Cluster of Stars Chapter Two

2*



The first day of school was like all first days of school; awkward, monotone and lonely. Morning showers were a glimpse of hell: one thousand girls, 3 hundred showers. Long lines in a hot humid bathroom squished between hundreds of other damp bodies in towels. Alectra began to wonder if a morning shower was even worth it. She’d rather smell like hot must all day than stand in a line any longer. Callista came out the shower she was waiting for; long caramel legs bending out as she grabbed her shower things, white hair like a wet blanket across her back. If only I looked like her, Alectra thought. She was pretty sure she’d have no trouble having Skyler look her way again.
After several agonizing more minutes of waiting, it was finally Alectra’s turn. Before she could even get in, a group of upperclassmen girls came into the bathroom. The plumbing on the west side of Venus was backed up, so the Venetian upperclassmen had to come into the public showers to wash. They had no intention of waiting in line. Asenath, the golden haired beauty queen walked into Alectra’s shower before she even got in.
“Sorry freshie. One day you’ll understand,” she said, shutting the curtain in front of her. Alectra was fizzed. But there was nothing she could do about it. Welcome to Ganymede, where every day was a fight to survive.
Zell took out her Tarot cards and told fortunes during breakfast. Callista didn’t eat; she slept beneath her arms, white hair piling over them like fallen snow. Breakfast of champions, Alectra thought. She didn’t feel much like eating either. Something about the first day at a prestigious academy that would make or break the rest of her life, kind of made her stomach unsettle. Her gek buzzed in her pocket, she pulled it out and saw that her schedule had been sent to her. A gek was a communication/organization device, to explain it shortly. To accurately describe, it was your hand held life. It had a holographic reader that allowed holographic conversations talk face to face, and a mini holographic or whole body visual of them would appear before your eyes. You could also send messages telepathically.
“I got my schedule,” Alectra announced. Excitedly, the others all pulled out their geks and read theirs. Callista didn’t, she looked up and then put her head back in her arms.
“Aren’t you going to look up your schedule, Callista?” Aurora asked, noticing also.
“No.”
“Then how are you going to know where your classes are?” Beau asked.
“I don’t know,” Callista replied. Nobody else got it but Alectra understood. Callista didn’t have a gek.
“Did you forget your gek back at the dorm? You can use mine,” Alectra said.
“Oh, why didn’t you say something?” Aurora said. Callista looked at Alectra with those dark rimmed burning eyes. Her eyes were questioning, as if to say, what’s your motive?
“Yeah. Thanks,” she said.


Alectra’s Schedule

0101 – Critical Thinking – Room J103 – Lieutenant Stride
0202 – Spaceography – Room V221 – Captain Spock
0303 – Weapons Defensive – Room M171 – Captain Gunner
0404 – Air Theory – Room B-1 – General Mann
0505 – History of the Galaxy – Room V404 – Captain Stryker
0606 – Combat Defensive – Mars-GYM – Captain Fisk
0707 – Personal Fitness – N- GYM – Captain Sham

The school was separated into 5 sections, the Administration hall, which was once the Mercury hall, Jupiter hall, Mars hall, Neptune hall, Venus hall, and Pluto hall. Then separated into 5 floors, the Main floor and 4 more floors up, and each hall had its own gym. It was easy to find the classes that way, for example, J 103 stood for Jupiter hall, floor one, three rooms down. On the way to Alectra’s first class, Callista followed though the other all had different schedules and had broken apart.
“How do you work it?” Alectra turned, seeing Callista behind her.
“What?”
“The gek. I’ve never used one before,” Callista said.
“Oh,” Alectra said, pulled it out again and stopped in the heart of the school. She looked up Callista’s name on the school website and found her schedule. It was entirely identical to Alectra’s.
Alectra and Callista sat in the back of the class, not saying much to each other. Callista slouched coolly in her chair, arm bent upwards towards her chin. Lieutenant Stride came in right at the bell, setting down his flat panel and sitting on top of his desk. Out of all the Star Force’s uniform’s, the Lieutenant’s were the best; black and silver short sleeved collar zip downs with bagged black pants. He also wore black and silver pilots gloves with the fingers cut out. A whole array of awards, medallions and badges were plastered over his chest. He was no simpleton. He was also pretty young compared to most teachers who were only captains. He looked to be about 25 but he could’ve been older. She could tell he was going to be one of those teachers that all the girls had crushes on. He was Jupitertonian, silver hair of course, but cold white eyes that seemed to look through you. He glanced through the class, looking at every student as if he were determining just by a glance who his students were as people, who would last, who would not, and who would become something great. His eyes rested on Callista for a brief moment, froze then moved on, abruptly.
“Welcome to Critical Thinking,” he said, loudly. “This is the most important class you will take in your life.” Someone snorted. No one could really tell who it was, but Stride, not even looking in the kid’s direction, pointed him out.
“Something funny, Spastik?” Stride asked. Whoa, he already knew all of our names. That was impressive, most teachers went through close to a thousand students a day.
“Um, nothing sir,” Chaz said, a little embarrassed. His hair was a little shocking, so red it looked to set fire to the top of his head.
“No, speak up. In my class, if you have something to say, you share it with the class,” Stride said. Chaz straightened up in his seat.
“It’s just that this is a Star Force Academy. Our main goal at this school is to learn how to accurately fly and fight in a ship. So don’t you think Flight combat would be the most important class we take at this school?” Chaz said. Several people laughed. Chaz grinned cockily, loving the attention. Stride nodded.
“Let me ask you something, you think learning how to shoot, fly, and fight is the most important thing to learn here, am I correct?” Stride asked.
“Yes sir. I mean this is a military school.”
“Well then, answer me this, Mr. Spastik. You ship is crashed in the middle of a full fledged alien battle. Your gun exploded with the ship, and you’re injured, lying across the cold, dusty ground. An overweight Mamrian finds you and jams a gun into the back of your neck asking you to reveal all the forces secrets or die. What do you do?” Stride asked.
“Will knowing how to fight save you then when you can barely move your arms? What about knowing how to fly? How to shoot?” He asked.
“In the end, the only constructable weapon you have is your mind,” he said, pointing at his head, “I’m going to teach you how to use it.”
“This school teaches you how to be a soldier. I’m going to teach you how to be a smart soldier. And just you wait, Mr. Spastik, one day, it’s going to save your life,” he said.
“There are 3 rules in my class. Come to class on time or don’t come at all. Turn in an assignment correct or don’t turn it in at all. If you have something to say, say it to the entire class or keep you mouth shut. In other words, no talking. I expect the best out of you. I can be your best friend or your worst enemy, you make the choice,” he said. And on cue, the bell rung, ending class.
Chaz Spastik was the younger brother of Caz Spastik, third in school, and the fastest flyer. Caz had already made a name for himself at the school, so Chaz’s only problem was to stand out and not as Caz’s younger brother. For him to do that he’d have to do something incredibly wonderful. It was a feat enough for Caz to be a junior and in the top ten of school; for him to be known to be the best at something, the fastest? Chaz would have to try real hard. Somehow, he wasn’t worried.


* * *

Not too many people liked Jesse Stratum based on first impression. He was quiet somewhat prideful, always walking with an air of dignity, head erect. And how good looking he was was disgustingly intimidating. The way his eyes curved inwardly like two perpetual puddles of darkness, black emeralds, piercing, silver speckles of hair like star dust trickling over his forehead. He was also putrid rich. His family practically owned Jupiter, his adoptive father, Deleter Stratum was nicknamed the heir of Jupiter when he inherited his father’s business, a metal alloy company that went into practically everything made. As if he didn’t already have enough, he was also really smart and incredibly skilled. There wasn’t one person in that school that didn’t know his name by the end of the week. There were too many reasons to hate him, so why like him? Nobody really took to being his friend or tried to be nice to him, he was isolated. And the worst thing about him was; he didn’t care.
Air Theory was the only class that Alectra had with Stratum. Located in the dock by the academy ships. For class, they all stood in a line opposite the teacher as he paced in front of them, lecturing. Alectra pulled out her flat panel, and put it in the auto notes application, watching the teacher boredly as she spoke. She stole glances at Stratum every chance she got without being too obvious. A Flat Panel was similar to a lap top except smaller, and it opened up sideways with two touch tone screens. It was how you read books, magazines, did assignments and wrote. Nothing was on paper these days. All information was loaded onto microchips nicknamed books, and to read them they were inserted into a slot on the side.
“Space Planes are converted from alien technology. Therefore, it doesn’t work like anything we’ve created ourselves. Everything we’ve made has a start and stop button, an off and on, but space planes are a different sort. The only way to get it going is to make it move, with your mind,” Captain Mann said.
Everything was telepathic nowadays anyway. It was easier not to do anything, just to think about it and have it done. Technology fed to the lethargy of man. Callista looked the most bored out of everyone, leaning on her side, hip out, gazing into space. Alectra stole another glance at Stratum, he was looking her way, she averted her eyes quickly but from the corner of her eye she could see Stratum was still looking. She looked over to see what he was looking at, but it wasn’t at her. He was looking past her, at Callista.
“Flying a space plane is sort of like learning how to swim. It looks easy when you see other people sailing through the water. But you can’t just jump into the water and automatically know how. It’s a process that you have to learn, right? Like Swimming, in flying the first thing you’ve got to learn is how to float,” General Mann said.
You had to respect him. He was one of the leading Generals in the Akonian war. He’d killed more people than he had students, and there was a silver wing pinned to his lapel. Silver Wing was the greatest award a Star Force cadet could get. It was the mammoth of all awards. Every cadet hoped to one day get one. But very few people did. Only 50 have been handed out in history. And that’s after 996 years of fighting. It was an award given to a captain for it’s excellence in time of war. Basically, the badge said, we won the war because of you. It was intense. The years had worn him down; he no longer looked as great as he once was. He was just an old man, teaching an Air Theory class.
“As easy as it may look, learning to float is the most difficult thing to learn. Humans aren’t used to being able to control an entire machine with just their minds so, as you can imagine, it’s a hard thing to get used to. When the space plane was first introduced to mankind, it took Ganymede, our wondrous hero, 3 months just to pick the plane of the ground. 3 months can you believe it? The savior of the world, right? So don’t expect to get it right away. In fact it took me a whole two weeks to get it and I was gifted. No one has ever nailed it and lifted a plane on the first try. I brought you out into the dock today because I wanted to show you how hard it is. So everyone get into a plane,” he said.
Lined in front of the students were the lowest level space plane a person could fly, G-Pissers, the rental academy ships for those who didn’t have one; slow, bulky and awkward. The ships all floated naturally off the ground, nothing was holding them up except air. The window slid back as Alectra approached it, she got in. it was a cramped one passenger, with the basic dials in front. A joystick called a sty stuck up next to her leg.
“Clear your mind, reach for the sty, and pull it back. If you were successful, the sty will glow and the plane will shoot up. If not, you won’t move an inch,” he said. It sounded easy, but it wasn’t. To control a ship, one had to be in control of their thoughts. That’s a hard thing to master. Alectra so wanted to shoot into the sky and dazzle them all, the first girl ever to lift a space plane on the first day. But when she reached for the sty and pulled it back, nothing happened. Nobody lifted up, everyone stayed down. Oh well, as long as no one else did.
Alectra climbed out and so did several others.
“Nice try kids. Like I said, no one has ever -” General Mann stopped mid sentence and looked up. A shocking silence echoed across the dock. A ship was up in the air.