Starship's Mage 2 Hand of Mars by Glynn Stewart

a layer of paper over it.
    “What the…?” he muttered. His suit blazer had both a sealed interior pocket - now containing the Hand - and a mostly decorative outer pocket. Reaching into the outer pocket, he pulled out a sheet of neatly folded paper.
    “I’m guessing you didn’t put that in there yourself,” Mitchell told him, scooping the sheet out of Damien’s grasp with a gloved hand. “Better safe than sorry, sir,” he said by way of apology.
    “I am wearing gloves, Sergeant,” Damien pointed out. Like Alaura - and most other Jump and Combat Mages for that matter - Damien wore skin-tight gloves to cover up the runes inlaid into his palm. His were the same jet-black as his suit blazer and ran all the way up to his elbows, covering runes most other Mages would not have.
    “And if someone was being a clever bastard, they’d have accounted for that,” the Marine pointed out. “I’m expendable, My Lord. You aren’t.”
    “Fuck that, give me the note,” Damien ordered.
    With a long-suffering sigh, Mitchell quickly unfolded the note - presumably to trigger any trap concealed in the infinitesimal space between the halves of the sheet - and handed it back to the Envoy after a moment.
    “Thank you,” Damien said dryly as he glanced at the handful of lines on the sheet.
    If you seek answers on the Special Operations Directorate, find Colonel Elijah Brockson.
    - A friend
    “That’s… rather un-useful,” Mitchell noted, reading over Damien’s shoulder. “The note could be from anyone . How can we trust it?”
    Damien looked at the paper carefully.
    “It was planted on me by a member of the staff,” he concluded aloud. “I think we can safely say it’s from the Freedom Wing.”
    “From the rebels? So why would you trust it?”
    “I don’t,” the Envoy replied dryly. “It is, however, one more starting place than I had before they planted it on me. I think that I have some research to do on our way to Normandy.
    “And in the meantime,” he continued, turning back to Mitchell, “I believe we have some preparation to do. And Sergeant?”
    “Yes, My Lord?”
    “I suggest you pack for arrest and interrogation.”

    #

Chapter 12

    The shuttle was in Nouveaux Versailles for less than twenty hours. It was eight in the morning, local time, when Damien and Mitchell boarded the Navy ship for the trip back to Nouveaux Normandy.
    Several of the Marines promptly went back to sleep after strapping themselves in. Damien and Mitchell passed them, entering the semi-private ‘officers’ compartment’ between the main cargo bay and the cockpit.
    The assault shuttle was designed to carry an entire platoon of Marines, either in exosuit battle armor or accompanied by a light tank. Mitchell’s single ten man squad were dwarfed by the cargo bay, but the officers’ compartment had the advantage of a computer setup designed for tactical deployments and strategic communications.
    The Marine Sergeant blandly took up a position blocking the door to allow Damien to work in privacy. Something about the way he did it made Damien very sure the soldier knew that Alaura had given him the Hand and was making sure he could use it without interruption.
    “Lieutenant,” Damien asked the pilot over the intercom, “can you hook me up with a direct link into the government network?” He paused. “For that matter, can we keep that completely separated from the shuttle’s systems?”
    The Navy officer laughed.
    “I’d appreciate the last, yeah,” he admitted. “The tactical setup back there has a fully separated computer network for just that reason. Should be linked in to the global-net already.”
    “Thanks, Lieutenant.”
    Damien spent a few moments familiarizing himself with the computer system. The setup was designed primarily for communication and co-ordination, but was capable of handling a complex data search if you found the right tools.
    He linked into the Ardennes planetary government’s databases, pulled up