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

I tapped on the divider that separates the driver and us. He turned around to give me his attention. “Why are you still in autopilot?”

He looked surprised. “The Cruiser XI can't be manually driven off-world, no cruiser can.”

“Well, that wasn't in the manual.” At least I didn't think it was. I'd been a little busy enjoying myself to worry about instructions. I smiled at the driver. “I made it past the weigh station under my own power, you know. I wouldn't trust everything the manual says.”

Igor coughed. “If you'll remember, Astra, you didn't actually clear the weigh station.”

I waved that comment away. “Semantics.” I tried to peer farther into space to see our destination, but saw only darkness broken up by the occasional star. “How long till we're there?”

“We'll reach the shuttle in just a few minutes, it's close to Earth this year.”

I smacked the holo out of his hand, monopolizing his full attention.“Shuttle to where?”

“The school.”

“Right. Which one would that be again?”

He picked the palm sized computer back up and continued reading whatever fascinating story was on the screen.

“If you won't tell me the name, I demand to know where it is.”

He kept reading, not even blinking at my haughty tone. He was more than used to after all these years. “It's in space.”

I rolled my eyes. “Obviously. But which planet?”

My parents were always looking for a new prison that could actually keep me in. Apparently, I'd used up all the ones on Earth. I wondered if I'd be going to Tundris. I'd heard they had great security measures; it'd prove to be a wonderful challenge if I didn't freeze to death. No, they were probably sending me to Parvu, a world with a bunch of geeky scientists and no possibility for fun. I didn't even want to consider that they might be sending me to Kalid. I wouldn't last one week on the backwaters world without my holo.  

Igor chuckled. “I didn't say planet.” He went back to being engrossed in his article.

I blinked, all the schools and scenarios pouring out of my head like sand in an hourglass. If it wasn't on a planet, then it must actually be in space. I leaned back in my seat in disbelief.

Well, that certainly narrowed down the possibilities.

“So, let me get this straight. I broke galactic law by stealing a cruiser and crashing it into a statue in space, so you've decided to punish me with more time in space-- the place I wanted to go in the first place?”

“Correct.”

I grinned. “I'll have to be naughty more often.”

He stretched out his legs in a way that was far too self satisfied for my taste. Only I was allowed to be that pleased with myself. “This is going to be just as hard as any camp you've been admitted to in the past—harder probably sense it's academic. Private tutoring has ruined you.”

“I love private tutoring. We learn at my say so.”

He pressed his lips together. “Exactly. Your teachers are so afraid you'll fire them that they don't push you, a fact you're well aware of and take advantage of.”

“Bad Astra, very bad Astra.”

He went back to his hollo. “I think you'll find this won't be anything like that. The security at this school is legendary, and you'll be floating in the middle of space, a combination that'll slow even you down.”

I had a smart retort on the tip of my tongue, but it was squelched by my short attention span. I gasped and got closer to the window, trying to get a better look, because my eyes had to be deceiving me.

In the middle of the inky abyss, was a school bus. A real, live, not in the movies from decades ago, school bus. It wasn't yellow like I'd seen, but a cosmic green that had to make it visible for lightyears. Other than that, it looked exactly like something that rolled out of a 2050 flick.

“Igor, do you see that?”

He made a noncommittal noise, and I went back to ogling it.

As we got closer, it got impossibly bigger. I'd had reservations about how a bunch of students were going to fit on a cruiser sized ship, but those were gone now. It had to be as large as long as a train and three times as tall and wide. It was clear now that it wasn't exactly like a bus, more like a bus shaped ship. You could see the multiple floors from the windows in the body. The nose was a little more oval shaped, because it housed the cockpit. It had drivers stationed upside down at the bottom of the bus and right side up—both relative terms in space.

It wasn't attached to any planet or station, meaning it had state of the art anchoring tech. On the side of the bus where the door would have been, there was a temporary docking station. A myriad of cruisers and larger ships—probably carrying a bunch of kids from one geographic location—were already parked.

Every few seconds a couple crafts would pull away and head back to wherever they came from, and new ones would take their spaces. There were more cruisers than spots or people leaving, so we were left waiting, a situation I was not used to. By the time we got a spot, I think Igor was just as relieved as I was, having told me to shut up and be patient at least ten times.

We pulled up to the docking station, and our cruiser locked on. A hole wide enough to cover the door opened, and I could hear the air lock whoosh as it closed the door, making sure we wouldn't drift off into space or suffocate.

Both Igor and I piled our. He got to go first this time, because I was a compromising kind of person. Or, it could have been, because he jumped out the door quicker than I could blink.

The dock was just a square, plain rectangle that led up to the green entrance. It was clearly made of degradable material that'd be left to burn up upon entry of some nearby planet, probably Earth. It wasn't noteworthy enough to hold my attention for more than a scant second.

I grabbed Igor's hand and dragged him towards the doors, looking around wildly for the name of the school or at least a hint. There were kids all around me of all different ages. It started at mine-- a new fifteen-- and went all the way up to adults and almost adults, the seventeen to eighteen range.

The most notable difference between them, however, wasn't the age. They were different species. I saw a cluster of Tundrians-- easily spotted by their wings-- on the way to the door. The Syreni from Kalid were just as easy to spot with their vibrant scales, webbed feet, and gills. They stood away from the crowd, looking at people's holos and lavish cruisers with wide eyes.

 Inside the green monstrosity, there were compartments with couches and beds. I passed one with a anti-grav Foosball table on the way to the check-in desk. A bunch of kids were crowded around a few harrowed looking AIs. They were checking identification with enrollment records.

I figured I'd done enough waiting-- how much can be expected of me in one day?-- and shoved my way to the front. A couple of Syreni gave me dirty looks, their gills raised on their neck like hair on the back of an angry dog, but they didn't say anything or make any moves to stop me. I smirked. That was the difference between beings from Earth and beings from Kalid.

I slapped down my Galactic Identification-- G.I. for short. The AI didn't pause, not programed with the higher function to differentiate situations and adjust (like someone cutting in line). Some were little more than robots, they're owners choosing to buy them that way or downgrade them for monetary savings.

When it was done with my G.I. The AI handed it back with a creaky smile and said, “Enjoy your time aboard the shuttle, Astra Alkaev of Earth.”

It hadn't said that to any of the other students, a flaw in it's programing. I shrugged it off as a probable glitch. If it'd been one of my personal Ais, it would've been it's way to the incinerated, but not everyone had the same dedication to quality that I did. It was sad.

In the excitement, I'd almost forgotten that I had no clue where I was. Then I looked up, and the school emblem was right there. A large eagle appeared to be flying right at me. It was a minimalist design, made completely from silver you could only make out the body of the great bird and a few feathers. It's wings rested on the school names translated into a myriad of different languages.

The Interstellar Academy.

I stormed over to Igor. He was standing with his arms crossed, watching me with heavy lidded eyes. “You're sending me to military school. Could you be anymore cliché?”

“It's not a military school, though it's curriculum will probably be just as challenging. The Academy is the opposite of a military school. It was created--”

“--by the UG after the Galactic war, I know.” I walked out of the corridor, towards where the map I'd been given said my quarters were. “Look, this has been fun, but I'm not staying.”

Igor didn't say anything.

“We'll grab my things and head back to the car.”

He stuck his hands in his pockets. “Afraid you won't be able to cut it?”

I squawked indignantly. “I'm an Alkaev. I can do anything the peasants can do, and I can do it ten times as well.”

“Except fly a cruiser.”

I opened the door to a small room with a few brightly colored couches and pinstriped wallpaper. “It was dysfunctional. And don't think I don't know what you're trying to do. I'm not falling for it, and I'm not staying.”

“Probably for the best. This school has one of the most prestigious flying programs in the galaxy. Most of the kids have been flying crafts since before they could walk. You'd be so far behind.”

I snorted, walking over to the paltry, single bag that was in the room. “What is this? Did you actually expect me to live out of this for a school year?”

“It would've been a challenge for you, that's for sure.”

We stared at eachother for a moment. I pursed my lips. “I want another bag, and I want to be able to come home whenever it pleases me.”

“I'll mail you the second bag. That's it.”

“Who works for who here?”

“Fire me later.” He smiled. “I'll see you in April.”

He shut the door behind him, leaving me alone in the pint sized room. I gave the space a disdainful once over and then sank into a plush, green couch. It wasn't the kind of thing I'd ever sat on before. For one, it didn't have a designer label or any worth as a conversation piece. It was probably even ordered in bulk.

I was sitting on it of my own free will, though. I had to hand it to Igor; he might have been a commoner, but he was clever on occasion. He'd given me a reason to stay, for a time anyway. I let my mind drift, thinking of flying a free space capable craft, soaring through the dark void with nothing but steel and my wits keeping me from disaster.

A slip of paper attached to the door caught my attention. Hardly anything was in physical form anymore, all of it electronic. I went over to it and scanned the contents. On it, there were four names written. The first, naturally, was mine.

Kavi of Tria

Maeve Spada

I had no idea what Tria was, only sure that it wasn't a planet or