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Well,
currently he’d found nothing but dust.

And
more dust.

Feeling despondent and downright disappointed, Carson quickly
made his way back to the shuttle.

Occasionally he glanced over to see Cadet J’Etem administering
to Cadet Harper.

Harper
seemed okay now, and smiled and chatted with her friend, but
occasionally she would get a far-off look in her eyes, and her brow
would crease with worry.

He
wanted to know what had happened, how exactly she had fallen and
hurt herself that badly, but before he'd been able to ask, the rest
of his team had distracted him.

Plus,
Blake had bigger problems to worry about. He always did.

Cadet
Harper

“Holy
crap, I am late again,” she realised as she sat up straight in her
bed, her pillow bouncing out from underneath her and slamming onto
the soft carpet below.

She
glanced over at the holographic clock in the corner, and
swore.

Jesus
Christ, she had slept in by an hour. A whole fricking
hour.

Her
alarm was blaring, and somehow she had managed to snooze through
it, even though it sounded like a red alert klaxon in her
ear.

She
raced over to the alarm, waved her hand above it, and instantly it
cut out.

Then
she swore even more as she threw off her clothes, grabbed her
uniform from a pile on the ground, and clambered into
it.

God,
she had already missed half of her morning’s lecture. And
unfortunately for her, the lecture was being run by none other than
Commander Sharpe.

Her
nemesis. A man who hated her and wanted nothing more than to kick
her out of the Academy.

Great.

Now he
would have yet another reason to reprimand her.

Once
she was done dressing, she ran her fingers through her matted,
black, compact curls, and grabbed a simple clip off her bedside
table. She wrestled her hair into some kind of bun, clasped it, and
ran out of her bedroom door.

She
reached the kitchen, chugged down a glass of water, patted her
lips, and headed for the door.

The
room was a mess.

It was
always a mess.

Though
she did genuinely try to keep it clean, her flat mate—Cadet Alicia
Arquette—only ever bothered to help when they had guests coming
around.

Beyond
the immediate mess though, it was a lovely apartment. And it had
the best view. It was halfway up one of the numerous high-rise
blocks that were scattered around the Academy's main grounds, and
if you stood at the plate glass windows that occupied one wall, you
could see all the way over the city to the ocean far beyond. It
glittered there, a sliver of tantalising blue.

Blue.

For
some reason the mere thought of that colour jogged something in her
memory, but she couldn't recall exactly what.

She
found herself pausing though, just before she anchored her palm
onto the panel on the wall by the door.

Shaking her head, she finally pushed through her reverie, then
ran out into the corridor.

She
made double time, heading down to the Academy grounds and her
lecture hall as fast as her feet could carry her.

Then
she snuck in the back way, sitting down in one of the chairs in the
last row as quietly as she could.

Though
she hoped no one had seen her, she saw Sharpe look up from the
lectern far below and narrow his gaze her way.

Oh
boy.

No
doubt, he was pausing to take a mental note to make her life hell
after the lecture.

She
locked her teeth, closed her eyes, tipped her head back, and
wondered if now was just a good time to quit and cut her
losses.

“As I
am sure you are all aware, it takes years of rigorous practice to
make full use of your telekinetic implants,” Sharpe continued with
the lecture.

Every
member of the Galactic Coalition Academy had a telekinetic implant.
Even she did. In fact, she took several seconds to bring her hand
up and tap the small, hard device lodged just a few centimetres
below the base of her throat.

She'd
remembered being so excited when she'd received it.

In her
mind, she’d hoped it would let her make objects fly across the
room, catch cruisers as they fell from the sky, and generally wield
the power of a modern god.

Unfortunately, it wasn't that simple.

Not
only were the implants hard to use, some people simply never got
the knack of them.

And
she was one of the unlucky few who had zero talent. Totally zip.
Nothing.

She
could do precious little with the implant. She’d been able to pick
up a cup with her mind once, but that was it. She had not succeeded
in using any of the specialised telekinetic weapons, and she’d
certainly never caught a cruiser as it fell from the
sky.

She
was, in other words, truly useless.

“It is
rare to find a true master of these implants. Not only does it
require years of work, but a natural talent and understanding of
the underlying dynamics involved,” Sharpe said. “So we are very
lucky to have a true master at the Academy.”

Nida
sighed as she continued to tap her implant.

J’Etem
was a marvel when it came to the use of telekinetic power. In fact,
nearly every other member of Nida's class had real talent for
it.

Nida,
on the other hand, had come to the realisation she would never be
able to use her implant properly.

No
matter how many hours of practice she put in, she never improved.
Lifting a cup was sure to be the height of her less-than heady
success.

Staring at her hands glumly as she allowed them to rest back
on the table, she wondered whether she could just sneak out of the
lecture. She was already in trouble, so it would hardly matter if
she added a fresh, new mistake to her enormous list of
misdemeanour.

Pressing her lips together, she deliberately tuned out as
Sharpe continued lecturing the class on the correct and effective
use of their implants.

She
already knew the material anyway. Heck, every recruit did; the rest
of her class was simply being politely attentive as Sharpe reminded
them yet again how powerful yet dangerous telekinetic implants
were.

She
appreciated the point, but it was hardly as if she needed to heed
the warning; coffee cups aside, Nida was never going to be able to
wield a telekinetic weapon, so there was no point in learning the
correct way to use them.

As she
tuned out, her mind wandered over what she had to do for the rest
of the day, then she mused about whether there'd be any hotdogs
left in the cafeteria after the lunch rush.

Then,
out of the corner of her eye, she saw a blue flash. The cadet
sitting next to her wore one of the standard-issue Academy watches,
and had clearly just received a message—hence the sudden pulse of
light.

But
even though she saw blue flashes like that every day, this one
caught her attention.

And
held it fast.

A kick
of nerves travelled blindingly fast up her back, and she twitched
forward as if she'd been struck.

A
memory played at the edge of her mind, toying with her.

The
cadet next to her turned, frowning at her odd behaviour. “Are you
okay?” he whispered.

She
forced herself to nod, pretending her leg had just cramped. Then
she turned around and tried to listen to the lecture.

She
couldn't. That memory kept on beckoning her. And it had something
to do with blue light. In fact, now she paused long enough, she
realised she’d been fascinated by blue light ever since she’d
returned from that rather ill-fated mission to the barren Remus
12.

It had
been several days now, and she had made a complete recovery.
Somehow, some precious how, she had fallen over in the dark,
cracked a rib, sprained an ankle, given herself a severe
concussion, and cut her fingers and cheek.

She
still didn't remember how she'd done it though.

All
she could recall about that day was being sent back to the compound
by Sharpe after she’d led Blake to the mysterious stairs. Then she
recalled nothing until she remembered waking up on-board the
Orion.

Everyone was sure she had just fallen over, and to be fair,
she was one of them. She knew first-hand how clumsy she could be,
and considering she had already broken a scanner that day on the
planet by tripping over a rock, it wasn't so much of a stretch to
imagine she had broken herself by tripping over another
rock.

. . . .

So she
tried to ignore the lights. Those flashes of blue.

It was
just her memory playing tricks on her.

Concluding that, she got back to the important task of
ignoring the lecture.

While
the cadet next to her had a rather rapt look of attention on his
face, she did not, and she couldn't muster the energy required to
try.

Sharpe
already knew she was a complete disaster when it came to the use of
her telekinetic implant.

Whilst
everybody in her class had moved on from coffee cups to actual
weapons, she hadn't, and she never would.

She
didn't, apparently, have the concentration and control for
it.

Telekinetic implants worked by allowing you to control certain
objects that had been impregnated with a specialised magnetic
material. The implant was hooked up to your central nervous system
and right into your motor cortex. With just a thought, you could
command the implant to put out a field and manipulate any material
nearby with that necessary specialised magnetic substance
inside.

It was
incredible technology, and was one of the reasons the Galactic
Coalition Academy had become as powerful as it was.

It
couldn't be used everywhere, though, and it certainly couldn't be
used on anything; implants only worked on objects that had the
right magnetised material in them.

Feeling satisfied that she clearly already knew everything she
needed to, Nida indulged in closing her eyes and forced a quiet,
careful breath.

Then
she waited, listening with only half an ear as the lecture
continued. In another hour, it was over.

She
carefully and discretely made her way out of the back entrance,
hoping that Sharpe wouldn't have the time to race around and catch
her.

He
didn't, and with a small, satisfied smile, she hurried along the
corridor.

In
fact, she ran so fast she rounded the corner before checking to see
if anyone was coming from the other direction.

Someone was, and she bumped straight into him.

Swearing softly, she jolted back, then looked up to see none
other than Carson Blake.

He
blinked at her, muttered sorry, then moved to walk off. Then he
stopped. “Hold on, you're Cadet Harper, from the mission to planet
Remus 12,” his pupils widened with clear interest.

She
winced. “Yes, that would be me. Are you going to get me in trouble
for losing your scanner?” she babbled quickly, searching for a
reason to explain his sudden interest.

“My
scanner . . . oh, yeah, we did leave that
behind, didn't we?” He looked thoughtful as he muttered a soft
“ha.”

She
breathed a sigh of relief when she realised he wasn't about to add
another complaint against her to Commander Sharpe.

“How
are you?” he asked with genuine interest.

She
blinked back her surprise. Why did he care? She was just a walking
accident and the worst recruit in 1000 years, and he was Carson
Freaking Blake.

He
smiled at her encouragingly.

He
didn’t look like he was acting, and with a quick look around her,
she realised there was no one around he could be trying to impress
by compassionately asking after her.

“Ah,”
she mumbled, realising her pause had become uncomfortably long,
“fine. I mean, they fixed me up,” she added awkwardly.

“Do
you remember what happened?” he now asked, dropping his tone as
several cadets walked past them.

She
stopped.

She
was about to say she had just fallen over, and it was nothing to
worry about, but as she opened her mouth, the words wouldn't come
out.

Instead, sudden blue flashes filled her mind, like fireflies
dancing frantically at the corners of her vision.

She
shook her head when she realised she couldn’t just stand there with
her mouth open looking dumbstruck, and offered what she hoped was a
reassuring smile. “That kind of stuff always happens to me. I'm
really sorry,” she added, “about your scanner.”

He
laughed. It was an odd move. It was as if he wasn't sure whether he
should chuckle at her, but couldn't quite stop himself. “It's okay.
It wasn't exactly mine. I had another one built as soon as we got
back to the Orion.”