Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens Lost Stars (7 page)

As he stood in the sector dispensary, waiting for his turn to get larger boots, he heard a droid’s toneless voice: “Ensign Kyrell, H-J-two-nine-zero,
packet ready.”

Thane frowned. He was still only a cadet, and his call number was AV547. Yet he was sure he’d heard the name Kyrell—

Then Dalven stepped out of the milling crowd of waiting officers, hastily retrieving a uniform packet. He seemed to be in a hurry to go, but when he turned and saw his younger brother standing
there, he froze in place as if aghast.

“Dalven?” Thane didn’t
know what to say. “Good to see you” would be a lie, for either of them.

“Well. So. You haven’t washed out yet. How astonishing.” With that, Dalven raised his chin, clearly ready to walk out—but Thane stood between him and the door, and he
didn’t move.

“Ensign? You told us you’d made lieutenant.”

Dalven’s cheeks darkened. “I—well—the promotion is due to come through at any moment.”

Thane nodded. “Right. Sure. Which is why you’re picking up a new uniform, I guess….”

His voice trailed off as he saw the printed label on the bundle in Dalven’s arms:
CLERICAL STAFF
/
THIRD CLASS
.

“Good-bye.” Dalven hurried out, obviously determined to pretend Thane hadn’t seen anything.

Maybe it was cheap—even petty—but learning his overbearing older brother had been deemed better
suited for desk chairs than Star Destroyers? It made Thane’s day.

That afternoon, as he headed up to the Sky Loop for an extra run, he imagined telling Ciena about the encounter. She loathed Dalven almost as much as he did; it almost seemed to Thane that he
could already hear her laughter, see her dark eyes shining with satisfaction on his behalf.

Then he walked out onto the track to
see several other cadets also working in additional exercise, Ciena among them.

She wore the same stuff as every other cadet: gray shirt, black shorts, and regulation shoes. Ciena was only one of a few dozen people out there, at the farthest edge of the track. Yet he knew
her instantly—even across the length of the Sky Loop, even with the sun blazing down so brilliantly. Thane recognized
the way she ran, the shape of her black curls braided at the nape of her
neck….

She’s beautiful,
he thought, a realization that startled him, then made him feel stupid. How could he not have noticed that about a girl he’d seen more days than not for the
past eight years? But that was precisely it. Thane knew Ciena too well to see her with any objectivity. Her face was as familiar to him
as his own in the mirror—or it had been, until now.

The evidence of his blindness disturbed him. It was as if Ciena had transformed somehow and ought to have told him first. Possibilities he’d refused to consider in the past now pushed
their way into his mind, possibilities that were both exhilarating and frightening. He felt a shiver along his skin that he had always associated with flight,
that exact moment when he left the
earth and grabbed the sky—

Thane decided not to think about it any longer. Instead he would run, fast as he could, until he was worn-out and half-dazed. When he saw Ciena again, he would be able to talk to her just like
he always had. Nothing had to change.

F
IRING HAND WEAPONS had never been something Ciena dreamed about, or practiced, and her initial marksmanship scores, while adequate, dragged down
her overall
ranking. So she spent a lot of free time on the practice range with the mock laser rifle, concentrating hard on improving her aim.

Or, as was the case today,
trying
to concentrate, with no help from her roommates.

“It was just an observation,” Kendy said, attempting to look innocent and doing a terrible job. She stood in the next booth over, her white practice coveralls contrasting with
the
metallic black surfaces of the training range. “You won’t even admit Thane’s looking good these days?”

Ciena focused on the holographic target coming toward her and fired three blasts at its head. Only when the target shattered into a thousand tiny lines of light did she reply, “He’s,
um—filling out.”

“This is a normal stage of physiological development.” Jude sat on a bench behind
the shooting booths, disassembling the laser rifle to see how quickly she could put it together
again. “Although I must say that in Thane’s case development is proceeding
very
well.”

“You guys, come on. I can’t aim when I’m laughing.”

But Kendy wouldn’t let the subject drop. “Are you honestly not at all interested in him?”

“Romantic or sexual relationships between cadets are forbidden.”
Jude could look very prim. “Besides, Ciena has known Thane since they were children. It would be rational to
conclude that at this point their relationship is like that of brother and sister, and therefore no sexual feeling could be generated between them.”

Thane’s not my brother. It’s nothing like that.
Ciena opened her mouth to say so, then closed it. Better for her friends to assume that
was how she felt so they would stop
asking her questions about Thane Kyrell.

The thing was she wasn’t exactly sure how to feel about him any longer. Before, they’d been together constantly, and she’d never had a moment to step back and wonder whether
things could change between them—and, if so, how. Their lives were both more parallel and more separate than ever before.

When Thane
edged her out in the rankings—or vice versa—they’d stare at each other in pretend anger that wasn’t wholly pretend. At times Ciena felt as if she could stand
to be beaten by absolutely anyone else before she could endure it from Thane. Yet the next day, when she saw how well he had done, her face would light up with a smile. She’d seen him
cheering for her in races and cheered for him in turn.
Their rivalry generated electricity that could turn ugly or could become—

Concentrate,
Ciena reminded herself.
You’re here to hit your targets.

After the holograms came the droids, a dozen tiny spheres that darted through the range, daring her to hit them all. Ciena fired, red bolts blasting from her rifle, and refused to pause until
she’d taken down every one.

“That’s much better,”
Jude said, unnecessarily, as Ciena’s score blinked on the screen above. “Your accuracy scores are already above average for our class. Soon
you’ll reach the top quartile.”

“Then you can stand alongside the sharpshooters, like me.” Like some pirate out of a spice-runner holo, Kendy twirled her blaster before holstering it, which made Ciena laugh.

She had no doubts that she would master
shooting. It wasn’t arrogance—the demands of the Imperial Academy made her aware of her limitations every day. Instead, Ciena’s faith
came from her sheer joy in the academy, and in Coruscant itself. Although she loved and missed her life in the Jelucani valleys, her universe had expanded a hundredfold, and every new part of it
seemed wonderful to her. To walk along corridors with members of
a dozen different races; to hear their various languages with their unfamiliar syllables, whistles, and clicks; to look into the sky
and spot a dozen different types of spacecraft every single day—it enthralled her.

Sometimes Ciena felt as though she was whispering to her lost sister constantly.
Look through my eyes.
There were infinite wonders to behold, and finally she had a chance to
see them
all.

She experienced guiltier moments, though. Ciena found herself sometimes thinking of her former life as…backward. Her life in the valleys had always been a happy one. No, she didn’t
possess any second-waver luxuries, but she didn’t particularly want them. Besides, Thane’s difficult family life had disabused her of any idea that wealthier people were automatically
happier.
Material things never had, and never would, mean much to her.

So it wasn’t the relative grandeur of Coruscant that tempted her. It was the richness of life here, the energy in the air, the lack of any need for ritual. Every forward step she took made
her wonder if she was leaving her traditional values behind.

Not entirely.
Never
entirely. She would never abandon the concept of honor,
of the absolute need to keep her word, no matter what. That was as much a part of Ciena as her bones. She would
also always carry her sister forward with her, allowing Wynnet to look through her eyes.

Yet now Ciena’s perspective had been widened forever.

No longer did she look through the narrow prism of second wave versus valley. The huge difference she’d once perceived between her
and Thane—it was nothing, really. It didn’t
exist.

Ciena had believed in that divide for so long that she wasn’t quite sure what to think once it was gone.

Finally, they got to fly for real.

“About time,” Ciena said to Thane, who had walked into the low-altitude craft bay early, just like she had. She couldn’t help noticing how he came closer to her than any other
cadet would—into
her personal space.

“For what?” he said quickly, swerving away from her as though he feared an electrical shock. “It’s not time for anything.”

“…about time
for us to fly
.” Ciena gave him a look.

Thane smiled unevenly. “Oh, right. Of course. Definitely past time for that. I mean—never mind.”

Why is he acting so awkward?
Then again, Ciena realized she was hugging herself as though
it were a cold Jelucani morning. She and Thane still got along well, but they were starting to
have these moments of self-conscious weirdness.

Maybe one of her friends had told someone that they were gossiping about how hot he was during target practice. Neither Jude nor Kendy would talk behind her back, but Jude might be socially
clueless enough to say the wrong thing in front of Nash
or Ved. That would be the worst—especially since it seemed to make Thane want to pull back from her.

I said there wasn’t anything between us. So he shouldn’t be behaving this way. Unless he wants there to be something between us. But he doesn’t, does he?

Do I?

Ciena snapped herself out of it. Mumma always told her not to make something out of nothing. She didn’t need to jump to conclusions.
She needed to get in the air.

“You’ve practiced on the speeder bike simulator multiple times,” said the commander who taught Small Craft Flight. The several dozen pilots in Ciena’s
section—including her roommates, as well as Thane and his—stood in the craft bay within the enormous structure of the academy. Outside, dusk had fallen and the city lights of Coruscant
glittered. “It is the
most basic form of low-altitude craft, and therefore the first you should master. Handling the bike should be well within the capacity of every cadet in this
class.”

Ciena tried to disguise her excitement. She’d been in simulators too long; she was ready to go. And the speeder bikes seemed
so easy
—

As if he’d heard her, the commander continued, “In order to ensure that your first flight
is both memorable and challenging, we’ve made it a competition. A race.”

“Is there a prize?” called Nash Windrider, which made people laugh. Unlike most instructors, the flight commander allowed some levity from time to time. He said it bolstered
“martial spirit,” which they were supposed to cultivate.

The flight commander even smiled slightly as he replied, “Indeed, Cadet Windrider,
but you should learn the task before you presume to perform it.” A hologram rose from the center of
the bay, showing a three-dimensional map of the area surrounding the academy. Small, brightly colored points blinked in ten different places, from all the way down at ground level up to the Sky
Loop. “What you see signposted here are Reitgen Hoops, each big enough for a single speeder bike to easily
pass through. We’ve cleared the surrounding airspace, so you may choose your
individual course and need only account for your classmates’ vehicles.”

Farthest first,
Ciena immediately decided.
Most people will get too caught up in trying to reach the nearest hoop, so you’ll have a clear course. Then you slip through the others
on your way back here.

The commander concluded, “The first
to fly through all ten hoops will be given fifty points in the rankings.”

A shiver of disbelief and anticipation swept through the cadets. Fifty points! That was better than acing two or even three exams. Cadets in ranking trouble knew this could pull them back from
the brink. Meanwhile, Ciena could only think,
This would do it. This would make me number one, far ahead of anybody else.

“Eager, are you?” the commander said. “Then get to your craft and await the signal!”

Ciena dashed for her speeder bike and powered up. As the engines hummed to life, she checked the chinstrap of her dark gray helmet and the armor strapped around her forearms, calves, and thighs.
Most important was the repulsor belt, which would activate if she fell from the bike. But she didn’t intend
to fall.

This is going to be mine,
she told herself as she took hold of the handlebars and felt the controls through her textured gloves. The engine beneath her vibrated with what she imagined was
excitement, as if it were a spirited beast instead of a mere machine.