Page 74 of Star Champion

“And on our way to the top!” Muse yelled, triggering yet another wave of outraged roars.

“There aren’t any rules against women players,” Klark said when the uproar had eased. “I will say so when I file a formal protest. But we have eleven thousand years of precedent working against us. I’ve scoured the Treatise of Trade for anything to support Kes competing. But so far I’ve come up empty.”

“This is sport, not religion.” Skeet had never looked so frustrated. “If a player is as good as Kes, it should make no difference if they’re male or female.”

“She can be a purple-spotted Lyrian bog-boor for all I care,” Sorrowman Li said, his double chins wobbling. “She won. We won!”

“Team Eireya! Team Eireya!” Muse chanted their battle cry at the top of his lungs.

Everyone else joined in. The noise was deafening.

Jemm and Klark exchanged helpless glances. Jemm tried to smile through an upsurge of emotion. “You gotta keep it going, fellas, straight to the top. With or without me.”

“It won’t feel like a team until you’re back.” Skeet rested his hand on her shoulder. “And you are coming back. We’re behind you one hundred percent. We’re going to hit the media on this and hit hard. We’ll take it to the people. What happened is not right. If there are others like you out there, then it’s never been right.”

Once, she feared the team would reject her if they were to learn the truth. But, after recovering from the initial shock, all they cared about was the injustice of her being thrown out of the ring. She was their teammate first, a female second. It was either the beginning of something wonderful, or it was the beginning of the end.

The next day, a speeder waited to carry Jemm from Chéyasenn to a transfer station, where she would board a privately chartered starship for the long journey back to Barésh. Klark gripped her hands as if he had no intention of letting her go. They stood facing each other in the morning sunlight on the speeder pad, serenaded by birdsong, a scene wholly at odds with the hollow feeling in her heart. She was outfitted like an upper-class lass in knee-high brown boots and a green-hued, gorgeously tailored, mid-thigh-length dress. Tiny polished green gemstones decorated the neckline and cutaway sleeves flaunted her toned arms.

“The color of the grass and your eyes,” Klark had said when he surprised her with the gift soon after dawn, explaining that he had ordered it made for some unknown future time when she might be able to wear it. Only, they had not expected it would be so soon, and under these circumstances. For his meeting with league officials downtown he was outfitted just as smartly in a crisp charcoal-gray shirt and black trousers—Vedla colors. They resembled a well-to-do young couple about to go out, not one about to separate, perhaps for a very long time.

She pressed her lips together to steady herself as she reached up to caress his somber face. She remembered the first time she saw him, how cold and hard his sculpted features appeared. They had grown hard again, but his eyes were pools of desolation. His sorrowful voice rumbled in his chest. “If only you were accompanying me to Eireya.”

“I know…” But with her ban from competition open-ended, and Klark’s urgency to return to his home to handle damage control, the best place for her was with her family. More, her presence at the palace might exacerbate a situation on the cusp of spiraling out of control.

She swayed a bit on her feet. They had not gotten a wink of sleep. When they were not making love, they held each other tight, neither of them wanting time to fly by too quickly, as it would have if they surrendered to sleep.

Klark caught her and pulled her close. “Ah, my sweet Baréshti lass. Know that I’ll miss you.” He embraced her, his strong hand cradling the back of her skull, her cheek pressed to his heart.

She breathed in his scent, her fist a tight ball on his chest to battle the constriction in her throat.I love you, Klark. It was what she wanted him to know, words she had never uttered to another fella. But she remained mum. The last thing she wanted was to throw another complication onto an honorable man’s already over-burdened shoulders. The story of her ban from competition had not hit the news yet, but as soon as the league made an official announcement, Klark had to be ready to act in defense of his team and family. She could be prosecuted and jailed. Klark could end up back on house arrest. Hefty fines might be levied, and awful penalties. It was horrible how something that started out with such promise had kicked off a chain of events that could cause the man she loved to lose his team, his reputation, and his family fortune. Maybe even his freedom.

“I can feel you thinking, Jemm.”

“I’m always thinking. Crag them, Klark. The league. They had every right to do what they did, I guess, but crag them all the same.” For tearing her and Klark apart, for crushing the team’s spirit, for keeping those dozer B’kahs on top, where they no longer deserved to be. And for holding fast to traditionalist rules born in a dark and dangerous past when a brighter future beckoned. “I won’t stop thinking until I see ya again.”

Klark moved her back and gazed down at her. “We’ll be back together here on Chéyasenn before we know it.” A niggle of doubt inside her contradicted his promise, and she knew he had glimpsed it. She may never see him again after this. Although his smile was one of tenderness, his brows drew together, forming a telltale groove between them. In his shimmering gaze she saw that he wanted to tell her something, something ripped from his heart, but she pressed her finger to his lips. Anything like that would only make this more difficult.

“Come here, you sexy uppity aristo,” she whispered and pulled him down for one last kiss, a kiss to last the ages, unshed tears exerting pressure behind her eyes. Then she tore her lips from his and ran toward the speeder’s open hatch, her throat so tight it left her unable to utter the simple word “goodbye.”

“Ma?” Jemm let herself into the apartment—as tiny, threadbare, and tidy as ever, and smelling like candlewax, home-cooking, and cleaning oil. She took the familiar aromas deep into her lungs.Home. Ma was in her favorite chair, mending clothes, a basket filled with more clothing lying at her feet. Shock then delight flared in her pretty face. She stood up so fast that she kicked the basket over. Her arms opened wide and Jemm hurried into them like she was a little girl again. Neither were known to be criers, and yet there were no dry eyes when they separated.

“Look at ya.” Tearful happiness and wonder filled Ma’s gaze as she took in the sight of Jemm and the green dress. “You’re a lady now,” she said, but with none of the disdain reserved for compound cogs. “A beautiful lady.”

“You’re the one who’s a sight to see. You look so good, Ma.” Her mother’s skin had lost its sallow appearance. No dark circles appeared under her eyes. A healthy rosy color tinted her cheeks. She had filled out, too, and looked a lot more like Nico in the face.

“I feel good, too, lass. No more coughing. I’ve been using Earth-dweller potions. I have my own Earth-dweller doctor looking after me,” she added proudly.

“CJ?” Jemm asked with a smirk, remembering the encounter between the vivacious young female doctor and Nico.

“Aye, Doctor CJ Randall. She says my lung condition is cured, but I’ll need a procedure to help with the scarring on the inside of me when I’m stronger.”

“Thank the dome.” The apartment was awfully quiet, Jemm realized. “Where’s Button?”

“She’s at preschool this morning.”

“Preschool? What’s that?”

“It’s school for the wee ones.”

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