Swim the Stars

By Katie Spina

Five cadets set out on a training mission aboard the stellar sailer, The Sunfish. That mission quickly morphs into an assignment to save space travel itself.

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Someone is sabotaging the stellar turbines that power the United Galaxies. Entire planets are losing power. People are panicking. The Feed is filling

• Language: English
• Publisher: Awesome Authors Kids
• Release date: Feb 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9798987425510

Katie Spina

I have been a storyteller for as long as I can remember. I wrote my first book at the age of 9. I still have a copy of it in a folder in my office. To be honest, it's quite terrible. I was trying to write an Agatha Christie mystery tied into a soap opera drama without understanding why those two things wouldn't mesh.In high school, my friends and I created a fanfiction universe where we could live out lives of grand adventure as our ideal selves. Those stories helped me understand who I was, what I believed in, and what I wanted to be happy. I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I knew I wanted stories to be in my life. I ended up going to college and getting a degree in writing. All I wanted to do was tell stories.Over the years, I've written many books. Those were all stories for adults. They were good, but they weren't the stories of my heart. In 2017, I started Awesome Authors Kids. Writing classes to encourage kids to write anything and everything, so long as they had fun. Writing is a skill that improves with practice. The more kids are willing to write, the better their writing skills get.Sharing my passion for writing with my students got me writing the kinds of stories I wanted to read as a kid. I took the fanfiction universe my friend created when we were teens and wrote a new story with our own kids as the heroes. During the pandemic shutdown of 2020, I started going for walks on the nature trail behind my house. The more I walked, the more I saw the magic in the forest. I crafted a whole magic world called Gaeldor where kids can have soft adventures. I have double vision as the result of a lazy eye. Two of my nephews have the same condition of one eye stronger than the other. They are training their eyes to work together by wearing an eye patch on a schedule. I went through physical therapy in first grade and again in fifth grade. It helped, but I still have partial double vision as an adult.My memories of dealing with my double vision introduced me to the idea of a girl that can see the portal to Gaeldor because she sees the world differently. Her adventures are like slipping into Narnia without the life or death stakes.In elementary school, I found a group of friends that loved to play pretend as much as I did. They inspired The Humbuggery Squad. A group of kids with big imaginations that have grand adventures during recess.I am many things: a daughter, a mom, a spouse, a teacher. But most of all, I am a storyteller. Thank you for sharing my stories with your family.

Book preview

Copyright © Katie Spina 2023 All rights reserved

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover art by Sophia Moten

ISBN 979-8-9874255-1-0

First Edition

Awesome Authors Kids

Oakland Charter Township, MI

www.awesomeauthorskids.com

Content Warning

Readers should be aware the following topics are contained in this story.

With all my love for Darwin, Ben, Anna, Lucas, and Evan. You are the greatest crew a mom and an aunt could possibly ask for.

PROLOGUE

The hum of spinning blades, steady as a heartbeat. Click.

A tiny spark sets off an explosive device tucked into a wall panel. The hands that fastened the device are long gone.

The panel is on fire. Electronic boards melt. Connectors snap in the intense heat of flames designed to destroy worlds.

A corridor just wide enough for maintenance personnel to walk through is filling with acrid smoke. Black and thick, it is a good thing no one is here to breathe in these noxious fumes.

An explosion from behind the inner wall shakes the corridor. Beneath the crackle of fiber optic cables being incinerated, the hum is sputtering.

A large explosion deep within rocks the floor sending it permanently off kilter. The sputtering fades, giving way to silence. The stellar wind turbine hangs dead in space.

SEARCH RESULTS FOR: Bill the Great

FEED ENTRY

Galactic Enquirer

Tagline: We’re just asking questions

Title: Bill the Great - Hero or Double Agent?

The Tallow Wars have been over for fifteen years now, yet we’re still supposed to believe this nobody from Commerce-only-knows-where who swept in to fight alongside real heroes like now-Admiral Dylan Stephaens was one of the good guys? This amateur pilot without an engine in their starship stood defiantly before the Board of Assessors with their blue hair and striped overalls and refused to even salute the proper heroes testifying against them. Is this the kind of person we want influencing our children?

SEARCH RESULTS FOR: Bill the Great

FEED ENTRY

United Galaxies News Network

Tagline: Real reporting requires answers

Title: Bill the Great – Scapegoat?

On this, the anniversary of the final defeat of Swar Gheefeld and the signing of the Tallow Treaty, we remember a hero who hasn’t been forgotten so much as removed from the record books. Bill the Great, a pilot who brought new life into a war that sorely needed hope. Working beside such other brave captains as Skippy Q Bueford and Hermy X. Bravo, Bill the Great fought tirelessly to disrupt the supply chains to Gheefeld’s ships and ensure victory for the United Galaxies.

FEED COMMENTS

User itellithowitis69420

Commenting on post: UG Academy invites Captain Bill the Great to train cadets on ship

Look, all I’m saying is you’d have to pay me a bajillion credits to get me on a ship without a interstellar engine. I don’t hve 7 lifetimes 2 wait 2 get somewhere. What’s the point of training our best and brightest when we’re sending em off to learn how ot be snowflake traitors?

User ReneeIsReadingYourPosts

Replying to: itellithowitis69420

Snowflake traitors? Don’t you have a single thought of your own in your head? Seriously, try reading a proper article sometime instead of the mindless trash put out by the Galactic Enquirer!

User itellithowitis69420

Replying to: ReneeIsReadingYourPosts

They’re just asking the questions we’re all thinking!

CHAPTER ONE

Ryan turned off her wristlet. That was enough Feed for now. She’d heard conspiracy theories about Captain Bill the Great from other cadets all week. Rumors had grains of truth to them, but most of them, like just about everything on the Feed, were lies. All the interviews she’d read by people who actually knew Bill the Great said they were somebody worth having on your side. Ryan could use a good ally.

The hinge of the threadbare shuttle seat dug into Ryan’s butt. She shifted, trying to find a comfortable spot, but the four-point harness only let her move so far. They had been waiting to take off for twenty minutes.

The ancient shuttle was stripped of any luxuries it may have once had. Two rows of four chairs were bolted to the floor facing each other. An open space at the back probably once held an air circulator. All that remained now were four rusty holes in the floor. Aside from the four other cadets heading out on this training mission, there wasn’t anything to look at. Thinking about the other cadets, a Cyclops boy, a Giant boy, a Servalkin girl, and a youngling from Qondo, Ryan struggled to see how she fit.

She didn’t have the credits to pay for a trip on a garbage barge. If she wasn’t a cadet of the Academy, she would never be allowed in this seat.

She needed to think of something else. The Feed wasn’t distracting enough.

Ryan pulled the latest sculpture she was working on out of the pouch hanging at her hip, along with a dull silver metal rod as long as her hand and as thick as her thumb. She pressed the black sensor pad of the clay activator wand against her sculpture and pushed the red button on the side. The fountain sculpture in her hand turned malleable.

Last year, her drama and public speaking class had gone for free to see the musical Spectre in the Auberge. The music had been alright, but the fountain…

The fountain had leapt out of her dreams and landed on the stage, the central piece to the love story.

She hadn’t had the dream in over three years, but when she let her mind go quiet, that voice from her past whispered into her heart.

Swim the stars, Ryan.

The fountain was all she sculpted now.

The base had been easy. The freeze clay took the bowl and pedestal shape without much effort. It was the sunfish on top that was causing trouble. A desperation deep within said once she got the fish right everything she’d been through since Dad died would make sense.

First, she had to get the fish right. She was working on the cresting ridge of the dorsal fin when Sa’Naiba leaned across the empty seat between them.

What is it about that fish? I keep dreaming about it. The Servalkin girl was the opposite of Ryan. Sa’Naiba was tall and wiry where Ryan was short and compact. Ryan was strong with solid leg muscles. Her olive green uniform pants clung to her thighs while Sa’Naiba’s burgundy uniform pants were an inch too short.

The music was really good though, Sa’Naiba said. Dark brown spots starting at her forehead and stretching down her back speckled her golden fur. Black and white striped ears half as tall as her face stood atop her head. They twitched at each random sound in the shuttle.

Ryan pressed the activator wand against the statue and pressed the red button. The clay transitioned to solid, keeping Ryan’s changes. The fin still wasn’t right, but there would be downtime on the mission to work on it.

That’s so cool. Sa’Naiba smiled. Her top and bottom fangs flashed in the light. May I hold it? She held out her hand showing the black pads surrounded by the golden fur.

Ryan handed over the sculpture and tucked the activator wand away. She had more clay in her pouch. She could always start over if something happened. If anyone understood nothing in life is permanent, it was Ryan.

She reached for the leather-wrapped braid tucked behind her left ear. The loss of her dad didn’t bring tears anymore. Now it was an emptiness that left her feeling hollow.

She didn’t actually like the musical. The sunfish reminded her of the before time: before Dad died, before she started collecting secrets, before she declared herself an orphan.

This training mission was Ryan’s chance to make her own fate. With a career in the United Galaxies, she’d be far from the family that disappeared when she needed someone.

Sa’Naiba handed back the sculpture. I’m not good at making stuff. I’m a dancer.

I bet you make a great fighter. Ryan’s Uncle Thesp said the best fighters were also the best dancers because they had the rhythm in their souls.

Sa’Naiba’s ears drooped as she slid down in her seat. Who told you? Her voice was small even for the eight-seater shuttle. She pressed herself against the seat, pulling her legs back, and tucking her feet under her.

Ryan knew the look in Sa’Naiba’s eyes. Shame radiated off her. It was supposed to be a compliment, and as usual, it backfired. This was why Ryan didn’t have friends at the Academy. The skills that helped you survive in Vespuccana made you stand out in the United Galaxies. Not in the good way.

I didn’t hear anything. I was trying to be nice. Ryan shoved the sculpture in her pouch, picked up her helmet from the floor, and slid it over her head. She pressed the button on the side, activating the neck seal. Enough talking.

Ryan and the four other cadets sat in silence, waiting for Professor Perria to join them, so they could leave. She was the only one with a helmet on. Instead of feeling out of place, she was in her own bubble world. She could see them, and they could see her, but there was a layer between them protecting Ryan. Not from the cold, lifeless vacuum of space. In this moment, she was protected from the cold vacuum of life as a 14-year old with no home world and no real friends.

Professor Perria poked his copper-haired head in the door and said something Ryan couldn’t hear. He gave her a pasty thumbs-up while the others put their helmets on.

They shouldn’t have needed helmets. If the shuttle hadn’t belonged to the United Galaxies Academy, it would have been decommissioned years ago and sold off to some Vespuccana junker. The Academy had plenty of shuttles with atmosphere and gravity. Ryan had ridden in one before. This shuttle was Admiral Stephaens’ way of spitting on the mission he couldn’t reject outright.

Ryan was more surprised than anyone at being chosen for this elite position. She worked hard to be an average student. She didn’t want to stand out. Standing out got you attention, and attention brought questions. Questions Ryan didn’t want to answer.

As always happened when she got upset, Ryan’s hand found the knife sheathed in the black leather bandolier strapped around her chest. She’d had to fight all the way to the Oversight Board to keep this piece of her heritage. A gift at age seven, the honor blade meant Ryan was beginning her path to becoming a knifesmith.

Growing up on the Forge meant knives, swords, and metallurgy were in Ryan’s blood. The space station orbited a barren planet which orbited a dying star. Every moment of life was a reminder that death hung waiting in the sky.

Was that why her dad became a pilot? Was that why he feared nothing?

Was that why he flew into his own death?

Professor Perria was suddenly sitting next to Ryan. The weight in her body lifted as the shuttle entered open space.

Flying in no gravity distressed Ryan. Without gravity, she couldn’t feel the weight of the six daggers strapped to her body. She didn’t like feeling defenseless. She’d been blindsided once when grief ripped out her heart, tore it into tiny pieces, and then crushed what remained into dust.

Ryan Cruor would never feel like that again. She would be prepared for anything.

* * *

They’d been flying for hours. Ryan pulled up the acceptance letter on her wristlet. She read through it again, reminding herself she was really here. She was on this terrible, broken shuttle on her way to meet her hero. Captain Bill the Great, victor of the Tallow Wars, personally selected her for this mission out of all the cadets at the Academy.

Sa’Naiba had unbuckled herself and was doing flips around the cabin. Ryan mindlessly scrolled the Feed and posted a selfie #FirstMission while watching Sa’Naiba move from handhold to foothold.

The Servalkin girl had made the same pattern twice. As she repeated a complicated flip a third time, Ryan took a video on her wristlet and posted it to the Feed #AwesomeFlight. For spite, she tagged Admiral Stephaens.

Voggs the Giant Boy wasn’t handling the zero gravity. He had his helmet unsealed and sitting just below his nose. His mouth was buried in a barf bag. His shoulders shook with the force of his lunch leaving his stomach and flowing into the bag. He came up to get a fresh breath from his helmet.

He sealed the barf bag, but it wasn’t fast enough. A tiny globule of digested food and stomach acid floated into the air above the Giant boy. Ryan pulled herself tighter against her seat.

Ryan watched the blob of vomit drift across the cabin, inching ever closer to her. She couldn’t take her eyes off the spinning orb of stuff speckled with green chunks. The berry blasticles she’d had at lunch were inching their way up her throat. From somewhere on Ryan’s left, Sa’Naiba dove across the cabin. She stopped in front of Ryan, grabbing onto a harness ring on the ceiling. She flung her legs up flat against the top of the shuttle and stretched her hands out. Ryan cringed as the girl’s hands got closer to the rotating mass of regurgitated lunch. Before Sa’Naiba connected with Voggs’s vomit, she stretched her hands around the spinning glob. She moved them in a circle around it, rotating faster and faster.

As Sa’Naiba moved her hands, Ryan realized what she was doing. The Servalkin girl was moving the horrible blob away. Despite how Ryan had treated her earlier, Sa’Naiba was saving her from having her helmet splattered with Voggs’s upchuck.

Ryan took a deep breath of stale air and unclenched the muscles in her face. This mission was already teaching her something she hadn’t considered before. Ryan didn’t have to be alone. She isolated herself at the Academy. It would be much harder to isolate herself on a starship.

The first explosion pushed Ryan against her harness. The next blast smacked her helmet against the hull. The shuttle was under attack.

FEED ENTRY

Entertainment News

Title: Fan Favorite Starlet Secures Lead Role in Spectre in the Auberge live stream

When the live stream of the popular musical Spectre in the Auberge was announced last year, rumors flew along the Feed as to who would play the lead role of hotel owner Wysteria Flaggenveld.

Heartthrob Vumpler Abelsmad was confirmed to play the role of the ghost Kohlbehr from day one.

We’re excited to announce Junia has confirmed she will play Wysteria! After the success of her latest single and the movie based on it, Junia is a supernova expanding across the galaxy!

Stay tuned for more details on our favorite musical romance about a love triangle between the girl who inherits a run-down hotel, the ghost who falls for her, and the real estate agent who wants her inheritance.

CHAPTER TWO

Blaster bolts exploded outside the hull, rocking the ship hard. Ryan bit back the frozen berry blasticles that were trying to force their way past her gums and out into her helmet. Her breath was coming in short bursts. Her stomach muscles cramped. The back and forth of the ship wouldn’t have been so bad except her body was trying to float out of its seat as it was rattled against the harness. She forced a deep breath of stale air and closed her eyes.

Over the comm in her helmet, Professor Perria told everyone to stay calm. The pilot had things under control. Ryan’s head was pounding behind her right ear. The lack of gravity wasn’t just bad for her stomach. Everyone was distracted by the ship being under attack, so she slipped a pain patch out of her pants pocket. She fumbled with the backing. The silver sheet came apart from the patch and drifted up toward Ryan’s face. She snatched it out of the air and shoved it in her pocket.

Scanning the cabin, she confirmed nobody was looking her way. She tucked her hand under the bottom of her tunic and pressed the pain patch up near her armpit. It would have been more effective on her neck or shoulder, but then someone could have seen it. It wasn’t technically against the rules for a cadet to have pain patches, but it would have started questions Ryan didn’t want to answer.

Because revealing those secrets would ruin her life.

Another blaster bolt sent the shuttle rocking hard on its side. Sa’Naiba clung to the ceiling, riding out the shocks. Ryan hung against the harness that strapped her to the seat. She tried talking to Professor Perria on the comm. His channel was blocked. She tapped his arm. He brushed her away, unbuckling his harness to grab at Sa’Naiba. She pushed off the ceiling and dove for the seat next to Ryan. The two cadets did their best to get her buckled in.

The shuttle rocked and jerked to a stop. Over the loudspeaker bolted to the ceiling, a voice said, Academy Shuttle, prepare to be boarded.

Professor Perria braced himself against the floor and ceiling. He grabbed a harness strapped to the wall and buckled himself in.

Clicking his heels together activated magnets in his boots. Feet secure, he grabbed a bag from under his seat. He pulled out a black and gray blaster pistol that was older than Ryan, then secured the bag back under the seat.

Over the helmet comm, Professor Perria said, No matter what happens, stay in your seats.

Ryan was trying to hear him through the blood pounding in her ears. Her stomach dropped into her boots, leapt into her mouth, and then fell back behind her solar plexus. The shuttle slowly moved backward.

There was no way that voice could be here now. It was impossible. It had to be impossible.

The shuttle stopped moving. Ryan curled into herself, pressing her back as far into the seat as she could. Sa’Naiba sat tense with her hands pressed against her knees.

Ryan couldn’t catch her breath. The worry about puking into her helmet was like a distant memory now. Everything she had run from, all her hard-won victories were about to be stolen away.

Professor Perria checked his wristlet. His voice crackled again in Ryan’s helmet. Four minutes until we rendezvous. Stay calm. Four minutes. They could hold out that long.

Ryan had held out for much longer.

This was Ryan’s first time being boarded. She read about the hijacking protocols in the UG textbook on interstellar travel. She laughed especially hard at the instruction to hide all valuables in your underpants as no ne’er-do-well will go there. Her mother’s best friend Karbaren was notorious for making people strip down.

If you really wanted to keep your valuables, you hid them in with the food. No respectable pirate trusted stolen food. Not after hearing the legend of Bloody Boris.

The shuttle door shook, and the pounding reverberated around the cabin. The other cadets jumped and twitched against their harnesses. Professor Perria said over the comm, Stay in your seats. I’ve got this. He gripped the blaster pistol tight against his leg.

Ryan’s conditioning took over. GrandSmith, Ryan’s grandmother, made her practice every morning. Deep breaths. Feel the calm settle into your bones. Be aware of where you are. What are your weaknesses? Right now, a huge lack of gravity was a big deal. She’d work with what she had.

Sa’Naiba had been bouncing around the cabin for over an hour. Ryan had watched her find all the best hand holds. It wasn’t a perfect battle assessment, but it was something.

She checked all her hidden blades. In her right