The Ruins of Karzelek (The Mandrake Company series Book 4) Read Online Free Page B

fitness tests.” He resisted the urge to take off his jacket and push up his shirt sleeve to flex his biceps—Striker did that move all the time, and it never worked on women. “My parents were explorers in their wilder youths, out in the jungles and rainforests of Mercruse and Amselite III. They sought unique specimens to breed with plants back in their greenhouses, and my mother was afflicted by a nasty parasite before she realized she was pregnant with me. They returned to civilization for treatment, but it was a stubborn parasite that took years to eradicate fully. In the meantime, I was born prematurely and with a compromised immune system. It made for an inconvenient childhood, but I grew out of most of it, and I’m quite normal now.” He wrinkled his nose, trying to fight off another sneeze. When would that damned pill kick in?
    “ Uhhh,” Striker said, “does anyone else feel like they just learned way more about their intelligence officer than they wanted to know?”
    Tick made a vaguely disgusted face. “Yes.”
    Ms. Blackwell’s face wasn’t quite so easy to read, but, curse his outstanding mastery of that intelligence officer training course on body language, she wasn’t intrigued or sympathetic. She merely appeared uncomfortable at this sharing of knowledge.
    Sedge slumped back in the seat and reached for his harness. Maybe it wasn’t too late to hide in the weapons locker after all. He stared straight ahead, avoiding all eye contact until the ship took off, Striker and Tick returned to their game, and Ms. Blackwell lowered her chin to focus on her tablet again.
    “ Approximately forty-seven minutes until our landing spot,” Thatcher said after they had cleared the boulder field and were skimming the surface of the planet.
    Darkness had fallen during his briefing, not that there was much to see out there. Sedge’s interest in the planet lay beneath the surface.
    Reminded of his desire to find out more from Ms. Blackwell, he risked a glance at her. He thought she might be studying the plans of the base or be engrossed in some historical text, but she was poking at tiles with letters and parts of patterns shaded on them in gray and green. He recognized the game, having played it often with other linguistics students at the academy. He had even won a tournament there.
    “ Crucible?” he asked.
    “ Yes,” Ms. Blackwell said without looking up. She waved a finger through the air, pushing one of her tiles onto the top of the three-dimensional board, making four new words.
    “ Good move. Although, if you consider the Q there, the two new words you would make would gain you more points, and you’d also block your opponent’s access point to the top of the pyramid bonus.”
    Ms. Blackwell’s expression wasn’t as grateful as he had hoped. She leveled a cool stare at him. “I don’t need help.”
    “ Pardon me.” Maybe he should be studying the base plans. He had a feeling he was on the verge of being categorized as persona non grata for her.
    “ If you think you’re so smart, why don’t you start your own game with me?”
    Sedge straightened. Had she just invited him to play her? She had.
    “ I would be delighted to,” he said.
    Only after he spoke did he catch Val looking back at him and shaking her head in some warning. Belatedly, it occurred to him that he might have accepted a challenge that could not be won. If he beat their new employer, she might be irked with him when they were trying to gain her favor and win a contract. If he lost to her, she might think him an idiot, not capable of the job she was contemplating hiring the mercenaries for.
    He opened his mouth, about to rescind his acceptance, but she had already jabbed the “New Game” button and typed in Sedgwick. Well, at least she hadn’t entered Sniffles.
    “‘ Nothing reveals humanity so well as the games it plays,’” Ms. Blackwell said, a challenge in her eyes.
    “ David Hartley,” Sedge said.
    “ What kind of