Read Online Starship's Mage 2 Hand of Mars by Glynn Stewart - Free Book Online Page B

women surrounding them and the three APCs.
    “I somehow suspect we’ll be fine,” she replied dryly. “Given the precision and symbolism used by the rebels leading up to Anderson’s assassination, I suspect that where she died was as important as how and why. I need to see it with my own eyes to understand the context.”
    From his conflicted expression, someone had told Avison that she wasn’t supposed to go there. Unfortunately for said someone, Avison was maybe a year out of college, and had no idea how to stop a Hand with the power to have him summarily arrested from going anywhere she wanted.
    “Yes, ma’am,” he finally said helplessly.

    #

    It was a church. Technically, though Alaura would admit she wasn’t entirely clear on the distinction, it was probably a cathedral.
    Certainly, it was a massive edifice of stone and glass, likely built when the first French and Quebecois settlers were laying the groundwork of the capital city of the province of Nouveaux Normandy. At some point in the two hundred years since, the glitter of the stained glass had been muted somewhat by what appeared to be a layer of transparent anti-ballistic armor.
    The area around the cathedral was rundown, old houses giving way to row upon row of newer blocky gray concrete towers, the homes of the poor caught up in Vaughn’s Worker’s Placement Program.
    The grounds of the old church itself, however, were clean. Simple grasses, tinged with the reddish hue of local plant life, marked neatly maintained lawns. The garbage and debris strewn through the streets of this, Normandy’s poorest neighborhood, were noticeably missing here.
    Waving Avison and his Scorpions back, Alaura walked forward across the flagstone path leading to the gates. She’d seen video of the shooting, but the backdrop of plain concrete hadn’t revealed the nature of where Anderson had died.
    Judging from her memory of the videos, though, Alaura stopped and studied the ground. There . The sniper round had been fired from high up and aimed down. A high caliber, high velocity bullet, it had left a visible wound even in the heavy stones that had been beneath the regional governor’s feet.
    A single shot, as the reports said. There were no other damaged flagstones. Someone had tried to fill this one in with cement, but it still showed the crater where the bullet had hit.
    “Why was she here ?” Alaura muttered to herself.
    “ Excusez-mois, ma fille ,” a soft voice interrupted. “ Puis-je vous aider ?”
    “ Non ,” she replied without looking at the speaker. “ Merci beacoup, mais je suis a la recherche .”
    She didn’t need anyone helping her today. The speaker chuckled, however, and she looked up to see a white-haired man with pitch-black skin, clad in the uncomfortable looking frock of a Catholic priest.
    “I am not blind, my daughter,” he said kindly, his English as unaccented as his French. “Nor deaf. You are wondering about our dear departed governor’s fate.”
    “Pardon me, Monsieur…?”
    “I am Father Eli Pelletier,” the old man said calmly. “I am the priest of this church, and it is my repair that you are examining so closely.”
    “Surely an edifice of this scale has more than one priest,” Alaura objected.
    Pelletier smiled, a tiny twinkle in his eyes.
    “Such it does,” he admitted, “but I keep my hand in on the small things as much as the large. But, my child, you had a question - and since I am not blind, I know that amulet you wear means the answer may be important.”
    Alaura hadn’t realized that the gold hand she wore around her neck had fallen out of her shirt while she was investigating the flagstone. With a subdued sigh, she slipped it back inside her clothes.
    “I was wondering why Regional Governor Anderson was even here,” she admitted. “The neighborhood is not…” she gestured around, “where I would expect to find the Governor.”
    “It is about… context,” Pelletier admitted. “History is why she