Blind Date A Book 2020 – Book #12
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Chapter 1
Docking the shuttle took all of Zyle’s concentration. This was only his second training flight and he didn’t want to mess up and have to start the course over again.
“Good job, Zyle,” Instructor Handor said. “That was a good flight. I’m surprised how well you’re able to do the maneuvers. Most students don’t master those until they’ve taken the course at least twice.”
“Couldn’t be the extra training my dad makes me take in the simulation capsule, could it?” Zyle asked, laughing. “Not everyone has the military obsessed father I do.”
Instructor Handor snorted. “Yeah, but your ‘military obsessed father’ has done wonders for the Jupiter Mining Base. The JMB was in shambles when he arrived.”
Zyle sighed. “I know, he reminds me of it often.”
Handor laughed. “Well, it was no small accomplishment. He brought scientists and cutting edge technology to what was once just a mining operation. JMB is flourishing with him in charge.”
Zyle shut down the shuttle and removed his training badge, as well as his Datafile-Attachable-Memory stick, from the console of the training shuttle.
Stepping out, Zyle surveyed the dock. There was a large shuttle unloading a new group of students who had come to JMB for the promise of a free education; they offered scholarships in exchange for an internship on one of the research bases, or a spot in the military.
“Yes, indeed,” Zyle said over his shoulder to Handor. “He has brought a lot to JMB. He’s hoping I’ll do the same when he passes the reins.”
“Resigned yourself to it, then, have you?” Handor asked, typing the last of his training notes into the small fiberoptic board he carried.
“I guess,” Zyle said with a shrug. “I don’t really have a choice. He won’t let me go back to Earth to take the courses I want. He’s bound and determined I’ll be a military man like him.”
Handor slapped Zyle on the back as he walked by. “There are worse things you could be.”
Zyle shook his head and retrieved his bag from the shuttle, dropping his DAM-stick and badge into it. Flinging the pack over his shoulder, he headed toward the dock exit, colliding with one of the new students.
“Oh, excuse me,” Zyle said, reaching out to steady the young woman he’d almost knocked down. “I didn’t see you.”
“Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention,” she said at the same time.
They both laughed.
“Are you all right?” Zyle asked.
“Yes, yes, I’m fine.”
Zyle couldn’t help by stare at the young woman. She was short, around five feet tall, with brown hair, and huge, dark brown eyes.
“Um. . . ” the woman said uncomfortably, tucking her long hair behind her ear. “I better get going, before the group leaves and I get lost.”
“Huh?” Zyle asked. “Oh, okay. Sorry, again.”
She giggled and hurried to catch up with the group of new students who would be taken on a tour of the JMB, where they would learn about the base and its operation.
Zyle stepped forward when the door closed behind her and he realized he hadn’t even asked her what her name was.
Slapping himself on the forehead, he made his way out through the exit and looked after the group, hoping to speak with her again. She was at the front of the crowd, right by the guide.
He sighed and turned to go to his dorm room.
Zyle couldn’t think of anything except the woman’s beautiful eyes and sweet smile. Somehow he made it to his room. Pressing his palm to the announcing pad that doubled as an identity scanner, he stepped inside.
“How did the flight go today?” Hex teased. “Hit any rocks? Or did you just blast them out of your way?”
“Ha, ha, ha,” Zyle said to his roommate. “There were no rocks, but if there had been, I would have handled them.”
“Is the simulation capsule anything like the real thing?” Hex asked.
“Close,” Zyle said, stowing his stuff on the shelves above his bunk. “The real thing is more intense. The biggest difference between the simulation capsule and actually flying a shuttle is knowing that if things go wrong you might not come back.”
“See why I took intelligence instead of all that combat stuff?” Hex asked. “This way, I’m safe and sound away from the action.”
Zyle laughed. “Except if you get assigned to a shuttle. Then you’ll have to be in the thick of it and not have any control. I’d rather have some control over the situation, if I have to be in it.”
Hex grunted. “There’s an important message for you.”
Zyle raised his eyebrow at Hex, who seemed to be engrossed in his homework. “Did you read it?”
Hex shrugged, but didn’t look up.
Zyle sat down in front of the fiberoptic panel in the corner of his side of the room and proceeded to check his messages. Most were personal messages from friends, a couple of reminders from classes, but that wasn’t what Hex was referring to. There was one from the correspondence school Zyle had applied to.
He read it, then read it again. They’d denied his enrollment, saying that the in-class assignments were impossible because there wasn’t a literature course available where he was currently going to school. His dream of studying the language, culture, and history he’d come from was officially impossible.
Zyle turned off the panel, got up, and laid down on his bunk with his arms crossed behind his head; he stared up at nothing.
“Sorry, man,” Hex said quietly. “I know you were hoping to at least take a correspondence course.”
“Yeah,” Zyle said.
“Maybe they’ll have a teacher here in a couple of years for literature and then you can take it.”
Zyle didn’t respond. He stood and walked out of the room without a backwards glance. Turning to the right, he walked through the corridors blindly, not caring where he was going. Nothing was working out the way he wanted, but everything seemed to be conspiring against him to align with his father’s will.
Without even realizing it, Zyle wandered down to the next level and into the Fountain Room; it was where he always went to think. The soothing sounds of water helped him relax and cleared his mind when things were bothering him. Today, he needed that peace.
He sat in the corner, where he had a good view of the fountain and of Jupiter. Staring out the window at the planet, he watched lightning flash in the depths of its Great Red Eye. They had always fascinated him – the storms that ravaged the planet – and how Jupiter seemed to remain the same despite the constant changes. Zyle sometimes wished he could harness that peace within the storm and have better control of the things that influenced his life.
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