Read Alien Arcana (Starship's Mage Book 4) for Free Online Page B

assault shuttle finally touched down.
    Inspector Dragic had managed to make it all the way to the surface intact, but as soon as she attempted to rise, she crumpled to her knees and vomited. The ever-handy Romanov had a bag in her hand the moment before she lost it, and the mess was at least contained.
    The new Mage-Lieutenant, a stocky, mannish, blonde woman Damien had been introduced to as Karina White, moved up to the airlock with a quartet of Marines. All five wore small metal breathers over their mouths, and another fire team of Marines was passing out the devices to everyone else.
    “We’ll sweep the pad for threats,” she said calmly. “Please remain aboard until we report it clear.”
    If White was surprised by her fire team suddenly acquiring a suited Secret Service agent after her announcement, she didn’t show it. She led all five of her companions out into the airlock and cycled it behind her.
    “Are you all right, Inspector?” Damien asked Dragic.
    “Yes, my lord,” she confirmed, taking a proffered cloth from one of the Marines to clean her face before putting on the breather.
    “Pad is clear,” White reported over a radio channel. “Dr. Kael is waiting inside the facility.”
    “Let’s go,” Damien instructed, only to get a raised hand from Dragic.
    “Shouldn’t you be wearing a breather, my lord?”
    He smiled. Once, long before, he’d been a mere apprentice to an older and wiser Hand who had told him it wouldn’t do for a Hand to appear like “a soaked rat.” Appearances were important, and not needing the breather or being bothered by the storm they’d landed in were components of projecting power in a way Dr. Kael would understand.
    “I am a Hand,” he told the Inspector. “I’ll be fine. Let’s go.”
     
    #
     
    From the shocked double take Doctor Johannes Kael made when Damien walked in from the rain and poisonous atmosphere outside his climate-controlled camp site without a breather and bone dry, the point was probably made.
    “Welcome to the Andala Expedition Research Facility, my lord.” The balding scientist offered his hand to Damien, who calmly shook it.
    “Thank you, Doctor.”
    Damien glanced around the reception area for the facility, such as it was. Kael had only two companions with him, who he gestured to immediately.
    “Allow me to introduce Miss Jessica Volk, our head of security and facilities,” he waved toward a tall woman with soft features and a clean-shaven head. She bowed slightly at Kael’s introduction. “She is seeing to quarters for your companions, but it’s taking some time.”
    “We were using the space as storage, to be honest,” Volk told Damien in an unusually deep voice. “I don’t have a lot of manpower, so it will take us most of the day to get the spare quarters freed up.”
    “Romanov?” Damien asked. He didn’t need to specify what he wanted.
    “Kitcher, Chan,” the ever-serious Lieutenant barked crisply. “Take your fire teams and help Miss Volk out. If the extra manpower would be of use?”
    It sounded like a question, but Damien didn’t think anyone in the room was fooled. In addition to helping clear out and set up the quarters, the two Marine teams would make sure they were safe.
    “Of course,” Volk agreed cheerfully. “If you’ll excuse us, Dr. Kael?”
    “Yes, yes, of course,” Kael said shortly, and gestured the third person with him forward. “This is Jarek Zitnik. He was Professor Kurosawa’s senior student and the one who found his body.”
    “Ah, good,” Damien said, offering his hand to the youth. Dark-haired with tanned skin, tall and muscular, Zitnik looked more physically able than some of the Marines, hardly what he would have expected of a xenoarchaeology student.
    “Professor Kurosawa was a mentor and a friend,” Zitnik told him in noticeably accented English. “If anything I can do will help catch his killer, I am more than willing.”
    “Let’s take this conversation somewhere more