Artifice (Special Forces: FJ One Book 2) by Adam Vance Read Free Book Online

had no choice but to remain perfectly still, as HM’s human hand intertwined not with the soft hands of the avatar, but with a scaly, long-clawed lizard limb.
    “I know,” she whispered without moving her lips. “You can drop the mask.”
    The pain was intense as the DuVai’s claws dug into her palm, but the smile never left her “face.”
    Then the orbs whisked away and the DuVai nearly shoved her back down the carpet and out the door, the courtiers suddenly composing themselves into huddled conversations as if the DuVai and her guest were invisible.
    Back in her room, the DuVai dropped the mask.
    HM had dedicated her life to understanding the mindsets of other races, their cultures, their traditions, to appreciating the diversity of life forms across the galaxy, and the shared traits of tool-using people everywhere, and yet, when she saw her first Rhal, she could only muster one thought.
    Fuck, they’re ugly.
    The DuVai had the head of a crocodile, flat headed with a long…well, it was more a beak than the crocodile’s jaw, but a beak with lips that enabled her to form complex speech. The pupils were round, but HM presumed that was because she was angry; they would probably revert to the typical reptilian vertical slit. The ears were flat with small lobes, both of which were pierced and sported large diamonds. The skin was green and scaly, with protrusions that HM presumed were breasts beneath the gown.
    “You are too clever for your own good,” she hissed, still speaking English, but with the “friendly alien” modulator disengaged, the voice was guttural, and terrifying at the most primal human level.
    “Vai Kotta may be your protector, but he’s not here. Watch your step,” she finished, whipping around and dashing out of the room.
    It was that last bit that was most surprising…baffling, really. Vai Kotta was Earth’s conqueror, and the DuVai was his “wifemate.” And yet, the DuVai considered HM’s kidnapper to be her protector? Was his own wife his enemy? It left her with much to ponder on…

CHAPTER SIX – WELCOME TO ALEXIA
     
    Once the water started flowing down the canals, all order dissolved, and the crowds mingled with no regard to wealth or rank. The stones that had been knocked together were dropped to the ground, and skins that were obviously full of the local liquor were being handed around.
    The team slipped through the crowd towards the temple, with no firm plan of what to do when they got there. Then they lucked out.
    Three drunk priests were stumbling down an alley, laughing and falling. They wore the same gold cloaks as the priest who’d “brought” the flood.
    “We need to disable them,” Chen whispered. “Don’t break anything if you don’t have to. They’re Alex’s priests, after all, and we don’t want to piss him off.”
    They waited around the corners, Chen and Kaplan on one side, Archambault and Cruz on the other, with Hewitt the designated lookout. As the priests came out of the alley, the team jumped them, Chen and Kaplan taking the biggest one together.
    Their shrieks were piercing, shocked, then enraged. They were shorter than the humans, but more powerfully built in the torso, and what worked in human hand-to-hand combat was soon clearly not going to cut it here. While the natives walked erect for the most part, now they went to all fours, reverting to their simian roots.
    The big priest wriggled out of Chen and Kaplan’s grasp, bounded away a few meters, and then screamed as he launched himself through the air at Chen. His speed and mass would have flattened Chen if he hadn’t dropped and rolled out of the way. The priest got a good punch in to Kaplan’s stomach as it danced past him.
    Archambault and Cruz were having somewhat better luck with the other two smaller priests. But as the humans sat on their chests and fumbled for zip ties, they screamed and clawed and tried to bite their captors.
    Hewitt abandoned his lookout post to assist Archambault, then