The Infinity Corps: Engineered Chaos: Infinity Corps Origins, #2

By Philip A. Lee

MORTAL MAYHEM!

At the Infinity Corps's premier academy on the Moon, Cadet Samantha Mulligan is ready to take her final exam: a harrowing assessment that will determine her fitness to be a spacefaring engineer in the Corps's Defense Division. But despite her technical savvy, the enigmatic test is unlike anything she could've studied for. Amid environmental and mechanical hazards that draw innocent bystanders into a web of danger, this ultimate assessment of her abilities will push her to her limits, and she must discover the truth behind the exam if she is to have any hope of joining the Corps—or surviving long enough to earn her diploma…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Philip A. Lee
• Release date: Sep 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223153122

Book preview

Engineered Chaos

ENGINEERED CHAOS

AN INFINITY CORPS STORY

PHILIP A. LEE

CONTENTS

Engineered Chaos

ENGINEERED CHAOS

Infinity Corps Cadet Samantha Savannah Mulligan knew all the way down to her DNA that cheating at something as important as a final academy exam was wrong, but part of her worried she’d have to do it anyway.

She had already hacked into the Procellarum Academy’s computer system, bouncing and fidgeting in her dorm-room seat from anticipation and the thrill of a potential illicit activity, the low gravity of Luna almost making her rocket up from the chair with each bounce.

"I’m just gonna look," she told herself quietly, hoping not to wake Dai Lu, her roommate, who was snoring and blissfully not worrying about her own final exam—life sciences, something far less fraught than an engineering cadet’s mystery-box test. "Nothing wrong with looking, Sammie." Then she adjusted her academy-issued glasses and ignored the nervous itch threatening to crawl under the edge of her Afro.

All the other academy cadets knew what they were getting into—for the most part. Infantry cadets had to run a lengthy gauntlet of simulated fire, as though some fictitious alien threat had taken over the base. Pilot cadets had to launch an AstroDyne T-18 trainer pod from the pad at Aristarchus Base then steer it through a twisting series of orbiting rings and shoot down an increasingly more difficult series of training drones. But engineers? None of the cadets knew. And every single Procellarum Academy engineering-track graduate acted like there was nothing at all out of the ordinary. All throughout her academy days, she’d heard whispers of engineering cadets on course for summa- and manga cum laude honors, but their final exam had hit them like a runaway freight truck, and they’d just left the academy in disgrace.

Sammie had faith in her own skills, for the most part, but if such promising individuals could somehow blow their one chance to reach the stars, what hope did she, a talented but awkward cadet, ever have?

Just two days ago, her aunt, Vice Commodore Savannah Mulligan, had stopped by to wish her well, and Sammie may as well have been talking to a moon rock for all the intel she could squeeze out of her.

Aww, c’mon, Auntie Vannah, she’d pleaded. "What was your test like? I won’t tell anyone, swear!"

But Auntie Vannah had just smiled that winning smile that always seemed to make her dark complexion sparkle, and said, "Sorry, Samantha. I can’t tell you what the test is. It’s against the rules. Once you take the test, you’ll understand. But I can tell you two things."

And Sammie had leaned forward, eyes wide and inquisitive. She’d take anything, any kind of ammunition that would ensure she’d pass, to ensure she’d get a chance to fix things out among the stars themselves!

First off, Vannah had said, "it’s not some no-win scenario designed to teach you about failure. Engineering already sees enough failures as it is, so a test like that would be cruel. And second, it is definitely within your level of danger."

Danger?! At that, Sammie’s eyes