The Unsound Theory (STAR Academy Book 1) Read online

  Speechless, Yalena looked at Jen, who seemed just as uneasy. “Why don’t we leave you to get dressed in peace, then?” She motioned to the door.

  “Oh, would you relax? I’m almost done,” she brushed off the suggestion, pulling on some undies. “After all, what doesn’t look good on a natural-caramel foundation?” After smirking at the self-compliment, Natalia threw the blue dress back on the pile on the chair and slipped into a golden sweater dress. It may have been something casual in the store, but on her, it was as provocative as lingerie.

  She clapped her hands and then pushed Jen and Yalena out of the room, despite Jen’s protests that she hadn’t gotten settled in yet.

  “Wait!” sounded behind them. Yalena turned to see Nico striding down the corridor toward them. “You’re never going to believe this!”

  Natalia frowned like she’d smelled something funny. “Who’s that?”

  Yalena left Jen to explain and followed Nico down the hall to his room. He opened the door with a celebratory “ta-da!” His room was a mirror image of Yalena’s in terms of furnishings and design, but his roommate had obviously already moved in and taken his time with it. The personal items on the desk were arranged in perfect order, and Nico opened the wardrobe to reveal neatly folded uniforms in blue and green.

  “And most importantly,” he said, as the culmination of his tour, “look!”

  It was an emblem or coat of arms that had been set on the holo-screen in front of the desk. A night in armor against the background of a starry sky. It took Yalena a moment to figure out where she had seen it before.

  “It was on the e-vite!” she exclaimed. “Why?”

  “It’s the O’Donnell family coat of arms.”

  “Isn’t a coat of arms something way ancient?” Jen said. Natalia had followed her into the room, still frowning.

  “It is—it’s a reminder of how far back the O’Donnell family line goes. I’m sure they added the starry background when they moved to space.” Nico could hardly keep still. “How are you not getting this? I am rooming with an O’Donnell!”

  “Congrats.” Jen smiled. Judging by the way she examined the tidy room, though, her comment was more related to the cleanliness of the O’Donnell descendant in question, rather than his legacy.

  Chapter 5. The Intros

  NATALIA SULKED WHILE the four of them headed to the Academy floor with Nico as a guide. His excited tour mingled with her complaints in an off-beat disconnected conversation.

  “I’m not sure what the big deal is.”

  “You always need to buckle up inside the elevators—some go up and down, others from side to side.”

  “So, we have the prince of Unifier in our class. So what? He probably didn’t get in on merit.”

  “It says in the welcome message that we need to follow the red markings to get to the Academy, although I’m sure we’ll find our way around without those in a few short days.”

  “So, his family has been in space for two generations, and they’re already being treated as royalty? My ancestors have lived on the Moon since the Quakes.”

  Each of them stuck to their line of thought, as if hoping to drone out the sound of the other. It made Jen and Yalena share a few looks. Finally, they approached the lecture hall. A girl, evidently a second-year, stood at the end of the hallway in front of two doors. She had voluminous hair in a million tiny, black curls. Behind her was the STAR Academy emblem.

  “Check in with your Berries, please,” she said.

  Yalena fidgeted clumsily for her Berry, then waved it in front of the monitor on the lecture hall entrance. It flashed a welcome message personally addressed to her. It didn’t seem like this type of thing registered with any of the others, but the look of awe remained plastered on her face.

  The others followed her in—Jen, Nico, and Natalia, who didn’t seem to show even early signs of realising that the others had no interest in listening to her monologue. The room was simple, but gasp-worthy. The gloss of a screen covered one entire wall. It reflected Yalena’s bug eyes, from both shock and jet lag, when she walked past it to take one of the few free seats at the round table.

  There were a couple of new faces among the familiar Earthlings she’d shared the flight with. Natalia greeted them, but slid in to sit next to Yalena. There were only a few empty seats left, and Yalena couldn’t help but do a recap on her impressions of the new class, a game she’d grown accustomed to playing on those first days of school. But contrary to other places on Earth she’d been transferred to, she couldn’t help being impressed. There were more boys than girls, and they all looked in good physical shape. She hadn’t realized it until now, but she had kind of expected everyone to look in-doorsy and sickly-pale, like lab rats.

  “Hello, everyone.” The second-year who had welcomed them at the door walked up to the round table. “It’s good to see that for the twenty-fourth year in a row, everyone we selected has accepted their invitation to STAR Academy. My name is Katarzyna Milovich. I’m from the Moon, area 7D, and I am the second-year class leader, together with Chris.”

  Chris, Adam, and two other guys had entered the room and were now standing in front of the presentation screen beside Katarzyna. Another ten or fifteen people were coming in and taking seats at the back, leaving the round table for the freshmen. They must be the rest of the second-year class.

  “So, congratulations on being selected.” Chris said. “We promise you there’s a good reason for it.” Chris’ eyes stayed on Yalena as he said that. “Just to make you believe us a little more and to break the ice, we’re going to start with a round of personal introductions.”

  Yalena’s stomach felt tight. She had no problem speaking in front of people, but in this situation, she felt she had nothing to say. Natalia did, though, judging by the way her hand shot up at the speed of light when Katarzyna asked for a volunteer to introduce themselves to the others.

  “My name is Natalia Khanna, Moon area 12C, which I assume most of you are familiar with.” She sneered at Yalena and Jen before she continued with a smirk. “I’ve already taken all university-level lectures on astrobiology in preparation for being here, so I suppose you can call me the next Cara White.” Bogged down by the unfamiliar reference, Yalena noticed a little too late that no reaction or scolding followed Natalia’s presumptuous introduction.

  “This is a record of those astrobiology courses, taken mostly during summer breaks on Mars and on the Moon,” Katarzyna continued for Natalia, as the screen behind her showed a list of the courses. “Apart from outstanding academic advances well before graduation, Natalia also has profound knowledge of fuel extraction and creation processes, as we all do on the Moon.”

  The two Moonie girls shared a swooning, cheesy look that had its origins in pride, or rather, something akin to eighteenth-century aristocratic supremacy. Natalia’s chin pointed so high up, she had to be seeing the ceiling, rather than the circle of new classmates around her. It was an effort to hold the growl in, and Yalena bit her lip in her attempt to do so.

  Seeing how the “short introduction” was supposed to work, people elaborated more on the next intros, listing their achievements or some of their interests. Even though the Moonie students held themselves to some ridiculous notion that they floated above everyone else, Yalena latched onto any piece of information she could gather about them and their lives. It would have to do, to substitute for the first-hand knowledge she knew slowed her down like a limp. Still, as Yalena listened carefully to all the introductions, she didn’t miss the nervous taps her foot seemed to make without her meaning it to.

  After a few more students shared their background with the class, Katarzyna paused. Her face reddened a little, and there was no trace of her previous bossy attitude. “Everyone, I am extremely proud to introduce to you a very special classmate. You have the honor of being classmates with no other than Eric O’Donnell, Commander O’Donnell’s son.”

  And with that way-too-pretentious introduction, she invited Eric to sp
eak up about himself. He was a sandy-blond, tall guy sitting exactly opposite Yalena at the round table. She felt kind of bad for him after that dramatic announcement.

  “I’m Eric, and I grew up on Unifier, so feel free to use me as a tour guide,” he said. Yalena understood the coat of arms now. There was something almost royal in everything—from Eric’s manners to the proper, old-fashioned way he expressed himself.

  “Eric actually knows all of you, in a way,” Katarzyna said, beaming.

  “I hope it doesn’t creep you out to know that I’ve been helping my dad in the selection of STAR Academy candidates for the past four years now.” He paused to allow his new classmates to chew on that fact. “I specialize in character profiling, which is something we normally require of crew leaders on Unifier missions. I suppose selecting you is what got me invited here.”

  His honesty counteracted the effects of Katarzyna’s introduction and made him seem like a humble guy. Looking at him across the table, Yalena couldn’t help but think about growing up in space. He had spent all his life up there. Was Eric the way she was supposed to be? Did he have the life she should have had if she had’t been abandoned?

  Something beeped, making Yalena zoom back to real life. Katarzyna pressed a button on her tablet and then shot a sideways glance at Chris.

  “They’re here.”

  “The Martians?” His voice seeped with disbelief and dismissal. “Can’t be.”

  “They must have piloted through the solar flare.” Adam was serious as he cleared his throat. “Everyone, your classmates from Mars couldn’t get here on time, as they ran into some solar flare problems that required them to pause their trip.”

  “It seems they’re about to join us now,” Katarzyna said, flashing a smile, while Chris’s expression had turned to stone. Yalena trusted his piloting skills—after all, he had gotten them up to the space station safely. If he thought there was something wrong with the Martian flight to Unifier, she would be inclined to believe him.

  Drawing all eyes, the doors to the auditorium split open, and a pocket-sized Chinese girl hopped in, waving in five others behind her. She passed so close to Adam that their shoulders bumped, and they exchanged what must be a signature greeting, without looking at each other directly.

  “Kiki.”

  “Adam.”

  “Did you fly in the flare?” Adam asked.

  “The Eagles can’t take too much of that, you know,” Chris reminded them. “We’ll never hear the end of it if one of the newbies grows a third arm because of solar radiation exposure.”

  “I didn’t fly at all.” Kiki threw her hands up, thumbs pointing behind her to one of the arrivals. From his sheer size, he seemed more likely to be a second-year than the almost childlike Kiki, but his out-of-place smile could only be the mark of another uncomfortable freshman. The biceps trembled on his well-toned arms as a reflex.

  “Mmm,” Natalia purred at Yalena’s side. “I don’t know about you, but my day just got so much better.”

  “Right.” Yalena’s reply was expressionless.

  Natalia gawked back, amused. “Oh, you thought I was kidding...”

  “Did you fly an Academy Eagle through the solar flares?” Adam asked the new guy again, and Yalena turned away from Natalia just in time to see Chris frowning by his side.

  “I didn’t have to. There was a way to outrun it in time with enough acceleration.”

  The boy had thick, dark hair, trimmed short, and hazel eyes, as well as a more confident tone of voice than most of them could produce right now. Yalena peered past him to the stunned second-years, wondering if solar flares were the space equivalent of bad weather.

  His maneuvering really must have been top-notch if Chris didn’t come back with a response.

  “I’m Alec Rado,” the new arrival said. “I assumed that’s why I was invited here—to do all the tricky piloting.”

  Something in his no-frills attitude made Yalena feel that this guy just got things done. Still, that observation only occupied the smallest fraction of her thoughts now. She bit on her tongue to keep from gasping at his accent. It was the same one Adam had and the only one she had never heard before. It was Martian. Yalena listened absent-mindedly to whatever else the boy said, overwhelmed by silent jubilation and relief. Not knowing where that accent came from would have bugged her forever.

  She probably wasn’t missing much, though. It was surely a pile of piloting jibber-jabber that was out of Yalena’s world. Such people should go to space academies, not her. She noticed a little too late that Alec had paused to smile, revealing two charming dimples. It was obvious he had no idea what else to say.

  “That’s very cute, Rado. It should suffice for your introduction. Now take your seat,” Katarzyna said.

  It was only when Alec and the boy next to him moved to sit down that the other Martians came into view. Two boys, roughly the same build as Alec, only even darker in complexion. Hand-in-hand with one of them was a strawberry-blonde, who rushed to slip her hand out of her boyfriend’s, having realized all eyes were on them. She cleared her throat and went to sit at the far end of the table, as if to make a point that she didn’t need to stay so close to him. Yalena snickered.

  “No Martian girls, right?” she whispered to Nico, feeling confident enough to mock his investigatory skills. “It seems The Woodpecker pecked the wrong tree.”

  “That he never does,” he insisted with an all-knowing smile. “That’s Heidi Valance, an Earthling by origin, but she’s been on exchange on Mars for the past year, and now we all know why.”

  Nico opened his mouth to lay out all the facts he had no doubt discovered about the newcomer, but Katarzyna shushed the crowd and prompted each of the new arrivals to introduce themselves before going back to taking volunteers from the rest of the Earthlings and Moonies.

  One by one, the names were coming to an end. Among all the intros, Yalena found Jen’s to be one of the most impressive. That humble girl had saved someone’s life already, thanks to her first-aid skills, and was fond of genetics, judging by the biggest projects she’d completed. Yalena smiled encouragingly at Jen, realizing that not only space enthusiasts, as Jen had put it, could be exceptional.

  “And, last but not least, we have Yalena Russo,” Katarzyna announced, letting the exhaustion in her voice show a tiny bit. Since people had been arriving throughout the night, Yalena assumed she hadn’t slept much. But nonetheless, Katarzyna and the other second-years stood there, looking at the new student like she was the next big space genius. Boy, were they in for a disappointment.

  Yalena waved feebly at everyone. “Hi, my name is Yalena, and I grew up on Earth, in Europe,” she said with a voice more rough than usual, causing her to pause quickly.

  “Could you tell us where exactly you lived?” Chris asked, and Yalena knew why. Apparently, the interesting thing about her was that she’d moved so much.

  “All over Europe, really. I moved every year, or even twice a year in some cases.” There were a few “wows” around the table. “I guess I speak a few languages because of that.”

  Katarzyna raised her eyebrows at Yalena’s characterization of eighteen languages as “a few.” She clicked something on her tablet again, and Yalena’s profile appeared on the big screen. As well as all the dates when Yalena had added a new language to her repertoire, there was much more information in there. All of her high-school activities and her presidency of the European Youth Parliament during ninth grade were emphasized.

  At the very beginning of the biography, Yalena read, “Birthplace: Unknown,” and her chest tightened. She thought she would be prompted to explain this, but Katarzyna simply said, “As you can see, Yalena’s birthplace is a bit uncertain, but it was very likely somewhere in space, because she was found in a space freighter compartment as a baby.”

  The silence following that sentence was disastrously heavy. Eric, Alec, the rest of the Martians, including the freckled girl that had arrived with them, and even Natalia and the Moon
ies looked horrified. It seemed no one could wrap their mind around the story of a baby being abandoned by its astronaut parents.

  “So, as a space baby, we have raised the bar for you, Yalena,” Chris said in an attempt to lighten the mood. Yalena tried to return his smile, but it felt too difficult. “Now, you have about thirty minutes to get ready for the welcome event.”

  Chapter 6. The O’Donnells

  GRATEFUL FOR THE RAMBLE that followed as the freshmen hurried back to change in time for the event, Yalena dragged her feet at the tail of the line. Jen tried to strike up a casual conversation, but she could probably tell by the half-hearted responses she got that her new friend didn’t feel like gushing over getting ready. She didn’t push for it, and Yalena appreciated that.

  When she swiped her Berry at the sensor for her room, she found it blinking red with the message “Access denied.”

  “Are you lost?” a voice said from behind her. The Martian accent made it sound more like “Eye you lost?”

  Blush covering her cheeks, Yalena looked up. It was that piloting genius, Alec, with one of the others by his side. They stared at her, waiting for a reaction. Yalena turned back to the door—it was room 217.

  “Sorry,” she said, stepping away from the sensor as if spiked by static electricity. “Wrong room.” She resisted the urge to slap a palm across her face. Splendid. Her classmates would now think she wasn’t even sharp enough to find her room, let alone do anything of use.

  “Do you need help finding your room?” the other one said. His tone was calm, careful, measured. Was everyone going to walk on eggshells around her now that they knew her story? Regardless of whether it was pity or chivalry, she wouldn’t be able to handle it for long.

  “Of course not,” she said, a hand wiping her burning cheek, like that movement would do anything to counter the embarrassment.