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

robot’s face-- and smashed against a metal expanse of wall. The noise emitted should have been enough to wake the whole campus, but only the AI on guard sprung to alertness. He had an abnormality, a scar on his face.  

“Halt!” Its monotone rang out. “Students are not allowed out of bed after lights out.”

Kavi and I tensed, waiting for it to run over to us and drag us by our ears to the faculty building. The AI shot off towards the other end of the arena, however, where I’d thrown the rock.

I pressed my finger to my lips and nodded at Kavi to follow my lead. I didn’t know whether he’d understand the sign for silence. People said it was universal, but I wasn’t sure if that was an expression or not. When he fell into step right behind me without making a sound, I breathed an inaudible sigh of relief.

The urge to run to the hanger was strong, but the AI hadn’t gone very far away. It was still looking for the out of bed students a couple dozen yards away from where we tiptoed in the darkness. That was way too close to risk any sudden movements or sounds.

One of the camps I’d been sent to had had AIs as guards. They were a little trickier than fences--computerized or not, but as a machine goes up in sophistication, the closer it gets to “human” intelligence. And as anyone will tell you, humans make mistakes. I profit off those mistakes.

The door to the hangar was shut, and I took a nervous breath. There was no way to open it and keep complete silence. No matter what, we would alert the AI to our presence.  I grabbed onto Kavi with one hand and the handle with the other. In one smooth movement, I opened the door, pulled us inside, and slammed it shut behind us, initiating the locks that hadn’t been in place.

I could hear the pounding feet of the AI running towards the door. It shouted at us to stay where we were, that failure to comply would be met with immediate expulsion.

I firmed my grip on Kavi’s suit. “I don’t think so, you old scrap pile.”

We ran as fast as we could in unfamiliar territory, stretching out our legs to full capacity. I stopped at the first Cruiser I saw, practically throwing Kavi into the open cockpit. I hurled myself after him and slammed my fist down on the pressurization lock. The cockpit ceiling closed behind us with a wush.

I sped over to the controls, but hesitated upon reaching them. They were exactly like the ones in the simulation or on the training craft Professor Accia had taken us up in. That should have made it better, but I felt like I was seconds from hyperventilating. In my mind’s eye, I could see every mistake I’d made, everyone virtual ship I’d wrecked.

How could I fly this thing?

“Uh--Astra, not to rush you or anything, but I think if you’re going to do something, you better do it now,” Kavi said, peering out the side window.

I glanced over to see the AI periodically checking every craft in the hanger--and coming this way. I snapped my attention back to the controls, my hands hovering over them. I lunged at one and then pulled back at the last second, unsure if that way right or not. Why, oh why, hadn’t I taken my notes with me?

“Astra--”

I looked over, and the AI was getting closer, only two ships away. “I know, I know!”

Now or never. Now or expulsion.

I switched on the stabilizer and pushed down the power button. The ship purred to life, and the AIs head turned towards us so fast I was surprised it didn’t wrench a screw loose. Kavi leaped forward and pressed a control I’d never even noticed before. The window took on a shaded quality, though I could still see through it perfectly.

“Opaque windows,” he said breathlessly. “So people outside can’t see in. I heard a couple boys talking about it and looked it up in one of your manuals.”

I stared at him for a moment, and he shrugged. “Most people don’t really notice me. Say things in front of me they wouldn’t normally.”

“I could kiss you, Kavi of Tria.” I slapped him on the back.

He tilted his head, and his face scrunched up. “Isn’t that some kind of Earthling mating ritual?”

I wasn’t going to touch that one with a fifty foot pole.

The noise from the engine was still drawing the AI this way, even if it couldn’t see who was piloting. I pulled a lever upward, and the ship rose with the movement--which was a little too fast.

We approached the ceiling at frightening speeds, and I left my stomach behind. The white dome kept getting closer and closer, while the floor, the ships, and the AI got smaller and smaller.

“The dome’s not opening,” I said, looking frantically for a remote control for it or something. “The dome’s not opening! Don’t suppose you overheard anything about how to get out of here without getting flattened like a pancake?”

I was scrambling wildly at that point, pressing down things that didn’t look integral to the flying process. The ship shook a little at my meddling but continued on it’s path to destruction. I would’ve killed for that to happen in the simulation or on the practice flight, but it was going to get me killed here. Not a drop of that irony was wasted on me.

Kavi shook his head. “Is this a dream?”

“If it is,” I said, bracing myself. “I expect we’re about to wake up very soon.”

I waited for the crash with my eyes wide open. Dying painfully or no, I was still flying. I wasn’t going to miss a moment of that.

After a few too many moments of reveling in the flying sensation, I looked at the monitor to see why we hadn’t crashed yet. Above me was the vast expanse of space, and below I could see the dome doors sliding slowly closed again, taking my view of the ships and the AI.

“I think Professor Accia said something about them being automatic to ships with the school’s identification chip,” Kavi said, sitting comfortably in one of the co-captain’s chairs.

My lips thinned. “Did she, now?” I turned off the stabilizers and pushed forward the acceleration lever. “That,” I said. “Would’ve been helpful information two seconds ago.”

The ship soared over the campus at a low height, keeping it just high enough to not be seen in the dark. I was careful not to even breath on the controls, afraid I’d cause it to careen like the countless others before it.

“This is a very strange dream. I never dream about breaking the rules.” Kavi shifted in his seat. “Where are we going, exactly? This Cruiser can’t go off-world, though I guess that wouldn’t matter in a dream.”

I chose not to comment on the dream part. “The Academy is anchored up to a Fuel Colony--one of the few places with enough resources to do maintenance on this monster.” I motioned to the ship affectionately. “We can follow that tether to the colony--and back when the time comes. It shouldn’t be a difficult ride, and it gives me the opportunity to practice. No one will even know we’ve been gone.”

If Kavi thought there was something strange that it was supposedly his dream yet I was running the show, he didn’t let on. And if he wasn’t going to wise up, I wasn’t going to help him. His easy complacence up to this point had been a blessing. He was such a goody good I’d thought I’d have to hogtie him and drag him along. Turned out all I need to do was drug him up a little bit. I loved it when there was a simple answer.  

“It’s...an Earth Colony, right?” he asked. “I think I remember Professor Adal saying something about it in Life Studies.”

I nodded. “Earth Colony Delta. It’s an industrial colony--I think. They make most of their money from their factories. Pretty sure they do this ship maintenance thing for chump change.”

Keeping the handlebars in the same position was more stressful than I thought. Everytime I felt a sneeze coming on, cold sweat broke out all over my body.

Kavi half coughed, half laughed. “Chump change? What you think of as chump change probably feeds these people for months. It’d feed my entire order for years.”

“Well, sure, if you want to live off gruel and canned meat.” I shuddered.

The ship lurched as we moved out of the gravity field around the ship. I hung on tight to the handlebars, willing the craft to stay on its path. I wouldn’t give any of them the satisfaction of me crashing the ship and killing myself.

Though technically off-world--something the ship wasn’t equipped for, it wasn’t any harder leading it close to the invisible line of pull anchoring our ship to their harbor. It was like driving along a Galactic Interstate without the holo road to show you where you need to be. And I’d swerved off and hit a weigh station with that road to guild me. I knew about myself, but I wondered if Kavi was too young to die.

His response to that out loud wondering was, “Animarians live just a couple decades longer than humans, usually, and we age at the same pace.”

Too young, then.

The ship was listing slowly out of the line of pull, towards free space. The Cruiser I’d crashed before had at least been designed to go off-world and look what happened there. I had no idea what would befall us if we left the parameters of the tether.

“We’re so close,” Kavi said, pointing out at the a couple hundred yards away. “We must be within their gravitational pull by now.”

I grit my teeth, forcing the bars to stay straight when they would have moved, sending us spiraling out into free space--a death sentence. “Sure doesn’t feel like it.”

But we made it. Barely. The jaunt to the dock felt like it took an eternity, like we were moving through sand. But when I got within a hundred feet, I realized we were going way too fast. I switched off the engine and looked around madly for the brakes.

“How do you stop this thing?”

Kavi shook his head, his eyes wide. “I haven’t gotten that far in the simulation. I just go until I crash, or the time is up.”

The dock and the city just beyond it was getting closer and closer. I could almost make out people--who were no doubt point and shouting at the ship about to run them over. I took a step back from the controls, naming what everything did in my head. I didn’t know all of the switches, but one of them that I didn’t know had to be the brake.

There was a medium sized blue button that had caught my eye on the first scan. It could’ve been a brake. It also could’ve been anything from a self destruct button to a temperature adjuster. Hitting it could have serious repercussions.

I smacked my hand down on it, partly because I didn’t care about repercussions and part because the people I was about to plow down probably didn’t care either. The craft screeched to a halt mere inches in front of the metal edge of the parking station.

Since the dock was a couple hundred feet in the air, and I didn’t know how to keep the ship hovering and turn it off, I left it running. The hatch popped open, and I had to jump onto the hood of the Cruiser and