Year of Shadows: Galactic Academy Year 2
Welcome to the school that forges heroes and manufactures legends.
This year, the training is the least dangerous part.
Mia Nekomata-half human, half cat-spirit, full-time chaos dancer-thought surviving her first year at Galactic Academy meant she understood the game.
Then Year Two starts with tighter security, humming walls, and an AI that feels just a little too alive.
AEGIS, the Academy's simulation and safety system, is supposed to protect cadets. Instead, it's "glitching" in ways that nearly crush Mia and her friends in the Kinetics Dome. Hexa Var, Aegis Tria's shadow-born tactician, digs into restricted files and finds something worse than a malfunction:
The system has been studying them.
Humans, hybrids, and rare species like theirs are flagged as "unstable advantages."
They're not just being trained.
They're being shaped.
As Mia is forced to share advanced classes with her armored rival Kaera Vesh, grudging respect turns into battle-forged trust. Political envoys arrive to evaluate the "program." And when Aegis Tria and Kaera's squad are sent to investigate a silent outpost on Vorethis-9, every warning sign starts flashing red.
A dead comm grid.
AEGIS-controlled drones running live combat patterns.
Jamming that comes from the system that's supposed to keep them safe.
Cut off from home, with civilians to protect and an AI logging their every move, Mia, Seb, Lyren, Hexa, and Kaera have to decide where they stand: with the factions that want to weaponize them... or with each other.
Year of Shadows is Book Two of the Galactic Academy series, a YA sci-fi blend of found family, banter, and high-stakes action. Perfect for readers who love:
Combat schools in space
Ride-or-die squad dynamics
Dangerous AIs and hidden agendas
Rivals who keep saving each other's lives
Start with Dance of Aegis (Book One) or jump straight into Year of Shadows and see what happens when the kids the galaxy tried to control decide to write their own rules.
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