His tone almost had an effect on me. Almost.
I tried to shift around him to get a better look at the wall once more.
He wouldn’t let me.
He held onto my arm, not enough to hurt me, but firmly enough to warn me that he had no intention of letting go.
“I should never have let you come down here,” he mumbled under his breath, “this was a mistake. You aren’t ready.”
“I’m fine.”
He ignored me as he ticked his head to the side, no doubt accessing the suit’s comms system.
“Shepherd, I’m fine. Just let me go.”
“I should have listened to my father,” he suddenly muttered.
“… What?”
He looked at me sharply. I could tell from the wary quality of his gaze he was trying to figure out whether to share something with me.
That gaze was the only thing that could distract me from the wall. “What is it? What aren’t you telling me?”
“I thought he was just saying anything to manipulate me… now I’m not so sure.” He half jerked his head to the side, gaze darting to the left for a nano second. He shivered again.
“What?”
“My father said your implants come from the same technology that wall does.”
“What?”
“Apparently some race called the Forgotten built that wall, and they built the very same technology Axis adapted to create telekinetic warriors. I didn’t want to scare you, because I thought he was joking. But now I’m not so sure.”
“That’s impossible,” I forced the words out, but it was hard; my voice was weak, far off, small.
No… it was impossible right?
“Alyssa, right now I’m starting to realize nothing is impossible. Now we’re going back to the med bay.”
“Shepherd, no.” I tried to pull my arm back. In reality, I could have pushed him away easily. All it would have taken was one thought, and I could have sent him spiraling into the wall.
I wouldn’t do that to him, though. Not to him.
“Alyssa,” he dipped his head down until our helmets almost met, “I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
I was readying a reply, but suddenly I stopped. My goddamn heart gave a shudder. I swear it did. A pressure spread through my chest as a distinct tightness formed around my eyes.
I almost wanted to cry.
It wasn’t just his words – and the implication he cared for me – it was the way he said it. The look he gave me.
“Please,” he added. There was a real note of fragility to his voice.
“I… okay.” I didn’t want to agree. Or at least my body didn’t want to. It felt as if every cell was being drawn forward.
But something stopped me. That look and the promise behind it.
With his hand still on my arm, he twisted me around and led me forward.
My head jerked around to stare at the wall. I couldn’t stop myself.
He ducked in beside me until all I could see was his chest and arm. “I’ll be okay,” he promised in a low tone that somehow reverberated down his hand and into his arm.
I looked at his hand, then slowly up to his face. “Promise?”
He let out a short frustrated chuckle. Then he met my gaze again. It was almost electric. “Promise.”
I let him lead me away from that wall. If it had been anyone else, I wouldn’t have gone. I wouldn’t have let a goddamn heavy cruiser pull me away.
There was something so compelling about that glistening grey-white metal. It felt alive in the strangest way possible.
Alive and watching me.
Chapter 8
Anabelle Williams
I didn’t want to go down to the dig site. And I have no idea why not.
My stomach churned, and I kept patting at it invectively with the cumbersome glove of my EV suit.
I was walking with a security team. Ever since Shepherd had radioed in with his eerie report about creatures, every recon team had beefed up their security.
Maybe that was it, I told myself as I swallowed hard. It was just fear keeping me from that crater. Nothing else.
And as a competent well-trained officer in the Star Forces, I’d been trained to modulate my fear and at times push it away completely.
I drove a breath hard through my chest.
It didn’t work. That unsettling feeling still sank deep into the center of my stomach, as if someone were trying to core me like an apple.
I swallowed hard, even bringing up a hand and pressing it flat against my throat.
I’d been taught to never follow your gut instincts, not without a good dash of reason.
Reason was telling me there was nothing wrong, but my gut instincts were going wild.
With every new step I took towards the crater and the dig site within, I felt… I felt as if they would be my last.
I was walking towards Hell itself.
…
Alyssa Nightingale
It didn’t take long to reach the Ra’xon.
The trip up in our shuttle was short.
Shepherd watched over me the whole way. Every five seconds he’d turn around in the pilot seat to check on me.
I understood why.
Something… had happened to me down on that moon. I couldn’t describe it. Now I was far enough away from that wall, I could feel what it had done to me. How it had compelled me. It was as if it had reached into my mind and controlled my very limbs.
I shivered again.
We arrived in the hangar bay, and Shepherd jerked his head towards me. “You okay?”
“Fine,” I managed.
He shot me the kind of look that told me he didn’t believe a word I said. “I’m taking you to the med bay, now.”
I could have fought him; there was no point.
I may have had the power of telekinesis at my fingertips, but Lieutenant Commander Nathan Shepherd had something else. Something far more powerful. Single-minded determination. If he had implants, he’d be a force of nature.
I watched Shepherd check something on his wrist device as he strode next to me.
“You’re checking on the dig site, aren’t you?” I prompted him.
He nodded, eyes still locked on his device.
“What’s happening down there?” My stomach suddenly lurched, and my tone became fragile.
That got his attention. He assessed me quickly. “How are your implants?”
“They’re fine, Shepherd. But what’s happening down on that moon?” Again, I couldn’t control my tone. It pitched up and down like a broken recording.
“Nothing much. They’re trying to assess that… wall,” he picked over his words carefully, tone dropping as if he was deliberately whispering so I couldn’t hear him.
Maybe he thought that at the mere mention of the wall I would lose my mind again.
I sighed. “I’m okay now. Promise. I… don’t exactly know what happened down there, though,” I admitted.
“So something did happen to you, then?”
I forced myself to nod. I brought my hands up and looked at them, turning them over as I assessed them in full. “I have no idea what it was. It was… that wall….” I shuddered.
“I’m going to get the Doc to check you out,” he said forcefully.
“Then what? You’re not going to go back down there, are you?” Real fear punched through my voice.
Shepherd seemed to notice. He narrowed his eyes. “I should be leading the mission.”
“And I took you away from your duty.” I fidgeted with my hands.
“No.”
“You’d still be down there if it weren’t for me… freaking out.” I lowered my gaze, dropping it to the floor.
“Don’t think like that, Alyssa. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to ensure your safety.”
At first, it was as if he wasn’t aware of what he’d said. He kept facing forward, gaze drifting back to his wrist device every few seconds.
My heart stopped. I
felt it ground to a halt in my chest.
Then he jerked his head back, blinked, and his cheeks reddened.
My heart was catapulted into action, as if someone had jolted it with an electric shock.
He cleared his throat, fumbled with his short hair, wiped his hands on his pants, and shook his head. “I didn’t… mean to suggest…. never mind.”
I couldn’t help but smile, when he wasn’t looking, of course.
We arrived at the med bay. It was far less crowded than it had been before our mission. The medical staff had successfully managed to clear up most of their patients. Only a few critical cases were left.
The CMO looked up as we entered. She frowned as her gaze darted towards me. “What’s wrong?”
“That’s what I would like to know,” Shepherd admitted through a sigh. “Something… happened to Alyssa down on that moon.”
“What?” the CMO asked immediately.
Now I was in the position of having to explain myself, I had no idea what to say. It wasn’t as if I’d been attacked down there, it wasn’t as if my implants had suddenly reacted to something.
Nothing had really happened, nothing tangible, anyway. Just that compulsion.
I shivered again.
It caught Shepherd’s attention immediately. He flicked his gaze from me back to the CMO. “I need you to do what you can,” he stated in a clear, commanding tone.
The CMO reached beside her, plucked up the medical scanner, and turned it on as she walked towards me.
I felt awkward standing there beside Shepherd while the CMO worked.
Which was new. I’d felt a lot of different sensations and emotions over the past few years, but rarely had I been provided the opportunity to feel awkward. Embarrassment didn’t come easily when you were desperately fleeing for your life.
After a few short minutes the CMO shook her head, stepped back, and shrugged. “She seems fine to me. I’m not picking up anything unusual.”
Shepherd sighed, his frustration clear as he brought a hand up and scratched his nails into the back of his head before tapping that same hand hard into his thigh. “There has to be something we’re not picking up.”
“It’s a possibility, considering I’m unfamiliar with the technology behind her implants. Still, there certainly doesn’t seem to be any immediate danger to Alyssa’s life. Are you feeling any pain?” She switched her attention to me. “Headaches? Nausea? Dizziness? Weakness?”
“I’ve still got a slight headache, but to be honest, it’s better than it was before.”
The CMO nodded and returned her gaze to Shepherd. “I know you don’t want to hear this, Lieutenant Commander, but there’s nothing more I can do.”
Shepherd actually swore under his breath. Though he was no longer in the Star Forces, and the resistance didn’t require the same stringent level of decorum, it was an unusual move for him.
It hinted at how frustrating this situation was for him.
“Doc,” he suddenly said, a pale kind of look washing over his features, “can you tell what kind of technology her implants are? I mean, what they are based on?”
The CMO frowned. “I already said I’m unfamiliar with its design.”
“No, I don’t mean the design; I mean the basic infrastructure. Is it similar to other devices in the Star Forces arsenal?”
The CMO paused, appearing to think. “It would be hard to give you a definitive answer without access to accurate scans.”
“What’s your gut feeling?” Shepherd practically spoke over the top of her.
“That this technology is new. Different. I’ve certainly never seen anything like it in the databases.”
“So you don’t think it’s Star Forces?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“So it is based on Star Forces technology?”
“Where are you going with this, Lieutenant Commander?”
“I want you to tell me if her implants,” he lowered his tone and shifted his shoulder to the side as if he didn’t want me to hear him, “have any similarities with the technology we found down on that moon.”
The CMO looked startled, her eyebrows rising high above her short fringe. “Why would you suspect that?”
“I just want an answer. Our recon team down at the dig site have already sent the Ra’xon preliminary scans. Is there any way to cross reference the readings they picked up with Alyssa’s implants?”
I thought the CMO would shake her head, but she didn’t. Instead she let out a long, exasperated sigh. “I have other work to do, you know?”
“Trust me, Doc, this is extremely important,” Shepherd’s tone reverberated with undeniable gravitas.
It had the desired effect on the CMO. She offered a short nod, gave a sigh, plucked up her scanner, and frowned as she typed something into it. “Alyssa, take a seat. This shouldn’t take too long.”
I watched Shepherd take a much-needed deep breath. So much tension had built along his shoulders and high into his jaw it looked as if he’d compress into a single point.
He waited by my side the entire time. Even though I knew he was eager to get back down to the moon, he still stayed beside me.
That meant something, didn’t it?
This wasn’t just the Lieutenant Commander looking out for his crew.
This was….
He suddenly turned to me, a comforting smile spreading across his lips as he ticked his head to the side. “How are you holding up?”
“Fine.” I tucked my hair behind my ears and searched for something to say. Something appropriate. Suddenly my mind was blank. All I could think of saying were things that were completely inappropriate given that the CMO was a few meters away and well within earshot.
I wanted to tell Shepherd… that I was starting to fall for him. Or maybe I’d never started to fall for him – maybe since the day I’d met him I’d felt something for the guy.
Sure, he was handsome, but I didn’t really go in for looks. It was… it was the fact he’d never left me behind. So many people had. So many people had dismissed me. Shepherd hadn’t. He’d figured out something was wrong the day he’d met me, and since then, he’d never left my side.
I felt myself blush, cheeks reddening as my heart beat harder and harder.
“You okay?” The CMO suddenly looked up sharply. “I’m registering—”
“I’m fine,” I cleared my throat quickly. “I’m just thinking about things I shouldn’t.”
The CMO gave me a grim nod. She took that to mean I was remembering my trauma aboard the Miracle.
I was serious – I was thinking about things I shouldn’t. Why bother entertaining feelings for Shepherd? They would never come to anything. There would never be time. Plus, who would trust me? Trust me enough for intimacy? I couldn’t even trust myself. I had no idea when I’d have another episode, when I’d run out of compound 78, when I’d freak out about my new implants again.
I let out a heavy sigh, eyes closing as I wrapped one arm around my middle.
I heard him shift, boots squeaking slightly over the polished floor.
A second later I opened my eyes to see he was right by the bed beside me.
He looked into my eyes. “We’ll figure this out. Promise.”
I couldn’t help but smile. Even though I’d just convinced myself nothing could happen between us, I couldn’t stop my lips from springing into action.
There was something about him.
There was just something about him.
“This doesn’t make sense,” the CMO suddenly interrupted.
We both switched our attention back to her.
“What?” he asked quickly.
“I…” she trailed off.
“What is it?” Shepherd shifted forward, taking several short sharp steps until he stood beside the CMO and stared down at the medical scanner in her hand. “What are we looking at?”
“Evidence that you’re right,” she said through a startled breath.
“What?”
“There are similarities between the implants Alyssa carries and that wall down there,” the CMO couldn’t control her tone. It pitched. Shook. Clear worry filtering between every word.
I watched Shepherd pale. From the top of his brow down to his strong jaw, his skin became as white as powdered snow. “Are you sure?”
“Like I said, I can’t be sure until we gain full scans of her implants. But my initial investigation has found a strong link. That wall down there possesses a remarkable ability to heal; Alyssa’s implants possess that same ability.”
Shepherd took a jerked step back.
I pushed myself off the medical bed, taking a wary step towards him.
He didn’t swivel his gaze towards me until I reached his side.
A punch of nerves slammed into my gut. “What does this mean?” I asked him rather than the CMO. I couldn’t tear my gaze off him.
“I have no idea,” the CMO replied.
“Alyssa, I want you to tell me exactly what happened to you down in that crater.” Shepherd fixed me in his laser-like gaze, making it impossible to turn away. “Don’t leave any details out – tell me everything.”
I took a breath. “It terrified me. But at the same time… I don’t know.” I brought a hand up and massaged my temple with stiff fingers.
“What?”
“I don’t know. It compelled me. It was like it was drawing me forward. I wasn’t really aware of anything else anymore. Academically I knew you were right there and you were talking to me, but I could barely hear you. All I wanted to do was reach out and touch it,” the words came tumbling out. There was no reason to keep that secret any more.
I watched Shepherd give the CMO a frightened look.
Then he took a jerked step back. He brought a hand up and tapped his command PIP. “Captain, do we have any telekinetic warriors down at the dig site?”
“Yes. Williams. Why do you ask?” the Captain’s voice filtered over the audio system of Shepherd’s PIP.
“Recall her. Now.” It wasn’t usual for a lieutenant commander to order a captain around, but no one would be able to deny the tension running through Shepherd’s tone.
“Very well. I will send a message now.”
Several seconds passed.
I watched Shepherd, watched him struggle to take a breath, his chest barely capable of expanding as his muscles locked it in place.
The Crucible- The Complete Series Page 54