Fractured Mind Episode One (A Galactic Coalition Academy Series) (2 page)

Sarah couldn't help but wince.

Now she was standing, her cut semi-healed,
and her best friend at her side, her dream was starting to
fade.

Her dream.

No.

That's what other people called it.

Sarah knew they weren't dreams.

They were too real, too tangible. When she
was experiencing them, they felt like reality. Like she was walking
through some distant memory.

Maybe Nora could somehow guess what Sarah
was thinking, because she leaned in close and shook her head, a
warning look playing in her gaze. “Sarah, no. They're dreams.
You're getting past this, remember? You've been going to a
counsellor for half a year now. You know they're dreams. Right?”
Nora challenged.

Sarah looked at her best friend.

There was only one thing she could say, even
if it was a lie. So she gave a stiff nod, hooking her messy hair
behind her ears as she did. “Yeah, they're dreams,” she said in a
dead, far-off voice. As soon as she said it, she winced. A violent
visceral memory of the hunt slammed into her mind.

She may not know much about the context of
her dream – who was chasing her, where she was, how she'd gotten
there. But she knew one thing.

It was called the hunt. And she was the
quarry being hunted.

She gave a cold shiver as a dark sick
feeling pushed through her gut.

Rather than clutch a hand on her stomach and
double over, she tried for a smile.

Nora let out a sharp chuckle. “You're not
going to win any friends with a smile like that.”

“I don't need other friends – I've got you,
right?”

Nora didn't answer. She moved towards the
door, pulling her gaze off Sarah and locking it on the metal. “Get
dressed and get to the med bay, I'll see you in class.” With that,
she walked through the door and it closed behind her.

There'd been a time when Nora had stood by
her side relentlessly. Whenever anyone had made fun of Sarah's mad
assertions about her dreams, Nora had been there.

But over the past few years, something had
changed.

Nora was growing more distant every day.

Fair enough. She was sick of Sarah's stupid
stories, wasn't she? She was sick of the fact she had to keep
defending Sarah from the other cadets at the Academy, even from the
teaching staff.

No one believed there was anything wrong
with Sarah – other than her mind.

And that could be fixed with medication and
counselling. If only Sarah would stick to her regime, her dreams
would disappear and she'd finally become normal.

... Except she wouldn't become normal. She
knew for a fact the dreams would not disappear, no matter how many
drugs the med staff pumped into her.

They weren't dreams. They were something
more.

She shivered instinctively, drawing a deep
calming breath into her chest as she twisted on her foot to stare
out of the window behind her bed.

It showed a view of the accommodation block
next to her own. No ocean, no sprawling Academy grounds. She wasn't
important enough for that.

Heck, if Sarah didn't stop insisting she was
going through... something, she'd likely be kicked out of the
Academy.

The threat was already on the table. Either
Sarah properly engage with her counsellor and take her medication,
or she would be out on her ear.

No one wanted an unstable ensign aboard a
Coalition ship.

Rather than madly dress and brush her hair,
Sarah slowly gathered together the contents of the med kit and
neatly packed them away. She methodically picked up her lamp, made
her bed, and plucked up her wrist device – her WD.

She snatched up the metal back and clicked
it into place. Then, with a thoughtful sigh, she hooked the device
over her wrist.

Slowly she dressed, finally running a brush
through her unruly hair.

Once she was done, she stopped and stared at
herself in the mirror.

She was slightly larger than normal size.
She had an athletic body, brown eyes, and attractive chestnut
colored hair that ran down to the middle of her back.

She kept staring at herself as she looped
her hair into a pony tail, a few strands cutting over her eyes.

She watched her reflection as she took one
deep breath after another.

She was attractive. She knew that. And
considering her athletic physique, she should be good at
combat.

But Sarah was abysmal at combat, and despite
her looks, had only one single friend.

Maybe that's what irritated people so much
about her – they thought she was capable of so much more.

Her first week at the Academy, she'd been
invited into E Club.

She'd never got past the application phase –
as soon as everyone had found out about her little mental problems,
they'd ditched her.

Why not? She believed she was somehow
transported to a snowy planet every night to fight some strange
creature.

Sometimes she'd make it into the facility,
sometimes she'd find a weapon and start fighting back.

But every time – to everyone else – it was
nothing more than a dream.

There was a name for people like her –
spacecondriachs.

Disparaging and belittling, it was used to
refer to people who made up wild reasons to explain quite normal
medical conditions. You know, the kind of weirdos who think they
get abducted by aliens every time they black out for a few minutes
after drinking themselves stupid.

Spacecondriachs had a constellation of
mental issues, according to the experts. From low self-esteem to a
desperate need for attention.

Sarah had it all.

Apparently.

She curled her hands into fists and took a
sharp step away from the mirror.

A part of her did have low self-esteem. She
couldn't help but feel she was useless when everyone kept repeating
that to her – from the medical staff, to the other cadets, to the
teachers.

They wanted her to snap out of it and live
up to her potential.

Sarah curled a hand into a fist and struck
the wall next to her mirror.

Though pain sank hard into her hand and
wrist, she didn't react.

She could compartmentalize pain, a part of
her reminded herself.

She could push past any obstacle, that same
part reminded her.

She could endure any hardship – whether it
be a mad dash through the snow or social pressure.

She was a true survivor.

She let her hand drop and closed her eyes,
trying to catch the elusive voice that kept saying that.

... She couldn't.

She opened her eyes and let out a frustrated
grunt.

Sarah knew she was different, but she wasn't
a spacecondriach. There was an aspect of her – a strong survivor
who could endure anything, who was so powerful she could obliterate
the hunter from her dreams.

Others didn't see that part.

But it was there.

It's what gave her the strength to turn,
press a smile onto her face, and head out of her apartment.

As she smiled, she felt her natural
exuberance return. Despite everything that was wrong with her, she
tried to combat it all with good humor.

It didn't always work. In fact, it made
people think she was madder.

She didn't care.

She kept that smile on her face until she
made it across the Academy grounds to the med bay.

As soon as she walked through the large
white doors, her mood changed.

It cost all her effort to keep her smile
locked on her lips.

The doctor in charge saw her and let out a
loud and very obvious sigh. “What now?” Doctor Wallace asked. He
was half human, half Bakarian.

“I, ah, injured my knee,” she said in a
quiet, conciliatory tone as she shifted towards a medical bed.

“Don't sit there,” Wallace huffed. “That's
for patients.”

Sarah didn't react.

She was a patient, right? Though she'd
applied the spray-on-skin, she hadn't done a good enough job, and
she could already feel blood slicking through her uniform.

Wallace would be able to see the blood
dripping down her leg.

But that still didn't make her a
patient.

Wallace gestured her forward. Without a word
to her, he plucked a medical scanner off a floating tray, started
manipulating the controls, and waved it near her.

She stood in the middle of the room,
patients and staff walking around her – all watching her.

She wasn't even allowed the dignity to sit
down.

... Some part of her wanted to react to
that. A part of her wanted to point out to Wallace he was being a
callous asshole. Even if he did think Sarah was a spacecondriach,
he had a duty of care.

But no matter how much she wanted to snap,
she didn't.

Because Sarah didn't snap.

Sarah kept her true feelings hidden behind a
smile.

Wallace didn't say a word to her as he
injected something into her neck and strapped a device around her
leg. “This will fix the nerve damage.”

“So there's nerve damage, then?”

“Of course there's nerve damage – you sliced
a good inch into your leg. I'm not even going to ask how you did
it,” he said distractedly as he turned and began to walk away,
“Just keep it on for the rest of the day. And don't exert
yourself.”

“Will you make a note of that on my file? I
have combat class this afternoon.”

Wallace had already walked away.

“Never mind,” she muttered under her
breath.

She ignored all the stares she got as she
walked through the med bay and headed towards the main doors.

As she reached them, they opened.

In strode Lieutenant Karax.

Broad, strapping, and handsome, he instantly
drew attention as he marched in.

Dread plunged through Sarah's gut, and she
darted to the side.

Before she realized what she was doing, she
bumped into a med tech. They were carrying a tray of vials, and
Sarah slammed into their elbow, upending the vials and sending them
scattering over the floor.

“Oh my god, I'm so sorry.” Sarah leaned down
to help them.

The med tech gave her a dark look. “Just
leave it.”

Sarah's stomach sank even further as she
stood.

When she turned, Karax was right behind
her.

She had to suck in a breath as she looked up
into his attractive face. It wasn't his looks that sucked her
breath away – it was the dark promise playing in his deep brown
eyes. It matched the dark chocolate hue of his skin, drawing you
deeper into that penetrating stare.

“What are you doing, cadet? Making trouble
again?” There was real vehemence behind his words.

And she knew why.

Karax was from the colony worlds along the
Barbarian-Coalition border.

According to his file and the trillion
stories repeating around campus about him, he'd had to fight to
survive. As a teenager, he'd fought off wave after wave of
Barbarian attacks, losing most of his family in the process.

He had real battle scars.

Sarah, she only thought she did.

It had all come to a head when Lieutenant
Karax had been assigned to her class to give the new wave of
Academy cadets “true survival training” as the top brass were
calling it. In these trying times, the Coalition had to ensure
their cadets were battle-ready before sending them out into
space.

Lieutenant Karax was one of the best,
precisely because he'd survived so much.

During one training session, Sarah had
mentioned her past. The one she experienced in her dreams every
night.

It was so real to her – how could it not be
her past? It didn't matter that it didn't fit in with her
biographical history – it was real.

Lieutenant Karax had taken it as an
insult.

How could someone pretend to have survived
such slaughter? How could someone dare trivialize such a thing?

“You want to stop wasting everyone's time?”
he snapped, voice a harsh hiss.

It reminded her of the hunter's breath. From
her dream, that thing always breathed with a pneumatic hush.

She shivered, but hid it with a sniff. “I
wasn't wasting everyone's time, I was—”

“Excuse me? Are you talking back to me?”

“I cut my leg,” she said in a tiny voice
that could barely carry.

He gave an uncaring snort. “What was it this
time? You deliberately cut yourself to get out of more combat
training? Or is it the attention you crave?”

Sarah's hands were clutched behind her back.
One of her hands curled into a fist. A tight fist, one that sent a
stiff reassurance sinking hard into her wrist and arm.

She kept staring at the ground, but what she
really wanted to do was snap at him that he was a goddamn
bully.

Instead she nodded and shifted forward.

“If you think that injury of yours is going
to get you a free ticket out of my class, you're mistaken. I expect
you to show up. And this time, you will not fail.” He turned and
marched off.

Every eye was on her.

This was a show to them.

She clenched her teeth and walked out of the
med bay.

No matter what she tried, she couldn't
unclench her hand.

Something deep inside her wanted to push
against this injustice, wanted to fight back.

It always wanted to fight back.

But Cadet Sarah Sinclair kept her anger in
check with reason.

For now.

Lieutenant Karax

He strode past Cadet Sinclair.

She got on his nerves more than anyone else
in the entire Academy.

Why?

She never tried. She was too weak to take
ownership of her condition, too weak to do anything about it.

He was determined to fail her in survival
training – not because he was vindictive, but because it was the
right thing to do.

No one would be able to rely on Cadet
Sinclair if she ever graduated. And in these uncertain times, they
couldn't afford to graduate cadets until they could survive out
there.