The Tracker's Dilemma: (A Mandrake Company Science Fiction Romance) (2 page)

“Captain Mandrake,” Farley said, her hands still in between her overalls and her shirt. Maybe she had a weapon stashed in there? “Always good to see you. But we’re old friends, aren’t we? You’ve brought some fierce-looking men along with you, considering I only invited you down for a peaceable chat.”

“Fierce men?” Striker asked. “They talking about me or Sergeant Hazel?”

Hazel squinted at him but said nothing. There wasn’t much love lost between those two, probably because Striker had asked her to handle his equipment one too many times.

“They like to get off the ship now and then,” Mandrake said. “Smell the flowers.”

“Now they’re talking about you,” Striker said, nudging Tick with his elbow.

Tick was about to whisper a response when another vision flashed into his mind. He saw the shuttle on the bottom of the lake stirring, its engines flaring quietly to life as it eased out from between those two boulders. The sensor-dampening netting remained around the craft.

“...said you have information for me,” Mandrake was saying. “How many aurums is it going to cost? I assume you insisted on meeting face to face because you want a purse full of physical coins.”

“You know me well, Captain.”

Tick looked toward the lake, his hand dropping to the pistol at his waist, though a pistol wouldn’t do anything against an armored spacecraft. Striker’s grenades might, but the team would be better off jumping into Alpha Shuttle for such a fight with another ship. Here on the ground, they would be easy targets, especially if their enemies did not mind taking out a copse of trees to get at them.

He caught Mandrake looking at him, his eyebrows arched slightly. Tick needed to warn him—
if
something was going to happen. But he hadn’t seen or heard anything yet, not with his regular senses. His
real
senses. How could he know his mind wasn’t playing tricks on him? It wasn’t as if he’d ever had visions before, not unless one counted the times in his youth when he had experimented with Digaroo Mushrooms.

“It’ll cost you two hundred aurums, Mandrake,” Farley said. “I promise the information will be worth your while. There’s a war brewing out on Gora. They’re looking to hire mercenaries for some ground fighting.”

“War sounds promising,” the captain said.

“Only a mercenary would say that.”

“Lots of people profit from war. Who’s involved, and who’s hiring?”

Farley drew a hand from her overalls and held it out, her palm up. “Like I said, information doesn’t want to be free.”

As she made the demand, the woman looked back at Tick, Striker, and Hemlock, perhaps wondering if Mandrake would try to force the information out of her without paying. Nothing about the captain’s reputation should have suggested he would. Mandrake was one of the few honorable mercenaries out there; Tick wouldn’t have stuck with him so long if he weren’t.

“Two hundred is a lot for a few words,” Mandrake said. “Wars don’t stay quiet once they break out. With a little research of my own—”

The image returned, more intense than ever, and Tick didn’t hear the rest of the captain’s words. In his mind, he saw the underwater shuttle tilt toward the surface, pointed to the southern end of the lake, toward the copse of trees. Its energy torpedo ports flared white, weapons arming. Tick stared out at the lake, but he couldn’t see a damned thing with his eyes, not even any bubbles floating up to the surface.

He tightened his hand on his pistol, indecision making him hesitate. As someone who didn’t believe in gods or mysticism of any kind, he didn’t trust the vision, not one bit. But if they were caught by surprise out in the open, they might lose men before they could find cover. The shuttle would be vulnerable, too, since it was on the ground, its hatch open and its shields down.

One last image popped into his mind. This time, he seemed to be inside of the pilot’s head, seeing the watery world through the man’s eyes. The light ahead grew brighter as the craft neared the lake’s surface. Excitement thrummed through him—no, through the pilot—as he anticipated blowing Captain Mandrake and all of his minions off the face of the moon.

“Sir,” Tick blurted. “There’s an attack coming. From the lake. Get in the shuttle!”

He sprinted for the captain, his pistol turned toward the lake as he ran.

After ten years working with Tick, Mandrake didn’t hesitate.

“You heard him,” he barked to his men, jerking a thumb toward the open hatch.

As Tick ran toward it, Mandrake lunged for the trader, who was spinning away, her braid flying behind her as she turned toward her own craft. He caught her around the waist, her pudginess not keeping him from lifting her over his shoulder with one arm.

Tick paused at the ramp to the hatch, in part to lay down cover for the captain if necessary, and in part because he couldn’t help but doubt his vision. Was he about to be made a fool?

“Put me down, Mandrake,” Farley roared at the same time as something shot out of the lake.

The enemy ship.

It roared out of the water, droplets streaming from its hull, and it arrowed straight toward them. The energy-dampening netting that had hidden it from sensors did nothing to hide the craft from the human eye. The torpedo ports that Tick had seen in his vision—how in all the hells in the galaxy had he
seen
that?—glowed white, an attack imminent.

As soon as the captain ran up the ramp with his prisoner, Tick spun to follow. The charge from his laser pistol would bounce harmlessly off a spaceship hull. Hazel and Hemlock raced inside on his heels.

“Shields,” Mandrake barked to the pilot, Commander Thatcher. “Get us off the ground.”

“Is everybody inside?” Up front, Thatcher’s hand hovered over the button that would close the hatch. They couldn’t take off or raise shields until that was secured.

“Striker,” Mandrake yelled. He hadn’t set his captive down yet, and she was kicking and shouting, almost drowning him out. “Get in here.”

Thatcher was watching the enemy ship on the view screen, and he must have decided they couldn’t wait. He hit the button to withdraw the ramp and close the hatch, then swiped his hand through a holodisplay above the panel.

Tick ran to the hatchway. What was that idiot Striker doing?

A suck-thump noise came from the base of the ramp, then Striker raced in, wobbling as it rose underneath his feet.

“She’s firing,” Hemlock warned—he had charged up to the front and crouched behind Thatcher.

Striker ended up diving inside, almost crashing into Tick. Tick scrambled aside as a boom erupted from over the lake. A flash of white light filled the shuttle, and then a shockwave battered them, the deck vibrating under Tick’s feet.

“Shields are now up,” Thatcher said calmly. “Lifting off to engage in evasive maneuvers.”

Only Thatcher could manage to sound like an emotionless android as an enemy vessel bore down on them, torpedoes launching.

“Might not be anything to evade,” Striker said, jogging up the aisle between the chairs. “Did Thumper hit him?” He patted his grenade launcher lovingly. “Had my sights lined up good, but then the ramp started lifting under my toes.” He shot an accusatory glare toward Thatcher.

Tick shoved Striker toward a seat. Assuming the grenade hadn’t blown the enemy shuttle out of the sky, things were about to get rough. Tick wasn’t crazy about flying under the best of circumstances, and the trip back to the
Albatross
wouldn’t likely be the best of circumstances.

Striker let himself be shoved—it wasn’t as if he could fire more grenades from inside—though he had to remove some of his weapons before he could buckle himself in. Just as Tick reached for his own harness, the first torpedo struck their shuttle. The shields were up, but the force of it still nearly knocked him out of his seat.

“Damn,” Striker said, “guess I didn’t hit him a good one. Why’d you have to lift the ramp, Thatcher? You know you got to let the Chief of Boom do his work.” He thumped himself in the chest.

“
Commander
Thatcher,” their pilot said calmly without looking back. His hands flew over the controls, both physical and holographically displayed, and the shuttle banked sharply as another torpedo screamed past. A boom sounded as it struck the ground somewhere below them, dirt clods shooting up high enough to appear on the view screen. Now that they were in the air, Thatcher would be harder to catch than a greased pig, and Tick took some comfort in knowing he was one of the best pilots out there. They should be all right. Unless the enemy pilot was also one of the best. Or better.

Tick grimaced and gripped the armrests of his seat. Ground combat didn’t faze him, but this? Flying around in the back seat of a shuttle where he was helpless to protect his fate? Tracking and fighting skills were useless up here.

“Still want those two hundred aurums?” Mandrake asked.

He had secured his captive in one seat a few spots up the row from Tick and Striker, and he sat across from her, his harness fastened as he calmly pointed a pistol toward Farley. Apparently, he wasn’t angry enough to wrap a hand around her throat—yet.

“Always want aurums, Mandrake,” the woman said, glowering at him. “You know how hard it is to survive out here on the rim, especially when you’re just a girl without an army of big louts to guard your back.”

“Who’s she calling a lout?” Striker asked.

“Is it hard to sound indignant about being called a lout when you’re fondling your grenades?” Tick asked, trying to distract himself from the way the ground and the sky kept alternately coming into sight on the view screen. Did Thatcher have to
spin
so much? The artificial gravity kept them from being thrown about inside of the cabin, but Tick’s stomach still protested.

“What do you mean?” Striker asked blankly.

“Never mind.”

Corporal Hemlock didn’t seem upset by Thatcher’s spinning and gyrating. He leaned forward, asking if he could help with weapons. Damn perky new men.

“You hire those people?” Mandrake asked, jerking a thumb toward the view screen. The enemy craft came into sight, this time, the back end of it. Thatcher maneuvered behind it, aiming for the orange glow of its thrusters, his hand hovering over their own torpedo launchers.

“Go to Hell, Mandrake,” Farley growled. “I’m not answering your questions unless you plaster some gold bars into my hands.”

“How ’bout we plaster her bones all over the walls?” Striker suggested, raising his eyebrow toward the captain, probably asking if he wanted to make this a real interrogation.

“The painted vessel has been annihilated,” Thatcher said calmly, “along with a large portion of the shoreline.”

“The painted vessel!” Farley blurted, trying to stand up—the harness held her in her seat. “You mean my
Bessy
?”

“If that is the name of the ship that was parked beneath the trees, yes.”

“Those
bastards
,” she seethed, fingernails digging into her armrests.

“Care to tell us whether you’re working with them now?” Mandrake asked calmly.

She scowled at him and looked like she would clam up, but for a moment, Tick could see what she was thinking, or at least he seemed to be able to do so. He had a flash of insight, access to a memory of hers, of powerful armed men surrounding her, of her back to the hull of her shuttle, of sweat slithering down her ribcage.

“They strong-armed her,” Tick said, before he could think wiser of keeping his strange thoughts—no,
her
thoughts—to himself. “Knew she’d sold you information before and figured you’d trust her enough to show up.”

The trader’s eyes bulged as she looked at Tick, some of her anger and defiance replaced by a hint of fear. “How do you know that?”

“It true?” Mandrake asked, also giving Tick an odd look. It wasn’t one of fear, but a hint of confusion, or perhaps wariness, edged his face.

Tick shut his mouth, fear creeping into his gut too. What was happening to him? Why did he know things he couldn’t possibly know?

“It’s true,” Farley whispered. “GalCon wants you captured alive and brought in, Mandrake. They’re offering good money for you, and they’ve put the word out that anybody who hires you in the meantime is going to get a squad of Crimson Ops soldiers visiting their doorsteps.”

The captain leaned back, frowning thoughtfully.

“Think that explains why we haven’t had any offers of work in a month, sir?” Striker asked.

“It might, if she’s telling the truth.” Mandrake looked to Tick again, his expression still thoughtful.

Tick shrugged back. He wasn’t getting any more weird insights, and he didn’t know what to think of the others. Before today, nothing like this had ever happened. He’d had a few drinks the night before, but surely that couldn’t account for this. The day before, he had received another dosing of Dr. Keys’ gut bugs, but that was—

A surge of adrenaline ran through him as his thoughts lurched. Could
that
have somehow caused this?

It was an experimental treatment, with him and a few of the other mercenaries participating in the first human trials, from what he’d heard. But it had been his fourth time receiving a dose, and nothing strange had happened after the first three times. Oh, he had been able to run longer and lift more weight at the gym, and his vital signs had all been excellent, but that had been expected. Lauren Keys hadn’t mentioned anything about side effects to his
mind
. It had been nearly a month since the trial started. What would cause his brain to start doing funky things now?

Mandrake’s comm-patch beeped as Thatcher sent them through another series of spirals and loops. He fired several times, and Tick barely heard the captain answer over the noise.

“Can you repeat that?” Mandrake asked after the torpedoes had launched.

“We may have a new assignment, Viktor.” It was Ankari, the captain’s girlfriend and the head of Microbacteriotherapy, Inc., the little company behind Dr. Keys’ experiments.

Unease flowed through Tick’s veins, and he strained to listen, not sure if he was experiencing another bout of prescience or if his instincts just told him that this might have something to do with him.