The Tracker's Dilemma: (A Mandrake Company Science Fiction Romance) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Foreword

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  The Tracker’s Dilemma

  (A Mandrake Company novel)

  by Ruby Lionsdrake

  Copyright © 2016 Ruby Lionsdrake

  Foreword

  This is the seventh installment in the Mandrake Company series and can be read as a stand alone, but will probably make more sense to those who already have some familiarity with our band of mercenaries and their group of civilian businesswomen. Either way, I hope you enjoy the adventure.

  Before you jump in, please let me thank my editor, Shelley Holloway, for sticking with me throughout the series, and I’d also like to give a nod to my beta readers Sarah Engelke, Cindy Wilkinson, and Rue Silver. Thanks, all!

  Chapter 1

  The grass blades waved gently in the breeze, the stalks erect and unbroken. Sergeant Heath “Tick” Hawthorn scanned the prairie, the lake in the distance, and the copse of trees at one end, his practiced eyes seeking signs that anyone two-legged had been through the area recently. So far, he hadn’t seen, heard, or smelled anything that hinted of human intruders, but something nagged at his senses, a feeling that they weren’t alone on the grassy moon.

  “See anything, Tick?” a gruff voice called from behind him.

  Sergeant Striker, spiky brown hair waving in the breeze similarly to the grass, tramped toward him. The big man carried a massive assault rifle in his hands, had a grenade launcher slung across his back, wore a belt full of daggers and laser pistols, and topped off the ensemble with a bandolier full of grenades. He flattened the grass as he strode along, making Tick glad he had already searched the area behind him.

  A second man followed him at a distance, the new fellow, Corporal Hemlock. He stepped more carefully, watching the ground as he went, though he carried almost as many weapons as Striker, and his scarred hands promised he had seen many battles.

  “Not yet, but I’ve got an itch,” Tick said.

  “An itch? Should’ve come to that brothel on Dock Seven with me. Could’ve found a nice girl to scratch that for you.”

  “Not that kind of itch.” While he surveyed the prairie again and waited for the others to catch up, Tick pulled a small canister out of his pocket. He fished out a piece of his caffeinated gum and popped it into his mouth.

  “No? That’s shocking, considering how little action your rifle has seen lately.”

  “It’s really not necessary for you to keep tabs on my rifle.” Tick felt a burst of energy from the mint-flavored gum. He turned back toward the lake and the copse of trees he wanted to check, second-guessing his decision to let Striker catch up.

  “I keep tabs on everybody, on account of needing ideas for my comics.” Striker stopped beside Tick and made a drawing motion in the air.

  “Didn’t think your stories involved the sexual exploits of the Mandrake Company mercenaries.”

  “They involve anything that’s interesting. And since we haven’t had any real jobs in more than a month, I’m expanding on what qualifies as interesting. Say, your microbiologist know your name yet?” Striker grinned at him.

  “Of course she knows my name.”

  Though Tick was trying to work and this wasn’t the time for mooning over a woman, he couldn’t help but think of the dark-haired and fair-skinned Dr. Lauren Keys, the way she was so out of place on a mercenary ship, the way she seemed like she needed someone to protect her, to watch out for her, to offer her a shoulder when something alarmed her. He wouldn’t mind being that person, it was true. He respected the battle-hardened women on the ship, like Sergeant Hazel and Private Sahara, but for a lover, he preferred someone feminine, someone who needed him. Too bad he was here, and she was back on the Albatross, no doubt leaning over her microscope and making notes on her tablet. More than once, Tick had fantasized about easing up behind her, sliding his arm around her waist, and leaning in to nuzzle her throat.

  “You sure about that? The other day when we passed her in the mess hall, she called you A27.” Striker’s grin broadened.

  “That’s just the specimen number she gave me for her reports.”

  Besides, she had looked at his face when she’d said, “Evening, A27.” They’d made eye contact. For at least a second! That was progress, Tick was sure of it. Usually, she had that distracted I’m-contemplating-my-science look on her face when she walked about the ship, and she didn’t notice anyone unless she bumped into them. Even then, the noticing wasn’t guaranteed. As he could attest, since he had “accidentally” bumped into her a few times.

  “Specimen number.” Striker sniggered and looked at Hemlock when the man joined them. “You ever heard anything crazier than letting a woman do science experiments on you, just so she’ll touch your butt as she’s shoving alien bacteria up there?”

  The scarred veteran flushed slightly, an unexpected reaction for a man who’d made a living as a hardened bounty hunter before joining Mandrake Company.

  “She also pays a small stipend to those who volunteer,” he said, his voice gravelly, as if he had been on the wrong side of a garrote once. Maybe he had.

  Striker’s forehead wrinkled.

  “As of last week, Hemlock is A32,” Tick said dryly.

  The corporal’s flush deepened. “I’m saving money so I can buy a new spaceship.”

  “I’m sure being a lab rat in science experiments is the way to fame and fortune,” Striker said.

  “I don’t want fame or fortune,” Hemlock said, his eyes growing steely with determination. “Just a new ship.”

  The comm-patch on Tick’s shoulder bleeped.

  He tapped it, feeling a rush of guilt. He had let himself be distracted from his duty.

  “Yes, sir?” he asked, adjusting the rifle on his back and heading toward the copse.

  Thousands of sparkles of light glittered on the lake, reflecting the brilliance of the distant orange sun. This tiny moon was far out from the core worlds and shouldn’t have been as warm as it was, but the aliens who had terraformed the system long before human settlers arrived had done impressive work on some of the rim worlds. Some were still glacial ice fields, but he could imagine himself settling down someplace like this one day, retiring and doing some hunting and fishing. If he had someone with whom to share that life.

  “Find any trouble?” Captain Mandrake asked over the comm.

  “Not yet, sir. But I do have an itch.”

  “Apparently, Dr. Keys won’t help him with it,” Striker called, sticking close enough to eavesdrop.

  Tick chomped on his gum, hoping the captain would berate Striker for being unprofessional.

  “That’s unfortunate,” was all he said, his tone dry.

  Tick chomped harder, refusing to let his own cheeks flush pink, though it was mildly distressing that the whole ship seemed to know he had a… an interest in their resident microbiologist. Even more distressing that said microbiologist didn’t know. Or knew and didn’t care. He sighed.

  “Might want to give me a few more minutes before landing, Cap’n,” Tick said. “Can’t see that anythin
g bigger than sage rabbits has been frolicking around here, but you did detect that blip on your sensors on the way down, and I do have this feeling...”

  “The ship waiting by those trees might have accounted for it,” Mandrake said. “Farley’s not trying to hide.”

  Tick nodded. He’d seen the glorified gypsy wagon, its hull painted with people dancing under trees and stars around a campfire. If the shuttle possessed a single weapon, it hadn’t been apparent. That craft they knew about, as the captain was supposed to meet the owner for some intel, but he’d sent Tick’s team down early and on the sly, being suspicious of the trader’s intent. The woman had refused to deliver the intel she’d teased him with over the network.

  Tick found his eye drawn to the lake again, and a sudden flash of insight or intuition or maybe just his imagination came to him. With his mind’s eye, he saw a combat shuttle hiding deep within the water’s depths, nestling between algae-slick boulders on the bottom, a sensor-blocking net fastened around its hull.

  “Tick?” Striker poked him on the back of the shoulder.

  Tick blinked and tore his gaze from the lake’s surface. It still gleamed serenely in the sun, not hinting of anything hiding underneath its placid waters. “What?”

  “You all right? You froze up there.”

  “Fine, but—” Tick tapped his comm-patch again, making sure the line was open. “Cap’n? Might want to scan the lake up close before you land. My itch says some trouble might be hiding down in it.”

  His itch. Whatever that image that had flashed into his mind had been, it had been different from any intuition he’d experienced before.

  Had it been his imagination? Would the captain ask him to explain further, and if he did, what would he say? He’d seen a vision? Mandrake would think all the squirrels caged in his brain had gotten loose. He crossed his fingers that the captain wouldn’t ask. After all, Tick had been his tracker for ten years. Mandrake knew he had a knack for seeing things others didn’t. Granted, those things were usually in plain sight, to those who had an eye for the looking. They didn’t—or until now, hadn’t—come to him in visions.

  He took the minty gum out of his mouth and eyed it. Lert had been his favorite brand for years, and the caffeine hadn’t caused visions yet. But maybe he ought to cut back.

  “We’ll fly low over the lake on the way in,” Mandrake said. “Meet us at the copse.”

  “Yes, sir.” Tick hoped the captain’s shuttle would be able to detect the other craft through that sensor shielding he’d seen. Either that, or he hoped the vision had been his imagination and that nothing more inimical than ornery fish lurked down there.

  The smell of wood smoke tickled Tick’s nostrils as he, Striker, and Hemlock approached the copse. The painted shuttle rested in the shade of the trees, and Farley, a chubby woman in overalls, sat on a nearby stump, her gray and brown braid of hair hanging to her butt. She wore a pistol in a holster at her belt, but overall, the crackling campfire and innocuous shuttle hardly bespoke danger.

  “Maybe she’ll scratch your itch,” Striker said as they approached. “She doesn’t look like someone with high standards.”

  Farley heard them approaching, stood, and waved.

  “Given your preoccupation with itches, Sergeant, perhaps you’re the one who needs a scratch,” Hemlock said.

  “You offering?”

  “I thought you didn’t like things inserted in your ass.”

  “No, but I’m not overly fussy about who handles my hardware, especially given how few women we got on the ship.”

  “Even fewer who want anything to do with Striker’s hardware,” Tick said, keeping his voice low, since they ought to be within the trader’s hearing now. He hoped she hadn’t been expecting any particular couth from mercenaries. Of course, if those were her buddies in the hidden combat shuttle, then he wasn’t overly worried about offending her sensibilities.

  A sleek, gray bullet-shaped shuttle zipped out of the clouds, heading toward the lake. Farley’s eyes narrowed as she tracked it, and Tick noticed a tenseness to her shoulders. Worried about meeting with mercenaries? Or worried that Mandrake Company had figured out she’d set a trap? The captain had a couple of bounties on his head, most from crime barons he had irked on backwater planets, but he’d also been a part of killing a couple of finance lords who’d had powerful allies, and he knew a few secrets that the Galactic Conglomeration military wouldn’t mind getting their hands on. Still, he had that Crimson Ops background, and Mandrake Company itself had a fearsome reputation. Not many people crossed them.

  “That’ll be the captain,” Tick said, putting more of his backwoods drawl into his voice than typical. That usually set the ladies at ease.

  Farley did not respond. She merely stuck her hands into the front of her overalls and watched the shuttle as it swooped low over the lake. Her shoulders were definitely tense.

  Tick turned away from her, pretending to scratch his ear. “Trouble,” he mouthed so that Striker and Hemlock could see.

  Hemlock made a sour face. Striker fondled his rifle and grinned.

  Alpha Shuttle landed in the grass in front of the trader’s vessel. A moment later, the rear hatch opened, and Captain Mandrake walked out in his duster with an Eytect scanner over one eye. For weapons, he carried only a pistol at his waist, but he wore his mesh combat armor under the jacket, definitely having the look of someone who expected trouble.

  Sergeant Hazel walked at his side, her height and muscled form making her as intimidating as any of the men on the ship. She carried an assault rifle as large as Striker’s and also had a couple of knives in sheaths on her forearm and a pistol holster strapped to her thigh.

  “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 w
ould 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.