Planet: Eteran

First Insurgency War

AVA

Their group trudged through the mountainous snowbanks through Eastpoint with the Clearers starting at the outer edges of the town to clear a path onto the highway into Roxton. Flurries bit at their wrists past their gloves. Rayan took the pack to forge a path, bundled with copious amounts of scarfs and hats with spindly bulbs at the end.

Ava followed Rayan's path. Chills crawled through the fabric of her gloves and it stung her nails. Behind her, James tucked himself in the collar of his winter jacket. Snow fluttered at their shoulders with the wind undeterred by the skyscrapers of Eteran's larger cities. Ava grinned behind her scarf when Rayan shivered with an infuriated huff as he tucked his heavy gloved-hands into his pockets. "First time in this type of cold?" she asked.

"You could say that," he said, muffled by multitudes of fabric.

James lagged behind with a small sniff.

"Hey, James," Meryn said. "You've only got a Quad left before graduation. Have you decided to go to Pero?"

"I don't know," James grumbled with an odd glance her way. "I've got a lot I need to think about."

Ava stopped to let her brother fall in step with her. "Dad recommended you. You should take the chance, at least."

"Just because Dad recommended it doesn't mean I have to listen." His brow furrowed into an unseen sneer, but she gazed at the heavy shadows underneath his hazel eyes. "It'd be a Deccan miracle if you stopped listening to him for once." He stomped closer to Rayan, who held out his datapad. "You're not seriously lost, Rayan?"

"Oh, no," Rayan said as he flicked through tabs. "Meryn, have you given thought to what you wanted for your starday?"

"Uh." Meryn brushed the top of his toque. "Can you build a teleporter to my brother? I... want to talk to him after all that's happened in this Quad."

"Phasers don't count?" James asked.

"Too much distance for a phaser." Meryn pouted. "So, no teleporter?"

"Sorry, Meryn," Rayan replied. "Would if I could."

Meryn threw his hands into his coat pockets and jut out his lower lip. "It's the thought that counts." He shrugged his shoulders and bounced along Rayan's steps. "At least the Festival of Stars is being held this Deccan on the week of my starday."

"Oh! Absolutely!" Ava clapped his arm and held onto the surprise. "We're all going to that. We're going to make it the best starday."

"Ranier!" Jon's voice boomed as they approached the school grounds, where the faculty changed the awnings for heating purposes. Some students huddled inside them to escape the cold on the way to school or for a place to hang out. "Catch this!"

"Which one?" Ava turned.

White whizzed past her head and a loud thump slapped skin. James landed on his backside where clumps of the snowball stuck to his dirty-blonde hair. He raised his hand to wipe it off with a huff, and Jon rushed to them with a hearty chuckle. "You were supposed to catch it!"

Rayan headed for James to grab him by the arms and help him to his feet. "I caught it with my face, clearly." James pushed Rayan to the side and wiped off the rest of his face. Rejoined with Jon, they headed into the heated school building, where bots chirped at the front entrance to suck muddy slush out of the way of arriving students.

Safe in their homeroom, Ava sank into her seat

Professor Yava stood at her podium with a beaming smile. "Welcome back from the weekend!" she said. "Are you all excited for the winter term?"

"Of course!" Jon said from the lower level of their seating.

"Only because we're one season closer to Starcross," Katie teased from the left aisle.

Laughter filled the classroom with warmth. Professor Yava nodded. "Indeed. I hope our team does their best and stays safe this Quad."

Jon pumped his fists. "We absolutely will!" He shifted in his seat to give Rayan and James a wide smile. James scoffed and smirked, while Rayan hid behind his hands.

"For the upcoming weeks we'll be delving into our Edevium course," Professor Yava said with a tap on the holoboard, which was filled with the subject curriculum. It copied across their tables, and Ava spread out her school datapad to take notes. "Uses. Application. History. So, I'll start with our first question of this course — probably the most important for a foundation." Professor Yava turned her back on the holoboard while it switched slides. "What is edevium?"

Rayan snapped his hand up, causing everyone to turn to him and for his arm to drop down.

"Rayan?" Professor Yava asked. "You can answer."

"Oh." He wriggled in his seat then sat forward. "Edevium is a biochemical substance found in gas giants. Eruda has several mining facilities syphoning it. One of its properties is absorption and release. It's used in a wide variety of everyday objects; it runs ships, hovercars, hovercycles, solarboards. It also has uses in weaponry and medicine."

Miss Yava smiled at him. "You must know quite a bit on this subject — you're right on all accounts. As he said, edevium has absorption qualities. You'll see this in your science classes in more action. One of its most well-known uses is its application in what the Strike Forces term 'Transform' weapons. It allows certain alloys like solarium to take a different shape than the original as long as it has a foundation imprint for it to follow." Miss Yava smiled. "Imagine fire for a moment," she said as she held out the baton. "What is one of the things fire extrudes?"

"Heat?" Meryn questioned.

"Heat." Miss Yava clapped. "If you do this with a blade imbued with edevium, it will absorb the flames. It will sear whatever it touches with the right amount of pressure — but this also factors in the source used to absorb it. For the spring, that is what we will be studying."

Ava wrote down the information on her datapad, but stopped when Katie raised her hand. "I have a question."

"Yes?"

"What would happen if the edevium absorbed something alive?" Katie asked.

Miss Yava hesitated with a faltered frown. "I... I do not know. As far as I know, edevium's never been injected into a living thing. It has volatile properties as a liquid. It can only be controlled in a refined state." Her finger tapped the holoboard, where it switched to a slide of edevium within the process of absorption. "If you inject it into something that can adapt, that is alive, well... the most likely result would kill the specimen. I suppose, if we're going by theories, on the off chance it didn't it'd send the body into constant overdrive. It'd cause it to surpass all normal capability."

Rayan lowered his gaze to his desk. "Taking the brakes off and running at full throttle."

"Yes, Mr. Falae," Miss Yava said. "I believe even that would cause insurmountable damage on the specimen if it was possible, but to be honest, I don't quite know."

Ava wrote it down on her theory tab, but stopped at the wide-eyed expression on Rayan's face. "Ray?" she asked when distress creased his brow. "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing." He returned to work on his datapad.

It doesn't seem like it.

"So, for your question, Katie," Miss Yava continued. "I don't know. I think death would be certain unless you had an inhuman amount of fortitude and a ridiculous amount of dumb luck." Everyone fell silent, so she switched the slide. "We'll be focusing on its uses in inanimate things — what it does and how it does it."

In the quiet moments of scratchy note-taking, Rayan changed. James leaned around her. "Ray? You sure you're alright?"

"Yeah."

Ava waited for class to end to prod him further, but when the lunch block rolled around, Rayan returned to his usual self. Meryn found a freetable for them in the cafeteria.

"Edevium's weird." Meryn prodded Rayan. "Why do you know so much about it?"

"You heard Professor Yava," Rayan pointed out as he ate while food bots chirped along their set paths so the students found no chance to create a mess in the lunch line. "The Strike Forces use it to create transforming weapons. My mom is... one of the five Star Generals. I've picked up a thing or two." He chewed on his sandwich in thought, but Ava frowned at her brother, who rested his cheek in his palm as he gazed at Rayan with a thoughtful twist to his lips.

"You got bothered when Katie was asking her question," James pointed out. "Theoretical questions. I severely doubt they'd inject edevium into living beings — wouldn't there be a couple of ethical issues there?"

Rayan took a swig from his capsule and ignored James' question.

"I know phasers use edevium." Meryn wrote on his datapad and tapped his chin with his I-Pen. "Hence why they're called Edevic Phasers."

"Yes, though even that's limited," Rayan said with a point at his notes. "It allows only for set distances for each charge. You can't phase in quick succession either unless it's military grade."

"Off the topic of school work," Katie broke in at the end of the table. "Who's taking who to the winter dance?"

Meryn grinned. "I'm going for the hot chocolate only, and to help Ava set it up."

"I know Jon asked Lorie," James observed. "I don't know if she agreed or not."

Katie peered at James. "Are you taking anyone?"

James drew into his shoulders. "No. I just want the hot chocolate," he mumbled and glanced between her and Rayan.

Ava set her arm against the table. "You're such a wallflower, James."

James shrugged.

"Well!" Katie clapped her hands together. "I'm going with Yvonne!"

"Are you two going to skate together?" Meryn asked.

"No way, I'm a turtle on ice. Yvonne said she was going to take me out to dinner afterwards," Katie said with a wave of her hand. "What about you, Ava? What's your plans?" Ava opened her mouth, but Katie raised her finger. "Apart from setting things up. This is supposed to be fun, even for us student coordinators."

"I guess I'm not going with anyone either," Ava joked.

"No one asked you?" Rayan mused beside her.

"No." Ava turned to him. "Why?"

Rayan closed his lunch box and steeled his expression before turning to her. "Would you like to go with me? It'll be my first dance at this school — the Odaport formals were always..." He made a strangled sound through his teeth and a shake of his shoulders. "I want to see how different it is here — I mean—" He flushed. "If you want to go alone that's okay."

Ava blinked, then laughed. "Of course I'll go with you, Ray."

All of them burst out into giggles, except James, who stared down at his full lunchbox with his hands in his lap. Their chatter filled her ears, but she returned her attention to James, who gazed into space before closing his lunchbox to pack it into his bag and threw it over his shoulder.

"Where are you going?" she questioned.

"Take some pictures," he mumbled without looking back at her, hands in his pockets. "See you."

He left through the cafeteria doors and out into the unrelenting snow alone. Ava fiddled with her food, while everyone spoke, laughed, and spread their cheer. Ava frowned at Rayan, the other silent one as he rested his chin in his palm and gazed after James with an expression of echoed confusion.

"I'll go see what's wrong with him," she said with a pat on Rayan's back. "Stay here."

Ava rushed off the platform to race after her brother, through the snow and whipping wind against her ears. Back into the main building, she spotted James by his locker, grabbing his coat and fiddling with his high end datacam with shaking cold fingers.

"James?" she asked as he ducked into the cover of his locker. "What's wrong? You've been acting strange lately."

"What makes you think something's wrong?" He tucked his camera into the specialised bag. "I told you I'm just going to take pictures — I don't think that's so strange of me." He gazed at her, or past her. "You should go back to the others to plan out stuff for the dance, Miss. Perfect." He shut his locker with a soft click, and pushed past her shoulder. Deep hazels locked on the goal, the objective, while Dad put his hand on the handle of the door and pulled it shut behind them — to protect them from what was outside the bubble. His same features cascaded down James' brow as he tried to get through the door and close her out too.

Her hand wound around his wrist.

"James," she said and tried to keep a smile on her face. "You're so bad at hiding things. You know you can talk to me about anything."

James released the pressurized expression locked on his face as he turned to her, then tugged his hand out of hers. "It's nothing, Ava. Guess Deccan did have a miracle after all. You're actually going for your own happiness instead of Dad's."

A silent scream filled her throat while the door slammed in her face.