The Ruins of Karzelek (The Mandrake Company series Book 4) (42 page)

“
Divining Rod
, this is Captain Mandrake, do you read?”

Sedge tapped the comm. “Thomlin here, sir. We hear you.”

A long second passed—Mandrake wondering what his intelligence officer was doing on her ship instead of one of his own? Or had the shuttle pilots already checked in and shared some of the story?

“
You’ll want to try to lose your pursuers in the nebula,” Mandrake said. “We’re already in it. I’m transmitting the coordinates for you and Alpha and Bravo shuttles to rendezvous with us.”

“
Yes, sir. Understood.”

Sedge slumped against the back of Kalish’s seat, his relief nearly palpable. “I didn’t think they were dead,” he whispered. “But I wasn’t sure. It’s been days...” He glanced back at Tick and Striker, and shared nods with them. They, too, appeared relieved to hear their captain’s voice.

“
I have the coordinates,” Tia said. “They’re deep in there.”

“
Take us there.” Kalish could still see the Fleet ships on the sensors, but as she watched, the alien ships disappeared, one by one. “Take us there
quickly
,” she amended.

Sedge nodded. “The box is the source of the projection. How it projects, I haven’t figured out yet, but I knew it couldn’t last indefinitely.”

Nobody on the bridge spoke as the pink swath of the nebula expanded on the view screen, gas and dust drifting lazily in the expanse, but everyone was aware of the Fleet ships—four of them, the sensors promised—heading after them.

“
Almost there,” Tia murmured after a few minutes.

“
Change course as soon as we slip in,” Sedge said. “Zigzag before heading for the captain’s coordinates.”

“
Planning on it, salted caramel. I’m not a dummy.”

Kalish managed a weak smile. Tia must be feeling safer. The attitude that had disappeared when the fighters had first appeared behind them was returning now. Kalish could see too many problems in the future to believe they were out of trouble, but she did take a deep, relieved breath when they slipped into the nebula. Before long, the sensors lost track of their pursuit, and some of the other instruments bleeped in dissatisfaction as well. So long as they could reach their destination eventually.

“
Salted caramel?” Tick rubbed the side of his head.

“
Is that a nickname, or did Sniffles spill ice cream on himself?” Striker asked.

“
Sniffles?” Kalish’s mother asked.

“
Long story,” Sedge murmured, nothing in his voice suggesting he wanted to explain it now. He dropped his hands onto Kalish’s shoulders, rubbing the muscles gently. “How’s your side?”

Though Kalish had been aware of the medical unit under her shirt humming away, repairing her tissue, it had been the last thing on her mind. She had to lift her shirt and take a peep. Sedge must have administered a painkiller, because the massive gash that rock had given her did not ache. “It will survive. I hope the rest of me will. And the rest of us.”

“
It’s going to take about three hours to reach the coordinates,” Tia said. “In case you people want to stop breathing down my shirt and relax in the back.”

Striker had been the only one standing close enough to breathe on her, but the bridge
was
tight with six people in it.

Sedge squeezed Kalish’s shoulders again, then headed for the corridor. She lifted a hand, wanting to call him back—Tia surely hadn’t meant to include him with her comment—but her mother stepped forward, taking his place behind Kalish’s seat.

“
Yes?” Kalish asked warily, expecting another diatribe against Sedge and money-hungry mercenaries in general. Hadn’t they all done enough to prove themselves by now?

“
I retract my earlier objection to you having a relationship with that one,” Mom said, her shoulders tense and her voice stiff. She had never been one to apologize often or graciously.

“
Sedge?” Kalish asked, then snorted at herself. Who else had she been touching and ogling?

“
Sedgwick Randal Thomlin, yes,” Mom said, lifting her tablet to show some display of a company’s public income statement and board of directors. “He and his sister are both three percent shareholders in a very profitable horticulture business.”

Kalish’s felt her brow crinkle. “Yes, he mentioned his family business, but what does
that
matter? You don’t think I would care whether someone has money or not.” Sedge had not mentioned that his family business was
that
large and profitable when he had described his mother’s explorations in parasite-riddled jungles, but Kalish doubted it mattered to Sedge and did not know if he actually had access to any of the family money. It had sounded like his allergies had not been a good match for the business, and he had left years ago.

“
Oh, I know
you
don’t care if someone is rich or a pauper.” Her mother’s eyes glinted. “I just thought a mercenary might be cozying up to you because you’ve made something of yourself and have an admirable bank account for someone so young.”

“
Nobody is going to be admiring my bank account after I finish paying off Mandrake Company.”

“
You can trade one of those engines to the pirate for your father and sell the other equipment.” Mom patted her cheek. “You’ll do fine.”

She walked out, leaving Kalish feeling somewhat bewildered. But slowly the muscles in her neck unkinked as she realized that, however silly the reason, her mother was no longer opposed to her pursuing a relationship with Sedge. Whatever happened in the coming weeks, that would be one bright point at least.

* * *

Kalish plopped down into the seat beside her sister, who had a mug of coffee sitting on the console next to her and was chomping on gum. Some of Tick’s caffeine-laced gum, perhaps. The sensors spat and hissed angrily, but everyone had stopped paying attention hours ago. So long as Tia flew slowly enough that they were not in danger of smashing into an asteroid, the ship was not in danger.

“
I’m sorry you haven’t had a break in so long.” Kalish felt guilty that she had nodded off in the dining cabin. She hadn’t meant to—the Fleet ships had entered the nebula, too, so it was not as if they were safe—but she had laid her head on her folded arms for a moment and dozed off. “I’m hoping Captain Mandrake has some ideas as to how to get out of the nebula and escape the Fleet. Then we can rest for a few hours, until we find out where Cometrunner is and get in contact with him.”

Tia turned bloodshot eyes toward her. “And then what? Are we going to be criminals after this? Will we ever be able to go home? I haven’t even finished college yet, Kay. I’m too young to be a criminal.”

“
I know.” Kalish wished she had a better answer for her sister, who had obviously been sitting up here alone, thinking about the enormity of the situation. “I’m still hoping we can barter one of our finds for free passage out of here. An engine for the pirates and an engine for the Fleet.” Except “Fleet,” or at least Commodore Parsons, had not shown interest in the alien technology during their brief chat.

“
Are
you sure it’s an engine now?” Tia asked.

“
Sedge figured out how to open the case and had a long look. He’s fairly certain that’s what we’ve got.” Another reason to feel guilty, because he had spent the last three hours doing research, while she had been napping. “Whether the models were entirely completed and ready to be inserted is debatable, but either way, they should be of tremendous value to our system’s engineers.”

“
Sedgy is useful. You should keep him.”

Kalish would like to, but how could that possibly happen? As soon as the
Albatross
appeared, the shuttles would be sucked back into its hold, and the captain would collect the rest of his mercenaries. Then Kalish needed to head off to rendezvous with Cometrunner. She intended to invite Sedge to join her at some future point, if only for a weekend of shared passions on a grungy space station, but she had no idea if he would be able to get away from his mercenary company in the near future. She wished she had found time to share passions already, in case... in case it never happened.

“
He’s not a kitten,” Kalish said softly.

A sneeze drifted up from the cargo hold.

“
No, a kitten wouldn’t be allergic to Mom’s shampoo,” Tia said, offering a tired smile.

Kalish returned it. “Are we almost to the coordinates?”

“
Yes, I’ve been looking for the mercenary ship, but as you can see—” Tia waved to the pink soup outside of the ship, “—visibility isn’t any more impressive than the garbage showing up on the sensor display.”

An angry beep came from the sensors. Kalish tapped the console, not certain whether she should trust it or not. “The computer thinks there’s a ship out there.”

“
The
Albatross
?” came Sedge’s voice from the corridor. He stepped onto the bridge, giving Tia a nod and Kalish a longer, more thoughtful look.

She wondered if he had been back there, having similar thoughts, wondering if they would ever see each other again after this. Kalish’s heart ached to think that they would not.

“
I’m not sure,” she said, turning back toward the sensors.

The blip remained, and she thought she could see something swooping down from a higher plane on the view screen.

“
There.” Tia pointed. “The mercenary ship is more of a bird shape, isn’t it? With wings?”

Kalish squinted. She could scarcely make out anything, but this craft did seem to be different, more of an oblong cigar shape. It almost seemed familiar, but between the cloudy mist outside and the static affecting the display, she struggled to pin down her feeling.

“
Yes,” Sedge said, his voice grim. “That’s not the
Albatross
.”

“
Then who?” Tia asked. “Did someone fake your captain’s transmission?”

A chill went through Kalish—if that had happened, the
Albatross
might have been destroyed after all. As the ship drew nearer, her sense of familiarity increased until, with an unpleasant jolt, she recognized the newcomer.

“
What’s
he
doing here?” she breathed.

“
Who?” Tia and Sedge asked at the same time.

“
That’s the pirate ship. Cometrunner’s ship.” Kalish licked her lips, reaching for the
Divining
Rod’s
weapons, but then halted, her fingers in the air. What if their father was on there? Could the pirate have been tracking her progress from a distance? Waiting out here to see if she succeeded? Maybe her earlier thought that Cometrunner had never been close enough to tag her ship with a tracking beacon had been a naive one.

She shifted from the weapons station to the comm panel. Before she hit the button to hail them, the pirate ship hailed
them
. She accepted it, and a man with a shaven head appeared in the air between her and Tia.

“
That’s not Cometrunner,” Kalish whispered, though she recognized the pirate. He had been in the background during one of her communications with the captain. Was this the second mate? Or some other trusted subordinate?

“
I’m First Mate Baxter,” the man announced. “Captain Cometrunner has authorized me to negotiate on his behalf.”

“
Where is he?” Kalish asked. And more importantly, where was her father?

“
Busy. I see you haven’t obtained a ship; have you obtained something equally valuable?”

“
Yes. Show me my father, and I’ll show you an ancient alien engine.”

Sedge shifted his weight behind her. Would he recommend a different negotiating tactic? If he had misgivings, he did not voice them.