Fractured Mind Episode One (A Galactic Coalition Academy Series) (13 page)

The admiral put up a hand. She never
shifted her demanding gaze from the trader. “What's going on? How
is the Sora program online?” The admiral's penetrating gaze
switched towards Sora.

Sora kept flickering in and out. One second
her body would be made of nothing more than flickering lines of
light. In another, she would be completely solid. Unidentifiable
from an ordinary person.

For some reason, his gaze locked on the two
ever-fresh streaks of blood painted over her left cheek.

Her head tilted, her helmet twisting to face
him.

He sensed danger. It shot through him.
Exploded through his heart, sent a pulse of adrenaline ricocheting
through every vein and sinking into every muscle.

Sora tilted her head even further to the
side, her chestnut brown hair tapering over her shoulder.

“What's going on?” The admiral now roared,
her voice echoing through the corridor.

The Corthanx Trader didn't answer. Instead
he clasped both his hands together, obscuring them under his long
sleeves. “The program is now fully integrated with your computer
systems.”

“What are you talking about?” the admiral
demanded.

“Irrelevant,” the trader spoke over her, its
hissing voice like a shot of gas exploding from a tank. “Our
systems are now fully integrated with yours.”

“Stop,” the admiral said, voice punching
from her throat. It was the vocal equivalent of a shot across a
ship's bows.

Sora tilted her head even further to the
side, now swiveling her helmet to the left and focusing it on the
admiral.

Nerves quickened in Karax's gut, pressing
into his chest, pulsing through his heart. He took a jerked step
forward and maneuvered himself between Sora and the admiral.

Sora was meant to be a hologram. A true
intelligence hologram, granted, but as she shifted her helmet
towards him, it sure as hell didn't feel as if he was staring at
mere light.

She had all the calculated menace of a
Barbarian warrior.

“You will turn off the Sora program now,”
the admiral demanded.

The trader appeared to consider her. Its
hands were still obscured by its sleeves.

Sora was now solid. She no longer flickered.
Her body was just as real as Karax's.

“I am unable to follow through with your
request,” the trader said, his tone still neutral.

“You will—” the admiral began.

A weapon appeared in Sora's hand.

A rotating driver gun.

It looked like an old Earth crossbow melded
with a pulse rifle. A curved long shaft was attached to the muzzle
of the gun. As it charged, it spun, a blue light building at the
tip.

The trader took a step back and nodded his
head. “It's been a pleasure doing business with you.”

Without another word he turned, hands still
obscured by his long sleeves.

He walked away.

Sora drew her gun up, the shaft rotating
faster and faster.

She drew her hand back, clasped the trigger
right at the back of the gun, and started firing.

Karax acted first. He rounded his shoulder
and slammed it into the admiral, knocking her to the floor. His
move was so hard, so fast, that they both hit the floor with an
agonizing thump.

There they didn't stay.

Karax spun around, hooking his feet forward,
trying to catch Sora's ankles.

His left boot snagged against her armor, but
she jerked back and fired at his face.

The admiral clutched his shoulder and jerked
him to the side just in time.

The sizzling hot pulse round from the gun
slammed into the floor by his face, cracking it and sending wisps
of steam issuing up and playing against his nostrils and
cheeks.

People started screaming.

The Academy was under attack.

Sarah Sinclair

It wasn't hard to get hired at the floating
bar. She was attractive, by human standards. And though that
shouldn't count for anything in this modern galaxy, it still
did.

At least to certain people.

Her new boss, Frank – a massive Morxian –
seemed relatively nice. Though he had a booming voice and the kind
of massive form that made it seem as if he wrestled with cruisers,
he didn't hesitate in giving her a job. He spent five minutes
giving her the low down on the clients, then set her to work in her
own pod.

If she stayed with the bar for a year, she'd
get a bigger pod, a better salary, too.

Right now, she was content that she'd fallen
back on her feet.

She rolled up the sleeves of her tunic,
pushed to one knee, and plunged a hand into the matter
recalibration unit under the counter.

It was on the blink.

Above her, the bar began to fill with
patrons. Of every color, of every shape, of every size, of every
race.

It was an education in the Milky Way.

As Sarah shifted onto her stomach and pulled
herself under the counter to get a better look at the matter
calibration unit, she took the opportunity to pull up her
communicator.

She checked the screen once more.

Nothing.

No call from Nora.

An uneasy feeling started to settle in her
gut, pushing down until it felt as if her legs would turn numb.

Why wasn't Nora calling?

Surely the yellow alert had just been a
drill. Surely it was over by now?

... Nora hadn't changed her mind, had
she?

Before Sarah could dwell too much on her
thoughts, the recalibration unit buzzed back into life.

She shuffled out from under the bench,
pushed to her feet, and began serving drinks.

There was a holo unit up in the far corner
of her section of the bar. It kept cycling through various galactic
sports. Every 10 minutes or so, it would play the latest Coalition
news.

She locked her eyes on it as another news
cycle began.

Commodity prices. Some kind of disturbance
in the Orion Sector. The upcoming Senate elections.

But nothing on the Academy.

Though Sarah wanted to throw herself into
her work – wanted to use it to distract herself – she kept latching
a hand onto her left shoulder.

Onto that exact point where it felt as if
something was buried under her skin.

It felt as if that thing was pulsing.
Vibrating as if it were engorged on energy.

It was a truly distracting sensation, and
she couldn't help but dig her fingers into her flesh as she
unconsciously tried to extract it.

She gritted her teeth, pushing her fingers
even harder into her shoulder as she grabbed a drink with one hand
and handed it to a patron.

Suddenly she heard someone clear their
throat from behind her.

She didn't need to turn to see that it was
Frank. He had such a massive form that his looming body cut out
most of the light.

She twisted her head and politely cleared
her throat. “Can I help you?”

“Bothering you?” Frank pointed at her
shoulder.

She pressed her lips together and dropped
her gaze. “It's an old injury... an... implant that can't be
removed properly,” she added.

When Sarah had decided to strike out and
start her new life, she'd promised herself one thing – she would
keep her dreams and her condition to herself.

She was now certain that there was no one
out there who could help her. And if she managed her own symptoms,
she knew she could keep her condition under wraps.

The dreams would never stop. She was coming
to terms with that. And as for that niggling tingling sensation in
her shoulder, she was determined to find new ways to distract
herself from it.

So why the hell had she just told Frank the
truth? Or at least part of the truth?

Frank nodded. He plunged one of his massive
eight-fingered hands into the utility belt around his middle. A
second later he plucked out some kind of modified scanner.

He handed it to her. “Use this. Could help.”
With that, he turned on one of his massive feet and lumbered
away.

She blinked in surprise. Though she was
certain the scanner couldn't help her, that didn't stop her from
frowning as she mulled over the controls.

A second later she realized it was
programmed to emit a localized jamming signal on any number of
programmable frequencies.

She shrugged, digging her free hand into her
shoulder as that tingling sensation grew worse and worse.

What did she have to lose?

Taking a few steps away from the crowded bar
as one of the other barmen stood forward to take her place, she
soon figured out how to work the scanner.

And she used it.

...

Lieutenant Karax

Anarchy.

Pure goddamn anarchy.

Hell on Earth.

Sora was unstoppable.

He'd managed to pull the admiral into a
nearby room as a full security detachment had taken Sora on.

But they wouldn't win. Couldn't.

She obliterated them.

He was pressed close to the door, ear
against it as he tried to listen through the reinforced metal and
figure out what was happening outside.

In the corner of the room, Admiral Forest
worked frantically. The room was some kind of office. She'd found a
desk, and she was currently underneath it as she frantically pulled
out the guts of its computer.

It wouldn't count for anything.

Karax knew that.

Karax knew they had seconds.

No matter how many security guards threw
themselves at Sora, she would rip through them all.

Then she'd come for the admiral.

“Almost there, almost there,” the admiral
spat.

He turned his pressured stare towards her,
one hand pressed against the metal, his fingers leaving sweaty
tracks down the smooth silver.

She was trying to cut through the
communications blackout to get a message to the outside world.

The traders had taken near complete control
of the Academy systems.

Karax watched her for a few heart pounding
seconds until he wrenched his gaze around and stared at the
door.

Just in time.

Half a second later it opened.

He pushed away, striking his back and
rolling backwards onto his feet.

He stared up at Sora.

Blood – real blood – was splattered over her
armor.

It dripped down her chest and arms, pooled
at her feet.

But it wasn't hers.

She brought up that rotating gun, the
pulsing, flashing tip directed right at him.

He could try to push forward, try to shove
into her, try to kick, try to strike, but what was the point?

Instead he stared up into that helmet and
waited.

Just as she stretched her hand back and
locked it on the trigger, she appeared to hesitate.

For a second.

For a second where his life hung before his
eyes, every memory, every regret, all flashing into his mind with
the rapidity of bullets.

He had time for his eyes to widen, for his
heart to stop, for his sweat to turn to ice as it slicked down his
back.

Then she fired.

....

Her aim wasn't true.

Just at the last second, her shoulder yanked
to the side, pulling the gun out of alignment and seeing the bullet
sink into the floor by his hand.

The heat was enough to instantly scorch and
bubble the skin up his wrist, but it didn't tear through his face
and slice him in half.

Sora began to thrash.

A stifled scream cracked from her mouth as
she dropped the gun, staggered to one knee, and clutched her left
shoulder. That odd black triangle sunk into her armor, to be
precise.

She began to dig at it, gouge at it as if
she were desperately trying to excavate it.

By now the admiral was on her feet.

She had time to shoot Karax a stunned silent
look before another scream tore from Sora's mouth.

She lurched forward.

Karax thought she was going for her gun, so
he got there first and kicked it out of the way.

It didn't matter. Not only did the
holographic gun suddenly disappear, but she wasn't even clutching
for it.

Instead, she grabbed a chair, snapped the
leg off in a jerked move, and began slamming it against that odd
triangle in her shoulder.

Blow after blow, scream after scream issuing
from her throat.

“What the hell is happening?” the admiral
croaked.

Karax knew better than to think this was a
chance to dispatch Sora. Sure, he could try to find a weapon, try
to open a window and throw her out – but it would mean nothing.

She was light. As long as the holo emitters
that sustained her were still online, her program could be recalled
and restarted at any point.

It was the Academy's distributed computer
network that was their true enemy, not Sora as she convulsed at his
feet, trying to tear that triangle out of her shoulder.

She kept striking her shoulder, kept
clutching whatever weapon she could find until her combined attack
began to shatter her armor. Fissure lines struck down her shoulder
plating, deep into her chest plate and up into her
helmet.

He stood there, ramrod straight, half a
meter back, fingers covered in sweat, heart pounding through his
chest. Maybe he should use the opportunity to slip past Sora and
tear away, but something locked him to the spot.

That something kept him there long enough to
see those fracture lines march all the way across her helmet.

As he sucked a sharp breath deep into his
lungs, her helmet shattered.

It fell into chunks by her feet.

And he saw her face.

....

Sarah Sinclair.

It was Cadet Sarah Sinclair.

It was... it was... it was Cadet goddamn
Sarah Sinclair.

So much surprise slammed into his gut it
felt as if it would curl arms around his middle and throw him out
the window.