…
Lieutenant Commander Nathan Shepherd
“Son, you don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into,” my father said simply.
I’d been expecting an attack. I’d been expecting him to murder me in cold blood.
What I was getting, was different.
He was trying to convince me I’d been wrong. Maybe he needed to hear it. Maybe that’s what this was about. He wanted me to admit I’d been wrong and I should never have turned from the Star Forces. Then, with a clear conscience, he’d kill me.
Or maybe he wouldn’t. I couldn’t read him as he stood there and lectured me.
“You don’t understand the resistance. You don’t understand the terrible things they’ve done. How many they’ve killed. Have you forgotten what they did to your ship?”
I wasn’t going to do him the dignity of answering.
And yet, I couldn’t stop myself from twitching. Despite everything that had happened since the Godspeed’s accident, the memory of it was still buried deep in my chest. I still felt the pain of lying there, a bloody mess as I watched my ship spin through space.
I twitched.
My father saw it.
A slight smile spread across his face. “What have they told you, Nathan? That we’re monsters? That we’re tyrannical?”
I… couldn’t respond. Though I wanted to. I wanted to face him and tell him everything I’d learnt.
“Do you honestly believe that? You may be many things, son, but you’ve always been a man of reason. That’s your greatest quality. You go by the evidence. And trust me, they’ve been keeping the evidence from you.”
My whole body was stiff. So stiff it felt as if my bones had been replaced by flex concrete.
“Do you know how many civilians they’ve killed? Let me show you.” He stepped away from me, brought his hands up, and conducted the view screens again. They shifted towards me, three of them fanning out in front of my face as the streams of data that had been playing across them changed.
They were replaced with footage.
“You’re looking at a civilian transport en route to the Yu Sector.” Admiral Shepherd extended a finger towards a simple transport ship. “395 passengers and 15 crew are aboard.”
Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t stop the dread from spilling down my back.
I took a sharp breath.
Suddenly from the left side of the screen, a group of three attack cruisers appeared. They were not Star Forces. In fact, if I had to make an educated guess, I would have said resistance, as they looked a lot like the shuttle I’d brought to the Miracle.
I took another sharp breath, this one so shallow it barely passed my lips.
My father said nothing, but looked at me out of the corner of his eye as the three resistance ships attacked the transport.
“The transport ship was carrying medical supplies and refined dark matter. A worthy target for the resistance,” he added.
Though I wanted to, I couldn’t tear my eyes off the footage. Those resistance ships gave no quarter as they attacked the transport. It wasn’t a fair fight. It was no fight at all.
“There’s more.” Admiral Shepherd flicked a hand forward, and another screen zoomed towards me. “So much more.”
…
Alyssa Nightingale
He wouldn’t let up. Professor Axis wouldn’t stop.
More and more battle drones streamed into my cell.
Every time I paused and directed my attention at the walls or floor, Axis would hiss a warning.
A few times one of my blasts struck the far wall, and every time I was punished.
Another jolt of electricity slammed through my body, driving me even further onto my knees until I was a crumpled mess on the floor.
I had no idea how long this would last. If my previous sessions with Axis were anything to go by it could be up to a day. I was a battle system, after all. I had to prove my stamina.
I barely had time to think as more and more drones sprang into my room. That was the point. Axis didn’t want me getting creative.
But amidst the chaos I realized one thing. My tongue drifted up to the top of my mouth, and I felt that little pocket of skin. It was still there. And I swore I could feel the two capsules were still underneath.
It was a revelation, but ultimately irrelevant. What could those capsules do for me now? They were designed to cut through my fatigue and counteract the incapacitating compound F’val had used on me. I very much doubted Axis was still using the same drug.
… Or was he?
As I fought relentlessly, drones swarming around me, I realized I had to try.
There was nothing more to lose.
…
Lieutenant Commander Nathan Shepherd
He didn’t stop. He was relentless. He showed me attack after attack, the resistance targeting civilians in cold blood.
My ears rang, a terrible pressure welling in the center of my chest.
I didn’t know what to believe anymore.
I tried to tell myself that all of this was irrelevant. That I knew Alyssa and Annabelle and Captain H’agovan. That I knew they were good people.
My father had an answer for that too.
“The resistance attracts the hopeful and confused. I will admit to you, son, they’ve managed to fool some of our greatest heroes into joining their ranks. But it’s all based on lies. Have you ever stopped to wonder what force is behind the resistance?”
Finally I did it. I spoke. The words cracked from my lips, “what do you mean?”
My father smiled widely. “They are a destabilizing force, son, and who would benefit the most from such a force?” He paused. “The Elogian Factions,” he announced with that same smile spreading his lips.
“… What?”
“You wouldn’t have met the ruling council of the resistance yet, Nathan, but trust me, they are made up almost exclusively of members of the Elogian Factions. They wish to take over the Alliance, not to usher in peace, but to destroy it. Their only interests are economic. They are unhappy with the sanctions the House of Lords and Ladies has placed on them.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Think about it. Who else would be rich enough to fund the resistance? The resistance, from all our reports, are badly trained and fractured. And yet they live on. Somehow they continued to make advances. Why? Because every time they lose ships, somebody replaces them. You’ve been with the resistance, son, surely you have seen it. They are a ragtag bunch. They only continue to exist, because they have powerful backers who replace their toys once they’re broken.”
I didn’t respond.
I swallowed.
“Do me a favor,” he took a step backwards and nodded at a new view screen that floated right in front of my face, “I’m going to give you access to the full Star Forces database. I want you to look up every resistance attack in the past two years, including the attack on the Godspeed.”
My gaze sliced towards him.
“I want you to cross reference them with moves the Elogian Factions have made in the House of Lords and Ladies.” He took another step back. He nodded. Turned. And walked out of the room.
He left me there.
At first I couldn’t move.
Then I jerked backwards, head twisting from side-to-side, looking for a chance to escape.
But there wouldn’t be one. My father wasn’t stupid. He wouldn’t have left any weapons in this room, nor would the consoles allow me any access to the ship.
Reluctantly, my gaze was pulled back to the view screen just in front of my face.
Without me even asking, it started to look up every resistance attack in the last two years. I could pretend that the information being displayed across the screen was all fiction. But I already knew that most of them were indeed legitimate resistance attacks.
Fear punched through my gut. And something else. Shame and disgust.
… This… it couldn’t be happening, could it?
The Elogian Factions were indeed a powerful force in the House of Lords and Ladies. Lady Argoza herself belonged to one of the primary families of the faction.
There’d long been a rumor that the Elogians wanted more power. They believed they deserved it. The families that constituted the factions were each responsible for a fair chunk of the economic power of the Alliance. They believed that with economic power ought to come might. They felt that the rest of the Alliance stifled them and robbed them of their true strength.
If you’d asked me several months ago, I would have said that theory was nothing more than an ill-conceived malicious rumor spread by the other houses to disrupt the Elogians.
Now… now I didn’t know what I believed.
I didn’t know what I believed.
Chapter 14
Alyssa Nightingale
I… had to do something, while I still had the chance.
It was relentless now. Insane. There were more and more battle drones. They sprang from every corner of the room. It was hell keeping track of them.
But my mind never shifted from that possibility. My tongue never drifted away from that pocket of skin.
I could still feel those two capsules.
They were my last hope.
Every now and then Axis laughed. He joked with me, shared stories, treated me like a valued friend. And every now and then, for absolutely no reason, he would electrocute me, sending another powerful jolt of energy snapping through my body until I fell to my face.
Evening the odds, he called it. When I was finally permitted to enter a real battle, he would need to know I was capable of withstanding attacks.
I had no idea how much time passed. With the relentless, frantic pace of the battle, it could have been as little as five minutes and as much as several hours.
My thoughts kept snapping back to Shepherd. Where he was, if he was okay.
And always at the back of my mind I thought of the Ra’xon. Why hadn’t they attacked yet? Had they been discovered?
There was a slight break in the battle. Just a few seconds, long enough for me to catch my breath, then the entire floor began to shift. It jolted from one side to the other. I fell against my hip, hand locking onto the floor as I steadied myself.
That’s when I saw the observation deck shift. The glass window out the front started to part, like curtains unfurling in the wind. A metal gangway extended from it, a massive crackling blue shield encompassing the whole thing.
A man walked out onto the gangway, footfall echoing around my cavernous room.
I heard every step, heard them as if they drummed right into the center of my chest.
My eyes widened as I stared at him. He walked all the way out until he reached the end of the gangway.
There, he stood and stared directly down at me. He was a good 30 meters up.
The shield that encircled the gangway was one of the strongest I’d ever seen. I also noted that he held a device in his hand. Smooth, ceramic white, and just the size of a rock. He held it out and gestured towards it. Then, without warning, he pressed it.
A massive electric jolt snapped through my body, so violent that it knocked the air from my lungs. I was thrown onto my front and twitched, face grinding into the floor.
It took at least 10 seconds before I could pull myself up.
I understood the threat.
“I want to see this next test up close,” Axis remarked as he returned the device to his pocket, one hand still locked over it.
Again, he was too far away for me to see, but I swore he was smiling.
He never stopped smiling when he looked at me.
He gestured forward with a swipe of his hand, and I felt the floor beneath my feet rumble once more.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw more battle drones appear, but I didn’t shift my head towards them. I did not stop looking at Axis, glaring at him, staring at his hand as it was still lodged in his pocket.
I… I wouldn’t allow myself to be controlled by this man. Not again. I’d given myself that promise when I’d escaped the Miracle all those years ago. And that promise still rang true.
I held onto it with all my might.
“You must train hard, Alyssa. With your new implants, you will finally be able to open the wall,” his voice shook on the word wall. It displayed so much emotion, he didn’t sound like himself.
… Wall?
What Wall?
“You will help usher in a new era of development. New weapons, new technology, new tools of peace,” he added, as if it was an afterthought.
What was he talking about?
“Only you can do it, my precious Alyssa.”
He flicked his hand forward, and the battle drones that had been holding position behind me attacked. These ones were far larger than the ones that had come before.
I instinctively felt they had much stronger shields too. It appeared Professor Axis wanted to test me to my limits.
But I didn’t move.
I felt the drones rush up behind me, heard their guns whirr into gear.
But I didn’t move.
Instead I knelt there and faced him. Faced the future he had in store.
I couldn’t be any part of it.
And I couldn’t rely on anyone else to save me.
The Ra’xon still hadn’t attacked, and if Shepherd was still alive, there was clearly nothing he could do for me.
It was up to me.
“Attack, Alyssa,” Axis said, a note of urgency in his tone.
The first drone reached me. It shot at me with an ionizing pulse.
I shifted to the side but did not attack it, and the pulse sliced past my shoulder, tearing through the flesh and sending an arc of blood splattering over the floor.
“Attack,” Axis warned, bringing the device from his pocket and pressing it.
The drone stopped attacking, but my body suddenly pulsed in agony. Again I fell to the floor, face smashing against it.
This time, however, I paid attention to where that pulse came from.
It was somewhere from the top of my arm. Every time Axis attacked me, that electric pulse originated from the exact same position.
I pushed myself to a seated position once more. The drone behind me shifted back into gear, and sprang towards me. But again I did not attack. I shifted to the side as it blasted a shot my way. I barely missed it as it took a chunk out of the sleeve of my tunic.
I heard Axis roar in frustration.
He pressed the button once more, and again a pulse of energy sliced through me, this one even more violent than the last. It ground me down to the floor, as if someone had slammed a boot into the center of my back.
It was up my arm, a couple of inches from my elbow. Whatever was producing the electric shock felt like it was the size of a pea.
I finally located it.
“Alyssa, this is your final warning: fight,” Axis demanded.
“Okay,” I agreed.
I turned to the drone behind me. It slammed towards me, and I saw a charge build up in its primary ion canon.
This time I did not throw myself away; I threw myself forward, twisting my arm to the side and shunting it towards the ion canon.
The shot sliced into my upper arm. It didn’t pull my arm right off – my telekinetic implants were shielded enough that my arms could not be detached.
Still, the blast took a chunk out of the muscle and skin, blood splattering everywhere.
It also gave me the opportunity I needed.
Because now I could see it. That little pea sized device lodged into my upper arm. The blast had dislodged the flesh around it.
Axis screamed at me that this was my last warning.
I did not reply.
Just as he activated that device, I slammed my hand over it and pulled. I activated my telekinetic implant in full and tried to yank it right out of my arm.
It was shielded, protected from attacks just like this. But with a chunk hanging out of my arm and th
e device exposed, I had a chance.
At that exact moment, I slammed my tongue against the top of my mouth and broke the small skin pouch that held the capsules in place.
I felt a jolt of power as they hit my bloodstream.
The device tried to electrocute me, but the sudden jolt of adrenaline hitting my system seemed to counteract the effects.
I pulled.
I pulled.
I pulled.
And it worked.
In a cascade of power, the device was ripped from my arm, a spurt of blood cascading out with it.
I screamed and fell to my knees, blood-soaked hair shifting across my face.
The device had landed a few meters away.
The once yellow sensor lights along the floor, ceiling, and walls flicked to red, a klaxon suddenly blaring from the comms.
The drones behind me tore towards me. This time it was not a test.
I stretched one hand behind me as I stretched one hand in front.
I stopped the drones. There were at least 40 of them now. It didn’t matter.
With my other hand I lifted up the device. With a single thought, I crushed it.
I tilted my head up to see Axis running back along the gangway, coat flaring out behind him as he threw himself towards the observation deck.
He was screaming something.
I was determined not to give him the opportunity to finish his sentence.
I pushed myself up. Whatever the Doc aboard the Ra’xon had put in those capsules, they had almost cut through the effects of my paralysis.
My legs were jerky, but that didn’t matter. I wasn’t planning on walking.
I spread both hands out, arms at right angles. I let the light spill from my implants. Then I lifted off my feet. I rose into the air like a shuttle readying to take off.
The warning alarms blared louder and louder.
I could feel the air being sucked out of the room.
Despite everything, I still had to breathe.
Axis ran so fast, he fell over, foot snagging against the metal grating.
I watched him twist his head.
I had now risen to the same level as him. Though that massive shield still separated us, it wouldn’t for long.
I extended both hands towards it, and ripped through it.
He watched me; for one horror-filled second, his lined and wrinkled face turned up in terror.
The Crucible- The Complete Series Page 44