Interstellar Academy by Kennedy Harkins (read books for money .TXT) 📕

more than anything. The partners I’ve just paired you with will be your sparing opponents for the next couple of weeks.

We’ll get into some technique later in the period. For now, let’s just see what you’ve got.” She waved her hand, and partners started approaching each other, throwing blows and trading blocks.

I turned back to my partner, expecting him to be already on me or to find a fist in my throat. He was still standing a few feet away, where I’d left him, staring down his nose at me. His mouth was pressed down into a hard line, but I’d bet he was just prolonging the moment--one he’d probably been dreaming of since he first laid eyes on me.

“Ever been in a fight?” he asked.

“I prefer to use my words or Daddy’s money.”

“That’s what I thought.”

He still didn’t come at me, and I was starting to get paranoid. The waiting had to be the worst part. I put my fists up like I’d seen one of my friends do in wrestling. I bounced around a little too for effect.

When he just shook his head, I said, “What’s the matter? Scared I’m gonna knock your teeth out?”

“If you’re attempting to shield yourself, you should probably put your hands in front of your face, not your chest.”

I raised my hands. “Obviously, I was testing you.... And you passed. Your parents must be very proud.”

“Your parents must be very stupid, to send you out into the world without any way to defend yourself.” He looked pretty pissed off. Like he wanted to punch me--which was the whole point of this exercise. He cleared up his hesitation in his next few words. “There is no honor in beating an unmatched opponent.”

And who said chivalry was dead? Still, I didn’t want to put myself even farther into the void with Professor Accia by not fighting. Enemies were easy enough for me to make; I didn’t need to go out of my way.

“Oh, just punch me already,” I said, gritting my teeth. “You know you want to.”

He came forward, and I didn’t flinch. I told myself I wouldn’t flinch-- no matter what. He brought up his huge fists, and I didn’t flinch. There was also no flinching as he started to circle me like all the other pairs were doing. I even joined him in the movement.

He next move was lightning quick, putting him right in front of me. But the blow was slow--comparatively, and I easily dived out of the way.

“Hit me.”

And he did. It was just as fast as his approach and felt like getting hit by a sonic train going full speed. I collapsed onto the ground, clutching my bruise of a stomach and whacking the back of my head as I rolled back with the force. I gasped, which was a mistake, because I felt it like a second blow.

I stared up at him---all four of him. “Enjoy that?”

“Yes.” The room was still spinning. “Get up.”

I lurched to my feet, swaying slightly. “You know, let’s go back to that whole honor thing, Dru. I liked that. It was endearing.”

“Don’t call me Dru,” he said. “Hands up.”

“Now, Dru--” He swung at me, but I was expecting it--it was a common reaction to most of my jokes. I dove to the ground, avoiding a fist to the eye by narrow margins. I tried crawling away through the chaos of everyone pushing and shoving, but Dru grabbed my ankle and dragged me back through the dirt on the colosseum floor.

He crouched down next to me. “Is this the best the Earth has to offer?”

Back on my feet somehow, I said, “Actually, I’m the best galactically, not just planet wide. Dru.”

I punched him in the arm with all my might. He didn’t even blink, and Professor Accia, who was suddenly right there, laughed. “Come on, Greenie, a real hit. I’ll even have Drusus stand still for you.”

I hit him again. And again. He just stood there, tensing right before each hit. I could tell it pained him a lot more to just stand still while being attacked--even poorly--than any blow I could hope to land.

By the time Professor Accia called everyone to a halt, I was panting and she was shaking her head. “Pathetic, Greenie. You’re cannon fodder at best.” She patted Dru on the back, and they shared a moment of mutual, helpless disgust.

I glared at him. My blood ran hot, and I wanted to throttle him. It surprised me, that feeling. I never got violent. There was no need. I got what I wanted, and people got out of the way. If they were slow doing it, I didn’t need fists to get them to move. My tongue could do the job just fine.

He turned back to me. “I won’t hold back next time.”

“Sounds like fun,” I said through me teeth.

I left without waiting for him, Mae, or Kavi--who was limping. Damn the rules. What I wanted was a hot bath and a long sulk. I didn’t need company for either of those things, so I walked back to the apartment alone.

Drusus

 

September 4:

I walked back to my rooms alone after washing up in the arena’s showers. Everyone else had gone ahead, most, like me, having hours before their next class. That meant I had the room to myself, a rare blessing I intended to appreciate.

The water felt wonderful running over my dirty skin. Almost as good as hitting the girl. But that in itself made me frown. I took satisfaction from hard won battles, but that was not what the sparring match had been. Like I had told the human, there was no honor from beating up a puny girl who hadn’t even known how to block her face.

But I’d enjoyed it, none-the-less.

I dried off, still unhappy with myself.  I wasn’t here to make enemies or hate anyone. I couldn’t allow myself to be distracted like that. Especially by a human. It could put my mission from the Commander in jeopardy, as well as my performance at the Academy. Both outcomes would unacceptable. A failure.

My mother didn’t raise a failure.

I took my holo out of my pack, scrolling through it to find a mapping application. I double checked I wasn’t using the school’s before starting a new map. I couldn’t be sure they weren’t being monitored. I didn’t want to get caught a map of the “blind spot” of the galaxy, that was for sure.

I walked casually around a few buildings on campus, noting the size and dimensions carefully into my data. It was mind blowingly slow work as I had to close out of the application and open up a text book every time someone turned the corner. By the time my third class was about to start, I had only mapped one building: the painfully small holo lab where I had Tech Studies.

I ended up running to Chemistry, my feet pounding out my frustration against the uneven cobblestones on the West side of campus. Seeing Mae, I doubled my speed to catch up to her, feeling my heart in my chest. There could be teachers anywhere, and I wasn’t with my bunkmates.

The science building was shaped like a strand of DNA, making finding any room inside of it as complicated as cloning said DNA. The four of us wandered around with the rest of the class for a good fifteen minutes before coming upon a room that smelled like burnt hair.

My first thought when I walked in it was: this is a tiny room.

It wasn’t, in fact, small in anyway, but had had so many objects shoved into it that the room looked like it was defying a couple of the laws of physics. Each lab table was covered with test tubes, stray bottles of bubbling liquids, and strange smoking rocks emitting a faint glow. There were mass spectrometers, centrifuges, scales capable of weighing anything from an atom to a dwarf planet. It was like some had barfed science all over the place.

The second thing I noticed was a large, hand made poster on the wall. The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination. I shifted uncomfortably.

I sat at a lab table next to Mae and across from the bruised human and her Animarian pet. She didn’t look at me, too busy eying all the machinery in the room. Probably comparing to the state of the art equipment her Daddy bought her back on Earth.

I redirected my focus to something else, almost coming up empty until I noticed to miniature desk up front. It looked like it was built for a dwarf, having all the same features as any other Professor’s desk, just a little more than half the size.

I leaned towards Mae. “Who teaches this class?”

She didn’t answer, instead nodding towards the door where a small alien had just walked in. He was about three feet high with pale, almost see through, white skin. His body was cover in a downy sort of peach fuzz. His nose and mouth were slightly raised, almost like he had a snout. He didn’t have a shirt and wore only a pair of loose fitting, light pants made of a sheet like material and school issued boots.

“I am Professor Iqbal,” he said, sitting behind his tiny desk. “And I will be your instructor in all things science and math related.”

He grabbed a bowl from his desk and tipped it partially, so we could all see the slips of paper inside. “This contains numbers, two of each. Everyone will draw one to find out who their lab partner is.”

A series of groans echoed through the classroom from the kids who had already been bruised once today at the hand of a partner they hadn’t picked.

Professor Iqbal continued, “As most of you have probably guessed, I am Parvulian. This means that I will expect just as much from all of you as I would a Parvulian student attending a rigorous--as they all are--school on my planet. Unlike most of your science teachers up to this point, I don’t care if you can recite the periodic table, though we will test on that. Regurgitation shows me nothing, means you’ve learned nothing.

My planet has a reputation of great intelligence and intervention, making most of the technological and scientific advancements of our age. Do you think we got there by cramming information into our skulls and forgetting it the next day? No. And neither will you. Information is useless without context, without knowledge.

In this class, you will learn by doing. And what you will learn will be entirely up to you.”

He motioned us all up to his desk. “Come on everyone, grab a slip--no trading!” He placed the bowl on it instead of any of the regular sized furniture, so we had to bend for it.

Students discreetly switched slips