The Crucible- The Complete Series

by Odette C. Bell

The view screen showed us flashes of what lay within the hangar bay.

  A massive, expansive space dotted with other ships.

  Christ, how many vessels did the resistance have?

  “On course,” the chief pilot announced. “This is when it matters most,” she warned.

  I focused my mind. I drove out every other thought until all that I knew was the controls before me.

  “Keep it steady,” she warned again. “Five seconds until we reach the door. Four, three, two, one.”

  I winced, shoulders jerking up high into my neck as the Ra’xon descended between the open hangar bay doors.

  We just fit.

  That wasn’t an overstatement – apparently there was a little less than a meter clearance on all sides.

  The Ra’xon, after all, was the largest vessel the resistance had ever appropriated. Maybe they should have built this hangar bay with a little more ambition in mind.

  Nobody said a word on the bridge as the Ra’xon slowly descended into the hangar bay.

  You could have dropped a pin and it would have sounded like an earthquake.

  I was barely aware of the fact that every other crewmember, save for us three pilots, had twisted around in their chairs to watch the main view screen.

  The Captain had one massive hand locked on the edge of her armrest, one elbow pinned against her knee as she leaned forward.

  “Doors cleared,” the chief pilot announced. There wasn’t any relief in her voice yet.

  We still had to touch down.

  We had to be extremely careful to land with perfectly distributed weight. That meant we had to keep parallel to the floor of the hangar bay. Even if we were a centimeter off, and listed ever so slightly to one side, the weight distribution of the Ra’xon would change. If we landed like that, it would be like the weight of a mountain pressing down onto a pin. There was every possibility we would shatter the floor of the hangar bay and destroy it.

  The Ra’xon kept scanning the floor of the hangar bay, adjusting for even the slightest ground tremor.

  Any and every vibration had to be taken into account.

  The pitch of the floor had to be perfect, and we had to match it.

  We descended so slowly our maneuvering thrusters were practically on full.

  In fact, without looking up, I could see the crackling reflection of containment shields blocking off half the hangar bay – confining the section we had to land in. Without them, our exhaust would have practically disintegrated every other ship in here.

  As it was, I imagined a plume of heat kilometers high shot out of the open roof of the hangar bay like a jet.

  This – this was why you didn’t land ships like the Ra’xon. If you had to maintain them, you jolly well did so in space.

  But there was the problem: there would be no one left to maintain the Ra’xon. She wouldn’t be welcome in any of the Star Forces’ massive battlecruiser maintenance stations.

  She belonged to the resistance now and maintenance would be piecemeal.

  “Currently hovering one meter off the floor,” the chief pilot announced, “this is it. Final chance to correct calculations. Three, two, one.”

  Though all my body wanted to do was tense up, I had to fight it. I couldn’t lose any maneuverability for a second.

  Not now.

  We descended, centimeter by centimeter.

  Until finally we landed.

  There wasn’t a shake on the ship. Not a single vibration. And there wouldn’t be. Not unless somebody rammed us with a heavy cruiser or tried to shoot out our engines.

  The hangar bay, on the other hand, shook as if a planetary bomb had just gone off. My eyes darted up to the main view screen, and I saw the far walls shift and dance.

  ….

  They didn’t crumble though.

  Nothing crumbled.

  After a few heart pounding seconds, someone on the bridge let out a cheer, and we all joined in.

  The chief pilot leapt to her feet, locking her hands on her console, sucking in a breath, then turning and shooting a grin at the Captain. “Guess what, you’re right – it isn’t impossible to land this brute. But whatever you do, Captain, never ask me to do that again.”

  The Captain smiled. And stood. She towered above us all.

  For a few seconds she did nothing. In fact, she appeared to tune out everything as she locked her gaze on the view of the hangar bay.

  I suddenly realized that she had a story too. It wasn’t just the Williams and Jenks of this world. There must be a reason a captain as decorated and well respected as H’agovan would give up her career for this. In fact, as I realized that, I found myself staring around the rest of the bridge crew.

  Why were we all here? How had the chief pilot, for instance, decided to leave the Star Forces?

  What were their stories?

  Before that nostalgic moment could take my heart and run away with it, the Captain cleared her throat.

  “You may all be wondering what happens next. I will tell you. Next, it begins. Our true journey. It does not matter what paths you have taken in life to arrive at this moment, all that matters is where you turn to next. This galaxy of ours was once a peaceful, prosperous place. Once upon a time, we knew the worth of true peace. We lost that,” her voice dipped down low, a haunting somber tone echoing through it like the lonely call of a wolf on a dark night. “Our great civilization has gone astray. We can choose to follow it down its path, we can choose to turn away from its tyranny, or we can stop, and we can fight,” her voice shook, vibrating through the very floor. “I will not lie to you – most of you will die in this fight. The Star Forces knows only brutality. They will hold nothing back. Nothing will stop them from utilizing the cruelest and most destructive methods. No laws, no morals. No humanity. But to fight them, we will not use their methods. We will not become them,” her voice was now so low it was practically a growl.

  Everyone on the bridge had turned around to watch the Captain, and her impassioned speech would have been picked up and played to the rest of the ship. I could just imagine every crew member pausing and angling their heads towards the nearest audio panel, standing silently admiring their captain.

  This was the kind of loyalty I’d always yearned for. A loyalty you would bestow upon someone who deserved it. Someone who stood for the right path, who elicited right action and who marched towards freedom for all.

  If my father could hear what I was thinking now, he would blanch. He would also laugh. He’d told me on countless occasions that it was only the naive and willfully stupid who mindlessly followed charismatic leaders. Who believed in morals and good deeds.

  The only way to obtain and sustain peace was to foster it. And to foster it, you had to decide who made the sacrifices.

  The business of managing a galaxy was not an easy one. Nor was it fair and equitable. If you wanted something, you had to give something up in return. If it was peace you were after, then you bartered your individual rights for it. If you wanted prosperity, you had to turn a blind eye to the poor.

  Anyone who believed in a rosier colored version of reality was simply fooling themselves.

  Though I heard my father’s words echo in my mind, I quickly pushed them away.

  “Know this,” the Captain continued, “every sacrifice you make will be remembered. It will be cherished, and it will be worthwhile. You will no longer waste your lives in the service of a radical Alliance,” her voice pitched on the word waste. “You will no longer sacrifice your resources and your crew to assure the power of another. Here, now, from this moment,” she pointed a long, powerful finger at the floor, “everything changes. Because we will make it change. By god, we will make a change.” Her voice echoed and boomed out across the bridge.

  The Captain took a step forward and another until she stepped down off the central platform that housed her command seat and station, and onto the rest of the bridge. She walked around us before finally stopping in front of the view screen with her hands clasp
ed behind her back. For a few moments, she said nothing and simply stared at the hangar bay. “To the Star Forces, landing the Ra’xon like this would have been impossible. It wasn’t. Because you are the best of the best. And no matter what the odds are, you will prevail.”

  …

  Ensign Jenks

  The whole ship stopped as it listened to the Captain’s speech.

  Nothing much could move me these days. The hope of more compound 78, maybe, but nothing emotional.

  So why did a single tear fill my eye as I listened to her words?

  Why did something swell in my heart?

  Was it simply the stress of knowing I now had to keep myself hidden from the resistance?

  Or was it more?

  Could it possibly be… could it possibly be pride?

  I dismissed that thought as soon as it arose, closed my eyes briefly, and took a stiff breath. By the time I was done, the Captain had already signed off.

  I was glad that there were no other crew in the corridor around me. I could take a few moments to settle my thoughts.

  Eventually I shook my head and continued forward.

  Now we’d landed, it was time to meet the resistance.

  Not every member of the Ra’xon’s crew disembarked the ship immediately.

  Though we’d landed, there were still plenty of processes to be run. In fact, it was essentially the command crew who exited, no doubt to formally greet the resistance.

  I was happy to stay on board – even though almost every other member of the crew was itching to go outside to meet the resistance.

  What was the hurry? We were here now. Meetings could wait. If the Captain was honest about taking on the Alliance, work couldn’t wait. Time wasn’t a luxury the Star Forces would afford us.

  The Chief Engineer now knew me by name, and ordered me to the life-support systems to continue running maintenance checks. Even though we were now on the surface of a planet, there was no way the Ra’xon was going to shut off its life-support systems. Not only were they hard to start up once they’d been closed down, but it was a sure-fire way of encouraging pathogens to enter your air supply.

  Considering the Ra’xon was designed for space travel, we had to tweak the life-support’s operating parameters to adjust for use in an atmosphere.

  It was way beyond my engineering skills, but the Chief Engineer was going to talk me through the recalibration process while she remained in main engineering.

  I passed crew members chatting excitedly on my way through the corridors. Their faces were open wide with enjoyment and relief.

  Me, I remained exactly the same as I always did. Blank.

  Expressionless.

  It didn’t take long to reach the life-support systems.

  Under ordinary operating parameters, life-support was closed off – the systems sealed from outside interference.

  You could enter the section that housed the atmosphere and gravity drives, but you couldn’t enter the drives themselves.

  “You in life-support yet?” the Chief Engineer’s less than dulcet tones reverberated through my com PIP.

  “Yes, sir, I have just arrived.”

  “You don’t need to call me sir anymore,” the Chief Engineer corrected with a sharp laugh. “I’m not your commander anymore.”

  “You still know considerably more about engineering. I am more than happy to defer to your expertise, sir.”

  She laughed again. “Your name is Jenks, isn’t it?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “I think I’m going to kind of like you, Jenks. I like straight talkers.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Just drop the sir. Anyhow, relay the readings on the main panel. We’re going to have to increase the atmosphere buffers. Who knows what nasty critters are circulating in the air of the hangar bay? Don’t get me wrong, I love the resistance, but you think those grunts could take a shower once in a while, you know what I’m saying?”

  “I’m relaying the atmosphere buffer levels to you now,” I said, ignoring her comment.

  She laughed again. “I really am going to like you, Jenks. You don’t care for bullshit, do you?”

  “No, sir,” I deigned to answer her question this time. It was, after all, one of the best character assessments she could give me.

  I didn’t have time for niceties, pleasantries, or friendships. And if the resistance were serious, soon they would realize the same.

  “Okay, I want you to do everything I say. Now reach over to the buffer controls—” the Chief Engineer began.

  I tuned her voice out.

  My implants were itching.

  It was a distinctive sensation, and it sank deep into my elbows, traveling up into my shoulder blades. I shifted my arms back and forth, trying to jerk free of the sensation. It didn’t work.

  I found myself frowning.

  This wasn’t the first time I’d felt this distinct sensation.

  It sometimes happened when I entered an area where strong telekinetic powers had been used.

  The process of assisted telekinesis required the use of a very particular kind of energy. If your implants were tuned finely enough – and mine undoubtedly were – considering my power – you could pick up traces of that energy. Professor Axis had taught me to detect the use of telekinetic powers up to a week after they’d been activated. He’d spent several agonizing months calibrating and recalibrating my implants. I still remembered the massive black and blue bruises that would spread up my arms after every attempt.

  I stiffened.

  “Jenks? Are you listening to me?”

  My gaze darted around the room.

  There wasn’t much in life-support that a person could access.

  There were the primary controls, and beyond that, one of the thickest doors you’d ever seen.

  Only the Captain and the Chief Engineer had the command privilege to go through that door.

  I locked my gaze on it, letting my eyes slip from side-to-side as I looked for a sign of any manipulation.

  Finally I found it, right down in the left corner. The metal was puckering slightly.

  “Ensign Jenks, answer me,” the Chief Engineer snapped, defaulting to a commander’s tone, even if she’d insisted she was no longer my superior.

  “Sir,” I swallowed, “I believe someone else’s been down here.”

  “What?”

  “It might be a hunch, sir, but something doesn’t feel right. I think someone has manipulated life-support,” I stuttered.

  “I don’t want your best hunch, Jenks. I don’t know much about your specialty, but I know you’re not an engineer. Tell me what you see.”

  “There is a slight deformity in the bottom left section of the chamber door.”

  “It’s probably nothing,” the Chief Engineer said after a pause, the slightest hint of worry tightening her tone. “We received quite a bad knock when those enforcement officers tried to take down this ship.”

  “You’re right, sir, I’m not an engineer, but I know enough about life-support to know that door is made out of trithalium. If your theory is correct, and the deformity is due to the general damage the ship sustained during our fight, it would not be so specific. There would also be damage – considerably more damage to the rest of the room. There isn’t. There is only a slight puckering in the lower section of the door.”

  The Chief Engineer gave a considerable pause. “I’m hearing you, Ensign, but I can’t think of anything that could cause such localized damage. It must be…” she trailed off.

  “What about telekinetic warriors?” I asked before I really knew what I was saying.

  I swallowed hard. If I were being smart, I wouldn’t dare mention telekinetic warriors. I wouldn’t draw any attention to them.

  But I wasn’t being smart; I was doing the right thing.

  If my gut instinct was correct, and someone with telekinetic powers had been in this room, then who knows what they could have done to life-support?


  The Chief Engineer swore in her own language. “You’re right... I’m on my way. Don’t touch anything.”

  “Aye, sir.” I let my gaze lock on the damage to the door.

  Experimentally, I flicked a finger up and attempted to manipulate the metal of the chamber door.

  It wasn’t easy, yet it barely taxed my abilities. However to an ordinary telekinetic warrior, it would have been almost impossible.

  I’d fought both those enforcement officers, and though they’d been a match for Williams, they didn’t have this kind of power.

  I let my hand drop down to my side, the faint light of my implant blinking out immediately.

  I kept frowning at the chamber door until finally the Chief Engineer came bustling in.

  She didn’t even acknowledge my presence – she practically threw herself at the primary console and began running scans.

  After about a minute, she took a jerked step back and made eye contact. “I think someone’s been in there,” she admitted in a stuttering tone, her three eyes drawing so wide they looked as if they’d swallow the rest of her face.

  I broke eye contact to stare at the door. “What do we do?”

  “Nothing,” she snapped immediately. “God knows what they’ve done. But whatever it is, it hasn’t triggered any problems yet. If you’d gone through with the recalibration,” she dropped her gaze to the controls and manipulated them at lightning speed, using all of her six arms, “you could have…” she swore, so viciously the word was like a blast from her throat.

  I paled. “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t be sure without getting into life-support myself, but I think somebody has rigged it to explode. If you’re smart enough, you can relay it back into the engines and create a feedback loop. We’ve already had buffering capacity issues, and the last thing we need is for the considerable power of the life-support systems to feedback into the energy grid.” She swore again. “This could have destroyed the whole ship.”

  I found myself swallowing.

  She swiveled her gaze to me and nodded low. “If you hadn’t picked that up, Ensign, we’d all be dead. The Ra’xon, and quite possibly the resistance, owes its existence to you. If this ship blew… God, it could take out half this planet.”