Mandrake Company- The Complete Series Page 8

  The woman at the railing turned at the sound of voices behind her. It was Dr. Zimonjic. Her expression grew wry when she saw them. She must have been informed about the syringe. Maybe she’d been disciplined for her carelessness. Ankari didn’t know whether she should approach or not.

  Zimonjic touched the front of her black-and-silver wrap. “No pockets.”

  No, Ankari had already noticed that. The doctor wasn’t carrying any of her equipment, so she must not have been called down to attend to an injury. Although, with the way the men were going at each other, it was surprising nobody had cried out for first aid. Or grunted out. She supposed such fierce fighters wouldn’t cry, scream, or whine about injuries.

  Ankari lifted her wrists, drawing attention to her handcuffs, and approached the railing. With the tablet stuffed in her pocket, standing with things in front of her body was a good idea. “I had to try whatever I could to escape,” she said apologetically.

  “Is that what you’re doing right now? Escaping?” Zimonjic raised her eyebrows at the handcuffs.

  “Apparently, I’m being interrogated now. Or I will be soon.” Ankari looked toward the captain. He only had two opponents now. The other one was sitting on the matting beside the rest of the onlookers, nursing fresh bruises.

  The doctor followed her gaze and smiled. There was that wistful look on her face again. “He looks like a brute, I know, but he’d have Striker or Liang question you if violence was going to be involved. They like that sort of work. Viktor doesn’t.”

  “Viktor? That’s his first name?”

  “One of them.” Zimonjic’s smile changed again, from wistful to mischievous. “You’d have to ask him to tell you the other.”

  At that moment, “Viktor” smashed one of those men in the chest with a kick that launched him into the spectators, who jeered and whooped.

  “He doesn’t like violence, you say?” Ankari asked.

  Zimonjic chuckled. “Oh, he’ll knock you into the next galaxy if you pick a fight with him, but standing in front of a defenseless prisoner and inflicting pain on him—or her—he doesn’t care for. From what I’ve gathered, he used to do that, and all manner of other unpleasant things, in the fleet. One of the reasons he left... Well, I don’t really know. He’s never told me these things, and I romanticize him, I suppose. But I’ve seen his military record, what unit he was in, the training he received.” Her humor disappeared, and she shook her head. “I doubt he knew what he was signing up for when he was a kid—he was probably drawn by the fact that Crimson Ops soldiers get trained to parachute out of shuttles, hijack ships, and travel all over the system. That’s what the recruiting posters say, anyway, but...” She shrugged. “You’re aware of the reputation of the units, I’m sure.”

  A cold hand seemed to wrap itself around Ankari’s heart. GalCon’s Crimson Ops were trained to be the most versatile—and deadly—warriors in the galaxy. They were feared as much as they were admired. The press made sure their deeds were known and that their reputations for delivering death never faded from the populace’s mind. If something awful happened in the system, whispers of Crimson Ops were always made. Some people said it was just propaganda and fear-mongering by the corporations, and there had to be some of that, but Ankari had always believed... There had been those who said the Crimson Ops laid the explosives that had destroyed her home world. Her family had moved right before that happened, and she hadn’t been there in the end, but she had been old enough to remember the images on the news: cities being blown up, people dying horribly...

  “I’m sorry,” Zimonjic said, watching Ankari’s face. “I meant to ease your concerns, not make them worse.”

  Ankari didn’t know what expression had been on her face, but she tried for a nonchalant visage. It was a struggle, though. Her body had broken out in a cold sweat. She remembered the calm way the captain had ordered her ship destroyed. Could such a man have calmly ordered a planet destroyed twenty years ago? No... He wasn’t old enough for that. Even if he had been there, he would have been someone following orders, not giving them. That thought didn’t reassure her as much as she would have liked, and the smile she tried on the doctor had to be anemic.

  “He won’t hurt you,” Zimonjic added.

  Ankari glanced at her guard, wondering what he thought about the doctor sharing all this information on the captain, but he was listening, his expression intent, as if he was hearing it all for the first time. Maybe he was.

  “I’m taking heart in the fact that I’m wanted alive by this Felgard,” Ankari said. “I figure I don’t really have to worry until I’m tied up like a parcel and deposited on his doorstep.”

  “Probably true. I wonder what Viktor wants to talk to you about.” The doctor went back to watching him, or perhaps admiring the way his sweaty shirt stuck to his back. She had the look of a woman memorizing the body of the man who was going to star in her dreams that night, something she probably couldn’t do that easily most of the time, at least not without the captain noticing. He was down to one opponent now, and their attacks were less frenzied. It had wound down to more of a coaching session than an all-out battle.

  “Are you two...?” Ankari prompted, even if she was fairly certain of her guess. There was no reason for her to ask—this information surely couldn’t be useful in her escape planning—other than curiosity. Earlier, she had been toying with the idea of expressing her gratitude toward the captain in the way of a kiss, thus to get close and pick his pocket, but with a tablet already in her possession, there was no need for her to lower herself to such chicanery. It had been bad enough, rubbing up against the mechanic. Three days ago, she would have told anyone that she had long since found enough success that she’d never have to pick another pocket again. What a debacle this week had become.

  “No,” Zimonjic said, lowering her voice so the corporal wouldn’t hear. “In the three years I’ve been here, I’ve never known him to be in a relationship with anyone. He seeks out companionship when he’s on leave, the same as the other men, but if he ever keeps in touch with any of those brief lovers, I’ve not heard about it.”

  “Sounds lonely.”

  “I think he prefers it that way.” Zimonjic hitched a shoulder. “I asked him once if he wanted to be more than colleagues. I don’t know if it was just an excuse, but he said I reminded him of some counselor he had to go to when he was in the fleet.”

  “Counselor?”

  “Well, he called her a mind-fucker, but the GalCon term is counselor. These are the people who do whatever they have to do to make sure their soldiers are the perfect killers without a thought toward questioning orders.”

  “Oh.”

  “I will give you one warning,” Zimonjic said, her voice returning to a normal tone, “because you seem the type of woman who could inadvertently—or perhaps advertently—irk a man.”

  That prompted a noisy snort from Cutty.

  Zimonjic’s smile was a little too knowing. She waved at the captain. “He’s pretty good at controlling it these days, much better than when I first crossed his path years ago, but there’s a lot of rage in there. I’ve seen him kill a man in anger, one of his own crew. The man had betrayed the ship and deserved some kind of punishment, but...” She spread her hand. “It’s why people tiptoe around him.”

  Yet more information that Ankari didn’t find comforting. Had Zimonjic truly meant to assuage Ankari’s concerns about the “interrogation”? Or had this all been designed as some mind-game, some revenge for stealing her equipment and using it to knock out Striker? Because Ankari hadn’t been worried about dinner with the captain before this chat. Now, there were Mercrusean tangleworms wrestling in her stomach. The tablet felt like an anchor in her pocket. If the captain found it on her, would he be amused? Or would some of this rage appear?

  “They’re done,” Zimonjic said. “I’d better go. Good luck.”

  She sounded sincere, friendly even, but Ankari’s voice was raspy with concern when she uttered a quick, “By
e.”

  “Cutty,” came a cool call from below. “This isn’t the mess hall.”

  “No, sir.” The guard rushed forward, hands clasping at the rail. The stern, exasperated authority he had been exuding all day had evaporated. Maybe listening to Zimonjic had put wrestling worms in his stomach too. “You didn’t show up, and she was getting into trouble. And I’m supposed to be...” He must have decided he didn’t want to whine that his shift had ended over an hour ago, because he switched to, “I just wasn’t sure if you’d forgotten and wanted me to put her back.”

  When the captain’s gaze landed on her, Ankari kept herself from quailing, though she feared he would immediately see through the railing to the bump in her pocket. She raised her chin. “I was not getting into trouble. I was merely walking to a table and stopped to ask a man what a dogeater was.”

  The captain’s eyebrows didn’t so much as twitch, but her comment drew a few snickers from the onlookers. A couple of men had grabbed towels and were heading for the door, but one stopped to ask. “Did you get an answer? Because I’ve been wondering that for years.”

  “Apparently it’s a mystery, even to the mechanics.”

  “There’s a lot that’s a mystery to the mechanics,” someone else snickered.

  “Oh, please, Frog. Don’t act like you’re a brain because you know how to fly a ship. Nine out of ten people here beat you at space rocks.”

  “That’s a game of chance.”

  “Only for you, my friend.”

  “The mess hall, Corporal,” the captain said. “I’ll be there in ten.” Throughout his men’s banter, his eyes had never left Ankari’s, and she was doing her best not to look guilty, but she continued to feel that he already knew she was up to something. She was relieved when Cutty led her out of the cargo bay but knew the feeling would be short-lived unless she could figure out somewhere to hide the tablet on the way back to the mess hall. But if she did that, how could she be sure to find it again?

  * * *

  The lush green landscape of Sturm was visible through the portholes by the time Viktor walked into the mess hall. It had taken him twenty minutes instead of ten, because he had first showered, changed, and checked to make sure the scouting team had made it to the moon without trouble. When he saw Ankari—Markovich—sitting at a table near the view, he almost apologized to her, but her hands were folded in front of her, the flex-cuffs clearly in view, and he kept the words to himself. By now, the hour had grown late, but there was still a table occupied by a group of fighters from Delta Squadron, and they had grown silent when he walked in. They must be insufferably curious about this meeting between captain and prisoner.

  Viktor had initially planned to meet with Markovich in plain sight of everyone, to keep rumors from spreading and any resentment from starting up in the ranks—we haven’t had leave for months, but the captain gets to shag prisoners? What the hell? But when he saw the nervous way Markovich watched him enter, he found himself wanting to set her mind at ease, not turn her into a spectacle. He had seen Zimonjic up there talking to her and wondered what the doctor had said. She was a talented medical officer, but she’d come from GalCon, too, and knew more of his secrets than he was comfortable with. While he couldn’t imagine why she would share any of those secrets with a random prisoner, he had caught her pointing to him a couple of times while she had been talking, and he wondered.

  Corporal Cutty was standing at parade rest behind Markovich, clearly ready to go, but clearly doing his best to appear a model soldier until he was dismissed. He was trying harder than usual. What had Zimonjic been talking about?

  Viktor grabbed a couple of plates of food, avoiding the “dogeaters” in favor of meatloaf and a mashed side dish that could have been potatoes, parsnips, or a pale squash. The smell didn’t give any clues. “Give me the key, and hit your rack, Cutty.”

  “Yes, sir.” The corporal should have been off duty a couple of hours ago, but he would survive a late night here and there. He gave a quick salute, tossed Viktor the electronic key that opened the cuffs, and trotted out of the mess hall.

  Plates in hand, Viktor tilted his head toward a door at the back of the room. “Officers’ mess,” he said and headed that way. Markovich hesitated, maybe not quite catching his invitation, but pushed back her chair and followed when he walked past her. A few soft groans of disappointment came from the Delta table as the entertainment disappeared. Too bad.

  “Sit.” Viktor set the plates down at the single oval table inside, then jerked a thumb toward the outer room. “I’m getting a drink. Want something?”

  “Whatever you’re having is fine.” Markovich sat at one of the seats with a plate.

  “Probably not.” Viktor waved the key over the cuffs, and they popped open. He tossed them to the center of the table.

  “Pardon?”

  “It’s green.” At her blank stare, he added, “My drink. We’ve got whiskey if you want some. It’s not good, but it has a high alcohol content.”

  “Your drink is green?”

  “Green as grass. It’s vegetables mostly, some fruit, some seeds. Mashed up in a glass.” He stuck the electronic key in his pocket, noticing that Markovich tracked the motion with her eyes. He would have to make sure it was still in his pocket at the end of the night, since it could open a lot of doors on the ship as well as all of the flex-cuffs.

  “Is that the secret to your speed on the wrestling mat?” Markovich asked.

  It was silly, but he found himself pleased that she had noticed. “My last doctor would have said so. Mostly, I’ve only found it the secret to keeping regular.”

  She blinked a few times. Viktor kept himself from wincing. Barely. It had been years since he tried to woo a woman, and he’d been horrible at it even then. Not that he was trying to woo this one, but he vaguely remembered that there were some topics that were perfectly appropriate to talk about with one’s soldiers and that were completely inappropriate to discuss with women. Women who weren’t soldiers anyway. Sergeant Hazel never seemed to care.

  “Well,” Markovich said when she recovered from her surprise. “Then I’ll have one of those.”

  Viktor arched his brows. He had offered the concoction to people before, but never had a taker. He wasn’t even sure why he still drank them. Doc Aglianico, the one who had insisted soldiers consume greens now and then, was long gone, dead in the line of duty, like so many others before him. Maybe that was why Viktor still drank them. Aglianico had been Grenavinian, one of the original crew and one of his few confidants.

  “My routine has been disrupted of late, and those meal logs you give to prisoners...” Markovich shuddered. “Something with a vegetable in it sounds lovely.”

  “Everybody gets the logs when they’re on assignment. There actually might be some pulverized vegetables in them somewhere. But no promises.”

  Viktor’s step was light as he returned to the kitchen area. The Deltas had cleared out, and for whatever reason, Markovich wasn’t glaring daggers at him tonight. He didn’t believe for a second that she had forgotten her anger over her ship, but maybe having the prisoners’ gear sent to the cell had quenched some of that rage.

  When he set the tall glass of green juice in front of her, she took a sip without hesitation. While she didn’t smack her lips in delight, she gave it a considering head tilt, then a nod of approval, as if she were judging some much-lauded vintage of wine.

  He drank half of his glass before setting it down. That was probably one of those things that wasn’t proper in front of a lady, either, but he was thirsty after the gym workout. He would switch to water shortly. He had to be hydrated and ready if the scouts found the camp quickly and called for the rest of the fighters.

  He took a bite of the meatloaf, noticed Markovich hadn’t started eating, and asked, “What did you want to see me about?”

  She looked up at him. “Oh, I forgot. This is to be an interrogation.” A flash of nervousness crossed her face.

  Viktor tried to figu
re out what he had said to bring that on. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you’re standing. I thought dinner... I mean, I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting a casual chat, but I guess I’d thought...” She bit her lip. It was an alluring gesture, though he didn’t think she meant it to be. No, she looked uncomfortable and confused.

  Great. He had flustered her, and he didn’t even know how or why. “I always stand. And who said this was going to be an interrogation? I told Cutty I’d see you—you asked to see me, remember?—and that I might ask some questions. That was it.”

  She searched his face, as if he were the puzzle here. Hardly that. “You always stand when you eat dinner?”

  “I always stand for everything. Except sleep. I’ve done that a few times, but you inevitably pitch over at some point.” Viktor tried a smile. He wasn’t very good at them—he had been told they looked more like bear snarls than signs of friendliness or pleasure. But despite her nerves tonight, she seemed like someone who wasn’t easily daunted.

  “You never sit? At all? Why?”

  “I’m not good at relaxing. And it’s easier for people to get the jump on you when you’re sitting.” Maybe he shouldn’t be explaining this. She would think him paranoid. Which he was, but that wasn’t the sort of thing that impressed women. Not that he was trying to impress her. He took a long drink.

  “What if a woman wants to make out with you on the sofa?” Markovich asked.

  Viktor almost choked on his juice. Not so much because of the question—he had been asked it before—but over the fact that, for whatever reason, she had been thinking of him in such a scenario. He had made exceptions to his rule for situations such as that, but he decided not to confess to it. “I don’t have a sofa. We’d have to use the bed.” He hadn’t ever brought a woman aboard the ship, so his lack of furnishings hadn’t come up much. The men on the crew thought it was practical that he had room for the punching bag.