The Unsound Theory (STAR Academy Book 1) Read online

  “You mean anybody besides you?” Natalia added jealously. Her thumbs pressed the controls, and Jen, whom she’d launched a firing sequence at, yelped from the other side of the table. “You’re going with Dave, I assume?”

  “Yes, but that’s so obviously boring. I need to hear what you are all up to,” Heidi picked up with excitement.

  Yalena knew the uncomfortable feeling she would have after saying what she had to say, but this was as good an opportunity to break the news as any. Besides, none of the girls could afford to shoot her an inquisitive look for long if they cared about the game score.

  “Well, I’m actually going with Chris.” A few short screams followed her announcement, and the girls gawked at her. Yalena swooshed past Heidi and Jen’s ships and fired at their base, but missed it. Even with the opposing team distracted, winning was a stretch.

  “Chris, not Eric? Really? Seems to me you have them both bidding for your attention,” Natalia said, sounding like a frog choking. The fact that she didn’t even scold Yalena for missing a chance at the game target said enough about her priorities.

  “Eric and I are just friends,” Yalena started off, but Jen’s quick frown showed her just how ridiculous that sounded. After all, despite their best efforts to act detached, a shared secret had a way of pushing them closer together like nothing else could.

  “Mask it any way you want, but you’re after the best of the best, Yalena. I got you all figured out—you toy around, wanting to have your pick between the best pilot and the commander’s son.”

  Natalia’s conclusion was as unpleasant as the tone she said it with. Yalena had a way of mentally canceling out everything she said, because it was usually spiteful and wrong, but she couldn’t help really hearing the message this time. It was probably what everybody would think of her.

  “Yes!” Heidi screamed and then high-fived Jen. A moment too late, Yalena and Natalia saw the smoke left behind where their home base had been. They shared a look, lips thinning.

  “It’s your fault!” The accusation was mutual.

  “Are you about finished with the simulator?” Alec asked, the other three Martian boys following behind and peeking inside the simulator room.

  “Of course, we are,” Natalia moaned. “You can’t have a game last too long with the basic mistakes some people make.” She put such a strong emphasis on the word “some” that she might have screamed Yalena’s name instead.

  “Oh, give it a rest, Nat,” Alec cut off Natalia’s complaint before Yalena could. “Your energy might be better spent picking out a dress to match my flight school honors uniform.”

  The Moonie batted her eyelashes. “Done.”

  Yalena was grateful for the interruption, since it made Natalia focus back on Alec and start another one of the rough-around-the-edges pretend squabbles they had been having since she’d set her sights on him at the intros. And that left Yalena to contemplate the dangerous game she was playing with Eric.

  Just once more, she vowed to herself. I’ll only run off with Eric once more, for the signal, and I won’t let it rattle the rest of my life anymore. She had to admit, though, this silent promise was too easy to break.

  Chapter 11. The Signal

  ON THE DAY OF THE BALL, the room doorbell snapped Yalena out of her deep sleep. Dragging her feet like a zombie, she opened the door while Heidi mumbled curses from the upper bunk. At the door, she came face-to-face with a delivery bot, which handed over a fairly big package. The screen read “Delivery for Yalena Russo.”

  Yalena signed with her finger for the parcel. She just wanted to crash in bed and sleep a little longer, but her gaze fell upon the short note on the package, which read “I hear you’ll be going to a ball.” Hurriedly breaking the box open, she found a new dress with an extremely fluffy skirt. It was knee-length and cream, apart from the corset, which had black trimming and embroidery—the same color as the thick line of fabric connecting it to the skirt. It was probably meant to be tied back in a bow. The dress was the definition of extravaganza.

  “That’s a fancy dress.” Heidi yawned.

  “It’s from Adeline.”

  Heidi climbed down from her bed. “I bet Chris will like it.”

  Even Saturdays meant little free time for the freshmen. They would usually be spent in the flight simulator or reviewing notes. Yalena could use both, as her flying had only been described as cringe-worthy thus far, and her brain had started mixing dates and events in Space History due to the overload of information. However, the excitement with which Unifier Space Station buzzed on the day of the ball reached her, whether due to the upcoming date or their first night off for the semester. The result was a day spent picking Heidi’s dress for the event, as well as a make-do hair salon the two of them ran out of their dorm room.

  “Let me fix your hair into something new,” Heidi begged Jen. “How about a braided crown up-do?”

  Jen tugged on the sleeker-than-usual ponytail, looped through as always. “I don’t know.”

  Heidi watched her, puppy-eyed.

  “Fine.” Jen let out a heavy sigh, followed by Heidi’s squeal.

  “You will not regret this!”

  When Heidi was done braiding, even Natalia had to admit the great job she had done. Chewing on her thumbnail, the Moonie then asked, with an odd note of something akin to politeness, whether Yalena would help her with her eyeliner. Unluckily for Natalia, though, the annoying doorbell made Yalena jump and draw a black line much farther than a cat-eye look required.

  “Go to Zanzar, Yalena! Good thing you didn’t try to become a surgeon,” Natalia protested sarcastically, while Yalena headed for the door, apologizing.

  “Sorry. Let me clean it up and try again.”

  “Oh, I think I learned my lesson here.” Pouting, the girl wiped the irregular line from her face with a corrector tissue.

  Dave was at the door, and after he greeted Yalena, he whispered to himself, “You are as pretty as he says.”

  Yalena squinted at him, suddenly confused. “As who says?”

  “What?” Dave had obviously not intended to let that sentence slip.

  “Me, of course,” Chris said, turning up at the door. “Shall we?”

  Feeling a little guilty, Yalena left Natalia to fix her make-up and headed to the party with Chris, her fluffy dress bouncing up and down every time she took a step. Once inside the event hall, gratitude for Adeline’s gift burst in Yalena’s heart. Anything less than the high-fashion dress would have been a thorn in people’s eyes against the background of smooth satin, enveloped in soft lighting and a color scheme of navy blue and champagne.

  At first, the evening was quiet and filled with introductions and formal greetings. Looking over Chris’ shoulder, Yalena felt a little bad for Eric, who seemed to be under O’Donnell’s special attention the entire night. The commander introduced his son to important crew leaders, pilots, and scientists. While he was no doubt helping Eric advance his career prospects, it didn’t seem like a whole lot of fun.

  Chris knew a lot of the guests as well, and they met a few people from Cooper’s crew, as well as Natalia’s mother, who was a chemist, and Alec’s father, who was apparently a well-known pilot. As the evening progressed, they bumped into more of their classmates, and Yalena felt herself ease into the sea of faces.

  “Shall we get a drink?” Chris asked, dusting off the shoulder of his flight school honors dress uniform, although it didn’t need it. After she nodded, he took her to the bar, where he shook Cooper by the shoulders, happy to find him. “And would you look at that!”

  “My man,” Cooper said, taking Chris’ hand in something like a high-five-handshake hybrid.

  “Yalena, this is my mentor, best man of all times.”

  Cooper’s cheekbones seemed more defined as he smiled. “I believe we’ve met.”

  “At the welcome event,” Yalena said. It was hard to relate the heated discussion she remembered with the cheerful, casual, only-a-few-years-older guy in front of her n
ow. Her eyes sought for any sign of discomfort, but by the looks of it, Cooper didn’t recall the exact circumstances under which they had met. Chatting on with Chris, he seemed closer to being his brother than the commander’s.

  “So, I’m telling Chris, no way you can speed up to three thousand on a cargo craft. Next thing I know, he speeds up and breaks the side latch.”

  “Didn’t think all the way through to deceleration.” Chris laughed it off. “Took us two weeks to repair. Not to mention how mad O’Donnell got.”

  “Did you get punished for it?” Yalena asked. “I mean, aren’t you kind of like a teacher?”

  “Hold your horses, there!” Cooper gulped a big sip from his drink. “I do occasionally run flight drills for STAR Academy, but I’d be offended if you kept calling me a teacher. I’m way too fun for that.” He winked.

  “But to answer your question, yes, we had to fix it ourselves after classes, not in the free afternoon or anything,” Chris said, looking proud to have been so rebellious.

  “Why did Cooper have to work on it, too? You’re the one that broke it,” Yalena teased him.

  “You haven’t gotten used to my brother’s logic yet,” Cooper said. “I was Chris’s superior, and I made a mistake in judgment,” Cooper explained. Even if he kept his tone casual, it was advice to be taken seriously. “Now, let’s see. What other dirt can I spill in front of your squeeze?” Cooper pretended to punch Chris in the shoulder, giving Yalena little room to object to the word “squeeze.”

  “Did he tell you what he pulled off in the hidden room? Man, good thing it wasn’t after hours!” But before they could jump into the new story, Yalena’s clutch buzzed in her hand, and she sneaked a peek at her Berry.

  The message from Eric read “I think we have an opening. Care to try now?”

  With a calm smile, she hurried to excuse herself for what she hoped would be five minutes only. If she could get this done now, rather than wait for Christmas break, she would finally allow herself to look forward to a carefree few weeks.

  Chris was more foolhardy than she had initially expected, but their conversation felt regular and safe, while sneaking off with the commander’s son was anything but. Despite that, she felt an odd sense of relief when she met Eric at the elevators.

  “Let’s do this,” Yalena said, feeding on the newfound confidence. It all felt like a race. She was nervous before, but when it was go-time, she jumped right into it.

  “You look nice, by the way.” Eric was gracious as ever.

  “You clean up well yourself.” They exchanged cautious smiles.

  Getting to the apartment was easy—empty corridors and no extra security apart from the access monitor on the door. Eric accessed the O’Donnell family apartment after a few security procedures. He entered a code first, then he scanned his thumb and put in a second password.

  “After you.” He gestured with one hand. “Welcome to the commander’s apartment.”

  Yalena walked in and couldn’t help a gasp. She had no idea what she had expected to see, but the reality was different than that. The apartment was relatively small and had a cozy feel to it. All the furniture was sleek and compact. Instead of the silver-white and the dark blue found in almost every room on the space station, the commander’s apartment was decorated in earth tones, mingling nicely together. A couch and a wooden table in the main area made it homey, almost like one of the houses Yalena and Adeline used to live in.

  While she was looking around, Eric had already turned on the computer.

  “Now, the tricky part,” he said. “Do you have the silicone patch?”

  Yalena fished it out of her tiny clutch and handed it over, no questions asked.

  “Did Jen suspect anything when you took this?”

  “I told her I’d like to have one on me to help others,” Yalena recalled. While it wasn’t technically a lie, she felt the numb pang from having twisted the truth a little to deceive her friend. Still, the less Jen knew, the better.

  “Don’t ask me how I learned to do this,” Eric warned. “My father was the last one to leave the apartment, so his fingerprint must be on the screen.”

  He took the patch to the monitor and pressed it over the exit key, smoothing it out. Yalena watched in dismay as he peeled it off and inspected the fingerprint. Then, Eric used his own thumb to press on the computer sensor with the piece of silicone over it.

  “Welcome, Marcus,” the artificial voice said.

  “I can’t believe this.” Yalena could hardly blink.

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “We’ll get into so much trouble if he finds out,” Yalena said. Stating the obvious wouldn’t help, but neither would simply hovering over Eric as he searched for the file.

  “We would, but we wouldn’t be the first ones. Just ask Cooper.”

  Yalena didn’t doubt that after witnessing Chris and Cooper’s conversation earlier. Still, keeping calm did not come easy, and she resorted to keeping an eye out for anybody approaching, using the camera view over the corridor, which was shown on a screen by the door.

  “Voilà,” Eric said, drawing her back to the desk. As she lowered herself to sit next to him, her heart did loops in her chest.

  “Are you ready?” Eric asked, a deep wrinkle settling on his forehead.

  Yalena tried to concentrate. She imagined she had just walked into a foreign country where she did not speak the language. She needed to focus on anything that sounded a bit different, regardless of how small. She had to use her intuition, and that meant she needed to eliminate any worry or thought in her head. She finally felt ready and nodded.

  Eric opened the sound file and turned the volume up. He had been right; one flat sound between “Z” and “J” filled the room. It provoked absolutely nothing in Yalena’s mind. She continued listening, but the only thing it resembled was the sound coming out of an improperly-functioning washing machine. Yalena kept at it for a few more minutes, and then for a few more after that, but panic had started rising in her, making her throat dry.

  Why on Earth had Eric thought she would get this? She didn’t have any more understanding about this than the others who had listened to it, and it felt so silly to have believed that she would hear something more in it. Yalena glanced at Eric, almost too afraid to see the disappointment in his blue eyes. He had a very concentrated expression on his face, as if he was the one trying to decipher the signal.

  Yalena realized he was an eternal believer, maybe because he was the commander’s son and he was used to getting what he wanted. Or maybe because he was extremely resourceful as a person and always found ways to get things done. Or maybe both. He observed her, as if he’d expected Yalena to jump in the air as soon as she heard the signal, realizing what it meant. She had to break it to him, regardless of how passionately he believed in her abilities.

  “Eric...” she started slowly. “I’m really sorry. This just doesn’t sound like anything.”

  “Shh. Give it a few more minutes.”

  Yalena felt as if she had to wake him up. “Eric...I listened to it. It’s crazy weird, but absolutely unintelligible.” She spoke with more sadness in her voice than she had expected.

  “The sound file is over three hours long. Maybe there’s something later on.”

  “Three hours? Didn’t you just start the recording again?” Eric turned to face Yalena abruptly. “Just now, a minute ago, didn’t it start from the beginning?” She searched through her memory for the moment that made her so sure of it.

  Eric’s jaw fell open. “You heard something, didn’t you?”

  “I’m not sure.” She was trying not to get her own hopes up yet. “Just play it again.”

  To her own surprise, as soon as Eric re-started the recording, Yalena really did feel the sound sizzling in a weird way she couldn’t explain. It almost felt familiar on second listen.

  “I don’t know what to tell you.” She turned to Eric, still confused.

  “You noticed something in
the sound, didn’t you?” Eric demanded, and he was more serious than Yalena had ever seen him. It was, as if Commander O’Donnell was there with her, not Eric.

  “Kind of, yes, but I can’t claim this is a language. I just felt...like I could sense a variation.” Yalena didn’t know if this made any sense to Eric at all, but he still seemed victorious.

  “Like this?” He beamed in excitement, opening another file. It was a visual representation of the sound on a graph. It was a jarred line spiking up and down.

  Yalena shook her head, puzzled. “Maybe...” She didn’t want to say “no.” “But I’m sure I can’t extract any meaning from this.”

  “That may well be, but you can hear some sort of variation in it. Nobody else can.”

  “What could it possibly be?”

  “It could be a code. In fact, I imagine it might be like Morse code,” Eric said. He seemed pleased, even though Yalena still felt like she had gotten nowhere tonight. What had she expected? That she would get this in her head after listening to it just once, as if it were a teenage pop song?

  Eric pulled out his Berry and unlocked it. “Now all we need to do is copy it, so you can listen to it again.”

  “We should hurry!” Yalena said, fidgeting with her miniature clutch that barely fit her beloved red lip stain and her Berry. She couldn’t be sure how long they had spent listening.

  Eric connected the devices, his fingers typing quickly. “Done,” he said before he stood to leave.

  Yalena’s eyes fell on a picture of a woman in her twenties placed in a prominent place on the desk. The girl was pretty, with long, wavy, dark blonde hair and brown eyes. Her smile was crooked, making her feel familiar. “Who’s that?”

  “Her name was Norma,” Eric said with an even voice.

  The memory of the welcome lunch, when she’d realized Dana was not Eric’s mother, popped up in Yalena’s mind. She had just assumed his parents were divorced, but it didn’t seem that way anymore. “What happened to her?”

  “She died soon after I was born. I never knew her.”