by Drew Seren
Skylar Mars
and The
Crystal Claw
by Drew Seren
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Except where actual places are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious; any resemblance to living persons or places is purely coincidental.
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Copyright 2018 © MysticHawker Press
http://www.mystichawker.com/
ISBN: 13-978-1-945632-23-5
Edited by Cat Lauria
Cover design by Silver Circle Images
1
Running Late
SKYLAR MARS raced down the corridors of Stars’ End Academy. Just above him flew his Solar Drake, Filzbalm, whose orange leathery wings were little more than a blur as he kept up with Skylar. Several other students hollered complaints at Skylar as he shot past. He was going a lot faster than he should’ve, but he didn’t want to be late. The head of the reader department, Professor Aduncus, wouldn’t be happy if he was late, particularly just because he’d stopped to have a quick shower and change shirts after one of the low-level movers blew splashes of Alorian tomato soup over half of the cafeteria, leaving burn marks on clothes and skin of the non-Alorian students. Skylar endured the minor itching discomfort for a couple of classes, but when he had a few minutes between Galactic History and his free period with Professor Aduncus, he decided to clean up. The shower knocked off the last bits of the overly acid soup, but it left him a few minutes short.
“I have notified Professor Aduncus that we’ll not be there on time,” Filzbalm announced as they rounded the corner at the end of the hall, leading to the professor’s training room.
Skylar let his inward grimace show through his mental link with the Solar Drake. He loved being bonded to the little space dragon, but there were times when Filzbalm’s need to treat the teachers at Stars’ End with the same reverence he had for The Mother of All Drakes was more than a little annoying. Skylar didn’t disrespect his teachers—he just understood they were other sentient beings like himself and could be made to understand that sometimes people made mistakes, or in this case, took a minute or two longer to clean up than they should have.
In the months since their initial bonding, Skylar had tried several times to explain that teachers were like everyone else. Unfortunately, the drake would have none of it and insisted on doing things like telling Professor Aduncus they were running late as opposed to giving Skylar the chance to try to talk their way out of the professor’s displeasure with their tardiness.
Skylar slowed to a walk. As he approached the door to the training room, the professor stood right outside the door frame, beyond the shields that blocked his mind from the other members of the school. He was a Tursiops, a race that was more at home in the water than on land, but being mammals and not fish, they were adaptable to both environments. His dark gray brow was wrinkled, and he didn’t look happy. Since he hadn’t been standing there when Skylar had rounded the corner, and just appeared, Skylar knew he must’ve been using some kind of mental shield to make himself appear invisible. The professor was a telepath, reader for short, with no mover abilities, so he wouldn’t have been able to teleport in.
“Late again, Mr. Mars?” Professor Aduncus pushed open the heavy metal door and stepped inside the room before Skylar could answer.
“I’m really sorry, Professor.” Skylar closed the door behind him. Unlike the rest of the station, these training rooms had manual doors since the level of psychic shielding on them made it impractical to use computer automation. Shielding against telekinetics was particularly disruptive to electronics. “I’m sure you heard about the Alorian soup incident in the cafeteria this afternoon. I was one of the ones caught in the spray. I endured the itching as long as I could, then I had to get it washed off.” Filzbalm landed on his shoulder as he talked.
The professor looked at Skylar for a moment. “Yes, I heard about it, and I can see evidence of some blistering still on your skin. It doesn’t appear that you’re having an allergic reaction, so it’s just the acidic properties.” He pursed his lips. “I suppose it’s a legitimate excuse, this time.”
He didn’t need to mention that Skylar often ran late for their special training sessions. Since Skylar had come into his psychic gifts later than most of the other students at Stars’ End, and as a fairly strong reader and feeler, he’d been assigned to Professor Aduncus to get up to speed. Following bonding with Filzbalm, he’d made a lot of progress. That had also been when Skylar had stopped fighting what he was. The hardest part was blocking other people’s emotions. Empathy, or feeling, was more instinctive, and difficult to control.
His mother, who’d been killed when Boarisk raiders attacked the planet Hummassa, had always been terrified of psychics and had instilled that fear in Skylar. Adjusting to life on Stars’ End had been difficult, surrounded by people he’d been taught to fear, but as his own powers emerged, he’d come to terms with the fact that psychics could use their powers for good.
Even after he accepted his gifts, there were a number of things he was still getting used to, and a lot of his teachers constantly gave him extra work to bring him up to speed. The burden of the extra learning seemed to take up every second of his day. When combined with his sessions with Professor Aduncus and his time on farm duty for stealing a school ship to try to return Filzbalm to Armstrong’s Rings, the strange planet where Solar Drakes lived, it seemed he was never running on time—for anything.
“No matter. With your progress, I think we’re about done with these special training exercises – at least, until you’re comfortable enough with your current power levels to push yourself farther.” Professor Aduncus walked to the center of the room and took a relaxed pose that Skylar was expected to mirror.
As Skylar shook out his hands to prep for his exercises, Filzbalm flew from his shoulder. “Next levels?” Skylar still hadn’t completely grasped how the definitions of power worked in the psychic community. Everyone talked about being a certain level in their given skills. Professor Aduncus was a level-ten reader, which was the highest level of any of the skills. He could easily touch any mind on the station, no matter where he was. Del, his grandson and Skylar’s best friend, swore his grandfather was powerful enough to touch minds of people he knew from across a solar system.
“You’ve mastered the first three levels of a reader, and the first four of a feeler. Once you are comfortable with both, we’ll try pushing things, since we know you show the potential to go far beyond most of the other students in the school.”
“You have me,” Filzbalm chimed in from his perch near the door. “That gives you a lot more power, even if they don’t realize it.”
Skylar didn’t reply. Filzbalm’s communications were mostly private. Other readers could only hear him when he wanted them to, like when he’d spoken to the professor on their way to the session.
“So, we’re going to continue our private training?” Skylar really hoped that wasn’t going to be the case. Stars’ End was very different from school on Hummassa, but it did have similarities. Any time someone was taking special classes, they were singled out as different. Combined with Filzbalm, that made him a target for the corp-brats and few of the other kids who felt they were better than everyone else because
of how high they were in their power ranking.
“We’ll have to see. After break, I’ll speak with your other teachers and decide if you are ready to join the other students who are starting to work at the next levels. If they think so, I see no reason you shouldn’t join them.” The professor made the opening sweep of his hand that signaled they were beginning their exercises.
Skylar copied the professor’s motion. With that simple movement, his mind started slipping into the quiet he needed to use his abilities without Filzbalm filtering for him. Before he’d bonded with Filzbalm, he’d needed a special dampening bracelet to help block the constant barrage of thoughts and emotions from the other students. The external input hadn’t been more than an annoyance until his telepathic skills had erupted when he’d lashed out at their counselor, Ms. Grissom. They’d given him the dampening bracelet to help, but with the little drake, he didn’t need it. Filzbalm shielded him from the mental input and protected others from Skylar’s occasional outbursts.
“Very good.” The professor’s thought rang clear in Skylar’s head. “It’s starting to become second nature.”
“I’ve had a good teacher.” Skylar followed the professor, moving his arms and legs in simple, circular motions that helped him relax and reach into his mind so he could easily speak to the professor without using his voice.
“Sometimes I think you’re too young to understand the subtleties of flattery, then I realize you’re just being polite. Even if your mother made you afraid of your gifts, she brought you up well.”
“She did her best.” It had taken months, but Skylar could finally talk about his mother without his throat tightening up each time. Sometimes he still had nightmares of the night she died, when their hover car exploded during the Boarisk attack.
“So she did.” The professor moved into the next round of movements, Skylar following along.
It had been several weeks since he had felt any physical or psychic fatigue after these lessons. The professor had used a more physical, martial arts approach to his training when Skylar had been resistant to meditation. They’d recently tried meditating again, but when Skylar simply sat and relaxed, he stumbled across memories that made the possibility of relaxation nearly impossible, so they’d gone back to the physical regimen that he responded better to.
“Have you decided what you’re going to do over the school break?”
“No.” Skylar resisted shaking his head and kept going through the slow, easy movements.
“Although some students stay on station during break, I figure you’re tired of farm duty.”
“There’s farm duty during break?” Skylar hadn’t given the upcoming break much thought. Solaria and Del had talked about going to their respective planets and seeing friends and family during the standard Sol-Three month they got off. Since Skylar didn’t have any family, and only limited funds, he’d figured he would spend time relaxing with Filzbalm. Maybe get caught up on Galactic Explorers, his favorite game that he hadn’t really had the time to play since he got to the school.
Solaria hadn’t said anything about her plans, and Skylar hadn’t probed her on anything. He figured she’d be going home to Pantheria, an icy world whose natives were humanoid cats prone to warrior-like behavior. Solaria was considered one of the most dangerous students in school, but after Del, she was Skylar’s closest friend.
“The various parts of the school have to keep functioning even if classes aren’t being held. The staff and students who stay behind normally fill in for the folks who are gone. Since you, Solaria, Del, and Melody have been handling farm duty, I figure Ms. Grissom will assign you to something you’re already familiar with.”
Skylar didn’t bother trying to hide the groan that escaped him. One of the things he had to become accustomed to being around psychics was not trying to hide what he was feeling. Everyone seemed to pick up on everything anyway, and it was actually considered bad manners to try to keep secrets. He’d been amazed he and his friends had managed to keep Filzbalm a secret as long as they did after Solaria saved the egg.
“I was really hoping that would be over when break started.”
“But the cows can have the most bovine thoughts.” Filzbalm chuckled. The Solar Drake had recently discovered the idea of humor and kept trying out new and strange jokes that often fell flat.
“If you aren’t on the station it will be, unless you decide that animal husbandry is something you wish to pursue as a career path. I haven’t discussed with Ms. Grissom if your manual labor time is over or not. We’ll see.” The professor finished the set of movements they’d been doing and paused to get a drink of water from a glass on the table below Filzbalm’s perch.
Skylar followed him, and got his own drink from the glass next to the professor’s. “High level readers are wanted in animal husbandry?” It wasn’t something Skylar had given much thought to. If he’d stayed on Hummassa, he might’ve ended up doing farm work or one of the other more manual jobs and been happy about it. However, after going into space, he wanted to explore the outer worlds. There was so much he wanted to see and experience beyond what a little backwater planet like Hummassa could offer him. He even dreamed of one day having his own starship so he could go wherever he wanted. He just couldn’t see himself settling down to raise cows or some other animal.
“You might be surprised. Readers find all kinds of jobs, feelers even more. But the movers are the ones in growing demand. I haven’t seen any evidence of that in your skill set, even if there are mover segments in your DNA. But if you had any active mover in you, you wouldn’t have been hit with the Alorian soup earlier.”
Skylar had enough to learn without throwing in another psychic skill. Solaria was a mover and made things like zero-g movement look easy, and she could bust down doors like they were nothing, but he didn’t want to tackle anything new at that moment. “No thanks.”
“I’ll put that in your file.” The professor set his glass down. “Now, let’s try something a little different. This next set of movements is meant to strengthen your shielding. It’s something you still need to work on, particularly when Filzbalm isn’t around you.” He looked up at the Solar Drake, who was preening his leathery wings. “Please don’t aid him.”
“I will do as you wish.” Filzbalm bowed slightly to Professor Aduncus, then went back to preening.
“Good.” The professor strode into the middle of the room and waved Skylar over to stand at his side. “Now, follow this.” He made a sweeping motion with his hand, in the opposite direction than Skylar was used to. It looked awkward and strange. Professor Aduncus ended the sweep with a hard thrust outward. A soft tingle of energy went out from him.
When Skylar did the thrust, his fingers tingled, and a similar energy came out of him. Like the passive way the other parts of the almost-dance he did to relax his thoughts worked, the new movements triggered something in his mind that sent out protective energy.
The professor smiled. “Very good. Now follow this.” He did the same movement, then swept his arm in a wide arc after the thrust. A glow of power covered him for a moment, then disappeared.
Skylar copied the move and made his own scintillating arc. It didn’t linger as long as the professor’s had, but he’d still done it.
“Good.” The professor nodded. “I want you to do that ten times in a row. Let’s see if we can get you to hold it a little longer.”
“Okay.” Skylar did as he was instructed. By the third time he made the sweeping motion, it didn’t feel as strange. Remembering he was supposed to attempt to shield with the motion, he tried to actively think of that as he went through the sweeps and thrusts. The glowing arc happened again and lasted longer each time. On the eighth repetition, he was able to get the arc to become more of a dome, and by the tenth time, he could hold it until he willed it to release.
“You really do have a great deal of natural talent.” The professor walked over to the table and finished off his water.
Skylar wiped
his forehead, not realizing he’d started sweating during the exercises. He followed the professor over to the table. The water was cool and welcome on his throat.
“You do make a nice shield,” Filzbalm said. “And I didn’t help. But I think my shields will still be stronger.”
“But my shields won’t get any stronger unless I practice,” Skylar reminded him. “So let me keep practicing. That way if you and I ever need to work together on shielding, we’ll both be more protected.” In the school, it was considered bad manners to go around reading minds without an invitation, but that didn’t mean a lot of the kids didn’t practice on each other without permission. Every day, he heard at least one person laughing about something they’d heard in someone else’s mind. He was glad he had Filzbalm around to help block his thoughts from unwanted invasions, but shielding was what most psychics learned first. Since Skylar had come into his power unexpectedly, his training was a little off.
“Okay, I think we’ve done enough for one day.” When Professor Aduncus used his voice, it indicated that their session was over. “You have a few days before break. If you stay here, we’ll need to arrange for Ms. Grissom to continue your sessions. It probably won’t be every day, like it is with me. If you find somewhere to go over break, I’ll send a dampening bracelet for you to take, in case you need it.”
Skylar hated the idea of Ms. Grissom taking over his sessions, even for a few weeks. The school counselor was the first person he met on Stars’ End, and they only seemed to interact when something unusual was going on. He had hoped that even if he stayed on the station, he wouldn’t have anything to do with the high-level feeler and low-level reader. Even as Skylar was getting used to being around psychics, she still gave him the creeps from time to time with her overly still, observant manners. He was sure she always knew exactly what was going on with him, even when he was shielded.
