Alpha Class: A Kurtherian Gambit Series (The Etheric Academy Book 1)

by TS Paul

  “I think we can download these on our tablets.” Ron fiddled with his.

  “That would be kind of cool. I didn’t even know these were made.” Tina also pulled out her tablet.

  “If you like you could even meet the man that created the ship.” All five students looked up and away from the screens to see Guardian Commander Peter watching them from the doorway.

  “Sorry. The vids…” Tina pointed at the screens.

  “No need to apologize. They are pretty cool. I’ve ridden inside the Archangel, and it’s a kick ass ride. This is Samantha.” A tall blond woman appeared out of nowhere.

  Maxim jumped back with a “whoa!”

  Peter only smiled. “As you should have smelled and noticed she is one of the many EIs that help to run our Empire. Samantha is a bit smarter than some of those others. She has been around far longer than many. She is Jeo’s primary aid and administrative assistant. If you have any problems or questions, she is your best option for resolution.”

  Peter peered at each of the five students. “We have already discussed the reason I am here with you. Thank you for your reports by-the-way. They will be of value to the team digging into the alien base.”

  All five kids visibly started and just stared at Peter. “They are digging into the base?” Nestor spoke first.

  “Of course. Your reports, even Bobcat’s, showed that there was valuable information to be found there. We have a couple of years before we leave. It gives some of the teams something to do as well as provide training. Bravo Class is actually going down there to assist General Lance. They will also learn how our military operates and team building exercises.”

  “Have they found anything yet?” Maxim stared at his future commander.

  “Just wreckage. I don’t normally get to see the reports, but I checked knowing one of you might ask. When and if you cycle around to the General you may get to return. For now, this is your assignment and Jeo your instructor. In fact, I hear the man in question approaching now.” Peter turned toward the rear hatch.

  As all five students watched, a young looking man wearing wrinkled clothes tripped over the hatch seal and tumbled head over heels into the room. He landed on his posterior and sat on the deck blinking at them.

  “Did I miss anything?”

  Peter just groaned and covered his eyes.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Sorry about the falling thing. I got up on the wrong side of the bed today. Let’s do that again shall we? My name is Jeo Deteusch. I’m the head of construction and shipbuilding, but I dabble in mining and manufacturing too.” Jeo, recovered from his fall stepped to the head of the room in full-on lecture mode. “Does anyone have any questions so far?”

  Tina raised her hand. “Yes, Sir. Are we still mining in the asteroid field?”

  “Excellent question Tina. The answer is sort of. This base we are in is an asteroid after all. We are starting to wrap up our efforts out here. Much of the material we are using now is coming from this asteroid as we dig out the base more and more. The Queen has requested that the QBBS Merideth Reynolds be able to hold half a million or more of her people. We intend to double that number. Engineers are overachievers.”

  “Wow. Why so many?” Ron blurted out.

  Jeo looked at the younger students direction. “Name?”

  “Ron Diamantz.”

  “I know your father. The full answer to that question would have to come from the Queen herself, but I think she intends to take anyone who wants to come with us. We are going out to the stars. Yes, we intend to confront whoever and whatever intends to bring harm to Earth, but it’s space! Who wouldn’t want to go? I’m sure there are other reasons. But mine is simple. I have family down on Earth. They don’t want to come along. They are tied up in family drama, TV shows, 9 to 5 jobs, and making a buck. Do we even worry about any of that up here?” He peered at the students.

  Yana nodded. “I can see that. My name in Yana Konstantinovich.”

  “Ah, the princess. I’ve heard about you. You are the perfect answer to the question. Your family could have stayed down on… what is it I heard the other day? The mud ball. You could have stayed down there if you wished. Instead, you came to the New world.” Jeo smiled at her.

  “Not as simple as that. We didn’t want to die. But yes. That is one reason. Earth… is the past. The Etheric Empire and what it represents is the future. Even I see that now.” Yana looked to her friends for support.

  “So expanding this is one of the many things we do.” Jeo placed his hand on the wall. “We also build the ships for the Empire as well as some of the larger scale weaponry that comes out of the Jean Dukes think tank. You have to be wondering ‘what I will have you do this term?’ The answer to that is varied. Your predecessors, Delta Class, were a bit confused by what I had to teach them. Does engineering interest any of you?”

  “Me, Sir. I have built both rockets and cars. Back in our town of Romanovka my father encouraged me to learn to fix things. But building them is what I really want.” Nestor stepped forward.

  “A dreamer.” Jeo cocked his head to one side. “You would be either Maxim or Nestor?”

  “Nestor. Maxim is my cousin.” Nestor pointed to Maxim who waved at Jeo.

  “Good. How did the rockets do?”

  “Not well. I burned down a shed and invoked the ire of my father. But I did get one to go four or five hundred feet before it blew up the shed.” Nestor smiled as he spoke.

  Jeo laughed. “Remind me to tell you about some of my experiments as a child. My parents are lucky I didn’t burn down the town we lived in. What I intend to teach you is the basics of what engineering is and why it’s important to our lives. We will explore some of the great historical works of mankind. If you talked to Delta, they might have mentioned some of the places we went. This class we will go to different places than them. This is both for you and for me. I like to explore as much as anyone.”

  Peter cleared his throat and attracted Jeo’s attention.

  Jeo pointed to the camo-clad Guardian. “If you haven’t met, that is Peter. He is tagging along this term to keep us out of trouble.”

  “They’ve met me already. I have a secondary assignment to find out as much as I can about the alien base they discovered. But my main job is to watch out for you. Try not to get killed. I hate to fail.” Peter barely smiled as he said it.

  “I will make that my new goal in life I promise. Now, let’s get started. I have a classroom set up around here somewhere. Samantha?”

  The tall blond hologram reappeared. “You are using room four this time. The weapons development team needed more room and took over the old classroom.”

  “Samantha is my keeper as well as the best assistant I have ever had. If you need anything while here simply speak her name and she will do her best to help you.”

  ~~~~~~~

  “We need to immediately include spacesuit training in our basic curriculum. Maybe we could also have the high schools start the basics too. We also need to make sure that everyone has at least had some emergency suit training.” Dorene looked into the office both sisters shared.

  Diane responded by saying “I will get with the curriculum committee to see what can be done.”

  She continued, “What happened?”

  “Bravo Class again. General Lance took them down to the moon to work with the digger crews. This was their first time in suits.” Diane winced at the tone her sister had.

  “Do I really want to know?”

  Dorene arched an eyebrow. “No, but I’m going to tell you anyway. It was Craig that started it.”

  “What did he do now? Please tell me he isn’t dead!”

  Dorene laughed. “He’s fine. We may joke about it, but it’s scientifically impossible to fly off the moon. There actually is some gravity to hold you down. Craig either didn’t know this or wasn’t listening to the safety rules when he put on his suit and went outside for the first time.”

  Diane put her hands over her fac
e. A muffled “do I want to know” came out from behind her hands.

  “Craig ran out the hatch past the instructors and other students and jumped as high as he could into the air. He didn’t fly off the moon, but he did crash into a mag-lift pod that was positioning itself to pull wreckage and debris out of the alien hole. He stuck to the bottom of the pod like a magnet on the refrigerator. The EI controlling the pod immediately released Craig, but there was a mass of construction drones and other digging equipment below it.” Diane winced.

  “The report I received said he bounced once and then crashed into the front end of the primary digger. Thank God it was not running at the time. That machine uses both cutting blades and lasers to chew through the moon’s regolith soil. One of the blades penetrated his suit and caused a leak.” Dorene had a serious look on her face.

  “I thought those suits were indestructible?” Diane pulled out a memo about suits from her files.

  “No. That’s not what that memo says. I checked too. It says the suits are indestructible by any normal means. It doesn’t include our own technology. I’ve already spoken to Jean about this. She told me that they are already halfway through the new run of a half million suits and it would have to wait for the upgrade. Jean told me to tell you that they didn’t anticipate idiots using them.” Dorene smiled at her sister. She was turning over a new leaf and actually apologized to Jean while they were talking.

  “Was Craig hurt badly?” Diane worried about the boy. He was gaining a reputation for being reckless.

  “Sort of. The rip in his suit opened his hand up to space. The automatic seals in the suit prevented a blowout and saved his life. One of the other members of Bravo is actually who saved him. Halli ran to his assistance and managed to get him off the blades before any more of his suit was punctured. She’s the real hero here.”

  “I will inform the Queen when I turn in the report for this. Maybe she can reward the girl or something. Which hand was exposed, it wasn’t his new one was it?” Diane could only shake her head over his impetuous conduct. This time his behavior would need to be formally addressed.

  “That’s what’s funny about the whole thing. It was his left hand rather than the right. If he keeps this up, they will start calling him stumpy.” Dorene chuckled at the look on her sister’s face.

  “So I should expect to hear from Dr. Running Wolf this morning? Did you know she was a board certified Emergency Room surgeon for over ten years?” Diane questioned.

  Dorene responded to her, “I actually did know that. She told me she would update you on his condition, but stupid is not something she can fix.”

  “Very funny DJ. Is the General mad?” Diane smiled at Dorene.

  “No. He said it typically takes several weeks to get the dumb out of most new recruits. Craig is just an over achiever. His main complaint was the Safety Report I asked him to complete.”

  “And on the first day too. Any other problems with the other five classes?” Diane could only shake her head.

  “Not so far but the day is still young.”

  ~~~~~~

  “Do you have a status update for me?” Major General Vlákas bellowed at his aide. He was angry at half the services right now.

  “Yes, Sir. Research and Development out at Groom Lake say they may have something that will penetrate the shields on the pods.” Lieutenant Buckley smiled as he read the report to his boss.

  “They do? Give those boys a raise! This is exactly what we need right now. Did they say if they can shoot them down?”

  Buckley read through the report again quickly. “Uh, no Sir. They say that they suspect the shield is an effect of the gravitic pulse engines that the pods employ. Or that is what they suspect they are. No one has been able to get something like it to work before now.”

  “Get what to work? Do they have one of those engines in their lab? They swore to me last time that all the alien stuff was elsewhere!” General Vlákas barked his questions. This whole thing with both the President and R&D was giving him an ulcer.

  Buckley looked at the General in surprise. He spread his hands wide. “Sir, I only know what they send me. Do you want me to ask them?”

  The General scowled at his aide. “Arrange transport. We’re going to Groom Lake.” He would get the answers he needed if it killed him.

  Unknown to either man a small red light blinked out on the top of the General’s computer as they left the room.

  ~~~~~~

  “ADAM did you get that?” Gin and Amber, otherwise known as the tonic twins, responded at the same time.

  “I DID. FLIGHT CONTROL HAS BEEN NOTIFIED. KEEP FEELERS ON THE GENERAL. HE IS OUR BEST WAY YET INTO AREA 51.”

  The twins got together with several others of what many called ‘ADAM’s elves.’ They were the original twelve hackers recruited by the AI, and they were the best in the world at breaking into computers and communication systems. So far the Groom Lake Base, better known as Area 51, had been the hardest to get into.

  If the US Government had a way to shoot down or damage the pods, the Queen and team BMW would need to know.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Can anyone tell me at least ten of the greatest Engineering Achievements in modern times?” Jeo stood at the head of the long corporate style table. The members of Alpha Class, as well as Peter, sat watching him.

  “No one has any clue, or you didn’t understand the question? If you don’t know, try guessing. This is not a graded test so don’t worry.”

  Ron took a wild guess and went first. “Uh, the pyramids in Egypt?”

  “At Giza. That is a good one but not for modern times. Now for time immemorial, it qualifies. Remember that one, it will come up again.” Jeo smiled at the group.

  “What about cars?” Nestor raised his hand.

  “Excellent. Automobiles are one. If we have cars, we have to have what to make them go or facilitate their construction?”

  “You need power and machines to build it first.”

  “Very good, Tina! There is a saying that Rome wasn’t built in a day. That is a good analogy for civilization. You have to build this to make that. Everything takes time. In the twentieth century alone more than twenty engineering feats helped to build the civilization we live in today. Electricity, the automobile, airplanes, radio, and television, computers, telephones, air conditioning, refrigeration, highways, the internet, spaceships, lasers, nuclear power, the list goes on and on. Before these things were invented man rode horses and traveled on steam engines. In a hundred years we went from horses to electric cars.” Jeo wrote on his virtual board many things from the list as he talked.

  “Weren’t electricity and the telephone invented in the nineteenth century?” Ron spoke up again.

  “Aha! You got me there. They weren’t in widespread use, however, until the 1920s, so it counts.” Jeo made his eyebrows jump eliciting a groan from the others.

  “All the things that you see around you were engineered in some form or fashion. Yes, much of the technology that we use here in the Etheric Empire came from aliens but someone had to adapt it for human use. TOM… How many of you know who and what TOM is?”

  Everyone raised their hands.

  Jeo looked shocked for a moment. “I forget you have Tina to tell you things. TOM is a Kurtherian. He came to this planet over a thousand years ago to help protect humans and to gain allies to fight a galactic war. The enemy he fights is his own people. A difference of opinion separated them, and they have fought ever since. He accidentally created a race of vampires when he changed the first human he met. It was TOM that gave the Queen the secret to Kurtherian technology and using it she built all of this.” He spread his hands wide.

  “Did she do this herself? No. Engineers interpreted the data TOM provided and built the machines that made the machines such as ADAM. The world's first AI is an engineering feat. Engineering is important to all of our survival. Just as you five are essential to the survival of the future.” Jeo paused for a moment.

&n
bsp; “What I do for the Empire is tri-fold: Construction, mining, and technology development. That includes weapons development.” Jeo wrote each point on his board. “And spaceship construction. What we as students and teacher are going to learn is how it all comes together to make up the whole Empire. But we have to start somewhere. You need to see for yourselves the wonders of this thing we call engineering and achievement. So, where to first?”

  Jeo chuckled to himself. He could tell he overloaded them just a tiny bit. “Let’s start with history first. Ron mentioned Giza. That will be our first stop.”

  ~~~~~~~

  Peter looked up from the table in alarm. A trip? Now? Oh, hell no. “Jeo. We can’t leave today. I need to requisition the pods and check the security situation. Sorry.”