Ringed One

The Commander appeared rather bored as she rattled off instructions in her perfectly-pressed navy dress uniform. Her pale blue crystal hung from a chain around her neck, and her left ear was pierced with three gold rings, denoting her rank. I rubbed my sweaty hands on my teal, blue and gray camouflage trousers, trying to calm my racing heart under my stingray-leather breastplate.

It’s an exam, just like any other test. I can do this.

“Any questions?” drawled the Commander.

“No, sir,” I answered promptly.

“Then let’s see what you can do, Medic. Start when I call time.”

She strode off and mounted the steps to the platform a safe distance behind me while I surveyed the field before me. Five small mounds of dirt were spaced out, each with a different type of blaster balanced on top, with coordinating targets at various distances beyond them. At the farthest point, a saber awaited, its gray leather-bound hilt just visible from my vantage point, its sheathed blade embedded in the ground.

I wiped my hands one last time, slung the blue crystal hanging from my wrist into my palm, and tensed my muscles.

“Time!” called the Commander.

I lurched forward and sprinted toward the first dirt mound. Within seconds I had slid to my knees, picked up the blaster (a pistol), and shoved my crystal up into the chamber. In the moment it took for the weapon to warm up, I aimed.

Zap zap zap.

All three shots hit the target. I didn’t pause to analyze whether they had hit center, immediately wrenching my crystal free, dropping the weapon, and crawling on my belly toward the next mound.

Go go go! My fingers curled around the blaster rifle, the crystal slid in without jamming, and I pelted off another three shots at a farther target. All hits. Move.

I zigzagged to the next mound, then the next, then the next, my heart thudding in my chest. Sweat dripped from my temples by the time I completed all five and raced to the saber.

My crystal swung on its strap at my wrist as I let go of it to clasp the hilt, wrenching the saber from the ground, tearing off the sheath in one swift pull, then holding it in front of me as I ran in a straight line back through the targets toward the Commander. The blade shone in the late afternoon light, half steel and half gold crystal, melded together to form the perfect weapon.

The Commander raised her blaster, pointed it at me, and fired.

I didn’t dare slow. I angled my saber as I ran, deflecting the blue bolts, one after another. They sizzled as they hit the gold crystal in my blade, but the saber held true.

She got off four shots and I deflected them all before I made it back to the starting point. I keeled over, gasping, my hands on my knees, as the Commander considered her pocket watch, slid her blaster into the holster at her hip, and scribbled something on my paperwork. Her brow furrowed as she considered the page, then lifted it and scanned the one beneath.

What’s wrong? I was pleased with my performance, as I had been with the morning’s examinations. I ran. I swam. I hit every mark. I breezed through the written tests. I…

“Medic — Min?” She pronounced the surname correctly, despite it being a Ruen name; with her pale skin and ashy brown hair, she clearly was Valarian, not Ruen herself.

I straightened, left the saber on the field, and approached the platform where she stood. “Yes, sir?”

“You are, by far, the highest scoring medic I have ever evaluated. You are also” — she shuffled through the papers again — “the only one to have scored advanced fluency in… four languages.”

I clasped my hands behind me as my heart rate once again picked up speed.

The Commander continued: “The recommendation from your Captain is absolutely glowing. The records of your medic school training denote your proficiency in crystals and healing.”

I stared at her boots, not daring to move. Is this what exposes me? Being too good, scoring too high? Should I have aimed to be a bit more average?

The Commander cleared her throat. “As such, it is only fitting that you are not only given military rank, but also immediately promoted to lieutenant.”

I blinked in shock, loose hair from my bun sticking to my sweaty forehead.

“Get up here, Min.”

“Yes, sir!” I strode up the steps.

The Commander signed off on my papers and handed them over to me. “Pick up your new uniforms, get your piercing done, and then get back to your orca-ship. I believe you serve on the AS Defiant?”

“Yes, sir.” This time the words were breathless. I didn’t care that there was no ceremony for medic soldiers; the results were just as real, and I was elated to receive them. I had already vowed loyalty to the Empress when I enlisted two years prior.

The Commander almost smiled. “Give Captain Sayer my regards. She has one ridiculously talented medic on her ship. Smooth seas and skies to you, Lieutenant Zihan Min.”

Lieutenant Zihan Min.

It was not the name my parents had given me, but it was the name I had been using for the past six years — four in medic school, two on the Defiant — and I hoped for several more, as many as I could manage, as long as I could keep running, climbing, escaping.

It was the name of my own choice, my own life, my own freedom.

And now, it had a military rank in front of it.

Sweet, sweet success!

Two Years Later…