The Crucible- The Complete Series

by Odette C. Bell

  Then he shifted backwards and threw himself towards the observation room.

  It was still open.

  I landed on the end of the gangway, just as they tried to retract it.

  I slammed one hand into the metal railing behind me, and held it in place, whatever apparatus was responsible for shifting it suddenly groaning so loudly the noise split the air.

  I stalked forward.

  Someone tried to shoot at me from inside the observation deck. I brought my arm up and slammed it into the bullet, knocking it away as if it were nothing more troublesome than a badly thrown ball.

  I continued to stalk forward, hair fluttering around me, caught in the power of the energy streaming off my implants.

  I finally reached the end of the gangway and walked into the observation deck.

  Several elite forces soldiers opened fire on me. Without a thought, I pinned them against the far wall.

  I turned to see Axis disappear in a cascade of energy.

  I extended a hand towards him, trying to stop the transport beam, but it was too late.

  He disappeared.

  I stood there and considered accessing the computer to find out where he’d transported to. I would follow him there, and I would finally end this.

  But… I didn’t have the time.

  I had to disable the Miracle’s communications and engine.

  I hadn’t forgot my mission.

  Revenge could wait.

  …

  Annabelle Williams

  Everyone on the bridge turned to face the Captain.

  Too much time had passed. It had been well over two hours.

  Her demeanor was different now. I wouldn’t say that that was fear shifting in her gaze. I wouldn’t say she was scared. But there was something. Something strong enough that she slowly rose to her feet.

  All eyes were on her as she stared at the view screen.

  Seconds passed, the silence eerie, only broken by the soft beep of consoles and equipment.

  “Our time is up,” she said simply.

  Nobody asked any questions. We knew what we had to do.

  …

  Lieutenant Commander Nathan Shepherd

  I didn’t know what to believe.

  I didn’t know what to believe.

  The evidence that Elogian Factions were behind the resistance seemed irrefutable. I wanted to pretend that this was just some fiction my father had carefully created, but it made too much sense. He was right. The resistance were too ragtag. Other than a few notable members, they were too desperate to carry off the victories they’d claimed.

  Unless they had help.

  While one part of me accepted that fact, the other pushed it away violently.

  I knew my friends, I knew I could trust them. And despite everything, Alyssa was still on this ship. She’d still undergone unspeakable torture at the hands of Professor Axis.

  I still had to get to her.

  But… but it seemed there was nothing I could do.

  If this information was correct, and the Elogians really were behind the resistance, there was nowhere to run, no one to turn to.

  And maybe that’s the real reason my father had revealed the secret to me. Not to prove that the Star Forces weren’t monsters, but to prove there was no escape, for even the resistance were just as corrupt.

  I paled as I stood there, feeling colder than the depths of space.

  Then it happened.

  A red alert.

  It split through the ship.

  Seconds later, a powerful vibration shook through the floor too. I had to clutch a hand on the edge of the table beside me to steady myself.

  “What the hell is going on?” I asked out loud.

  There was no one to answer. Just the blare of the ship’s alert.

  Suddenly fear lanced into me.

  It was the Ra’xon. It had to be the Ra’xon. They were finally enacting their suicide mission.

  My life flashed before my eyes, a continuous stream of memories that were hardly discernible from one another.

  My heart stopped in my chest, my breath froze in my throat.

  And I waited.

  And waited.

  The red alert klaxon still blared, the lights in the room dimming, but that was it. Seconds passed into minutes, but that was it.

  Had the Miracle already fended off the Ra’xon’s attack?

  A second later, I got my answer.

  “All security personnel to deck 25. Subject Omega has broken containment.”

  Alyssa. It had to be Alyssa. I was sure of it.

  With a smile exploding over my face, I turned hard on my foot and headed for the door.

  Maybe there was nothing I could do from inside this room, but that didn’t matter. I’d look for an opportunity and I would take it.

  …

  Annabelle Williams

  The Ra’xon still hadn’t revealed itself. The bridge crew waited on bated breath as the Captain stood ramrod straight in the middle of the room.

  “… Captain?” I hazarded.

  “One more minute,” she said through clenched teeth. “We’ll give them one more minute.”

  …

  Alyssa Nightingale

  The Miracle sent Hell to meet me. Every soldier, every drone. I ignored them.

  They tried to pump the atmosphere out of the hallway. I ignored them. Instead I punched my way right through the wall. Then another, then another.

  Even if the Ra’xon couldn’t help me, I was determined to pull down the Miracle. Every wall, every goddamn piece of hull plating.

  I was going to destroy this monstrosity.

  As that thought pounded through my heart, another came hot on its heels.

  Shepherd.

  If he was still alive, I was going to find him, and we were going to escape.

  That was a promise.

  I took another step forward, light cascading all around me, hair whipping around my face. I narrowed my eyes and I continued.

  Thank you for reading Episode Three.

  Episode Four

  At Dawn

  Chapter One

  Annabelle Williams

  The tension on the bridge was unbelievable. It lapped at me, clawed at me like knives sinking deep into flesh and renting muscle from bone.

  The Captain stood ramrod straight, her hands clasped behind her back, her shoulders pushing forward. Her eyes virtually bulged as she stared at the main view screen.

  We waited for her to give the next order, to begin the attack.

  “Prepare,” she said.

  I twisted, heart sinking. But even though a sense of dread welled from within me, the knowledge that this was the right thing to do quickly took its place.

  If I had to go down, I was going to go down fighting against Professor Axis. I was going to ensure nobody else fell to him.

  So I turned and lifted my head, eyes locking on the Miracle.

  …

  Lieutenant Commander Nathan Shepherd

  I threw myself at the door. I was trying to pry my way through an access panel. I had good training when it came to incursion techniques, but this was beyond me. The Miracle possessed a level of technology I hadn’t ever seen.

  And yet did I give up? No, I couldn’t.

  The red alert klaxon still blared all around me. Strangely enough they hadn’t turned off the whirring alarm. Usually after a few ear-pounding minutes, the actual sound was switched off; it was too distracting. And when you were in the middle of a disaster, you rarely forgot about it.

  They hadn’t turned off the klaxon, which meant one thing: whatever was out there was a top level alert that kept threatening new sections of the ship.

  Alyssa. It had to be Alyssa.

  As I thought of her name – as the memory of her filled my mind – I threw myself into my task, hands a blur as I tried to manipulate the controls. My sweaty fingers caught against the loose wires, my nails trailing down the insulated sheaths and clasping the loose end
s. Sweat slicked my brow, a few rivulets sinking into my eyes and stinging me.

  I blinked, bringing up the back of a hand and swiping it across my face. Then I shifted my gaze back to the wires.

  This had to work.

  …

  Alyssa Nightingale

  Chaos. Chaos was around me. And not just around me – inside me, too. As the new power of my implants tore through my body – shifting into my hands, pulsing into my fingers, and sending spasms of light bursting across the room – an energy filled my mind. Erratic, pounding, as if someone had taken a hammer to my grey matter.

  Maybe it was just the surge of power, or maybe it was something else. I didn’t have the time to stop and tell. Instead I focused on knocking my way through every wall.

  As I tore one down, another would stand behind it. I was like a dog madly digging in dirt or a child pushing through sand in a pit.

  The walls were sturdy and magnetically reinforced. But they were nothing to me. Nothing more than thin sheets of paper that could be blown down with a mere flick of my hand.

  As I twisted on my foot and changed direction, I saw yet another team of black-armored elite forces soldiers. They tried to fight me, tried to use weapons I’d never even seen. Guns that appeared to shoot electric balls that expanded into shields. Drones that zipped past me, travelling at speeds akin to speeding bullets.

  It didn’t matter. This power – this power that now pulsed through me, that now engorged my heart, that swelled through my body like a balloon expanding in every cell – it couldn’t be quenched.

  That thought sank deep into my mind as that energy rang louder and louder between my ears. It was as if a bell had been lodged right in the center of my skull and someone was tolling it with all their might.

  I didn’t walk, even though the effects of Axis’ drug had now worn off. Instead I floated. I didn’t need to hold one hand out, palm steady and flat as it faced the floor and kept me aloft. Instead I simply shifted forward, legs limp underneath me as I floated in a cloud of my own power, arms springing back and forth as I fought.

  My telekinetic energy now surrounded me. It was so bright it made everything else pale in comparison. It was like the rest of reality – from the cold grey walls to the matte black armored faces of the soldiers – everything else was washed out and dull in comparison. The only thing that mattered was the light.

  I tried to hold onto a scrap of reason as I flung myself towards the center of the ship and the quantum cores. I still knew what I had to do: I had a tiny window of opportunity to disrupt the Miracle’s communications systems and disable her engines so the Ra’xon could sweep in and save the day. But the sensation of this raw power was too much – it almost overcame me.

  I was only barely capable of holding onto that final scrap of reason. And it was him – Nathan Shepherd was the reason I could grasp it and keep it close. He was still onboard, and I was determined to find him. And if they’d killed him… if they’d killed him….

  A terrifying shiver crossed through my form as I considered that possibility. It reacted with my power, and a sudden burst of light exploded over my hands, shattering the wall before me, causing every single molecule to split apart. A wave of heat and noise slammed out from it, travelling in every direction. There had been two elite soldiers behind me, and the shock wave struck them, throwing them so hard into the floor that they dented it with all the impact of a meteorite striking the earth.

  I…I had to control myself. But the mission was more important. Even if I tore my mind apart and this power completely consumed the remaining scraps of my sanity, it wouldn’t matter as long as I tore down the Miracle and ensured Axis would never do this to anyone else again.

  Axis.

  The thought of him swelled in my mind. It was like a spark to gas. It flared, expanding through my consciousness, sweeping away every other thought as revenge took its place.

  In the initial stages of my training, when I’d first been fitted with my implants, I’d experienced moments like this. When the sheer strength of my implants overcame me. They swept away my sanity, pushing away any rational thought and replacing it with a heady force.

  I heard sudden movement from beside me. A contingent of elite forces soldiers were readying to breach the door to the room I was currently in.

  My head jerked towards the door, hair still flaring around my face, fringe caught in eddies of power, every strand crackling with yellow-gold light.

  I brought my hands forward and collapsed my fingers into my palms. More power rushed down my arms.

  Suddenly I saw myself – just a reflection on the polished metal panel to my side. My face, my eyes – everything was covered in that power. I was… I wasn’t me anymore. I was like a vision from a dream – half-woman, half-fire. And my expression… oh god, it was so cold, so full of anger, so full of hatred. You couldn’t see my eyes; they were just two balls of glowing light. My lips were twisted up high into my cheeks, my teeth thin strips of glinting white as my nose crinkled hard into my brow.

  No, I thought as I stared at myself, no that couldn’t be me. This couldn’t be me.

  But it was.

  …

  Lieutenant Commander Nathan Shepherd

  “Come on, you bastard,” I screamed as a balled up a hand and struck it against the side of the panel. I wasn’t so carried away by anger that I struck the circuits I was working on, but I was close. The despair was starting to wind its way around my gut like wire. So much tension pooled in my stomach it felt like I would explode.

  I clenched my teeth so hard my neck became locked at a strange angle, every muscle so tight they could have shattered my spine and jaw.

  Don’t ask me how, but I knew Alyssa was in trouble. It wasn’t just that frantic continuous red alert blaring through the ship, the pitch of the alarm so violent it shook through my knees and feet. It was… something, some kind of warning shifting in my heart, telling me I had to get to her.

  As I tried to rewire the access panel, swearing every second as more and more frustration poured through me, I thought about it. What I’d learnt. I thought about it, because I couldn’t push it away. Even at a time like this, what my father had told me, what he’d shown me – that footage – I could see it flashing in my mind. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw those transports exploding one after another as they were torn apart by the resistance.

  I felt sick, truly sick. It was the only feeling I could comprehend other than the desperation that tore and ripped through my chest like shrapnel exploding from my heart.

  My father was right, wasn’t he? At the end of the day, despite everything I’d done, despite everything I’d achieved, I was still naïve. And that was my undoing. I was too gullible. I trusted people. I went with my feelings, not with reason. And that’s what got me into situations like this.

  I wanted to hold onto the fact I could at least trust Alyssa and most of the crew aboard the Ra’xon. And maybe I could. But I had to face facts: it was extremely likely that the Elogian Factions were behind the resistance. Which meant the cause, in all its scope, was a lie. The hope that we could one day destroy the Star Forces and build a new peace in their ashes was a lie. It was a goddamn lie.

  Helping the resistance, and the Elogian Factions behind it, would only serve the interests of the economically strong.

  More and more sweat slicked down my brow. I could feel it pool between my fingers, too. With one hand I continued to pry and pluck at the wires, forcing them together, hoping that this time I would chance upon the correct combination to open the doors. With my other hand I tried but failed to wipe the sweat away for good.

  I clutched my hand into an angry fist, driving my fingers into the palm until my nails scraped across the skin.

  “Come on, you bastard,” I said once more, voice rattling through the room, tone pitching high, matching the continuous shriek of the alarm system. “Come on, you bastard,” I repeated once more. “I’m running out of time.”

  … />
  Alyssa Nightingale

  I… I was starting to lose track of myself. I knew where I was, knew I was still on the Miracle. And my mission filled my heart and mind. But everything else, every sensation, every memory, was starting to slip away from me like a long forgotten dream.

  The light still coursed over me, exploding over every centimeter of my flesh, leaping high into the air like flames engorged on fuel.

  That ringing in my mind was more like a pounding now. A droning that chased away every thought.

  I was barely aware of what I was doing as another team of soldiers exploded around a corner, guns held high, battle drones streaming around them like wisps of cloud thrown forward by a surging gale.

  I had to restrain myself. My power wanted to reach out and destroy them, rip them body from armor, flesh from bone, molecule from molecule.

  Just as I punched a hand forward, the move so violent my shoulder shuddered hard down into my ribs, I tried to restrain myself. The power leaped up over my fingers, a ball of yellow light erupting from my hand. But then I gasped. I realized what I was about to do and drew the arm back. I let it fall slack at my side as that ringing became louder and louder. It wouldn’t stop. It wouldn’t stop.

  The soldiers darted back and forth, shooting at me, erecting containment fields.

  With one hand I slapped them away. It was so terrifyingly easy.

  I couldn’t keep track of them anymore, couldn’t tell the difference from the boneless, soulless, bloodless walls and the beating hearts of the men before me.

  I wasn’t a murderer, wasn’t a killer. Despite what Professor Axis had taught me to do, I would never become his complete battle system, his mindless toy.

  I wouldn’t, so what was I doing? What was happening to me?

  I staggered back, for the first time falling onto my feet, suddenly incapable of floating.

  I staggered, my knees threatening to buckle. My body tilted to the side, and I fell against the wall beside me. I pushed one hand against it to steady myself, but the power cascading off my fingers sunk into the metal, melting it. Streams of molten titanium trickled between my fingers, but the power kept me safe, stopping the superheated substance from burning my skin and scraping it free from my bones.