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    Finder's Gate Episode Three
    Finder's Gate Episode Three
    Finder's Gate Episode Three
    Ebook118 pages1 hour

    Finder's Gate Episode Three

    By Odette C. Bell

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Helen has finally revealed her true powers as an Aquin Princess, and she’s pulled them into another dimension.
    But it will come at a cost Zel doesn’t want to pay. As circumstances spiral out of control, he learns Helen’s true worth.
    She isn’t a find; she’s a curse.
    ....
    Finder’s Gate follows a bounty hunter and a hidden princess fighting through the multiverse to save her and everyone. If you love your space operas with action, heart, and a splash of romance, grab Finder’s Gate Episode Three today and soar free with an Odette C. Bell series.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOdette C. Bell
    Release dateNov 7, 2018
    ISBN9780463764787
    Finder's Gate Episode Three

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      Book preview

      Finder's Gate Episode Three - Odette C. Bell

      Chapter 1

      Zel

      It happened so fast, I couldn’t follow. Though I had jumped so many times, and had been thrown through so many dimensional gates I could no longer count them, this time was different. Because this time I did not travel through an ordered door. No, this time I traveled with a woman who could rip holes right through the heart of space.

      I was the only one who remained conscious as we were torn from Talia’s ship and thrown through the very fabric of the multiverse. But conscious had to be taken with a grain of salt here. The exact way my mind spun and my thoughts tumbled through me in freefall couldn’t be defined as ordinary waking attention. This was something deeper. This was consciousness ground right down to the bone. This was like stripping away most of the sensory data and feedback you get when you’re awake and replacing it with this raw, unyielding mass of incoming information. From shapes and sounds to sensations of every pressure and heat level, I felt as if I were being taken through a blender of existence. Until abruptly, it stopped. Because abruptly, my feet struck the ground.

      Though I shouldn’t have been able to remain awake, just before I could slip into the blessed depths of unconsciousness, I forced myself to thrust both my arms to the side. It was just in time as I caught the unconscious Talia and Helen before they could sail headfirst into the cold dark ground around them.

      I let out a gasp, then clenched my teeth to stop a scream from ripping out of my throat hot on its heels. I felt so discombobulated, I swore every molecule that made me up was vibrating as if they were getting ready to explode. I had to squeeze my eyes closed, the skin around them grating shut as if they were great stone doorways that would never be opened again. As my thoughts spun faster and faster, and a heady, pulsing sensation spread through my skull as if I’d swallowed a firecracker, finally the sensations reached a crescendo that abruptly tapered off.

      Within a few seconds, I managed to blink one eye open, then the next. When the world around me didn’t spin, crumple, or plain blink out of existence, I let out another sigh. My shoulders dropped, but my arms did not as I kept Talia and Helen safe. Pushing to my legs, every muscle crunching and protesting as if my cybernetic upgrades and genetically engineered strength had somehow been stripped from my bones, I readjusted both women until they lay on the floor by my feet.

      Then finally I ticked my head up, narrowed my gaze, and accessed my onboard scanners to figure out where the hell we were.

      The answer? The answer came upon me all at once, creeping up my back, rushing up my spine, slamming into the back of my head and sending tendrils of fear snaking through my brain.

      My lips parted open, and a tortured whisper broke free, The Hall of Doors.

      Though there were countless, countless dimensions in the multiverse, and there were countless planets in those countless dimensions, and countless rooms on those countless planets, none ever looked like this, for none could feel like this.

      I, still shaking, turned on the spot slowly, my breath trapped in my chest as it pushed out like hands trying to shove a cage away. How the hell did we get here? I muttered, my voice constricted. I didn’t need the room to answer me. It couldn’t. It was nothing more than a lonely expanse of black carved obsidian. Cold, silent, and unforgiving.

      But while the room may have no answers, my memory functioned fine, and my cheeks paled as I darted my gaze down, my eyes opening as wide as they could go.

      I didn’t stare at Talia. My scanners had already indicated that she was alive, though deeply unconscious for now. Your first dimension jump always affected you – and that, as I’d already been at pains to point out, had not been a standard transit.

      She’d be fine – in a few hours. Well, if we got her out of here, that was.

      Helen?

      I locked my gaze on her, and it felt as if the multiverse fell away until it was only the two of us. The two of us and one burning question that pounded in my head, smashing against my cerebellum as if it wanted to ruin my sense of self and every memory until there was nothing more – nothing more than this question.

      Just who the hell was she?

      When I left Earth, I’d assumed I’d gotten my answer. All of the information had aligned, and the apparently ordinary, groggy, somewhat useless Helen had turned out to be an Aquin princess. But if she were just an ordinary Aquin princess – no matter how extraordinary that fact was on the surface – she would not be able to open her own dimension gates at will.

      To do that – to be that kind of person – she had to be right at the heart of the Aquin Empire. A heart I had never known existed.

      I didn’t know what to do as I stood there above her, one hand pumping into a fist, my nails dragging across my palm as if plucking my flesh from my bones would somehow allow me to think straighter.

      Or perhaps it would at least distract me from what I needed to do next.

      I had to kneel, place a hand on her shoulder, and allow my scanners full access to her, not just to check that she was okay, but to calculate what precisely had just occurred and record any physiological symptoms that could be used to help explain it.

      The first part – checking she was okay – would be for Helen. The second part? Recording every last scrap of data I could get? … That would be worth a fortune.

      So I should do it, right? Helen had already given me enough strife. Maybe she was wrong, maybe she was right – and there was no such thing as a ticket out of the finder program. But one thing was for certain – I was still in it, and if I wanted to continue living, I would have to please my masters. Pulling Helen home was one thing – finding out who she was and what she was capable of? Who knew how much it would be worth.

      There was only one way to find out. I had to stop wasting this moment, get down on my knees, and record her condition. So why was I hesitating?

      Dammit, just do it. There’s nothing stopping you, I tried to promise myself.

      But I still would not move.

      I was familiar enough with the Hall of Doors to appreciate that this room was far away from the main hallway where those two massive dog-headed Anubis guards stood sentinel. Presumably this was just one of the many back rooms that had been built deep into the asteroid’s heart. Once upon a time, maybe they’d held the incredible technologies of the race that had built this place. Or perhaps they had always lain empty, nothing more than symbols for the mostly empty multiverse which the Hall of Doors controlled. For within every universe and between every galaxy there was nothing more than empty, useless space.

      So there would be no one to bother us down here. No one to stop me. Except myself, because as I stood above Helen, not dropping to my knees, and not once turning my scanners on remotely to access as much of her condition as I could, I came to a decision.

      I didn’t want this.

      I didn’t know how much this information would be worth, and for the first time in my life as a finder, I didn’t care.

      I took a step back, pressed my lips together, closed my eyes, and breathed.

      Several seconds later, I opened them, and the last thing I expected happened – Helen twitched.

      It usually took several dimension jumps before you got your act together enough not to fall unconscious or puke all over your shoes. Even then, as a finder, I had technology and training that would help me. Helen had none of those things. And critically, she’d somehow opened the gate using nothing more than her body. She should be out for the count, if not in a coma for the rest of her days.

      But should be’s were relevant, and my every theory was wrong, for Helen shifted once more, then pushed herself up.

      Her cheeks were so pale, it looked as if she no longer had any blood in her body, but her eyes were open, and somehow they were sharp enough to pick me up even in the darkness.

      A lack of illumination meant nothing whatsoever to me. To Helen, even as her body was changing, it should’ve still been a slight hindrance. But as she narrowed her gaze at me

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