Endless Chaos Book One

By Odette C. Bell

When the Coalition is swept up in a deadly game, only one cadet can save them.
Ga-Lax is an ex-spiral player. No one knows that – no one’s ever heard of them. Normal from the outside, she has a mind honed to play the most brutal game of all – Death Spiral. Trained and deadly, she escaped the game ring and joined the Coalition Academy. Now she’s just Sharon – the distant cadet who never smiles.
Cadet Birim’s the best recruit the Coalition has seen in years. He’s perfect in every way – except for one fatal flaw. He’s a bully. When Sharon becomes his next target, he has no clue it’ll end in a fight. For everything.
When shadowy forces initiate Death Spiral on Academy grounds, only Sharon can save them. To do that, she’ll have to defeat – and save – Birim.
Falling for him isn’t part of the game, but this time, she’ll be playing for everything.
....
Endless Chaos follows a damaged superweapon and an arrogant cadet fighting to save the Coalition from an admiral gone rogue. If you love your space operas with action, heart, and a splash of romance, grab Endless Chaos Book One today and soar free with an Odette C. Bell series.
Endless Chaos is the 21st 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: Mar 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215327302

Book preview

Prologue

Five Years Ago

Gar-Lax

I heard the vat opening around me and saw the atmosphere venting in small white clouds. I felt the moment my mind detached like somebody yanking on my finger and ripping it out of the joint. I let out a breath, and it sliced back around my face.

The tubes that usually fed and optimized my mind slid past my shoulders, gathering back into the recess in the wall. Above me, blinding fluorescent lights blinked on, one by one, and the black platform that led to my holding cell rang out with footsteps.

Master Jee’ged strode toward me, one hand in the pocket of his half armor, his smile, as always, alight on his face. I said alight – it never managed to blaze into a proper fire and burn the rest of him.

I would never be that lucky. The only way I would ever get out of here was if today worked.

His new investors lined up behind him, a Bentin trader, a Barbarian Merk, and several other representatives of races and clans I didn’t know. They wore a hodgepodge of armor, a mess of different insignia, weapons too. All I cared about was that they shared the same expression – the same avarice.

Is she the one? the Merk grunted as he virtually whipped a grin across his tusk-lined mouth, angled his head up with a creak, and stared at me.

I could tell what was playing behind his eyes – it was the same thing playing behind the eyes of every so-called investor – everyone Master Jee’ged had ever brought to see me. They wanted me, wanted to win me in one of the matches, wanted to put me to work for their fame and fortune.

My black-gloved hand slid off the white skintight armor I wore, slipped behind my back, and formed the slightest of fists.

Small for now, it would grow. It had been growing for the past 10 years of my internment.

I would get out of here today, or I would die trying.

The second Master Jee’ged nodded at me, his gray skin catching the light from above, I leapt off the foot of my holding cell and landed on the resonant black floor plating.

One of the investors got a little too close. Jee’ged whipped out an arm.

He didn’t need to program the turrets attached to his shoulder. They swept around in a deadly dance, aglow by the time they locked on the trader behind.

The man had bulbous eyes extending about half an inch from his skull. It was all the better to see his surprise with. He yanked up three hands and started waving them. Why are you aiming at me? We have a deal—

You are too close to my prize. And we do not have a deal yet. Master Jee’ged’s voice grabbed hold of the word yet, strangled it, and broke its neck. Then he tied it to the wall to let all other words – and people – know precisely what he could do when he was angry. I saw a flash of danger growing in his gaze now. If he didn’t win all his matches today, he’d take it out on us players. He’d train us – some to the death. Never me, though. Never me, for I was far too valuable.

He motioned me over as he motioned the trader back. You will not get close to my players. Understand, this one here is my crown.

The player who has won the most matches, the Barbarian Merk grunted, his voice so dark, it should’ve sucked all the light from a star.

I watched his eyes widen and fix on me harder. Presumably he was currently using neural implants to assess my skills, to scan every single centimeter of me, to figure out if I could really be worth that much.

If Master Jee’ged’s boastful claims were anything to go by, I was the most valuable player in the Milky-Way-Scarax district. That consisted of two galaxies. And while not everybody played Death Spiral – while it was only a game known amongst criminals – that was irrelevant. If you could be good at Death Spiral, you were pulled into it. And then… follow the words in the title to find out what would happen next. Then, you would spiral into certain death. Or, if you were like me, you might manage to cling onto your life while winning, while somehow finding more in every single fight.

To do that, you’d need to have one hell of a motivation – something sitting behind you all day long, perched on your shoulder, whispering in your ear whenever the pain got too much, whenever your hindbrain begged you to stop.

My motivation rose.

And it locked on the Barbarian Merk.

My gaze traced his body. There, I saw what I wanted on the left side of his muscled hip. Next to his neon blue modified blaster, I glimpsed the only thing that could save me now.

I didn’t let my gaze fix on it for long. I made it a natural movement, turned my head, and assessed every other investor in the room. Then I took a dutiful, echoing step toward Jee’ged.

He crossed his arms.

He came from a race with ghostly gray skin. It took some getting used to. For a while after you first met him, you’d keep second-guessing whether he was really alive. It didn’t help that he had milky black pupils that seemed to reflect all the shadows in the world and never the light.

Trust me – never the light.

I twisted.

Master Jee’ged gestured us forward with a sweep of his bony gray hand. It was just as the door slid open at the far end of the room, the dim lighting in here leading us toward it. Beyond, I could hear the roar of the crowd.

They pounded their feet down against the stadium seating set up around the Death Spiral ring.

I could feel the vibration making it out to me, even though there were multiple structural shields in place to ensure no percussive force from the ring would ever reach this far.

Master Jee’ged had a carefully planned operation to run. When his star players weren’t winning him money and prestige in the ring, other new players were being trained in the complex that existed around it.

Though the word trained ought to come with a grain of salt. If you were inappropriate as a fighter, you were used as fodder to train the rest.

When I had been bought from a Barbarian Merk slave trader, Jee’ged had taken one look at me, turned his nose up, and hissed the word, Inappropriate. I could still picture the exact way his lips had moved, the way his single, thin strand of inch-thick hair had twitched over his shoulder, the way he’d stared right into my eyes so the message had seeped down to my soul.

Inappropriate.

Inappropriate.

I heard it in my dreams, heard it in my training sessions, but beyond today, would never hear it again.

The investors started to get distracted as we walked along the floor toward the stadium. The door was large, and it offered us a good glimpse of what was beyond.

Master Jee’ged had made so much money on Death Spiral, he spared no expense when it came to training the players. Mechs, sometimes even single-person cruisers were programmed and pitted against us. If we failed, oh well. If we defeated his expensive technology, even better. He’d just play us harder, recoup the costs plus some, and buy more dark technology to use against us.

We reached the threshold of the door.

Everyone’s eyes – apart from mine and Jee’ged’s – locked on what was called the apartment complex.

Massive, it had over 40 programmable floors. It was kept within a field ring – a shield shimmering from yellow to red, depending on the current life force of the players.

The stadium seating was set up around it.

Once, during a boring fight, I’d counted the rows. There were over 120.

They circled this massive room. I had no clue precisely how many people you could fit in here – but didn’t that assume something? That they were people in the first place. The kind of devious, dark minds who enjoyed watching a match of Death Spiral had lost their sentience a long time ago. They’d traded it for blood, money, sweat, tears, and death.

My game suit, which consisted of nothing more than a singular millimeter of perfectly bendable programmable armor that hugged my form, heightened my senses. I didn’t need to draw in a breath, didn’t need to let my nostrils flare – I could smell the combined scent of all of that greed.

I could also detect the sweat dripping down the brows of all of the witnesses. I wouldn’t call them spectators. That suggested they were here for a game. Witnesses suggested they were more appropriately here for a crime.

None of them were in armor – they weren’t allowed to wear it.

The investors were lucky – but even they had been forced to remove most of the workable, useful parts of their armor. There were strict rules when it came to the stadium. You couldn’t allow any fights to break out. Because fights might spill over to the players, and then the players might escape. And ah, that would be costly indeed.

The stadium had to be kept at a constant high temperature, too. It was 50 degrees centigrade in here. My armor warned me of that fact, and if I’d wanted to, I could’ve tuned my nervous system into the cloying heat and high humidity.

The Barbarian Merk grunted, jerked a hand up, and wiped a river of sweat off the center of his brow. It pinged off one of his long, 30-centimeter yellow tusks.

Barbarian Merks liked things cold. Their armor usually maintained a habitable temperature for them.

Not today.

And that allowed me to slip close. I didn’t move far from Jee’ged – he’d know if I did. I inclined my body just half a centimeter to the side and waited.

If you’d never seen a stadium like this, you wouldn’t be prepared for the sight. Not only was there the cloying press of sweaty bodies, but there was the continuous bellowing.

Deprived of armor or anything else that could magnify sounds, the crowd did so with their feet and hands, stamping and shouting, and most importantly, screaming.

Who knew how much spittle splashed everywhere, but it mingled with the sweat and blood.

It’s just the blood wouldn’t come from the crowd.

I sliced my gaze to the left. I saw the other contender.

I’d never fought her before.

She looked innocent.

She wouldn’t be a new player – no one would pit a new player against me unless they were trying to make a point. A deadly one.

But from the look in her eyes as she stared at the stadium, it was clear she’d never seen anything like it. Which suggested her Master had used her in Death Spiral matches at smaller venues. Hell, maybe he’d trained her against his own players.

She wore a blue jumpsuit. It matched her tall figure and the lilac mohawk that tapered into a ponytail.

She swung her gaze toward me.

I stopped and stared.

If they insist on sending children against you, what are you to do, Gar-Lax? Master Jee’ged snarled unkindly from beside me.

Then he took a step forward. The showman within him appeared, though he was never too far from Jee’ged. He had two sides. The brutal slave trader – and the actor. The latter knew precisely why you’d come to watch this bloody match. And he would give you everything you wanted, even if it was only a prelude to taking everything that had ever mattered from you.

He thrust both of his hands into the air, and the ring turned from green – its off-state – to yellow.

Let the games begin. We know why you’re here. We know what you want to see. And I will bring it.

The crowd roared in joy.

I jerked my gaze back to the Merk, judged his physiological condition, and waited.

Merks had senses honed over many thousands of years to assist them in hunting. Long before the Barbarians had become a spacefaring race – though there were multiple races within them – the Merks had prided themselves on being the most vicious hunters out there.

They had great tactile senses – could flatten a hand on the ground and feel someone running several kilometers away. But they also had remarkably good hearing. Combine all of that together with the heat, and this might be a little too much for my friend.

It would be like taking a dog into a room of screaming children.

The Merk swayed.

Just not toward me.

As he teetered toward the trader, the man unhelpfully took a step out of the way. So I moved in.

The Merk fell against my shoulder.

I slid my hand down to his hip.

In a quick move no one would ever know I’d taken, I yanked a small oblong box off his holster.

You wouldn’t know what it was unless you knew what it was, unless you’d been studying them, praying for them, and searching for them for the past 10 years like I had.

It was a transporter scrambler.

Open a transporter, jump inside one of the beams, and deploy it, and it would take you somewhere random no one else could track.

It was the perfect way to escape – the only way to escape.

Master Jee’ged organized all transports to and from the stadium. He just didn’t know what this box was.

How did I know what it was?

Jee’ged controlled every single aspect of our lives – but there was one that he didn’t care for, one he always turned away from.

He never paid attention to dying players. He always walked away from them.

I’d learned about the existence of scramblers from a poor ex-Coalition soldier I’d fought.

And ever since, I’d been searching for them.

Now I had one, right there in my hand. I closed my fingers around it.

There was nowhere to hide it – but it was natural for me to make a fist as the game began.

I strode away from the Merk as he continued to stagger. I half-jogged around the ring and ascended the platform. As soon as I walked on it, it lit up, and so did my armor. Two long stripes of glowing blue illumination shot up from my feet to my head.

You could see my face – even though technically it was behind a micron-thick shield.

I’d been