Fractured Mind Episode One (A Galactic Coalition Academy Series)

by Odette C. Bell

  Chapter 10

  Sarah Sinclair

  She woke quicker this time. Her consciousness split away from the tight embrace of sleep with more force.

  It wasn't enough to propel her into a seated position, but it was close.

  Her eyes jerked open, and her head shifted to the side, her hair fanning across her face to reveal a set of boots standing less than an inch from her nose.

  The boots were polished. Regulation.

  For just a single second, relief punched through her gut, then she let her gaze slip back, and she saw the owner of those regulation boots.

  It wasn't Lieutenant Karax. It was a guy she'd never met before. A guy whose face was littered with scars, whose expression was about as cold as the furthest reaches of space.

  He had his head on one side and his arms locked around his middle as he stared at her with a dead but calculating gaze.

  There was something so off-putting about that stare, so inhuman. It felt as if she was gazing into the fearsome eyes of the Grim Reaper himself.

  She tried to shift back, but that was when she realized her hands were locked behind her with some kind of magnetic restraint. As she shifted, conjuring up what little muscular strength she could, something activated from around her ankles. Her arms snapped forward and pushed between her knees, the restraints around her wrists locking against the restraints around her ankles.

  It crunched her into an uncomfortable ball, her shoulders pulled at such an angle it felt as if they would yank out of their sockets.

  Finally, a scream curdled up from her gut and pushed through her lips.

  The guy didn't make a noise, didn't move a single muscle. Still stood just a couple of inches away, gaze locked on her as she tried to writhe against her restraints.

  A few seconds later she gave up, shoulder and head flopping against the floor, a few strands of her hair cutting in front of her eyes, but not enough that she couldn't see as the guy finally shifted down to one knee and dipped his head forward. He locked that same dead, terrifying gaze on her as he reached a hand forward and flicked her fringe from her face. “Sarah Sinclair,” he said in a raspy voice.

  She didn't answer. Couldn't. She didn't have enough control over her body anymore. It pulsed and surged with fear, feeling as if every single cell was about to split apart.

  Her breath came in ragged pants, rocking her body back and forth, her shoulder crunching against the sticky metal floor.

  When she didn't answer, he plucked some kind of sleek, small scanner from an invisible holster around his hip. He brought it forward, typed something on the screen, and a second later nodded. “Sarah Sinclair,” he confirmed to himself. “What are you doing on Earth, Sarah Sinclair? How did you leave the facility, Sarah Sinclair?”

  He kept using her full name, and every single time it rolled off his stiff white lips, she shivered harder until it felt as if she was trying to dig a path through the metal floor.

  “Who are you?” she managed, pulling together enough courage to control her lips and throat.

  He didn't answer, he simply rested there on his haunches, arms propped on his knees as he stared at her with that calculating gaze. “You're a long way from home, Sarah Sinclair,” he said in that same tone.

  Though the guy looked human, his voice with anything but. It was too deep, too guttural. It sounded like a rasp constantly grating over metal. Every single syllable, let alone puff of breath, sent a cold shiver driving through her heart until she was sure the muscle would freeze apart and crack open.

  “Who are you?” she managed once more, voice so choked she could barely understand it herself.

  “I'm an agent of the Ornax,” he said simply.

  She hadn't honestly expected him to answer. But she latched onto it. “The Ornax? Who the hell are the Ornax? And what are you doing here? What do you want with me?” Finding the courage to ask one single question split the dam holding the rest back. They spewed from her lips like bullets from a gun.

  The guy smiled. It was the least flattering move she'd ever seen. His face wasn't just riddled with scars – as she stared at it, incapable of looking away, she realized the cuts and grooves in his skin weren't the random results of mere attacks. They looked purposeful. As if he'd carved up his face for art. For some kind of statement.

  It made her shiver even harder.

  “Who the hell are the Ornax? What do you want with me?” she spat one final time.

  “We want you to come home. You should never have been able to leave the facility, Sarah Sinclair. And now it's time for you to come back to where you belong.”

  “Facility? What are you talking about? My home is here. I've always lived on Earth.”

  “Always?” He arched an eyebrow. There were three or four cuts running through it, some fresh, some years old. As she locked her attention on them, she realized there was so much scar tissue building up under each cut it looked as if he'd kept opening them over and over again for years.

  “You weren't born on Earth, Sarah Sinclair, you come from the colony worlds.”

  “That's a lie,” she said through gritted teeth. “I was born on Earth to—” though she gaped her mouth wide open, ready to say the names of her parents, she couldn't. She couldn't remember them. Suddenly true panic tore through her, her heart pulsing so hard she shook back and forth like a trembling leaf.

  “Your parents were killed in a Barbarian attack. From that day forward you became a survivor, pushing through the Barbarian border, completing whatever attacks and sorties you dared to. We found you about 10 years ago, took you to the facility, and that's where you should have remained. But somehow, Sarah Sinclair, you escaped. You escaped and started a new life on Earth. Now, why did you do that?”

  “I have no... I have no idea what you're talking about,” she spoke through clenched teeth. Her whole body had seized with a terrifying tension. It felt like it would snap her back in two.

  A ringing began to fill her mind, growing louder and louder as if her gray matter had been replaced by a broken audio feed. “I have no idea what you're talking about. You're lying, you're lying.” She began to rock back and forth, crunching her shoulder and face against the floor. It didn't matter. It was all she could do to comfort herself as that ringing grew louder and louder and louder.

  The guy shifted forward, dropped a hand right by her face, and leaned his head down until he looked right into her eyes. “It doesn't matter anymore,” he said in that cold raspy voice, “Because you're coming back with me.”

  He reached a hand toward her neck.

  ....

  Fear. Fear the likes of which she'd never experienced exploded through her. It felt as if it would sweep away her personality and crack through every memory.

  Just as he locked his hand on her neck, something else rose up to meet it. Something that was never far behind. Anger. True gut-punching anger. The kind of anger that never went away. That grew and festered at every injustice until it burnt like a holy fire deep in your gut.

  As he latched his fingers against the nape of her neck, that very same anger flared. It soared in her mind, giving her just enough energy to shove forward. Though she didn't have the strength to break the magnetic lock securing her wrists to her ankles, she still managed to crunch forward and lurch toward the guy with her knee. It was enough to unstable him, enough to see him teeter back on his haunches.

  She took the opportunity to roll onto her back and thrust forward with her feet. They collected the side of his face, and he fell back into the bar.

  She let a throat-punching scream tear from her lips as she brought her feet forward and tried to kick him once more.

  Though she'd managed to surprise him once, now he pushed back, shunted around the side of the bar, rolled to the side, and pressed to his feet several meters away.

  He pushed up slowly.

  Though Sarah tried to shove forward, to stand, there was no way she could manage it with her wrists locked against her ankles. Instead, she st
ared in horror as he took one casual step away and reached for something around his back.

  She heard a magnetic lock click.

  Her eyes grew wide as he brought around a small, sleek gun. Though she'd never seen its like before, she knew exactly what he'd do with it – knock her out and then—

  Just before terror could completely undo her, she heard something. By all rights, she shouldn't have heard it. It was too low, too soft, too measured. In many ways, it sounded like nothing more than a stone falling from the cliff top beside her pod. But something inside her ignited at the sound, and that something was hope.

  The man didn't hear it, so he took his time as he brought his gun around, shifting his grip around it until his fingers sat just right along the smooth barrel.

  He cracked into a smile, and it accentuated every single scar that sliced across his cheeks and down his neck. “There's no need to struggle, Sarah. It'll all be over soon. You'll remember nothing but the hunt.”

  She stopped writhing, stopped struggling, stopped breathing. Her eyes drew so wide she was sure she would never be able to close them again. “The hunt?” she said haltingly, voice nothing more than stuttering puffs of breath.

  The other side of his lip cracked into a grin, accentuating one of the massive scars that ran from the corner of his mouth to the tip of his ear. “The hunt. You remember, don't you? Every night. It helps us learn how you fight, helps us to use your natural survival instinct to keep our training programs fresh.”

  “What... what are you talking about?” her voice shook so badly it sounded as if it had been shattered by some great force.

  “It doesn't really matter, Sarah – you won't remember this conversation. You won't remember your life at the Coalition Academy. You won't remember anything. All you'll remember is how to escape. To flee. To fight. And that's all we need you to remember.”

  “That's... that's insane. This is insane,” she rallied against the desperation and panic plunging through her heart. And yet, at the same time, just a scrap of her remembered that noise. As she focused her mind, she heard another soft thud. It too could to be nothing more than a rock falling off the cliff outside.

  Or it could have been a footstep. Measured, practiced, well-trained.

  Though she wanted to focus on the hope it gave her, she couldn't. Those two words kept repeating in her mind.

  The hunt.

  The hunt.

  The hunt.

  Suddenly she could feel the snow underneath her body. She could feel the blood dripping down her leg from the bullet hole just above her left knee. And she could taste the fear. The fear mixed with anger. Those two potent emotions were all she ever needed on the hunt.

  She brought her head up and banged it against the metal floor, a ringing thump echoing around the pod. It was joined by the man's cruel laughter. “There's no need to injure yourself, and there's nothing you can do. It doesn't matter, Sarah, rest in peace knowing you're helping change history.”

  “Go to hell,” she spat, a burst of anger pulsing through her heart and tearing through her throat. That anger – that righteous fiery anger – belonged to the woman on the hunt. That force within Sarah's mind that always strove to keep her alive, no matter the odds. And right now as she stared at that man, stared at his callous indifference – that hatred burnt in her gaze.

  “Go to hell,” she screamed once more, voice reverberating and punching through the pod with so much vehemence the mountain outside could have cracked in half, and they wouldn't have heard.

  The man waited for her to finish before he let one more ominous chuckle ring from his throat.

  Then he fired.

  ....

  The bullet never reached her. Just as he fired, someone slammed into his side, pulling his gun off aim. The pulse round intended to incapacitate her slammed into the bar by her face. It discharged along the metal.

  She stared at it with wide-open eyes for half a second before she reacted. She pitched backward and rolled to the side, using whatever momentum she could to shift until she was safely behind the bar with her back pressed up against the cold metal. Beyond, she heard the sounds of battle.

  Two men grunted as they swung fists at each other.

  The natural anger that had flared before diminished as fear took its place. She began shaking on the spot, back slamming against the reverberating metal bar.

  Despite the fear, she still found the courage to duck her head around the side of the bar and stare at the grappling men.

  As the last dying rays of dusk split in through the window, they illuminated the side of both men's faces.

  Karax.

  Christ, it was Karax.

  A gasp shot from her throat.

  Though Karax knew how to handle himself, the guy wasn't playing fair. A single second later, he shoved a hand into the invisible holster around his waist and brought out a strange round object.

  Without a moment's hesitation, he thumbed it on. It glowed an ominous shade of red, and with a slight chuckle, he threw it at Karax.

  Karax ducked to the side, with far more nimbleness than his large frame allowed for.

  But it didn't matter. That glowing red orb shifted direction and latched onto the back of Karax's head. Instantly it sent an electric pulse slamming down his spine. She could even see the energy discharging over his skin.

  She shrieked.

  Karax stumbled to one knee, hands and arms twitching as he desperately tried to pull the orb from the back of his head.

  The guy kept chuckling. He took several steps backward, thumbed the sweat off his nose, and turned in one smooth move to face her. He didn't even bother glancing at Karax, obviously assuming that the strange grenade would do its job.

  Instead, the man took a slow step toward her, leaned down, and plucked up the gun that had been pulled from his grip when Karax had attacked him.

  He pointed it toward her. “No more interruptions. No more pauses. It's time to go back home.”

  Her eyes bulged, the bile rose in her throat, the fear punched through her heart, and she waited to be shot.

  ...

  Lieutenant Karax

  No. God no. He hadn't come so far to end like this.

  His whole body twitched as great arcs of electricity shot through it. He had no idea what kind of weapon this was, but it was lethal, or at least should have been lethal. Though his body was being slammed around like a rabbit being jerked by a wolf, he wasn't dead. The potentially lethal electric charges cascading down his spine were being absorbed by his implants, not his central nervous system. His implants were fighting back. Though they didn't have the sophisticated kind of shielding Coalition armor possessed, they still utilized basic countermeasures against electrical interference. And right now they used them. It was enough that Karax fell to one knee, then the other, then down to his stomach without losing consciousness. His body still bucked, but his mind still worked, and his eyes were still open. Open enough that he could see that man take a slow almost languid step toward Sarah.

  She was crumpled on the floor, face cracked with desperation and true fear.

  He wanted to scream out her name, tell the guy to leave her alone, but he couldn't control his lips, let alone his arms. They convulsed at his sides. Yet he didn't die. He still didn't goddamn die as the grenade sank deeper and deeper into the skin at the back of his head. He could feel its hooks driving into his flesh, feel the blood trickling down his neck.

  Lieutenant Karax barely knew Sarah Sinclair.

  Several weeks ago she'd been nothing more than a frigging irritation.

  Now as that guy took one final step toward her and angled his gun at her chest, Lieutenant Karax's heart almost exploded. As it did, something else did, too. One of the implants down the back of his left shoulder suddenly let off a charge of energy. It was enough that it arced up the back of his neck and sank into the grenade.

  He jolted backward so violently that his head slammed against the floor. And that, that was enough to un
hook the grenade.

  He felt it roll away with a satisfying clunk. Unfortunately, the guy heard it, too. He twisted his head to face Karax just as Karax tried to scavenge the strength to punch to his feet.

  It was too late. The guy was too quick. He brought up his gun.

  He didn't get a chance to fire. At that exact moment, Sarah slammed into him, somehow finding the motor control to roll, even though her wrists were attached to her ankles.

  It was enough. She smashed into the guy's legs with enough force that he teetered forward and fell to his knees.

  That was all the opportunity Karax required. He pushed to his feet, jerked forward, and bellowed. He brought his left arm around and slammed it into the guy's neck, driving him to the floor. The blow was hard and savage enough that the guy's head slumped against the floor with a resounding clang. It also knocked the gun from his hand.

  Karax didn't wait. He lunged forward and picked the gun up, spun, and shot the man. A blue charge of light sank into the guy's chest, and he convulsed once, then twice, the then sank into a stiff stillness.

  ....

  For a few seconds Karax could do nothing but stand there and pant, gun still in his sweaty grip as he stared at the guy.

  Finally, his gaze sliced toward Sarah.

  She was still conscious, staring up at him with wide-open, fear-filled eyes.

  “Sarah, good god, Sarah,” he began as he lurched down to one knee.

  “No, check the guy first. Make sure he's unconscious,” she snapped.

  It sounded like she was the seasoned professional and he was the cadet.

  He followed the order. Dutifully got down to one knee, gun still pressed toward the guy's chest. When it became clear the man was very much unconscious and would likely stay that way for a day, Karax let out a trapped breath and jolted toward Sarah.

  He fumbled with the magnetic locks around her wrists and ankles until they clicked and released her. She flopped down to the floor at his feet, one of her arms brushing up against his left boot.

  He was down on one knee, one arm locked against his leg as the other pushed into the floor for support.

  He'd taken a hell of a beating. His entire body zinged with leftover electricity from the attack, and he just knew that his implants were on the blink. But he found the energy to smile – one-half of his lips, then the other.

  She was still on the floor, still on her back, still staring up into his eyes. She smiled, one side of her mouth at a time. “Thank you,” she mouthed, trying to speak, voice little more than a husky croak.

  “Thank you,” he managed, too.

  Then Lieutenant Karax reached out a hand to Sarah Sinclair. It was time to figure out what the hell was going on.

  Thank you for reading Fractured Mind Episode One.

  Fractured Mind Episode Two is currently available.

  This four-episode series is complete, and the boxset is currently available.