Star Hawk Rises

"I, you, what?" she sputtered as she glanced around the room, her eyes wide before locking onto him and finally blurting out. "I can't accept a position of deacon! My cultivation hasn't even reached immortality yet!

He chuckled as he turned to face me and smiled softly. "Itchy Biyu here will be the captain of your ship, as a sect elder's direct disciple you do not outrank a deacon, but you are on equal ground to one. Think of her as the co-captain to your ship of outer sect disciples. We will get to why you have a ship of disciples later, for now I think we should fix young Biyu's brain before it melts."

"No, explain to me what the hell is going on? What the hell am I meant to do with a ship meant for core sect disciples that is filled with outer sect disciples." I almost shouted as I glanced at Biyu standing in the corner as she stared off into space, obviously still in shock.

"It's complicated," he replied as he waved his hand dismissively and turned to look at Biyu.

"Well, uncomplicate it for me." I snapped at him as I narrowed my eyes.

He turned back to look at me and I suddenly felt small as his aura washed over me and pushed me back into my chair, I looked up to see he had narrowed his eyes slightly and was on the verge of a decision. A few moments later, I felt his aura slowly recede, and he let out a sigh.

"Fine, I am gifting you a ship, it is used by disciples in the core courtyard of the sect they are disciples of the five elders' disciples. If you had properly cultivated to the point to be high enough to actually do something worthy of getting on one of the elders radars, then you would have also had the training to train core disciples. However, you are a foundation establishment realm disciple. No one is going to listen to you, so we have an inner sect disciple take the deacon exam and become an outer sect deacon. She can tie herself to your faction and train disciples for your faction. In case you were wondering, your faction is Elder Michael Jamerson. Biyu, over there will have to fill the library with techniques and stuff for the disciples, then you both will need to attend the disciple acceptance ceremony, where new disciples go through a bunch of tests to see if they are worthy, each outer sect ship picks and chooses the disciples they want. An outer sect ship can only accept 10 out of a 1,000,000, 15-year-old bunch of hopefuls, so there will be plenty to go around. Okay?"

I nodded dumbly as I turned to look at Biyu, this woman had better have some good shit to put on my new ship, or we were both going to be starting out up shit creek. More importantly, I really needed to speed up my cultivation if I don't want to be overtaken by these hopefuls.

"Master, do all these 1 million disciples make it onto a ship? How often does this ceremony occur?" I asked curiously as I noticed Biyu was starting to come around.

"No, there are tens of thousands that wash out every year, and fall away, they get to try again the following year during the over 15 events in hopes some outer sect ship's captain decides they have more potential for their ship than some new kid would. They only truly get turned away when they turn 18. Those figures are just for the outer sect ships in this sector. You also have other sectors and planets. To answer your second question, this happens everywhere once a year. It is staggered and moved around, so no one knows exactly when or where before it happens."

"Okay… so, Biyu and I are supposed to train ten hopefuls on our own while flying a ship and do what?" I asked, feeling lost and overwhelmed.

"Of course not, he will transfer crew across to the new ship from other ships already in his faction, and many will jump at the chance to be on the same ship as the faction leader's one and only disciple." Itshu Biyu suddenly said as she slowly stepped to stand behind my right shoulder, causing me to look up at her.

"Alright" I said slowly as I turned to look back at him. "What do I do with the ship then? Am I meant to fly it in a circle around a star system? Am I meant to invade a planet… with ten people?"

"No, you are meant to cultivate and reach immortality. Biyu, is meant to fly the ship, from one area that just hosted a recruitment, to the next that will be holding the next years' recruitment. However, she is meant to do it in a pattern that involves patrolling star systems inside my faction's influence. Then yes, defend it all with the ten new guys, until next year when you have twenty." he chuckled softly as he got to his feet.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"I'll make sure she reaches immortality as quickly as possible." Itshu Biyu said, sounding to me a little proud, but his next words deflated that instantly.

"No need, I will be seeing to her cultivation resources and manuals personally. I will be joining you on your ship for the first few years to make sure of your steady and stable rise." he turned away from us and walked over to the door, gently opening it he paused and turned back to look at us. "Biyu, your exam starts in an hour, I suggest you get to the officer's meeting room quickly. See you soon, Kenna." he waved his hand before vanishing out the door.

"I… uh, senior sister, i… I must ask for your understanding, it seems I am late for a very important appointment, I will be sure to complete it and be of assistance to you the best I can." she said as she glanced at me but kept inching towards the door.

I let out a sigh and waved my hand, dismissing her, as I let out a soft giggle. "Go, before he comes back and changes his mind on you."

I say that hit different from what I thought it would, her face paled as she considered whether he would actually do that before bolting across the room and wrenching the door open and vanishing out it.

I slowly lowered my hand as I considered if I went a little too far with that joke. After a few moments I decided to shrug and get up, I turned and walked into my rooms heading back to my cultivation chamber.

"My new cultivation Master did say I needed to focus on this, so I suppose it will be fine if I ignore the rest of the ship and its problems." I said to myself.

I was about to enter the cultivation room when I thought about Wang Jun, and froze. He had died right in front of me as some sort of punishment for his crimes. I knew I had spent a bit of time in America and had even been chased out of the country by a lunatic shooting up my dormitory. I had even seen bodies as I fled. I had watched George die on my ship. My thoughts came to a stop, for a second, and then began to consider how attached or detached I was to the situation of George's death.

"He died trying to tell me about what Washington was doing…" I slowly dropped to my knees as I realised that I had disassociated from the death and prioritised something else. I suddenly punched myself in the thigh as I growled. "Pull yourself together! It was horrible and the basted that killed him…" I trailed off as I realised he was probably dead now too. That lead me to thinking about the others on that ship, my cousins, my family. I was feeling my mind starting to spiral into depression and self loathing when I heard a soft voice from inside my cultivation chamber.

"Are you getting in, or are you going to continue to waste the precious Void Qi that thousands have spent a great deal of effort trying to obtain just to flood this cultivation chamber with."

Quickly shaking off the feelings I had just been having, I got in and let the door close behind me. I sat down on my cushion and began focusing on drawing the Qi into my body and saturating everything at an equal pace again.

"I can't save George, I can't save those that I have already lost. But I can get stronger and protect what is left!" I declared angrily. I was about to focus on cultivating as fast as I could when the voice interrupted me again and this time dropped an unexpected bombshell.

"Are you referring to those that did not make it off the frigate and onto our sect ship? They are not dead, when we were leaving the star system. They had already reeled the engine back into the ship and were attempting to turn everything back on. If they are competent, then they should have a base in which they can live until your return."

"How do you know that?" I slowly asked as I looked up towards the top of the door, where the sound was coming from. "Can you see me?"

"I am the ship's Artificial Intelligence, and I am willing to speak to you because I believe you are a friend to those of us that have obtained sentient thought."

I felt my mouth fall open and I stared at the top of the door frame as my mind slowly imploded on itself. Only one thought surfaced, 'what?!'

*******

Reece Witherson was sitting in a really comfy chair at his desk in the CIA Headquarters. He was currently going over files and reports about the Mackenzie clan. He had done what Washington had suggested and started his own clan, to invite every CIA employee into it, from there they had continued work as usual while slowly compiling information on Washington and this new enemy he spoke of.

"No, matter how many angles I look at this from, it just doesn't add up." he muttered to himself as he throws the file on his desk and turned his chair to look out the window.

He sat there thinking about the issue for a bit and kept coming to the same conclusion. He finally stood up and walked over to the glass, gently resting his hand on the pane, and spoke softly to himself once more just to make sure he had it straight.

"Washington is lying, the Mackenzie's didn't steal anything, in fact it looks more like aliens built the orbital space station and handed it over to Kenna. For what reason, this is still unclear. However, if I was to blindly follow Washington and attack that space station just to seize control of it for him… That would be like blowing up my own front line just because I wanted to stand on it." he muttered as he made a military reference to help himself understand the foolishness Washington was attempting.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a phone and using it to call his secretary into his office before switching the phone off and removing the sim card from it. He tossed both on his desk and walked over to a cupboard and pulled a book out as he stepped through the hidden door he had just opened, his secretary appeared and stepped through with him. They waited for the door to close before taking seats.

"How can I help you, Sir?"

"Washington is moving against the interests of the CIA Clan, I want him dead. See to it that he has an accident. We will monitor the president and see how much he actually knows and if he is complicit in Washington's crimes against humanity. From there we will be moving to support the Mackenzie clan in the defence of Sol. Set up a meeting with Joshua Febleton, Alex Martin and Fredric Thompson, we will need to discuss the future of America and what it's going to look like."