Mercenary Courage (Mandrake Company) (25 page)

As Viktor had listened to the back and forth between the women, he had wondered if he should step in. He
was
the captain, after all. But he was still waiting for his briefing. Besides, none of this pertained to his ship, except in a roundabout way. He supposed he should step aside and get the news from Borage and Azarov, who had also been listening with bemused expressions on their faces. But it was Ankari’s information that interested him the most.

“Will someone brief me now?” he asked Ankari after she returned her comm to her pocket.

“Yes, but one more thing first. Sergei?” She drew him aside. “I have one more favor to ask of you.”

“Oh?” Sergei looked at the captain, his eyebrows raised, perhaps wondering if he should continue to go along with her now that Viktor was free.

“He’ll approve. I’m sure of it.” Not waiting for agreement, Ankari took his arm and drew him further aside.

Jamie walked across the landing with them, thus ensuring Sergei would not object.

Viktor sighed. “What’s going on, Borage?”

“I wish I knew, sir.”

“Repairs progressing on the ship?”

“Yes, sir. And Garland has Sequoia running the search you asked about.” Borage glanced at Azarov and Sergei, then lowered his voice to clarify. “About the possibility of someone having been communicating with the Fleet.”

“Good.”

Sergei bowed to Ankari, as if he were some fairy tale knight, then took Jamie’s hand and kissed it before disappearing back out the door.

“Care to tell me where you’re sending my soldier?” Victor asked.

“I don’t know if anything will come of it,” Ankari said, “so I’d rather not tell you, actually.”

“You’d rather not?” He did not mind her having her secrets, but considering Sergei was on his payroll, Viktor felt entitled to know where he was going, especially since the man was technically AWOL.

Ankari smiled and grasped his hands, pulling him across the landing and away from the others. “If things work out, it will be a surprise for you. Like a birthday present.”

“I told you I didn’t want a birthday present.”

“Yes, but I ignored you. You were going to get a knife, but you’ll like this better.”

Viktor grumbled. He trusted Ankari, but he did not like feeling superfluous.

Someone’s comm-patch beeped. Viktor again lamented the loss of his patch.

“Borage, here.”

“We have a problem, Commander,” came Garland’s voice. “A Fleet dreadnought has sidled up to Midway 5—they’re not being allowed to dock, but that’s not keeping them from settling in under the station. A Commodore O’Brian has sent me a message. It looks like the captain was right. They want information on those relics.”

“What’s the message?” Borage asked, then pulled his comm-patch off his shoulder, holding it out to silently ask if Viktor wanted it.

“They’re willing to arrange to have the captain extricated from jail and returned to us in exchange for all the data we have on those engines and the holographic projector that made those ships in the sky.”

Viktor accepted the patch. “The captain has already extricated himself,” he said.

“Oh, sir.
Good
,” Garland said with genuine relief.

“Tell the commodore that they’re late and that you’re unable to accommodate them at this time. No, actually, just tell them that you’ll think about it. As long as the
Albatross
is locked down here, we better not snub any noses.” It wouldn’t surprise Viktor if the Fleet officers had orders to take the information by force if they couldn’t acquire it through wheedling. Had this been behind all the attempts to get Viktor thrown in jail? “We’re working on getting the quarantine lifted.” At least he hoped that was Ankari’s plan. “Make sure the ship is ready for travel. Finish any repairs that have to be made on the station, and we’ll handle everything else en route to our next destination.”

“Where would that be, sir?”

“Anywhere that a dozen Fleet ships aren’t on their way to visit.”

“Ah, quite. Understood. Garland, out.”

Borage waved for Viktor to keep the patch. Since Azarov had one, Viktor did not object. He needed to ask Ankari about her plans, but she was having another conversation with Lauren. She closed her comm and met Viktor’s eyes.

“Lauren would like an escort to someplace safe. Apparently some security men ran past her lab.”

“We have that same problem,” Azarov said from the window in the door. He had been monitoring the corridor as people conversed around him. “A squad of security officers just ran by. I’m guessing someone noticed your escape, sir.”

Yes, they needed to get off this floor, put some distance between them and that jail.

“Borage, go get Dr. Keys,” Viktor said. “Take her back to her shuttle. It sounds like she can do her work more efficiently there, anyway.”

“Uhm.” Ankari lifted a finger, giving him an apologetic expression—or maybe that was a wince. “As I mentioned, sort of, the shuttle has attracted attention. First Captain Xu, whom we avoided, and then someone mad enough to leave graffiti all over the outside.”

Viktor felt a rumble rise in his throat that someone else might have called a growl. “Borage, deal with it. I’ve seen enough of Xu. If you run into him, and he gives you trouble, tie him up and stuff him in one of the cupboards in Delta Shuttle’s clinic. Azarov, find something to dissolve that paint. Burn it off if you have to.” Maybe the pink paint would come off at the same time. He avoided looking at Ankari, lest she guess his thoughts.

Jamie was the one who stepped forward, waving her tablet. “If this would be the time, I have the information you asked about, Ankari. I’ve found three ships that are obviously freighters in docking spots around the station. But I have no idea how to tell if any of them have talc on board.” She cycled through holograms of the three different ships, most of the images taken from awkward angles that only showed the back half of a vessel or, in one case, the bottom side of a wing.

“Got IDs for any of them?” Viktor asked.

“Partials on two.” Jamie zoomed in to show letters and numbers. “This one is the something Tiger. And that’s the HGD-244-something.”

“Run them against the known ships in the system.”

“Er, I don’t have that information, Captain. Not in an easily accessible database, anyway.”

Viktor tapped his comm-patch. “Garland, got a task for Sequoia.” He waved at Jamie. “Send over the images.”

“Yes, sir,” Jamie said.

Borage stirred. “Did she just call you sir? She’s been on a partial apprenticeship down in engineering for months, and she never calls me sir. She just tosses her braids and smiles at me.”

“Aren’t you two getting our microbiologist?” Viktor asked.

“Er, yes, sir.”

“Take Ms. Flipkens with you,” Viktor added. “Once you’re back in the shuttle, gather all the information Dr. Keys has found,
everything
all of you have found, and ship it off to the news outlets and the president of the board here. At the least, I want that quarantine lifted so the
Albatross
can get out of here.”

“Yes, sir.” Borage paused before he had gone more than a step down the stairwell. “What are
you
going to be doing, sir?”

“Visiting the mafia, apparently,” Viktor said, lifting an eyebrow toward Ankari.

She smiled and nodded. Now, he just needed to find out why she believed confronting the mafia was necessary.

Chapter 11

Ankari felt odd leading Viktor through the bowels of Midway 5, but thanks to his day in jail, he was behind on her plans. She filled him in as they wound through employee areas and maintenance access shafts on their way to the side of the space station that hosted the two freighters with the partial names. They were still waiting to hear back on whether Sequoia could figure out the full names and whether anything untoward had been happening with either of the ships. Unfortunately, they had no idea as to the name of the third vessel Jamie had located.

“I’m still not clear on why you want to make enemies of the mafia,” Viktor said. “Why not take the information Lauren found about the venom to the authorities? You said you also have a copy of a video that shows two mafia people threatening a storekeeper? That could be turned in anonymously, so they wouldn’t know you had picked a fight with them. Those two things should be all that’s needed to get Security to lift the quarantine and to turn them onto the true threat.”

The fact that Viktor—the strong and fearless Captain Mandrake who had spent his entire life fighting—thought they should avoid the mafia made Ankari doubt herself. Was she being too blithe about all of this? Despite the gangs in the slums where she had grown up, the mafia hadn’t operated in the area, so she had never crossed paths with them. They ruled numerous stations and moons on the outer core, though, in some places so openly that they were the entity that collected taxes and enforced laws—such as they were. In other places, they did what they had been attempting to do here, siphoning earnings from businesses and paying off police and private security companies to look the other way.

“I have two reasons,” Ankari said. She would see if Viktor still objected after she explained. “First off, neither you nor I can
go
to the authorities, not without being arrested. Or shot. Second, causing the quarantine to be lifted wouldn’t change our criminal status here. It wouldn’t make it so we could return to this station again. Whether it’s fair or not, because of the Fleet’s meddling, we’ve got giant black marks by our names in the Midway 5 database, and who knows if that might affect our ability to do business elsewhere?

“I know you don’t worry too much about being wanted,” she went on, “because the ship is your home and it doesn’t seem to matter to you if you ever leave it, but I need to visit planets and stations to effectively run my business. I’m hoping that helping with the situation here—maybe even depositing a tied and gagged mafia leader on Security’s doorstep—would prove that we’re on the side of the law and that we haven’t done anything wrong.” True, Security might already know they hadn’t done anything wrong, thanks to whatever blackmail and string-pulling had been going on in the background, but she hoped Sergei would be able to find the right people and convince them that the truth was a more scintillating story than the version the Fleet wanted spread. If nothing else, he should be able to threaten and blackmail as well as any Fleet officer. If the truth came out, Security would have a hard time continuing to claim Viktor was a criminal. Her own fate was more questionable, since she
had
committed a crime, however minor. “My dad used to say that stealing always makes more problems than it solves,” she muttered to herself.

“Putting aside for a moment that depositing a mafia leader on anyone’s doorstep could have long-term ramifications to our health, you’ve neglected to explain why you’re being pursued by Security. All because of the tablet you lifted?”

“It started with that, but somewhere along the way, it escalated. The last time I got close and snuggly with some security officers, they tried to shoot me.”

“They shot to kill?” Viktor’s tone grew chilly.

“According to the warrant I later found, they weren’t supposed to kill, but those laser blasts came awfully close to my head.”

“Did you do something else that would have elevated your crime in the eyes of Station Security?”

“No.”

Ankari thought about mentioning a notion she’d had, that the same Fleet people who wanted to use Viktor as a bargaining chip had found out that she meant something to him and might be used against him if their first plan failed. But she kept her mouth shut. She didn’t want to give him another reason to think about sending her away. She believed he had her safety and her future in mind, but that didn’t make the rejection any easier to stomach. She didn’t
want
to leave. No matter how many times her mother called, worrying about her.

She pulled out her comm unit and glanced at all of the messages waiting for her. She
would
contact her mother as soon as she had a few free minutes, but she would not give up Viktor without a fight. Even if his face had grown stony and unfriendly. She hoped it was not because of her and her crazy plan. It
did
feel presumptuous to take charge when he was the experienced military commander. But she was afraid he would choose the simple path, the one that would most likely keep his ship and his men out of trouble here, rather than one that could clear their names for the future. And she wasn’t sure that was the wrong choice. If she paused or handed over the flight stick, she might lose her momentum and falter.

They had reached the landing of a stairwell on the fourth level of the station, and Ankari peered through the window in the door. The hour had grown late, and as far as she had heard, the quarantine was still in effect, but numerous people were striding past, some of those die-hard casino goers, along with Security and other station personnel.

“I think this is as far as we can go in the maintenance tunnels and back alleys,” Ankari said, checking her map. “The atrium is to the right, and the docks where those two named freighters are secured are to the left, one on this level and one another level up.” She patted his chest. “Too bad we don’t have a costume for you.”

He touched the brim of her purple hat, but did not comment—or make a joke. Surely the hat deserved a joke. But he remained silent, either annoyed with her or deep in thought.

“Maybe we can find a large, broad-shouldered, and muscular security guard,” Ankari said, “and you can beat him up and steal his uniform.”

“I thought we were trying to
clear
our names, not add to our list of crimes.”

“So you’re saying you’d prefer we swing by the casino for a hat and glasses for you instead?”

Viktor pointed through the window. “The way is clear.”

Right, they should stick to business for now. She could attempt to draw out his humor later.

Ankari waved at the sensor, but the door did not open. Not surprising, since this was an employee exit. She slipped out Viktor’s Lock Master and pressed it to the cool metal.