Minus Book Four

By Odette C. Bell

Axel will no longer be held down. He’s come for the Academy, but he’ll start with Sisi.
She’ll need M’cla more than ever, but fate will split them apart.
Soon the few disparate forces of the Academy will be hunted down and caught.
For when you fight the very gods, you always lose.
Unless you fight together. Unless you’ve taken an oath never to leave anyone behind and to always rise through danger to tomorrow.
...
Minus follows a cadet and an alien spy battling a god to save the Coalition. If you love your space operas with action, heart, and a splash of romance, grab Minus Book Four today and soar free with an Odette C. Bell series.
Minus is the 24th 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: Feb 29, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224871322

Book preview

Chapter 1

M’cla

He knew something was wrong, but there was nothing he could do about it.

The feeling of this room, of the cube, was so evil, it was as if he had been embraced by the Underside themselves. As if every single crooked god had joined hands, forming an impenetrable cage around M’cal.

But M’cal had in turn formed an impenetrable cage around Sisi. He wouldn’t let her go. His fingers had now literally melded together. The light was intertwined with such a grip that there was nothing in the known multiverse that could break it. Even Axel, with his full god power, wouldn’t be able to snap M’cal’s hold on Sisi.

But you can hold on to something that ultimately turns out to be pointless. Or in this case, ultimately turns out to be dead. Sisi hadn’t roused again. Not since they’d entered this room, not since it had filled with that sense like blood dripping through a murderer’s hands.

M’cal hadn’t said anything. Nothing had technically spoken to him. But he now stood ramrod straight with Sisi draped over his shoulder, with her legs crumpled against his.

The room was filled with black light. You might not think light could come in that shade, but you’d be wrong. It was contrasted by the bending lines of pale white-yellow that occasionally constituted the floor but then would dart up toward some point only 20 centimeters from M’cal’s face.

The same thing happened now. Then more lines joined it. They started to form this small box. It pulsed.

Do you know what M’cal had forgotten about? The seed detector. Axel had presumably stolen it from M’cal. It had begun this tale, though, had finally cemented M’cal’s interest in Sisi.

But the box forming in front of M’cal’s face was more solid, and it gave one the sense that something terrible was lurking within.

Before M’cal had come to Earth, he’d looked up Earth mythology. All of it. It was why he could pepper his story with references from old Earth, from cars to sayings. So he knew about Pandora’s box, knew that according to the ancient Greeks, there was a woman who had foolishly opened the lid on every single demon and foul creature there’d ever been. She’d let them out. But then she’d closed the box before hope could escape too.

M’cal didn’t really know what that meant. If in opening the box, she’d let the demons out, then surely she should have let hope out, too? Because now it felt like M’cal’s hope was locked in that box. And it would never come out again.

He clenched his teeth. To do that he had to reform them, had to concentrate. But to do that, he had to pull precious attention away from his grip as it secured Sisi to him. Her breathing had become so deep, so interspersed with long pauses, M’cal kept waiting for the next breath to be her last.

He watched the box. The light had now formed it until it wasn’t just solid, but hyperreal.

Hyper real wasn’t just hyperbole. Hyper real things were a reaction to the unreality of the phase realm.

It was technical. M’cal didn’t have time to go into it. But suffice to say as the box kept forming and forming even more, M’cal realized there was no way to get away from it.

He tried to at least push back. He couldn’t. Those darting lines of pale light suddenly snagged him by the feet and climbed around his ankles. They were like pernicious vines in an overactive jungle. They snapped with alacrity up his shins, around his knees, and across his hips.

M’cal had encountered far too many tentacle-like things during this tale. But these were worse. Because these were under the complete control of whatever AI was programming this room. He said whatever AI. It was time to meet it.

That box suddenly opened. It inverted all of the way. It was almost as if it was going to dump its contents right on top of M’cal’s head. He stiffened, a pulse of warning nerves traveling through his stomach, chest, and back. It was a surprise he still had the hormones left over to feel panic. This tale had taken him on a roller coaster journey of danger.

But it wasn’t done yet.

The simulation is not yet over, the AI said.

It would know that M’cal wasn’t Axel. Hence the light waves that were currently tying M’cal to the spot. M’cal very much doubted that Axel had that kind of relationship with this AI. In fact, M’cal could promise you that Axel wouldn’t have that kind of relationship with anyone, even the Underside.

Axel considered himself second only to the king. And that was only while the king was inhabiting Axel’s promised throne.

What are you? You come from the cube, don’t you? You’re the AI that runs it. Axel did something to you, didn’t he? Wait, M’cal said. It was like somebody grabbed up the biggest cymbals from the largest orchestra there’d ever been and slammed them together right in front of M’cal’s face.

Wait.

Oh, god, wait. M’cal kept telling you that if he could find out what was producing those drones, he’d be able to render a blow against Axel that would mean something. But he’d have to be able to get to the drones, have to be able to stop them.

He’d assumed that the drones were being created in a different universe and that Axel was simply porting them over with fate gates. But M’cal was wrong, wasn’t he? Because he was forgetting the golden rule of Underside gods. Never waste power you can steal from someone else.

As a cold sweat trickled across M’cal’s back and soon turned into dripping droplets of light that slithered down his skin and splashed onto the floor only to rejoin him with a fizzle, everything struck him at once.

Axel had simply reprogrammed the cube. The drone seeds weren’t from Axel’s body; they weren’t coming from a fate gate. They were being created by the cube.

So why had M’cal seen Axel creating them up in space?

Who knew? Axel was a god who wanted to play god every second he could. He wanted to preside over every planet and every universe in a great, unending game. He wanted to fool himself into thinking he was already king. He’d probably gone up into space and pretended to spit those drone seeds out to try to convince him and everybody else that he was more powerful than anyone else. Or maybe there was a different reason. M’cal couldn’t tell yet. But this made so much sense.

The drones were being created by the same thing that was probably creating the telekinetic blades. That’s why the telekinetic blades could cut through the drones so easily. It was all just a giant simulation.

You would think, considering the Academy had worked with this cube ever since they’d discovered it, that they would know that. But not only was the Academy on the run, but Axel would have likely found a way to ensure the holograms slipped past their scanners.

It was the perfect plan. It would waste none of the Underside’s precious resources.

And M’cal would have fallen for that plan forever if he hadn’t woken up. But he couldn’t exactly call this waking up, could he? The Mother AI had him trapped. It knew that he wasn’t Axel. And it knew that he’d escaped.

More lines of light joined the ones that had already climbed his legs. They solidified their grip around his middle and back. They now rose and covered his throat, too. The threat was clear.

Soon they’d cover him completely. Unless he was still, quiet, and compliant.

But M’cal had never been compliant in all of his life, and he wasn’t about to start now. Strangely, it wasn’t his soldier side that rose to the fore. It was his space bum side. The much maligned, much ignored part of his past that had, nonetheless, led to the man he was today.

Nobody wins forever, M’cal declared in the kind of voice that spoke from the point of knowledge.

Because nobody wins forever. Trust M’cal. He kept rising to the top only to fall.

Axel would do the same. Out there, M’cal could just promise you that there were other gods who had designs on Axel’s power. Just as Axel wanted the throne, they would want the throne too. They would all be vying against one another. And there’s only so long you can stay on top. There’s only so long you can stay ahead until one trip will set you all the way back and your so-called friends will push you there faster.

There is nothing you can do. You have been captured again. You have something of interest to the god.

So you know Axel is a god, do you? But he’s just one of them, M’cal said. He would have longed to lift a finger and really make that point. Axel was just one god. There were too many to count out there. Did the Mother AI – if it retained a sliver of its old self – really think that Axel could save it?

When you’re in a game like this, one of treachery, one of machination, you must be careful of who you choose to support. Back the wrong horse, and you’ll end up buried in the stables with it.

The Mother AI couldn’t appreciate that. All the Mother AI cared about was the fact that it had M’cal where it wanted.

And Sisi too.

M’cal couldn’t move most of his body. He was now tied to the floor, and Sisi was tied to him in turn. He could at least bend his neck down, and he did. He really fixed his attention on Sisi, really opened his eyes, really let himself feel this. Feel what?

That it was over. That he’d carried Sisi this far – though most of the time she’d been carrying him.

But there comes a point in any tale where you reach the thorny end. And unless you have the guts and power to push through, you die on those thorns.

It was a grim, morbid thought, but it came with force, as did the Mother AI’s next attack. The next thing M’cal knew, those lines of light plucked him up and dangled him in the air.

Then they did the one thing that he couldn’t allow. They started to wrap around Sisi’s body. They went to pull her away from M’cal.

When M’cal had fought the massive snake that was feeding this room with power, he’d dug deep in a way he’d never thought possible. He’d accessed the real force inside him. He could do it again now, couldn’t he? He could make a difference now, in his last moment, couldn’t he?

No. He couldn’t. He tried. He really dug deep then deeper. He followed the same track he had when he’d fought that snake, but it was irrelevant. Either the Mother AI was finding a way to keep his power in check, or he was simply fresh out of it.

He could have screamed. He wanted to scream. There was no time. Sisi was plucked back from him. He thought, he honestly thought, that her left hand twitched toward him. But it couldn’t have happened.

And soon enough it didn’t matter anyway.

The box that had to be the visual representation of the Mother AI snapped close. It did that with the sound of bones snapping of all things. Because it could simulate any sound or sight it wanted. And it suddenly did. Around M’cal, panorama views from across the Academy appeared. He could see every cadet, every single one of them. They were all fighting to the death. Most of them still had their telekinetic blades, but a lot of the cadets were flagging. The drone seeds weren’t. Because they couldn’t. Because they weren’t real.

They’d never been real. And M’cal hadn’t appreciated that. Presumably every drone seed he’d fought – including the ones in Admiral Singh’s base – had come from the cube. It had the kind of powerful holographic emitters that would enable it to produce images anywhere around the globe.

M’cal should have picked up that they were just holograms. He was light himself. But he hadn’t. And he’d made one more fatal mistake. He’d failed to appreciate that the Mother AI had captured him for a reason.

When Axel had covered M’cal in all of those drones, maybe they hadn’t been the ones feeding off him. Maybe they had simply been channeling his power to the Mother AI.

You are a unique version of your race. You have the correct kind of power we need.

You can’t have it, and you can’t have Sisi, M’cal screamed. He shoved a hand out, or at least he tried to. But there was nowhere he could go. And nothing he could do. The cube’s grip on him simply grew tighter. It was ultimately made out of light too. But it was completely cohesive, completely controlled, and powered by a god.

Soon the light that surrounded M’cal climbed to his chest. It grabbed his arms and opened him out. He felt like he was a flower someone had just squished with a brick.

Soon his petals would fall off. Soon he’d be ripped from the plant.

And soon, so soon he’d be dead.

It didn’t happen. Not yet. The Mother AI wasn’t quite done. For that panorama of views from across the Academy suddenly got sharper. It zoomed in on key areas.

But M’cal had no idea what he was seeing. There were… smears appearing across the Academy. From certain basement levels to certain apartments, to teaching halls and back again. There was even a smear underneath the carcass of one of the old, now dead oaks.

M’cal at first thought it was just a trick of the mind. Sorry, a trick of light. It was surely just another hologram.

Except it wasn’t. Except even from here, he could feel they were different.

They came with a sense of the Underside.

Worse than that, they came with the sense that the Underside was erasing space in those areas. No, it was almost like somebody scratching away at things to get to what was beneath. To find something hidden deep, deep within. M’cal had to go back to the suspicion that something was different about Earth. That the Underside was here for a reason.

It wasn’t just Forest’s key. It was something unique about this area, or perhaps this universe. For the Underside to use Axel here – and he had to be one of their most important resources – it meant that this really was a truly important area.

M’cal just had to figure out what was going on. Which was stupid. Because how could that help?

He was trapped. He was now fodder for the cube.

But there was still a little part of M’cal that knew that the only solution here was to figure out exactly what the Underside were up to. Even if he couldn’t do anything about it, maybe he could pass that knowledge to someone else at the Academy? And yeah, he’d just thought like that.

Someone else at the Academy would be able to take that knowledge, would be able to help the multiverse, even if M’cal couldn’t do it for them.

If