Space Academy Rebels: Beyond the Grey

By Ian Hall

Unknown to her, Campari Abasheen has two desperate enemies; her parents!
Both break the law, conspiring to keep her tethered to the family business; building the biggest farm on the distant planet, Wiseman 3.
A place in Earth's Space Academy saves her from a life of perpetual drudgery.
She knew her journey through the four years of Space Academy was not going to be an easy one...
But she never expected it was going to be this hard.
'Beyond the Grey' is the second book of the Space Academy Rebels series, started in 'The Mind Drive'.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ian Hall
• Release date: Jun 4, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370059935

Ian Hall

Ian Hall is a former Commander Officer of No. 31 Squadron (1992-4), as well as being the editor and writer of the Squadron Association's three-times-a-year 32-page newsletter. He is the author of Upwards, an aviation-themed novel currently available as a Kindle download. This is his first full-length historical study, having previously penned a 80-page history of No 31 Squadron's early Tornado years.

Book preview

Mantuard, Bashir Rear Echelon

Two Years Ago, Earth date 2615.

Oh, Great One, we have information regarding the alien Space Academy.

Shuranya shifted his green reptilian body on the large lounger, his tail slipped over his lap. Report.

The attending Lieutenant’s eyes began to sweat, his second lids sweeping the salty liquid away, making him appear to blush. The yellow maelstrom in his eyes lightened in color. The alien Space Academy is once again placing status on paranormal ability. He paused, watching the older reptile accept the information. There appears to be more emphasis than in the previous years.

Shuranya rested his hairless head back on the soft pillow. Again they challenge our traditions. He said gruffly. Four thousand turns of purity, and they seek to rub sand in our scales.

Yes, Great One.

He suddenly rose from the bed, his action so sleek and lithesome that the Lieutenant stepped back in fright. For sake of saving face, we need to react. He rubbed his chin, scratching the tiny scales.

The Lieutenant took a deep breath, knowing his delivery had to be perfect. His well-rehearsed words slipped past his flickering yellow tongue. Great One, the Alien Liaison Council has a suggestion.

Shuranya’s head whipped round as if he’d been chasing a recalcitrant bug. Yes?

Well, Great One, he paused, knowing his life depended on the tone and clarity of his phrasing. We have the new cloaking system; the Council thinks it might be time to visit the Academy personally. Gain information ourselves, rather than allow the alien spies to possibly delude us.

You too seek to break with tradition. The older eyes looked up, probing for weakness, for susceptibility.

It is not without precedent. The Lieutenant was gaining in confidence as the interview continued. The spies of Altidore 4.

Shuranya decided not to punish the underling for his forthrightness. I know the details. He held his hand up to stem further conversation.

The Lieutenant rested back on his heels, his tail sweeping nervously like a metronome behind the long blue cloak that dropped from his shoulders.

The highest ranking Bashir rose to his full height. "Tell the Council to ready the cloaking system for personal use. We will send spies into the human territories." He said the word like it stung his mouth.

Yes, Great One. The corners of his mouth crinkled upwards, his version of a smile.

We will send spies into the Earth Sector.

For centuries the MacCollies Corporation had trolled the human planets looking for the best young minds to enter Space Academy. The successful graduates, four years later, would staff their vast conglomerate and become the officers of the giant MacCollies space fleet. It was an upward filter into the largest organization in the Galaxy; a willing skimming of the cream of human population.

Since MacCollies virtually owned space travel, the letter of invitation was one of the most prized communiques known; students were eager beyond measure to become the newest MacCollies intake. The inductees had no age limits, no physical requirements, and no other parameters than the mind itself. Most, of course, driven by the many sweeps of the known Earth Sector planets, were young children, and as such, the majority of MacCollies Space Academy intake was an annual stocking of children from the age of ten upwards.

Only twenty percent made it through the first year, with an extra seven percent making it to year three. By the end of the fourth, when the final tests were carried out, only around eight percent of their initial intake survived.

Every year MacCollies called the best of humanity to the test, employed the best of the best, and let the also-ran’s drift back into society. To be dropped from a MacCollie School held a stigma for a while, but that soon passed; to the rest of humanity, even MacCollies’ cast-offs were considered the very best of employees. Many other institutes of learning were filled with the youth of MacCollies detritus. It was an annual flow of pre-screened, pre-trained intelligence that could never have been done without the large corporation’s initial tests.

In the Earth Year 2617, one hundred and six thousand young children left their families and travelled to the MacCollie headquarters on Madagascar, Earth. Each came from differing backgrounds; each had dreams, drive and determination.

But, unknown to the Universe, some had a destiny; a path to fame where fortune becomes an irrelevance.

This is the story of one of the MacCollies Space Academy inductees of the year 2617, and how Campari Abasheen changed the universe forever.

Foreword

Introduction

Part One: The Academy

Chapter 1 A Future Envisaged

Chapter 2 A Future Path Denied

Chapter 3 The Investigation

Chapter 4 The Dawning of the Day

Chapter 5 Biology Lessons

Chapter 6 The High School Project

Chapter 7 A Regimen to Die Under

Chapter 8 Recognition at Last

Chapter 9 Brown Stuff Hits the Fan

Chapter 10 Problems with Shanna Price

Part Two: Into The Black

Chapter 1 Back into the Black

Chapter 2 Reaching the Top Quarter

Chapter 3 The Trouble with MacCollies

Chapter 4 Not Black and White

Chapter 5 Innocence Lost Forever

Chapter 6 Apple for Teacher

Chapter 7 Coming Out into the Open

Chapter 8 MacCollies MS-8620 Aster

Chapter 9 New Campus, New Direction

Chapter 10 Revolution Starts Now

Part Three: Beyond The Grey

Chapter 1 A Very Private Project

Chapter 2 A Brave New World

Chapter 3 The Best Laid Plans…

Chapter 4 Cool Heads, Rapid Response

Chapter 5 The MacCollies Six

Chapter 6 The Martian Bee-Hive

Chapter 7 Sensationally Sensationless

Chapter 8 The Banishment of Campari Abasheen

Chapter 9 Back Together Again

Chapter 10 Into Enemy Territory

Chapter 11 Tarkus; the Plague Planet

A Future Envisaged

Campari Abasheen walked to school with a skip in her step. Despite being the middle child of three, she had a confidence and self-belief that neither of her brothers could quell, no matter how hard they tried. Her personal holoscreen floated in front, her eyes flitting through the morning’s mail. Friends from Gideon Prime and Centauri had already reported in, their school day over and done.

Campari’s school curriculum was slacking. Coming near to the summer recess, her thoughts were on one thing; her project, Hydroponics in Negative Gravity. Determined to continue the project into the recess, using the school’s graviton pulse generator as her source, she looked forward to almost two months of a labor she lived for. Her father was a farmer, and tended twenty acres on the sloping valley floor, but Campari was determined to get off the planet as soon as she could; there was no way she was going to be governed by her brothers, and married off to farmer stock, shackled to the planet forever.

The low buildings of the town swept past unheeded, her concentration on the wording of some of her findings; editing had never been her strong point, but she was determined to finish it herself.

Suddenly her world was bombarded by small seeds, striking her head and shoulder. Argh! She turned to see her friend rushing towards her, another handful of rowan seeds in her hand. No more!" Campari held her hands up in mock surrender.

Die human! Rachel growled, her free hand rising like a claw, ready to strike.

Campari allowed herself to be crushed in her friend’s welcoming bear hug. She twisted towards school and practically dragged Rachel for the first few yards. What’s up?

Oh, nothing, Rachel relinquished her hold, and fell in step. Wiseman, the red sun behind them, was already clearing the mountains, its rays casting long morning shadows along the dusty path. I just can’t wait to get school over and do nothing but play hockey all summer.

Oh, you and your hockey! Campari chided, switching her holoscreen off. You’ll get hit by one of those sticks one day, that’ll soon disabuse you of your chosen career.

Nope! Rachel gave a smug smile. I’ll play for the colony under-sixteens next year, and be a professional before I’m twenty.

Campari let her own smile wane. It must be satisfying to have your future mapped out like that.

Not really, Rachel began to skip. It just means I don’t think too hard on it, and it gives me an instant quip to shut dad up when he asks what I’m going to do with my life.

Soon they met more of their core group, and filtered into the small school. With Porterfield having just ten thousand inhabitants, the school was always considered to be on the small side.

After lunch, Campari made for the biology department, and her precious project.

Tall thin bean stalks wound up the inside of the ten foot high tube on top of the pulse generator. She smiled with a mother’s pride at her seedlings, just fifteen days old.

Her dream was to publish her findings, get enough academic kudos to get to university in the colony’s capital city of München, and graduate as a biologist. With new worlds being discovered every year, there surely would be an avenue for the profession, and an escape from the parochial restrictions of Porterfield, New Deutschland, and Wiseman 3.

For the next hour in the laboratory, Campari measured every stalk, took pictures, video, and even drew pictures, all stored on her personal holoscreen, floating in front of her face. The pods were already forming high on the green vines, and she expected a full yield within a week; a record for the strain. She had three new crops ready for planting during summer recess, then in the new term, she’d publish her findings. Porterfield High School would get it into the web, and then she’d sit back and wait for offers from begging universities.

At least I won’t get hit by a hockey stick. She mouthed into the empty laboratory.

No, said a voice that startled her. But you may miss dinner.

Her elder brother, Samual, stood in the doorway. You gave me a fright. She scowled at him, glad she hadn’t mentioned any of her other thoughts.

That’s my job. He motioned her to leave. "Come on mensch, we’ll be late."

Campari checked the time and was shocked to see school already closed, and having spent almost an extra hour in the lab. She looked at Samual, hair wet from the shower; yup, he’d played an hour of football. Time flies.

She walked home with Samual and his friend, Fritz, who seemed to sneak glances in her direction at every opportunity. Fritz Stegen was the youngest son of a neighboring farmer, a catch her friends said. But to Campari he was boring; his only thoughts seemed to be on football, farming, and tractors, well those and his unnerving doe-eyed stares.

Campari walked intentionally behind, letting their conversation float over her like steam, vanishing into the evening air. She was figuring crop yields on a hydroponic bay under negative gravity conditions and imagining herself in university before she reached sixteen; she had no time for football.

Dinner was delicious, as usual. Her mother, Babette, was a good cook, and lived for the feeding of her husband, Dieter, and their family. A hearty onion soup was followed by roast pheasant and four vegetables, which Campari ate with gusto. Once finished, she had fifty minutes of farm chores, then her life was hers until bedtime. She chatted with her friends, both on Wiseman 3 and on other planets.

When her mother’s call came for ‘lights out’, she lay her head on the soft foam pillow and fell asleep immediately.

After the echoes of the senior graduation dance had silenced in the corridors, Porterfield High School’s scholastic intake slowed to a lax procession filled by only the most dedicated students.

Campari Abasheen was one of those.

When the experimental peas had fully been harvested, she started a trial of root vegetables; beets, turnip and radish. When the generator had been dialed up to full power, you could almost see the small seedlings growing in real time… almost. Each morning she attended the plants, cataloguing, photographing, and each morning they grew beyond her expectation.

With trembling fingers she typed the dialogue that would accompany the movie presentation.

One morning, just as the beets were growing to full size, her father caught her leaving the farm. We could do with a hand in the north pasture.

Stymied, she turned to smile at him, quelling her temper. There was room for farm chores and her project. Okay, Daddy. But I get tomorrow off, right?

Yes, dear. You get tomorrow all to yourself.

In farming, all over the galaxy, children are drawn into the process at an early age. Campari was no exception. At thirteen years old she could drive a tractor as well as anyone else in the family, and so her workload was valuable to the farm’s bottom line, the profitability.

With summer looming and the crops in full growth, the major obstacle to their growth were weeds and insects; today Campari drove a bug-spray, spreading a fine mist over the green foliage. Her main concentration was keeping the tractor wheels in line with the previous run; there was little point in destroying more crops with each treatment.

On one furrow, she was startled out of her focus by a loud booming noise. The tractor rumbled under her backside and she took her foot off the throttle. As the engine idled, the roar was lost to her. She turned to see a rising plume of black smoke behind her.

The farm!

Knowing that driving the tractor would be faster than running, she gunned it back to life. Gritting her teeth, she knew she had to finish the rows in front before turning back, driving round the large field. Not risking the deviation which another