The Ruins of Karzelek (The Mandrake Company series Book 4) (2 page)

“
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.

Thomlin sneezed again, withdrew a precisely folded handkerchief square from an inside pocket and dabbed at his nose as he glared at the cactus.

“‘
The powers of nature are never in repose; her work never stands still,’” Kalish quoted, smiling slightly.

He blinked and stared at her, meeting her eyes for the first time. “Adam Sedgwick? I wouldn’t mind claiming the father of geology as a namesake, but I confess that my mother named me after a more recent Sedgwick, the biologist responsible for first cross-pollinating Earth peas with a similar species discovered in our system.”

Kalish stared back at him, shocked that he had recognized the quote. A mercenary was the last person she would have expected to have a grounding in the history of science.

“
Uh, right,” Striker said. “So, you got something for us to blow up, lady?”

“
Ms. Blackwell,” Commander Thatcher corrected. “And I believe we are to participate in a raid and information acquisition mission? Possibly leading to a more lucrative contract that will engage the whole company?”

He pointed toward the pale bluish-green sky, toward his ship presumably, though of course it would be in orbit and not visible from the ground. Kalish hoped so, anyway. She caught herself glancing up to make sure. The last thing she wanted was to let the miners know someone had come to visit, especially after she had so painstakingly had her sister fly in under the cover of night and a storm, thus to hide their approach. The sky, fortunately, was empty of spaceships.

“
If we acquire the data I need, yes. A very lucrative contract.” Kalish managed not to grimace—barely. She had already had to make a substantial down payment and had placed the rest into an escrow account, so the mercenary captain knew she could pay.

“
Excellent.” Striker patted a black pack on the ground, one bulging with lumpy shapes. “I’m ready to make the booms.”

“
I had a stealth mission in mind,” Kalish said.

“
No problem. I have quiet booms too.”

“
Only the mind of Sergeant Striker could not consider that an oxymoron,” Thomlin murmured.

“
Better keep your lips from flapping, Sniffles. A piece of pollen might fall on them.” Striker glared at Thomlin, who glared right back at him.

Kalish hoped her elite team of mercenaries—Mandrake Company’s page on the network had billed them thusly—wasn’t about to descend into fisticuffs in front of her.

“
I acquired satellite imagery of the mining outpost from orbit,” Commander Thatcher said, ignoring the men glowering at each other behind his back. “If you have additional data, we should pool our resources and plan our mission.”

Kalish nodded, relieved that someone had business on the mind. “Just what I was thinking. I have the information right here.” She tapped at the folding tablet in her jacket pocket. “Shall we go to your camp?”

“
Is it just you?” Val sounded surprised. “I thought you would have some men of your own to bring.”

“
My men will stay to watch my ship and stage a rescue if intervention is needed.” No need to mention that her “men” were her mother and her sister.

“
Your men?” Tick asked, glancing toward the rocks, then sharing a long look with Striker. Did they already know that there were only three people out here, all women?

“
That the old lady up in the boulders, making like an eagle?” Striker asked.

A streak of crimson laser fire shrieked out of those boulders, blasting a head-sized rock near the sergeant. Fragments flew everywhere. He grunted, raising his arm, even if he didn’t appear particularly alarmed by the attack. Tick and Thatcher had shifted their rifles toward the rocks. Kalish winced, hoping Mom’s distaste of being called an “old lady” didn’t get her in trouble.

“
That’s one of them,” Kalish said quickly. The mercenaries shouldn’t return fire if they knew the person was with her. “As she would be quick to tell you, she’s not an old lady. She’s in the prime of her life.”

“
Her aim is certainly prime,” Tick said, chomping his gum and shoving Striker in the shoulder. “She could have pierced your ear there.”

“
Whatever.”

Thatcher pointed toward the rocks lining the other end of the clearing. “Our landing spot is six hundred meters in that direction.”

“
You brought two combat shuttles, right?” Kalish asked, though she didn’t miss Thomlin carefully and precisely refolding his handkerchief and slipping it into his pocket before he started after Thatcher. She might have only known the man for three minutes, but she could already imagine him walking away from one of Striker’s “booms” without so much as a wrinkle in his clothing, despite shrapnel and smoke flying everywhere behind him.

“
Yes,” Val said, “and we’re happy to use them, but we saw you have a ship too. And presumably a pilot of your own? If it’s a stealth mission to steal some data, why do you need so many ships?”

“
The ships are for Stage Two,” Kalish said. Though she found herself liking Val, she wasn’t even close to ready to divulge her true purpose here to a pack of mercenaries. Contract or not, she would be a fool to trust any of them.

She was already nervous about going alone with them to their ships. Val and Thatcher seemed professional enough, but she didn’t like the way Striker kept looking at her chest. The mercenaries might have Fleet-like ranks, but she doubted any code of honor—or risk of court martial and death—guided their actions. She would hope that as long as she was in the putative position of employer, they wouldn’t harass her in any way, but she resolved not to be caught alone with Sergeant Wandering Eyes there. She also worried about what would happen if they didn’t prove themselves capable of helping her with her mission and she decided not to extend the contract. Even though she had worked numerous stipulations in when speaking to the captain, she had a feeling the mercenaries wouldn’t appreciate diverting to this dust ball for nothing.