Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens Lost Stars (10 page)

“Cadet Kyrell. Cadet Ree. We have a conundrum on our hands.” The commandant never rose from his chair as he studied them standing side by side, rigid and correct.
“The first
layer of data says that Cadet Ree is the only possible culprit for the tampering discovered today. However, the second layer of data suggests that Cadet Kyrell tampered with his laser cannon
himself and framed Cadet Ree for the deed.”

Thane had not known you could feel the blood drain from your face. It was like going numb from cold. “Sir! I absolutely did not—I would never—”

“Spare me your protestations, Cadet Kyrell.” By then Deenlark seemed more bored than anything else. “I have consulted with our specialists, who inform me that either layer of
data could be the falsified one. One of you attempted to sabotage the other, and covered your tracks—not well enough to hide completely but enough that we can never be certain which of you is
responsible and which
is innocent. Therefore we have no other recourse but to punish you both.”

Good pilot though he was, Thane had occasionally “crashed” a flight simulator. As the screens had showed him the images of flames and a planetary surface rushing up to smash him to
atoms, he’d wondered what it would feel like to crash and burn for real.

Probably it was something like this.

Commandant Deenlark
smiled thinly. “You have both failed the laser cannon assignment. Your course rankings will reflect this.”

Their ranks were high enough that even a failure of that scale wouldn’t take them down further than the second quartile. Still, it stung.

“Normally,” the commandant continued, “a violation of the honor code would call for disciplinary hearings and potential expulsion. As we cannot
get any closer to the truth,
however, this would prove useless. Although I have punished you both, I am not willing to expel two gifted pilots based on such murky information. You will both continue on as cadets. Rest assured,
however—if any similar incident arises during your time at the academy, for either or both of you, expulsion will be immediate and permanent. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Thane and Ciena said in unison. Her voice sounded as hollow as his.

They walked out of Deenlark’s office suite in silence. From there—one of the top floors of the academy building—the view through the green-tinted windows showed what seemed to
be half of Coruscant. A few benches and chairs were located there for junior officers, students, and visitors, so that when they saw the
city spread before them, they would recognize the
commandant’s power. No one was visiting this evening, however; Thane and Ciena were alone.

As if they had rehearsed in advance, they both walked to the windows before they turned to each other. When their eyes met, she exhaled in the deepest relief. “You didn’t do
it.”

“Neither did you.” He ought to have known that all along. They smiled
at each other, faith restored—but the problem wasn’t solved. Thane sagged back against one of the
metal columns between the windows. “So who the hell did?”

Ciena scowled. “Somebody who wanted top marks on the project. Probably that snake Ved Foslo.”

“I’m not as sure about that. Ved’s good with mechanical stuff; he would have placed in the top echelon even without cheating. So why bother?
Besides, he’s a stickler for
rules, even when they work against him.”

“So who would frame us both, and try to make us hate each other?” Her face looked stricken. “Sabotaging the cannon and the data wasn’t just scheming to get ahead. Someone
wanted to hurt us.”

Who in their class had a grudge against them both? Nobody personally hated them—as far as Thane knew, which maybe wasn’t far
enough. “It has to be because we’re both at
the top of the class.”

Ciena groaned. “You mean we
were
. This knocks us so far down—”

“Only for now.” He realized he’d balled his hands into fists. “We have to figure out who really did this. Once we turn that person in, we’ll get our rankings back
and get the jerk thrown out.”

“Nobody who would do something like this deserves to be an
Imperial officer,” she said, lifting her chin. “You’re right. We get to the truth, and then we make the guilty
party pay.”

Thane nodded. Outside, ships and hoverbikes darted through the misty sunset of the city. “Okay, how do we begin?”

Jude agreed to help them, though as they sat at one of the spare data stations later that night, she warned, “My earlier analysis wrongly implicated
Thane. Therefore my
skills must be called into question.”

“Don’t say that.” Ciena put one hand on her friend’s shoulder. “You found the wrong solution because someone set you up to find it. Now that you know you need to
dig deeper, I bet you’ll get the answer in no time. Right, Thane?” She shot him a look and he nodded, as if he hadn’t argued the exact same thing about Jude’s abilities
outside the commandant’s office when Ciena first suggested they try this.

But she believed in her friend. If they were going to find the truth, Jude would be their best guide.

Jude worked at her terminal for several minutes while no one spoke, or hardly even moved. The only sound in the enormous data analysis room was the soft tapping of Jude’s fingers on the
controls; the only light
came from the dozens of terminals vacant at that late hour, all of them glowing faintly blue. Ciena glanced over at Thane once to find him already looking at her. Once
their eyes met, he turned his head, abashed.

For some reason, that made her cheeks grow hot.

With determination, she focused her attention on figuring out who the most likely culprits could be. Anyone might have wanted
to knock them lower in the rankings. But attempting to pit them
against each other—that was someone aiming to inflict pain.

We outsmarted them, though.
Her heart swelled with pride, and other emotions harder to name, as she glanced sideways at Thane again.
It takes more than that to break us apart.

“Hmmm.” Jude frowned, wrinkling her long freckled nose. “The paths taken by the saboteur
are quite circuitous. I traced the information about Thane and—it’s as if
they wanted to make it look like a higher official here at the academy was responsible.”

Ciena had to shake her head. “Lie after lie after lie. When I find out who did this, I’m going to ask them why they ever thought they’d be able to frame
an instructor
and get away with it.”

“Not an instructor. Someone in
the Office of Student Outcomes,” Jude clarified.

So what? An instructor, an administration official, whoever—it was still a stupid move. But Thane straightened in his chair, realization dawning on his face. “Do you guys know what
the Office of Student Outcomes does?”

Ciena had never even heard of it. Jude replied, “They oversee student performance and suggest methods for instructors
to use in order to provide maximum improvement.” Then she added,
with a shrug, “But I have no idea precisely how they accomplish that.”

“Apparently they do it by screwing with our minds!” Thane pushed himself back from the data terminal, as angry as Ciena had ever seen him.

Someone needed to remain rational. “Thane,” she said, “think about what you’re saying. Why would anyone on the
academy staff want to set us up?”

“Because they don’t want two cadets from a backwater world to beat all the military brats. Because General Foslo or Admiral Jasten or someone like that told them to knock us down so
their kid could be number one.” Thane got to his feet, expression dark.

Even though she understood why Thane would be on edge, Ciena felt annoyed. “Why are you turning this
into some big conspiracy theory?”

Jude, who had been sitting silently at her terminal, chimed in: “It
is
a conspiracy of some sort. The only question is who should be held responsible.”

“Nobody would be stupid enough to set up an official at the academy,” Thane ranted. “Nobody smart enough to set this up in the first place, anyway. So that means the Student
Outcomes people have to have
done it.”

“You can’t be serious.” Cold fear began to pool inside her; Thane was edging past understandable anger into dangerous territory. You did
not
question the methods of the
academy.

“Yeah, I’m serious. They took a bribe or something. How many credits do you think it costs to buy your kid the top rank in the class? However much that is, it’s as much as the
academy thinks we’re
worth.”

“You realize you’re making a criminal allegation, don’t you?” Ciena retorted.

He shot back, “What, are you going to report me?”

Jude sat very still at her terminal, her eyes moving back and forth between them as they argued. Ciena knew they ought to tone it down at least until they were alone, but she was too angry to do
that, and so was Thane. “I’m not going to report you.
But you need to remember why we’re here, and who we serve.”

“You think everything the academy and the Empire do is perfect!”

“And you think every authority figure is evil like your father!”

Thane’s eyes went wide, and she knew she’d wounded him. He stepped toward her. “Don’t
ever
bring my father up to me again. It’s none of your business. Got
that?”

He’d never told her anything
in his life was none of her business. They knew everything about each other; they kept no secrets. Now Thane had put up a barrier where there had never been
one before, a wall of stone, and Ciena felt like she’d just slammed into it at top speed.

“You realize we have to confront them about this,” he continued, because apparently he was so angry he’d lost his mind.

“You want us to accuse
academy officials of dishonesty?”

“Yes! I want them to admit what they’ve done and take it back! That’s our only chance at getting our ranks reinstated—”

“They’re not going to reinstate us after something like that! They’d expel us so fast we wouldn’t even have time to pack our bags.”

“You won’t even
try
? You’d rather lie down in the dirt than admit your precious teachers could do
something wrong?”

Ciena wanted to shake him. “We would only make things worse, Thane.”

“So you want me to just take it. Just accept that my whole first term here at the academy was a waste.”

As if everything they’d learned, done, and seen was wasted just because of their stupid course rankings. Infuriated, she shot back, “Yes, I do! You need to let go, learn to deal, and
grow up
.”

He stared at her, openmouthed, with nothing but scorn in his eyes, then said, “I never thought you were a coward.”

That stung. “I never thought you were unfit for Imperial service. Now, though? I have to wonder.”

“Spare me your analysis, okay? We’re done here.”

With that he turned to walk out. Ciena both wanted to be rid of him and didn’t want to leave things like this. So she called,
“Don’t you want to see what else Jude digs
up?”

“She’s not going to dig up anything else. We have our answer. You’re just too naive to believe it.” Thane’s voice dripped with contempt. It scoured her raw. She
said nothing more as he stalked out.

It felt as if a bomb had gone off. Ciena sensed this incident had only been the trigger—that some drastic change had been waiting to happen
between them for a long time. But she’d
never dreamed it would lead to a confrontation so ugly. A crevasse had opened in their friendship, and Thane stood on the other side. No longer could she believe he loved the Empire as she did; no
longer could she trust in his understanding and support. Somehow Ciena already knew things between them would never be the same.

“Well.” Jude sounded awkward.
“So. I did keep looking, and it seems like the trail ends at Student Outcomes. That doesn’t mean they’re guilty—the office may
only have been a convenient rerouting for the original sabotage of the data records. And of course the rest of the repair-bay info has been erased. I’m afraid my search ends here.”

Ciena nodded. The data terminals before her blurred and she wiped away hot tears with
the heel of her hand.

Jude continued, “We should focus our efforts on improving your class rank in future, so you can make up for this loss—” Suddenly, she stood up, less prim than she’d ever
been before, and hugged Ciena tightly. Then it was finally all right for Ciena to cry.

F
OR THE ACADEMY cadets, the next two and a half years seemed both to last forever and to rush by in a blur. As the exams grew more demanding, the
flying more
difficult, and the discipline more exacting, the bunks began to empty out. The lineups tightened formation again and again. The corridors seemed less crowded as more and more students
flunked out or simply gave up.

Both Thane Kyrell and Ciena Ree were too tough for that. They still both aimed for the top slot in the class, every term—which meant they clashed with each other time and time
again.

In Core Worlds Classical Culture: “Who here can tell me which opera the composer Igern is best known for?”

Ciena’s hand shot up, and when the professor nodded at her, she answered, “
Chalice and Altar
.”