Amidst the crowd, I stood in the front row, looking up at Admiral Maddox whom stood on the wooden platform. His shaggy brown with faint signs of gray covered half of his face, and his ice blue eyes looked as cold as ever. He was wearing the Ajaxia uniform: a pale blue tank top under a metallic silver jacket and black pants. He had the ‘Admiral’ sign (a golden star with a black circle around it) sewn into his jacket, over his left breast.
“I am standing before you today, as I am sure you all know, to announce who the fleet has decided to be the chief of The Ajaxia. This job involves courage, responsibility, bravery and pure insanity, so we have looked over all of you very carefully, and the decision was extremely close,” he said over the loudspeaker, in that emotionless voice of his, carrying a raspy, deep tone throughout his entire statement.
My hands, I realized, shook nervously, and I could feel the cool sweat drip down from my head, down the sharp edge of my cheekbones and drop onto my plain black tank top. I looked around, and for the first time saw whom I was up against. No one I knew of course, as I only had one friend, Vendelynne, who had been assigned as one of the fleet’s Major just a few weeks prior, and other than that I was always hunting, having no time to socialize.
Ever since the Zoraks had declared war on humanity, The Ajaxia and the fleet had been sent up to into space to destroy the Zoraks and their civilization and protect Earth from any harm.
The crew of the fleet, or more accurately Admiral Maddox and Commander Donnika, decided on who was to replace a fallen position in the fleet, based on the results of a series of tests that the contestants most accomplish. They were basically just simulations of what could happen on The Ajaxia, and they decide based on your responses to the situation.
Vendelynne had been so excited when she had been chosen to be Major, and it was definitely a good choice. Vendelynne had the most guts I had ever seen in someone, always taking risks no matter what the outcome could be. Even if she hadn’t been chosen, her beauty was undeniable, her long blonde hair and her joyful blue eyes, so she could’ve easily married.
The way it worked was you would try to be selected to join the fleet, from as early as the age of 14 until you turn 19, at which point you should try and marry, and if you don’t marry before you’re 22, you have to work at the fields, which basically consists of feeding animals and growing crops.
I wasn’t especially pretty, I knew that well enough, with my shoulder length black hair and my piercing winter green eyes, and I knew that no guy would want to marry a girl who would be able to break their neck at any time she pleases, and having to work at the farms would be the worst thing to ever happen to me, as it just sounded so, boring I guess.
“The person we have selected to be chief, is Mr. Zadrian Archer, whom you shall now address as Chief Archer,” he concluded, and a series of sighs went about the crowd. I wasn’t too worried, this was only my first try, and at only 15, I still had a while to make it onto the ship.
“But, there was a bit of an issue. A little while after the testing stage, Lieutenant Kieran died in a gas malfunction while working in the fuel processing area, and since the selection was basically a tie, we have also decided that Ms. Adelaidia Dawn shall take over the roll of Lieutenant Kieran, as her results were parallel to the abilities needed for lieutenancy. You shall now address her as Lieutenant Dawn,” he finished, and my jaw dropped. I made my way onto the platform along with a young man I presumed was Chief Archer.
He was older than me, maybe 17 or 18, but he was unlike the cold-hearted contestants I was used to. His light brown hair was swept to the side, a couple strands falling about an inch down his forehead. His dark brown eyes were full of curiosity, like one of the younglings when they’re learning about the fleet.
The weirdest part though, was that he was smiling. Not just the tight, forced grimace we were all used to, but a genuine smile that made him somehow seem to glow in a way. I bet almost no one in the crowd had ever seen a person smile before, let alone smile themselves, so the fact that the new chief was smiling, just didn’t seem right to me.
I just stood there awestruck as Admiral Maddox handed Chief Archer and I our uniforms and pins, mine a black star with silver lines throughout to symbolize my new lieutenancy, and Chief Archer’s was a silver star with a black circle and a gold circle within it. I looked around at the crowd, all stern faces and cold looks, and then at Chief Archer, who was still smiling.
My parents had died in a Zorak bombing when I was 11, and so my little sister, Tyfanni, only 9 at the time, and I had been surviving on our own for a while, until she died when she had got the lethal plague a year ago. 12 was too young to die, which was part of the reason I wanted to be on the fleet. If the Zoraks had never killed my parents, maybe they could’ve their project to find the cure for the plague that had been wiping the population out. They had been so close, and maybe just a little bit longer and Tyfanni would’ve been out there in the crowd, happy and cheerful.
“Props!” Chief Archer said, turning to me. He stuck his fist out in front of him, and I backed away out of natural instinct, thinking he was trying to attack me. He still had that smile plastered onto his face. He tried to grab my wrist but I pulled it out of the way before he could, and he just shrugged and turned back towards the Admiral.
“You shall report to the docking station in two hours sharp, so pack whatever you intend to bring, but do not bring to much as we cannot have too much extra weight on the ship,” Admiral explained, and the Chief and I both gave a quick salute before making our way off the platform.
“Props is when two people put one of their fists out in front of them, and they hit the other person’s fist with their own lightly,” the Chief described to me, adding hand motions to get the idea across.
“What’s the point in that?” I asked, picking up my stride to get in front of him, but he just picked up his own to match mine, which was pretty easy for him considering he had at least three inches on me.
“It’s sort of like a celebratory thing, like when you’re proud of something or happy that someone else accomplished something,” he said. His smile was still there, and it was getting kind of creepy. How could anybody be happy for that long?
“Sounds stupid to me, and I need to go get my things so goodbye,” I responded coldly, breaking into a sprint back to my house, or the small cabin that I had managed to pick up after Tyfanni died. I couldn’t think of much that I would bring, so I just decided to use a pretty small plastic bag to pack.
Ember Bound 