“Thanks,” Coda said.
“You’re welcome,” Noodle said. “What was that all about, anyway?”
Coda just shook his head. He didn’t want to be reminded of the CAI.
“How’d your session with the computer go?” Noodle asked, proving there was no getting away from it.
“Not good.”
“It couldn’t have been that bad.”
“I’ve got three days left, Noodle, and I’m only seventy-five percent of the way through it. I might as well start packing.”
“That’s a bit dramatic.”
“Yeah? And what should I be doing?”
“Well, for starters, I wouldn’t be in here. There’s only so much time in the day, Coda, and you can’t afford to waste any of it in here.”
“I’m not sure the commander would agree.”
“The commander isn’t here,” Noodle said. “Neither is Squawks or Uno or a bunch of other people.”
Coda surveyed the room with fresh eyes. Noodle was right. Squawks and Uno were nowhere to be found, and the gym was noticeably emptier than usual.
“Where are they?” Coda asked.
Noodle raised an eyebrow as if the answer was obvious.
“Both of them?”
“Yeah.”
“But Uno completed his… wait, Uno’s helping him?”
“That’s what you do when you need help, isn’t it? You ask for it. Just like you did when you asked me to spot you.”
“Can he do that?”
“Did anyone say he couldn’t? Seriously, Coda, if you’re not resourceful enough to figure this out, maybe you don’t belong in a cockpit.”
Noodle smiled as if to suggest he was joking, but there was too much truth in the statement for Coda to laugh. He hadn’t thought to ask for help, partly because he didn’t know he could, but also because he didn’t like doing it. He’d always wanted to succeed on his own, and if that meant failing on his own too, then so be it. But if he didn’t get through a quarter of the program in the next forty-eight hours, that hypothetical situation would become a very real possibility.
“So, uh, you think you could help me out?” Coda asked awkwardly.
“Me?” Noodle said. “Coda, I think you misunderstood. I’m not doing much better than you are. I’ll finish, but just barely, and that’s with me putting in extra work. No, you’re going to have to talk to Uno or something.”
“All right,” Coda said. “I’ll do that.”
Coda found Uno and Squawks in one of the training rooms, huddled close to the screen. Uno was pointing at something and explaining it in simpler terms. Coda didn’t recognize it, so it must have been from a later module. That was a good sign. If Squawks was closer to completing the CAI, that meant Uno would have more time to help him, wouldn’t it?
“Making progress?” Coda asked from the doorway.
Uno and Squawks looked up immediately then at each other. Coda couldn’t tell for sure, but Squawks appeared to be trying to decide whether to be embarrassed and concerned.
“Relax,” Coda said. “Noodle said I could find you here. What module is that?”
“Fifty-seven,” Uno said. “The inner workings of Shaw Drive mechanics.”
Coda couldn’t believe his luck. Just before heading to the gym, he’d completed module fifty-six. Squawks was literally working his way through the very course he was set to begin.
“Do you have room for one more?”
“Are you wanting to help too?” Uno asked.
“Actually, no.” Coda’s face grew hot. “I’m looking for a tutor if you have space for another student.”
“You need help?” Uno asked, a hint of surprise in his voice.
Coda nodded. “A lot of it. I’m actually on module fifty-seven too.”
“No way,” Squawks asked.
“Yep.”
Squawks looked at Uno and shrugged as if saying the decision was up to him.
“I don’t mind,” Uno said. “But there’s no way for you to undock and work in here with us.”
“That’s fine,” Coda said. “What I need is someone who helps me understand this stuff. I can figure the rest out.”
“Then grab a chair,” Uno said.
“Thank you,” Coda said.
In a nearby room, Coda found a chair that wasn’t bolted to the floor then squeezed it in next to the two pilots. The room was already tight with two and was completely crammed with three, but even as the room grew hot, nobody complained.
Uno was a born teacher. He often paused the videos, taking time to explain them in greater detail and with less technical language. He answered their questions patiently and without condescension, and even though the video took twice as long to get through, they completed the module in half the time Coda had taken to complete the previous one.
They worked late into the night, not stopping until a full two hours after the three of them were supposed to be in bed. In that time, they had wrapped up two other modules, ending on the sixtieth. With Uno’s help, Squawks had completed eighty-percent of the program and had rising evaluation scores.
Armed with a tablet full of notes, his eyes bleary with exhaustion, Coda returned to his training room and fired up the computer. There was no way to fast forward through the video, so he was forced to watch it from the beginning. At first, he tried to tell himself that he would watch it again, but ten minutes into the first video, Coda was struggling to hold his eyes open. Scared he would fall asleep and lose an entire night, he pulled out his personal hand terminal and set an alarm for every ten minutes.
When he got to the exam, he was pleased to find that the questions were the same questions Squawks had answered, only in a different order. Between his familiarization with them and Uno’s tutelage, Coda breezed through the evaluation, posting his best score yet.
Suddenly feeling better than he had in days, he began the next module.
12
CAI Room, SAS Jamestown
Alpha Centauri System, Proxima B, High Orbit
For two full days, Coda worked with Uno and Squawks, and for two full nights, he took what he’d learned from their group study and applied it to his own evaluations. By the end of
