Fractured Mind Episode One (A Galactic Coalition Academy Series) (16 page)

The staff and students of the Academy had
been rounded up, even without the Sora program. His fellow traders
had managed to access the Academy's computer systems. It had an
inbuilt function called the endgame maneuver. It seemed it was
programmed that if the Academy ever came under attack, its central
transporters could lock onto every relevant bio sign and beam them
out.

Well, his traders and agents had been more
than capable of compromising the system and using it against the
Academy. All staff and students were now locked in the massive
central storage system, usually used to house ships. There they
would stay until this operation was concluded.

The trader hastened his step

...

Sarah Sinclair

She managed to make it through the rest of
the shift. Her neck barely bothered her anymore. And yet, as the
hours ticked on and the night drew into morning, she felt that
niggling sensation return.

Though she attempted to use the scanner
again, it was almost as if that thing in her skin was growing
accustomed to it – adapting somehow.

She was dead tired by the time the bar
closed, but not so tired that she couldn't enjoy the mesmerizing
view of the last patrons leaving and the bar splitting up. She was
given a relatively small pod section towards the back, and hastily
told by Frank that he expected her to clean it and do any required
maintenance on it before the bar opened again.

She gladly accepted, then walked off into
the pod and waited as it groaned and split apart from the rest of
the ship.

The floor separated, hidden magnetic panels
undocking as the ship literally split down the middle, then into
quarters, then into eights, then into almost 30 separate
structures.

Even though she couldn't profess that this
floating bar was the best maintained contraption she'd ever been
on, thankfully her pod didn't disintegrate the second it undocked
from the rest of the bar. Instead a few structural fields flickered
into place over the door until metal could regrow and seal the
hole. Then, with a slight groan that vibrated through her feet, her
pod began to fly on its own. Though Frank had already assured her
its navigational computer was programmed to dock against a suitable
section of a craggy mountain nearby, she couldn't help but shoot
forward and press her hands against the closest window as she
smooshed her cheek into the glass and stared at the stunning view
below.

Dawn was cracking over the mountain range.
She could see its light filtering through the banks of clouds that
swirled in amongst the floating mountain peaks. It caught the
verdant, dense, green foliage, glinting off it and making it seem
as if she was softly swaying through a sea of emeralds.

Though her pod wasn't fast, it slowly but
surely flew towards one of the craggy peaks, and a few minutes
later docked close to a sheer rocky cliff.

Sarah stood there for a few seconds
marveling at the view. There were windows on both sides of her pod,
and she ran from one to the other like an excited child. One side
showed a close-up view of the craggy peak, while the other looked
out into the valley beyond, mist trailing through the undergrowth
like some kind of giant white snake.

Her section of pod also had a deck. As she
pushed the last vestiges of her niggling fear away, she ran over,
opened the door that led onto the deck, and danced outside.

Dense foliage pressed right up against the
metal, and as she leaned forward she flattened her hand against a
moist leaf, fingers trailing over its soft waxy surface. She could
even reach a hand out and touch the craggy mountain wall beside her
pod.

Eventually she rested both her arms flat
against the railing of the deck, pressed her face against her arms,
and let out a happy sigh, a smile pressing across her lips for the
first time in days if not months.

She could get used to this life, and she was
determined to give it a try. But right now she was also determined
to sleep. She was dead tired, and perhaps it would be enough to
chase away her dreams for now.

Yawning and stretching, she headed towards
the door. As she walked back into the pod, her shoes squelching
across sticky sections of spilled alcohol, she heard her
communication unit beeping. Rushing over to it, a sudden pang of
nerves welling in her heart, she realized she must have dropped
it.

She fell down to one knee, scooped it up,
and answered it before she knew what she was doing.

She thought it was Nora.

It wasn't.

It was Lieutenant Karax.

Her stomach lurched, and almost immediately
she went to turn off the call. She didn't want to face him right
now, not until she got the full story from Nora.

The hologram of Karax's face wasn't
detailed, and yet it was enough for her to pick up the fear gouging
his features.

And that, that was enough to see her stop,
pause, her fingers hovering over the device.

“No, stop, please stop. Sarah, please, you
have to listen to me. Please, it's important.”

Her finger was still hovering over the
end-call button. It stopped. There was something terrifying about
his tone, truly terrifying about the desperate gaze he locked her
in. “What... what's the matter?”

“Where are you? Are you okay?” he spat.

She blinked quickly. “I'm fine. Look, if
you're worried about me—”

“It's more than that. Sarah, where the hell
are you?”

His insistence got to her. At first, the
bile started to rise through her throat. But then she got a handle
on her anger. She got a handle on her anger because he never
stopped looking at her with such clear, obvious desperation.

Suddenly she remembered the yellow alert.
The way Nora's call had ended so abruptly.

Before she knew what she was doing, she
shifted forward on her knees, kneecaps grating over the rough metal
floor, sticky puddles of alcohol sticking to her clothes. “What's
going on?”

He brought a hand up. It was a tense,
snapped move. It looked as if he was expecting to be struck.

Her heart started to beat harder in her
chest, started to reverberate around her torso. She clutched her
communication device in one hand and brought it close to her face,
the hologram of Lieutenant Karax now but an inch from her wide-open
eyes.

“Sarah, I can't explain it. I can't go into
any detail over this communication line – it's too insecure. Just
tell me where you are.”

She hesitated. Half of her wanted to end the
call. She didn't want to face Lieutenant Karax. He'd made her life
into such a living hell. Yet the other half of her simply couldn't
ignore that look in his eyes.

She battled with her will for a few
seconds.

She watched him lurch forward, the hologram
pressing a few centimeters closer to her face until she couldn't
help but stare right into his eyes. “Wherever you are, you're in
danger. Something's happened.”

Her stomach felt as if it bottomed out. Felt
as if it literally fell from her torso and splashed against the
sticky floor. “What are you talking about? Where's Nora. What's
happening at the Academy?”

“There's been some kind of incident. You
just have to tell me where you are. And then, Sarah, you have to
keep yourself safe. Do you understand?”

“I don't know what you're talking about,”
she began.

The hologram of Lieutenant Karax suddenly
jerked to the side, and she could tell that the real Karax was
suddenly looking over his shoulder. She caught sight of the side of
his face. His cheek slackened, his eye bulging as he stared at
something. “Shit,” he said under his breath. Then he began to
move.

She saw his lips crack open as he panted and
struggled for air. Though the hologram only caught his face, it was
still enough that she could see his throat pushing in and out as he
fought for each inhalation.

“What's happening? What's going on?”

Karax didn't answer. For a few seconds he
appeared to concentrate on running. “Shit, they've got agents
outside of the goddamn Academy. What the hell is happening
here?”

“Karax, what's going on?” She now held the
communication unit with both hands, her fingers shaking, so sweaty
it felt as if she'd drop the unit and smash it against the
floor.

She hunched forward, pressed it into her
lap, and stared at it as her hair cut across her shoulder.
“Lieutenant, what on earth is going on?”

“Where are you?” he snapped once more.

“Zhangjiajie,” she managed. “Why, what's
going on?”

“Sarah, I can't go into it. Don't have time
to. I just need to get you to understand that right now you have to
look after yourself. They're coming for you. Sarah, they're—”

He suddenly cut out. The hologram of him
just stopped, flickered off.

For a single second she was frozen,
terrified. Then she jerked forward, hands flying over the small
screen of her communication device.

She tried to get the channel back. She
called him and called him, but he wouldn't answer. A few minutes
later she stopped her frantic efforts and finally pushed a trapped
breath through her chest.

Slowly she dropped her communication device
into her lap, her arms and fingers so jerky and stiff she swore she
could hear them creaking like an old gnarled branch groaning in a
wind.

Her heart punched through her chest. It felt
as if it would smash itself against her rib cage.

She brought up a shaking hand and placed it
on her neck. Before too long she found her fingers pressing up and
locking on her left shoulder, the nails digging at the flesh.

She sat there for a few uneasy, nervy
seconds, waiting for him to call again. Waiting for him to call and
tell her it was just some dumb tasteless joke. That nothing was
wrong, that no one was after her.

He didn't call.

A minute passed, then another, then five.
Slowly she realized she couldn't just sit there on the sticky floor
waiting for him.

She pushed up, clutching a hand around her
communication device so hard her fingers became so bloodless she
was sure they would drop off.

She began to pace back and forth through her
pod, no longer aware of her shoes as they splashed through the
sticky piles of alcohol and thumped against the resonant metal
floor.

She kept jerking up her communication
device, kept waiting for that call.

It just didn't come.

So Sarah Sinclair did the only other thing
she could think of and tried to contact Nora.

Nothing.

Though her communication device
theoretically could be used to access the distributed global news
network, Sarah hadn't paid her bill in years. Plus her device was
so old it was on the blink.

Still, if she explored her pod, maybe she
could find something that would be able to access the news.

She began to explore the pod, movements
feverish as she searched desperately for some device that could
connect to the global news network.

Five minutes into her task, her communicator
rang once more. She threw herself at it. She'd left it on the floor
in her panic. Now she tumbled over her legs to get to it, her left
knee striking the sticky floor so hard she scraped it badly enough
that a few droplets of blood ran down her shin.

She ignored the pain that cut up into her
thigh, clutched her communicator close, and thumbed it on.

His name was on her lips before the
surprised image of Lieutenant Karax flickered into place above the
device. “Karax, Karax. What happened? Did you get away?”

Though he jerked his mouth open, clearly
ready to tell her something, he stopped. “Sarah, what are you
talking about?”

“Did you get away from the people chasing
you?” Her heart was ramming around her chest at 1 million miles an
hour. Though it was relatively clear from the fact he was calling
her that he must've escaped his pursuers, she still needed to hear
it from his lips, still needed to confirm he was safe.

For a few more confused seconds he just
stared at her. “Sarah, I haven't seen you since you left the
Academy. But none of that matters. Listen to me very
carefully—”

“What do you mean you haven't seen me since
I left the Academy? You called barely 5 minutes ago.”

“What?” His expression cracked, his eyes
locking on her, distinct fear pulsing through his now smooth brow.
“What do you mean I called you five minutes ago?”

If her heart had rammed around her chest at
1 million miles an hour before, now it just plain stopped. It felt
like a cruiser that had slammed on its inertia drive to full. It
was a surprise she didn't jerk forward and fall on her stomach.
“You called me five minutes ago,” she managed, a cold, sinking
feeling rushing down her gut. “Don't you remember?”

“Sarah, I haven't spoken to you since you
left the Academy,” he said clearly. “What do you mean I called you
five minutes ago?”

“Someone... someone who looked exactly like
you called me and asked where I was. You—”

The hologram of Lieutenant Karax jerked
towards her. She was clutching the device in both hands, close to
her face, and his visage came so near to hers she could see every
line and mark in his brow.

“Sarah, what did this other Lieutenant Karax
want to know?”

She gulped, desperation suddenly ripping
through her gut. “He wanted to know where I am.”

“Did you tell him?” Karax snapped.

She knew her skin turned the color of
crushed bone. She managed a bare nod. “Yes.”

She watched Karax bring a hand back and slam
it on his mouth, his sweaty fingers dragging down his skin. A
second later he took a tortured breath. “Sarah, you're in a lot of
danger. You need to look after yourself. I have a friend in
Zhangjiajie. I'm sending through his details.”

“Wait. How do you know I'm here?” She
pressed a shaking hand to her chest, sweaty fingers clutching at
the fabric of her now completely rumpled tunic.