War Begins: The Complete Series

By Odette C. Bell

The complete War Begins series. Follow Diana and Sampson fighting to stop the Force in this four-book boxset.
The greatest enemy the galaxy has ever known is here. The war will begin.
Diana’s had a troubled past. Her family were brutally murdered right in front of her eyes. It's changed the course of her future – but it will soon change more. An ancient race left a gift inside her mind, and it will now rise.
Sampson is a psychic soldier – the Coalition's best. When he's sent to the Academy to spy on students, he has no clue he'll be drawn toward Diana and into the final fight for the Milky Way.
...
War Begins follows a secret alien weapon and a covert psychic fighting to save the Coalition from their greatest enemy. If you love your space operas with action, heart, and a splash of romance, grab War Begins: The Complete Series today and soar free with an Odette C. Bell series.
War Begins is the 8th 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: Oct 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005634179

Book preview

Prologue

Colony Outpost Baxan A

We’re getting closer every day, Professor William Ray said as he leaned in and clapped a warm hand on Bethany’s shoulder.

His wife smiled up at him. There were many things Bethany was good at, but smiling came naturally to her. As her lips curled and pushed toward her eyes, she seemed to bring light into the world. And considering the massive hovering dig lights that illuminated this site had malfunctioned yet again, William could use all the light he could get.

Where’s Diana? He turned his attention over his shoulder as he set his speckled amber eyes sweeping over the dig site. It was massive. A vast underground operation, it had easily absorbed the past five years of his life. This chamber alone, even considering current technology, had taken two years to dig out.

And there was more to come. Briefly pausing his search for his daughter, he cast his gaze to the left and up. It rested on the primary wall and the motif carved across the thick, granular gray stone. As one of the few fully functional remaining dig lights hovered into view and cast its illumination over the wall, he caught sight of those symbols. As shadows danced along their long, intricately carved surfaces, a shiver raced up his back and snatched hold of his heart.

Though it could’ve been easy to tell himself it was just expectation and pure exhilaration at the fact his life’s work was finally coming to fruition, buried deep in his gut was a grain of doubt. It had been with him since he’d set foot on this outpost five years ago, and though he kept a handle on it most days, occasionally it would flare.

He tugged his attention firmly off the wall, setting aside his academic curiosity for his paternal instincts. Using a sharp gaze, he finally spied his daughter on the far side of the cavern. She sat ensconced behind two stacked crates displaying the Coalition Army insignia. Though the Army weren’t funding this dig, he’d managed to procure old equipment. It was a heck of a lot more reliable than the reused, practically stitched together gear you got on these colony outposts.

He kept a hand over his mouth, ensuring his voice would carry, knowing that despite this cavernous room, it could muffle sound somehow. Diana, what are you doing?

It took a few seconds for his daughter to respond. She had a dented datapad in her hand, and she was playing with something in the dust. She pushed up, tilted her head toward him, and managed a wave.

He copied the wave, turned his hand around, and pointed at the ground.

Diana turned back, and though she was far away, he could see the side of her face clearly with his ocular implant. He’d lost one of his eyes during an explosion years ago on a colony outpost even more remote than this one. Without the capacity to regrow one, he’d self-made an implant, and though he could ditch it for the real thing now, he’d always opted to keep it.

His mantra – which happened to be his mother’s mantra, and her father’s mantra, and the mantra of the Ray family going back centuries – was that you grew with your faults. You did not remove them. You could never tell what was a blessing in disguise – only time could.

As William focused his ocular implant on his daughter, he saw the side of her lips moving as if she was talking to someone.

Bethany might not have implants, but she had great instincts, and she took a worried step up to his side. What?

It seems our daughter still has her imaginary friends, he said with a disappointed sigh.

It’s okay. It’s just a stage. Bethany reached a hand up and patted it tenderly on his shoulder.

He looked down, but he couldn’t hide the glum frown stretching his lips thin. She’s not a toddler anymore. She’s eight years old. It’s too old for imaginary friends.

She chuckled. I thought your mantra was that you grow with your faults?

Imaginary friends aren’t like fake eyes. He brought up a hand and tapped the side of his face, indicating his implant. I’m just worried about her, that’s all.

Bethany shrugged. As she turned her attention over to Diana, and they both watched their child extricate herself from behind those crates, he saw the subdued worry paling Bethany’s cheeks. She might put on a brave face, but she was anxious too.

Diana, for all her childlike brilliance, tended to believe in things that weren’t there….

Diana raced up and reached them, opening her arms as a broad smile spread her cupid-bow lips.

William leaned onto his knee, opened his large hands wide, and scooped her up.

Diana laughed, her jet-black hair with a hint of indigo tumbling around her face like a sheet of water. I was just playing.

I saw. He paused, wondering if he should mention that he’d seen her talking to someone.

Bethany cleared her throat. It’s time for dinner, she said definitively. A cargo ship is about to port. I’m sure they’re going to have the rations we asked for. Which means I can finally make your favorite…. Diana?

Diana, seemingly ignoring her mother, locked her attention on the back wall of the dig site. It wasn’t the first time she’d done that, and it wouldn’t be the last. Several times a day at least, she’d get trapped by that wall as if something had reached from it, grabbed her chin, and held her eyes in place.

That grain of worry William was so used to burying rose, climbing up his belly, marching up his back, and sinking into his hindbrain until a shiver raced through his limbs. He arched his shoulder around until he blocked the wall from view.

Diana just clamped one of her small hands on his arm and twisted to move past him.

He got in the way again. He also made eye contact with Bethany. She made no attempt to hide her worry anymore.

Despite the fact William had devoted his whole life to this dig, he’d started to have conversations with Bethany. Conversations about giving it a break. Or at least sending Diana back to live with his parents for a few months. Maybe if she had a chance to interact with more kids of her own age, she wouldn’t be so….

You can put me down, Diana said as she tried to wriggle free.

Oh, I can, can I? he said playfully.

I am eight years old. I’ve heard you two talking. Eight years old is too old for you to continually scoop me up in your arms.

Confronted, he tried to control his expression as he put her down. Diana—

Before he could start a serious conversation, she tilted around him and stared with fixed attention at the wall. Her gaze moved as if she was looking at something that was moving too. Which was impossible. The hover lights had shifted, and there was no direct illumination falling on the mural anymore. It was as still as a mountain. And yet his dear child’s eyes jerked from left to right as if she was somehow tracking an army through it.

A shiver raced up his back, and this time, he made no attempt to hide it. He took a step in front of her, completely blocking her view as he settled a hand on her shoulder. Diana, your mother and I have been talking.

She didn’t look up at him. You want to send me away. You don’t like the fact that I talk to people you can’t see. You don’t like the fact that I still have stuffed toys and I treat them like they’re alive. You don’t like the fact I still play in the dirt. And you don’t want to have to scoop me off my feet anymore.

Every revelation was like a blow, and he swallowed hard. We don’t want to have to send you away. But—

Your father and I are a little worried that you’re not interacting with kids your own age. Bethany leaned down, her hands on her knees as she too blocked their daughter’s view of the wall.

Why would I want to do that? Diana asked.

Because there’s so much you can learn, he tried with a smile.

Diana took a quick step to his side, looped a hand through his, and turned him around until the next thing he knew, they were both staring at the wall again. "People don’t have that much to teach me. That does. She pointed at the wall, her finger straight and proud. You always said the most important knowledge is from the past. And you’re right."

Bethany took a deep sigh.

William half closed his eyes. I did say that, didn’t I? But I’m wrong. The knowledge you can gain from the past is only one half of the equation. You must use your knowledge to benefit others. But you can only benefit others if you know who they are.

She finally tore her gaze off the wall and locked it on him. Why do you need to know who they are? To benefit them, all you have to do is keep them safe.

You can’t save people you don’t know. Now come on. Dinner is waiting. Though he could have pushed, and though maybe this was the best time to force this conversation, he wanted to get Diana away from the wall.

Bethany was right. It was time for her to leave this outpost and discover just how large the world was beyond these four walls.

It was just when Bethany took a step to Diana’s side and rested a hand affectionately on her daughter’s head that an alarm cut through the dig site. Sharp and loud, it shook up from the ground and blared with the force of a thousand bells.

Bethany protectively shrugged toward her daughter, clamping an arm all the way around Diana’s shoulders. What the hell is that? The red alert?

Yes. But there was a second alarm blaring between it. William’s cheeks paled, all the blood pumping out of his face until it felt like someone had garroted him. Invader alarm. Get Diana out of here!

What? Bethany skidded down, using her large, athletic form to grab Diana up. Diana might’ve been eight, but she’d always been a preciously small girl.

As blood pounded through William’s head, thrumming in his ears until it felt as if he’d swallowed an exploding generator, he yanked up his hand and accessed his wristwatch. It was also Coalition issue. He hadn’t had to haggle for this one, though. It had been a gift from his long-term friend, Captain Fenton.

William’s fingers, slicked with sweat, dashed across the interactive device as he accessed the communication unit housed in the primary accommodation block above ground.

At least he tried to. He could get a signal out, but nothing replied.

Bethany, carrying Diana close, sprinted toward the set of stairs that would lead up to the airlock and the elevators.

No, William roared, his voice so strong, it croaked and rattled. "Not that way. Above ground has been overrun – comms is down. Take her back through the tunnels. Now, now—"

Bethany had a chance to turn to him. He watched as her eyes pulsed wide, as primal, maternal fear spun through her. Then something else spun into her, cutting his wife down right before his eyes.

A blast shot through the dig site primary door, collecting a chunk of it and sending it hurtling down toward his wife. William didn’t have the chance to say anything more to her. It sliced across her back, an arc of blood splashing over the floor and Diana’s face.

Bethany! The shout was torn from his throat as his heart was ripped from his chest. He staggered forward as his wife fell on top of Diana.

Diana’s shrieks echoed through the room, loud enough to compete with the blaring alarm.

He reached Bethany. He shunted down to his knees, not caring that they grated over a still smoldering chunk of metal. It ripped his sturdy pants and burned his flesh, but nothing could stop him from tenderly pulling his wife’s dead body off his daughter and cradling her in his arms.

Diana shrieked in his ear, tears melting over her face as if they were acid that had eaten away her cheeks. She shoved a hand toward her mother, grabbing a handful of Bethany’s glorious, sleek jet-black locks.

William couldn’t linger. Not even for one last goodbye. He rocketed to his feet, his eyes pulsing wide as he locked them on the mangled dig site door.

This dig wasn’t dangerous, but William had always been a cautious man. Especially on outposts like this. Though this particular colony had been nothing but safe ever since he’d arrived here five years ago, a man like William Ray would never be able to shirk off his past. Being an archaeologist who specialized in managing digs in the furthest reaches of space, a healthy dose of fear was baked into his personality. One of the reasons this operation had taken so long was that William had been meticulous in building the shafts down to this site, lining the primary corridors, shipping in airlock doors that were heavy-cruiser grade, and basically ensuring that short of a Barbarian raiding party, no one would be able to blast their way down here.

But someone had. Because it was a Barbarian raiding party. William confirmed that as he stared over his shoulder at the primary door. One enormous Mascar warrior ducked his head through the mangled remains of the still burning-hot metal. As soon as the massive alien came into view, realization struck William like a blow through his heart.

He was going to die. Everyone on this goddamn outpost was going to die, even if anyone was still alive above ground.

But he would not let his daughter be one of those casualties, no matter what it cost.

Using speed he hadn’t used for years, William flung himself forward and pushed into a roll. He somehow managed to cradle his daughter’s head, protecting her fragile skull from the unyielding stone as their bodies tumbled over it. A hot, spinning blast of red pulsating energy slammed into the patch of ground where he’d been standing. It was so powerful, it didn’t just eat into the stone – it obliterated it, dust, gas, and goddamn burning chunks of rock scattering up in a devastating halo. Pieces of them landed on his back, shoulders, and the side of his face. They were like kisses from Hell itself. They didn’t just cauterize his skin – one chunk that scattered over his earlobe burned right through it.

William couldn’t feel the pain, though. He couldn’t afford to. He pulsed to his feet and shot forward.

Out in the corridors beyond the primary site, he heard screams. All of them he recognized because all of them came from his team. The Barbarian warriors leading the raiding party didn’t make a sound apart from the occasional harsh, brutal chuckle as they mowed down another innocent.

Diana wouldn’t stop crying or screaming. She kept trying to wriggle free from his grasp to get back to Bethany. He didn’t have the time to lock a hand on the back of his daughter’s head and coo in her ear. He couldn’t afford to waste a single breath as he concentrated on navigating through the room. Barbarian blasts shot through it, lighting up his equipment and sending writhing shadows dancing over the mural as if the stone had come to life.

With a grunt from behind him, William heard that Mascar warrior bypass the stairs as he jumped 50 meters down to the base of the site. The brute landed with such a heavy thump, William could feel the shake as if a mini earthquake had gone off behind him.

Out in the rest of the dig, William heard more screams. They became higher pitched, and for the first time, he swore he heard the heavy, grating calls of the Barbarians.

A wave of intuition washed over his back, and William tried to dodge to the left, but just at the last moment, one of his heavy boots snagged against a chunk of stone, and he found his body deviating to the right.

Before total fear could pulse through him, warning him that this was the end, his own daughter latched her hands on his collar and yanked him to the side. It was just in time, and a pulsating red shot sliced past his face, close enough to sear and bubble the flesh but not rip it from his bone.

William heard more screams, and they were even more desperate now. They arced high into a chaotic cacophony like an orchestra that had just been set upon by lions. If fear hadn’t already been shuddering through his body with all the power of one of those spinning blasts that kept shooting around him, it would’ve snagged hold of his heart and obliterated it with a single squeeze. Because there was something primal about them – something bone-numbingly terrifying about those screams. It wasn’t just his team being killed by the Barbarians. It was—

The Mascar warrior reached him. William had a chance to open his arms, to throw his daughter forward, but that was it. The next thing he knew, a massive, armor-clad arm sliced down against his throat with all the power of a sword. He was wrenched back, and the breath was pushed from his lungs with all the effectiveness of somebody slamming a bat into his stomach.

He was just aware enough of his daughter to watch her fall onto the floor by his feet, to watch her eyes widen until they could drop out of her head as she screamed his name desperately.

Somehow, some precious how, William managed to force enough air into his lungs to whisper, "Run. Now. Diana, run."

As the tears ate away at her face, she stayed by his feet and stretched a hand toward his. Fighting the Barbarian all the way as the bastard tried to choke him in front of his child, William brought up his foot and tried to kick Diana away, tried to do anything to force her to run while she still had the chance.

He wasn’t given that opportunity. The Mascar wrenched him off his feet until William dangled there like a carcass about to be strung up by a butcher.

Diana screamed. And she screamed. And she screamed.

Just as blackness swamped in from all sides, invading William’s vision like a virus decimating some poor soul, he heard scattering footfall behind him. Something struck the Mascar. The alien warrior’s fatal grip of William’s throat slackened, but the damage was done. Stars swarmed over William’s eyes as if every constellation had been crammed into his skull. He fell to his knees, the Mascar dropping him with a grunt.

William couldn’t turn around. He was only just holding onto his consciousness and his life. The only way he could see what was behind him was through his daughter’s reflective eyes. His implant was still functioning, and it narrowed in on the reflection in her large violet irises.

There was something behind the Mascar, something that had grabbed the alien by the holster on the back of his armor.

William tried to reach a hand toward his daughter, tried to whisper for her to run once more, but he couldn’t move his lips. All he could do was fall down onto his face and struggle to keep one eye open as it locked on the reflections in her deep eyes.

There was the sound of something being choked to death behind him. Terrifying guttural splutters echoed through the room, cutting through the sound of the continually blaring alarm.

Run… Diana… he tried, an entirely new level of fear slamming into him as he felt his life trickling through his fingers.

There was a thump as the Mascar warrior dropped to his side, dead. Then footfall. Edgy, rattling, unsteady – it sounded like the scuffling of a spider, not the footsteps of a man.

As William’s body shut down, he saw something out of the corner of his eye. He expected it to be another Barbarian warrior. Though whatever it was had just killed the Mascar, that didn’t mean anything. To the Barbarians, loyalty could and would be superseded. Aggression and the rule of the strong over the weak were the only things that really counted.

Yet as something staggered into view, the last of William’s struggling senses confirmed it was no Barbarian warrior. It was one of the young undergrads the Archaeology Institute had sent for work experience – James Ventura.

William didn’t have the opportunity to process his hope. He wasn’t even given a single second to believe that James had somehow overpowered the Barbarians. Diana started screaming, and she wouldn’t stop.

James took a struggling, shuffling step forward, and William looked up to see that the man had a blast hole in his middle that stretched from his sternum right down to his hips. His torso barely connected to his legs anymore, and blood covered his body like dribbling tattoos. There was no way the man should be moving, yet he took another shuffling step. He reached a hand toward Diana.

As that hand came into view, cutting across William’s vision, he caught sight of James’ wrist. It was black. But the skin wasn’t charred. It was encased in some strange, incomprehensible writhing mass of black energy. As William’s mind struggled to understand what he was seeing and struggled to push back the waiting arms of death, he saw a stone bracelet clamped around James’ wrist and instantly recognized it was something they’d uncovered in the secondary dig site this morning.

William couldn’t ask what was happening. All he could do was watch as James pushed that infected hand toward his trembling daughter.

William tried – tried with all his goddamn might – to find the strength in his body to push up and push his daughter away, but he couldn’t move. His body shut down from underneath him like a machine slowly ripping out its own memory banks.

His impending death did nothing for his fear and only ignited it further. Though William had no idea what was happening and how James could be moving despite his injuries, William instinctively knew with knowledge from beyond himself that if James touched Diana with that hand, she’d die.

James opened his mouth wide, the move disjointed, saliva and slicks of blood covering his teeth and dripping down his lips as a hollow scream echoed from his gravelly throat. His fingers widened, snapping apart so far, they could have dislocated, and they shot toward Diana’s throat.

There was nothing Diana could do as James’ blood-covered, seething black hand clutched the bare flesh of Diana’s neck.

William roared. Just as James wrenched his daughter into the air and Diana’s legs dangled like cut strings, William tore every last scrap of energy from every last muscle. He shot to his feet, locked an arm around James’ throat, and pulled the bastard back.

The second William’s bare flesh touched James, something shot from James’ cold, stiff body into William.

Desperation. Anger. Fear. Violent, uncontrolled, purely destructive emotion. There was no other way to describe it, especially for William’s rapidly dimming mind.

He was only vaguely aware of the fact that his daughter had fallen beside him. He was only barely aware of the fact he was standing despite feeling as though he was already dead on the inside.

More screams echoed out from the rest of the dig site, primal, violent, pulsing with pure, undiluted violent fear and rage. Before William could stop himself, his head pitched back, and he let out the same bloodcurdling cry. A part of William’s body – the part that felt dead and black like the furthest reaches of space – suddenly wanted to drop James and reach toward his daughter. There was something about her unique light and warmth that attracted him like a moth to a flame.

William fought the urge. He fought it with his heart, mind, and goddamn soul. He fought it with memories of Bethany and every happy recollection of his once peaceful family.

He fought it until he clamped his teeth together and ground them so hard, blood seeped between his gums. He fought it until finally he managed to open his mouth. He fought it until he locked his gaze on Diana. Run, he croaked. Run and don’t look back.

Diana pushed to her feet. She reached a hand out to him.

No, he roared. Run.

William fought that insidious black infection as it claimed his body, but he couldn’t fight James at the same time. He wrenched himself free from William’s grip.

Diana shrieked, but she wouldn’t leave.

James once again grabbed her, this time by her wrist. James’ bare, blood-splattered, infection-covered skin closed around hers.

… But that writhing infection did not spread to William’s daughter.

Instead, Diana shrieked, clutched a stone by her side, and slammed it against James’ wrist.

There was a crack of bone. James was forced to drop her wrist, and before he could try to grab Diana up by the throat again, William pulsed forward one last time. He wrapped his arm around James’ throat and hauled him back.

Daddy, Diana shrieked.

"Run. Sweetie, run. Never look back. Run." That infection continued to claim his body. He could see it out of the corner of his eye as it wrapped around his wrist, climbed his arm, and circled his chest like the waiting grip of death.

No. No. Someone help, someone help! Diana shrieked.

Run, William begged as he forced his body to hold James in place.

James’ body was cold and stiff. It felt as if his muscles had gone into rigor mortis, and yet, he kept moving with an unquenchable thirst. It was as if his limbs had turned into robots that could continue to move despite death.

As cold realization flashed through William once more, almost robbing him of the last of his mental control, he appreciated that would happen to his body soon. William wouldn’t be able to hold back the infection forever, and when it claimed his every cell in full, it would use his own damn hands to grab his daughter’s throat.

But Diana wouldn’t run. She turned from him, and she rushed a step forward toward the back wall. Her eyes grew wide as she stared at it. "Please. Please help him. Save him. Please," she pleaded with no one at all.

James continued to struggle, and he brought his hands up, turning the nails in as he dragged them over William’s cheeks and throat. He left long gouge marks dripping with blood, and William watched as more of the infection plunged into them. He felt cold wave after cold wave of total dread spread through his body, robbing him of his continued control until William knew without a doubt that he only had seconds left. Please, Diana, just leave.

She got down on her knees, tears soaking her cheeks as her lips trembled open. She brought her hands up as if in supplication. She closed her eyes. Please help me. Please. You promised you’d always be there for me.

He had no idea who she was talking to. He didn’t care. He just had to get his daughter out of here before it was too late. Before he lost his grip—

James put on a surge of power, grabbed William’s hand, and twisted it to the side. The snap of bone crunched and reverberated through William’s arm.

James pulsed toward Diana. Diana turned her head up, her tear-streaked face framed by her hair and fear as William’s sweet child waited for death.

But that death did not come. Just before James reached Diana, something cracked from the wall. Right from the center, from the most intricate of the carvings, something moved. A blast of brilliant white-hot light shot toward Diana as William fell to his knees, his body finally giving up, the infection reaching his throat and practically strangling it like a chain around his neck.

He could do nothing for his daughter as that blast of light slammed into her. But it did not knock her from her feet. It encased her, slicing around her middle, encircling her like one of the rings of Saturn. James reached her. But just before he could lock a hand on Diana’s throat and lift her from her feet, Diana was pulled from her own feet. That strike of light circled around her faster and faster until somehow she was lifted up as if on the wings of an angel.

William could barely comprehend, barely comprehend as his body shut down and that virus eked every last scrap of control from his mind and body. But he watched, and he would continue to watch until his eyes lost all muscular control and they closed for good.

James screamed. He was thrust back as the light encasing Diana blasted out.

Something rushed through her body, from the tips of her toes to the top of her head as she suddenly landed on her feet. An exhilarating rush of energy, William swore he could feel it from here as if his nervous system suddenly connected to his daughter’s. It felt like power, like light, like the force of creation itself. And it ate into every single cell of Diana’s form until she briefly glowed like a star giving birth to another.

Though James had been blasted back, he didn’t stay down. The effects of that virus doubled, more black energy swarming over him as if it were a hive of bees claiming an attacker. There was the crunch of bone as James flung himself forward so violently, he broke his shin.

Just as he reached Diana, something formed around her. Or in her. Or over her. William could make no sense of the vision as he watched a taller woman somehow suddenly inhabit the same space as his daughter.

That vision of a woman – whoever she was – held a sword. And while William could doubt everything that was happening before his eyes, he couldn’t doubt that. For as the sword formed, it seemed to carve itself a place out of reality itself. There was no other way to comprehend the sheer importance it came with. It was like every constellation had been condensed down to create the hilt, and the vast tracts of empty space that knitted together the galaxies of the universe had been crushed into one to build the blade.

That blade could cut down anything, from men to ships to boundaries unseen.

As William stared in soul-crushing shock at what was happening to his daughter, visions spiraled through his mind. As his gaze locked on the brilliance of that blade, recollections blasted through his psyche, each more violent than the next. Yet they were not his memories – they came from races long passed, from men and women long dead.

He saw a war stretching out into the past. A war between all life in the Milky Way and a single force.

A force that called itself nothing more and nothing less than Force itself.

He saw civilizations crumble at the hands of that insatiable enemy. He saw worlds riven in two like a knife through eggs.

But he saw those who would not die rise up to fight. Soldiers, guards, heroes of races long dead – he saw as the galaxy united to thrust the Force back.

His visions wouldn’t last. Just as they threatened to blaze so brightly through William’s mind that they would burn his personality like a photo cast into a raging fire, he heard James tip his head back and let out another blood-curdling, rattling scream.

James lurched. He snapped his hand up, and the infection surged, powering over it until it pulsed like a black hole.

The woman standing not beside but within Diana brought her long, glowing blade up.

William didn’t have a chance to scream as the infection leaped from James’ outstretched fingers and shot toward Diana’s throat.

The woman moved, and Diana moved with her. As if it were her little hands holding that impossible sword, Diana sliced the blade around, right through James’ chest.

Though the blade plunged through James’ broken body, it somehow missed it. It did not miss the black virus inhabiting him. It sliced through it, unstoppable and pure like lightning on the darkest night. The black virus had no chance. It burned up. The blade dragged every last wisp of it from James’ body and extinguished it like a flame thrown into an unquenchable ocean.

James didn’t scream. Not a single word escaped his lips as he fell face-forward. He was dead before he struck the ground. Because he’d been dead all along.

And William? William was dead too.

That realization struck him as he forced his knees to fall out from underneath him.

He watched his daughter as she brought up her hands, stared at them, then walked over to him. She took a step, and that thing – that woman made of light who was inhabiting the exact same point in space as her – took a step forward too.

Diana raced up to him. He tried to scream at her to stop; she didn’t.

If she touched him, she’d die just like he had.

But as Diana locked her hands on his shoulders, the infection didn’t spread. It couldn’t. As it lapped up against her hands, it was rebuffed.

"Daddy, Daddy," she sobbed.

He stared at her, his eyes glassy.

He couldn’t speak.

All he could do was watch as his daughter collapsed her arms around his back and pulled him close.

Briefly, for one blissful moment, it felt as if her light could chase away the infection claiming him, but all too soon he realized that wouldn’t matter.

Nothing could save a dead man. For he’d died in the Barbarian’s arms when the warrior had crushed his throat. This – these last few seconds with his precious daughter – were nothing more than borrowed time.

She rocked back and forth, pulling him with her as she kept her arms locked around him. He could feel her tears trickling down his neck and face. They might have been wet, yet however briefly, they had a heat that thawed the frozen death overcoming him.

William managed to open one eye, and he locked it on her. That woman was still standing there, somehow imprinted over the top of his daughter as if she was an echo from the future – an echo of what his daughter would one day grow into….

As his mind shut down, more visions assailed him. They swamped him with greater weight and force, like an army pinning him to the spot.

He saw world after world crumbling at the feet of the Force as they swept through the Milky Way. Clusters fell, sectors were wiped out, and the Force moved forever forward. For they existed for one purpose and one purpose alone – the total and complete annihilation of every living creature in existence. Their energy was fundamentally incompatible with life and always would be.

William lost awareness of his daughter’s never-failing grip, of her tears, of her shaking sobs. He watched a replay of the Force assailing the Milky Way all those millennia ago. He watched until something rose up to stop them.

Daddy, don’t die. I can help you. I can eliminate the infection. Just hold on. Hold on, Diana begged.

William barely heard her. He could no longer see past his visions. They played across his blackened vision like footage across a view screen.

Even if he could have looked away, he wouldn’t have. For as he saw something rise up to fight the force, it pushed away the last of the fear that had infected his mind along with that black energy.

There’s hope, he found himself saying. The words tore themselves from his throat and trembled through his parted lips.

I can save you— his daughter began.

I’m dead, Diana. But there’s hope for you – hope for everyone else.

"No. I won’t let you die." She rocked back and forth into him. Her tears washed down her face until they slicked one side of his cheek.

He couldn’t reach a hand up and lock it on her shoulder, so he put the last of his energy into a smile. There’s hope, he said one last time, his voice now nothing more than a throaty, far-off whisper.

As he said that, he stared past his daughter at the woman who appeared to be possessing her. She’d been gazing at him ever since she’d appeared, and she did not drop her attention now.

Realization after realization slammed into his mind as vision after vision flew through his dying consciousness.

You’re an angel, he croaked. One of the ultimate soldiers developed to fight the Force and lock them out of this realm.

As his daughter continued to sob, the woman nodded once.

You’re here to help us again, aren’t you? Because they’re coming again? As he managed that, he somehow twisted his head to the side and stared at James’ dead form.

William understood. He understood exactly what happened to James, what that stone bracelet was, and what waited behind the mural to his left.

He knew what would come, not just for his daughter, but for the rest of the Milky Way.

He didn’t have the breath or time to explain everything to his sobbing daughter. She would forget this all anyway until the day she was needed. He merely focused his attention on the angel. Look after her.

The angel nodded.

William died, crumpling in his daughter’s arms as his mind faded away but hope remained.

Chapter 1

Present Day

Sampson Ventura

He pressed his back up against the warped section of metal wall behind him, locked his hands on his gun, and focused. Not just with his body, not just with his mind, but with the force of his thoughts embodied.

As he heard another scream echo through the ship, he clenched his teeth together.

You trained for this, he whispered under his breath as he walked his shoulders to the side, inching his body out from behind cover to check on the rest of the corridor. Far off down toward the lifts, 50 meters away, he caught sight of movement, quick and deadly but staggered and uncoordinated.

A single bead of sweat slid down the side of his face, trailed over his square chin, trickled over his neck, and dribbled past his torn collar. He felt it slide right over the raised tattoo imprinted a hand-width below his collarbone.

It meant nothing to the uninitiated. To the initiated, it signaled that Sampson was part of one of the most select groups in all of the Coalition.

He was a psychic soldier, and he was one of the best. Unlike the other men and women in his select team, he didn’t come from one of the psychic races – he was human, through and through. But he was a human who’d had an accident. At the age of 12, his father – one of the greatest scientists the Coalition had ever seen – had lost his mind. All it had taken was the death of his other son.

The memory still burned at the edges of Sampson’s mind, and as he focused, he forced it aside with all the strength of his disciplined psyche.

The last thing he wanted now was a distraction. And if he pushed his mind into the memory of his father breaking down and injecting him with an experimental psychometric drug, it wouldn’t just distract Sampson – it would open a door he had to keep closed. Some people dealt with trauma. Some people locked it away. Sampson had no option but to do the latter. His wound was more than blood deep. It had literally been seared into his mind as the drug his father had administered to him had awakened Sampson’s latent psychic powers.

If Sampson chose to, he could step inside that memory. He could make it unfurl around him like a waking dream. He could explore every second of that torture, over and over again.

But not now. Not ever. Some people wash away their pasts. Some have to force themselves to move on, step by step, shot by shot.

Sensing his chance, Sampson ducked out from behind cover, kept low, and yanked his gun up. His fingers squeezed the trigger, and a slice of white-hot energy pulsed down the corridor. It slammed into the movement he saw by the lifts, and even from here, he heard a tight, gurgling gasp. It sent the hair on the back of his neck standing on end as if someone had concreted it upright.

Sensing his opportunity, he pulsed forward. He’d been pinned down in this section of the corridor for the past five minutes. He had to get to the bridge. He had to get to the transporter station right in the middle of it. And he had to transport every single member of this ship’s crew out into space. Living or dead, he had no option but to push them out into the merciless vacuum beyond this small cruiser’s thick walls. For living or dead, every man and woman on this ship now had no hope.

Sampson rolled past a broken neuro pack, his specialized holographic armor protecting him and only becoming visible in a shimmer as his back and shoulders rolled right over the lethal black gel.

By the time he snapped to his feet, the armor had become invisible again. The energetic barrier had completely burned up every last trace of the neuro gel until there was nothing to stop Sampson from sprinting forward.

The armor, developed only in the last months, had drawn heavily on the Circle Trader incident that had befallen the Academy three years previously. Remarkable stuff, when operating at 100 percent efficiency, it could divert even the most lethal blow, all while leaving Sampson apparently unprotected. It was the kind of armor you gave your most important espionage agents. Which is precisely what Sampson was.

He wasn’t just a spy, though. When called for, he was a soldier too. He reminded his body of that fact as he yanked his gun up and fired just as something crawled out of the broken lift doors in front of him.

He didn’t allow his mind long to lock on the sight of a woman’s upturned, deathly pale face. He didn’t let his gaze lock on the blood that pumped from a fatal gash in her throat. He didn’t even note her glassy, deadened eyes. All that mattered to him was the black, pulsing energy that writhed from a point in the center of her chest and seemingly tied her body like smoke curling around a fire.

Dread pulsed through Sampson. Despite all his skills and all his training, it always did whenever he faced a zero infection.

Deadly, there was no cure for it. It wasn’t a virus. It wasn’t bacteria. It wasn’t protozoa. It was no known biological entity. Instead, the root of Infection Zero was a twisted form of energy itself. Whoever it infected, it killed, and it claimed their body, controlling them like marionettes. Gruesome, terrifying, and unstoppable – it was one of the greatest secrets the Coalition Army had. Few admirals knew of its existence, let alone your average grunt or budding cadet. News of Infection Zero was clinically controlled, even if the infection itself resisted all attempts to be cured. Only select admirals throughout the Coalition Academy and the leaders of the Galactic Senate knew about it. Oh, and the psy corps. It was soldiers like Sampson, after all, who were the ones tasked with dealing with zero infections.

Any ordinary soldier who faced a patient infected with zero would have seconds if minutes. Even the greatest heroes of the Coalition Army wouldn’t stand a chance.

Infection Zero infiltrated your mind first, then your body. It snatched hold of your personality like a picture painted on glass and smashed it into a trillion pieces. Once it was done with the patient’s mind, it would control their body until their muscles wasted away and their bones crumbled. Even as a psy soldier, Sampson wasn’t immune. No one was immune. If you were unlucky enough to get touched by an infected patient – even through armor – you would succumb.

But at least Sampson could detect them. Long before an infected patient reached him, he could sense a disruption in their psyches. Call it a wave – a chaotic, destructive wave that pulsed through space – but whenever he felt an infected patient near him, it was as if the air itself became poisoned. It would buffet against him like an oncoming storm.

Right now as he skidded to a stop, rammed his hand onto the base of his gun, and flicked the modified rifle to its most intense setting, he felt the woman’s mind crumpling. The last of her psyche gave way, his psychic senses blaring like a klaxon.

She jerked toward him, the infection controlling her body completely. Just before she reached him and just before he fired, he looked right into her eyes. He wasn’t stupid enough to think that she could see back. There was nothing left of this woman’s hollowed-out, horror-filled form. That wasn’t the point. Before Sampson’s dad had cracked, the brilliant man had imparted one crucial lesson on his son. You treat life like life. It didn’t matter what form it came in, it didn’t matter how much more sophisticated and intelligent you thought you were – you treated everything as sacrosanct creation.

Sampson had done a lot of seemingly brutal things in his life, yet he’d always held onto that. And now that lesson rose through him and saw him stare into that woman’s eyes as he ended her suffering with two quick shots.

The blasts from his gun lanced out, slamming into the center of her chest and between her eyes.

He glanced away as the high-yield shots tore through her body. He didn’t look back until there were two soft thumps and she fell – or what was left of her fell – onto the crumpled floor in front of the lift.

He stood there, stock still, his gun raised and locked on the mangled lift. He watched it, his psychic senses shifting through the ship as he struggled to detect any other crew members.

He was in a section of corridor above life-support. His psychic abilities told him that there was still crew in engineering, the mess hall, the bridge, and the accommodation deck, but no one close by.

So he watched, never moving as that black light flickered violently over the woman’s body. It writhed like a flame, a flame that was desperately trying to keep itself lit in a roaring wind.

Sampson considered it with cold hatred. His father might have told him that all life is sacrosanct, but that black infection wasn’t goddamn alive. It was anathema to all existence. So he didn’t bat a single eyelid as the infection started to fade. Without a host to jump to, it had nothing to sustain its insatiable hunger.

One second, two seconds, three, four, five – finally it started to flicker out like a firefly that had been crushed underfoot.

Sampson didn’t move until it had extinguished itself completely. Without turning from it, he locked his rifle against his back holster, grabbed up a handgun from his hip unit, and took a step back.

Finally, he turned and continued through the ship. He located other crew members, all of them infected. He killed anyone who got in his way, concentrating on heading to the bridge rather than hunting them down.

The closer he got to the bridge, the more the infection forced the crew to fight him, but Sampson was lethal.

He had to be. If Infection Zero got out into the rest of the Milky Way, it would be catastrophic on a level never before seen. Small infections could be dealt with. Planets? Sectors? If large numbers of people succumbed to Zero, it would leave the Coalition with no other option but to turn on its own. Even then, he doubted the infection could be contained. For wherever there was life, Zero could sustain itself. Whether it be people or trees or plants or damn moss – it could infect anything classed as biological. And given a chance, it would.

So men like Sampson didn’t goddamn give it a chance. He didn’t say a word, didn’t even let out a guttural scream as he reached the bridge. He shot the reinforced doors that led to it, bringing up his foot and giving them one solid kick as his holographic armor gave him the last pulse of force he needed to open them.

The bridge doors parted, falling from him like dead petals from a dried rose.

He swung his handgun around, firing two shots right through the head of a Berkani female to his left. Her infection surged, the black light trying to accommodate for her injuries but failing as her body crumpled and struck the floor plating.

He noted her demise out of the corner of his eye as he locked his attention on a figure sitting in the captain’s seat. It would be the captain himself, and the man was so infected, he looked as if he was wearing a black, twisting cloak.

Sampson tightened his finger over his trigger. Before he could fire on the man from behind, the captain lurched forward and fell to his hands.

Sampson ducked to the side, clearing the reinforced back of the captain’s chair to line up a shot. Just as he aimed right at the captain’s head, the man turned.

And Sampson stopped. Because right there in the middle of the man’s eyes, he saw intelligence, fear, and most importantly, the desire to be saved.

Some people could fight Infection Zero. For a time, at least. As that black energy wrapped around their body from the inside out, controlling every cell, every muscle, and every fiber, some people could still hold on to a scrap of their psyches.

Maybe for seconds, maybe for minutes – but for no more than that.

Sampson had only ever faced three other people who’d managed what the captain was managing now.

He paused. He stared at the man’s wide, expressive, and soulfully pleading eyes. The captain’s jaw dropped open, several licks of saliva dripping off his lips and splashing onto his tensed hands. The man tried to move his lips.

He was human, so Sampson didn’t need much help to figure out what the man’s trembling lips were trying to mouth.

Help me. Help.

I will help you. That’s what I’m here to do. As those bitter words pushed from Sampson’s lips, he raised his gun higher. He didn’t fire yet. He stared right into the man’s eyes, and Sampson Ventura tried to acknowledge the humanity this man must have once had.

Help, the man mouthed one last time.

Sampson half closed his eyes, and he helped.

He shot the captain twice in his head and once in his heart.

As blood and fragments of burned uniform splattered over the once clean bridge floor, Sampson forced his eyes all the way open. He slowly stared around the bridge, and he breathed. Through the death. Through the destruction. Through the chaos of the infection.

Before he could take another moment’s reprieve, he heard screams out in the corridor. The rest of the infected were coming.

Sampson surged forward like a tsunami as he reached the transport panel. His fingers flew over it, and any rudimentary security system designed to lock him out was immediately overcome by his holographic armor. Computer, lock onto all crew biosignatures, alive or dead, and transport them into space.

He spun around, lifting his gun just as a man plowed into the room, his neck snapped and lolling to one side but that not stopping his speed in the least as the infection swarmed him.

Sampson had a chance to raise his gun, but he didn’t need to fire. The transporter did as it was told, and it locked onto the man, spiriting him away right before Sampson’s eyes.

It was only when Sampson turned and confirmed with the computer that every crewmember was gone that he closed his eyes. He allowed himself five whole seconds to absorb the horror that had gone on here. Then he drove a breath deep into his chest, letting it push through his mind like a wind designed to strip dead leaves from a tree.

As he opened his eyes, he accessed his neural implant. Connect to the computer’s communications system, he ordered it.

There was a beep, and to his left, he watched the communications panel light up with a yellow glow.

Contact Admiral Forest. He didn’t shift from his position as he turned his gaze toward the view screen. It was broken, patches sparking like wildfire along its edges. That didn’t stop it from blinking into life as the computer managed to contact the admiral.

Her drawn, pale face came into view. Is it finished?

He nodded. He didn’t snap a salute, even though a soldier in his position should. Well, an ordinary soldier should. There was a different set of rules when it came to the psy corps. Because there was different everything when it came to the psy corps.

The admiral let out a relieved breath that was so long and stuttered, it sounded as if she’d been holding onto it for days. Have you removed every case from the ship?

He nodded. I’ve spaced them.

… Are there survivors?

She always asked that question. He understood why, even though he knew she already knew the answer.

He shook his head.

She looked down briefly. Though she might think she was good at hiding it, he could see her gut-wrenching disappointment, even if it took all his psychic skills and emotional understanding to recognize it. She might be able to hide her mind from the ordinary officers under her command, but not from him. It took her several seconds to compose herself, then she looked up sharply. Scuttle the ship and return. Send it into the closest star.

He nodded. Then finally Sampson Ventura snapped a salute. What next, Admiral?

She didn’t hesitate. The admiral might have genuine feelings under her apparently cold exterior, but Forest’s reputation for always striving on, no matter what, came to the fore. You return to the Academy, to Earth.

He frowned. Before terror could grip him and tell him an infection had broken out in the very heartland of the Coalition, he read something else in her expression. Another mission? Where?

In the Academy.

Sorry?

I need you as a spy this time, Sampson, she admitted. She always used his first name. He, like the other soldiers in his team, had earned that level of familiarity.

And who do I spy on?

The students. It’s time for you to become one. Appropriate, considering you never went through standard training. I want you to make it back to Earth and assume your position before classes start in a week.

He snapped one last salute and nodded. Then he ended the call, turned, and set the ship on a course to hurtle into the sun. For Sampson Ventura always did what was required of him.

Chapter 2

Diana Fenton

Diana woke long before her alarm could blare, alerting her to the first day of classes for the new year.

She woke on the wings of a dream. A dream where she’d seen her father’s dying face, his smiling dying face….

Without pause, she reached over to her bedside table unit, grabbed up the real journal and pen she’d scrounged from an antique dealer, and started to scribble his features. She took comfort – and diligent respect – in drawing every detail she could recall. From his amber-flecked eyes to his smile – to his beautiful smile….

When she was done, a single tear trickled down her cheek. She didn’t stop it from reaching her chin, trailing along her neck, and dashing against the collar of her regulation pajamas. She let it chill the skin like the caress of a cold finger.

She carefully placed the book and pen back in one of the drawers of her bedside unit, and then Diana finally rose to her feet.

She waved a hand over her alarm clock, disengaging it. Rather than march over to her neatly stacked uniform, she took a few seconds to stare out of her window behind her bed. The city was waking up, a brilliant dawn caressing the coastline and reaching through the five tall towers of the Academy. It looked like an unstoppable army made of light, and that was no grandiose use of terms, for Diana knew precisely what she meant when she said that.

Bringing a hand up and pinching the bridge of her nose, she rubbed her eyes and finally walked over to her clothes. As she dressed, she received a call, her wristwatch flashing yellow. She had a feeling of who it was long before she accepted the call and the crisp but ever friendly tones of Admiral Luther Fenton echoed through her room. Ready for your last year at the Academy, kid? he asked, his kind tone filling the room with just as much energy as the light of dawn.

She tilted her head to the side and smiled, despite the fact Fenton couldn’t see her. Of course I am.

Up bright and early before your alarm, ha? That’s my girl. He didn’t even pause before he added, That’s my daughter.

Her smile didn’t hesitate. It grew. I guess that makes you my dad, then?

It was meant to be a joke, and she hoped her tone conveyed that, but Admiral Fenton paused.

Because he wasn’t her real dad. Her biological dad had died when she was eight. The then Captain Luther Fenton had taken her in when both her parent’s families had refused to deal with her. If it hadn’t been for Fenton, Diana would’ve been dumped in an orphanage.

If it weren’t for Fenton, Diana would’ve been dumped from most things in life, including the Academy. But he alone always rose to her defense and protection. So she took a breath, and she let the emotion push from it and echo out as clear as day. "I didn’t mean it like that,