The Crucible- The Complete Series

by Odette C. Bell

  It belonged to a specialized unit of the Star Forces.

  In other words, the soldier before her – the one who was raising his gun – was from the Star Forces.

  “Wait,” she commanded, buying time as she packed this last snippet of information into her message and finally sent it. She brought up two trembling hands. “Wait.”

  The soldier extended his weapon. It was an Omega class gun.

  They were illegal in the Alliance.

  Yet this soldier still held one.

  “You can’t beg for your life. You have to die,” the soldier said. And then he shot. One bullet from his Omega gun was all it took to tear through the toughened exterior of her mech suit and plough right out the other side.

  It tore a hole in her chest and her limbs snapped right off her body.

  Research Manager Amy Lee was dead before her mech suit struck the metal floor.

  The soldier stood above her for a few seconds. His sophisticated armor scanned her mech suit and picked up the message she’d tried to send. He thought nothing of it though, as the jamming technology they’d deployed using satellites around the moon would stop her last ditch communiqué from ever being heard by anyone.

  He considered her prone body for a few more seconds before reaching forward, locking a foot on what remained of her back, and pushing. Though her mech suit was heavy, his armor adjusted, and with the lightest of kicks, he pushed her body over the edge of the scaffolding. It sailed down to the cavern floor far below, landing with such force it crushed a hole into the soft rock.

  He turned.

  He reached a hand out towards the wall.

  Chapter 7

  Lieutenant Commander Nathan Shepherd

  I woke an hour before my first duty shift.

  I let the minutes tick past as I stared at the ceiling, one bare arm tucked behind my head, my fingers driving hard into my skull.

  For a few brief sweet seconds after I’d woken, I forgot about Max’s death, I forgot about my ship, I forgot about everything.

  My mind slipped from thought to thought with blessed ease.

  Then reality slammed into me.

  I brought up a hand and dug my fingers into my brow, pressing it down until the skin crunched over my eyes and I saw stars.

  And I remembered. I remembered how we’d talked. We’d talked about how we’d go, me and Weatherby. Over a few beers after a long night at the Academy, we’d turned to the topic of how we’d die.

  Me, I wanted to go out in a blazing battle for the Alliance. I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to prove my father was wrong about me.

  Weatherby, he’d wanted to go in his sleep. Though he’d joined the Star Forces, it was only a means to an ends. He wanted to gather enough savings so he could afford a farm on one of the colony planets.

  He was less concerned with glory, and more concerned with just living a good life.

  Or at least, he had been.

  I winced as I shifted back, the sheet falling from my chest as I sat upright and stretched my shoulders.

  I was still in the back-brace, though it would probably come off sometime today. I’d only been injured three days ago, but I’d be perfectly healed by now.

  I was still stiff, though. Not from the accident, but from the tension I just couldn’t shake off. My muscles seemed locked no matter what I did.

  Finally I pushed myself out of bed. I glanced around my room, and my gaze drifted over my workstation.

  Instantly I remembered Hargrove’s disembodied face floating over it, his bloodshot eyes widening with fear.

  “Christ,” I said as I suddenly remembered something. I’d forgotten to send in my corroborating report to Star Forces Command.

  I leaped over to the bench.

  It shouldn’t be too late. Still, I should call Hargrove himself and let him know of my delay.

  I punched up the coordinates of the original message, and commanded the computer to send a communication.

  I waited.

  No response.

  “There is no ship at those coordinates,” the computer soon informed me.

  “Then contact the,” I searched my memory, “the Pluto instead.” That was the name of the scout ship.

  “There is no Pluto on available comms.”

  I frowned and shook my head. “What do you mean there’s no Pluto on available comms? You mean they’re in a communications blackout, right?”

  “No, I mean the Pluto has been destroyed.”

  “What?” My voice rocked from my throat.

  “There has been an accident. The Pluto was destroyed.”

  “What, when?”

  “The exact time is unknown. Somewhere in the past 24 hours.”

  “And what about the dig in the Mari Sector?”

  “There is no record of a dig in the Mari Sector.”

  “Yes there is,” I countered.

  “There is no recorded dig in the Mari Sector,” the computer repeated.

  I shook my head over and over again. “Fine. Do we have any information on what happened to the Pluto?”

  “There was an accident. Details have been suppressed. Investigation is ongoing.”

  I locked a hand over my mouth and pushed hard into my lips until they folded against my teeth. “Do I have security clearance to find out what’s going on?”

  “No.”

  “Who has security clearance to find out what’s going on?”

  “Security clearance has been restricted to the Joint Committee.”

  “What?” My voice rattled out, echoing around the room.

  “Security clearance has been restricted to the Joint Committee,” the computer repeated, as if I was simply hard of hearing.

  I took a shuddering step backwards.

  This didn’t make any sense.

  There’d been a so-called accident that had destroyed the Pluto?

  And there was no recorded information of the dig in the Mari Sector?

  What the hell was going on?

  “You are receiving a transmission from the Enforcement Unit,” the computer suddenly announced.

  I paled.

  The Enforcement Unit was a section of the Central Command that dealt with the protection of secrets. You didn’t get a call from them unless they suspected you of treason.

  I took a shuddering breath.

  The computer did not ask whether I wished to receive the transmission – it simply transmitted it.

  There was no hiding from the Enforcement Unit.

  “Lieutenant Commander Nathan Shepherd, you have just accessed restricted information. What is your interest in the Pluto and its destruction?” a toneless male voice asked.

  I thought, and I thought quickly.

  If I’d been given some time, if I hadn’t been so stressed, I wouldn’t have done what I was going to do next: “I have a friend who is serving on that ship. We communicate regularly. He’s a close friend. I was involved in an accident several days ago, and I wanted to tell him about it.”

  There was a pause from the other end of the line.

  My heartbeat tripled and quadrupled.

  I’d just told an outright lie to the Enforcement Unit.

  I lived for the Alliance, and I’d just turned my back on it.

  I pressed a hand harder and harder into my forehead. Fortunately the message was only audio, and the Enforcement Unit couldn’t see how terrified I looked.

  “We see. Who was your friend aboard the Pluto?”

  “Ensign Max Weatherby. We served at the Academy together. We’ve been in contact on and off ever since he graduated,” I added. Maybe the details were extraneous, but I hoped they’d help prove my story. There would be a log of my regular communications with Max.

  “When were you last in contact?”

  “… About five weeks ago, I think.”

  “Why are you looking up information on the archaeological dig in the Mari Sector?”

  I winced. Presumably Max hadn’t been on that dig for more than f
ive weeks. The Enforcement Unit wanted to know why I knew anything whatsoever about the dig site. “I heard it from a mutual friend. Max always hated babysitting missions. Whenever he was ordered to go on one, he complained to anyone who would listen.” That, at least, wasn’t a lie. I felt confident that Max would have spread news about his mission to everyone who would’ve listened.

  “We see. Standby.” The message paused.

  I swore under my breath, letting my lips pull back over my teeth.

  What the hell was I doing?

  I had to stop lying and start telling the truth.

  But it was already too late.

  This was the Enforcement Unit. I might be a lieutenant commander, but I was nothing to them. They wouldn’t bat an eyelid at my status. They wouldn’t care that I’d been selected for a critical mission to the Hari system. They wouldn’t consider my exemplary record.

  They would simply cut me down. If they suspected I’d been keeping information from them for any reason, they would court martial me.

  I couldn’t believe this. I had just blown away my career.

  There was a beep. “We have corroborated your story. But, Lieutenant Commander, you are under strict orders to share this information with no one. You will not mention the name of the Pluto; you will not seek information on it. You will not discuss the archaeological dig in the Mari Sector. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are under blackout. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “If you are found to share any information about this situation, you will be court martialed. There will be no trial. Do you understand?”

  My mouth was dry. “Yes.”

  “We will end the transmission now.” There was a beep and then silence.

  I stood there, cold as deep space, frozen like ice.

  What the hell had I just done?

  Somewhere in my swell of self-hate, the questions started to pierce through.

  I could have just jeopardized my career, but what the hell was going on here?

  The Pluto had been destroyed? By what?

  And why were the Enforcement Unit all over this?

  Why were they actively preventing information from spreading?

  … Could it be the resistance? But surely if it was the resistance I would have been told. I was already party to that secret.

  My best friend had died, killed by something nobody could identify, and now his ship and all his crewmembers had been killed, too. And if my brief search on the Mari Sector dig was anything to go by, I imagined that had been destroyed as well.

  All evidence had been wiped away.

  What the hell was going on?

  The computer beeped once more. I stiffened. “This is a reminder that you are on duty in approximately 32 minutes. It is suggested that you partake of sustenance. Your command shift will last for eight hours exactly.”

  I locked my teeth together and breathed through them.

  Then I turned, and as hard as it was, I dressed in the black-and-white of my Alliance Star Forces uniform.

  My fingers shook as I attached my command stripes.

  I caught a glimpse of myself in the window. I’d never looked worse in my life.

  I was like a dead man walking.

  … Maybe I really was a dead man walking. The Enforcement Unit had told me they’d corroborated my story, but for all I knew, they’d keep digging.

  And they wouldn’t have to push far to tear a hole in my tale.

  All they need to do was find evidence that Lieutenant Hargrove had contacted me, and they’d realized I was holding something back.

  … But if they had evidence of that at their fingertips, they would have acted already. There was every possibility that the Pluto had been destroyed before anyone had bothered to check its communication logs, and maybe Hargrove had never got the chance to inform command that he had contacted me. The only evidence of our communication would be in the Ra’xon’s logs.

  If they found it, I’d be dead.

  I tried to breathe, but my chest couldn’t punch out far enough.

  I felt trapped.

  I was trapped.

  In the space of about 10 minutes I’d thrown away everything I’d worked for my entire life.

  As soon as I thought that, I thought of Max. Easy-going, laid-back Max. The Max who’d pulled me through the Academy, not because I hadn’t been able to keep up with him, but because he’d always showed me the lighter side of life. He kept me going when all my father had ever wanted to do was knock me down.

  That Max was dead.

  And he had been killed by something. Something the Joint Committee wanted to cover up.

  … His parents would never find out how he’d really died.

  I stood there and blinked.

  I wanted to tell myself that the Star Forces couldn’t be involved in this – that they weren’t actually covering up his death, but simply protecting some secret. One that was for the good of the Alliance.

  So why did I feel so hollow inside?

  Because… this didn’t add up. The Armadale – a strike ship – had been sent to that dig site.

  Then, suddenly, the Pluto had been destroyed and the dig site simply no longer existed?

  That couldn’t be a coincidence.

  If something had attacked the Pluto, the Armadale would have been there to protect it.

  … Or it could have been there just as easily to destroy it.

  I tried to push that thought away. It was tantamount to treason. But the thought was stuck – lodged deep in my hind brain. I took another step back.

  “It is suggested that you go and take sustenance. Your duty shift begins shortly.”

  I opened my mouth to tell the computer to shut up.

  Then I stopped.

  “What is my duty shift today, again?”

  “The Captain has requested that you take over the duties of Lieutenant Ma’biv while he recovers from septican flu. The Lieutenant is the requisitions officer.”

  I smiled. I’d already known that answer.

  Requisitions officers had access to the complete ship movements of the Star Forces throughout the Milky Way. You needed to in order to coordinate with other vessels so you could resupply on the run.

  Your job was to update your own supply list and coordinate with nearby ships to keep a never-ending supply circling around the fleet.

  You had access to the complete Alliance Fleet manifest. Including the locations and supplies of each vessel.

  The Armadale would be on that list.

  If I turned around right now and asked the computer to tell me where the Armadale was, that information would no doubt be picked up by the Enforcement Unit. Yet if I happened to casually glance at their location on the Alliance Fleet manifest, it would simply be considered part of my job.

  I took a breath.

  Then it hit me. What I was thinking. Christ, this really was treason. Going behind the Enforcement Unit’s back….

  That thought couldn’t hold.

  The memory of Max came flooding back into my mind.

  I straightened my command stripes and walked out the door.

  …

  Ensign Jenks

  I couldn’t stop thinking of him. Which was unusual. Most of the time I couldn’t stop thinking about my own troubles.

  It was something about the way he’d looked at me. The undiluted sadness in his gaze. And more than that, the fact he’d shared it with me.

  His friend had died only that morning, and it was clear that Lieutenant Commander Nathan Shepherd wasn’t taking it well.

  I was on another duty shift, and once more I was scanning the ship, centimeter by centimeter, in my endless task of recalibrating internal sensors.

  As wild as it sounded, I kept looking over my shoulder, kind of hoping that I would run into him again. If only to see that he was okay.

  Which was incredible. Usually I didn’t have the time or energy to worry about other peopl
e’s problems.

  It was also dangerous. I couldn’t allow myself to get close to a man like the Lieutenant Commander. You didn’t rise through the ranks of the Star Forces unless you were good at taking orders.

  There was no question about what he would do with me if he found out who I was.

  So I pressed my lips together and focused on the scanner.

  As I did, I tuned into the conversations of the crew members walking around me.

  Most were inane. Some were not.

  “Did you hear? We’re stopping off at Fa’xon One. We’re picking up Commander F’val.”

  “Don’t we have enough command staff already with the leftovers from the Godspeed and the Fargo?”

  “You want to keep your voice down? I don’t want to get another reprimand for insubordination.”

  “It isn’t insubordination. I feel like we can’t move for commissioned officers.”

  “You wouldn’t have to fear them so much if you’d just do your job once in a while.”

  “Shut up. Why the heck are we picking up Commander F’val anyway? I thought he was the golden boy of the Star Forces ever since his victory over the pirate factions in the Northern Wastelands. Surely he’s too important to hang out with the likes of us.”

  “I don’t know, but I can’t wait to meet him.”

  “Really? Rumor has it he has the personality of a pulse rifle. There was a story circulating in the Academy back when I was a recruit that he was actually a member of the Enforcement Unit.”

  “As if.”

  “What? They’re meant to be all around us, aren’t they? The eyes and ears of the Joint Committee, spying on our every move, searching under every bed for even a whiff of the resistance.”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  “Thanks. I am touched you noticed. We should really get a hustle on though – Chief Engineer Malax is going to crucify us again.”

  I slowly turned and watched the two ensigns hurry on down the corridor.

  I’d only been faintly interested in what they’d said, until they’d mentioned the Enforcement Unit, that was.

  A feeling of nausea spread through my stomach.

  … They couldn’t be here for me, could they? Maybe I hadn’t been careful enough on the station, and maybe they’d figured out I was an escaped telekinetic warrior.