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  Lost Star

  Wings of Artemis 11

  Rebecca Royce

  Copyright © 2020 by Rebecca Royce

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Introduction

  1. Stranger On A Strange Ship

  2. Zap

  3. Playing Games

  4. Corbin

  5. Scavengers and Secrets

  6. Aftermath

  7. Permanent Goodbyes

  8. A Long Stretch of Dark Space

  9. What’s Next

  10. Mars Station

  11. The Devil You Know

  12. Choices and Control

  13. Home

  14. Hello, Again

  15. What’s Next

  16. A New Start. Maybe

  17. Planet-side

  18. Breaking Through

  19. On the Run

  20. Ship Pieces

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Other books by Rebecca Royce…

  Introduction

  Dearest Reader,

  Thank you so much for taking the time to follow me to this point. Lost Star (Wings of Artemis 11) is the first part of the final arc of this series. There will just be one more book after this one. If you’ve read all of them from Melissa through Amber leading up to this book, I can’t thank you enough. If you’ve jumped around, that’s okay too, and I am just as happy to have you reading. That dratted black hole messes with the timeline anyway.

  Sienna and her guys are newcomers to the universe. Somewhat literally. Those Super Soldiers don’t have a lot of experience at living and neither do Sienna, Wade, or Trenton. I love these guys, and I hope you’ll agree with me that they were the perfect people to end these stories. They need each other in a way that is hard for me to articulate, except to ask you to follow them on the page with me.

  Hugs,

  RR

  If you haven’t already please find me online, particularly on Facebook in my reader’s room, Rebecca’s Randomness.

  1 Stranger On A Strange Ship

  A bright light assaulted my eyes, and I swatted at it as though I could make it go away. It was instinct more than conscious thought. I knew, intellectually, I couldn’t stop light by waving at it, but oh, the pain it caused in my head. I’d do anything to make that cease. The light, thankfully, moved, and I sighed from the relief.

  What was happening? Where was I?

  “Sienna?” A low scratchy voice that I didn’t know said my name. “Can you hear me?”

  Several low beeps from a machine followed his question. Where was I that there were electronic devices nearby? We didn’t have any at home. They went against the rules of the ancestors. We weren’t to have these things at home. Was I…not home?

  “Sienna?” The voice again. I wanted to answer, but it was like my mouth wouldn’t work. It was glued shut, or maybe it was my throat. When was the last time I had spoken? Why was this so hard?

  The sound of footsteps approached. I couldn’t turn to look. With the bright light gone, all I could make out were blurry shapes, the outlines of things. Nausea rolled through me. If I moved, even an inch, I was going to puke. There was nothing I hated more than throwing up. Was there anything worse?

  “I don’t think she’s hearing you.” A new voice. Also male. This one even lower.

  There were two men here. Two? How were there two men in the room with me? Maybe one of the bishops might be around, but never more than that. They weren’t allowed near the trainees. What was happening?

  A sigh. Not one of tiredness, but exasperation. “This is a process. She probably hears me, Blaze. But she’s been in cryogenic sleep for a very long time, and she’s been sick. It’s going to take a little while for her to be okay.” Anxiety rushed through my veins. I’d been sick? What? Was I going to be okay? What was happening? A gentle hand stroked the hair off my forehead, soothing me. “Not all of us are Super Soldiers.” What was a Super Soldier? “Sienna, rest. You’re safe here. I’m taking care of you.”

  He had a kind voice, even if it was male. I could count on one hand the number of men I’d heard speak before him. There was something familiar about it, too, as though I’d heard him from a distance. Blaze, which seemed a strange name, or at least, not one I’d heard before, was recognizable, yet not as clear as the nameless one. Still, I closed my eyes, trusting the voice that I was safe where I was.

  Something was wrong, but maybe I…

  The next time I opened my eyes, there wasn’t a bright light. I looked around, able to make out my surroundings. A man stood with his back to me, reading something on a screen in front of him. He turned slightly, and I studied him, as he hadn’t yet noticed me. Was he the owner of the voice that had encouraged me to rest, or was he someone new? Where was I? What was happening?

  I fought for clarity, but none presented itself. Okay. I had to figure things out and quickly. I knew one thing for sure—I didn’t know this place. It was a medical bay of some kind. The machines surrounding me were unfamiliar. Understanding technology wasn’t on the list of the things expected of me as a trainee. When I’d been selected as an initiate to spend my life in the temple at the age of five, I’d been removed from all things modern.

  We knew that these things existed, but not what they did or how they worked. Others kept that knowledge for us.

  Something must have happened to me, and I’d been brought for help. That made sense. He’d said I’d been sick. Was I now better? With my mind settled on this as the most likely scenario, I stared at my companion again, who had yet to notice me. I didn’t know what was on that tablet, but he furrowed his brow as he stared at it.

  He was what my fellow trainee Christiana would have called handsome. She was very preoccupied with things like that. If she ever had a husband, she was sure he would be very good looking as a qualification. I didn’t expect to ever have one, since it had been all but decided I would be chosen. I wouldn’t have a family of my own, the whole universe could be called my children.

  But Christiana, had she made the remark about this man, would have been correct. He was handsome.

  He had a long, angular face with tired eyes. What gave me that impression? His blue depths were exhausted. Add to that the dark smudges beneath them, and tired was absolutely the first impression he gave me. My heart clenched. This man had seen pain. My fingers tingled to do something about that. I swallowed. I couldn’t soothe his hurts by petting him like a dog. His hair was a combination of blond and brown, streaks of it looking one color and then the next. It fell slightly in his eyes. His beard was mostly brown, which made me wonder if the blond in his hair had been dyed to look that way and then left to grow out.

  The stranger appeared neat, put together, like he took time to do so. His pants were light colored, but he wore a black sweater that frayed slightly at the waist. It had seen better days. Someone wasn’t taking care of this man.

  He jolted all of a sudden, like he came back to awareness, and swung around to look at me. His tired blue eyes widened. “Sienna? Are you awake?”

  I tried to clear my throat, suddenly aware it was dry and scratchy. It hurt to clear it. “I think so.”

  He crossed to a machine, pressed a button that put water in a cup, and then quickly carried it over to me. “This will help. Cryogenic sleep takes a lot out of a person.”

  I sipped the cool goodness. Talking still hurt, but I managed it, given that I absolutely had to get some information before my head exploded. “I’m afraid you h
ave me at a disadvantage. You know my name, and I don’t know yours. And I don’t know what cryogenic sleep is.”

  He stared at me for a long second. “Okay. Sorry. I’m Wade.” He pressed his hands to his chest as he said his name. “I’m your doctor. You’ve been sick. Well, technically you’re still sick, but now we’ve got that mostly managed. And your people put you in cryogenic sleep—a kind of deep sleep during which the body is stored at a very cold temperature to keep the person from getting sicker. It can also delay aging, but that was not the purpose of it for you.”

  Dizziness suddenly assaulted me. He must have noticed because he laid me back down. “Easy. Baby steps. Okay? Don’t try to do anything too fast for a while.”

  “It’s… Wade, why are you taking care of me? What do you mean I was cold? This doesn’t…it doesn’t…”

  He pressed a cool hand on my cheek. I don’t know why it calmed me, but it did. “I’m a doctor. You’re my patient. You have been for about six months now. You’re on a ship called Artemis. You’re not alone.” The calmness of his voice, the easy nature of his tone, helped me slow my heart rate, which had to be skyrocketing. “There are five other people on this vessel with us, all of them dedicated to keeping you safe.”

  I digested this information. “You said I was sick. Are they all doctors like you?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I’m the only doctor. I have so much to tell you, so much to explain, but why don’t we just start with what I’ve told you. Okay? Bits and pieces.” He held up my arms, and I looked where he indicated. There on my pale skin—I always burned in the sun—was a device I’d never seen before. A clear tube with pink liquid flowing inside of it was attached to my skin. I stared at it, my mouth falling open.

  Wade—the doctor—spoke again. “This is going to keep you healthy. I made it for you. I mean, I did this so you could stay healthy. But the idea for it was someone else’s. A much better doctor than me. Her name is Amber Chen. Anyway, you’ve got me, so I did it. I’m only pointing it out because I want you to not touch it. Leave it. This is why we could wake you up.” He moved the pillow behind me. “Lie back on this. I don’t want to feed you for a few hours, and I doubt you’re hungry. But I want you to stay right here and just relax. I promise, you’ll get all the answers I have soon. Plus, I have some questions for you. Later.”

  He had questions for me? Wade turned like he was going to leave, and I grabbed his arm, stopping him. There was one very pressing question. I had to know right now. “Am I going to die?”

  My voice broke as I vocalized that thought. His blue gaze softened as he looked at me for a second before it hardened once again to a tired, withdrawn appearance. “No. I won’t allow it.”

  I let go of his arm. If nothing else, I believed him. That was something.

  My sickness must have taken more out of me than I could have imagined. Never in my life could I have fallen asleep with so much anxiety rushing through me, but that was just what I’d done. I woke up to a blaring alarm. Immediately, my heart was in my throat. What was going on? I jumped off the table where I lay, looking around. The ship—I was on a ship!—shimmied before it keeled left. I almost fell, but grabbed on to the table just in time.

  I was alone. Where was Wade?

  What was happening?

  “Hello?” I called out, terror becoming a palpable entity in the room. I couldn’t remember if I’d ever really been afraid before today. It was like my mind had gone entirely blank.

  The door flew open, but it wasn’t Wade who walked in. No, it was a huge, nearly shirtless man. I tried to make sense of my own thoughts even as I registered them. His shirt was…well, it was nearly gone. Torn, burned. He was covered in a black substance that coated part of his exposed, muscular torso area.

  “You are frightened, female.” He strode toward me completely unconcerned and unaffected by the fact that the ship was darting around beneath our feet as though we were on waves. How was this even possible? What was going on?

  I backed up into the table. I’d never seen anyone as big as him. Besides his nearly gone shirt, he had on camouflaged pants that were rolled at the waist like they might actually belong to someone larger. His hair was brown, cut short, and his face clean shaven. His eyes were dark brown and currently staring into mine like he might…

  Well, I had no idea, none, what he might do.

  “I am…I am frightened. Yes. Very frightened.” To my utter horror, tears sprung to my eyes. I sucked them back. Crying was a waste of time and energy. That was one of the first things I’d learned as a trainee, and I wouldn’t forget it now.

  Tears were fruitless. But I’d never been this afraid before. He had a weapon strapped to his back. A very large gun. Oh wow. It was a day of firsts. I had a tube in my arm, I was aboard a spaceship, the man was shirtless, and now a gun. Where was the quiet temple? Where were my pastoral views? Had there really been a time I’d thought life dull and longed for adventure?

  “I take it back.” I spoke aloud so the universe would hear me. “I didn’t mean it.”

  The man tilted his head just slightly before he picked me up. I yelped before I outright shouted. “What are you doing?”

  “Taking you from this room.”

  He was what? No. I wasn’t going anywhere with him. Shirtless strangers who had weapons couldn’t just haul me around. What was going to happen to me? “Where is Wade? He…he told me to stay on the table.”

  “He is busy.” The man put me over his shoulder.

  Okay. Enough. I kicked him as hard as I could just as he strode out of the room, barely missing the door itself in my effort. It seemed to make no difference. In fact, I wasn’t sure he even noticed. I tried again. No reaction. How could that be? Surely that must have hurt.

  Out of the medical bay, I scanned quickly, trying to take in my surroundings as the brute hauled me quickly down the long corridor. The walls had peeling paint, like no one had taken care of the ship in a long while, because there was evidence that it had been, at one point or another, covered in neat strokes of color.

  The hallways were wide, and we passed multiple doors on our way before we arrived wherever we were going. Oh…was he going to put me out the airlock? I’d heard about that from some of the girls. That was a thing that could happen. Or maybe that was just fiction.

  He stormed through a door that led into a room with even more computers everywhere. A man sat in a chair, swinging around to stare at us for a long second before he jumped to his feet. “Anders? What the fuck, man?”

  “She’s frightened. I need you to fix it.” Anders—I now knew his name—set me on the chair the new man had vacated. I’d never seen so many males in my life in one space. They stayed away from us. Three in the course of one day, and Anders was shirtless. I rubbed my arms, bumping my hand against the new device there, which made me wince.

  What had happened to my life?

  The new man had long, multi-colored hair. The bottom half was bleached blond and the top a dark black. It looked like he needed a haircut and hadn’t gotten one. Was this a thing? Wade had multiple colors in his hair, too. Did men just do that in space?

  And it was the least of my issues.

  “You’re Sienna.” Multi-colored man knelt to my level. “And this alarm that Anders should be turning off instead of hauling you around has to be terrifying you. Where is Wade?” He asked that last question over his shoulder.

  “When the equalizer exploded, it burned Corbin pretty badly. But he’s refusing to get in the med machine until after the equalizer is fixed. So Wade is treating him.” He pointed at me. “She’s scared. Fix it.”

  The new multi-colored haired man placed a gentle hand on my knee. “I’m Trenton. I fly this old lady we’re all on right now. She needs a little repair, but we’re all going to be fine. How much has Wade told you about what’s going on?”

  He held my gaze, and the feeling of sadness rushed over me. Wade had been tired. Anders confusing. And now Trenton was sad. My empathic abil
ities were not serving me well at the moment. I wished for the first time in my life I didn’t have them. It would be nice to just concentrate on me.

  I found my voice. “He said I’d been sick.”

  “You’re still sick,” Anders spoke over Trenton’s shoulder. “It’s just controlled.”

  I was still sick? Anders pointed at me, speaking to Trenton again. “She’s scared again. Fix it.”

  Trenton shot up and swung around. “I get that you don’t like fear. You’re allergic to it. I mean, I get it in the sense that I sort of understand, not that I have the same problem. But this woman has been ill for a very long time. We don’t even know how long. And add Evander to the mix. She has big problems. We’re strangers. There is an alarm blazing. She’s going to be frightened.”

  “I can’t think through her fear.” Anders ran a hand through his hair. “Her heartbeat racing is all I can hear.”

  He sounded frantic, and I couldn’t stand it. If I’d really been letting my empathic abilities out, I’d have known for sure how he felt, but I wasn’t going to do that right now. I stumbled out of the chair, but managed to keep my feet despite the rocking of the ship, which didn’t seem to be bothering either Trenton or Anders. It must not be that big of a deal. I placed my hand on Ander’s arm. “I’m…I’m not sure exactly how my heartbeat is bothering you, but I’m sorry that’s happening.”

  Anders stared at my hand like it was a foreign object on his skin. Dread shook me. Had I done wrong in touching him? He’d carried me into the room, I’d been pressed against his bare chest. Was this…not okay?