The Lost Star Episode One Read Online Free

yet she’d be coming aboard anyway. He
wouldn’t get a say in this.
    Ava had been assigned by the higher ups.
    For what reason? Why would the Academy’s
top brass possibly want a middling ensign on the
Mandalay?
    Diplomatic concession.
    The government of her world had specifically asked for her to
be assigned. And by asked, they’d probably demanded.
    She was Avixan, and the Avixans were about
as subtle as a blow upside your head.
    Captain McClane pushed his crooked fingers into his
creased brow as he tried to make sense of this.
    Why the hell would the Avixans want Ensign
Ava on board? She was low-powered, pretty ordinary even by human
standards. Even though Avixan society was a mystery to most in the
Coalition, he’d learnt enough to know most Avixans had incredible
powers of strength and speed. Some didn’t.
    Ava was one of those – she’d barely scraped
past minimal combat training. She was slow, physically weak, and
became easily tired.
    If he’d been in charge of the Academy, he
would have cut her from the draft in her first year.
    And, heck, knowing Commander Sharpe, maybe
he’d tried. But maybe he’d come up with the same problem Harvey now
had. Diplomatic Concessions.
    The Avixans were an extremely important
new asset for the Coalition. For most of the Coalition’s existence,
the Avixans had largely kept to themselves. Now, with the ever
growing tensions in the Milky Way, the Coalition had convinced the
Avixans to join forces. Not only did the Avixans have a wealth of
resources, but some of their people were the greatest warriors in
the Milky Way.
    So when the Avixans wanted something, the
Coalition gave it. Making the odd diplomatic concession here and
there was worth it if the Avixans stayed with the
Coalition.
    As such, Harvey knew there was no way he was
going to fight this.
    That didn’t stop the burning curiosity.
    A curiosity he knew would never be
satiated. The higher ups weren’t going to tell him why Ensign Ava
of all people had been assigned, essentially by her own government,
to the Mandalay.
    Still, that didn’t mean he couldn’t keep
an eye on her. All diplomatic concessions aside, if she proved to
be a spanner in his finely tuned machine, she’d be out on her
ear.
    ...
    Lieutenant Hunter McClane
    He stood in the middle of the room trying
not to look too ecstatic. "Are you serious? You've been stationed
aboard the Mandalay?"
    Meva sashayed across the carpet, a seductive
smile pressed over her perfect lips. She didn't come to a stop
until she stood in front of him. She looked right up into his eyes
as she hooked her arms around his neck. "Yes," she finally
said.
    He let out a whoop of a laugh as he wrapped
his arms around her middle. "I can't believe our luck."
    "Luck?" she smiled around her words, and
goddamn if it didn't send the same tingles racing through his gut
that he'd experienced when he'd first met her. "This doesn't have
anything to do with luck," she purred.
    When Meva had first joined the academy two
years his junior, she'd been an instant sensation. A member of the
Avixan race, she looked humanoid, save for her vibrant, luminescent
eyes and hair, and paler skin.
    She was startling from head to toe.
    She also had power that rivaled even most
sets of sophisticated armor. She was an incredible security
officer, and though she’d only been out of the Academy two years
now, she’d already climbed the ranks to lieutenant.
    She kept her arms locked around his neck
as she stared up at him, her lips parting gently and curling
into a hands-down
fantastic smile.
    It made him giddy just to see
it .
    “How did you get assigned?” He unhooked an
arm from around her back and brushed away a few strands of her
luminescent hair.
    She looked as if she’d keep playing with
him – possibly for his whole life – then she caved with a seriously
pleasant laugh. “Shera.”
    For a second confusion crumpled his brow.
“Ha?”
    “ She requested my presence aboard the
Mandalay, and you know