Free The Ruins of Karzelek (The Mandrake Company series Book 4) by Ruby Lionsdrake Page A

somewhere. It was personal and certainly not something she would want shared. But it could end up affecting the company. That was where his loyalty lay, he reminded himself.
    “ Anything else?” Mandrake asked.
    Even if he felt like he was betraying Kalish, Sedge said, “It may not have any impact on us, but it sounds like someone might be holding her father hostage, perhaps in return for whatever is believed to be in the ruins.”
    “ Noted. Report in as soon as you have more intel.”
    “ Yes, sir.” Before he finished speaking, Sedge was turning back to the tent, his hands stuffed under his armpits. A flashlight came on not ten feet away from him, highlighting the ground in front of a pair of rugged brown boots. Rugged brown boots that belonged to Kalish.
    She stared at him, her dark eyes flinty. “If you’d like to call him back with more intel ,” she said, her voice even frostier than the night, “I don’t have specific coordinates. I have vague directions from an old drunk miner that I’m trying to match with those pathetic hand-drawn maps in there.”
    Sedge opened his mouth, but nothing came out. How had he failed to notice her approaching? And why hadn’t Striker or Tick warned him that she had left the tent? Had they truly thought he had been gone this long, doing nothing more than watering the local flora?
    “ As for my father, he’s of no concern to you, and he’s certainly not of any concern to your captain. The next time you’re unconscious around me, I’m going to stab a knife into your thigh to make sure you’re out.” She spun, her slender braids of hair whipping across her back, and stalked back toward the beige outline of the tent.
    “ I’m sorry, Kalish,” Sedge tried. “I’m the ship’s intelligence officer. Gathering information is what I do.”
    “ You didn’t win our game,” she snapped over her shoulder.
    For a moment, the words confused him, but then he remembered. She had offered him the right to use her first name, but only if he beat her at Crucible.
    “ I—”
    An ear-splitting screech erupted from nearby, from no more than ten feet away. The alien cry hammered Sedge’s nerves and made him want to flee. A dark shape crouched atop a boulder right beside Kalish, its silhouette huge against the pink smear of the nebula in the night sky. It sprang from its perch, aiming to land on her.
     
    * * *
     
    Kalish spun at the noise, instinctively reaching for the pistol she carried on her belt. But she was too late. A massive shape leaped off a boulder and barreled into her before she could pull out her weapon. She tried to lunge away, but it crashed into her, and claws dug through her jacket, piercing flesh. Pain erupted from her side, even as she was smashed to the ground under hundreds of pounds of weight.
    Laser fire shrieked. She hadn’t managed to pull out her own weapon, though she had a hand on the grip, and her first thought was she had shot through the holster at some worthless target. Like her own foot. She tried to yank the weapon free, but whatever had landed on her had her pinned. Her flashlight had been knocked away, and she couldn’t tell what had attacked her, but she could smell its fetid breath as rocks ground into her back. Something splashed against her cheek. Saliva?
    She bucked, trying to free herself, to shove the writhing creature away. A laser fired again, and she realized one of the men was helping her. That gave her the strength to push and shove, almost frenzied in her rush to escape those claws. Finally, she squirmed free. She rolled away, yanking out her pistol and pointing it back in the direction of her assailant.
    Sedge stood over the hulking predator, a flashlight in one hand and his pistol in the other, both pointed at the creature. The big, sand-colored, scaly figure wasn’t moving, and Kalish, in reviewing the last few seconds, realized it had probably been dead before it fully landed on her. There was no doubt its claws had dug in