Change of Plans Episode Three

By Odette C. Bell

Jupiter is alive, but at a cost. Emilia’s infection has spread to him, and no amount of wise cracking will change that.
All the heartless skills he learned from five years on the run become irrelevant as they’re thrust deep into Orion space. Jupiter is called on to rise like the prince he once was. Unless he can find the leader within, the galaxy will fall.
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Change of Plans follows two runaway royals fighting to save their crooked galactic kingdoms. If you love your space operas with action, heart, and a splash of romance, grab Change of Plans Episode Three today and soar free with an Odette C. Bell series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Odette C. Bell
• Release date: Oct 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005078836

Book preview

Chapter 1

Jupiter Orion

I… wasn’t dead. Which was pretty remarkable, because less than 30 seconds ago, an assassin robot had skewered me through the stomach.

Now… though I should’ve spent most of my time staring down at the light playing across my torso, I kept all of my attention for Emilia. Her face was plastered with perfect shock. Shock, and relief. The kind of relief that instantly saw her thrust forward, wrap her arms around my back, and actually hug me.

Because that’s what happened when you wrapped your arms around someone’s back, right? When you pressed your face up close against theirs? When you cried right on the collar of their helmet. That was an embrace….

It didn’t last. She suddenly jolted back. She grabbed her arm. What is it, Shorty?

She went silent for a few seconds. Then she nodded once.

Speak aloud. I might’ve been injured, but I’m okay, I began. I abruptly stopped what I was saying, because as I stupidly tried to get to my feet, I swooned. My eyes rolled into the back of my head, and I tumbled forward.

Emilia was there, though. She grabbed me. She pulled me around and placed me back on the floor again. She quickly darted her head to the side. Her eyes narrowed. She brought up a hand and clutched Shorty again. And that’s when I realized the infection hadn’t transferred to me. It was still on her… we were just… sharing it right now.

I might not be able to stand, but at least I could lift a hand. I stared at the light playing over my fingers. I shouldn’t have to tell you that I’d never seen anything like it in all of the galaxy. Over the past five years, I’d traveled extensively. I’d seen everything from the heights of pleasure planets to the lowest bowels of scummy worlds. But nothing… nothing could capture my attention quite like this.

I said nothing, but then Emilia locked a hand on my chest. Her fingers still trembled. We have to get out of here. You can’t walk, right? I’ll carry you.

Your environmental suit isn’t equipped— I began, about to tell her that she didn’t have the kind of strength to carry me.

It didn’t matter. Either it was through adrenaline or the fact that the infection was still helping her, but she managed to smoothly duck in and grab me. She pushed me over her shoulder. She grunted a little as she thrust to her feet, but she certainly didn’t clatter backward.

She appeared to have another quiet conversation with Shorty.

I can try to walk, I stuttered.

She wrapped an arm around my back and started running forward. It was just in time. I became aware of the fact that something was out there in the tunnels. Sorry, something had always been out there in the tunnels. These sewers were completely jampacked with creatures who wanted to kill me. Whatever this was, however, it was racing closer to us with every heart-pounding second.

I closed my eyes, screwing them shut. That proved to be a mistake. I… had a vision.

I’d prided myself on my sense of mental stability ever since leaving Orion. I could’ve gone in the other direction. There was something uniquely undermining about having my brother hunt me.

No one in the entire galaxy wanted to help me. Even if I found some sweet lonely little grandma, she would turn around and sell me to my brother, considering the fortune he was offering everybody.

But I had kept a steady head. Yet right now, I was having a bona fide vision. There was no other way to describe it. The details were crisp, the experience true.

I stood in some kind of throne room. I immediately darted my head up. I knew how most of the empires in this galaxy worked. It wasn’t the throne necessarily that mattered, but the view it gave of the rest of the Milky Way.

Maybe once upon a time before there were so many spacefaring races, empires got away with only being obsessed with what was outside of their windows – the land and planets all around them. But as the Milky Way had opened up to various races, every single sovereign empire out there had figured out that what had mattered most were the stars and vast expanses of space beyond their reach. You could be your own boss. You could even have a mighty fine palace. But unless you learned how to wage wars and defend your own territory, your empire would go pfft pretty quickly.

Sure enough, as I tilted my head back, it was quite a startling view compared to the rest of the throne room. There was some kind of mural on the ceiling above. The ceiling itself was domed. It pushed up. And right above me, or should I say right above the crystal right in the middle of the floor, was a hole. It was no larger than about a hand-width wide. It was pitch black, but right in the middle I saw this pulsing small blue dot.

As soon as my attention locked on it, my heart stopped. Or something grabbed hold of my chest. Call it this looming sense of doom. Call it the reality of what had just happened to me catching up to me.

Whatever it was, it snagged hold of me. I heard this moaning rattling in my ears, this shrieking in my soul. The Dark Kingdom are coming. They’re almost here. They bring death and destruction for all.

I snapped back to the real world – for all of about two seconds. I’d been trying to push myself off Emilia’s shoulder, trying to prove to her that I could stand. I very much lost that ability. My eyes rolled into the back of my head again, and this time, there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop them.

I tried to clutch hold, tried to desperately hold on to something as that warning ricocheted through my mind again, but there was nothing, save for Emilia’s shoulder.

My lips cracked open. It was the only thing I could do. The Dark… Kingdom… are… coming. Almost… here.

With those last muttered words, I lost consciousness.

Who knew what state I would be in when I woke? And who knew what state the rest of the galaxy would be in, too?

Chapter 2

Emilia Astrid

I almost stopped. Shorty wouldn’t let me. As soon as Jupiter said those words – the Dark Kingdom – and as soon as he promised they were coming, it was like somebody injected the icy tail of a comet into my heart.

Continue to move. We are being tracked. You must preserve your power and limit your battles, Princess. Though it is just an assumption, I believe it is a safe one. Every time you use your energy or at least interact with the infection within you, it tires you. It will be close to impossible to get back to the Gambit. You will need every scrap of luck and energy you can muster. So run now and attract no more fights needlessly.

Got it, I said, forcing that breath through my trembling lips as I forced my feet to take another step forward.

I soon turned my head quickly over my shoulder. I could feel sweat sliding across my brow underneath my visor. This stasis suit was fancy, but I was now sweating too fast for it to keep up with. My heart hammered so hard, my chest shuddered against the tight press of the suit.

I could definitely hear a whirring coming toward us. More than that, if I half closed my eyes, I could sense it.

I couldn’t deny this new feeling anymore – I had this ability… this unchecked ability to be able to distinguish energetic sources hidden in my environment. I no longer second-guessed the fact that I had known when Jupiter had been speaking to Shorty mentally. Just as I knew right now that another one of those assassin robots was out there. It was only 100 meters away. And to a robot like that, such a distance was nothing.

We are very close to the correct area. It is only 10 meters ahead. Allow me to momentarily take over your body, and I will direct you there.

I did as Shorty said.

It was a completely different experience when he took over my body. I still remembered when Alpha had momentarily gained control of my hands back on that transport station. It had been an almost clunky affair, but this was smooth. I wondered if it was because I trusted Shorty implicitly, or if it was because I was changing. Maybe I now had a body and a mind more suited to the fine control of an electronic device.

Or maybe right now the entity was reaching up within me and helping this process. Perhaps it could tell that this was our last hope. And if I fell… everything would fall with me, wouldn’t it?

Just as I reached the right section of wall and Shorty gave me back control, I swallowed.

I could no longer deny how truly serious this situation was.

What was happening to me – the visions the entity was showing me – they were not faked. They were timely warnings. The Dark Kingdom was out there, and as Jupiter had already told me, they were coming.

I was no longer fighting for myself. I had the pressure of every soul in the galaxy mounting on my trembling shoulders.

Climb the wall. Use the entity to help you grab hold, Shorty stammered quickly.

I did as I was told. It was pretty tricky to do that with Jupiter still over my shoulder. He had now completely conked out. I thought he was fine, though. He’d just used too much energy. Perhaps the entity had overtaxed itself in healing his lethal wounds. The point was, he was not going to come to my aid, and nor was he handily going to grab onto my back to help me carry him. That meant I had to maneuver awkwardly with every single meter I climbed. I brought my fingers out only to punch them back into the reinforced metal wall. I got the impression that even if I’d had an electro blade, I wouldn’t have been able to skewer the metal. It was super reinforced in this section, and I imagined that was because the docks were right above. But there was nothing that could stop the entity from pulsing through my skin, its energy only getting keener by the second. As I forced it into the wall along with my fingers, there were these great shudders that passed through it.

Am I going to trip some kind of alarm? I asked aloud.

I have located it, and I have hacked through it. But that assassin robot is— Shorty began.

Here, I finished for him.

Sure enough, it raced into view, coming around a tight corner.

It was quite a sight to see it moving. It was distinctly electronic, and yet it had an impression of something that had once been organic.

That was a lie. This thing had never been alive. But it had been based off animals. I wondered why the designers had done that. Perhaps they thought it would be even more frightening to have an animal hunting you rather than just a deadly efficient robot.

It certainly evoked a tangle of nerves