Earthlight Space Academy Boxset

by Heather Lee Dyer

  Kai steps away from me and paces the width of the corridor. He runs his hand through his hair as he walks. “If they didn’t have to go through that stress my dad wouldn’t have had a heart attack. It was just too much for him.”

  “He’s going to be fine, Kai. The general said they got him to a hospital as soon as they could.” I cringe inwardly, feeling as if I’m defending the general.

  “But if they had already been evacuated from the base, they would’ve been closer to a hospital,” Kai says darkly.

  I grab him and hug him tight. He reluctantly wraps his trembling arms around me. He buries his face into my neck and his body convulses with sobs.

  We hear footsteps behind us, and Kai lets go and dries his face. “I’ll see you at lunch.” His face contorts with grief and anger as he turns away from me.

  I stare at his back as he hurries down the corridor and disappears into one of the lifts.

  “What’s wrong? Was there damage to the academy?” Katrina stands next to me looking a bit shaken. She points to my tablet.

  I stare at the offending tech. “We heard from the general that the base was hit right before the explosions here. Kai’s father had a heart attack during the evacuation.” My voice sounds flat and bleak to my own ears.

  “Oh no! Is he all right?”

  I nod and lift my head. The others gather silently behind Katrina. “Yes, but Kai’s upset the general didn’t move them sooner. It took them longer to find a hospital that wasn’t already blown up.”

  Katrina wraps her arms around me and squeezes me tight. I numbly think to myself that she gives good hugs. When she lets go, she has tears in her eyes. “As if he hasn’t been through enough.”

  My mind races as goose bumps rise on my arms. Was I supportive enough? Did he leave because he didn’t think I cared? “Should I go find him? He left before we could really talk about it.”

  “I bet he just needs a few minutes alone. With all of us living together since we got here for Year One, there’s been no privacy. And this is a big shock.”

  “I’m sure you’re right.” I gaze over at Rand and Philip. “Can you keep an eye on him? I have to go up to the greenhouse this morning.”

  “Of course.” Rand steps around us. “Is Cam all right? He’s with Kai’s parents still, right?”

  I frown. “I’m assuming so. The general just told us he moved them, so I’m assuming them includes Cam.”

  “We’ll get to talk to them tonight,” Philip says. Even his encouragement can’t get me to smile.

  My tablet feels heavy in my hand. “But Cam was going to call me this morning. I haven’t heard from him yet.” I swipe through my recent messages to make sure I didn’t miss one from him.

  “Maybe he doesn’t have access right now to get a message to you. If he said he was going to vid you, then that would take a stable sat connection.”

  My pulse spikes. “If he doesn’t have a stable connection then he might not be at the hospital with Mr. Chao. Wouldn’t they have internet there?” I look at Philip, my heart feeling like it’s going to beat out of my chest. “I need to find out where he is.”

  Philip glances at Katrina before answering. “I tried tapping into their sat feed, but they beefed up security. Maybe Ms. Germain could help you vid Cam?”

  “Of course. I should’ve thought of that. Thanks, Philip!” I turn and jog to the nearest lift. I order the door closed before anyone else can get on. I head straight to the greenhouse, hope beating loudly in my chest.

  I find Ms. Germain by the pond in the middle of the drooping forest. Even with hot urgency running through me, I force myself to stand and watch as she lowers a square object into the pond. A tube protrudes from one end and the brackish water starts pumping out of it into the pond.

  She gives me a half smile. “Trying to clean the pond before more fish die. When one part of the ecosystem dies, everything else is affected.”

  “If the Purists know this, why are they destroying the one thing they want to protect?”

  She nods sadly. “I think they started something that got out of hand. Now they probably don’t know how to stop. If they back off now, they know they’ll lose everything they’ve worked toward.”

  “But our world is the real loser here,” I practically growl.

  “Yes.” She stands up and I follow her back to the classroom.

  I stand in front of the odd machine on the table, listening to her opening and closing cupboards behind me. “Ms. Germain?”

  “Yes?” Her voice sounds muffled, so I turn to find her leaning into one of the cupboards as she rummages.

  I step closer so she can hear me. “I know your machine uses a sat connection to work. Can I use it to contact my brother?”

  She pulls her head out and stares up at me.

  I continue before she can argue. “We heard from the general this morning and they had to evacuate the base. And in the process Kai’s father had a heart attack. My brother was supposed to message me this morning, and he hasn’t yet.” My cheeks burn as I realize too late that no one was supposed to know I could receive messages.

  She gets up and dusts off her work clothes. “I heard from the general too. I tried warning him earlier that the sat vids showed increased numbers of Purists on the other side of their barrier.” She shakes her head sadly. “He thought he could fight them off.”

  She hurries over to the table with the machine perched on top. She wakes the vid screen up and shows me a heat map. I recognize the shape and locations of the base buildings from our time there after Kai was injured. I shiver as I see a solid mass of vehicles and humans surrounding the base.

  “How did they even get out of there?” I whisper.

  “Air evac, mostly.”

  I watch as a replay shows the heat signatures of hundreds of planes rising ghostly on the screen. Ms. Germain switches the view so I can see a dozen huge planes take off on the runway, somehow getting airborne with all their weight.

  “They didn’t have any spaceships there?”

  She shakes her head. “They already used those to get the people in the migrant camps to safety.”

  “When did they move them?” My heart thuds in my chest as I picture my friends down in the camps and those living in the town nearby out there without protection.

  “This past week. They’re safe.” She grasps my shoulder and squeezes.

  “Thank you.” I watch the vid fascinated by the retreating planes.

  “Hand me your tablet, Anja.” Ms. Germain holds her hand out.

  I pull my tablet out of my pack and give it to her. She plugs it into the sat machine and hands it back.

  “Go ahead, call your brother.” She smiles and moves back to the cupboard she was working on.

  “Thank you.” I open a new vid window and call Cam. My body buzzes with nerves as I try several times before he picks up.

  His hair is a mess, and his eyes are puffy.

  “Hey, Cam.”

  He sits up, holding on to his tablet. I can see he’s rolled up on the floor with a hospital bed behind him.

  “I fell asleep. I wasn’t sure how to get sat access where we are now.” He wipes his eyes and yawns.

  “I was worried, so I found a way to call you.” I smile. Seeing him alive and his normal grouchy morning self warms the nerves right out of my body.

  He nods. “You heard about Dad?”

  “Yes. How’s he doing?”

  “They won’t tell me much because I’m a kid.” He frowns.

  “But he’s all right? Can he talk?”

  “Yes, he seems fine to me. But there’s something they’re not telling me.”

  “I’ll have Philip see if he can get information.” I glance behind me to see Ms. Germain still kneeling by the cupboard. If she heard me, she pretends that she didn’t.

  I bite my lip and turn back to Cam. “Do you know where you are? Are you guys safe now?”

  Cam pulls his face closer to his tablet and whispers, “I heard the nurse
s talking outside our room that we won’t be safe until we leave Earth. What does that mean, Anja?”

  I swallow. I assumed since Cam was on the base that he knew everything going on around the world.

  “You know about the Pure Earthers?”

  He nods. “They’re the reason our skies are cloudy.”

  “Yes, but you know how Mom taught us how our whole ecosystem works? How the air, water, and the plants work together?”

  “To create our atmosphere and weather and everything we need to live.”

  “Yes. The attacks on our land around the world have altered our world so much it’s going to take a long time to fix.”

  “And we can only fix it by leaving?” A wave of fear crosses his face. He plucks the sleeping kitten from beside him and hugs it close.

  “Yes. But this will be your opportunity to come up with me to live in space now. You’ll go to school up there.”

  Tears roll down his face as he stares back at me.

  “Cam?”

  He leans forward again. “Do you think Dad will be able to fly? They made us ride in an ambulance here.”

  “I’ll find out, Cam. Don’t worry, we won’t leave him behind.”

  He nods, accepting the situation for the moment. I know he’ll think about it later and have dozens of questions for me. I smile at him.

  “I love you, Cam.”

  “Love you, too.”

  “When Mr. Chao wakes up, let him know he can send messages to Kai through my tablet.”

  He nods, wiping the last of the tears off his cheeks. “When will I see you again?”

  “Soon. I’ll contact the general and find out what they’re going to do with you guys. All right?”

  He nods and disconnects. I stare at my tablet for a long moment.

  “You all right, Anja?”

  I turn to see Ms. Germain smiling sadly at me. “Maybe.” I shrug. “Thank you for letting me call him.”

  “I’ll make sure the general messages you when he can today. I think he’s still trying to figure out how get the people in this area off Earth. The launch center has been under attack too.”

  I pull my backpack on. “It’s funny, I’ve dreamed about working in space my whole life. But it seems so anti-climactic now that all this has happened.”

  She smiles sadly and hands me a small data cube. “I’m sure the reality of having to leave our planet will hit us hard sometime down the road. Right now we just need to keep pressing forward.”

  I turn the cube over in my hand.

  “That’s linked to this machine. It’ll sound an alarm when an explosion has been detonated nearby. You’ll have a few seconds to get to safety.”

  I study her face. “Do you think our military and security forces will be able to keep the Purists away?”

  She leans against the door to the panic room and sighs. “I was once part of the Purists group.”

  “Seriously?”

  Her gaze gets that faraway look and I shudder. “Years ago, we were just working to protect our environment. It was a peaceful group back then.” She blinks. “Until several radical leaders came to power within the group and turned it militant with missions that were both short sighted and violent.”

  “Was my father part of it then?”

  She turns toward me. “Yes. He was one of those leaders.”

  I study the dirty floor. “You must hate me.”

  “No, I don’t, Anja. What your father has done has nothing to do with who you are.” She pushes off the door frame and stands in front of me. “But maybe now you have a better idea of why your mom made him leave and never have contact with you.”

  I look up. The world tilts and for a moment I think we’re under attack again. But Ms. Germain just stands there looking at me with kindness and understanding in her expression.

  “My mom made him leave?” I finally croak out.

  She nods. “He’d become a very dangerous man, even in the beginning. She realized that only after he ascended into the ranks of the Purists. He changed. She feared for you and your brother’s safety.”

  “How do you know this?” I whisper as I sit down on one of the hard wooden chairs.

  “She was my best friend before you were even born.”

  16

  Secrets Revealed

  Ms. Germain wipes away tears from her cheeks.

  “Your mom and I both worked on the first space habitat together. We actually worked many different jobs together before she was pregnant with you.” I watch numbly as another tear escapes and falls to mix with the dirt on the floor.

  She takes a deep breath. “I tried to help her once we figured out how dangerous your father was. But she kept hoping he’d change. After Cameron was born, she realized he wasn’t going to change. We made plans to move you three to the coast where he wouldn’t be able to find you.”

  The cozy ocean view cottage I grew up in comes to mind. I can’t remember any other place before that.

  “I’m sorry you lost her so soon,” Ms. Germain whispers.

  I nod and give her a hug, not trusting my voice.

  I take the lift all the way to the underground classrooms in a daze. I shuffle into the first open classroom I come to and fall into a seat. Folding my arms on the cold table top I rest my chin on them.

  From far away I hear voices and the ping of tablets. I look up to see the concerned faces of my friends staring at me. I sit up straight and look around the room for Kai.

  “He’s still up on the zero-G track,” Rand says gently.

  I nod miserably. “How’d you find me?”

  Rand points to my tablet. “Philip,” he says simply.

  “Were you able to talk to your brother?” Philip sits down next to me.

  “Yes.” I turn toward him. “We’re still not sure what the general is going to do with them.” I reach into my pocket and pull out the black cube. “But Ms. Germain did give me this.”

  Philip takes it out of my hand and holds it up.

  “It’s linked to the machine that’s getting the real time sat data.”

  His eyes get large. “So we’ll know when one of those quakes happen?”

  I nod. “I think she suspects they’ll get worse soon and wants us to have more of a heads up.”

  “Does she know when they’ll move us?” Sean’s face pales.

  “No. She’s not getting answers from the general either.”

  “So, where does that leave us?” asks Rand.

  I take a deep breath and look around the room at old and new friends anxiously awaiting direction in the chaos we’ve found ourselves in. “We need to get everyone working on the academy project. Getting our classes and sims done are important, but that project is crucial for humanity’s future.”

  “I actually have an idea how to implement the specs they sent us,” offers Philip.

  “Those were just general ideas from our project last year. We’ll still need to make them scalable.”

  “Yes.” Philip puts his tablet on the table and activates the 3D vid. “But I created a program that’ll do that. I input the specs of the jump ships to be altered, as well as the specs from the Astoria.” We watch as two ships twist in the air.

  A lump forms in my throat. “How did you get those? We were told the work we did there was classified.”

  Philip looks at me in mock horror. “Really? You think I couldn’t get past their securities?”

  The others laugh around the table. Alex claps Philip on the back.

  I hold up my hands in surrender. “Fine, I’m sorry. Of course, you could. What’s next?” I grin at him.

  “I was able to write code to tell us what each type of ship needs for parts and how much labor it’ll take to retrofit in order to make them into recycle ships. I still have a few tweaks to figure out, but we should be able to test it in a 3D simulation by tomorrow.”

  “That’s amazing.” I stare at the 3D rendering as parts light up in red.

  “So, what do the rest of us need
to do?” Rand asks.

  Philip blinks. “This is going to take all my mental bandwidth. We’ll still need the other data collected and tested.” He looks at me.

  “Right.” I take my tablet out. “There’s still a lot of tasks the commander sent us. Let’s figure out how to divide them up while Philip works on the code.”

  All afternoon we work on creating project groups in both Year One and Year Two classes. Each one is responsible for a smaller part of the project. As we work, I keep glancing toward the door waiting for Kai to join us. By dinnertime I can’t sit still, and we quit work for the day.

  I stand up and gather my things.

  “He probably just needs time to process what happened.” Katrina wraps an arm around me.

  I lean into her. I’m not feeling especially stable on my legs. “But we usually deal with stuff like this together. He’s never gone off like this before,” I say quiet enough only she can hear me.

  “Almost losing a parent is a pretty big issue to face.”

  “He was there when my mom died. He should know I understand.”

  We walk to the lift, Katrina’s arm still tightly around me. The lift opens and she drags me into the far corner, keeping me close. “People react differently when faced with death. I was a total emotional wreck after my father died.”

  I turn my head so I can see her expression. “You’ve never talked about your father.”

  She nods. “It was only a few years ago. It’s still hard to talk about. Josh was the only one who didn’t treat me like a fragile flower.”

  I chuckle softly. “Right, because he was too busy emotionally abusing you.”

  She winces. “True. But in a strange way despite all he did, he was there any time I needed to vent.”

  We get off at the cafeteria level. My pulse quickens as the corridor fills with students. The aroma of food makes my stomach growl.

  Katrina squeezes my arm. “When has any of these guys missed dinner? He’ll be here.” She grins and we walk arm in arm down the corridor.

  My tablet pings, and I frown. Katrina steers us to the side of the corridor so the others can go around us. I take out my tablet and see a new message from the general. I open it so we can both read it.