Crash Course Read online

  For Mum, for putting up with us both.

  Contents

  Chapter One: Under Attack!

  Chapter Two: A Little Data Cube

  Chapter Three: Slightly Fuzzy

  Chapter Four: A Brief Overload

  Chapter Five: Out of Order

  Chapter Six: Search & Destroy

  Chapter Seven: Big Trouble

  Chapter Eight: Terrible Danger

  Chapter One

  Under Attack!

  The first thing Luke saw when he came home from school was the message Mum had left on the wall-screen of their quarters. It was the usual stuff – she would be late yet again, please sort out the dinner, make sure you do your homework, boring, boring, blah, blah, blah.

  Luke sighed. Life on the United Earth Spaceship Buzz Aldrin wasn’t a bundle of laughs, especially when you were the captain’s son. In fact, it was hard work, and recently he’d been so bored he could scream. Although, as Mum wasn’t around now, at least his homework could wait…

  Luke pulled the battered old games console out of his school bag and turned it on. While he waited for it to boot up, he got two space-meals ready. He put them in the auto-chef and jabbed at the timer buttons, not really looking at what he was doing as he thought about which game to play. It had to be Ishtreen Attack, he decided as he went into his tiny cabin and put on his headphones. It was the only game he still hadn’t managed to finish. Soon he was sitting on his bunk, happily absorbed, time slipping by unnoticed.

  Captain Luke pulled back on the joystick, dodging the explosions that blossomed around his small craft as he flew towards the Ishtreen mother-ship, a gigantic hulk of black metal, spiky with weapon tubes. The aliens had come to enslave the human race and only Captain Luke – the best fighter pilot in the Solar System – could defeat them. He lined up the alien ship in his sights…

  Suddenly, Luke’s headphones were yanked off his ears. He hadn’t heard Mum come in, and now she was standing there, giving him one of her 10-megaton glares. This was not good. An angry mum was scarier than a thousand Ishtreen battle cruisers. A lot scarier. And what was that awful burning smell?

  ‘So much for you sorting out dinner,’ said Mum. She held up a plate with two blackened lumps in the middle of it. ‘As far as I can tell, the auto-chef was on full power for an hour. I’m amazed it didn’t burn a hole through the hull.’

  ‘It’s not my fault,’ muttered Luke. ‘Maybe it’s broken or something.’

  ‘Oh, just like it’s not your fault that your grades at school have taken a dive, I suppose?’ said Mum. She was tall and had short dark hair, very similar to Luke’s. ‘I bet you haven’t even started your homework, have you?’

  ‘Er… I was about to, honest…’ Luke murmured, his voice trailing away.

  ‘Really? I don’t think so,’ said Mum. ‘You’d have played that stupid computer game all night if I hadn’t come home. Can’t you see they’re a complete waste of time?’

  ‘No, they’re not!’ said Luke. ‘They’re fun, and I don’t see what’s wrong with enjoying yourself. I think you can learn a lot from computer games, too.’

  ‘Like what?’ snapped Mum, crossing her arms and raising her eyebrows.

  ‘Well… er…’ Luke stammered, but he knew he was beaten.

  ‘I see we’re in agreement about something then,’ said Mum, although her face had softened a little. She sighed. ‘What am I going to do with you, Luke? You really need to start taking things a bit more seriously, you know…’ And soon she had settled into Parent Lecture Mode, droning on and on.

  Luke let his mind go blank. Giving him lectures was something his mum did a lot, and there was no point arguing with her. Not that she’d always been so grim and grumpy. They’d had loads of fun together back in the old days, when she’d just been a regular pilot on the Jupiter mining transports. But then all the bad stuff had happened on Earth…

  Pollution had reached a critical level, the seas had risen and wiped out whole countries, and the air had become unbreathable. A few thousand survivors had managed to escape on a dozen spaceships, but the ships had lost contact with each other, so the Buzz Aldrin might now be humanity’s last hope. Now they were alone in the depths of space with huge challenges to face. So Luke understood that being captain of the ship was stressful for his mum. But that didn’t make it any easier to live with her moods.

  ‘Anyway, I think I’ve made my point,’ she was saying. ‘Right, hand it over.’

  Luke reluctantly gave her the console. He had a feeling it would be a long time before he got it back.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘And tomorrow I’ll ask Clarke to give you more homework. You need to get those grades up again.’

  His mum left the cabin, a whiff of smoke trailing behind her, the door hissing shut.

  More homework! How could she? Talk about attack of the mother-ship. Luke was filled with gloom darker than the blackness of space. It looked like he was going to achieve a record level of boredom over the next few days.

  Chapter Two

  A Little Data Cube

  At breakfast the next morning, Mum was still quite grumpy with him. So Luke was relieved when the door buzzer went and he heard the voice of his friend Yasmin over the intercom. He grabbed his school bag and hit the button to open the door.

  ‘Bye, Mum!’ he said and hurried off, dragging Yasmin with him, their footsteps echoing on the metal deck of the gangway.

  ‘Bye, Luke!’ Mum called out. ‘Just make sure you work hard today.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, whatever…’ Luke muttered under his breath, scowling.

  ‘Oh dear,’ laughed Yasmin. She had coffee-coloured skin and long straight brown hair that she was constantly brushing. ‘Having a spot of parent trouble, are we?’

  ‘It’s no joke, Yasmin,’ said Luke. ‘Mum confiscated my games console and she’s going to ask Clarke to give me more homework. Can you believe it? That’s child cruelty! I should complain to someone about her.’

  ‘You could talk to the captain,’ said Yasmin with a mock-serious frown. ‘Oh, whoops, I forgot… your mum is the captain.’

  ‘Very funny,’ said Luke. ‘And there’s me thinking you were my friend.’

  The gangway led to a corridor busy with people. Luke and Yasmin turned into it and walked past a view-port looking out on the central axle of the Buzz Aldrin, bright stars twinkling beyond. At one end of the axle – a kilometre-long gantry like an enormous crane – was the giant engine pod, its massive exhausts belching fire.

  At the other end was the ship’s guidance module, a huge structure resembling a colossal golf ball that contained the control deck, otherwise known as the bridge. Luke and Yasmin were on the great wheel that was kept spinning to create artificial gravity for the dozens of families living on the spaceship.

  They arrived at school and Yasmin tapped in the entry code. The door hissed open, and they were greeted by a hologram of an elderly man with white hair and a droopy moustache. This was Clarke, Primary 1’s computer-generated teacher. He was networked into the Buzz Aldrin’s main computer, and could take on the appearance of anyone in the ship’s knowledge banks. Today he had apparently decided to look like Earth’s most famous scientist, Albert Einstein.

  The curved walls of the classroom were covered in screens showing pictures of galaxies and star systems, and scenes from Earth. Twenty or so children were sitting round tables, working away at computer terminals. There was a class for infants next door, and one for the older kids on the other side of the corridor.

  ‘Good morning, Luke and Yasmin,’ said Clarke. His voice was soft and friendly. ‘Please take your seats. We’re starting with a surprise science test.’

  ‘Terrific,’ murmured Luke, his shoulders slumping. ‘That’s all I need!’
r />   They sat down at a table next to their friend Yuri, a skinny boy with red hair that stuck up as if he’d just suffered an electric shock. He had been hunched over his own terminal, concentrating on the screen, but now he looked round at his friends. He smiled, then frowned when he saw how glum Luke looked.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ Yuri asked Yasmin.

  ‘Mum trouble,’ said Yasmin. ‘She’s taken away his games console.’

  ‘Whoa, that is bad,’ whispered Yuri. He was a total geek who loved games, too. ‘But, hey, this might cheer you up.’ He slipped Luke a little data cube. ‘Plug it into your terminal and you’ll be able to play any game you want. I’ve even built some software into it that will keep what you’re doing hidden from Clarke.’

  ‘Cool, thanks, Yuri,’ said Luke, plugging in the data cube.

  It was Luke’s best time at school for ages. While his classmates struggled with the science test, he fought the Ishtreen – although they were almost impossible to defeat. He had to use every gaming trick he knew. At one point, he was forced to escape from an Ishtreen tractor beam by going for a slingshot move – flying incredibly fast and low round a moon, using its gravity to give his engine an extra boost of speed.

  Finally, he realised there was only one way to complete the game. It would have to be a suicide mission.

  Captain Luke aimed his fighter at the Ishtreen mother-ship on a crash course, then locked the navigation system with his secret password, 1CoolBoy. There was no backing out now. Soon those evil aliens would be destroyed in the biggest explosion the Solar System had ever seen. And he would be a hero!

  Suddenly Luke heard a familiar voice, looked up from his terminal – and gulped. His mum had just walked into the classroom and was talking to Clarke.

  Chapter Three

  Slightly Fuzzy

  Luke almost froze with panic. If Mum caught him playing a computer game when he was supposed to be doing a school test, his life wouldn’t be worth living, not after what she’d said last night. He didn’t have time to quit the game properly now. There was only one thing for it – he simply pulled out the data cube, palmed it to Yuri, and hit the re-boot button on his terminal.

  The screen went blank then instantly shimmered into life again, although the logon page didn’t come up. Instead, an image of the Ishtreen mother-ship re-appeared with a stream of numbers running over it, and at the same time all the lights in the classroom flickered. Luke saw his mum glance at them and frown, the way she did whenever she thought something was wrong on the Buzz Aldrin.

  ‘That shouldn’t happen,’ Luke heard her say. ‘I’d better get the maintenance crew to check out the ship’s power cables… Hey, are you all right, Clarke?’

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ said Clarke. He had gone slightly pixelated, a little like a TV screen being scrambled by interference. ‘Just a touch of indigestion, I think. At least, a quick scan of the ship’s knowledge banks tells me that’s what it’s like.’

  ‘How strange,’ said Mum, looking concerned. ‘I wasn’t aware holograms suffered from that kind of thing. Perhaps I ought to get you checked out, too. Anyway, carry on, everyone. I mustn’t stop you all from working.’

  She turned to leave, but then she glanced at Luke and paused, biting her lip. Luke looked down and concentrated fiercely on his terminal, hoping she would hurry up and go. Even the tiniest glimpse of his screen would tell her what he had been doing… But, oh no, she was coming towards him!

  Luke jabbed the re-boot button again and again, and at last the log-on page crackled into view. He got to the test just as Mum’s hand landed on his shoulder.

  ‘I’m pleased to see you working so hard, Luke,’ she whispered, giving him one of those encouraging I-Knew-You-Could-Do-It Smiles she specialised in. ‘What’s this, a science test? Wow, it certainly looks pretty challenging.’

  ‘Piece of cake, Mum,’ Luke whispered back. ‘Just watch my grades go up.’ He noticed several other kids were asking Clarke about their terminals or jabbing at the re-boot button as he had done, and felt his cheeks burning.

  ‘That’s my boy,’ she laughed, and for a moment Luke thought his mum was going to say something else, but she seemed to change her mind. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ she said, squeezing his shoulder. ‘Let’s talk later.’ Then she was gone.

  ‘Are you OK, Luke?’ said Yasmin.

  Yuri was looking at him, too.

  ‘Yeah, fine, thanks,’ said Luke, although he was definitely feeling a bit rattled. It had been a close thing, and the stuff with the lights and Clarke had been rather odd, to say the least. Mum had been behaving strangely, too. What was all that about talking later? She was probably planning yet another lecture… Then Luke grinned. He had got away with it!

  ‘Ten minutes left, everyone,’ said Clarke. He wasn’t fuzzy any more, but he had a pained expression on his face and kept rubbing his holographic tummy.

  Luke finished the last question just in time. He liked science, and he actually thought the test had been quite easy. They had a history lesson next, and Clarke morphed into a series of famous people from the past, which made the class laugh. Then morning school was over and the three friends went for lunch.

  ‘I hope we get something tasty today,’ muttered Yasmin as they went into the dining area and joined the queue with the other kids. The food came from automated dispensers, and there were several Tidy-Bots – shiny dustbins on wheels with arms – to collect empty dishes and wipe down the tables.

  ‘Don’t hold your breath,’ said Yuri, picking up a tray from the pile at the end of the counter. ‘It’ll probably be the usual space-muck. I’d give anything for a pizza. Or maybe a hamburger and fries. No, wait, strawberry ice cream…’

  ‘Stop it!’ said Yasmin. ‘We haven’t had a good meal since we left Earth!’

  Luke felt the same as his friends, but he’d stopped listening to them. The food dispenser wasn’t working properly. He was pretty sure he’d pushed the right buttons for his choice – high-protein space porridge with extra sweetener – but the machine was making peculiar noises. It whirred and clanked and sounded like someone gargling honey. Luke felt nervous and stepped away from it.

  Which was just as well. For suddenly it started to fire out balls of mashed potato in a steady stream, reminding Luke of a dangerous shower of meteorites the Buzz Aldrin had managed to avoid a while back.

  But there was no avoiding the mash, not for some people, anyway.

  Chapter Four

  A Brief Overload

  Within seconds, several kids in the queue were covered in mashed potato and the rest had dived under tables or behind chairs. The Tidy-Bots scurried around, bleeping furiously as they tried to do their job of cleaning up the mess, but they were soon overwhelmed by the unending stream of edible meteorites.

  ‘Wow, I’ve never seen anything like this,’ murmured Luke. He and his friends were sheltering behind the drinks dispenser. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘No idea,’ said Yuri, shrugging. ‘We could probably put a stop to it, though. Somebody just needs to turn the machine off.’

  ‘Why would anyone want to do that?’ said Luke, laughing. ‘This is great! I haven’t seen anything so funny in a long time.’

  ‘Well I’m not enjoying it,’ muttered Yasmin. ‘Ugh, I have mashed potato in my hair and on my favourite top… Right, that’s it, I’m going in!’

  ‘Don’t!’ Luke and Yuri yelled together, but it was too late.

  Yasmin grabbed a dinner tray and, using it as a shield to deflect the stream of mash, she moved towards the machine. Finally, she did a forward roll, then rose up and lashed out with a perfect Kung-Fu kick, hitting the power button with her foot. The mash instantly stopped coming, the machine powering down with a dying whine and what sounded like an electronic belch.

  ‘Hey, that was pretty cool,’ said Luke. ‘And I feel so much safer now I know we can rely on you to protect us from The Great Mashed-Potato Monster.’

  Luke and Yuri laughed and high-fived
each other, and Yasmin scowled. ‘Don’t count on it,’ she growled. But she was soon laughing with them.

  The maintenance crew arrived with more Tidy-Bots, and the clean-up began. All the dispensers were turned off, and the kids were given energy bars and juice-packs before being sent back to class. But Clarke was still unwell.

  ‘I’m sorry, everyone, afternoon school is cancelled,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to go for an IT check. I have sorted out plenty of homework for you, though. And, as requested by Captain Riley, there’s a little extra for you, Luke.’

  ‘Unlucky, Luke,’ said Yuri as they set off homewards down the wheel.

  Luke heard a commotion behind them, and looked over his shoulder to see the maintenance crew hurrying into the older kids’ classroom. Smoke was coming out of the door, but that wasn’t unusual. The older kids often played all sorts of tricks and practical jokes on Aldiss, their own hologram teacher.

  ‘Yeah, it’s not fair – you should refuse to do it,’ said Yasmin. ‘Listen, why don’t you two come to my place? We could hang out, watch a movie, chill…’

  ‘Thanks, Yasmin, but I’d better go home,’ said Luke. ‘If Mum hears I’ve actually been having some fun, she’ll probably explode. See you!’

  Yuri and Yasmin said goodbye, too, and Luke trudged off home.

  Back at their quarters, Luke noticed his mum had already set the timer on the auto-chef, so he headed straight for his cabin and settled down to do his homework. There seemed to be an awful lot of it.

  Mum returned even later than usual. She sat down in their tiny living room, and Luke could see she was tired. She looked rather worried as well.

  ‘Phew, what a day!’ she said. ‘We’ve had problems all over the ship, stuff we’ve never experienced before. The maintenance crew has been run off its feet. Still, they seem to be on top of things at the moment…’ She paused and smiled at him. ‘Anyway, that’s enough of my troubles,’ she said brightly, obviously making an effort to be more cheerful. ‘Tell me about your day! Actually, seeing you at school this morning made me wonder if I’ve –’