Space Cadets Read Free

inches in the air and it floated there for a few seconds before falling back to his hand. “Non military personnel never get to wear skins so you can thank Billy Humboldt for the privilege. He’s an old friend.” When no one thanked him the captain bellowed, “Thank him now or I’ll throw you off my fucking ship.”
    That scared the hell out of all of us. We thought things got better after camp but the captain had proven otherwise. We raced each other to thank Mr. Humboldt.
    The captain smiled like an imp and said, “Just kidding guys. Come on, I’ll give you the grand tour.”
    As I walked past him, the captain put a hand on my shoulder. I actually felt the pressure of it through the steel. He winked at me and said, “Do you know who wore that skin before you?”
    I nodded and smiled as I pointed to the etching on the shoulder.
    He said, “If any other soldier had defaced my skins like that, I’d have reprimanded him. But Richard Pringle is no ordinary soldier. If you’re lucky, some of his essence got trapped in those circuits with you.”
    I knew that wasn’t really possible but I smiled like I thought it was.
    He added, “I heard Rick is older than I am but because he spends so much time in stasis while he’s in the field, he hasn’t aged the same way. I think he tells girls he’s only twenty five or something. He’s a sly dog.”
    I hadn’t considered that. All pictures and likenesses of him were classified. I made a decision to look up his earliest exploits as soon as we got back to camp.

Tour
     
    The captain showed us around the entire ship, and I mean every nook and cranny. We had to see the inside of a maintenance closet but we also got to end our tour in the command room which was awesome.
    He said, “This is where the magic happens.” He pointed at the thirty foot monitor that showed the black of space outside and said, “We’re currently situated around a planet we’ve nicknamed Scum Earth . Ensign, show them the view of the planet.”
    A young woman moved her finger around on a large touchpad until the scene on the monitor changed.
    The planet was aptly named. It had an orangish brown atmosphere, just opaque enough to show dirty black landmasses beneath. It really did look like a scummy earth.
    Someone said, “Which quadrant are we in right now?”
    The captain shook his head. “That’s classified information. I’m sorry but I can’t divulge our location to anyone but those with the proper clearance. I’m sure you understand.”
    Someone else said, “But there’s no threat. The Skeptics don’t have the resources to reach deep space.”
    The captain laughed. “We’re not keeping our location a secret because of those weasels. We’re keeping it a secret because of the aliens.”
    “But we don’t know when they’re going to return or even if they’ll return. What if they don’t show up in our lifetime?”
    The captain said severely, “And what if they do?”
    I saw Mr. Humboldt look at the nametag on the chest of the person asking all the questions. They’d be getting a flogging when we got back to camp.
    The captain seemed to visibly deflate. Clearly, he saw how futile his entire life’s work was if the aliens didn’t make an appearance. Hundreds of captains had donned the stripes and ran their ships and then died of old age without ever even laying eyes on an extraterrestrial. All of their training and expertise was for naught.
    He pasted a phony smile on his face and said, “Who wants to take an escape shuttle for a spin?”
    I raised my hand as did the entire class.

Flight
     
    While I waited my turn to go off in the escape shuttle, I saw Mr. Humboldt talking to the captain. He pointed in my direction and I froze. The captain seemed to mull something over in his head and then he shrugged.
    Mr. Humboldt walked over to me and said with a smile, “I told the captain that you have more space walks than anyone else in camp. I asked him if he’d be against letting you