Celestial Ascension (Splintered Galaxy Book 1)

by Eddie R. Hicks

  The group entered a room toward the end of the hallway. There were storage containers off to the side, seats in the middle, and an exit leading to the sleeping and dining areas. The eight were promptly instructed by their escort to change into uniform. Must be the change room, Noylarlie thought.

  Noylarlie’s eyes quickly assessed the odd situation. She and one other were female, the rest were male, and there was zero room for privacy. She stepped to the furthest corner of the room to put maximum distance between her and the rest. Everyone was quite young. She was the only one considered an adult among the group. The eyes of hormone-fueled young males’ eyes would be fixed on her developed body when the clothes came off.

  She felt the presence of a small figure nestling next to her. Gazing down, she saw the other female within the group. She was placing Noylarlie’s body between her and the boys on the other side. The girl looked up to Noylarlie, with intimidation in her eyes. Why are you bothering me? Noylarlie thought as she looked at the girl’s aqua-green hair and cream skin. She was young but older than most of the boys, so womanly parts were developing. But the girl didn’t change into uniform and instead just stood there, waiting on Noylarlie.

  Noylarlie processed the final facts and, without hesitation, stripped down to change. As she expected, the lads in the corner took a few peeks at her light-blue body while they changed. All eyes leaped back and forth toward Noylarlie and her peeling apparel. No one noticed the other girl changing behind her.

  The ordeal was over. The eight were in uniform—black pants and black shirts, each with six pockets on the front. Noylarlie picked up the red outfit she had been wearing to store it away in a nearby container. She walked toward it, but the girl latched her small hands onto Noylarlie’s arm, triggering her to spin around.

  “Thank you," the girl said with a bright smile.

  Noylarlie replied, “Yeah, yeah…”

  Noylarlie attempted to leave with the rest of the group, but another pull on her arm from the girl prevented that. Noylarlie felt the desperation within the girl’s trembling hands.

  "Psionic training is difficult. We should stick together often," the girl said.

  “I know,” Noylarlie said. “My mother and older sister went through it.”

  The girl’s firm grip loosened. “Oh my.”

  “My father, too, I suppose. I don’t know, never met him.” With her arm free, she was able to finish up what she was doing. She turned back to the girl. “Mother told me about the trails and how to pass them.” Crossing her arms, she added, "If you want to stick with me, that’s fine. Just don’t get in my way. Do you understand?” The girl nodded. Noylarlie then added, “My name is Noylarlie.”

  The girl replied, “Chidorli is mine. Great to meet you.”

  The dining area buzzed with activity as the eight sat at their designated spot. A buffet was at one end of the room, where recruits were able to pick through a small selection of protein for their hungry fangs to rip though. Raw, cooked, partly cooked—everyone had his or her preference. Noylarlie and Chidorli shared a table, while five boys from their group shared a much larger one.

  Noylarlie spent much of the time listening into to their conversations, not that she had a choice—they were the loudest group there. The boys all laughed and talked about how excited they were to have seen Noylarlie’s breasts, among other things. They also yammered about how disappointed they were that they couldn’t see Chidorli’s. Fucking perverts…echoed throughout her mind consistently as the boys yapped.

  “Why doesn’t he socialize with the rest?” said Chidorli, deep concern in her voice.

  Noylarlie’s gaze locked onto the sight of a lone boy from their group at a table by himself. He was not saying a word to anyone. “Who cares?” Noylarlie concluded.

  “He seems…upset, lonely perhaps.” Chidorli glanced at him as he picked at his meal with little interest in finishing it.

  “Talk with him if you must,” Noylarlie said. “I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.”

  What the psionic recruits did not know was that their actions in the dining area were being observed by a few members of the faculty from their primary office. It was a small room, with a large view screen at the front and a circular desk in the middle.

  The imagery of the view screen switched to the eight new recruits sitting and eating.

  “These new ones have potential,” said Abraxin.

  “I agree, Abraxin,” Galtesa said, smiling at the sight of Noylarlie and Chidorli. “Two females, young and fertile, perfect for the breeding program.” She turned to the military man, with her orange eyes. “But you’re not concerned about that at all, are you, Jerut?”

  “No,” Jerut said. “I need combat personnel.”

  “What about this one?” said Denvil, pointing at Noylarlie’s image on the screen. “She’s a purebred psi, like her mother.”

  “If she’s a purebred, we need to have her in the breeding program!” Galtesa said. Her eyes lit up at this new information.

  Jerut shook his head in disagreement. “If she scores high in her trials, it is a waste to have her spend her life spreading her legs.”

  They watched as Chidorli rose from her seat and slowly approached the lone boy eating. Galtesa’s smile grew brighter. “Look at this one—reaching out to a boy already.”

  “There’s your female breeder—may not be a pure but better than nothing," said Jerut. He then looked at Abraxin, who seemed to be fixated on Noylarlie. “Your thoughts, Abraxin?”

  Abraxin spoke. “Had her mother been placed in the breeding program, this one here would be a fully trained and loyal agent by now.” His yellow eyes turned to the group. “And blood wouldn’t have had to be spilled to get her here.”

  ………

  It was lights-out time for all recruits, so they were guided to the sleeping chambers, an area deeper in the mountains. The idea behind having the chambers so far into the mountains was to protect recruits during sleep in case of a Radiance Union sneak attack. A massive bombardment of the region would be required to kill anyone—assuming they knew which section of the mountain to attack. A ground assault wouldn’t be effective either—too many choke points from the entrance of the facility to the sleeping chambers, giving the Hashmedai soldiers stationed a huge advantage.

  The sleeping chambers consisted of a series of hallways leading to hundreds of small quarters. Each quarter had a two-bed bunk, two studying desks, and a sliding door at the front. The recruits were all assigned a room with a partner to share it with—all except Noylarlie. Odd one out, she figured. After all the group of eight had to work alongside existing recruits now.

  She sat down at one of the desks and placed her room access card on it. A small computer terminal was mounted to the desk, most likely there to access reading material for class and review notes.

  Before she could recount the events that transpired, the sliding door to her room opened. An older man stepped through, the same one who greeted the group when they’d gotten off the ship. Abraxin is his name? She couldn’t quite remember—not that it mattered at this point. He had no business here, especially during lights-out. He stepped toward her as the sliding door closed, triggering her to hastily get out of her chair to confront him with anger in her steps.

  “Get out,” she demanded.

  “Your mother at least first asked, ‘What are you doing here?’”

  Noylarlie shoved him aside as she proceeded to the door. He returned the gesture by placing a firm grip around her wrist. Pulling her back, he subdued her by grabbing her other arm and squeezing hard. The pain made her wrist grow limp. The more she tried to kick him, the harder he squeezed.

  “Come now, you didn’t resist all the other men you were whoring with on Taxah.”

  Anger flowed across her face. “Shut up.”

  “There’s a reason your existence wasn’t know to the authorities. No way Lord Hasiv was going to let his favorite servant girl and whore get shipped off to psionic training.” He
looked intently at her smooth skin. “And you blue-skinned girls are the finest whores in the galaxy.”

  “I assume Mother also just so happened to have a room to herself.”

  “She and your sister did. It’s your turn now.” He spun her around and pushed her toward the desk. She fell backward to the ground as she collided with it. “This can end one of two ways—my way or your way. Your mother didn’t get shipped to a breeding camp or a space bridge because of me.” Noylarlie defiantly rose to her feet, only to see Abraxin’s pants hit the ground. “The choice is yours.”

  She recalled her mother telling her about difficult choices having to be made in a place like this. Clearly this would be one of them. She didn’t resist as his fingers forcibly removed her uniform, bending her over backward across the desk.

  “You won’t get away with this,” Noylarlie muttered as he slid inside of her, thrusting slowly.

  “Oh, come on now. Your mother and sister at least pretended to enjoy this,” he said. Noylarlie remained silent. “I’ll stay away from Chidorli if you do.”

  A few seconds had passed with him thrusting away, when reluctantly she let out a fake moan.

  ………

  Noylarlie sat at her desk in one of the many circular classrooms throughout the psionic Academy. Each desk sat a recruit much like her, with a computer terminal mounted to the top of it. The heart of the classroom had a raised platform, where her instructor, Galtesa Deception, stood, demanding all eyes locked on her with intense focus as she converted the wisdom within her head to words. All eyes except Noylarlie’s—hers were fixated on the desk before her in a manner that would eventually grab the attention of Galtesa.

  “Recruit Noylarlie.” Galtesa finally noticed. “Perhaps you can tell us why the Radiance Union has more psionics than we do.”

  Noylarlie tilted her head up toward Galtesa but remained slouched in her chair. She sighed before replying. “We went to war with them," she said.

  “That’s one reason,” said Galtesa, “but, more specifically, what did Radiance do during the war?” Noylarlie apathetically shrugged her shoulders, so Galtesa addressed the class as a whole. “Can anyone tell me what the zealous Radiance Union did to our psionics during the opening days of the Great War?”

  Galtesa sophisticatedly spun around, her orange eyes scanning the classroom for a recruit to answer her question. Finally a skinny arm raised, triggering Galtesa’s finger to point. “They targeted and slaughtered Hashmedai psionics.” It was Chidorli.

  “Very good,” Galtesa said as she activated a holographic projection.

  “There were no such thing as Hashmedai psionics when the Radiance Union ships first appeared in the skies of Paryso.” The hologram projected imagery of Javnis, Aryile, and Rabuabin greeting old-world Hashmedai. Galtesa continued, “It wasn’t until we were uplifted and given the chance to live among the Aryile on their home world that the very first Hashmedai psionics stepped forth into existence. Radiance was kind to us at first, teaching us how to build starships and colonize distance planets, and helping us create the first Hashmedai psionics.

  Noylarlie’s eyes rolled at her instructor’s statement. Forced religion, forced naming convention, force sterilization—hardly what I’d call kind, she bellowed internally.

  “The power to move objects with your mind, control temperatures, teleportation—the list went on. The more powerful and experienced the psi was, the more abilities they gained.” Galtesa continued, while Noylarlie discreetly released a yawn. “Sadly for us, the Radiance Union never shared their secrets to building these facilities.”

  Whigli’s arm raised, curiosity showing on his face. Galtesa gave him permission to speak. “Weren’t the Radiance Union taught how to build these from their gods?”

  “Wrong,” she said. “There is no such thing as gods. The false gods the Radiance Union worshipped were merely advanced aliens who uplifted them thousands of years ago.”

  Galtesa’s hologram morphed, now depicting a galactic map of Radiance Union space and Hashmedai space. Blue floating spheres represented Hashmedai systems, while red ones were for Radiance. There were twice as many red compared to the blue.

  “And this never-ending worship was one of the many reasons our very existence became threatened by the Radiance Union.”

  “Why did the Radiance turn on us?” asked Chidorli.

  “The union around this time convinced the Vorcambreum race to join them, and then laid out plans for us to become the fifth member of the Union.” Galtesa said. “We refused, as we would be forced to believe the false gods of the Aryile and accept their way of life, ending Hashmedai culture as we know it. The cowardly Linl panicked when we built colonies close to their space and offered to join the union to gain thier protection.”

  Well, we did annex a few their planets—historians and their selective memory. Noylarlie’s thoughts triggered a slight chuckle as she raised her eyes back to Galtesa. She felt another unwanted question coming at her if she continued to show signs of not listening.

  “The result? The great burn—millions of Hashmedai psionics murdered in cold blood. The Radiance Union felt we were unworthy of having psionics within our society. Some survived, of course, fleeing to the deeper regions of our space, where Radiance couldn’t get them.”

  Four blue spheres from the projection changed to red, the first Hashmedai worlds to fall to the Radiance Union. It’s a shame this hologram doesn’t explain how unorganized the Hashmedai fleet was during that period.

  “Is this why we are forced to be here?” asked Chidorli.

  Noylarlie shot a sharp infuriated glare toward Chidorli. Don’t be a keener. I can explain this stuff better.

  “There is no choice—our numbers are too few. All Hashmedai psionics must be registered with the empire and attend the very training you are getting in the next five years before being assigned to duty.”

  “What sort of duties will we have to do?” asked Whigli.

  Galtesa smiled as her sights fixated on Noylarlie’s face. “Perhaps Recruit Noylarlie can help answer that. You mother was an Archmage, correct?”

  Noylarlie sighed. “Yeah.”

  “What can you tell us about psionic professions?” asked Galtesa. “Surely she must have explained that bit to you.”

  Noylarlie’s arms crossed as she recited the listing. “Military, shipboard Psi, space bridge, breeding, or assassin.”

  “Assassins are a bit different, however,” Galtesa addressed the class. “Only recruits who score low in their first year are sent to the Assassins’ Guild for training. As I recall, your sister was one of those Noylarlie,” Galtesa continued. “But, yes, this is the only way to defeat the Radiance Union and maintain the space bridge network…which will be tomorrow’s lesson. Please read over chapter nineteen in your spare time tonight. There may be a quiz on that as well.”

  ………

  Noylarlie growled after entering her second hour of study. The chapter on the space bridge was a much more daunting task than she’d thought it would be. She leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes to review the knowledge on the computer terminal before her.

  As she recalled, the Hashmedai feared the relationships between them and the union would one day go bad. Hashmedai expanded their empire more toward their home world and beyond, away from Radiance Union space.

  Traveling across the stars was a lengthy task, since the distance between star systems was often dozens of light-years, and that was just for the closer systems. The fastest ships were capable of traveling at only half the speed of light, so such a trip between worlds took decades—with its crew frozen in cryo stasis until the ship arrived. Having invested centuries traveling to and building the colonies in Radiance Union space, the Hashmedai needed a faster way to travel to the stars and build those newly planned colonies away from the Radiance Union.

  The space bridge was born.

  A massive space station was constructed outside the orbit of the Hashmedai home world, Paryso. A team of
twenty or more psionics powered the station. Most psionics were able to teleport themselves or others across great distances. The idea with the space bridge was that all twenty of these psis combine their powers, merge their minds with the station systems, and teleport ships across space.

  There was a catch, however. The process of rematerializing a ship with its crew and cargo intact was a long process. Depending on the distance traveled and the mass of the ship, it could take days, months, or sometimes even years for a ship to reach its destination in one piece. Nevertheless, it was still faster than the typical space flight. A trip to a world twenty light-years away normal took forty years.

  With the space bridge, a transport could be there in a day, a small ship could be there in two weeks, and larger ships took two years…give or take. Larger ships, however, were the most likely to use the bridges, posing a problem to the psionics who operated space bridges. Sending one ship across the cosmos caused many of them to become extremely tired. As such, only one ship could use the bridge at a time. To solve this problem, command ships were built—massive ships that housed entire fleets of ships within. These types of ships saw the most use across the bridges, as it was the only way to send multiple ships across in one shot.

  New worlds were discovered at a faster rate, and new bridges were built, new technology to enhance psionic power was invented, and a galactic network for the Hashmedai Empire started to form. The demand for more psionics to live at these stations and keep them operational became a top priority.

  No wonder everyone fears being assigned space bridge duty. It’s a fucking prison sentence.

  Her computer emitted a soft chime, a reminder that Abraxin was coming by soon. Trembling fingers undid her top, exposing part of her breasts—a special request he’d made for tonight’s unwanted encounter.

  ………

  Year one of five came and went, and along with that the psionics who scored lowest in their training. Those who got weeded out of the program found their way aboard a transport ship to the Assassins’ Guild to begin training there. Much to Noylarlie’s disappointment, she and Chidorli weren’t in that group. On the contrary, the two of them scored high marks alongside that loner boy they’d encountered when they first arrived.