Short story excerpt: CLASS REUNION, an Infrenx story

 

One of these days, I will write a book or two about the Academy years of Lt. M'kar, Thyal, and the other members of Infrenx, the special Talents class at the Academy on Le'anka. This short story, and several chapters in ETRUSCA'S VOW deal with those years.

This is a story set in the AFV Defender universe.

If you've read FRIENDLY FIRE, the first AFV Defender novel, then you heard about the battle that injured Thyal and sent M'kar on her quest .... and I won't say anything more if you haven't read the book yet. (Why haven't you?)

Available in ebook from Amazon and other online sites. And Ye Olde Dragon Books, of course.

Through the end of the month: excerpts from CLASS REUNION.

 

The Academy

Northern Continent of Le’anka

Headquarters of the Alliance

 M’kar stopped counting after the ninth student in the soft green robes of first-year students turned to stare at her as she walked through the central plaza of the Academy. She considered how her classmates would laugh if she remarked on how above-average the eyesight of first-year students was, compared with the students in their class. None of them had stared very long at her, when they were first gathered together in the garden of the home of their teacher, Premier Master Reydon.

In her dark silver-blue dress uniform, she should have blended in with all the other Fleet officers who were arriving at the start of the academic term, preparing to teach. Instead, she constantly drew second looks. Mouths dropped open and faces went pale when her gaze met theirs. More than she would have garnered if she walked across the plaza barefoot, with her favorite knife raised and dripping blood. From several dozen meters away, they couldn’t possibly see her facial tattoos and recognize her as Nisandrian. Could they? How, when she had such a deep tan from her last planetside mission? Did she have a sign hovering in the air above her head, flashing glowing letters, warning everyone to stay away from the barbarian? Or had someone she had clashed with during her own time here as a student decided to get revenge, and sent out her image and a warning, as soon as she landed on Le’anka and stepped onto Academy grounds?

Then again, it probably wasn’t a former classmate. More likely her father was punishing her for not coming to see him and her mother before she met with her classmates. Chieftain Ashrock of Nisandros was nearly a tourist attraction in his own right. He was probably wandering throughout the many paths of the Academy, looking for every first-year student, warning them to be on the lookout for his daughter, a Fleet officer, who was probably in a bad mood while she was separated from her ship.