Alien Arcana (Starship's Mage Book 4) by Glynn Stewart

knew the Hand hadn’t wanted to interrupt White, but…
    “Delta Team, break off your perimeter and move to secure the principal,” he ordered. Silence answered him and a chill ran up his spine. “Fire Team Delta, Corporal Carmichael, report. Mage-Lieutenant White, report.”
    Only silence answered him.
    “Corporal Chan,” he said very calmly. “Set up an emergency airlock in that room and follow me as soon as you’re able. I am breaking my way out…now.”
    Blades of force flashed into existence around his hands as he slung his battle rifle, channeled magic and struck . The airlock was a civilian structure, though designed for vacuum rather than its current purifier duties. It resisted him for less than a moment before the steel door fell outward, cut to ribbons in his hurry.
    “Lord Montgomery, please confirm your location,” he asked over the radio.
    His only answer was a sharp buzzing that hadn’t been there a moment before. He was being jammed.
    “I need to find that jammer,” he said aloud, fully aware no one could hear him.
    “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, Denis,” another voice replied. “I have new orders, and I can’t let you interfere.”
    He was somehow unsurprised to find Mage-Lieutenant White standing on the concrete, framed by the blue-green trees behind her as she raised her hands. The projector rune at the top of her hand flashed with power, and only years of training got Denis out of the way before fire hammered through where he’d been standing.
    “Whose orders?” he demanded. “You don’t fuck with a Hand, White—that’s treason .”
    “Orders from high enough, Romanov,” she said flatly. “Surrender and you can leave with me. Push it and I’ll leave you dead in the dirt with everyone else.”
    “I won’t betray the Hand and I won’t leave my men,” Mage-Lieutenant Denis Romanov told her. “Go to hell, White.”
    He was suddenly very sure why Fire Team Delta hadn’t answered his call—and it wasn’t because they were being jammed. A shield of energy snapped into place as White attacked him again, and Denis was forced a step away from the airlock door.
    He conjured lightning, his own projector rune warming in his flesh as it helped him channel his power over greater distances. White dodged, but it bought him time to start moving.
    A Royal Martian Marine Corps Combat Mage was one of the deadliest beings alive short of a Hand. They weren’t necessarily trained to fight each other, but the thought had certainly crossed his drill sergeant’s mind.
    Shields helped, but either of them could burn through the other’s shield in a matter of moments, given the chance. Mobility was everything, and Denis wrapped power around himself as he leapt , crashing to the ground a dozen meters from where White’s next attack landed.
    A dozen sparks flashed from his fingers, each carrying a charge that would short out a tank or stop a human heart. White dodged most of them, flicking the last few aside with a shield, and replied with a sheet of fire that dropped on Denis, trying to envelop him so he couldn’t jump aside again.
    This time, he ripped her attack with spikes of force and sent those spikes, accompanied by her own conjured flame, hurtling back at her. She dodged away, and he leapt again, landing on the ancient alien dome and looking down at the traitor.
    “We’ll find the jammer, White,” he taunted her. “You’ll pay for my men. I don’t know what you think you’re getting out of this, but all you will get is a traitor’s death.”
    She answered with force and he wasn’t moving fast enough. Blow after blow slammed into his shield, forcing him to pour all of his energy into trying to stay alive.
    “I get to live,” White told him. “And fulfill my oaths. Look to the sky, Romanov. Your death is coming.”
    She was a stronger Mage than he. He tried to slide down the dome, but her force strikes picked him up and flung him back up the ancient concrete. His