The Lost Star Episode One (2 page)

They could only be removed by official
decree from Avixa – or the call, as the priestesses put
it.

"Stop slacking off," someone growled from
behind her.

She turned to see Commander
Sharpe.

Around the Academy he had a reputation for
being harder than a chunk of diamond. He would gleefully gruel
incoming cadets until they shaped up to the Academy's exacting
demands.

Sharpe had never left her alone, even though
she was graduating this very day.

And yet, despite his constant attention,
she'd never begrudged him.

He was doing his job.

She nodded, repositioned the data pads in
her arms, and continued on, a slight sweat prickling her
brow.

Her stomach didn't even sink when she heard
Sharpe's determined steps pound the polished floor behind her.
"Haven't you learnt anything, Cadet Ava?"

She glanced around as he reached her, a
grimace cast over his leathery skin.

"I've learnt everything I can," she said
politely.

Some students became nervous wrecks around
Sharpe, especially when he went into bulldozer mode.

Sharpe didn’t honestly bother her.

Not much did.

She liked the silence and peace of the
Academy. It was a luxury to be given simple orders.

"You'll never be more than a middling ensign
unless you shape up," he growled,

Great. She didn't want to be more than a
middling ensign. She had no intention whatsoever to climb the
ranks. She recoiled at the very idea of making life and death
decisions.

It wasn't in her anymore.

These past five years had proved to her she
could be normal, and she would never give that up again.

Sharpe maintained his sneer for a few more
seconds
before
deflating. He stared at her with narrowed eyes, then oddly let out
a punch of a laugh. "I'll grant you one thing, Ava, you may be the
weakest cadet I've taught in a long time, but nothing much fazes
you."

She
shifted her shoulders up in a small shrug. "I'm sorry, sir,
but you're not particularly scary."

A few younger cadets overheard and stood
bolt upright, eyes locked on Sharpe, ready to see how ballistic
he’d become at that comment.

His lip twitched, then he let out another
laugh. "You can't run, you can barely do physical labor, and you
sure as hell can't fight."

She twitched. Stiff fingers brushing over
her armlets.

" – But you're brave, cadet. Or maybe just
stupid. Up there," he pointed a stiff finger at the ceiling,
clearly indicating space beyond, “You'll find out."

She
stared at him impassively. "I think I'm both," she pointed
out evenly.

Again his lip twitched, then once more he
burst out into low laughter. "Good luck, ensign." He looked her
right in the eye as he said
ensign
in a direct, strong tone.

She
returned the gesture and bowed low. "Thank you."

"When do you leave? I heard you got a
position on the Mandalay?"

"Yes. This afternoon."

"Good luck. I know her captain. You're
going to need it."

With that baffling statement, Sharpe turned
hard on his boot and strode off.

Ava stood there
watching him before turning and continuing her
thankless task of lugging her data pads through the
Academy.

She caught sight of the few cadets who'd
stopped to watch the show.

They began chattering amongst
themselves.

She may have caught their attention by
standing up to Sharpe, but they'd forget her in an instant.

Ava blended in
to the background around her, despite her enormous
gold armlets.

She was a wallflower.

Some may care about that.

She didn't.

She'd chosen this life.

It was better than the one she'd led
before.

As she strode through the halls, she let her
head tilt to the left as she stared through the plate glass windows
to the sky above.

She marveled at the view for as long as
she could.

The
priestesses were primarily confined to the training halls
and temples of the Avixan high mountains. She’d stared at nothing
but black carved walls for half her life.

So she’d never stop marveling at the
view.

Before she could pause at the glass and get
truly lost in the sight, her wrist device beeped.

She knew what it meant.

It wasn’t a message from the Academy, or
the Mandalay, for that matter. Nor was it from her best friend
Nema.

It was a reminder.

Time to train.

Though it had been hard, Ava had kept her
true identity mostly hidden over her five years at the Academy.

It was easy considering Avixan society was
largely a mystery to Others. It was an offense within Avixan
society to share too much with outsiders.

No one would have the faintest clue what a
priestess was, or, more importantly, what she could do.

She didn’t know if the Academy higher ups
knew what she was. She wasn’t privy to the information her people
shared with the Coalition. She doubted it was much. Everything in
Avixan society was couched in opaque tradition that wouldn’t make
sense to an outsider.

There were, however, others within the
Academy and the Coalition who knew exactly who she was and what she
could do.

Other Avixans. The Rest, as the
priestesses called them.

And right now, as Ava made her way down
the corridor, she saw one.
Lieutenant Commander Shera. Statuesque, startling, and one
of the most powerful Avixans in the Coalition.

She wasn’t a priestess, and didn’t have
anything near the level of power Ava did when she was free from her
locks. Still
, to the
rest of the Academy, Shera was like a god. Stronger than ten men
put together, faster than a cheetah, and agile like a cat. She’d
climbed the ranks as fast as a cruiser speeding into
BLS.

With her luminescent white hair and shocking
bright blue eyes, she was stunning too.

Ava was a mismatch. Though she too
possessed the bright vibrant hair and eyes of her people, the
burning red of her hair didn’t match the royal purple of her eyes.
She looked – as she’d heard one unkind cadet point out in first
year – like a paint accident run through a luminosity
filter.

None of that mattered.

Ava didn’t care what Lieutenant Commander
Shera looked like. The only relevant factor was how the lieutenant
commander treated her.

As soon as Shera saw Ava, she deliberately
stopped, turned, and walked in the other direction.

It was the same with most of the other
Avixans on Academy grounds. There were no other priestesses like
Ava – only the Rest. And the Rest avoided her like the
plague.

They knew exactly what she was, even if the
rest of the Academy was ignorant.

In Avixan society priestesses were
revered, and yet feared at the same time. Amongst certain sects,
they were also derided. A minority of Avixans didn’t understand why
they needed the priestesses anymore – an empty threat that reminded
them of a past they were all too ready to forget.

There were approximately ten Avixans in
the entire active Coalition army, as far as Ava could tell, and of
the five or so she’d met, they all treated her the same.

As a pariah.

She didn’t care.

Ava barely gave Shera a fleeting glance as
she continued quickly to the second storage facility. There she
dumped her data pads before returning quickly to her room.

Her personal wrist device kept beeping,
reminding her she was overdue for a training session.

Though these days Ava had a fraction of the
strength and speed she’d once possessed, she still had to train
every day.

Every priestess did.

As soon as she pushed into her empty
apartment, Ava let out a sigh, undid her collar, and marched to her
room.

Her roommate – a thankfully quiet and
unobtrusive Samarate female – had already graduated the day before,
and had left.

Ava wasted no time in striding into her
room, closing and locking the door, and collapsing onto her
bed.

She pulled her legs into a cross-seated
position as she grabbed a device from her bedside table.

It was a neural interlink.

Some students used them to record their
dreams, some even used them to cut out distractions while they
studied.

She used them to train.

She pushed her red locks from her face,
thumbed the neuro link on with a practiced, easy move, then
positioned it an inch above the centerline of her brows.

The neuro link exuded a self-adhesive and
stuck to her skin immediately.

She settled back, propping her back against
the cool wall, and she waited.

She closed her eyes, a growing energy
building behind them.

There were a few disconcerting seconds as
solid familiar objects formed out of the haze of
blackness.

She lost awareness of her body propped
against the wall.

Almost immediately the training dream
began.

She looked down to see she was no longer
dressed in the trim uniform of the Academy, but rather the official
outfit of the priestesses. Though the priestess clan technically
had many ceremonial outfits, there was only one they used to fight
in.

Ava was a powerful priestess, though she
would have to fight and train for many years to come if she wanted
to rival the Chief Priestesses of the clan. Still, Ava was strong
enough that she was considered an advanced fighter, and she wore
the corresponding colors of the code.

While chief priestesses wore blue and
white, Ava’s tunic was cast in vibrant red and white. It always
made her hair all the more startling accentuating her red locks
like bright bursts of flame licking around her face.

The tunic was sleeveless, and crossed
along her front, tying at her right hip. It had two slits up her
legs to give her maximum maneuverability. A ceremonial belt with
gold insignia was fixed around her waist, a range of weapons housed
within.

She wore thigh-length leg armor, with thick
carved plates that ran the length of her shins.

Her hair was clasped behind her head with
six needles. And finally, her face and arms were adorned with
inch-wide tattoos that ran down her neck all the way to her
fingertips.

As soon as the vision formed, the fight
began.

She was in the black belly of a priestess
temple. It was dark, with only her glowing tattoos as illumination
and a few fire torches dotted through the expansive hall.

She heard the soft patter of feet. Slow at
first, it pushed into a violent shuddering sprint.

She twisted to the side, the flaps of her
tunic flaring around her legs. She snatched the two ceremonial
knives from her belt and spun them around, sending an electric
charge blistering through them just as a shadow sprang towards
her.

In the darkness all she could see were the
whites of its seven eyes.

Her boots skidded backwards as she pivoted
and leapt into the air with a powerful kick.

The creature – possibly a Bosian Cave
Dweller, considering the eyes – flapped towards her with its
megalithic wings.

They sent bursts of air whipping past her
face, catching a few loose hairs and slicing them across her neck
and cheeks.

The Bosian shifted sharply to the side, but
Ava was too quick. She twisted in midair, and her kick slammed into
one of its many appendages.

It shrieked, whipping towards her with its
spiked tail.

Its tail was covered with poisonous spines.
One touch from those, and the training session would end
prematurely. Then Ava would be penalized, and she would have to
repeat the session three more times.

She pushed backwards, landed on her hand,
flipped, and lay on the ground as the Bosian’s tail sliced in front
of her face.

Just as it passed her, she snagged it with
her knife, plunging the electrified blade right through the tip of
its tail.

She used it as traction as she flipped up,
landed on the tail with her armored boots, and sprang towards the
creature’s face.

It opened its gaping wide mouth, and
within she could see its eighth eye – a red gelatinous glob that
could send out a burst of light so strong it could blind a
man.

She threw her remaining knife right at it as
she twisted to the side and protected her head.

Then she jerked up, flipped, landed a hand
on the top of its head, and pushed off.

Her strength was sufficient to shove the
Bosian down, despite its madly flapping wings.

She vaulted off its head and kicked it in
the back on the way down.

Just as she landed, the scene changed.

More enemies arrived. Mancor pirates this
time.

20 of them.

They circled around her, pulled out their
pulsers as one, and started firing. Blistering hot blaster bullets
spun around her as she flipped and leapt out of the way.

Their growls and curses filled the black
room, bouncing off the far walls and echoing like an
earthquake.

She leapt at one, twisted in the air, landed
with her legs wrapped around its head, and pulled it to the ground,
grabbing its blaster and taking down two more as they lurched
towards her.