by G. P. Moss
The Last Space Cadet
Ariel Hope Chronicles 1
G.P. MOSS
The Last Space Cadet
Ariel Hope Chronicles 1
by
G.P. MOSS
Copyright 2017 G.P. Moss. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
End Note
Chapter One
Planet Earth
Ariel Hope has no idea how long she has been here.
Covered in dirt, it’s even in her mouth. She thinks she must be underground though how she has ended up here, she doesn’t know.
Her uniform's a mess but at least she can breathe. Forcing large clumps of mud away from her body, she is relieved she can move her arms and legs.
Ariel’s lying in between two huge sections of pipe.
Scrambling through filthy water, she walks along the giant tube until she sees some light. It's not sunlight.
It's haze.
Smog.
Another break in the pipe lets her claw and crawl her way to the surface; twenty feet or more.
She looks around.
There's nothing left.
There's no one around.
Okay, there are people.
There's no one around, alive.
She leaps to her feet, brushing mud from her tunic. She’d come straight from Magda's house, heading to the Academy. The StarTapped Academy.
She must have lost consciousness. She’s so thirsty; her mouth is sand-dry.
She needs to get home. Fast. Mum, Dad, Gobby Johnny.
A toppled bank building tells her home is only a couple of streets away. If the block is still standing. She’s too shocked to be that worried. There's a shelter underneath, built by and for families of Beta Command. Her dad's a StarTapped Officer. The new ships haven't flown operationally yet, but when they do, he's a boss.
*
Ariel starts to run, dodging twisted metal, smashed concrete, and bodies. Lots of them.
She’s starting to realise there may be nothing left.
The apartment block’s not there.
Well, it’s there but it’s flat.
Pancake flat with bits sticking up.
Running around the debris, she locates the busted steps to the bunker. Clouds of dust make her choke, her mouth full of concrete particles. She needs water.
Fast.
As she reaches the bottom, the air clears. A little. She can’t shout. Lack of water renders her voice useless.
Searching rooms, there’s more debris but many of the supplies are still intact.
No one’s here.
She drinks from a bottle. Small sips, like she was told. Then more. Heading to their designated family room, she hopes they’re not there. If they are, they haven’t made it.
She would have heard them, especially Gobby Johnny.
She’s in the room. It’s surprisingly tidy. A note, torn from a journal, lies to the side of the basic sink.
It’s addressed to her.
Dearest Ariel,
We have had to run, darling. Hopefully you will not read this and you have made it to StarTapped.
Love,
Mum
x
Cheers everyone, Ariel thinks.
Her mirrored reflection shows the same shoulder length wavy blonde hair, the grey-blue eyes, slim nose, and soft face.
Soft face covered in hardening mud.
She washes quickly; the water is freaking freezing.
She grabs a rucksack, fills it with all the water and freeze dried snacks she can carry. She checks the room for weapons. The cabinet’s unlocked, empty.
Cheers everyone. Don’t mind me.
She remembers a place her mum once showed her, deep in a divan drawer under one of the beds.
It’s still there.
Grabbing an olive-green parka, she checks the taser’s power light before slipping it into an inside pocket. She must have just missed them. A glint of metal shines from a corner shelf.
Dad’s watch; his Breitling.
There can’t have been many survivors; this would have been taken. She looks at the date. It’s always right. Always.
Wait a minute.
She went to Magda’s on the 2nd. The watch is showing the 7th.
The watch is never wrong.
Ariel has been unconscious, underground, for 5 days.
That’s a long sleepover.
*
Dad said they hadn’t yet colonized anywhere but some ships were ready. The population didn’t know about the ships. Not many of them knew anyway. From the way he’d been talking, and from Academy gossip, they hadn’t even decided on the new planet.
StarTapped.
Beta Academy.
Ready before they’re ready.
Bounding up the steps, mask on her face, with a titanium mountain bike, and a clean new uniform in her sack, thanks to forward thinking Mum, Ariel heads towards the Academy.
There are no buses, no cars. She’s grateful for the spare bike.
*
Block after block, it’s the same devastation. Dad said it could happen. Everyone had weapons and it was only time before the world went crazy. The world’s gone crazy. Figures on the ground are mere shadows. She tries not to look and wonders how she survived when nobody else did. There could be some in their own shelters. Her family knew more than other people.
More than her.
StarTapped’s home is the inside of a huge, bored-out mountain.
Its name is StarTapped Mountain.
She’s on her way. It will take her around 2 hours to reach the main, heavily guarded entrance.
She hopes the people are still inside the mountain. It should be sheltered enough. She hopes her family are still there, waiting for the time they know she’ll appear. She’s a star pupil, resilient and tough.
*
20 minutes from StarTapped and the Academy, she looks in horror as huge whirlwinds of dust spin like crazy around the top of the mountain. It can only mean one thing.
The ships have gone.
Feeling sick now, she pedals faster, moving up the gears as her legs move like pistons in her rush to the entrance. Her parents wouldn’t leave her, would they? They might not have made it, may not have reached StarTapped, perishing like the rest. Her heart beats too fast and she’s starting to hyperventilate. She slows down, wants to cry but doesn’t.
She needs to survive.
If they’ve gone, they’ve gone.
If she’s the only person left alive she’ll have to entertain herself. She’ll be busy trying to stay alive.
She’ll never be bored.
Burned-out military trucks and tourist buses bearing the StarTapped insignia, lie on their sides like skittles at a macabre bowling alley. She’s not hopeful. Approa
ching the entrance to StarTapped Mountain, she rides right in. There’s no security.
There’s no one.
Beta Command, we definitely have a problem.
*
Riding deep inside the mountain, she’s relieved to see emergency lights still working. She passes no one. Vast areas are empty. She knows these areas. She visited these places, learning basic skills and procedures. These areas were home to StarTapped ships.
They’re empty.
Swirls of dust whip around the spaces like a mocking vortex.
She hopes it’s not toxic but it probably will be.
She checks her mask, her skin sweating underneath the sealed rubber. To her left are stairs leading to the Academy. Dumping the bike, she takes the stairs 2 at a time, reaches the steel door, and walks in.
It’s set out classroom-style.
There’s no one here.
Cheers everyone.
They’re all in the sky. Or they’ve perished.
She walks back down the stairs.
Ariel Hope, star pupil of the StarTapped Academy, you are the last space cadet alive on Earth.
Chapter Two
Milky Way
Beta 3’s performance would normally be cause for celebration but no one feels like it at the moment. The brand new StarTapped cruiser had only undergone quick trials before the nations decided to destroy themselves and everyone else.
They planned for this but have no real idea where they are going. The ships should be self-sufficient, capable of sustaining life for many decades. Edward Hope hopes it won’t take that long. As he checks the coordinates, not knowing where he is heading, except to be in range of the others, part of his mind is on his daughter, Ariel. He hasn’t found out if she’s made it to a ship yet.
They couldn’t have waited.
He wanted to.
If his girl didn’t make it to a ship and if she has survived, he is sure she will manage. She will cope.
But he will never see her again.
He draws strength from her strength.
It’s all he has.
It’s enough.
Captain Hope sits up front with his First Officer, scanning the galaxy in wonder as Beta 3 zips between speeding boulders and other space debris, its sensors working as they should.
Good job.
They will all die if the sensors don’t work.
*
9 ships made it out of StarTapped Mountain. It should have been 10 but one was buried beneath rubble before anyone could get to it. They managed to get everyone on the other 9.
Everyone who had a chance.
A couple of thousand, maybe. Not that many considering the global population. Ed believes other countries will have escaped in their own projects. Now that could cause huge problems.
It’s a big galaxy.
Room for everyone.
“First, how are the systems shaping up?”
The First looks to the ‘helper’, on a screen to the side.
The helper, a female computer image, dressed in space combats, looks straight at him, both thumbs up.
“A1, First; life support is doing its thing.”
The First speaks.
“A1, Captain; life support is doing its thing.”
Ed shakes his head. Software engineers, having a laugh.
But, good, he thinks.
There is no going back.
Ever.
Probably.
*
They will send out probes, mobile reconnaissance units as the ships reach deep into the galaxy, probably years from now. In the meantime, there’s plenty of time to test the interconnecting docking systems in case of emergencies, transfers, and the like.
Unfortunately, ‘transporters’ are not a feasible option.
No one would volunteer to see if their particles reassembled themselves.
The idea was to have the greatest minds; engineers, physicists, mathematicians and so forth, fill the ships in a world-ending scenario.
There are a few, of course. No one who works at StarTapped is a complete idiot but there just wasn’t time to assemble the ‘perfect lists’. The destruction came too fast.
Ed allows himself an unhelpful thought.
If only Ariel hadn’t gone to Magda’s for a sleepover.
It was his idea; she’d been studying hard lately, needed a break.
StarTapped’s star pupil.
A voice fills the cockpit, clear as if it was in the same room.
“First Captain Nicholls, Beta 1 here. In the event of deceleration due to sensor failure and subsequent damage, do not try to make up the speed once the danger has passed. These antimatter engines have the capacity to burn up the miles but we do not as yet know the full extent of enormous speeds on the human body. The rest of the pack will decelerate to keep formation. Thanks. Over and out.”
Ed turns to his First.
“It needs a code, anyway, plus fingerprint recognition from 2 officers to significantly increase speed.”
“I didn’t know that, Captain.”
Captain Edward Hope turns away, resisting the urge to mutter. Time to update the training manuals.
Unless someone scrapped that bit and never told him.
As he turns back to the vista of amazing stars, debris and gas clouds, Ed jumps in his seat as a metallic object flashes past, narrowly missing Beta 3.
“What the...?”
The First grins. “Probably just an old satellite, Captain.”
“This far out?”
The First just shrugs.
Beta 3 starts to move from side to side as a shower of space debris heads towards and around them, any of them looking like they’re about to hit. Ed feels the ship climb as the sensors can’t cope in this environment; the debris is too packed, time to get up and away.
A panel display shows the whole group is still in formation; all the ships’ systems seem to be working.
As Ed sits back to check a ship training manual, a sharp bang! makes his head spin around.
“What the...?”
The First grins. Again. “Probably rock fragment, come off a mini asteroid. There’s no damage, Captain; bounced off the outer layer.”
Ed reassesses his earlier doubts regarding the First’s attention span in the classroom. He’s an experienced astronaut, test pilot and all round adventurer. In a crisis, it’s what he’d rather have.
Another bang! This time near the cockpit.
Beta 3 starts to take a space-bashing.
Captain Edward Hope looks sick.
The First enjoys the ride.
Chapter Three
Planet Earth
The last space cadet on earth, aka Ariel Hope, cycles deeper into the mountainside.
Still no one around.
She’s counting spaces. The big ones. She knows there are 10 Beta cruisers. So far, she’s counted 9 spaces. 9 ships have definitely left Earth.
Without her.
She’s faced with a wall of rock debris. Ariel believes behind this will either be a tenth space, or...
Beta cruiser 2.
Ariel thinks she hears a noise from within the rubble. It sounds urgent, like a movement of rock.
Someone is on the other side!
"Hello!" she shouts, her voice straining, painful after the enforced drought.
"Is anyone there?!"
It goes quiet.
The noise again; something is shifting, but is someone shifting it?
"Please answer me!"
Quiet again.
Then, a man's voice, sounding distant and echoey, blasts through the rock, almost knocking her from the bike. She gets off, embarrassed though no one can see her.
"I'm trying to clear the debris! I suggest you do the same from your side!" he shouts.
Ariel looks at the pile of rock. This is not a good start for a new friendship. He suggests?!
"I suggest you take a good look at the size of these rocks then understand why it may be difficult for me!" she s
houts back, her throat now burning with the effort.
"Okay, smarty-pants, bear with me; might take me a while! I'm Engineer Ensign Stevie Lo. Who are you?"
"Ariel Hope, Cadet Lieutenant. I thought Stevie was a girl's name?"
She's feeling sarcastic.
He brings it out of her. Already.
"No, I'm a man, definitely a man. And not named after a Disney character."
"It's a satellite of Uranus, actually, sarky-man."
She hears the sniggering through the wall of rock.
"Cadets hold the rank of Junior Ensign; there are no Lieutenants," he bats back.
"Under the circumstances, I thought I deserved a promotion," she pings, actually mimicking a backhand this time.
"Fine, Ariel. I'm now First Engineer. And, last engineer."
"It's a deal," she calls back. "I'm the last space cadet. By the way, is Beta 2 behind all this...rock?"
"Yes. She took a bad hit before the chance to shine. I was stuck inside; everyone else had gone to lunch. That's where dieting gets you. Now, if you don't mind, I'll carry on, shifting this little lot!"
*
Thin shafts of artificial light begin to appear through cracks invisible to Ariel. Somewhere behind the rocks, newly self-promoted First Engineer Stevie Lo is huffing and puffing. It’s hard, physically demanding work. It’s not for him, but he carries on. At 18, his life was just beginning, a bright future mapped out by the stars.
Now he’s stuck the other side of a sarky girl.
His back to a star cruiser he doesn’t know will work.
His arms burn with the effort; so much work to show so little. A rock dislodges, smashing down on his left shoulder.
First Engineer Lo howls in pain.
The shafts of light are getting wider.
Ariel jumps back as rocks begin to fall. She shouts.
“Are you okay, Stevie?”
An animal roar, the sound of an injured beast, fills the wide corridor with a primal scream.
“What the...?!” she cries, falling over the bike as a brown wolf-like creature flies through the gap, runs a hundred yards, then stops, looking at her.
She freezes.
It runs back, feet pounding the concrete as it leaps through the hole. How did it get through that gap?
Her throat aches as she searches for the words.
“Stevie, look out! Are you okay? There was...a beast of sorts. Stevie?!!”