Rand’s shoulders tense as he walks. “Me, too,” he mutters.
He cycles open the door and waits for us in the corridor. We make sure the greenhouse is sealed before we hurry down one level and then to the main bay of lifts. Once on a lift, Rand picks a level.
“D level?”
“Fourth level underground,” Rand answers grinning.
I look at Kai. “I didn’t know we had levels below ground. At least not ones we were allowed in.”
Rand taps his tablet. “You might want to study the academy’s floor plan a bit closer.”
“What’s on A through C?” I don’t make a move to get my tablet back out. Ever since I’ve been getting messages from Anonymous, I’ve been avoiding my tablet.
Rand leans back against the wall. “Different types of shops. Wood working, metal working, and one whole level for making different types of plastics.”
“And the one we’re going to?”
“On the map it looks like a large room surrounded by classrooms.”
I don’t answer as we start picking up students on the lift at each level. I step next to Kai as the lift fills. He wraps his arms around me, and I lean back into his chest. I could stay like this forever.
Too soon we get to the mysterious D level and we all pile off.
10
The Project
We follow the throng of bodies down the short corridor from the lifts. It leads to an auditorium, just as Rand said. It’s not as big as the main one. We find seats in the front and sit down. I gaze around.
“I don’t think all four hundred of us can fit in this classroom.”
Rand shakes his head. “The message says they’ve sectioned us into groups of one hundred, and then tonight they’ll create project groups of students.”
Before the students have all filed in, Commander Svell comes out onto the small platform up front. His fingers fly over the computer imbedded into the podium up front. 3D images of strangely shaped spaceships fill the air around us. I squint, trying to identify them.
Kai leans over. “I think these are examples of past student projects.” He points to one. “They all seem to have the same basic components. Body, propulsion, navigation systems.”
I look back up and note that he’s right. They’re all different but have the same basic parts, just different shapes and materials.
Adrenaline pumps through me as I remember the spaceship we flew on from Gowen base to the Dragon Wall. Commander Svell said it was designed by academy students. These must be our first crack at a smaller version.
“Attention students,” says the commander. He doesn’t raise his voice, but it’s still projected all over the auditorium. The lights dim twice at his touch, and everyone quietly finds their seats.
“We’re here to start your Year One project. This project will count as fifty percent of your grade.”
Exclamations and hushed voices echo across the large space.
The commander smiles. “Yes, it’s a very important part of your time here. This project,” he waves his arms at the projections all around him, “encompasses everything you’re learning in each of your classes. Leadership, engineering, sims, science, math, writing, and even space law classes will come in handy.”
He pauses to let that sink in. “As you can see from some of these examples, your project might not necessarily be successful. Some of these projects never got off the ground. Some got into the atmosphere but failed to respond to guidance. Your grade will be on how you work as a team, the thought put into the project, and to a lesser extent how your project performs. Of course, we want all of your projects to be successful miniature spaceships, but collaboration is key for this first one.” He narrows his eyes and looks around the room.
I swallow. I’m now very nervous I’ll end up with Josh. If collaboration is the key to succeed in this project, being tied to Josh will be certain failure.
“I’ll read out the names in each group, and you’ll adjourn to the side rooms to assign responsibilities according to the project document I just sent to your tablets.” Across the room faint pings can be heard.
“You’ll have until Family Day to get them done. You’ll also be assigned one of the professors as an advisor for each group.”
I look at Kai and mouth “family day?” He frowns and shrugs. With Cam and his parents in hiding I doubt they’d be able to visit us, anyway.
My stomach continues to tighten as the commander gives us more details for the project. I’m glad he sent us detailed instructions, because I’m so nervous about Josh that I’m not quite listening.
Finally, the commander starts grouping us. As each group leaves to the side rooms to confer, my pulse rises as Josh remains sitting a few rows behind us. He scowls as Alex gets up to join a group without him.
Kai grabs my hand and squeezes. I give him a small smile as we listen to the commander rattle off names. There’s a ringing in my ears and when he finally calls my name, I realize I have no idea who the other students are in my group.
I stand up. Kai does too but lets go of my hand. “At least you’re not with Josh,” he whispers. He’s wearing a smile, but I can tell that he’s still nervous.
The others in my group stand and walk toward the back of the room. I spot Katrina walking away from Josh. My stomach churns. I’m still not sure about her. She seems loyal to Josh although she knows he’s a creep. At least I’m not in his group.
I hesitate outside the classroom door where my group’s been assigned. Kai’s name is called along with a quick succession of names I’m not familiar with. He makes eye contact with me from across the room and smiles as he joins his group.
My smile fades as I realize there’s not many students left. Rand still sits stiffly. The commander calls his name and then Josh’s, and all the breath in my body leaves me. The thrumming in my ears increases as Rand walks after his group, which includes a sneering Josh. This is not good.
A hand on my arm brings me back to reality, and I start breathing again. It’s Katrina. Her blue eyes burrow into me. “You all right?”
I shake my head. “Rand and Josh just got put in a group together.”
She nods, frowning in acknowledgement of the situation.
We turn and join our group at a large round table in the room. The walls are lined with metal shelves where parts of past projects and materials lay haphazardly. One wall has drawers labeled with the names of the tools that must be kept inside each one. Other than the round table there are several other well-worn metal working benches.
I take in a deep breath and inhale the tangy smell of the fresh-cut metal, dust, and dry erase marker. I turn and find the wall by the door covered with a large white board. I grin at the old tech. I always wrote better when I was scribbling in notebooks by hand, rather than in my tablet. It felt more tactile, more creative.
Katrina and I sit down at the table. We’re the only girls. I glance quickly at the door and then force myself to relax back into the hard, plastic chair.
“I’m Anja,” I say when no one speaks up.
“Katrina.” Her blond hair bobs as she smiles at the boy beside her. He’s skinny with large glasses, and he turns pink when she gazes at him.
“Philip,” he squeaks out. He looks back down at the table.
“Carstair,” says the student next to him. He’s got the air of someone from up north. Rich, healthy, expecting to be waited on. I think his name perfectly fits his looks.
“Tod,” says the last student. His hair is long, his body draped loosely in the chair rather than just sitting. He reminds me a lot of our former teacher Mr. Joe.
I smile at them. “Maybe we can start by saying what our specialties are and what part of this project we’d like to work on.” I hold up my tablet with the outline of the project on it.
They all just stare down at their tablets in silence.
A few heartbeats later, I sit up straight. “All right, I’ll go first then. I specialized in bioengineering and piloting in
prep school. However, I know the specs of every spaceship made.” I grin. “Except for the one the Year Twos designed and built. That one is very different than the production line spaceships we’re used to flying.”
I look up to blank stares. Katrina is looking at me sideways like I’ve grown a second head. “I saw it when we helped the general last month. You know, the mission the commander told everyone about.” I’m still met with silence. “Why is it no one will talk to me or my friends? It’s not like we’ve been bragging about it, or that we chose to be attacked.” My tone comes out way angrier than I intended, so I add, “Sorry.” I shake my head and trace designs on the table with my finger.
“People are just jealous,” comes the barely audible voice of Philip.
I peek past Katrina to see Philip reddening again.
“Jealous? Why? We nearly died.”
Philip looks miserable. His dark eyes dart from the table to me.
I soften my tone. “Please tell me. I’m not mad at you.”
He glances at the others before looking in my general direction. “Because you got to work on a real mission. All we’ve done is sim stuff.”
I sigh. If I want my team to trust me, I can’t have them hating me. “The commander obviously didn’t tell the whole story. He only told you the parts that pertained to our classes here. Spaceflight, working with the military, and planning and executing a mission.” My tone is bitter as I recall that night.
I stand up and close the door to the classroom. I need to get this out before our mentor arrives. “But what he didn’t tell you was the cost of what we went through. My mother died that night, and many others that I lived with in the camps were seriously injured by the Unit that came after us. My friend Kai and I were singled out by the Unit because of the work his father does. Kai himself was tortured. Which is why he was late joining us here at the academy.”
I look around the room and note shock, pity, and sadness on the faces of my teammates. I glance at Katrina and frown. “I’m not telling you all this to make you feel sorry for us. We don’t need your pity. I just want you to know that if I had a choice, I wouldn’t have gone through it at all. It wasn’t some glorified sim mission.” I sigh. “It was our lives being torn apart.”
Katrina stands and surprises me by wrapping me in a hug. After a few seconds of stiffly standing there, I hug her back.
When she lets go, her eyes are slightly red. “I’m sorry you went through all that, and I’m sorry all of us have judged you for what we thought was special treatment.”
I bark out a small laugh. “Special treatment?”
Her pixie-like face lights up in a smile. “Collectively, we only heard what we wanted to hear. That you were the darling of the military and our commander.” Her expression turns serious. “But I bet you did learn a lot from your experience, even though it was horrible to go through.”
I think about that. The general did give Rand, Kai, Cam, and me the opportunity and the permissions to plan the rescue mission of the Tangs. He allowed me, a teen space prep student, to lead his spec ops team under the Dragon Wall in order to engage the treacherous Unit 29824.
My eyes focus back on Katrina. “Yes, we did learn a lot. More than I realized. Thank you.” I smile at her, genuinely this time.
She plops back into her chair and looks around at the others watching us. “I vote that we make Anja our project lead.” She raises her hand.
One by one, the others raise their hands as well. My face burns and I’m sure it’s as red as my hair.
“Thank you,” I say and sit down.
She beams at me. “What’s next?”
I grin and turn toward the others. “Let’s finish finding out what everyone’s specialties are so we can be organized before our mentor gets here.”
For the next half hour, we discuss what studies everyone specialized in, what they would like to do for careers up in space, and what part of our miniature spaceship project they would like to work on. It turns out we’re a very diverse group, which will be helpful for our project.
We find out that shy Philip is a genius with navigation and computer systems. It took a while to drag it out of him, but Katrina made short work of that with her friendly, open, and warm personality. He soon came out of his shell and we all had a good laugh.
I was wrong about Carstair. He actually came from a farming family and worked as hard as I did in the fields. That in itself boosted my opinion of him, despite the cocky way he held himself. He specialized in mechanical engineering, so we decided he would be perfect to help work on the hull of the craft. As I listened to him talk about materials and design shapes for the spaceship, I realized his cockiness was an act. Yes, he was confident in himself, but when he let his guard down, he was quite pleasant to have a conversation with.
Tod, we decided was our ace in the hole. He’s been working for years to become an astrophysicist. Katrina’s face lit up as Tod talked about flight dynamics, fuel to mass ratios, and different shapes we could build our spaceship to make it unique. As I look between the two of them, I feel like something more than admiration is growing there. Good, maybe it will get her away from Josh’s group.
Lastly, Katrina herself surprises us by telling about her focus on designing drones and robotics. My mouth gapes as she tells about some of the projects she designed at prep school. One of them, a weather drone, I’m sure I’d spotted above our fields as I worked. Her parents patented it when she was fourteen.
“This is amazing. I think we’re going to win this one easily with all your talents,” I say as I sit back down.
The door opens and our biology teacher strides in. “How’s it going so far? Have you gotten to know each other and had a chance to look at the challenge?” He walks quickly over to one of the worktables and pulls out a stool to sit on.
I look over at the others, who are silently looking at me. I sigh. “Yes, we’ve had quite a good discussion so far, Professor Abidi.”
“We’ve elected Anja as project lead,” Katrina adds. She continues, hardly taking a breath, “Although we’ll all work on the project together, Philip is going to concentrate on the navigation and computer systems. I’ll help with that too.” She grins. “Carstair and Tod will work on the hull. They have mechanical engineering experience,” she says, pointing at Carstair, “and aerospace engineering expertise.” She finishes with a flourish by pointing at Tod with a well-manicured finger.
Professor Abidi’s eyebrows raise. “Your team has organized itself well. And very thoroughly in such a short time.” He gets up and stands next to the white board. “This will be your room to do both the design work and the actual building of your project. When you need to use the other tools and design machines, your tablets will allow you access to the other floors.” He studies his own tablet. “Looks like they’ve scheduled project work time every Saturday. But if you need more time you can work down here after your regular classes.” He looks at each of us in turn. “I want to see a project proposal by the end of the weekend. Once I’ve accepted your proposal you’ll have until the week before finals to finish your prototype.”
I look at the others. Philip is fairly pale, but I think that might be his normal complexion. Everyone else is grinning in anticipation. I turn back to our professor. “Any advice on standing out from the others? They’re basically all the same project specs.” I look down at my tablet. “A small spaceship that has to make it to the upper atmosphere and back down. I see different shapes and materials,” I point to some of the former projects lining the top shelves across from us, “but what makes a winner from these collecting dust?”
Professor Abidi walks over to our table. “I can only give you guidance. You all have to decide what a successful project will look like. But I can tell you to think about the purpose of the spaceship. Can it fulfill multiple roles? Just think about the spaceships you’ve learned about during your time in prep school. What makes each one different, similar, or unique from one another?” He smiles and spre
ads out his hands. “And that’s all the time we have.” The lights flash red just then punctuating his timely comment.
11
Friendship
I picture all the spaceships I’ve studied. I know them all inside and out. How will we make ours unique? A tap on my shoulder rouses me from my thoughts and I raise my eyes to see Kai grinning down on me.
“I know that look.” He grins as I stand up.
Upon glancing around the room, the only other person still here is Katrina.
“Where on Saturn’s rings did you go just now?” She grins and winks at me.
My face warms, and Kai laughs. “She does that when she’s deep in thought. You should’ve seen her when we first got our sims at prep school. An earthquake could’ve taken down our building and she wouldn’t have noticed.”
Katrina laughs and smiles at Kai. A strange tightness in my stomach brings me fully back to the present. I look between the two and frown inwardly.
“Did you two go to prep school together the whole four years?” she asks. She’s studying Kai even though the question is for both of us.
Kai looks at me. There’s a hesitation in his gaze, so I answer for him.
“No, Kai and his family moved to New China two years ago. His father helped integrate the New Chinese students into our prep school.”
“You guys were at one of the border schools?” Katrina’s tone is incredulous.
I nod. “Yes. The first border school by the Wall.”
Her eyes flick back to Kai. She touches his arm lightly, and he stiffens. “That must’ve been quite a culture shock for you.”
Kai slowly pulls his arm away and steps closer to me. It’s so subtle I doubt Katrina notices, since she’s staring at his eyes.
“Not really. I lived in Beijing and it’s quite a diverse and educated city. The only problem I had at the prep school was all the sagebrush.” He gives me a lopsided grin.
I smile, remembering him cleaning snot out of his space helmet on more than one occasion.
Earthlight Space Academy Boxset Page 27