The Impossible Book 1

by Alexandria Clarke

  The Academy’s lawn gets completely destroyed as we fight our way across it, but we make it to the training bay mostly unharmed. As far as I can see, we haven’t lost any of the students, but IA’s Defense team is way down.

  “Go, go, go!” Doug ushers everyone into the bay, fires at one last officer, then slides the bay doors shut and locks it. “Let’s move, people! Not much time until the next wave deploys.”

  Every training ship in the bay shudders to life. A pilot sits in each one already, waiting for the rest of us to show up. Closest to us, someone waves from a Wasp. I recognize their leather Veritas gloves.

  “Saved this one for you!” calls the Wasp pilot. “Heard you liked these speeders best.”

  I climb the ladder to the speeder and hop in the cockpit. Vega’s right behind me.

  “I’m Marnie,” the pilot announces, shaking my hand with a broad grin. “I can’t believe I’m finally meeting you.”

  “Ophelia. This is Vega.”

  “Oh, I know who you are,” Marnie says. She climbs into the back seat, allowing Vega to take the navigator’s seat. That leaves the piloting up to me.

  “You sure?” I ask Marnie. “I don’t know where we’re going.”

  “The gloves will tell you,” she says, happily strapping herself into her seat.

  “The gloves?”

  “Orion loaned you gloves, right?” she asks. “Put them on. Better do it quick. Everyone else is already heading out, and we’re on a tight schedule.”

  All around us, the other speeders queue along the flight line. Someone overrides the bay doors, and they slide open. In the distance, IA’s Defense teams rush to subdue us, but they’re too far away to matter. The first speeder takes off, the beautiful sound of the jet engine filling the bay. One by one, the other ships follow as the hidden Veritas agents among IA finally take their leave from the Academy.

  I yank Orion’s gloves out of my vest and put them on my hands. “What’s supposed to happen—whoa!”

  My fingers, with a mind of their own, tap hastily on the Wasp’s Monitor. I watch, amazed, as I punch a set of coordinates into the speeder’s map. The gloves do all the work for me, firing up the Wasp and steering it out onto the flight line. It’s like everything I know how to do, but suddenly I’m better at it. With one last look at the advancing Defense officers, I yank back on the joystick, and the Wasp launches into the sky more smoothly than ever before.

  We’re out of Harmonia’s atmosphere in seconds, following along behind the other ships that left before us. The gloves guide me to jump to hyperspeed. As the stars fly by in bright blurs, I watch our progress on the map.

  “Where exactly are we going?” I ask Marnie, who seems utterly content to lounge in the back seat.

  “Outer planet ring,” she replies. “Can’t really tell you much more until we get there. It’s classified Veritas information, and you haven’t technically been sworn in yet.” She leans over my seat, uncomfortably close to my face. “You are joining Veritas, right?”

  “Yes,” I say. Next to me, Vega shifts in her seat to stare out her side of the cockpit window. I can’t see her expression, but I know she’s contemplating the commitment involved with joining Veritas.

  Marnie sits back again. “Great. Just making sure. Because if you weren’t going to join us, I’d have to kill you. Ya know?” She chuckles to herself, but when neither me nor Vega joins in, she claps me on the shoulder. “I’m kidding! Relax. We’re heading to Adrestia.”

  “The black planet?” I say. “No one goes there. It’s a mud pit.”

  “Actually, it’s not,” Marnie says. “I guess the creepy color dissuaded a lot of people from touching down there, but it’s not mud. It’s sand. Black sand. It’s cool. Pretty beaches. The water’s amazing. Anyway, that’s where Veritas set up our headquarters. No one’s looking for us there.”

  “They will be now,” Vega says. “You think IA isn’t going to follow us?”

  “They can follow us all they want,” Marnie replies. “But there’s a disorientation shield around the planet.”

  “A what?”

  “A disorientation shield,” Marnie says again. “It’s like a Patch Shield and a fog grenade rolled into one. Basically, it confuses anyone who flies through it. Makes them think they’re lost. That’s how we’ve kept Adrestia safe from invaders.”

  “Do they have hot showers on Adrestia?” I ask. “Indoor plumbing? Moonshine?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Thank heavens.”

  It takes the better part of several hours to reach Adrestia, even with the Wasp in hyperspeed. The black planet is on the opposite side of the galaxy as Harmonia, and the outer planets are more fickle to reach than the others. A glittery silver glow shimmers as we approach.

  “Is that the disorientation shield?” Vega asks, squinting at the strange substance floating around in deep space. “I’d love to see the tech behind that.”

  “Nerd,” I say.

  “You’re sharp,” Marnie says to Vega. “That’s good. We can use that.”

  Vega presses her lips together and shuts up. For whatever reason, she’s got a stick up her butt when it comes to Marnie.

  “Will it screw with us?” I ask Marnie. “The disorientation shield?”

  “Nope. You’ve got the coordinates for a reason.”

  We fly right into the shimmer, and the cockpit window fogs up with a silvery glow. I can’t see anything beyond the nose of the Wasp. If the speeder wasn’t on autopilot, I’d have no idea where to steer myself to get out safely. It’s an effective trap, one that lasts longer than I’m comfortable with. After several minutes, we emerge on the other side of the disorientation shield, and Adrestia sits right in front of us. It’s a small planet, all mottled black and white like an abstract painting. We breach the planet’s atmosphere with ease and continue toward a central spot on the surface.

  “Home sweet home,” Marnie says.

  The planet is bare—all black sand and crystal clear water—except for the small village the coordinates are leading us to. We fly over a series of simple buildings. Some are made of stone or mud. Others are simply fabric pitched over sturdy frames. There’s more people than I thought there would be, several thousand by the looks of it. As our collection of ships fly over, heading for a bare area beyond the village, everyone looks up and cheers. Even from this height, I can see the smiling faces of the Veritas members below.

  We land in the sandy area beyond the village, parking the Wasp in a neat line with the other speeders. Marnie hops out of the cockpit and joins her friends on the ground, leaving Vega and me to disembark on our own. There’s no ladder to get out, so I lower myself over the edge of the Wasp and drop down. Then I help Vega out. A familiar voice greets us.

  “Ladies!”

  Orion strolls over and gives us both a hug, an oddly intimate gesture for a man we’ve only met once. All around us, Veritas agents from the ground greet our partners in crime. There’s a lot of hugging. Maybe the rebel group trains their students in the subtle art of compassion too.

  “I’m glad you made it.” Orion gestures to my hands. “You like the gloves?”

  “They came in handy. You want them back?”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  I hand them over. “Sorry if they’re sweaty.”

  “No problem,” Orion says. “You’ll get your own pair soon. How was the trip?”

  “Stressful,” Vega replies as Orion begins to guide us away from the speeders and toward the nearby village.

  “Well, you’re here now,” Orion says. “You have some time to relax while we figure out what to do about IA. We’ll debrief you soon.”

  “What’s going on?” I ask. “Have you had any word from Harmonia? Did my mother survive the explosion? What about my brother?”

  “Your mother is pissed,” Orion reports. “As is the rest of IA. We’ll worry about that later. In the meantime—”

  We climb over a black dune, and the village lays itself
out in front of us. Orion spreads his arms.

  “Welcome to Camp Veritas on the black planet,” he says. “The Third Planetary War has begun.”

  Thank you so much for taking the time to read my story!

  Writing has always been a passion of mine and it’s incredibly gratifying and rewarding whenever you give me an opportunity to let you escape from your everyday surroundings and entertain the world that is your imagination.

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  Again, thank you so much for letting me into your world. I hope you enjoyed reading this story as much as I did writing it!

  Book 2 coming soon!