“I hope so. I’m not quite ready to hand Josh over to the commander.”
Josh glances up at the mention of his name. The dark circles under his eyes glaring in the bright lighting. “Was I safer in hiding?”
“Yes,” says Rand. He’s frowning at Josh from the corner of the lift.
The lift doors open, and everyone looks toward me. I push Josh out with Kai trailing behind. “We need to stash Josh somewhere safe. We’ll meet you up at the sims.” The doors close before anyone can argue.
The three of us start walking toward the common room.
“What are you thinking?” asks Kai.
“I think Josh needs to get some sleep. We all have an extra bunk in our rooms.”
“And you want me to stash him in my room?”
I shrug. “Unless you have a better idea?”
We stop in the main room and Josh slumps down on one of the couches.
“Actually, I think I do. There’s one room that’s not occupied. We could have him stay there for a bit. At least until we get extra students. We could log him into the student tablet in that room as an anonymous user.”
“With all these new students there’s an empty room?”
Kai grins. “The maintenance crew had to fix some sort of safety hazard.”
“Hazard?” Josh asks as he pulls himself to standing.
“I think it was just a busted overhead storage drawer. But with these so-called earthquakes I could see how it could become a hazard.”
Josh looks between me and Kai.
“At least this way we could sneak food to you if we can’t get you down to the cafeteria again. It’s only for a few days. We just need to figure out a few things. And we need to find out why our ship was sabotaged.” I frown as I remember seeing my father’s face on the vid.
“Thank you. After what I did to you guys and your class project, I never imagined you’d help me.”
“Katrina always believed there was more to you than you showed us,” I say.
He nods and lets Kai lead him into the dorms.
I slump into a chair and pull up the vid footage again. Why would my own father sabotage my ship?
10
Academy Hacked
I meet the others the next morning in the common room. When I walk out, I find Rand talking intently with Sean. Sean is leaning forward and is animated talking with his hands.
I grin and sit on the far side of the room, so I don’t interrupt their conversation. Katrina squeezes next to me and wraps me in a hug.
“I’m not sure I’ve seen Rand smile like that since I’ve been back,” she whispers in my ear.
I glance sideways at her. She’s smiling, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
“What happened?”
She sighs. “I thought I could handle his moodiness, but I couldn’t keep up with the roller coaster of emotions. I felt like I was walking on eggshells around him all the time. You know?”
I nod, turning my attention back to the two deep in conversation. I doubt Rand has noticed Katrina yet, otherwise I think he wouldn’t still be here talking to Sean. “I thought once he was away from the stress of the academy, he’d get better.”
“I thought so too. But he finds things to stress about wherever he goes.” She leans her head against mine.
“I’m sorry.” Sadness grips my heart. Rand’s always been a hot head as long as we’ve known him. But he’s a great guy.
Rand looks up just then, almost as if he knows we’re talking about him. His eyes harden when he notices Katrina.
“I’ll go,” Katrina whispers and starts to stand up.
I grab her arm. “You’re our friend, too. Stay, please?”
She sinks back down next to me. “Thanks, Anja. I missed you.”
Alex joins Rand and Sean, and Rand turns his attention away from us.
“I hate seeing both of you hurting.”
“I didn’t want it to turn out this way. I just hope we can eventually be friends again.”
Kai walks out and grins at me and waves at Katrina. She hugs me tight before standing up as he reaches us. “I’m surprised to find you both in the same room,” he nods toward Rand.
“He just noticed I was here. It won’t last long.” The lights dim. Other students stream out of the dorms and we head toward the lifts.
My tablet pings as I follow Kai through the crowd.
I stop abruptly in the middle of the corridor. The sudden movement forces the others to step quickly around me. I stare down at my tablet, the corridor suddenly seeming small and dark. My heart races and my hands tremble.
A warm hand on my arm forces me to look up. Kai’s standing in front of me. I take a deep breath and the world around me comes crashing back into focus. Students look at me curiously as they push past.
Kai pulls me over to the side and I lean my head against the cool wall.
“What’s wrong?” He cups my face in one hand and brings my gaze to his.
“My father.” I hold up my tablet.
He lets go of my face to take the tablet. His eyebrows pull together as he reads the short message.
“After all he’s done, he now wants to know how you’re doing at the academy?” Kai’s expression hardens.
I take back the tablet. “He’s unstable. And a fugitive. We need to make sure Cam hasn’t heard from him.”
“We don’t have net time until tonight.”
“I know,” I say miserably. “Maybe Philip can help? My tablet should be able to receive a call. We just need to get a message to Cam to call me.”
Kai wraps his arm around me and steers me back toward the lifts. “They’re meeting us at our table.”
Before I’m aware of it, we’re in the cafeteria and I have a tray of food in my hands. I glance down to see I’ve grabbed all fruit. I sigh and follow Kai to where our friends are already sitting.
I sit down next to Philip. He glances over at me as I sink down into the hard chair. “Distracted again?” He points to my pile of fruit.
I make a face at him. “At least it’s not all desserts again.”
He chuckles at the familiar joke and takes a bite of his cheeseburger. My stomach rumbles so I take the bunch of grapes off my tray and start popping them into my mouth one by one. I study my friends eating and talking around the table as I process the fact that my father was able to track down my new tablet.
Kai elbows me. I look over to see his dark eyes watching me.
“What?”
“I asked you if you were going to talk to Philip about contacting Cam?”
“Oh, yes.” But I don’t get a chance to say anything as a loud alarm goes off and the lights flash.
I look around in confusion as the others scramble underneath the table. I frown as I feel someone pulling on my arm. In a fog I look to see Kai trying to pull me down with him. I give in and let him pull me under the table. He wraps his arms around me and holds me tight. I scrunch my eyes closed as the loud rumbling brings me back to reality. Bombs, not an earthquake.
When the movement and noise stops, Kai helps me to my feet. Everyone has the same shocked expression on their faces. My group looks over at me as they dust themselves off.
I try to smile as I take out my tablet.
The noise of conversations starting back up surround me as I swipe away my father’s message away and open my new messages. I grit my teeth. “This was the second one this week,” I mumble to myself. I shoot off a message to the commander.
“What did you say?” Kai squeezes my arm.
I look up to see everyone still looking at me. I take a deep breath. “Sorry. I just thought since this was the second one, that the commander would send a message out to us.”
Rand lets out a small laugh. “Not likely. He seems like a completely different person this year.” He catches Katrina’s glance and blushes.
I bite the inside of my cheek. “You’re right. He does seem more distant.”
“Distant? How about downright secre
tive?” Alex drags a hand through his hair.
Another ping from my tablet has me groaning. But when I see the message is from the academy, I stop myself. “Looks like we need to report to the workshops downstairs.”
“Excellent,” says Philip beside me. He shoves the last of his third burger into his mouth and stands up. He seems unfazed by the attack.
“Project time,” says Alex grinning.
Sean glances around as everyone stands up. “Project time?”
“Every class is assigned a project to finish before graduation,” I say as I head over to the sani station. “Last year we built drone spaceships in groups.”
Sean’s eyes go wide as he joins us. “That sounds like a huge project. How in the world did you guys figure out how to do that?”
“We broke it down into different parts. Navigation, hull, propulsion. Then we figured out who among us had expertise in those areas.” I look around at the group of friends surrounding me and smile. “We had a few issues with the project, but we grew closer because of it. And we discovered surprising things about each other.”
“Like what?”
We stop at the lift. I nod at Philip, whose attention is glued to his tablet. “We found that Philip is a computer genius. Serious hacking skills. But he was so quiet up until we did our project, no one knew.”
“I wish I could redo last year,” Alex says. He frowns and leans against the wall.
“We eventually became friends.” I smile.
“Yes, but that wasn’t until almost graduation. I lost a lot of time with you all.”
The lift opens and we pile in. When we reach the bottom floor, we find ourselves unable to get off the lift. Students are packed wall to wall all the way to the auditorium entrance. We can’t even see the corridor that leads to the workshop classrooms.
“They didn’t plan this very well,” Rand grumbles.
“I thought the commander said we weren’t supposed to be in this large of a group.” Katrina pokes her head out of the lift.
“You’re right.”
I spot Ms. Germain through the crowd. She’s backed up against a wall, a look of discomfort on her face. A shiver goes up my spine. “You know, this doesn’t seem like something our newly over-cautious commander would do. Especially after what he’s told us.”
“Maybe they’re just waiting to get into the work rooms?” asks Philip from behind me.
I grab my tablet out of my backpack. I type a message and look through the crowd again. I watch as Ms. Germain lifts her tablet and reads it. Her face blanches, and she searches the crowd. I wave my hand so she sees me.
She leans over to the security guard next to her and whispers something to him. He shakes his head. She types again on her tablet.
Mine pings, and I read her message. I nod and step farther into the lift and hit the button to go down.
When the doors open again, I pull on Kai. “Everybody out.”
The others look confused, but they step out. I reach around and push the button again, sending the lift back up.
“What’s going on?” asks Rand.
I inhale deeply. Woodshop. A few dim lights turn on directly overhead, leaving the rest of the shop in shadows.
I quickly pull up a new message and type. After I hit send, I look at Rand. “There’s no way it was the commander who sent us to the auditorium after he told us he wouldn’t. Right?”
Rand narrows his eyes and flattens his lips as he stares at me.
“Are we in danger?” asks Sean.
“I’m not sure, yet. I sent a message to the other students to get into the lifts and spread out on the different levels. Just in case.”
“It’s not like the commander is really paying any attention to us anymore. Maybe he just wasn’t thinking when he sent us to those classrooms.” Rand faces me, his hands balled into fists.
“I messaged my biology professor, Ms. Germain. She was down there with the security guards. She knows the truth about the earthquakes. I asked her if the commander would really put us all in danger like that with everything going on. She said no. The security guard next to her was even surprised we were down there. No one told him we would be using those workrooms.”
“But do we know for sure they’re bombs?” asks Katrina from the far side of the group.
“No, we’re not absolutely sure yet.” I look at Philip for confirmation. He shrugs. “But we do know they aren’t earthquakes. We saw enough data when we were in the Kagawa to know that much at least.”
The lights flash red three times. I frown and look around at the others. Kai holds up his tablet. “The commander.” We turn to our tablets to see the commander streaming live. Behind him is a bay of vids, all blurred out.
My stomach lurches and I look at Kai and Rand. “That’s the command center at the base,” I say. Rand gives me a stiff nod.
I turn my attention back to the commander.
“Thanks to the quick thinking of your class leader, Anja Toland, a possibly dangerous situation was averted. The message you received to go to the workrooms for your projects was not from the academy. Someone hacked into our system. We’re trying to track down who that person is. But in the meantime, you will only get messages from me personally.”
My jaw drops open. Alex claps me on the back. “Way to go,” he says, his freckled face grinning at me in the bluish light made by our tablets.
“Now that I have your attention, we might as well discuss the project. This year’s project will be to design retrofit packages for our current jump ships. This project will be for all Year One and Year Two students.”
Murmurs sound from my group. I nod in agreement. Strange.
“Year Twos will be in charge of the actual designs for the retrofits. We’ve already started the project based out of Jupiter Station, but we need a template and organized procedures for the retrofits to get them done quicker. Year Ones will be in charge of researching and determining the logistics of parts and labor.” He looks off to the side.
“Kind of wish I was a Year One now,” says Sean, his shoulders slump.
Alex bumps shoulders with him. “You’ll be fine. You have skills this project needs.”
Sean looks doubtful as the commander starts talking again.
“We’ll send details for the project later tonight. Remember these messages will only come from me, and we’ll never meet as one class near or inside the auditorium. Be safe.” The commander cuts the feed and we’re left blinking at blank screens with a ton of questions weighing on our minds.
11
Dark Past
I clasp Kai’s hand as I think about what the commander said. The scent of fresh cut wood on this level takes me back to when Cam and I built our lean-to underneath the cliffs. Although the wood was scavenged from pallets used to load the produce we picked, it smelled fresh as I cut and hammered it together.
My tablet pings again, and I look down.
“Meet at the dock.”
I turn to Kai. “The commander wants to meet in an hour.”
“What do you think he wants?”
“Maybe more about my role as leader?” I make a face.
“Or maybe he’s going to give you more information about what’s going on?” Rand steps closer, his back to Katrina.
“I hope so. We should all go. We need to see if we can get a message to Cam anyway, right?” I glance over at Philip, who lowers his tablet long enough to give me a nod.
We pile back into the lift and head to the top of the building.
Once back on the Kagawa we find they’ve cleaned up the glass and wire mess, but the systems are still off and locked. Philip and I head to the main console, while the others make themselves comfortable in the passenger seats.
“Just think, this whole ship could’ve exploded with you in it.”
I look up sharply at Philip. “I’d rather not think about that.”
He looks up, his green eyes wide. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
I raise an
eyebrow. “Then what way did you mean it?”
“J-just that—” Philip stops himself then starts again. “Just that with only one engine damaged the situation wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been.”
I laugh. “That doesn’t sound much better.”
He rolls his eyes at me. “Look.” He taps a few images on the console and the vid above us springs to life. “This is a before and after model of the damaged engine.”
Two images rotate above us. The second one is definitely missing a few inside pieces and chunks of outer housing. The others crowd around to watch.
“All right, what exactly am I looking for?”
“There!” Alex points to the middle of the damaged engine.
I squint. “It looks like the main module is intact. Is that possible with that kind of explosion?”
Philip nods vigorously. “Yes, if it’s a directional explosion. Which this one was. It was made so that it only exploded outward in a cone shape. Limiting damage.”
I lean back to get a good view of the image. I study both models. “So, it wasn’t meant to take out the whole engine?”
“No, just to look like it.”
“Look like it?” asks Sean.
Philip zooms the image. “See the burn marks on the remaining hull pieces?”
We stare up at the striations that shoot outward from the hole.
My heart races as it hits me. “I see. If it were a regular bomb, it would’ve blown up the whole engine. Maybe even a whole section of the spaceship.” My hands grow clammy.
“Yes.” Philip beams at me as a mother would watching her baby’s first steps.
“But why?”
I turn to see Katrina standing beside Rand, who flinches at the sound of her voice.
“That’s what we don’t know yet. We need to find the motive for this,” answers Philip.
Kai lets out a small grunt. “So, we need to figure out why your fugitive father would do this, as well as why he would only want to destroy part of the engine. We were able to land safely because he targeted non-essential parts of the engine.”
Earthlight Space Academy Boxset Page 47