“I’m okay, Dad. These types of things are just a part of my training,” she said, letting the words comfort her as well. “Are you sure it’s not just a media thing?” Aurora didn’t pay too much attention to her father’s business, but she did know the media liked the chaos they caused when pushing Titon and Frontier against one another. It was as if all the employees of Titon and Frontier were taught to automatically hate the other, almost like two rival high school teams that got caught up in the hype, regardless of the reason.
“I’m afraid Henry Dagan is desperate enough to do something drastic to increase sales. Any publicity is good publicity, right?” His shoulders slumped. “I’m being ridiculous, aren’t I?”
“Henry Dagan is the president of Frontier Solutions, right?” Aurora was disappointed that she actually had to ask.
Her dad only nodded.
“You’re just being a dad.” Aurora grabbed his hand. She really needed to stop being so self-absorbed. Her fear of attention shouldn’t keep her from knowing what was going on around her. “I’m okay. There’s nothing to worry about. My training may be tough, but there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing, and it is my choice. I flew a real airplane today. That’s something to be proud of.” Aurora met her father’s concerned eyes. Maybe it wasn’t entirely his fault that they weren’t close. Maybe she should have taken a more active role in his interests sooner. Then he wouldn’t have felt the need to thrust it upon her.
“Will you keep me posted on everything going on with you?”
“You want me to keep you posted?” Her dad’s eyebrows rose.
“Yeah, I know. A real shocker.”
“I think the Academy’s doing good things for you.” He glanced down at his techiwatch, his usual business demeanor taking over. Now that he had confirmed she was okay, he could apparently get back to work. “Try not to get into too much trouble,” he said, walking toward the door.
“It was nice seeing you. But maybe try not to barge into the Academy next time? Maybe we could call each other every once in awhile?”
Her father stopped, holding the door halfway open. A smile tugged his lips. “Yeah, that seems like a good idea.”
Aurora laughed and quickly said goodbye to her father, feeling better about their relationship.
Just as Aurora was getting comfortable again, Kaylana popped her head around their door, and quietly walked into the room.
“How are you feeling?” she whispered.
“Okay, I guess. I’m a little sore.” Aurora rubbed the back of her neck. “My dad was just here.”
“Yeah, I saw him traipsing around the school earlier looking for Ms. Lovell. Did he go completely nuts?”
Aurora laughed. “You could say that. He was pretty worried. Thought Frontier Solutions was responsible.” She rolled her eyes. “I mean I’ve been having crazy thoughts like that, but I’m the one in shock!”
Kaylana looked confused. “Why would he think that?” Kaylana maneuvered herself down onto the bed, their shoulders almost touching. “Because of your flight?”
“Yeah,” Aurora sighed. She had just been wondering if her malfunctions were caused by someone, but the idea seemed ridiculous after her dad’s behavior. Obviously, she had inherited her father’s paranoia. “I guess Frontier Solutions is facing bankruptcy, and my dad’s extra worried.”
“So you don’t think what happened today was weird?”
Any resemblance of calm that Aurora had worked so hard to achieve was instantly gone. It was kind of hard to ignore her own thoughts when her best friend and father kept bringing up the possibility.
“No, it was just a malfunction. Could happen to anyone.” Aurora tried to look relaxed.
“You scared me.” Kaylana lightly elbowed Aurora and jumped off the bed, some of her usual spunk returning.
Aurora didn’t attempt to move. She didn’t have it in her to get out of the comfort of her bed, so she lay back on her pillows and looked up at the off-white ceiling above her.
Kaylana hopped up onto her bed and snuggled under the covers, pushing herself up onto one elbow. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Me too,” Aurora mumbled, her mind already shutting down. She was exhausted and wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep her eyes open. She pulled the covers up over her head, aching for sleep to consume her.
Aurora rolled over and requested for the lights to be turned off. The darkness helped hide her dark thoughts as she longed for the oblivion of sleep.
Beep.
Beep.
There was that incessant beeping again. It felt like all Aurora ever woke up to anymore was the high-pitched noise that came from her techiwatch as it alerted her to something else she was supposed to do. Wake up, eat, go to class, physical training, flight block, etc., always repeating in a never-ending cycle. She rolled over, ignoring the summons.
Aurora must have fallen back asleep, because hands shaking her shoulders roused her for the second time that morning. Unfortunately, the hands kept shaking her until she was forced to sit up. “What time is it?” She was afraid if she even looked at her techiwatch, she would want to throw it in the closest trash dispenser.
Aurora opened her eyes to see Kaylana’s bright and cheery face standing over her.
“What, little Ms. Morning Sunshine doesn’t want to wake up and face the day?”
Aurora groaned and tried to push Kaylana away. She was too sore from the day before to move quickly, and her attempts must have been quite the sight because Kaylana began laughing hysterically. Kaylana easily deflected her flailing arms and sat down on the bed beside her.
The aroma of freshly cooked pancakes loaded with syrup and butter wafted in her direction. Kaylana carefully maneuvered a folding tray onto her lap. The tray looked like it wanted to buckle under the enormous amount of food.
Aurora’s mouth watered. She stifled the yawn that wanted to come out, instead forcing herself to sit up further.
“I brought your breakfast up. I figured you might want to eat in the comfort of your bed.”
If Aurora could have managed it, she would have tackled Kaylana in an enormous hug. Instead, she slowly stretched her arms above her and greedily eyed the extra large energy drink on the tray. Her body was still feeling the effects of yesterday’s flight, but it was also apparently ravenous.
“You better eat up. Food will make you feel better and stronger.” Kaylana paused as she looked down at the tray. “And though it’s not the healthiest thing for your body, I thought an energy drink would at least get you motivated.” She winked.
“You are the best. Thank you, Dr. Stewart.” Aurora smiled at her friend and gave her the hug she’d been wanting to, well, a half hug, anyway. She blamed her cautious state on not wanting to spill the overflowing tray.
The drink she could no longer ignore. She inhaled it in huge gulps, and as the sweet syrup and caffeinated bubbles coated her throat, she began to feel better.
Next, she started in on the stack of fluffy pancakes but stopped when she spotted the peanut butter that Kaylana had included. “Kaylana, I think I love you!”
“Think?” Kaylana asked, raising her eyebrows.
“Okay, not think. I know I love you.” Aurora grabbed the peanut butter and began to slather a generous portion between each pancake. Yeah, it was a weird thing to do, but peanut butter, syrup, and pancakes just went well together.
Before she knew it, her fork was scraping across an empty plate. With her stomach heavy, contentment spread over her. Aurora placed the empty tray to the side and attempted to give Kaylana another half hug. She didn’t know what she would do without her.
Aurora slowly made her way to the bathroom where she hoped a hot, steaming shower would take care of any remaining aches. Before she closed the door, she heard Kaylana begin rummaging through their closet. “I’ll pick you out some killer shoes,” she yelled.
Yeah, that would definitely perk her up.
Once she was dressed and ready to go, she again gave
Kaylana a big hug. “Thank you.”
“Anytime, but I better not have another excuse to do this again.”
“Yeah, no kidding.” Aurora definitely planned for it to be a one-time thing.
Keeping her promise to herself, Aurora strode as confidently as she could manage into Interplanetary Living, her first class of the day. It was the only class she had with Kaylana this morning. Interplanetary Living was a mandatory class for every cadet because it covered all of the issues and challenges that stemmed from living outside of earth. The difference in gravity and the extreme caution needed for safety changed how a person would normally function.
Of course, when she walked into the room, everyone turned to look, but she ignored their stares and took her seat at the front of the class. A few moments later Zane came strolling in, but instead of ignoring her like he usually did, he sat in the seat beside her. Aurora felt his eyes raking up and down her body as he silently stared at her. Aurora knew he was trying to be sly about it, but she felt the heat in his gaze.
“How are you feeling?” he whispered.
“I’m fine,” she whispered back.
Aurora swallowed, but neither of them came up with anything else to say. He silently looked at her until he seemed to remember something. He pulled a small object out of his pocket.
“Hold out your hand,” he whispered.
Aurora slowly held her hand out between their desks. When he placed what looked like a small-winged bug in her hand, she raised her eyebrows.
“It used to be a toy ladybug for kids,” he said.
Aurora carefully examined the thing in her hand and saw that it did look exactly like a tiny ladybug. In fact, she thought she remembered her dad giving her something like it as a child.
Zane placed a small remote control unit on her desk. “But now it can actually fly. It’s similar to the snake bots your dad created for the army, but this little guy can move quickly in and out of small areas while recording and broadcasting a live video stream. Plus it looks friendly too.”
Aurora silently watched him talk. His eyes were lit in fascination. Apparently talking about tech was the way to get him to open up.
Her lips curved into a smile. “It’s wonderful. Did you do this all yourself?”
“Yeah. I found it in a junk techyard a while ago. Its wings were crushed together, but that was an easy fix. I just thought you might like it.” Zane shrugged, seeming to remember they were in class. He turned back in his seat and remained silent.
Confused, Aurora looked at Kaylana on her other side, but there was no time to talk.
Today her professor was covering the proper way to physically exercise in order to counter the effects of lower gravity on the body. Every astronaut, while living outside of earth’s atmosphere, was put on an aggressive exercise regimen.
Despite the many advancements in medicine and technology, living outside of the earth’s atmosphere was detrimental to an astronaut’s physical strength. It was one of the reasons the Academy only wanted to train the young and physically fit. The younger an astronaut was trained, the longer their career would be.
On the moon base, they would live in one-sixth gravity. Intrigued with this idea, Aurora calculated that she would only weigh eighteen pounds on the surface of the moon. With everything being so much lighter and easier to move, she would have to struggle against the natural muscle atrophy that would occur from living there.
Class eventually ended, and when Zane and Akemi walked past them, they both waved goodbye.
Aurora waved, glancing over at Kaylana for an answer to Zane’s new behavior, but she only shrugged and said, “Boys,” as if that were enough of an explanation. They didn’t have time to discuss it any further because she had sim training, and Kaylana needed to hurry if she was going to make it to her medical class on time.
Aurora hesitantly made her way down to the simulator bay, not quite sure if she was ready to get back into the cockpit again. At least today’s flight block was for shuttle simulator training and not the XT-101.
The usual quiet sounds of the bay went a long way in soothing her nerves. All was quiet with the exception of the humming and mechanical movement as the simulators shifted around. The bay she walked down housed six level D shuttle simulators and classrooms that were used for ground training and flight de-briefing.
Aurora padded down to the largest classroom where she saw several other cadets already waiting. As usual, when she walked into the room and shuffled her way into an open seat, they all stopped whatever it was they were doing and watched her. She wasn’t sure if they realized how uncomfortable it was for her to have so many pairs of eyes focused solely on her. This was one of the reasons she always dressed so nice. If she didn’t, she’d be wondering if she were missing an article of clothing or something.
Maybe they’re just horny, she thought. The longer she was around Zane, the more she understood the feeling. Aurora giggled, garnering more stares.
She could tell they wanted to ask her questions about yesterday, but before any of them got up the nerve to ask, Lieutenant Colonel Jackson and Sky drew everyone’s interest when they walked into the room.
Now that everyone had turned back in their seats to face the front of the room, Aurora sighed in relief, happy to no longer be the center of attention. Luckily, the Lieutenant Colonel demanded everyone’s undivided attention. His military upbringing threw some people off at first glance, but once in class, he managed to combine humor and real-life experience into the lessons.
Aurora actually considered starting a list to keep track of Lieutenant Colonel Ryan Jackson’s humorous quips on aviation that managed to turn an entire class into an uproar of laughter. Her favorites were “Keep your knots up” and “Any problem that can’t be solved with afterburner, alcohol, or money was never really a problem to begin with.” He somehow managed to convey the importance of safety while keeping class interesting.
Of course, Aurora’s few moments out of the spotlight were short-lived, because the first thing the Lieutenant Colonel wanted to discuss was Aurora’s own personal flight from hell.
This announcement was met with nods of approval from the class, but Aurora was studying Sky. He was still standing behind the Lieutenant Colonel with his arms folded across his chest, leaning back against the wall, watching. It was an unusual place for him to be because he was usually living up the limelight. His normally open face was completely closed down as he studied everyone in the room. He nodded, briefly meeting Aurora’s eyes before looking away again.
She swallowed and looked down at her desk. She wasn’t sure she wanted to relive the flight again, but she understood that talking about it was unavoidable. She continued to focus on the solid desk below her as she breathed in and out. When she felt completely calm, she looked back up at the class to find that everyone was quiet and that Lieutenant Colonel Jackson was watching her.
Aurora looked up at him, eyes wide. “Oh. Sorry. I’m ready.”
“We all witnessed some part of Aurora’s flight yesterday, and I wanted to take a moment to discuss what happened. As a pilot, you will all need to get used to the fact that failures do occur. It is up to you to be prepared for them.”
Aurora let out a shaky laugh, unable to meet anyone’s eyes.
“First off, Aurora handled herself very well, and I’m proud that she was able to control what she could of the situation.” Lieutenant Colonel Jackson paced the room while Sky glowered behind him. “As Aurora’s flight proved yesterday, emergencies are real, which is why we must continue with our intense training regimen. I do not have the complete maintenance report that will answer the whys and hows of the situation Aurora found herself in, but we can still learn an important lesson from it.” He paused. “We can all realize the necessity of not relying on one instrument because not everything will always function as it’s intended. It is up to the pilot in command to handle these types of situations calmly and quickly. We need to continually refresh our emergency procedure
s because as proven, a computer program may not be there to save the day.” He pulled up the XT-101’s performance graph. “From what I was able to gather from Aurora’s communication with Sky and her flight path, we know that she entered into a mach tuck at fifty-five thousand feet. She lost consciousness soon after her failures occurred and knew to immediately lower the nose of the aircraft to descend.” He pointed to where the airspeed and altitude crossed paths, indicating the airplane’s coffin corner. “In a perfect world, she would have also managed to pull her throttles back, but she was unable to accomplish that before passing out. Once she regained consciousness, she was able to recover the airplane.”
The Lieutenant Colonel looked at Aurora “Whatever ignited Aurora’s problems will be addressed with the maintenance crew, so there’s no need to worry.”
Several people raised their hands, hoping the Lieutenant Colonel would answer more questions, but he waved them down. Aurora was disappointed that he could not easily explain everything.
The Lieutenant Colonel walked over to where she was sitting, and all eyes followed his movements. He patted her shoulder. “You kept your knots up, and that’s all that matters at this point.”
The class laughed, which was probably the whole point. The flight department couldn’t have its students running around scared, so he was using humor to keep the direness of the situation at bay.
Aurora wasn’t sure what to think. The Lieutenant Colonel and Sky had both looked shocked and upset by what happened yesterday, but it seemed as if he now thought it was just an unfortunate maintenance problem that would easily be rectified. Her father’s worried behavior had only amplified her own doubts, but she wasn’t about to say anymore. Her father’s threat to bring her home still rang in her ears.
Aurora met Sky’s eyes. A silent exchange passed between them, and she was certain he could read all of her fears clearly.
“Now, let’s get in the sims,” Lieutenant Colonel Jackson announced.
The Apollo Academy Page 17
