The Crucible- The Complete Series

by Odette C. Bell

  She just believed what she said. Which was worse.

  I shook my head and took a sharp step backwards. “I’ve been listening to these arguments my whole life,” I said through gritted teeth. “You call my father a monster, but have no idea how close you’ve become to him. You’re on the other side of the fence, sure, but you utilize the same tactics and repeat the same arguments.”

  She looked as if she’d been slapped.

  She took a shuddering step back, cheeks paling even further. “How could you say that? The Star Forces are monsters. Look at what they’ve done. Look at what they’ve done,” her voice teetered high. “All the secrets, all the pain. All the people they’ve killed and swept under the carpet. They’ve been controlling this galaxy with an iron fist for centuries. If we can shrug off their yoke, we must. If that means being strategic now, then so be it. Because, Nathan, can’t you see? That's the only way to ensure peace.”

  “Listen to yourself. You care more about defeating the Star Forces than you do about the Forgotten. Like they’re a goddamn side note to you. They are tearing through the Milky Way,” I said in a staccato voice, emphasizing every single word with a hard huff of breath. “People are dying. They are dying, Argoza. One after another. Maybe you’re right, and the strategic thing to do would be to measure our assistance. But that’s also the wrong thing to do. It’s a risk we can’t take. Because if we measure our response now, in all likelihood we will die. And if you are willing to risk the galaxy,” again I slowed down every word, letting them punch out of my throat like bullets from a gun, “then let me tell you now, you don’t have the right to make that call. You don’t have the right to risk the whole galaxy. And if you can’t see that, then stay here.”

  Again I tried to turn from her. She wouldn’t let me. “Nathan, don’t, don’t walk away. Just… stay. I.…” She broke eye contact and stared at the floor, her eyes widening, “I understand your point. And I’m sorry. I was out of line back there.”

  Part of me wanted the fight to continue. The indignant rage that had billowed in my gut couldn’t easily be quelled.

  But here she was, apparently giving in.

  I stared at her suspiciously for a few seconds, giving her the opportunity to suddenly change her mind and revert to her old view. When she didn’t, I looked at her askance.

  “Nathan, I’m sorry,” she said entreatingly, clasping her hands in front of herself and giving a low respectful nod. “I guess… I guess you’re right. In this final hour we can’t hold back, even if it means we will lose the next battle with the Star Forces.”

  “… You’re assuming the Star Forces will be in any shape whatsoever to fight once we’ve destroyed the Forgotten.”

  “Perhaps you’re right.” She darted her gaze up to me once more, her flattering stunning stare locked on my face. “I’m sorry I didn’t trust you.”

  Her turn around an opinion seemed too good to be true. Minutes ago she was passionately arguing for abandoning my father to the pirates.

  Now. Now I couldn’t deny the look of sorrow in her gaze.

  I brought a hand up and wiped it across my brow. “Are you sure? Are you sure you’re happy to sacrifice whatever it takes no matter what that does to our ultimate position once the war ends? If the war ends,” I couldn’t stop myself from adding in a hurried breath.

  With her hands still clasped in front of herself, she nodded demurely. “I have seen the error of my ways. You have convinced me. I will continue to negotiate with the pirates, however you have my word that I will not sacrifice anything we are not willing to give. I will attempt to convince them based only on the merits of this cause. Just… trust me, Shepherd. That’s all I ask.”

  I stared at her, incapable of looking away.

  With another low demure nod, she shifted on her bare feet and walked away.

  I watched her until she was out of sight.

  Did I trust her? No. And yet I didn’t entirely distrust her either.

  If I were in any other circumstance, I’d remove her from the negotiation and have nothing more to do with her.

  I couldn’t afford that luxury.

  I’d ruined my chance negotiating with the pirate leader.

  So I would have to rely on her.

  Returning to the ship to check on the latest war reports, I became conscious of how much time we were spending.

  In fact the whole concept of time loomed in my mind like an executioner’s axe at my neck.

  Every second felt like an eternity, not just for my body, but for my mind. Every possible torturous thought took up root in my consciousness, beckoning me to even more harrowing nightmares.

  If we didn’t manage to secure the pirate ships….

  I pressed a hand hard into my brow as I walked up the small ramp into our light cruiser.

  My shoulders were so tense they felt as if they’d been replaced with steel.

  Taking a deep breath, I settled into the pilot seat and let my fingers spread across the controls.

  The casualty reports kept spilling in.

  The Forgotten Fleet were destroying anything in their path as they continued their inexorable plunge towards Alyssa and the endgame device.

  Before I could spiral into another fit of existential depression, I heard someone clear their throat.

  I jerked around in my seat.

  My father was still sitting there in the tiny brig.

  Now he stood.

  There was barely space between him and the lethal force field right in front of his nose. “How have the negotiations progressed?”

  I stared at him, not answering.

  “It is critical that you get the pirate factions on side.”

  “Listen to yourself,” I croaked, “once upon a time you were responsible for hunting down and destroying the pirate factions.”

  My father shrugged easily. “Once upon a time, yes. But the times have changed. I could not have predicted that the resistance would gain such a foothold over the Star Forces. Nor did I predict that the Forgotten would power through the Star Forces fleets with such ease. Now I find myself at a serious juncture. Unless we recruit every force we can in the galaxy, there will be no more galaxy. The mark of a true commander is adaptability,” he added as he stared at me pointedly.

  I brought both hands up and tensely wiped them over my face, not caring that my nails dragged across my eyelids. With a sigh, I let them fall to my lap. “You’re not meant to say that. You’re meant to shout at me for joining the resistance. For acting against the Star Forces. For… being pulled in by the Elogians.” I didn’t know what I was saying. The words were spilling out from some dark hole in my unconsciousness.

  I couldn’t make eye contact with him. Instead my gaze settled on the far wall.

  “So you now understand I’m right? The resistance have always been puppets of the Elogians.”

  I let out a tense breath, the kind of breath that could have torn a hole in my throat. “Yes,” I said bitterly. “It seems you’re right.”

  I was a goddamn idiot for never having seen it.

  My father didn’t laugh or say he told me so.

  Instead he shrugged. “The fact of who was once in control of the resistance is now ultimately irrelevant. You and the rest of your crew find yourself in possession of the only weapon that can win this war. Regardless of your ideologies or origins, you are now the only people in the galaxy who can end this.”

  Though I didn’t want to, I levelled my gaze at him. “But I’ve been an idiot. If I hadn’t trusted…” I clenched my teeth, “if I hadn’t been so goddamn naive, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

  “No. You would be dead. You would never have maneuvered yourself into a position to save the galaxy. Presumably your vessel and your original crew would have been destroyed in the first wave of Forgotten attacks. Would you have preferred that, son?”

  I let my gaze drift down to my hands. I stared at my thumbs as I clenched them tighter and tighter together.

  Was
my father trying to console me? Or was this more of the same game he never stopped playing?

  “If you do not use the opportunity that has now been given to you, there will not be another.”

  “And what opportunity is that?” I asked slowly.

  “To decide who lives or dies and who ultimately wins.”

  I jolted back in my seat. “What? Vehemence punched through my tone. “I don’t get to decide who lives or dies.”

  At first my father didn’t reply. He stared at me, gaze calculating. “Son, you are not that naive. You are in a unique position. Of every player in this game, you are the most maneuverable. Perhaps others have more power. Subject Omega has more raw ability, yet is locked in on every side by her expectations and destiny. Captain H’agovan technically commands the fleet, but she must concentrate all her efforts in preparing for battle. You, son,” my father leaned forward, his face now so close to the lethal shield my heart recoiled in fear, “have the most freedom. You can decide not just how we win this war, but what will happen afterwards.”

  I sat there in shock, heart thumping in my throat. “That’s not true,” I tried to rally.

  He let out a short sharp laugh. “Unfortunately, my son, it is. To think, I thought I would be in your position. As we prepared for the Forgotten war, I always imagined myself standing where you are now. But I am not. I am standing here.” He gestured to his tiny cell, bringing his hands so close to the shield they glowed blue. “But it does not matter. For ultimately you are a Shepherd. And ultimately you will do the right thing.”

  My father was staring at me with… I couldn’t describe it.

  Was it emotion? Maybe. It was definitely intense. But it wasn’t fragile or broken or dare I say loving.

  I found myself swallowing. “The ultimate fate of the galaxy will not be decided by me. I do not have the power to decide who will live or die.”

  “The power or the right? Because you do have the power, Nathan. I always taught you not to deny the obvious. So stop. Recognize your position. Recognize what you can do. And decide what the best course of action is. Then do it. Do not look back. Sacrifice those you must to buy a future for us all.”

  If I’d been standing, I would have receded back. Instead I pushed harder and harder against the back of the seat. While I could bodily recoil from my father’s words, they was still lodged in my mind like a knife in my sternum.

  “You have never been good at seeing what advantage you hold. That is why your career has stalled.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh at that. “I’m a traitor to the Star Forces. I no longer have a career.”

  My father shrugged. “The Star Forces will no longer be the same if we are victorious in this ultimate battle. What remains in the ashes once the Forgotten are obliterated will be chaotic. It will be up to strong leaders to draw this galaxy back together again.”

  “Strong leaders like you?” I asked immediately, clenching my teeth.

  “Perhaps. But as I have already said, I am not in your position. Of every player in this game, you have the greatest ability to alter the ultimate outcome. For your advantage, or against it.”

  “What are you saying, that I should position myself to take over the Star Forces and the rest of the galaxy if we destroy the Forgotten?” I couldn’t keep the incredulity from my tone, nor the frustrated laugh. “That’s insane. I don’t have the power, the ability, or the right,” I emphasized with a breath, “to rule this galaxy. This is a pointless discussion, anyway. We cannot allow ourselves to be distracted by the future when we haven’t even secured it yet.”

  “Don’t pretend you’re not thinking about it. Even if you deny it, it fills your mind. You wonder what shape the Milky Way will take, son, but you should not. Don’t imagine what she will become. Create her. Ensure we hold the power at the end to make a new beginning.”

  I sneered at him now. “You sound exactly like Lady Argoza.”

  He laughed. “I imagine I do. We helped create the Elogian Factions after all. They were a logical reaction to the Star Forces’ controls.”

  “What?”

  “We created a galaxy where we don’t live for today,” my father never broke eye contact, “We live for the violent tomorrow. The day we’ll die.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  My father shifted forward, the move stiff, but his expression stiffer. Colder. Darker. The kind of stone-eyed look that belongs on a man leading you to the gallows. “We taught this galaxy to survive. Not to live.”

  “… What are you saying? It’s your fault the Elogians formed the resistance?”

  He let out a bark of a laugh, one that reverberated through the cramped cockpit. “You could say that. You could say that for the past 100 years, as the Star Forces have prepared for the inevitable Forgotten attack, we’ve pushed the rest of the galaxy to the brink.”

  I stared at him, disbelief etched over every furrow in my brow and blazing bright in my narrowed eyes. “But you don’t think like that.”

  “Ha. No, son, you’re right. And I thought you’d Forgotten everything I ever taught you.”

  I held his gaze.

  “The Elogians created themselves. They chose to see a weakness in the galaxy they could exploit for their own advantage.”

  “But didn’t you help create that weakness?”

  “In part. But no matter the circumstances, we are all ultimately responsible for what we become.”

  “And does that include you?”

  He didn’t answer. So I took a step closer, boot slapping against the uneven rivets along the floor as I came as close to the shield as I could. “Are you responsible for what you became?”

  His lips curled, the move slow like ice forming over a lake. “Yes, son. Just as you are responsible for what you have become. Lose enough and you become someone else. You want to believe you can’t do that. You can. Given time, given pressure, you can be molded into any shape. One by one the morals you hold so dear will be torn from your grasp. One by one your beliefs will be washed away. And one by one you will change. Until one day you look at yourself and you are someone different.”

  “That’s not what I asked. Are you responsible for who you became?” I curled my hands into fists, the fingers slicing against my palms like knives. I’d never asked my father a more important question. It was the key to how I felt about him, how I felt about myself. If he could come up with a viable excuse as to why he'd done all of those things… maybe it would all make sense.

  I looked up at him, expectation shivering in my gaze.

  “But you ask the wrong question.” He pushed to his feet. “The greater testament to a man is not what he allowed himself to become, but what he stopped himself from becoming.”

  I wanted to pretend I didn’t understand the statement. I did. It rang like a bell between my ears, its cacophony enough to drown out all other sounds, even the pounding of my heart.

  “Before the end you will become another man,” he said with such certainty his words could’ve been cast in stone, “what kind of man will that be, Nathan?”

  Before I could answer, my comm PIP beeped. The sudden sound shook through me, forcing me to take a jerked step backwards. With my brow slick with sweat and my throat dry from nerves, I brought a hand up, locked my jaw, shook my head, and cleared my throat. “Shepherd here, what is it?”

  “The pirates have come to the table. I managed to convince them to lend us some of their forces.” It was Lady Argoza.

  “Some?”

  “Shepherd, believe me, I tried my best, but there’s no way they’re going to risk everything they have. It’ll mean they are too easy to overcome once this battle is over.”

  I ground my teeth together.

  Maybe she could sense my irritation, because she took a sharp breath. “I tried to tell them that was suicide. And unless we give everything we’ve got now, we won’t have a future. But they won’t budge. We have to accept what they’ve given and move on.”

 
I forced a tense breath through my teeth and managed a nod. “You’re right. Fine. Finish the negotiations and meet back at the vessel. We have to move on to the Star Forces. Time is ticking down. Where’s Ja'xal?”

  “He’s going to stay and help coordinate the attack from this side. He said he’d meet you on the battlefield. He mentioned something about wanting no one else to fight by his side.”

  I managed a bare smile at that. “Fine. Meet you back at the ship.”

  I ended the feed, twisted, and stared at my father again.

  He was still standing.

  “You will get to decide who lives or dies. Choose wisely,” he said as he turned and sat on his small seat.

  Choose wisely. Those words echoed in my mind.

  Chapter 4

  Alyssa Nightingale

  I was back.

  Ready to face him this time.

  The Chief had given me something elusive I’d always searched for. A reason to die, and through that, a reason to live.

  Axis faced me, his expression, as always, neutral. I could see despite how blank his gaze was that he was studying me in full, picking up and analyzing every minute detail.

  Looking for that weakness.

  Well now I pushed back. I stared at him, hoping my gaze showed my fearlessness.

  After a few seconds, he took a step back and nodded his head. “I would have thought it would take you longer to return. You always took so long to overcome your emotions in the past. That is your one undoing, my dear. If I could have transposed your power into F’val’s body, I would have. He had the mind to succeed. You,” he let his gaze flick down my form and settle on my elbows, “despite all these years still have an untrained mind.”

  I didn’t bother to grit my teeth or curl my hands into fists. I didn’t need to. I stared at him wordlessly.

  His gaze flashed with interest. “How long until you are overcome with the reality of the situation once more? A few seconds, a few minutes? You could never shoulder your destiny, Alyssa, and now at our greatest hour of need, you will fall to the demons in your mind.”