Fractured Mind Episode Two

By Odette C. Bell

There’s no going back. The Academy is under siege, and Sarah Sinclair is the only clue to saving everyone.
But the battle doesn’t stop. Sarah and Karax are pursued relentlessly, thrust from one bloody battle to the next with no reprieve.
Time soon runs out, not just for the Academy, but for the Earth itself. The Corthanx begin a secret invasion. If they aren’t stopped, Earth will fall, and then, the galaxy.
Can Sarah control the force in her mind? Or will it crush her and drag her back to hell with the lieutenant by her side?
...
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 Two 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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Odette C. Bell
• Release date: May 4, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311325297

Book preview

Chapter 1

Lieutenant Karax

Sarah had blacked out after her ordeal.

She kept slipping in and out of consciousness. He’d done what he could for her, but they had to get out of here. Now. Though ideally, he would have waited until she woke so he could ask what the hell had happened, they didn’t have that luxury.

It was hard to figure out the controls in this pod. Though it could have been tempting to beef up its thrusters and use it as a relatively rudimentary, slow spaceship, he wasn’t an idiot.

The people they were dealing with – the people who were after Sarah and had orchestrated the near-perfect attack on the Academy – weren’t idiots. They weren’t poorly equipped, either. If they’d had the resources to track Sarah down, they’d be able to organize superfast transport.

There was only one option.

It was messy, but it was already over with.

He’d chopped Sarah’s identity chip out of her shoulder, just like he’d done with his own. But this… had been harder. It had made Karax sick to his stomach to hold Sarah’s unconscious head up and carefully chop out the identity chip. What had made it oh so worse was staring into her peaceful unconscious face. It had…. He shook his head and tried to push it from his mind as he kept marching forward.

Sarah was on his back, but fortunately he wasn’t taking the brunt of her weight – he’d managed to rig up a basic antigravity system using some of the innards he’d chopped out of the pod’s hover system. It would mean the pod was un-flyable, but he didn’t care.

He kept his arms wrapped around Sarah’s legs as he shifted forward through the undergrowth.

Mist hung in the trees, spreading between the leaves of the long, verdant ferns and camellias like whispers come to life.

He kept his ears peeled – for every sound. No matter how minute. He’d figured it was safest to head out on foot. Now neither of them had identity chips, it would be a hell of a lot harder to track them. It wouldn’t be impossible, though, especially if they headed back to the city – there were too many security cameras. Though theoretically, the guys after Sarah shouldn’t be able to hack into them, he was done trusting theories.

Out here, they had a better chance. He also had a plan.

There was meant to be some secret underground Academy research facility up in the mountains. It would be a day or so on foot, but once they were there, they’d finally have a fighting chance.

He doubted the traders had managed to gather remote control of every Academy facility on Earth. No, they would have concentrated on the main grounds. Plus, if the rumors he’d heard about this research facility were accurate, it would take the entire Barbarian army to hack through its defenses.

Which of course meant he’d need a miracle to get in, but maybe he had one.

Not for the first time and not for the last, he paused, arching his head back, trying to get a good view of Sarah despite the fact one of his shoulders was in the way. He saw a slice of her cheek and felt her hair trailing down his shoulder.

She was still unconscious.

When she woke… Christ, he didn’t even know what question to ask her first. Or maybe the very first thing he would do was apologize.

His stomach knotted just thinking about it.

For years – for goddamn years – Sarah Sinclair had tried to warn the people around her that something was wrong. She’d spoken about her dreams as if they were so much more. In fact, once or twice, she’d even mentioned the term training. Now, as he pushed through the undergrowth, the mist trailing around his damp trousers, he shivered as he realized how right she’d been.

But there had to be more to the story. He’d caught what that guy had told her in the pod – she’d escaped from some kind of facility, and the guy had intended to drag her back.

He shivered as he realized what that could mean.

The Academy was only starting to understand how the Ornax trained their soldiers. And it was a fair bet from what he’d seen and heard that those so-called true intelligence holograms weren’t holograms at all. Rather, they were projections of real people.

As he shifted forward and mounted a rise, he looked down into more of the stunning floating mountains of Zhangjiajie.

It was the kind of sight that should take your breath away – if he’d had any breath left to spare. Instead, he barely glanced their way as he gritted his teeth, repositioned his arms around Sarah’s legs, and ignored the pain shooting through his left shoulder. Though it was awkward to hold Sarah – despite the fact her weight was being taken by his jury-rigged antigravity system – his shoulder was still playing up. It was playing up, because that goddamn asshole in the pod had rammed it.

Karax had done what he could, but he’d focused his medical attention and whatever drugs he could find on Sarah. He could wait – he could also endure a hell of a lot more. Sarah? She could be the only key to rescuing the Academy and saving everyone.

As he shifted down the rise, he finally heard the one noise that could make Karax ground to a stop.

She snuffled.

Sarah? Her name shuddered out of his lips as he shifted around and gently placed her on the ground.

She shifted fitfully to the side, nuzzling up next to a large knot of roots next to her as if she were curling up against a pillow.

Sarah, he said again.

She shuffled a little bit further away as if he were an annoying noise she was trying to get away from.

Cadet Sarah Sinclair, he said with a growl.

Finally, she reacted.

She shifted onto her back, and her eyes sprung open.

At first, they locked on Karax with complete confusion. Then he watched reality slam into her like a cruiser at full speed.

She jerked up. He pushed a hand down, locking it on one of her shoulders to ensure she didn’t give herself an injury.

You are okay, you are okay, he said forcefully, clearly, looking her right in the eye as he spoke.

What… what the hell happened? she asked breathlessly as she tried to fight past his grip on her shoulder and check the forest floor around them. He watched her eyes widen with surprise as she clearly realized she wasn’t in the pod anymore.

Then she winced as she brought a hand up to her right shoulder.

Immediately he winced, too, but his was a hell of a lot harder. Sorry, his tone dropped, even shook a little, I had to cut out your identity chip. I had no other option. I don’t know exactly who is tracking you, but we can’t take any risks.

She stared at Karax with wide eyes for a second until she nodded. Then she went and clutched her other shoulder. Her left one.

This time his eyes widened with interest and all those questions he’d been practicing in his mind rammed against his lips. He took a hurried breath. The Academy has been attacked. By Corthanx Traders, though I guarantee you there’s some other kind of force behind them. A coordinated, powerful one. There may even be double agents in the Academy’s top brass who are helping them. The Corthanx Traders had… access… to a hologram. Though his words had gushed from his mouth like blood from a broken artery before, now they stopped. Now they dried up. Because now he stared into Sarah’s shocked gaze and he realized just how harrowing this story was.

He sucked in a breath.

… You saw me, didn’t you? she said in a small, barely audible voice. I was…. She brought a hand up, locked it on her left shoulder distractedly, then appeared to gather the courage to speak. I was there somehow, wasn’t I?

He couldn’t help but swallow.

He’d faced gazes far harder than Sarah Sinclair’s. With far much more force. Far much more menace. Those, he’d been able to take. Sarah’s he couldn’t.

He jerked his gaze down to the ground, and it would have taken the combined power of the Galactic Coalition fleet to tear it back up. Yes. I don’t understand it, he said, exasperation cracking his tone, But you were somehow there. Some kind of hologram. The Corthanx Traders called them true intelligence holograms, and— he stopped abruptly. He stopped because he saw the horror playing through Sarah’s gaze. He didn’t believe in superstitions, and god knows he’d spent too much time fighting real monsters to believe in ghosts, but the look Sarah suddenly shot Karax could only be equated with one thing – somebody walking over her grave.

He stopped and stared.

She’d already pushed up into a seated position, and now she threatened to stand. Though he tried to lock a hand on her shoulder and hold her in place, she easily shoved the hand off with a practiced move. The kind of strong, practiced move, to be exact, that the ordinary Sarah Sinclair would never have been able to do. She had practically been a dropout from his combat class. Truly hopeless. But that hadn’t been the ordinary Sarah Sinclair, had it? He suddenly realized as he stared at her and swallowed once more. This – the confused, often bumbling woman he was staring at was nothing more than an artifact. Some kind of personality dreamed up by a confused mind. If he was right, and Sarah – or the woman she’d once been, Sora – had escaped from an Ornax training facility, then Sarah didn’t really exist.

Maybe some of the import of that realization played through his gaze, because she pressed forward, coming to a stop an inch in front of his face. He’d never seen someone look more fragile, and yet more powerful at the same time. Tell me – tell me everything you’ve learned. Tell me now, she demanded. Though her voice still shook, and she still looked unsteady on her feet, there was no denying the force behind her words.

He told her everything. Every suspicion, even his experience of fighting Sora. By the end of it, Sarah’s expression had become unreadable. A smooth façade of surprise spread across her face. But if you looked carefully – right into her eyes – you could see something else. Anger. At first, he couldn’t believe it. Sarah Sinclair was not an angry woman. But Sora? Sora definitely was.

Yet just as soon as that anger flared, Sarah returned. She brought a shaking hand up, clasped it over her brow, and breathed. Deeply. Over and over again.

He pushed a hand out and gently placed it on her shoulder. Careful, you don’t want to hyperventilate.

It took her a while, but eventually she stopped wheezing, and brought her direct gaze up and stared at Karax once more. What the hell do we do now?

We get you somewhere safe. Then we try to… figure out a way to stop this and shut down your program from afar.

Safe? her voice cracked on that word. Almost seemed to shatter, in fact. But that was nothing compared to her expression – her eyebrows twitched then crumpled, and her lips pulled so thin it looked as if they would split. … They’re not going to stop tracking me down, she said in a strange halting voice.

He pushed forward. What do you mean? Do you remember something about them?

She jerked her gaze off Karax, brought a hand up, and stiffly clutched her brow. Eventually, she shook her head. "It’s just…