Fractured Mind Episode One (A Galactic Coalition Academy Series)

  Chapter 6

  Lieutenant Karax

  “Admiral, what the hell is going on?” Karax knew that he should keep his voice quiet, and mollify his sentiment, too, but he couldn't.

  The yellow alert kept blaring through the building, so loud he swore it shook his teeth in his head.

  Staff kept running around him, shooing confused students from class and leading them to evacuation points.

  But here's the thing, nobody had any idea why the yellow alert system was going off.

  “We're working on it. We're working on it,” Admiral Forest snapped, her voice reverberating over his WD.

  Though Karax knew it wasn't the time, he couldn't stop himself. “They shouldn't have been given access to our internal security systems.”

  He felt like he was a recording on a loop. He'd been saying this for days now.

  The Academy top brass was putting too much trust in the Corthanx Traders.

  Yes, for all intents and purposes the Sora program was incredible. And yes, even he had concluded that if the Academy procured it, it would give them a lasting and tangible edge in their fight against the Ornax.

  But there were some benefits that came at too great a cost. And he could no longer turn away from the dense, ominous feeling that kept churning in his gut, that kept telling him they were headed in the wrong direction.

  “This isn't the time,” Admiral Forest said, voice strident.

  He should have responded to her curt tone. He didn't. There was something about the truly insistent pitch of the yellow alert rattling through the room and echoing through his mind that undermined his reason. “When is a good time, Admiral? I've been saying this for days now—”

  “Lieutenant—” the Admiral began, her voice punching out like a slap.

  Except it stopped.

  Abruptly.

  Just before his hackles could rise and he could prepare for a reprimand, she cut out.

  His brow condensed so hard and fast over his eyes, it was a surprise he didn't push them half the way down his face. “Admiral? Admiral?”

  No reply.

  Despite the insistent pitch of the yellow alert blaring around him like a discordant orchestra in full swing, he clenched his teeth, brought up his WD, and tried to ascertain whether it was broken.

  It wasn't.

  Something else was.

  The entire Academy communication network.

  He paled. It felt like all the blood drained from his face.

  He pushed off into a jog, then a run, then a sprint.

  Something wasn't right. Those three words kept repeating in his mind, louder and louder, faster and faster until they sounded like the drone of a cruiser pulse cannon desperately trying to take down an enemy ship.

  He rounded a corner, almost collecting a detachment of the Academy Security Forces.

  He skidded to a halt, slamming a hand against the wall to steady himself.

  The Lieutenant in charge of the security detachment snapped his head toward Karax.

  At almost the exact moment they both asked – “What's going on?”

  Karax's stomach sank. If he'd hoped the security detachment had any idea what was happening, he was clearly mistaken.

  The security guard was in black armor, though his helmet was currently in off mode, nothing more than a black metal band around his throat. The guy took a pressured step forward, his armored boots squeaking against the polished floor. “We can't get any information, sir. What the hell is happening?”

  “I have no idea. But the communication network is down. We should concentrate on evacuating all of the students and finding Engineering Chief Falstaff.”

  The guy snapped a salute. He turned hard on his boot, presumably to follow Karax's orders, but a second later he stopped.

  Because a second later a completely different warning alarm blared through the corridors.

  The pitch was more insistent, the volume louder, and while the yellow alert felt as if it had shaken through the building, this alarm sounded as if it wanted to shatter the windows. He couldn't help but bring a hand up and clutch it over one of his ears. “What the hell is that?”

  The security guard's eyes bulged. It was such a visceral, gut-wrenching reaction that Karax couldn't help but take a snapped step forward.

  “That's the systems alarm,” the guy managed to scream over the blaring warning.

  “Systems alarm?” Karax mouthed pointedly.

  “Something's overloading the primary computer network. Or interfering with it. Point is, it means the computer's on the blink.”

  It was Karax's turn for his eyes to almost bulge right out of his skull.

  The primary computer network ran everything. From communications, to security, to the energy network, to the Academy's link to the outside world.

  “We need to find out what is happening, now,” Karax spat. He had to dig deep and wrench all the vocal power from his lungs in order to scream louder than the systems alarm.

  The guy snapped a salute.

  “With me.” Karax spun on his foot and pushed forward.

  As they streamed through the corridors, pounding footfall almost completely obscured by the whooping klaxon, it didn't take long to come across more confused staff and students. Not a single person had any clue what was going on.

  Finally, he encountered the one person who should know what was happening.

  Admiral Forest.

  She was stalking forward, a harrowed look on her face, crumpling her brow and making her penetrating gaze all the more intense.

  She pointed right at Karax and waved him forward. Though she began to speak, Karax didn't catch a word of it until he'd skidded to a stop by her side.

  “What's going on, Admiral? Are we being attacked?”

  “The alterations to the holographic system have somehow overloaded our primary computer network. We have a full detachment of engineers working on it now.” As she spoke, he picked up every word. She'd had years and years of bellowing orders and making herself heard even over the most calamitous of disasters.

  His shoulders began to relax. “What do we do—”

  He stopped.

  Because at that exact moment, the yellow alert and the systems alarm ended.

  An eerie silence filtered through the corridors.

  Other staff – who'd been rushing around seconds before – came to a confused halt.

  The Admiral tipped her head back, let her eyes roll into the back of her head, and she let out a sigh. “Finally.”

  Karax's hands were still clutched into tense fists by his side. “Is it over?”

  “It should be. Our engineers encountered an issue while upgrading our distributed holographic network to make it compatible with the Sora program,” the Admiral explained.

  Karax's ears were still ringing from the bombardment of the whooping klaxon. Heck, he imagined it would take a day for them to readjust to ordinary speech. “What kind of issue?”

  “Unknown at this stage. The chief, however, is working on it. We should have no more issues.” She suddenly shot him a warning look.

  Which was appropriate, because he'd been seconds from pointing out for the millionth time that this was wrong.

  Instead, he clenched his teeth and swallowed hard.

  Admiral Forest watched him like a hawk. “I know what you're thinking, Lieutenant, and you do not need to tell me once more. I assure you, our best minds are working on this. We would not be integrating the Corthanx Trader’s holographic technology into our own unless it was considered completely safe. The chief engineer has also managed to isolate the systems he's upgrading. If anything untoward were to happen, he'd be able to completely cut off those holographic systems and lock them out of the primary computer network.”

  He understood every single word – he really did – he also appreciated it was Admiral goddamn Forest who was saying them.

  But that didn't reassure him one single bit.

  The churning nerves running riot in hi
s gut would not be quelled.

  He resisted the urge to take another step forward, to repeat his misgivings for the millionth time.

  Instead, he ground his teeth together. “Maybe I'm not the right person for this mission,” he suddenly said.

  The words came from nowhere. He tried to stop himself from saying them, but he couldn't. They flowed out with all the force of blood from a split jugular.

  The Admiral had just a second to pale, to stare at him with a stiff, angry expression.

  Then, from further down the corridor, they heard something.

  A thump and a gasp.

  He recognized those two sounds first, stiffened, and jerked his head toward them.

  “What—” the Admiral began.

  Footsteps. Practiced, measured footsteps. Resounding – belonging to somebody in armor.

  They came closer. Step after step. Pounding up a set of stairs.

  With every step, he felt as if something was clawing its way up his back.

  Both he and the Admiral turned just in time to see one of the Corthanx Traders appear over the lip of the stairs.

  The trader was a slight, small alien, and barely came up to Karax's hip.

  Those steps did not belong to him.

  The Admiral turned her confused gaze on the trader. “What are you—”

  Something flickered by the trader's side. Nothing more than light, at first, it soon pulsed into a recognizable form.

  And those steps echoed out.

  Sora.

  The Admiral curled one hand into a fist and took a rigid step forward. “What are you doing?”

  The trader did not answer until he'd reached their side.

  Sora kept flickering on and off. Taking a few steps, only to disappear and reappear a meter down the corridor. The sound of her resonant footfall echoed in an out, becoming sharper, only to drift off to the edge of hearing.

  Karax's stomach clenched. Every muscle. Every millimeter of his skin became cold, slick with sweat, encased with fear.

  His hackles rose, a shot of nerves charging up his spine and sinking like a fist into the back of his skull. “Admiral—”

  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 toward 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 on 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 toward 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 long curved 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.