for them. “The library? I thought you would be in your luxurious room, ordering in fancy meals, fancy women, pedicures.”

“Pedicures, sir?” Azarov blinked slowly a few times, then frowned down at his boots. “That’s the toenail thing, isn’t it?”