Space Cadets Read Online Free PDF Page A

never get to return to this ship in one of those suits.”
    “No, stupid,” Peggy said. What do you want?”
    “Ultimately, I want this ship.”
    “Why?”
    “If I tell you, I can never let you escape with your life. Are you sure you want me to answer?”
    “Nah, I don’t care.”
    “That’s what I thought. Now drop your weapons, you too Jack and Billy - I see you over there.”
    I dropped my weapon first which wouldn’t have been embarrassing except that right after I did, Rick said, “You’ll have to pry it out of my cold dead hands.
    I silently and slowly bent down and retrieved it. Samantha saw me and smiled wryly.
    Before anything else could go wrong, everything went wrong. The ship’s lights went out and the gravity generator started acting wonky. I floated just a little bit off the ground and then I was slammed down so hard I almost crumpled to the floor.
    What the hell was going on?
    One of the flight crew sat at her console and took a look around outside.
    Against the backdrop of planet, Scum Earth was a small, odd looking space craft. It looked alien in design.
    Everyone forgot about the Skeptics and the EMP device. This was a game changer.
    The first mate yelled, "All hands on deck. Prepare for attack."

 
     

 
    Ace 2 Copyright Adam Moon 2013
    All rights reserved

Here’s some back-story:
     
    Two hundred years ago first contact with an alien race was made. They made it from Earth orbit as they observed us. But it wasn’t all roses and unicorns. The aliens abducted a couple million people and then they said they’d be back in a few hundred years. They were going to extensively study humanity and if we didn’t live up to whatever their standards were, they were going to eliminate us. Then they simply vanished.
    That’s when we decided to militarize our space program. If they came back to kill us all, we’d be ready for them.
    A fringe group called Skeptics don’t believe that actually happened. They cite a lack of evidence as proof that it’s a hoax perpetrated by the governments of the world to keep society down. They think they’re the good guys, fighting for the rights of the little man. They’re lunatics.
    But at this very moment, my life is in their hands.

Contact
     
    The warship Conquistador was in a bind. I had only been onboard the damn thing for a little over an hour and everything had already gone to hell. Just my luck.
    My name is Jack Peterson and I’m a cadet from Deep Camp Eighty Seven that orbits Mars.
    Me and my fellow classmates, along with two teachers had our minds teleported into Marine robots aboard the warship for a field trip. Some of us hoped to one day become Marines so this was a nice taste of things to come.
    Our real bodies are cryo-frozen back at Mars but our minds are controlling these awesome space Marine mechs. While we’re here, we’re pretending to be A.C.E. pilots. It stands for Automated Combat Equipment, but no one calls them A.C.E. suits because it sounds silly. We call them skins or suits usually. I got extra lucky because my skin had once been used by a hero of mine by the name of Rick Pringle. He even signed the shoulder of the mech. He modded the crap out of it too.
    Well, it turned out that my hot teacher, Mrs. Salazar is a saboteur. As soon as we left camp, it got raided by a band of Skeptics who murdered everyone there, students and instructors alike. Then they used the link to the Conquistador to upload themselves into skins of their own. The captain of the ship could’ve stopped that from happening except that now he has no head thanks to Mrs. Salazar.
    There were eight Skeptics in all but I killed one while Mrs. Salazar and the rest went looking for the all-stop, a kill switch that would render all the suits immobile. They’d already taken their own kill switches out of their suits so the all-stop would only affect me and my fellow students.
    Then something frighteningly awesome happened: My hero, Rick Pringle uploaded himself into one