Galaxies Lost Episode Four

By Odette C. Bell

The galaxies – every one across the universe – will soon be lost. Unless Jodi and Adam can come together and fight.
To do that, they must first find out who their real enemy is. As everything Adam thought he knew shatters under his feet, Forest discovers the true nature behind this endless, pointless war.
Jodi must go yet further. She must pass through the redemption she’s fought for to what lies beyond – ultimate connection.
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Galaxies Lost follows a traitor and a shadowy soldier fighting a hidden war for the universe. If you crave space opera with action, heart, and a splash of romance, grab Galaxies Lost Episode Four today and soar free with an Odette C. Bell series.
Galaxies Lost is the 17th 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: Apr 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005988944

Book preview

Chapter 1

Adam

We had one hope and one hope only. If I didn’t get out of here, the Shadow Hunters would control everything. If Jodi were to have any hope, she needed to know what was actually going on with the Doom virus. But the chances of us getting out of here were slim to none.

Especially when he appeared.

I’d already told you there were several Shadow Hunters that had existed for over 100,000 effective years. All of them had tried to breach Planet Doom at one point.

Except him.

He didn’t have a name. Just a number. Three.

I’d never inquired as to what that meant. Did that mean that he was the third Shadow Hunter there’d ever been? His host body had been kept around since the beginning.

It belonged to one of the many nomadic races that had flown through the galaxy when the shadow war had begun. Tall, lanky, blue, he only ever wore gold armor. His breastplate glittered like it had been formed from the center of a star. As for his eyes, they glittered, too, and they had a particularly dangerous glint now.

I would’ve rocked back if I could have, but Harlow was in control of his body, and I had no intention of depriving him of that, considering this would likely be the last time he would ever be able to feel in control of anything again.

The Shadow Hunters would come good on their threat. They would take Harlow’s body. And with me….

You had a chance to rid this universe of its greatest threat, Three said.

I didn’t say a word. I’d always been schooled, from the very beginning of my career, never to speak back to the elders. And there was no one more important than Three.

You had a chance to protect this universe by removing its greatest threat. But you chose not to. You will now pay for that.

Like hell he’s gonna pay for a thing. You think he’s the threat? You think that Jodi is a threat? She’s just a kid. Even if you aliens have no clue what you are, I know. The rest of the universe would know too, if you stopped wiping everybody’s minds. The real enemy is here. You want resources, power. Harlow’s voice dropped down low. This is nothing more than a standard war with a fancy title.

You will stop speaking now, human host, Three said. All he had to do was slightly swipe his hand to the side, and he gained control of Harlow’s body. I felt the moment Harlow was thrust back.

I didn’t even hear him. It was like he was swept aside for good.

I clenched my teeth. Or at least I did in my head.

It was a mistake to make you a Shadow Hunter, Adam Ridges. You do not have the mental strength to know what is right when you are surrounded by illusions.

Surrounded by illusions? I shoved my hand to the side. You call this being surrounded by illusions? You are destroying this planet. You’re breaking it down for… what? For power?

To open the gate. To open the gate to Doom so we can finally destroy that planet once and for all. So we can destroy the gate. So—

The Shadows can never retreat? Listen to yourselves. If you really cared about this universe, you wouldn’t be dragging this war on and on. But it was never a war. You were always after their powers. Tell me, were the shadows always the enemy, or did you create them into the enemy by hunting them ruthlessly? I roared.

You have no right to question us. We once believed you had the correct mindset to understand. You do not.

I laughed, all empty, all grieving inside. You thought I had the correct mindset to understand, did you? Or do you think I had the correct mindset to follow orders blindly? I’ve been a fool. These last 10 effective years, I thought that I was a strong soldier, the one who’d been lucky enough to be picked to be at the forefront of the most important fight there was. But all I was was a blind man behind someone else’s gun. Thank you for opening my eyes in the end, I growled even lower.

It will be your last act. Your imprint must be destroyed.

I didn’t need him to explain. I knew exactly what he meant by imprint. That would be my mind. He would extinguish my ego right here, right now, in Harlow’s head. Though I didn’t get the sense that Harlow was close at hand and certainly didn’t feel like he could control his body anytime soon, it certainly felt as if a little part of him would watch this. He’d see me destroyed and… then his body would be used as a host indefinitely.

There was nothing we could do. I got down to the pits of despair then further. Everything seemed wretched, absolutely hopeless.

But just as I descended all the way down, I thought of one woman, staring up at her ceiling for two years, somehow holding onto hope, even though the rest of the Coalition had written her off long ago. How… how exactly had Jodi done it? Was it just that she’d never been human on the inside? Or was it just that she’d always known she had something else to do? Some important task only she was prepared for?

If I could just find that hope now, if I could just grasp hold of that scrap of difference, I’d be able to use it.

But time had run out. Three shifted forward faster. He opened his hand wide.

The other Shadow Hunters started to chant.

There were these flashes all around me, bright blue like light bulbs exploding.

They were mind transporters.

I had never seen a Shadow Hunter excommunicated, though I had read about it. Every single time I had read about it, I’d foolishly thought the Shadow Hunters as a whole had done the right thing. After all, our war was so very important that you could not tolerate a single person who tried to act against the whole. But now I was on the receiving end, and there was….

I stopped myself. Just in time. I thought of Jodi again, but now the thought was sharper. She could do it. If she could get out of defeat, even when it was so very complete, even when the walls closed around her and there was nowhere to run, others could do it too.

I looked across at Three. I really stared into his eyes. Lord knows how big his mind had become, how very sharp his senses had crafted themselves over the past hundred thousand years or however long it had been. But now I tried to strip away the distraction of his host and gaze right into his eyes. At the same time, I did something remarkable.

I pushed my hand to the side. I touched that ball. The one where the shadow was trapped. I didn’t know how to communicate with shadows other than to scream or shoot at them. There had to be another way.

They naturally inhabited the phase realm. And the phase realm was not a realm of mouths and tongues and lips, of words and logical concepts.

As I touched the ball, I tried to force my mental energy into it as much as I possibly could. And there was one wish. One wish that accompanied everything. I’ll help you if you help me.

Sounds self-serving. If either of us had a hope of getting out of here, if I had a hope of saving this planet before it was crushed into dust, it would be the only way. All the while, I stared at Three’s eyes. Right into them.

I’d fought shadows for the past 10 effective years. I had no business reaching out to one now, yet there was nothing else I could possibly do. I heard Harlow, even though I thought he’d been completely controlled.

He didn’t speak with words, just pure intention, if you will. It told me to try. He knew this was our last hope.

It’s one thing trying to make friends with an enemy you’ve fought once or twice. It’s a completely different thing trying to make friends with somebody you have vowed to destroy. All of that energy was still within me, and I couldn’t hope to hide it or transform it yet. But I could push it aside slightly to recognize one thing. When you don’t know the facts, when you have no clue what way up or down is, you can only do one thing. Act to find out the truth.

I’d fought for so long. But I’d fought for the wrong thing. Maybe I should’ve gone back to my Coalition training and not discounted it from the very beginning, assuming I had finally reached the pinnacle of justice with the Shadow Hunters. First day, first lesson, you were told when all else fails, when you have no idea what you’re doing, you search for the truth. And when you find it, you don’t let go. As my fingers collapsed harder around the orb, I gave it my everything, opening the equivalent of my mental doors and… as frigging terrifying as it was, letting the shadow in.

Shadows could and would infect Shadow Hunters. Just give them the option, and they’d gnaw on the Shadow Hunter from the inside out, destroying what they could.

This was the most exhilarating moment of my life, one of the most terrifying things I had ever done. It was like opening the door to hell and waiting for the foulest creatures below to rise up. But the only thing that rose was pure chance. I felt the moment the shadow pushed beyond its wall. The only reason it could do that was that I’d opened the equivalent of my mental hands to it and given it the power to escape into me.

Then… then it rushed in.

It should have felt like swallowing acid. My stomach should’ve churned, even though technically it was still Harlow’s. The point was, every nasty sensation you could imagine should’ve occurred. Yet none of them did. Instead, there was just… this release, almost.

Followed by a singular warning. As soon as the shadow was inside me, it screeched in every single language it knew to get out while we could.

And suddenly I realized why.

Even though this world should statistically still have some more time, unbeknownst to me, Three had increased the rate of the virus. The entire planet was about to go up.

This shot of pure adrenaline blasted through my stomach, reached my face, and went to make me scream. But I held on at the last moment.

I looked one last time at Three, then I did it.

I broke the shadow out of its jail cell completely.

I gave it my power. And it gave me its power in turn.

In doing so, it released some kind of energy from the prison it had been trapped in. It exploded outward. Nobody was ready for it. Everybody was picked up off their feet and thrown backward, even though they’d only been floating there.

Three was the least affected. He flew back the shortest distance. But he still moved, and it still gave me the opportunity I needed.

Now, Harlow. Give me everything. And… shadow, give me everything, too. I had no name for it, but I needed to call it something. And I needed all three of us to work together, utilizing every single scrap of energy we had.

Three was disrupted for the shortest amount of time. He was also the smartest Shadow Hunter here. He knew exactly what he wanted, and he knew exactly what he could do when he got to me.

He shot forward, hands outstretched, the look in his eyes… one of total control. I should’ve seen that earlier, right? Day one, hour one, the second I had been saved by the Shadow Hunters, I should’ve seen that look in all of their eyes. That right there was something that you ran from, no matter where you saw it. It was the look of somebody who always had to be right.

The truth and your alignment with it makes you right. Not some internal state. You don’t get to just label every single circumstance you walk into as correct. And you certainly don’t get to do that with your desires. Start doing that, and you will begin to disconnect from reality.

I couldn’t make up for the past 10 effective years without a lot more work. But I could buy the galaxy more time.

With that singular wish beating in my heart, I managed to open a phase gate to transport. It felt like the last thing I would ever do.

Three shot forward faster. He screamed, spittle splashing out of his host’s lips. But he didn’t reach me. Not quite in time.

I managed to get out of there. And it was just at the right moment.

As I twisted through the phase realm and left that planet far behind, I felt it crumble. It was as if the knees had been yanked right out from underneath