The Crucible- The Complete Series

by Odette C. Bell

  I watched it with one horrified wide-open eye.

  I gasped again, the move trembling in my chest, every muscle in my ribcage feeling as if it had been replaced by an unsteady hand.

  “What’s happening to me?” I managed, the words cracking from my throat, echoing through the room. “What’s happening to me?”

  I balled up a hand, pressing the fingers hard into my palm as I brought the fist back and struck the wall beside me. The wall shattered; the light from my hand pulsed into it, disrupting every molecule and sending what remained cascading down around me, pooling against my feet.

  Steam and smoke filled the air, whipping around my body as it was caught in the vortex of my ability.

  I took another staggering step forward, clutching one hand to my face, pressing the fingers hard into my brow, my thumb indenting against my ocular ridge, sliding closer to my eyes as I pushed against my eyelids and forced them shut.

  “What’s happening to me?” I screamed again, falling to one knee.

  But I heard them – more soldiers.

  I turned, hair flaring around my face, eyes opening wide, more light leaping across my skin.

  I screamed. That terrifying sound cracking from my throat. Then I pushed myself forward.

  …

  Lieutenant Commander Nathan Shepherd

  “Goddammit, come on!” I screamed, voice punching so loud it felt as if it would tear the lining from my throat.

  There was now so much pressure in my body it didn’t even feel like my own. It felt like I’d withered, like some great gravity well had crushed me into a single point. I was barely aware of my knees as I pushed them hard into the floor, and of my hands as they darted back and forth across the access panel, plucking at wires and the circuits beneath. All I was was pinpoint focus driven on by a wildly beating heart.

  “All crew to evacuate decks 15 through 30. Atmosphere will be vented,” a toneless electronic voice repeated over the comm system.

  My gaze darted up as my head jerked around and I stared at the view screens still in the center of the room. They were displaying warnings, repeating the evacuation message.

  As I brought a trembling hand up and locked it over my mouth, pressing it hard against my teeth, I let another swearword crack from my lips.

  Christ, they were going to kill her, weren’t they? Alyssa. They must’ve failed to contain her, so their plan was to trap her in the middle of the ship and vent the atmosphere. She was a lot of things, but she was still human; she still needed air to live.

  “Fuck!” I bellowed. Then I shifted back, forcing my head to snap around so I could focus on my task.

  That constant pounding drone of the alert klaxon beat in time with my pulsing, vibrating heart. The harmonic resonance of both could have shattered my body and torn through half the ship.

  She was running out of time. I knew she was running out of time. But I couldn’t get out of the goddamn room.

  When it came down to it, I wasn’t just gullible – I was useless.

  She deserved someone better.

  …

  Annabelle Williams

  She was hesitating; the Captain was hesitating. And I didn’t know why.

  She had more experience commanding starships, so maybe she was tapping into something I couldn’t see.

  Every other member of the bridge crew waited, standing or sitting, heads turned towards her, necks stiff.

  The Ra’xon was prepped. All the Captain needed was to give the final word and we would spring from the spatial anomaly and pounce upon the Miracle.

  It wouldn’t be a fair fight; it wouldn’t be a fight at all. We’d just ram her, and the ensuing explosion would take out both ships.

  I tried to let the dread numb my feelings, tried to tell myself that there was no point to the fear. It was good to go out like this. Fitting.

  But my heart would not be reasoned with. It still catapulted around my chest as if it were trying to break free from my ribs.

  I swallowed, the move so tight I could have sucked my teeth from my jaw.

  The Captain took a step forward, her boots ringing against the smooth polished white-silver surface of the floor. She tilted her head back, took a breath. And brought her hand up.

  …

  Alyssa Nightingale

  I wasn’t aware of where I was anymore. The only sensation was the power breaking and tumbling off me, the energy expanding and pulsing, tearing from my fingers, ripping into the room, into anything that strayed into my path.

  My mind was a haze, thoughts little more than a trickle as if someone had dammed them.

  Maybe this was it. Maybe, despite the fact I’d broken free from my prison, I hadn’t actually broken free from Professor Axis’ control. Perhaps he’d already enacted his plan, and this inability to focus – this pounding and ringing in my ears as my body destroyed everything in sight – this was his new toy. This was how he was going to turn me into his ultimate weapon.

  I tried to hold onto that thought but it flitted past me and fell away as the power returned.

  …

  Lieutenant Commander Nathan Shepherd

  Just as I was about to give up, just as I was about to sink to my knees, slam a sweaty palm onto the wall and let it sink down to the floor, it happened. The door beeped.

  I catapulted myself forward, stomach muscles twitching as the door hissed open.

  I didn’t honestly expect anyone to be standing there, but I still pushed forward into a roll, coming up quickly, snapping to my feet.

  I wasn’t wearing my armor anymore; my father had forced me to take it off before he’d left me alone in that room. If I’d been in armor, it would have been easier. With all the chaos tearing through the Miracle, I might have been able to patch myself into the communications system to find out what was going on. It would also give me more of a chance against those elite soldiers.

  But I didn’t have my armor, and I had to push forward.

  Strips of red and yellow lights were arranged in rows along the centerline of the ceiling and along the midline of the walls. They glowed brightly enough that as I sprang forward and locked a hand on the wall for balance, the red pulses bled through my tightly closed fingers.

  I pressed off, pushing into a full run.

  The only way I was going to win this was with the element of surprise.

  I expected to see soldiers, scientists – some form of resistance. I saw nothing. Here and there as I sprinted through those lonely corridors I saw abandoned devices, handheld scanners, even coffee cups, their contents spilled in brown pools over the polished floor. My boots slapped through them as I kept springing forward.

  While I wanted to find Alyssa, I knew my priority had to be disabling the communications system and the engines. I could do both from main engineering. When I was finished, the Ra’xon theoretically would come riding in like the cavalry from old Earth stories.

  Theoretically.

  That word tumbled in my mind, making me feel as if I was in free fall.

  Why hadn’t the Ra’xon attacked already? It had been well over two hours since our mission began. The Captain had agreed to wait half an hour at most. But that time period was well and truly up. So where was she?

  My mind jerked from one thought to another as if the ground beneath me was lurching and giving way.

  They couldn’t have lost already, right?

  Every possibility, the next more horrible than the first, cascaded through my mind, tearing my attention away from the corridor as I flung myself forward.

  From my droning heavy footfall, from my thumping beating heart – I knew I couldn’t allow the desperation to distract me.

  If I had any chance I had to have my wits about me.

  And finally it happened. Finally I came across my first target. I was expecting one of those elite forces soldiers. I didn’t get one. Instead I got a technician standing in the middle of the corridor, back hunched, shoulders rounded, hands jittering as he worked on some kind of
device.

  He turned as he saw me approaching. “We’re meant to be evacuating this area. There’s a chance the subfield generators in this section could blow.”

  “Got it,” I said as I streamed past him.

  The guy clearly thought I was a real member of the crew. I didn’t pause to set him straight. I shifted past him. That’s when I saw him fumbling with something in his pocket. While the technology of the Miracle was beyond me, it was still based on devices I knew. With extreme modifications, yes, but I was familiar enough with the basic design that I recognized what he was holding. It was a site-to-site transporter.

  The tiny device in the guy’s hand wasn’t powerful enough to actually create a transport beam. The Miracle was clearly the most advanced ship in the fleet, but you still needed a massive particle accelerator to crunch a guy’s atoms into data and send them careening through space. Somewhere in the Miracle would be a huge room dedicated to the process of transportation.

  As soon as I saw the device, my eyes lit up, and I acted.

  The guy twisted towards me, about to say something, but I didn’t give him the opportunity. I rounded my hand into a fist and struck it right into his jaw.

  He doubled back, and I followed the move up with another punch right to the side of his head.

  He dropped, eyes rolling back, head lolling to the side as his body fell limp and thumped against my boots.

  I shifted back, pulling my boots free, and immediately lurched down, snatching the device from his hand.

  I brought it up, assessed it for a few short seconds, then realized I could control it.

  I clenched my teeth together and sent out a silent prayer. On most Star Forces ships you required clearance to activate the transport beam. After all, you could do a lot of damage with a wayward matter transference laser.

  I just hoped with all the confusion no one would care when they saw an unregistered member of crew calling for a transport.

  I finished my silent prayer, digging my teeth so far and hard into my lips it was a surprise I didn’t bite through them.

  I activated the device, fingers flying over the controls. I just had the time to screw my eyes shut.

  Fortunately the transport device already had the blueprint of the Miracle loaded into its navigation maps. All I had to do was select the engineering bay and hope for the best.

  Suddenly light spilled around me, slamming into my form. It was almost enough to knock me off my feet. Then the tingling began. The strangest sensation you would ever experience. It felt like you were being torn apart and yet compressed into a point.

  Back in the old days when I’d first transported, I’d screamed every time. I’d opened my mouth and let my terror punch through my lungs in one continuous rattling cry.

  By the time I’d made it to lieutenant commander, I’d suppressed that urge. You had to smooth a blank expression over your face as you were split apart molecule by molecule.

  I tried to concentrate as best as one could as they were being broken apart from the inside.

  Alyssa. Alyssa. I had to get to Alyssa. Don’t ask me how, but I knew I was her last hope.

  …

  Alyssa Nightingale

  I was losing myself completely. Losing myself to the power.

  There was nothing left. No thoughts. No memories. Nothing. Just that gold light as it seeped further and further into my skin, stealing away my mind.

  …

  Lieutenant Commander Nathan Shepherd

  I arrived in main engineering. It was a mess. Chaos. Like a bomb had gone off.

  Technicians and engineers streamed from one side of the cavernous room to the other, barking orders at each other, some of them so shocked they looked as if they were ready to keel over.

  In that split second as I took in the scene I wondered if they knew the extent of the horrors that had been committed on this ship, of the terrible unforgivable things Professor Axis had done in the name of the Star Forces.

  Were they aware of it? Or was it only some faint rumor? Did they conveniently compartmentalize it away, rationalize it as a necessary evil in the struggle for continuous peace?

  I was the son of an admiral, and I’d been brought up to be a soldier. And all soldiers know that peace isn’t earned; it’s bought, often by those who are willing to sacrifice the most.

  So maybe that’s what they thought. The crew streaming around me – maybe they thought they were in a desperate and endless struggle for peace. The horrors being committed on this ship were worth it, because the sacrifice bought unrivalled peace. It brought security. It enabled the citizens of the Alliance to go about their lives with the knowledge their borders were safe and their resources secure.

  Or maybe they just didn’t give a damn, I thought as I finally materialized and jolted forward. A few technicians turned to watch me, but nobody did anything; they were all too consumed by their own tasks.

  I was in civilian clothes, sure, but they would just assume I was a member of the crew who’d been off duty and had been called into the fray after the red alert had blared.

  The only device I had was the transport initiator. As I flung myself at the nearest console, I tried to come up with a plan. Something. Anything to destroy this ship’s communications and shut down the engine. Not destroy, mind you, shut down. I couldn’t induce a critical cascade failure in the quantum cores – it would rip apart the Miracle and would probably render this entire sector as a dead zone.

  I didn’t know if I’d ever felt more tension in my life. Maybe when I’d first commanded the Godspeed, or maybe in my first real battle where I’d had to kill to survive.

  Still, this rigidity, this pressure, this goddamn responsibility was unlike anything I’d ever felt.

  “Hey, what are you doing over there?” someone asked as they shifted towards me.

  I jerked back, head twisting around as I faced him. “Checking the subfield containment on level 18. I just transported from there. We are worried about a breach,” I spat.

  The guy was so harassed looking that he shrugged. “Try the console over there,” he suggested, pointing to one a few meters by my side.

  “Thanks,” I stammered and waited for him to turn and rush away.

  I was playing a dangerous game here. All it would take was for one suspicious engineer to check my bio scans against the Miracle’s central database, and they’d realize I wasn’t a member of the crew at all. Or maybe I’d really run out of luck, and my father would swan in.

  Then again, I doubted he’d be anywhere near the action. He’d be safely ensconced on the bridge or maybe he’d already jettisoned in an escape pod.

  He wasn’t a coward. Far from it. I’d seen him face down death on multiple occasions. He seemed to get a kick out of impending destruction. But he also knew his worth to the Star Forces. And as he’d told me 1000 times before, a good soldier was a resource, but a great leader was irreplaceable. Great leaders, after all, won wars.

  I was no goddamn engineer. A fact that was rammed home as I tried to access the primary communications panel. I didn’t have the access privileges to do any damage. The original plan had been that both I and Alyssa would shut down the engines together with her telekinetic abilities. She would be able to tear through engineering like a hurricane. But she wasn’t here, and wherever she was, she needed my help. So I had to do something. Anything.

  “She’s on the move again,” someone screeched from my side. “She’s tearing through the structural supports of deck 15.”

  “We need to keep her on deck 15,” an ensign roared as she snapped her head to the left, checking on a panel beside her. “There’s primary life support on decks 10 through 13. We can’t let her destabilize the system.”

  “Hey you.” A guy who looked like he could be the Chief Engineer suddenly shifted on his boot and turned to me. “Who the hell are you?” His brow crumpled in suspicion.

  “I’m a transfer from the dig site,” I said. “I’m helping on the analysis of the archae
ological find.”

  At first he did nothing, then he twisted his head back to the floating view screen before him. “You got any engineering experience?” he snapped.

  “Yes,” I lied.

  “Good. Grab a level X Mech suit from the supply room.” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder and pointed towards the left.

  “Got it,” I snapped.

  “She’s trying to tear through the primary energy redistribution grid. If we don’t stop her, she’s going to cause a catastrophic meltdown in the cores, and we could lose the whole goddamn ship,” the Chief Engineer snapped. “Now move.”

  I shifted on my foot and ran in the direction he pointed.

  I made it to the store room. It was huge, down on a split-level. Every device you could think of was lined up along the walls. Mech suits ranging from the simple stuff you used to fix hull plating, to the truly sophisticated mechanized armor suits that were used to dredge out quantum cores.

  I quickly ascertained where the level X suits were, ran up to the technician in charge, and told him the Chief Engineer had ordered me to grab one.

  The guy didn’t ask a single question. I could see the fear swelling in his eyes, tightening every feature, shunting down into his neck and making every move jerky like a live wire snapping to and fro.

  I sprinted to the right suit and jumped inside, instantly letting out a hiss of relief.

  The chaos had turned to my advantage. Nobody had the wherewithal to check who I was. And now I was in this suit, I could finally do something.

  I let my hand settle over the primary controls. My eyes closed, and I clenched my teeth.

  It was time to end this.

  …

  Annabelle Williams

  “Captain,” I asked with a trembling voice as I turned in my seat to face her. “We—” I began. Then I stopped; there was a sudden rapid beeping from the sensor panel to my side. I virtually threw myself off my seat as my fingers darted across the console and I accessed the information.

  “What is it?” the Captain snapped, voice reverberating around the bridge. “What is it?” she repeated when I didn’t answer within a nanosecond.