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    Fractured Mind Episode Four
    Fractured Mind Episode Four
    Fractured Mind Episode Four
    Ebook178 pages2 hours

    Fractured Mind Episode Four

    By Odette C. Bell

    ()

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    About this ebook

    This is it. Soon, everything will be over.
    They’ve deleted Sarah’s mind, returning her to an automaton, a mindless weapon ready to do her masters’ bidding. But a part of her has held on, and that part now holds the future of the galaxy in her hands.
    Karax will have to sacrifice everything to help her. Even then it won’t be enough to stop the Force’s silent invasion of the Milky Way.
    ...
    Fractured Mind follows a cadet plagued with nightmares and a disparaging lieutenant fighting to save Earth from an alien plot. If you love your space operas with action, heart, and a splash of romance, grab Fractured Mind Episode Four today and soar free with an Odette C. Bell series.
    Fractured mind is the 5th Galactic Coalition Academy series. A sprawling, epic, and exciting sci-fi world where cadets become heroes and hearts are always won, each series can be read separately, so plunge in today.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOdette C. Bell
    Release dateJan 15, 2017
    ISBN9781005100476
    Fractured Mind Episode Four

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      Book preview

      Fractured Mind Episode Four - Odette C. Bell

      Chapter 1

      Sarah Sinclair

      I was still here. Not all of me. Just a faint shadow – a kind of impression like the light cast from clouds shooting overhead.

      It was enough to be aware of one fact: I was standing in front of him – Lieutenant Karax. And I – Sora – was about to shoot him.

      Though there shouldn’t have been enough left of me to care, I felt a scream curdle within me, power forward, burst forth like a blast from a gun.

      Though it was one of the most powerful blasts of emotion I’d ever felt, it wasn’t enough – not enough to push through the fog of the remnants of my personality and gain control of Sora.

      Gain control of Sora…? I’d never be able to do it again. For I was nothing more than a shadow….

      Sora pushed forward toward Lieutenant Karax.

      His face was twisted in one of the most memorable emotions I’d ever seen. Though I was certain I’d never faced it before, it cut straight through my heart, right to my middle. I imagined any human alive would be able to recognize the raw hope crumpling Karax’s brow and pooling in his open, terrified gaze.

      Sarah? Sarah? he screamed, voice arcing up and shaking through the corridor.

      That’s when I noticed someone beside him. They pushed forward, practically slamming their shoulder into Karax’s as they shoved him out of the way to get to me.

      I recognized him. Or at least, Sora did. Though it felt as if nothing could affect her cold heart, this guy – whoever he was – reached in and pushed past Sora’s shadowy control.

      But it wasn’t enough – wasn’t enough to stop her from raising her gun and training it on both men. Though Karax’s face was full of horror and shock, he still acted. Just as Sora squeezed the trigger, he shoved to the side, rounded shoulder collecting the other man and pushing him backward.

      The blast from Sora’s gun slammed into the side of the open elevator shaft, catching the door and making it crumple with a blistering hiss of burning metal.

      Deep within me, I could feel fear – the kind of fear any sane person would feel at a frenetic situation like this, at the possibility they could lose someone as special as Karax. But the fear? It couldn’t go anywhere. It seemed to hit the wall that was Sora and be rebuffed back until it mellowed into nothing more than a fleeting sensation. And as that sensation flit away, I swore more of me fell away with it until I could feel myself falling back into some kind of abyss. And this time? This time I wouldn’t survive – not even a shadow of me. I would die. And Sarah Sinclair with all her memories, all her foibles, all her mistakes, and all her joys – she would be no more.

      … But I held on. Somehow. A part of me just wouldn’t give up. Though there was nothing to clutch onto, though there were no hands to round into fists, I held on with all my freaking might, using nothing more than my pure, undiluted will.

      And maybe it had an effect. Maybe it bought Lieutenant Karax and the other man the time they needed to duck out of the safety of the elevator shaft and shove forward.

      I was vaguely aware of the fact that there was an open doorway several meters to my side. Reason told me that there was no way Sora would let these two men dart toward it, but reason failed.

      Lieutenant Karax, showing strength and agility born out of pure determination, put on a burst of surprising speed right at the last moment that saw him shoot past us too quickly for Sora to track.

      Though he had an array of impressive guns strapped to his hip and what looked like an illegal gravity gun in his hand, he didn’t use it. The terrified, longing look in his gaze told me why.

      As his eyes flicked from left to right, I could feel them scanning Sora as he searched for me.

      Though my mind was still foggy, and by all reason, I shouldn’t have the power to string together a cohesive thought, I could. All I wanted to do was reach out to him, control my lips long enough to scream his name, to promise him that I was still here, still alive, just buried so deeply I may never be able to escape.

      Though the guy with Lieutenant Karax was slower, Karax wrapped a cast-iron grip around his wrist and tugged him through the doorway just before Sora could squeeze off a shot and shoot the guy’s arm clean from his shoulder.

      Though upon first seeing this man, I felt the fear sail through Sora, she was getting a handle on it quickly.

      No – that wasn’t quite right. She wasn’t getting a handle on it – that thing was. The new presence in her mind. When I’d been shoved into that device and they’d tried to delete me, they’d done more than attempting to rip me from Sora’s mind. They’d somehow strengthened the walls between her true emotions and her actions, attempting to turn her into the perfect, mindless soldier. While I could somehow fight the effects of being deleted, Sora wasn’t as powerful. Though it was clear she had deep, tumultuous feelings for the man with Lieutenant Karax, it was just as clear she didn’t have the strength to do anything about them.

      I recognized him as the man who’d tried to track me down on the train.

      Sora, the man screamed, spittle flying from his lips just as Lieutenant Karax dragged him out of sight. Snap out of it.

      His voice was cut short as the door into the room slammed shut.

      I felt Sora hesitate. Or maybe it wasn’t hesitation – just a reorientation as she shifted around and pushed toward the door. She didn’t run. It seemed she was in no hurry at all. Or at least, it would seem to the outside observer. With the privilege and torment of being inside her mind, I could sense our heart speed up on full throttle, like a cruiser hurtling forward to enter light speed.

      Though the wall was still there – still blocking her true emotions from affecting her reason – it weakened at the powerful emotion plunging through her like a wall weakening from an earthquake.

      She reached the door, raised her gun, and started firing – one round after another sinking into the metal, making it buckle and spit hot molten debris all over the floor.

      Sora now wore her full, white, memorable armor – the same armor I’d always seen her wear whenever I’d faced her in my dreams.

      It had to be expensive stuff, for even as she strode through the molten splatters of metal, they had no effect on her. Rather than adhering to the base of her boots, the superheated metal simply slipped off, unable to gain traction as if it were mere water sliding down a freshly polished sheet of glass.

      Sora’s barrage of blasts was endless, and the door was buckling. But it wasn’t buckling as quickly as you’d expect. This was the basement level of the Academy, after all. Though I shouldn’t have enough brainpower left over to realize that, the more frightened I became at what Sarah could do to Karax, the more my mind sharpened, pushing through the fog.

      Those doors were made of the kind of reinforced, shielded metal you saw in reactor cores. And yet, under that continuous barrage from her gun, they too buckled until, with a sizzling pop, they failed, and the access panel by the door exploded in a shudder of sparks and scraps of burned circuits.

      I heard Karax scream from inside. My hearing was extremely acute – I had access to Sora’s extended senses. And though I couldn’t use them to change anything – couldn’t use them to affect my body – at least it kept me apprised of the battle.

      I longed to scream at Karax to get the hell out of here. There was nothing he could do to stop Sora. For as she continued to push forward, that wall reformed in her mind. Now even the shock of seeing that man couldn’t save her.

      With one last shot right at the door, the remaining metal buckled, heaving inward.

      Sora strode forward, determined and nonchalant all at once.

      All around us, warning alarms blared.

      And yet, they didn’t last long. As soon as they arced up to the kind of insistent pitch no one would be able to ignore, they stopped – deadly silent as if someone had pulled the plug on them.

      And maybe they had. The Corthanx Traders – I could remember them if I concentrated, sharpened my mind with all my might. I was still in the Academy. And they’d attacked me, brought me here, wiped my mind. But more importantly, they were trying to hack through the Academy’s defenses. They were looking for something, something down at Level Minus.

      As soon as I thought that, the power of the memory cut through more of the fog until, for the first time, I felt my thoughts as clear as day.

      But it didn’t last.

      For the fight continued.

      Perhaps Sora understood that neither of these men would readily fight her, because she paused in the doorway, angling her head down as she lifted her gun up.

      The guy with Karax, he screamed her name, eyes bulging wide as emotion pounded through him with all the power of fists to his face. Sora. It’s me – John. For the love of god, break out of it. I know you’re still in there. You have to still be in there. As the guy – John – screamed, Lieutenant Karax ducked to the side, pulling him out of the way just as Sora casually raised her gun and fired point-blank at the guy’s throat.

      Though the battle was frenetic, I still had enough wherewithal to realize we were in some kind of lab. It wasn’t large and rather looked more like a storeroom. Though there were consoles littered about the place and several blinking, roving holographic monitors, the room was in a state of disarray and certainly couldn’t be expected to function as a place of scholarly investigation.

      Though all of me should have been locked on the fight as my heart pulsed with the hope Karax would somehow find a way to get through this, I still had enough attention left over to realize no science officer in the Academy would dare leave a laboratory like this. No, it had been turned upside down. Someone had been looking for something. I didn’t need to search my memory to figure out who that could be. The Corthanx Traders.

      In a snap, it brought my mind back to the promise of Level Minus. What the hell was down there? What could the Corthanx Traders possibly want with such desperation that they were willing to invoke all-out war with the Coalition?

      The general state of disarray of the room worked in Karax’s advantage.

      He showed the full extent of his skills as he ducked and weaved into cover, never firing the fancy, illegal gun in his hand, but always keeping it trained on Sora. Sora was in armor, Karax wasn’t. And yet, it didn’t seem to matter. The only thing that mattered was that look of pure, desperate, and yet focused attention that lit up his face as if somebody had crammed a flare behind his eye sockets.

      Though Sora had been nonchalant when she’d first entered the room, I could feel sweat start to trickle down her brow behind her helmet.

      It told me I had a chance – that Karax had a chance. And as soon as that hope ignited in my heart, it pushed against that wall harder – the wall that was holding not just me back, but Sora back from her emotions, too.

      As she ducked and weaved behind the various consoles and abandoned devices littered throughout the room, she moved with sharper, more focused awareness.

      But so did Karax. Don’t ask me how deeply he dug – don’t ask me where he found the strength – but he did. Somehow, he managed to keep out of the reach of not just her powerful, armored hands, but the blistering white, blazing blasts of her guns, too.

      John wasn’t so lucky. A stray bullet struck his arm with the force to spin him around and send him slamming into a console to his left.

      Karax didn’t let him fall. He spun to the side, scooped an arm around John, and shoved him free of another blistering blast.

      I could feel it – more and more – Sora’s anger. Bubbling up now, trying to push at the wall of cold, detached hatred the Corthanx Traders had shoved her behind.

      It was working, bit by bit, second by second, but Karax and John didn’t have seconds.

      Outside, I heard a memorable throaty roar. Though my thoughts were still a haze, nothing would be able to stop me from remembering the Mercenary Barq.

      In a pounding of metallic armored footfall striking the resonant floor, he jolted into the room, dive rolling over the molten puddle of twisted metal that was the door and punching to his feet in a swift, almost blinding move. Instantly, he began to shift around from the side, trying to pin Karax and John in as Sora swept in from the right.

      Karax’s eyes bulged so wide, they could have escaped his skull and fell to his feet.

      He didn’t give up. Instead? He went for the gravity gun.

      There was a moment of hesitation – one where his eyes pulsed wide in dread and sorrow

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