Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Star Soldier Episode Four
    Star Soldier Episode Four
    Star Soldier Episode Four
    Ebook104 pages1 hour

    Star Soldier Episode Four

    By Odette C. Bell

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    The final battle for her world begins.
    The rift monsters won’t hold back. They’ve sacrificed everything to survive, and they will give yet more to stop Ami and Xin from delivering the final blow.
    They say a true soldier never stops fighting. They say a true soldier will win, despite the odds.
    Ami and her world are about to find out just who she is and whether she’s enough to save them.
    ....
    Star Soldier follows a gutsy soldier and her ex fighting to save their world from an alien invasion. If you love your space operas with action, force, and a splash of romance, grab Star Soldier Episode Four today and soar free with an Odette C. Bell series.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOdette C. Bell
    Release dateJan 27, 2018
    ISBN9781370676279
    Star Soldier Episode Four

    Read more from Odette C. Bell

    Related to Star Soldier Episode Four

    Related ebooks

    Science Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Global Warning

      Nov 3, 2021

      Global Warning
      5 min read

    • Article

      Serial Offender

      Dec 9, 2021

      Serial Offender
      2 min read

    • Article

      You Talkin’ To Me?

      Sep 16, 2022

      You Talkin’ To Me?
      3 min read

    • Article

      Take Two

      Dec 27, 2018

      Take Two
      4 min read

    • Article

      Finding The Words

      Jun 3, 2023

      Finding The Words
      5 min read

    • Article

      Finding The Words

      Jun 2, 2023

      Finding The Words
      5 min read

    • Article

      Excerpt

      Nov 12, 2019

      I didn’t see him come in, but I felt it. There was a stillness in the room, the kind that happens with fresh meat in shark-filled waters. No doubt everyone was sizing the newbie up, taking in his age and build, worrying whether they would be kicked o

      5 min read

    • Article

      Running Free

      Nov 16, 2022

      Running Free
      5 min read

    • Article

      Playing Nurse

      Sep 1, 2018

      Playing Nurse
      9 min read

    • Article

      He Dreams About the Bunny Ranch

      Jan 4, 2022

      He Dreams About the Bunny Ranch
      15 min read

    • Article

      Getting Out of Prison Meant Leaving Dear Friends Behind

      Jun 1, 2018

      I have spent countless nights like this, lying awake, anticipating life, trying to escape imprisonment through my mind’s eye. I imagine the things I will do once I’m free. Flashes of me laughing with family and friends at a cookout or enjoying the co

      5 min read

    • Article

      Michelle Yeoh

      Apr 1, 2022

      Michelle Yeoh
      2 min read

    • Article

      Michelle Yeoh

      Apr 2, 2022

      Michelle Yeoh
      2 min read

    • Article

      You Talkin’ To Me?

      Dec 11, 2020

      IN THE CROSSHAIRS THIS MONTH CRAIG FAIRBRASS You talkin’ to me? Of course I’m talking to you. More importantly, are you talking to me? If you are, look me in the eye and don’t look away! Do you have an off switch? Do I have an off switch? No, I don’t

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Survivor

      May 20, 2023

      The Survivor
      3 min read

    • Article

      Game of Phones

      Jan 31, 2020

      In a prison where 200 men share eight phones, making back-to-back calls is like challenging the guy behind you to a duel.

      5 min read

    • Article

      What Makes A Father Tough

      May 2, 2024

      What Makes A Father Tough
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Abortions I Have Known

      Mar 17, 2019

      The Abortions I Have Known
      10 min read

    • Article

      You Talkin’ To Me?

      Apr 25, 2024

      You Talkin’ To Me?
      3 min read

    • Article

      A Brief History of Violence

      Sep 10, 2020

      A Brief History of Violence
      8 min read

    • Article

      ‘Be Water’

      Nov 25, 2021

      THERE is a tattoo etched on Teófimo López’s forearm. ‘Be water, my friend’ the thin words read. The phrase come from Bruce Lee. “Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless, like water. You put water into a cup, it becomes the cup,” the legendary martial

      3 min read

    • Article

      One Word: Striking

      Jun 26, 2019

      One Word: Striking
      4 min read

    • Article

      Marble Run For The Intramuscular Cyborgs

      Sep 1, 2021

      There’s the tension I’m feeling when I’m anxious and the tension I feel when I have to puncture.I’ve always wanted to stab myself dead but at this point I’m used to the maintenance my body needs—I have the routine made like muscle memory. I’m going t

      2 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Star Soldier Episode Four

    4/5

    1 rating0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Star Soldier Episode Four - Odette C. Bell

      Chapter 1

      Ami

      I was always the girl who never needed any help. Now?

      Crushed. I’m crushed.

      Jason has pulled me into the main body of the transport.

      Commander Franks is busy piloting the damn thing as we push through the tunnels beneath the compound.

      Me?

      I’m slowly breaking apart. Sorry, did I say slowly?

      It’s cruelly fast. Every second, I feel like every memory that made me is being crushed by an unstoppable force.

      Even Xin wouldn’t have the power to keep me whole.

      As for Xin, I’m not fool enough to call on her. For one, I don’t need to. Beatrix was right, and the level VII monsters haven’t come across us in the tunnels. And considering what we’ve got ahead of us – the final mission for my world – I can’t afford to call on Xin unnecessarily. I have to preserve her energy for as long as I can.

      Because the oncoming fight? Will be hell.

      I feel like burying my head in my hands.

      The only thing that stops me from completely giving in to my anger and fear is Jason.

      He’s standing above me, one hand clutched on the railing as he stares at me and not the crazy view through the window to our side.

      I still have no idea how this self-healing metal technology works, but it’s amazing stuff. For as the transport punches forward, the tunnel seems to knit itself right in front of our eyes, punching through the rock and dirt of the Badlands.

      If the circumstances were ordinary, both Jason and I would be pressed up against the portholes, staring in gob-smacked awe.

      The circumstances aren’t normal.

      They’re completely heart-crushingly terrifying.

      I should be stronger than this. A little voice in my head that isn’t crushed by the circumstances demands that. Yes, I have no idea what’s going on back at the compound, but I can bet that the level VII monsters are tearing it apart trying to find me. Yes, the future of my entire world is now on my small shoulders. And yes, everything I know is being crushed, and every fact about my existence is being rewritten. That doesn’t matter. I’ve always lived my life knowing my strength and self-worth. And if I haven’t always had the strength and self-worth to survive some circumstance, I’ve simply pretended that I have. But I’ve never shown weakness. My entire damn personality is built around never showing weakness.

      Especially in front of Jason.

      But now that doesn’t frigging matter. Now I just sit there, crumpled in a heap as Jason’s concerned face fills my peripheral vision.

      He doesn’t say anything. Not for a long while. I could kid myself that Jason is just being the consummate soldier, and while, though he appears to be concerned for me, the rest of his senses are actually locked on the transport, that’s a lie.

      I can see it in his eyes.

      So many things left unsaid. So much grief.

      I think I’ve told you before, but I’ll tell you again. I never understood how a handsome, apparently accomplished man like Jason could ever be into me.

      This isn’t forgiving him for selling me out to the General. This is me acknowledging that for a woman who apparently had perfect self-esteem, there was always a chink in it, and that chink was the man standing only a meter to my side. The man who won’t blink if it means tearing his gaze off me for even a second.

      Some people live their life thinking that the good things that happen to them are down to luck. Others – like me – think that good things simply won’t last because I don’t deserve them.

      Maybe Jason is done watching me in silence, because he clears his throat. There’s such a careful edge to it, it draws my attention back to him. Just when I want to collapse my head in my hands in a pathetic attempt to make this horrifying situation go away, I’m forced to tug my head back as I stare at him.

      As soon as we make eye contact, I see it all on fast forward again. The guilt and sorrow that’s been eating him up inside since we saw each other in the compound.

      Ami, I’m sorry. I know it’s inexcusable, but I was always just following orders. And I… I would’ve acted, he adds.

      Usually Jason’s voice never wavers. Maybe in anger, but not in fragility. Because men like Jason are never fragile. They always know their mind; they always know precisely what they need to do to let others know their mind, too. That is to say, if Jason Everett wants you to understand something, he will lay it out plain and clear until you understand.

      Now?

      Damn, if I look like I’m overcome, he’s worse. He may technically be capable of standing, but his expression is crushed, almost beyond redemption.

      He takes another hurried breath that makes his chest punch out against his uniform. I would’ve acted, Ami. Believe that. If the General… if he tried to kill you, I would’ve acted. No matter the costs.

      It would be damn easy to call bullshit on that. It would be easy as hell to point out to Jason that if he’d wanted to act to save me, he could damn well have done it earlier.

      I don’t, though.

      I’ve never been a woman to back down from a fight. It’s a consequence of never needing any help. If you can’t rely on anyone, then you have to overcome every single battle on your own.

      Now?

      I… can’t.

      My world is narrowing. Becoming impossibly goddamn small until the only things that fill it are this damn transport and my upcoming mission.

      So even though the old me would push away Jason with all her strength, the new me wants to shift forward, just to get closer to him, just to confirm that someone else is living through this hell with me.

      Jason presses his lips together tightly once more and swallows. I know what you’re thinking. And you have every right to think it. But… trust me, he says, and his fragility is finally giving way to strength, almost as if he’s starting to believe his own argument. I would never have allowed the General to kill you. I would have acted, his voice shakes on the word would.

      I breathe. I face him. And I look for someone to blame.

      It’s always been my style. When it’s clear a problem wasn’t created by me, then I look for the person who did create the problem. And I’ve spent a hell of a long time and a lot of emotional energy blaming most things on Jason.

      Now?

      It’s like I can see through all of that bullshit for the first time in my life.

      Blame it on Xin inside me. Blame it on the fact that she gives me a wise perspective I never had. Or blame it on the simple realization that none of this is easy. For anyone. Franks was right. The General was never the kind of man to accept people’s indecision or questions. If Jason had ever shown a desire to protect me, Cral wouldn’t have blinked at shooting him. Jason did what he had to to survive, just as I did what I had to to survive, just as the compound and Beatrix and all those other scientists who were technically responsible for this war did what they had to to survive.

      And the Vevex? More than anyone, they did what they had to to live another day.

      I draw up a hand, and though I’m so weak all I want to do is collapse my head into it, I get stuck staring at my fingers.

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1