The Lost Star Episode One (24 page)

“
... She's right,” Ava found herself
saying.

Hunter stiffened. “What are you
saying?”

“
I do come from a higher social strata...
in a way. And my people did oppress her people... in a manner of
speaking.” She had no idea why she was saying this. All reason, all
training, all tradition told her to stop, sew her lips shut, and
never speak of this again.

Even in the half light of the tunnel she
saw his cheeks pale and slacken as his bright blue eyes widened.
“Ava,” her name caught on his breath, “What are you talking
about?”

“
My people are responsible for watching
Meva and her kind. They are powerful warriors, Hunter, capable of
good, but capable of evil too....”

“
Before, in your room, you were about to
tell me something. What? You said... you said if you told me you
could get killed. If that's... if that's true, Ava, I don't want
you—”

“
My people are devils,” she blurted. She
paused after the words rocketed from her throat. Then she closed
her eyes and continued. “Many thousands of years ago, we ruled over
vast sections of the Milky Way with an iron fist. We stole, we
murdered, we captured other races and forced them into slavery. We
even destroyed whole cultures. We were true barbarians. Then they
came, showed us the error of our ways, and we changed.”

He shivered. She could see the move as it
shook from the tip of his head down to his legs. “What? Who... who
are they?”

“
That I don't know. It was so long ago,
that all that remains in Avixan history is tradition. And you must
understand, tradition is everything to our people. They – the
outsiders – showed us the error of our ways. Told us that if we
didn't change, we would be killed. So we did. The most powerful of
the Avixans became priestesses charged with supervising the rest.
It became a grave crime in Avixan society to wield your power
against an outsider – our term for any non-Avixan entity.” The
words pushed from her throat and there was nothing she could do to
stay them.

Despite how wrong she knew it was to share
the greatest secret of her race, it felt right. It felt like a
weight was lifting from her shoulders.

Hunter watched her with keen attention,
never blinking, never twisting his head around as he continued to
crawl a few steps in front of her.

She couldn't quite face him. As she
recounted her tale, she looked over his shoulder and locked her
gaze on the end of the tunnel. The panels were made of a mismatch
of silver and brown metal, a few loops and bands of wiring and
pipes running alongside them, a strip of tiny lights running at
even intervals along the ceiling. Below, the bottom of the vent
shaft had a grating, presumably to stop Coalition boots from
slipping against any condensation that built up in the cold
vent.

As she crawled, the grating dug into her
hands, pushing even more pain and pressure up into her wrists.
Every movement ached, sending jolting pain twisting high into her
shoulders and slicing across her collar bone.

She hid the true extent of her injuries
from Hunter.

But that was the only thing she was
prepared to hide anymore.

Everything else had to come
out.

She took a steeling breath, half closed
her eyes, and continued. “For thousands of years, the priestesses
watched over the Avixans. If any Avixan – including a priestess –
acted against our sacred treaty, they would be punished.” She
brought up her locks. “These can be used to bind an Avixan's
powers. They can also be used to send an Avixan into
stasis.”

Hunter didn't breathe a word. He never
turned from her, either. He was so engrossed in what she was
saying, he didn't even notice when they reached a closed shaft
door. He banged right into it, couched, twisted around, and opened
it. “Keep going,” he said in a low voice as they made it through
the shaft door.

“
For thousands of years, this is how Avixan
society was controlled. But in the last several hundred years,
democracy came to the fore. The priestess clan slipped into the
background as the Avixan government became strong enough to enforce
its own rules. Tradition was still strong amongst our people. We
had been living with the treaty for so many thousands of years,
that it was part of every Avixan's soul.” She jerked her head down
and stared at her armlets as she thought that.

It was a line right out of her training. A
line the chief priestess would repeat to every initiate.

No Avixan would dare to break the treaty
in this day and age.

“
... It's okay, Ava. If you don't want to
tell me anymore, you don't have to.”

His kind soft words were enough to see her
dart her gaze up. She knew she couldn't control her expression. She
knew her brows pushed high into her hairline, her cheeks weakening
as her lips dropped open.

He smiled ever so softly at her move. “I
won't push you. If it's too dangerous for you to tell
me—”

“
No,” she blurted, “I want to tell you
everything. I have to tell someone. I've been running from this my
whole life. I can't... I can't run from it anymore. I left Avixa to
get away from this history. To get away from my duty. And now it's
back.”

He watched her out of the corner of his
eye but didn't say anything more than a soft, “It's
okay.”

His words sent a pleasant warmth pushing
through her chest. It struck a chord in her heart and started to
wash away the cold dread that had built there.

She took another breath. “... This, what
Shera and the other Avixans did, isn't meant to be possible. Every
Avixan knows the danger of returning to our old ways. Not only is
it abhorrent, wrong,
evil,”
her voice choked on that word, “But it will break the
treaty.”

“
... What’s this treaty?”

“
The outsiders who came and made us change
our ways, they gave us an ultimatum. Completely alter our culture,
or die.”

He shivered again. Then he took a sharp
breath. “Do you have any idea who these outsiders are? I mean, what
period of history are we talking about? Could we figure it
out?"

“
I don't know those details, Hunter. I'm
sorry. You have to understand that Avixan society has been steeped
in myths... and lies, for thousands upon thousands of
years.”

At first he looked away, then his brow
crumpled as he darted his gaze back. “Do you even know if these
so-called outsiders exist?”

She didn't react. Couldn't.

Though the statement might have seemed
simple and innocent to him, it wasn't to her. It cut right to her
core. She may not have been as traditional as most other
priestesses, but there were facts even she couldn't push
way.

Her culture, her training, her whole
identity was engrossed in that one tradition.

Maybe he couldn’t catch the true extent of
her shock, because he continued, “Couldn't it just be that Avixan
society naturally realized how brutal it had become, and changed
its ways? Perhaps, over the eons, this myth has built to explain
what was really a natural process. Because, even though the
Coalition doesn't know a great deal about the sector Avixa
occupies, and even less about their history, I couldn't think of a
possible race strong enough to lay down an ultimatum like that.” He
turned to her when he realized she wasn't saying anything. “Ava,
what do you think?”

“
I'm not sure,” she forced herself to
answer, though her voice was shaking. “... It's just, you have to
understand that we believe this. All Avixans believe that there was
a treaty. They believe that if we break it... we'll
die.”

Hunter looked at her steadily. “I
understand, Ava, I don't mean to cause you offense. I just think
it's pretty clear the other Avixans onboard don't believe that
anymore. Or they wouldn't be doing this. We need to figure out what
they do believe.”

He had a point. Though it pained her to
agree, she nodded her head.

“
So, what do we do? You said these
priestesses can help. Is that who you were trying to contact on
Avixa?”

She nodded her head slowly, not making eye
contact.

She could tell him she was a priestess –
she
should
tell him.
But she couldn't push the words out. They clogged in her throat
like detritus blocking off a drain.

There was no point getting his hopes up.
There was no point getting hers up either.

Shera would know exactly what would happen
if Ava got the chance to contact Avixa. And Shera was going to do
everything – absolutely everything – to stop Ava.

Hunter and the other crew might have a
chance.

If Ava used herself as a
distraction.

The thought snaked into Ava's mind subtly
at first, collecting at the edges of her consciousness like a dark
fog pooling thick over a bay.

She found herself taking a shaking,
rattling breath that sent a dense cold pressure pushing hard into
her chest.

Hunter darted his gaze over to her once
more. “What is it? What are you thinking?” he asked
perceptively.

She chose not to answer. “We have to find
some way to stop them. I wasn't lying when I said Avixans are
devils. Before the treaty, we thought nothing of killing outsiders.
We were true monsters,” she said in a shaking tone that felt like
it could tear her throat in two, “To us, other life forms were
nothing more than dirt. I don't know if Shera thinks like that yet,
but it's a possibility. We were always taught that if we began to
embrace our power again, it would be an inevitable slide back into
evil. There's something innate about our abilities – if not kept in
check – that leads to that type of thinking,” she managed through a
truly tortured breath.

This – what she was telling him now – was
the heaviest weight she'd ever carried. The truth about her people
was one thing, an academic thing. She was young, and couldn't
really be responsible for what her brutal foremothers had done eons
upon eons ago.

She could and would be responsible for
herself.

She had grown up with every priestess
telling her that if she ever lost her locks – if she was ever
forced to embrace her powers – she would turn evil. She would
forget the sanctity of life. She would gather and destroy, plunder
and pillage, all for herself.

She took such a shudder, her palms jerked
hard into the grating and she actually cut herself.

It was just a light gaze, but the small
spatter of red was enough to get Hunter's attention. He shifted
towards her quickly, tenderly grabbed up her hand, and wiped away
the blood with the cuff of his sleeve. Then he looked right into
her eyes. He was close enough that she could see how light and pale
his irises were.

His
direct gaze stilled her. Anchored her. It plucked her from
her thoughts and brought her back to him.

“
Okay, Ava, what do we do? If we can't
contact your people or get to the Coalition, how do we fight Shera
and Meva?”

Ava considered his question. Again her
thoughts slipped back to one fact: she could easily buy him a
distraction if she offered herself to Shera.

She'd seen Shera's hate. Meva's too. Every
Avixan onboard wanted Ava dead. They would lose reason,
opportunity, even sense for the opportunity to kill her.

Ava was never going to be a great
priestess, but perhaps she'd be an okay sacrifice she realized with
another terrible shiver.

Suddenly Hunter's gaze narrowed, hard,
like his eyes were going to be sucked to the back of his skull.
“What are you thinking?” his voice was suspicious, but before she
could be worried that he'd question whether she was going to turn
into a monster, he stopped, pushed forward, locked a hand on her
shoulder, ducked his head down, and looked up into her eyes. “Ava,
whatever you're thinking, don't do anything rash. You don't have to
sacrifice yourself just to buy us a chance.”

She couldn't contain her shock as her
brows pushed hard into her hairline and she sucked in a surprised
breath. “How did you... how did you know what I was
thinking?”

His lips crinkled up into a half smile.
“I'm starting to get to know you, Ava.”

With that opaque statement, he ducked his
head down once more until his face drew level with hers. He looked
right into her eyes with such intensity it was a surprise he didn't
start a fire. “You aren't going to do anything like that. And
that's an order. There will be a way to save this ship, and
everyone on board,” he added as he nodded at her. “Trust me. I may
not be the best lieutenant in the fleet, and hell, I certainly
haven't been to you, but I will do this.”

Though confusion, shame, and fear pulsed
hard through her heart, her lips smiled of their own
accord.

When she was around him, her body acted
without need for direction. It did things before her mind had a
chance to catch up.

She took a breath and opened her mouth to
tell him she'd follow his order, but a crackle echoed from
somewhere above.