Fractured Mind Episode One (A Galactic Coalition Academy Series) (14 page)

His breath locked in his chest, a cold
terrifying sensation leaping down his shoulders and sinking into
his hands.

She kept digging at her shoulder. Trying to
gouge something from the skin.

She ignored him and the admiral
completely.

A second later, she pushed to her feet, and
began ramming her shoulder against the wall. Choked screams kept
issuing from her closed off throat as she jammed her shoulder
harder and harder into the wall, the whole room shaking from the
force of each terrifying blow.

His lips cracked open. “Sarah? Sarah? It's
me, Karax.”

If she could hear him, she made no move to
acknowledge his presence.

She was fixated on her task. It looked like
she was trying to remove her entire shoulder. If she'd had access
to a bone saw, he was sure she would have lopped it off.

She began to slow down. Her movements became
gradually less violent as if she were growing too tired to perform
them.

Eventually she stopped altogether, slumping
against the wall, head tilting to one side, eyes never closing as
they locked their dead stare on the floor.

He couldn't help but plunge down to one
knee, lock a hand on her shoulder, and stare into her face.
“Sarah—”

Just before he could fear this was the real
thing – that she was somehow Sarah Sinclair – the hologram began to
crack up, lines of light flicking through it.

The admiral locked a hand on his shoulder,
jerked him to his feet, and shoved him towards the door. “We have
to get out of here while we still have a chance.”

“But Sarah—”

“If you are referring to Cadet Sinclair, I
very much doubt that's her. We need to get out of here.”

“What the hell is happening?” he demanded as
he followed her out into the corridor.

The admiral wheezed through a pained breath
as her gaze locked on the destruction waiting for them outside.

Numerous security officers were injured, if
not dead.

Though the sight slammed through him like a
blow to his jaw, Karax didn't hesitate to lurch down and grab up a
gun. “What the hell is happening?” he demanded again through
clenched teeth. “That thing in there... it looks like—”

“I have no goddamn idea, lieutenant. But we
have to find out before it tears through the Academy.” The admiral
led him forward. Rather than power down the corridor and try their
chances with one of the lifts, she headed towards a relatively
plain section of wall.

Before he could ask what she was doing, she
brought a hand up and pressed it flat against a nondescript section
of the cream wall.

“What are you—” he didn't bother finishing
his sentence.

A second later, a door formed right out of
the wall.

The admiral pointed him forward with a stiff
movement of her now white and completely bloodless hand.

They both shunted through the door just in
time. Behind they could hear footsteps.

Though it was just a guess, Karax knew it
was the traders. No doubt come to check on their broken
hologram.

Hologram....

Sarah...?

His mind couldn't catch up.

It kept locking on the second Sarah's helmet
had fallen from her face.

He could even remember the distinct clink,
clink, clink as the broken sections of metal plating had fallen by
her feet.

But that was nothing to mention the look
she'd given him as she'd stared up into his eyes.

Total and complete desperation.

Fear the likes of which no ordinary human
should ever experience.

The door in the wall closed behind them
before the traders shot into view. It remained open just long
enough for Karax to twist and see their distinct brown cloaks.

Once it was closed, the admiral didn't
pause, she pointed him forward.

They appeared to be in some kind of narrow
tunnel. Though his first instinct was to say it was some kind of
maintenance shaft, he quickly realized that couldn't be the
case.

For one, there hadn't been an access port on
that wall, or at least not a visible one. For another, as he
concentrated, he realized he couldn't see any of the usual
equipment you would associate with a maintenance shaft.

Rather, this was a tunnel. Obviously a
secret one.

They both ran in silence, footfall
reverberating through the metal floor.

Though it was hard and strong and loud, it
couldn't compare with his thundering heart.

He'd never felt fear as distinct and
all-encompassing as this since he'd left his home world.

After a few minutes of running they entered
a room.

It had no windows and was unadorned, its
only decoration several metal crates stacked up neatly in a
corner.

“What is this place?” He calmed his panting
breath long enough to push his words from his stiff lips.

“There are tunnels like this throughout the
entire Academy now. We had them installed, in secret, after the
Axira incident. After it became clear that the Academy was no
longer the safe haven we'd once foolishly believed it was.”

“Where do they lead to?”

“If you follow them, and you know what
you're doing, they can lead you right under the city and out into
an abandoned section of forest 70 km away. If you don't know what
you're doing, you will trip a security alarm, and be transported
straight to the brig.”

“... I take it you know what you're doing,
admiral?”

She didn't answer.

That wasn't good enough for Karax.

As the admiral scooted down to one knee and
began to open one of the crates, he crossed his arms. “No more
lies. No more appeals to the chain of command. What the hell is
happening? And how in the hell could you let it get this far? Those
traders have complete access to our holographic—”

She put up a hand.

A part of him wanted to ignore it. But
somewhere within the storm of anger swirling in his gut, a scrap of
reason remained.

It gave her the time to pull something out
of the crate, turn, and face him with a stony expression. “I have
no idea how this happened. Whether you choose to believe it or not,
lieutenant, I too appreciated the risks of acquiring this
technology. And I will now freely admit to you that I had my
suspicions that the Corthanx Traders were still working with the
Barbarian Empire.”

Before he could react – go with the anger
that flared in his gut, and start shouting – she brought up another
stiff, white hand. She spread her fingers, her knuckles moving hard
under the skin, the tendons pronounced streaks of white that pushed
all the way into her wrists. “Yes, I deceived you.”

He clenched his teeth together and pared
back his lips. “Why?”

“Because I wanted you on this job. Knew you
were the best. But also knew you wouldn't play along if you thought
you were working with a group that benefited the Barbarians.”

“You were goddamn right, admiral,” He
couldn't unclench his teeth. It would have taken a blow to the face
with a crowbar to separate his clenched jaw. “And so was I. All
along. We should never have trusted the traders. We should never
have given them access to our systems.”

“We didn't. Not directly. And before you go
questioning why we risked this, there's something you need to know—
we are losing.”

There was something so direct about her
statement, something so shocking about the look she followed it up
with, that for a second his anger ground to a halt. It settled into
an uneasy confusion that loomed over his back like hands ready to
grasp his throat.

He peeled his lips open. “What are you
talking about?”

For a second she said nothing. She kept
staring at him with that unsettling, terrifying look. “We are
losing against the Ornax. The Coalition has mostly been able to
keep it under wraps for now, but that won't last. It can't. The
more we fight them, the more they apparently learn about us, and
the more undefeatable they become. In the last two weeks alone we
have lost three heavy cruisers and 16 other ships. I'll let you
figure out how many lives that is.”

“... What?”

The admiral brought up a hand and pressed
her messy hair from her eyes. “There is nothing we can do against
them. We can't even begin to understand the way they fight. And
every day that passes is a day they push further into our
territory. They haven't pushed into full out war yet, but they
will,” her tone dropped, seemed to sink through the room as if her
ominous words had the weight of a stone. “At the moment it's clear
they are learning as much about us as they can. When they are
finished, they will attack. And there is nothing we can do against
them. So that, lieutenant, is why we risk this. We have already
confirmed that the Corthanx Traders were not lying. That the Sora
program really is Ornax technology. We knew the importance of
obtaining it. But we also knew the risk. And we acted to mitigate.
I had my best, most trustworthy officers working on this. They
shadowed the traders, followed their every move. And no – I never
gave them access to our computer systems.”

Though Karax's gaze had sunk towards the
floor, he now snapped it up and stared at her. “So how did this
happen?”

It was the admiral's turn to drop her gaze.
The thick veneer that usually hid her true feelings cracked. What
he saw within was not something he expected.

A person. Just an ordinary woman in an
extraordinary situation.

Admirals were always larger than life. They
had to be to shoulder the responsibility they carried.

But underneath that, they were still just
people.

And people, no matter their race or species,
always make mistakes.

Especially when they have a gun to their
head.

Though his thoughts roiled at everything
he'd just learnt, there was one fact that was ever-present in his
mind. His body, too. It locked every muscle with such tension it
was like it was slowly turning him to stone.

He took an unavoidable step forward. “What
the hell does this have to do with Sarah Sinclair? That hologram
looks exactly like her.”

The admiral appeared to freeze. Her gaze
locked on the floor, and he could tell her mind span behind her
fixed eyes.

She shook her head and clenched her teeth,
the move so hard he could see the muscles down into her neck
knotting.

It reminded him of what the hologram had
done to its neck. The way it had dug at that left triangle in its
armor.

Instantly he remembered that Sarah had done
almost the exact same thing. Though she hadn't gone to the extent
of breaking off a chair leg and trying to gouge out her flesh,
she'd always poked and pried at it until a permanent scar had
appeared.

He shivered, such a cold sensation tracing
down his back it felt like an icy hand clutched around his
heart.

“I can't give you an answer, lieutenant,
because I have no idea what's going on. Perhaps that hologram only
resembles Cadet Sinclair—”

He shook his head. It felt as if he could
snap the thing right off and throw it at the admiral. “It's her.
Admiral, it's got to be her. The real Sarah always had a problem
with that side of her neck, too.”

“That means very little, lieutenant. As
much as I hate to admit this, we simply don't know enough about the
Corthanx Traders or this technology. Perhaps they simply programmed
Sora to resemble Sarah in order to disrupt you. You appear to know
her well. Perhaps they knew that—”

“That makes no sense. I've barely had
anything to do with Sarah. Granted,” he swallowed involuntarily, “I
know her, but there are any other number of staff within the
Academy who I know better. If they were programming the hologram to
disrupt us, they could have chosen anyone.”

“We don't know anything for sure—”

“Except Sora is meant to be some kind of
true intelligence hologram. What if she's not a hologram?”

“She's made of light and sustained by
holographic emitters,” the admiral's tone hardened, and yet, though
she spoke through clenched teeth, he could still see a glint of
uncertainty flaring in her gaze.

He latched hold of it. “Granted, I'll admit
she's a hologram. But where does its true intelligence come from? I
tried to look at the trader's code. They wouldn't let me, but I
tried to isolate a section of Sora's program and delve as deep into
the code as I could. It was unlike any holographic program I've
ever seen. There was no AI written into it.”

“My best engineers looked at the program,
too, but I couldn't find anything wrong with it.”

“Your best engineers?” he spluttered.
“Aren't you starting to suspect they turned on you? If you're so
adamant that the Corthanx Traders did not obtain access to our
systems, then how in the hell did they overtake the Academy?” He
was way beyond insubordinate now. If he was an admiral and some
upstart lieutenant was speaking to him like this, they would be out
on their ear.

Though the admiral's jaw hardened, she
didn't demand his immediate expulsion from the Academy. Instead she
darted her gaze to the floor, half closed her eyes, and shook her
head. “Of course that thought has crossed my mind, and others.”

She appeared to hesitate, as if she was
wondering whether to tell him something.

He pressed forward. “Admiral, what is
it?”

“The Academy has never been the same since
the Axira incident. Members of our own unit turned against us.
There were spies in the top brass.” She hesitated once more.

And it struck him. “And there are still
spies within the top brass, aren't there?”

Slowly she nodded her head. “I thought I'd
rooted them out. Now this incident makes me realize I haven't. Just
when I think I'm getting on top of the division within our ranks, a
new fissure opens up.”