The Lost Star Episode One (8 page)

On any other day, her expression would have
been funny. Today, he looked past her surprise and saw the blood
blossoming over her uniform.

He'd underestimated her injury.

She'd already lost a heck of a lot of
fluid.

"Shit," he swore as he grabbed up the kit
and tore it open. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," she managed as she pulled
herself up.

Immediately he locked a hand on her shoulder
and forced her to stay still. "You've lost too much blood."

"I'm fine," she insisted as she shrugged off
his hand and sat.

It was a miracle she was still conscious,
let alone able to move.

He fumbled through the kit, casting away
useless supplies until he reached the spray-on skin.

He grasped the slim metal device with
shaking hands and tenderly pulled her arm up.

She didn't wince; she just looked at him
evenly.

"Sorry I took so long. This ship's a
warren," he mumbled in a nervous voice as he sprayed the skin right
over her injury. Technically he should remove the excess blood
first, but he wasn't thinking. His brain was a haze of
adrenaline.

"It's alright. I kept myself amused."

He couldn't help but let out a curt chuckle.
"How exactly did you do that while bleeding out over the
floor?"

"I sang to myself."

One lip half curled as he finished
applying the skin. Then he snatched up the medi scanner. "You've
lost a lot of fluid—”

She reached past him and picked through
the kit with her good hand. She selected a syringe and a few metal
vials.

"You need to hold still—”

"I know how to fix myself up," she said off
hand, still never wincing or recoiling from the agony he knew she'd
be in.

Before he could stop her, she'd injected
herself with a mixture of the vials.

Almost instantly the color returned to her
cheeks, and, more importantly for her race, her eyes.

Her iridescent purple eyes.

They were startling, just like all other
Avixans. They didn't quite work with her, though. Maybe it was her
flame red hair or her complexion, but they looked out of
place.

Meva's eyes, on the other hand, never failed
to take his breath away. Crystal clear blue, they looked like
sapphires lit up with fire.

His stomach clenched as he thought of his
girlfriend, and he had no idea why.

Ava experimentally moved her damaged hand up
and down, but didn't appear able to shift her fingers.

"We need to get you to the med bay, ASAP."
He locked a hand on her shoulder and looked right into her eyes,
worried gaze darting over her face.

She looked right back at him.

She had a strange kind of silent watchful
stare. It put him in the mood of a shepherd standing upon a hill
and watching its flock.

"Shera should be sending a med team in to
find us. We just need to sit tight—”

Ava began to move. Somehow she pushed to one
knee then the other. Her whole front was covered in blood.

As fear clutched his gut, he realized he'd
got here just in time.

She swept the contents of the med pack back
into is flex box, locked it to her side with her good arm, then
began shuffling forward. "Where's the nearest exit? Do you think
it's worth trying this direction, or retracing your steps?"

"Didn't you hear me? I said Shera's sending
help."

Ava turned from him, her messy hair
obscuring her expression. "I'm fine to get myself out of here."

“
Ensign
," a growl caught his voice, “This is an order – you're
staying still."

"I think it's wiser to push on. I'm not
that injured anymore. Plus, how are they going to find
us?"

He snapped his mouth open to repeat his
order, but stopped.

She had a maddening point.

"I doubt internal sensors work properly in
this section yet – otherwise we'd have been swarmed with help the
second our lift exploded. And I'm fine to keep going." She
demonstrated her point by shuffling forward, her injured arm still
locked against her chest. "Judging by the fact this tunnel had a
blast door, I'm guessing there's an exit in this direction," she
mumbled to herself.

Reluctantly, he pushed off, negotiating
around the significant puddle of blood she'd left next to the blast
door.

He caught up to her as she determinedly
shuffled down the tunnel, wrapped an arm around her back, and
looped her good arm over his shoulder.

"I can walk," she pointed out. "My legs
aren't affected."

"Stop being brave," he snapped back,
though his words were quick, not unkind. "You've lost too much
blood, ensign. Let me help you." He flicked his gaze down to
her.

Slowly, she nodded.

It was a peculiar move. Despite how haggard
she looked, it was regal. Graceful.

It was awkward shuffling side-by-side, and
his leg kept banging against the wall of the shaft as he gave her
as much room as he could.

Soon
they made it to a hatch.

She'd been right. Again. They'd barely had
to travel twenty meters to find it.

He propped her against the wall as he
dropped hard to his knees and skidded over to the hatch
controls.

He jammed a thumb into them, and this time
they worked.

The hatch swished open.

She ducked her head down and jumped out
before he could stop her.

Though she wobbled on her feet, she didn't
fall.

If it had been him, he'd have fallen all the
way back against that blast door.

Ava might have been physically weak, but he
was starting to realize she made up for that in spades with
resilience.

That didn't stop him from vaulting out of
the tunnel and securing an arm around her back. "You've got to be
careful," he chided.

"I'm fine," she insisted in a light tone,
though she didn't turn to him.

She looked distracted.

He could bet it wasn't fatigue or pain
distracting her, too. Ever since he'd mentioned coming across
Shera, Ava had looked bothered by something.

He wanted to ask what the heck was going on
between them, but he knew he'd get no answer.

Even Meva would never breathe a word about
the Avixans.

As they turned another corner they came
across two crewmembers.

"Thank god," he spat. "Are you guys the
medics?"

The two crewmembers turned. It was Shera and
Meva.

He was too relieved to care. "Christ, did
you call the med bay? Where are the medics? Has B'cal been warned?"
his words spilled out of his mouth like blood from a broken
artery.

He was just so goddamn relieved this was
over.

Ava stiffened. With his arm still locked
around her back, he could feel every single one of her muscles
contract. It was like she turned to stone.

He caught a glance of the side of her face,
and watched her cheeks pale to alabaster white.

Meva didn't even look at Ava. "Hunter?
What the hell happened to you?"

"I'm fine. I just need a goddamn medic. When
will they get here?"

"B'cal and his engineers are on the way,"
Shera informed him in a professional tone.

"That's great, but where's the medic?" He
knew he was being too informal. Shera was his superior. Call it
adrenaline or the fact Ava's blood was covering his arm and side,
but he needed to get her to the med bay. Now.

"We're facing some difficulties with
internal communications," Shera pointed out in that same
professional tone.

Ava shifted away from him. At first it was
subtle. Then she broke his grip.

She took a step back, flicked her hair to
the side, and stood on her own.

As he turned to ask what the heck she was
doing, he caught sight of her expression.

It was... he couldn't describe it. Or
maybe he could. He'd seen that look before. Just not on the face of
a junior ensign.

It was the kind of determined hard-edged
stare an admiral would give their enemy. "I'm fine to walk to the
med bay on my own." With that, she turned and walked down the hall,
the bloody treads of her boots leaving footprints on the smooth
polished floor.

"Hey, what are you doing?" he called,
skidding as he turned to follow her.

"The ensign appears fine," Shera pointed
out. "Right now, it's of greater importance that you show us
exactly where the problems occurred with the lift. Take us to the
direct section of tunnel – we can't currently pick it up on
internal sensors."

He stood there. Amazed. Was Shera just
going to ignore Ava? Sure, maybe there was bad blood between the
two, but Shera knew protocol, and this wasn't it.

Maybe Shera could guess what he was
thinking, because she angled her regal head backwards and gave him
the kind of stare a subordinate could not ignore. "It's a priority
that we track down any issues with the lift system. Ensign Ava is
physically fine. It may not seem that way, lieutenant. But
understand that I am Avixan and I am more familiar with our biology
than you are."

That statement humbled him and yet pissed
him off at the same time.

"Now, show us the problem with the lift,"
Shera said with a curt nod, direct stare making it clear it was an
order not a suggestion.

He took a deep grounding breath. It was that
or spin on his foot, disobey a direct order, and run after Ava.

“
Lieutenant
," Shera prompted.

"Fine." Hunter turned around and led them
back to the hatch. As he did, he couldn't stop from staring at
Ava's bloodied footprints.

Ava

She
walked herself to the med bay. Most of the crew were busy
on other decks, so no one saw her until she reached the imposing
metal doors.

When she
walked in, the handful of doctors and medical
staff ignored her until she ambled up to one of the beds with a
wet, bloody squelch.

"Jesus," the closest doctor – a human male
of Asian descent – sprang towards her. "Are you okay? Is that your
blood?"

She replied by digging her fingers under the
skin graft and tearing it right off. "Yes."

"Hey, no, don't do that," he snapped as he
lurched towards a medical tray and waved it towards her bed.

"It has to come off. There's nerve damage,"
she said impassively.

Though she could still feel the pain, her
mind was elsewhere.

What exactly had Shera and Meva been
doing? Had Meva been there when Lieutenant McLane had run into
Shera, or had Shera specifically gone to get her?

A cold uncomfortable sensation ran through
her gut as she thought.

"What the heck
happened to you?" the doctor continued as he waved
over another staff member.

"I was in a lift that malfunctioned.
Lieutenant McClane and I had to get out of the lift before if fell.
We managed to, however the lift caught my arm as it went past and
sliced off a section of my wrist."

"Hunter? Hunter was with you? Is he
alright?"

"He's uninjured."

"He's an old friend of mine. I'm Doctor Chen
Ming, by the way." Ming moved quickly and deftly as he stopped the
bleeding and stabilized her arm.

"It's nice to meet you."

He stabbed his fingers into his medical
scanner and whistled. "You're lucky to be alive...."

"Ensign Ava."

"Ava. You've lost a lot of blood. I'm not
too familiar with Avixans, but you shouldn't even be walking, let
alone talking. Come to think of it, how the hell did you get
here?"

"I walked."

He stared at her in startled amazement. "You
walked. From where?"

"Deck 4."

He paled. "All on your own?"

She nodded.

"What about Hunter? Why the hell did he
leave you alone?"

"He was called away by Lieutenant
Commander Shera," she tried to keep her voice even, impassive,
unemotional. She couldn't. Not quite.

What did Shera want?

What kind of game was she playing?

She would know the stakes if she
threatened Ava directly. All Ava would need was a scrap of
evidence, and the Avixan government would lock Shera in extended
stasis for fifty years.

"He shouldn't have done that. You shouldn't
have been left on your own. What the hell was he thinking?"

"It's alright, doctor. He did what he was
told. And I'm fine. I walked here without incident."

"Who told him to leave you? Why didn't
someone call the medics?"

"Lieutenant Commander Shera needed him for
another task."

"Well I'm going to tell the captain,
because that is completely out of line."

She paused. "... It's okay,
doctor
. Lieutenant
Commander Shera, as an Avixan, is familiar with our biology. She
knew I was in no immediate danger. She made a call, and it was a
correct one."

Chen opened his mouth, but closed it with a
sigh. "Maybe you're right. But that was still unnecessary."

"Perhaps," she agreed in a dull tone.

Then she shifted her gaze and stared at the
floor behind Chen.

She'd just covered for Shera, not out of
loyalty to the woman, but out of loyalty for her people.

As of yet, Ava had no evidence Shera had
done anything wrong. And she'd need evidence if she wanted to go
against the lieutenant commander.

As she took another deep sigh, she tried to
convince herself once more that this must all be an unfortunate
coincidence.