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

October 15th:

The month passed by at warp speed. One moment, the sign up for activities was posted and Kavi and I were signing up for Tak Raw, the next, our whole grade was buzzing with excitement over the upcoming field trip.

The transition hadn’t been fun most of the time. Despite my efforts, I was below average in almost all of my classes and failing in the others. It was like an anchor around my foot, dragging me down just when my mood was about to drift off into happier waters. All I had to do was remember that at any minute Earhart could call me into her office and, boot to the ass, kick me out. I had no idea why she hadn’t already, and when I thought about it, the only reason I could come up with was that she was amusing herself with my sinking.

But I was still there, for better or for worse. I still handed in all my assignments--most of them I’d score higher if I didn’t, the work was so bad. And a few few days previous, I’d finished reading and annotating the last flying book for freshman--which meant I had over a hundred books of knowledge in my head on the subject and still couldn’t keep my head above water in the class.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t improving. I was. Slowly. But the other students were miles ahead of me and didn’t do half of the extra work I did. I was begrudgingly proficient with the simulator now, but every other kid had mastered the game.

Today, we started some light practicing with a real craft. My fellow classmates were all excited about it. Me? I was dying to get behind the wheel, but not looking forward to showing everyone how pathetic I was. Especially Professor Accia and her golden nephew, Dru.

In the past month, I’d kept calling him Dru, and he’d kept kicking my ass in new and inventive ways on the sparring field. I think he was waiting for me to cry uncle. If that was the case, he’d grow old and die before an Alkaev would admit defeat to a dirty commoner.  

“Astra, flying class.” Kavi poked his head back in the door and patronized me.

As the weeks went on, he’d gotten more and more ballsy with me. I wasn’t sure yet if I was going to continue to allow it, but all I said was, “Kavi, piss up a rope.”

But I left with him and the others, if only to keep him guessing. The air had a little bite to it outside. I had been shocked when I’d gone out one morning and felt the chill. It was one thing to change the light settings; we need UV rays to stay healthy--well, most of us. A change in seasons seemed a bit over the top, but I guess they wanted an experience you could get on a planet based school.

We didn’t waste any time once we were in the arena, all of the students climbing right into the teaching craft Professor Accia had taken us up in the first day. Looking at the controls gave me a momentary bout of PTSD, my breathing quickening and my heart threatening to jump out of my throat. I shook off the feeling and focused on positive thoughts--like how much I’d learned since then on the theory of flying.

Professor Accia was last on board. She gave us one angry glance, then started up the ship and get it into the air--far away from buildings and people. She didn’t waste anytime, a commonality for her, I  was beginning to realize. She called us up one by one to fly the ship a little distance before the next kid would take over.

With each person that went up and flew the ship with competence--shaky and flawed but competent, my nails bit harder into the skin on my palm. By the time Accia called my name, I had half moons decorating my hand with little trails of blood to connect them. I focused on that design I’d made while walking up to the controls.

“Alright, Greenie,” she said. “Just try to keep her in the air.”

I grabbed the handle bars like they were the reins to a wild horse. The ship, already moving forward at that point, only gave a mild jolt and changed its course a couple of degrees to the left.

After a moment, Professor Accia said, “Take her higher.”

I pulled up on the handlebars like I’d done a hundred times, but the craft jerked and did a half somersault and then listed to the side. Before anything else could go wrong, she wrenched my hands off the bars and took over.

She cursed. “Greenie, those books won’t do you an ounce of good; you’ve got no talent, no air-wiseness. Until you get some experience under your belt, you’re not taking control again.”

I wanted to snap something back at her, but she talked over me. “All the theory in the world isn’t going to make you a pilot.”

Dru brushed past me to take his turn, and I slunk away to stand against the way with the other students. A few gave me contemptuous looks--something I was supposed to hand out, not receive. It made me a little hot under the collar, and I spent the rest of the class stewing in my frustrations.

Back at the apartment, I threw my holo and backpack onto my bed with as much force as I could manage. It probably wasn’t half of what Dru could do, and that just made me want to chuck something else. I took off my shoe and lobbed it at the wall behind my floating bed.

Kavi watched all this in silence, then said, “You just need a little in class practice.”

I snorted. “Like I’m ever going to get that. Accia thinks I’m worthless, and I can’t fly with her breathing down my neck.”

“Uh, Astra,” he said sadly. “You can’t really fly period.”

I collapsed onto the bed and chucked a pillow at him. I had the satisfaction of seeing his eyes widen with surprise and have him dive out of the way. They probably didn’t have pillow fights on Kalid.

He sat down on my bed, legs tucked under him like Professor Adal, the life studies teacher. I wondered if it was a Animarian thing. “She has to let you fly. You’re a student, and she’s your teacher.”

I shook my head. “She doesn’t, though. I’m on academic probation-- basically thin ice. She doesn’t have to anything for me, and she could have me out of here with a snap of her fingers.”

I took his silence for an agreement, though he may have just been trying to decipher all the figurative Earth language I’d used. I sank deeper into the bed, hiding my face in my pillow. It didn’t help me nearly as much as it seemed to the teenagers on TV.

My voice was muffled. “I’ve just gotta get some real practice. Or I’ll never be a pilot.”

He made a sympathetic noise.

I kicked the bed a couple times, still face down on it, and it was then that I had an idea. It was an awful, wonderful idea. Terrible in its brilliance and how fast it’d get me kicked out of the school I’d spent a month trying to cement myself to.

But I was going to do it.

October 15:

I wasn’t going to do it. I had promised myself that a month ago, and I had stuck to it. It didn’t matter that I’d only signed up for one extra activity: dueling. Loads of students did only one. None of the good ones, however....

  Still, I wasn’t planning in it. But, walking past the building and knowing what was inside proved too much. Like there was a Siren calling me, I careened my boat of course and towards the rocky coast line.

I’ll only pop inside for a moment, I told myself, just a tiny moment of weakness. Then, I would be strong, leaving before anyone saw me. And I would never go back.

As soon as I opened the door and the sugar sweet notes floated into my ears, I was lost, and I rode a wave of sound all the way through the lobby and to the double doors that went into an auditorium. There were thousands of purple colored seats that all lead up to the grand, wooden stage. I was surprised to find that it was all real wood, the material being scarce, regulated by the government, and exceedingly expensive.

There were a hundred of them, at least, on that stage. The rich curtains hid a few dozen of them, but I could estimated. Each of them wore the silver suit with the school’s crest on the chest, and each of them held in their hands something infinitely precious.

The small, elderly, Syreni woman turned around on her podium at the sound of the door closing. Though it had been a month since she’d seen me and ordered me into her band, she smiled like she was expecting me.

Professor Euterpe waved a hand at me. “Sit. We’re almost done with warm ups.”

I couldn’t stop my feet from rushing ahead of me, up the stairs and onto the stage. I didn’t see any other piccolos, but I saw its longer cousin, the flute, and sat in a vacant seat by them.

Mixed in with the flutes were a few instruments I’d never seen before. One consisted of a couple tubes tied together with buttons that contracted and dilated the tubes to change the pitch. The only two of that particular instrument I saw looked ancient and beaten, not unlike my piccolo.

An older, Parvulian girl even smaller than Professor Iqbal but with a longer snout, passed me a paper copy of the piccolo part. Most of the other student were reading off their holos, but I relished in the chance to have corporeal music I didn’t have to burn away, hiding the evidence. I took it without saying anything and placed it on the barebones stand in front of me.

Professor Euterpe didn’t say anything further to any of us. She raised her baton, brought it down to signal each beat of a measure, and, after four beats, we were off. The music was different than what I’d walked in on, fast and accented. It was exciting and involved lots of lightning finger runs and challenging note changes. I grinned while I blew along with my fellow orchestra members.

And I was one of them for that moment in time. I didn’t feel like an outsider. Certainly, I felt like I shouldn’t be there, but at the same time it was the only place in the galaxy that I could be.