Mercenary Courage (Mandrake Company) Read Online Free

and it reminded him of other duties he had to attend to: the funerals and settling of payments to the families of the two men who had died. Two others had been transferred to the station hospital already, their burn injuries too severe for his own sickbay to handle. Viktor did not know if they would return to the company.
    “That was an expensive mess,” Borage said, shaking his head at the charred shuttle. “In more ways than one.”
    His chief engineer’s voice did not hold censure, at least not that Viktor could detect, but he grimaced, anyway. They were mercenaries, and dying by the sword was part of the job, but it had been a while since they had been in a conflict that ugly, and he keenly felt the responsibility for the lost and injured men. He usually made better decisions, picking the company’s battles carefully. This had been a choice made too much with the heart. And as was so often the case, his heart liked to side with the underdog. It was even worse this time, because he had been fooled.
    “But it could have been worse,” Borage added, glancing warily at Viktor, as if realizing his words might have implied condemnation. “You got most of us out alive. And Azarov here got that fire out in time. Thought we were going to have to vent the entire—”
    “Is that Captain Mandrake under all that soot?” a boisterous voice interrupted Borage.
    It belonged to Spike Sherkov, a mercenary captain with a scar stretching vertically down the side of his face and disappearing into a beard almost as big as his ego. He strolled into the machine shop with two other men that Viktor did not know striding beside him. One, a Chinese man, wore the tabs and uniform of a Fleet captain. He was young for the position, no more than thirty, and Viktor had not run into him before. Nor did he want to deal with the Fleet now. Fortunately, there had only been one military ship in dock, an Intrepid-class heavy cruiser that had looked so new, it might be on its maiden voyage.
    “Sherkov,” Mandrake said and started to turn his back on the group—he didn’t like the other mercenary under any circumstances and was in no mood to socialize now.
    “Saw your pink shuttle a couple of weeks ago, Mandrake. It’s a real beaut.”
    The men with him chuckled. Viktor clenched his jaw, but did not otherwise let his thoughts show on his face. He got ribbed often enough about that from his own men, the ones who had been with him since the inception of the company and felt confident enough to tease him. Ankari had leased the craft for her business and painted it before it had occurred to him to put a no-pink stipulation in the contract. He loathed having the thing in his shuttle bay, even if he understood her reasoning for the paint choice perfectly well. She wished to ensure that the craft, which was full of her team’s expensive scientific research equipment, would never be borrowed, at least not by a man. The company’s one female pilot, Lieutenant Calendula, had not shown much interest in flying it, either.
    “What color are you thinking for the Albatross itself, Mandrake?” Sherkov went on. “Maybe baby blue? Or purple with white polka dots? As long as you’re here for repairs, you’ll want to pretty it up, won’t you?”
    “Those repair estimates being sent by carrier pigeon?” Viktor asked, keeping his back to the other captain, hoping Sherkov would go away. What a Fleet officer was doing chumming around with him, Viktor could not guess. Fleet usually pretended mercenaries did not exist, or, if they did exist, lumped them in with pirates and smugglers and kidnappers, the dregs of the galaxy and people to be ignored—or shot.
    “We’ll have them for you soon, Captain,” one of the mechanics said with a cheerful wave. Of course he was cheerful. He was about to make enough money to retire on.
    “What’s the matter, Mandrake?” Sherkov asked. “Don’t want to talk to us?”
    Viktor might have punched the annoying twit, but the