The Crucible- The Complete Series

by Odette C. Bell

  It would also explain why the Star Forces had never discovered him.

  Sure, I’d only recently learned about the resistance, but I knew a heck of a lot about Central Command, and more about men like my father. If they even suspected they had an information leak in one of their units, they would disband the entire thing.

  The other members of the resistance couldn’t understand how cutthroat the Star Forces were.

  As that realization struck me, I wiped a sweaty hand down my mouth.

  What was more likely? Was Ensign Jenks – the same woman who’d smiled like an angel – a spy, or had F’val turned against us?

  “Lieutenant Commander, F’val has arrived,” the Captain suddenly informed me over my room’s communication system.

  I jolted with surprise. “On my way,” I managed.

  I turned on my foot.

  I had to find out what was going on here.

  …

  Lieutenant Commander Nathan Shepherd

  By the time I reached the Captain’s ready room, my thoughts were a waterfall, tumbling through my mind and smashing against every belief and fact.

  F’val was standing there, Williams two, the Chief as well, and the Captain. There were no other members from the resistance. Clearly the Captain didn’t feel it was a good idea to bring them in on this yet.

  “You must have a lot of questions,” F’val began.

  I made eye contact with him but didn’t say anything.

  I sat down on one of the chairs, prompting everyone else to do the same.

  I contained myself. Locked my fingers together, pressed my arms hard against my chest, and used the muscle fatigue to distract me.

  I watched.

  “Jenks has done considerable damage to this ship,” F’val commented, “if I hadn’t discovered her…” he trailed off.

  “The resistance is indebted to you, as always,” the Captain said.

  I looked sharply at the Captain. Took in her entire expression.

  Did she believe what she’d just said? Was there even a hint of suspicion anywhere in her tone?

  … No.

  Why would there be? It seemed I was the only one who had any suspicions.

  Or was I?

  Williams took an unsteady breath. “I scanned her room. I found the rest of the 78.”

  F’val nodded.

  Williams paused. You would’ve had to be a fool not to note the tension running through her body.

  “What is it?” the Captain asked.

  “She’d already gone through a lot of it,” Williams said in a weak voice.

  “What do you mean?” The Captain frowned.

  “I… Jenks… if Jenks was a telekinetic warrior—”

  “We have full confirmation that she is,” F’val corrected.

  Williams wouldn’t look at him but she nodded. “With normal telekinetic warriors, it takes them three weeks or so between doses of 78.”

  “And?” the Captain encouraged.

  “She was,” Williams swallowed, “she was going through it at a dose every several days.”

  “Perhaps you are mistaken,” F’val commented with a blank expression. “Perhaps you have not uncovered her full stash.”

  “… Perhaps,” Williams conceded as she shifted her hands uncomfortably against the table. “I think I have though. And judging from her use of her electro needle,” Williams started shifting her foot up and down as she tapped her hand on the table, “I’m pretty sure she was using it. I’m… I’m pretty sure she was using it every several days.”

  “What does that mean?” I jumped in before F’val could brush her off again.

  Williams looked at me. “I don’t know. I’ve never encountered someone who needs that much 78.”

  Here was my opportunity. “If she needed that much 78,” I had to use everything to control my tone, “why would she be a spy?”

  My question settled through the room.

  “Explain your reasoning,” the Captain asked.

  I swallowed. I had to play a careful game here. Side with Alyssa, and it might look like I was a spy myself. But I wasn’t going to sit here and say nothing. “If the Star Forces equipped Jenks with the devices she needed to compromise our life-support system and to somehow compress a crate full of Omega weapons into a lump of metal, why didn’t they just equip her with her own supply of 78?”

  The Captain considered my question.

  “There is every chance that they did, and she simply lost her supply,” F’val answered without missing a beat.

  “But why would you send somebody who needed such massive doses of 78 every few days?” I asked.

  F’val didn’t answer automatically this time. Instead he stared at me.

  The kind of stare that told me he was looking for something.

  I didn’t look away. Eventually, however, I swiveled my gaze to the Captain. “Does that make sense to you?”

  She considered my question. “I must admit, it is an intriguing point. However, I imagine F’val is right. Perhaps something happened to Ensign Jenks, which increased her requirement of 78. But rather than remove herself from her mission, she carried on after she obtained her own supply of Omega weapons.”

  The Captain had a point.

  I didn’t like it. And I didn’t believe it.

  My mind kept pulling back to that smiling Alyssa. The one who’d joined the Star Forces to make a difference. To protect people. To give back.

  Well the Star Forces had been happy to take. Everything. Including her name and her goddamn smile.

  My hands stiffened as I held them flat on the table. “I guess you’re right,” I forced myself to say.

  I swiveled my gaze back to F’val.

  He was still watching me. Intently.

  I had to play this game carefully.

  I relaxed my hands and let out a tight breath. “I guess I just wanted to believe the best of her. It’s a kick in the guts to know that she’s a spy,” I said candidly.

  F’val appeared to relax a little.

  “I used to pride myself on my ability to know people under my command. To understand them. It’s crushing to realize I failed so badly.”

  “We have all failed,” the Captain corrected. “It is a shock to me too. Ensign Jenks seemed so trustworthy.”

  So shouldn’t you dig further, Captain? I wanted to say.

  I didn’t. I held my tongue.

  I tried to look as if I believed F’val.

  The briefing went on, and I listened, in so far as I could.

  Most of my attention was locked on Alyssa and the thought of her trapped in F’val’s brig.

  What was I going to do?

  In all honesty, what did I believe?

  Was Alyssa Nightingale a spy? Or was F’val the spy sent here to take her back?

  It all depended on what he’d do, wouldn’t it?

  I told myself that if he suggested taking Alyssa away, then that would be all the evidence I needed.

  I waited until he finished talking to the Captain about some innocuous battle data.

  I cleared my throat. “What do we do with her now?” I looked directly at him, though ensured my gaze wasn’t suspicious. “Surely she seems too powerful for us to keep her on this base. And from the little Williams has told me, if telekinetic warriors run out of 78, they lose their ability to control their telekinetic powers. That could be extremely dangerous.”

  “These are all very good points,” F’val conceded. “We must also accept that at the rate she goes through 78, you simply won’t have the supplies to keep her.”

  We must accept that, must we?

  A minute ago, he hadn’t even conceded that point. He’d glossed over the possibility that Alyssa needed such massive doses.

  If it was a mistake, no one else appeared to notice it. Then again, no one was looking for mistakes but me.

  I forced myself to nod. “So what to do?”

  “There is another possibility,” F’val suggested in a serio
us tone as he pressed a hand into the table, “we take her to our facility in the Engorza Sector.”

  I frowned. “Where?”

  “You have not been informed of this facility yet,” the Captain explained. “It is the resistance’s foremost research facility on telekinetic warriors. As they pose such a threat to us, we’ve been forced to try to understand them.”

  I couldn’t stop myself – my eyes slowly narrowed. “Isn’t that exactly what the Star Forces are doing?”

  “We’re not creating telekinetic warriors, and we aren’t experimenting on them directly,” Williams turned to me, “trust me,” she said in a shaking voice, “it’s nothing like the Farsight Program. Nothing. What we’re doing is looking for a way to help people like me, to cure us of our addiction to 78. That way we can attract more telekinetic warriors to our cause. And believe me, they’ll come flocking. Every single one of us was…” she couldn’t complete her sentence.

  Tortured. Used. Mutilated.

  Every single one of them.

  Including Alyssa. So why, in God’s name, would she be helping the Star Forces?

  That thought solidified in my mind as well as the fact that F’val had so generously volunteered to take Alyssa to this facility.

  I nodded my head. “Well I guess that makes sense. I concur with the Commander’s assessment then – he should take Jenks there.” I looked at the Commander and nodded.

  F’val smiled. “It is the only solution we have.”

  “I’m inclined to agree. But before you leave, I need your advice on several matters.”

  “Of course. I will have to stabilize Jenks anyway. I will not be going for another five hours.”

  “Then everything is sorted.” The Captain rose.

  I stood up too. I forced myself not to make eye contact with F’val. I didn’t even swivel my gaze over to check on Williams.

  I stood there and I thought.

  I stood there and I decided.

  About what I would do next.

  Chapter 8

  Lieutenant Commander Nathan Shepherd

  My great-great grandfather had once written about events that can change you. Not the death of a loved one, not some great loss or gain.

  The kind of events that smash your worldview. The take what you were and remold you into something new.

  The kind of events that force you to decide who you are.

  I was facing one now.

  And I couldn’t turn away.

  It would be too easy to believe F’val. It would be too easy, because he was making it too easy. He was the golden child of the resistance. He gave us all our critical information. Without him, we would likely all be captured.

  No one wanted to suspect him. Because to do so would be to accept how fragile the resistance truly was.

  Me, I wasn’t blinded by that. I hadn’t joined the resistance, but fallen into it.

  And I could fall out of it pretty quick.

  My great-great grandfather had been nothing like my dad. A man of adventure, of exploration, possessed with the kind of heart that drives you forward not backwards.

  I’d read his hand written journals, read the meticulous ink scrawl. He’d always forgone the electronic precision of a data pad for the feel of pen and paper.

  In those journals, in those blotches of ink on a page, I’d learnt about how a Shepherd could be.

  If he stopped trying to control his flock, and instead protected it, he could work miracles.

  But to protect anything, you must make decisions, and above all else, you must make sacrifices.

  Sacrifices.

  That word span round and round in my mind.

  Even if I decided to help Alyssa, I had no idea how I would start.

  If F’val really was working for the Star Forces, I could guarantee that he would be well-equipped and prepared for an incursion.

  I was at a loss.

  But I wasn’t going to give up.

  I had several hours.

  I was going to use them.

  I was in my quarters, going over a plan, trying to figure out if there was anyone else I could trust.

  It wasn’t long before there was a beep at my door. In a gravelly voice I commanded whoever it was to enter.

  I wasn’t expecting Williams, but she shuffled into the room, that dead gaze still haunting her eyes.

  Eventually she looked up at me.

  “What is it?” I asked through a swallow.

  She waited until the door closed behind her. “This isn’t…” she trailed off.

  I could have waited for her to make the first move, I didn’t.

  Time was no longer a luxury. “Right?” I heard myself ask. The word punched out of my throat, echoing around the room.

  She shivered. She didn’t reprimand me though. She nodded. “This doesn’t feel right, Nate. You’ve realized that, haven’t you?”

  I held her gaze for a few seconds until I nodded.

  She looked relieved, unimaginably relieved as she took a step back and drew a deep breath into her lungs. “It doesn’t make any sense. You’re right. Why would the Star Forces send somebody who was so dependent on 78? Her actions… I don’t know, they don’t seem like those of a spy… she seems like someone who’s…” she trailed off.

  “Desperate?” I finished her sentence.

  She held my gaze.

  “Desperate,” she mouthed.

  We watched each other.

  This could be some kind of trap. F’val could have put Williams up to this. Maybe the Captain. They could be checking to see where my loyalties lay.

  I didn’t care.

  I threw myself into trusting Williams.

  I cleared my throat. “Do you trust F’val?” I asked directly.

  She began to nod but stopped.

  “Do you realize how easy it would be for him to be a double agent?”

  “F’val is…” she trailed off.

  “He’s in a critically important position. If he’s been feeding the resistance misinformation and telling the Star Forces where we are…” I looked at her.

  “I want to say we can trust him.” She dropped my gaze and stared at the floor.

  “Want to say?” I took a step towards her.

  She jerked her gaze up to meet mine. “I want to say everything he said makes sense. But…” she trailed off.

  “But?” My stomach clenched with expectation.

  “But I don’t know that it does. As you pointed out, why would the Star Forces send a spy so dependent on compound 78? You’re right; it makes no sense. They’re better than this. Maybe the Captain doesn’t realize that. But I do,” her voice shook. “I know exactly how capable the Farsight Program is. I know how they think. Professor Axis wouldn’t….”

  “Make a mistake like this,” I finished her sentence again.

  She nodded. It looked as if the move took a lot of energy. As if she had to concentrate on her neck and head. She even squeezed her eyes closed. “He wouldn’t make a mistake like this. If they sent her here to destroy us, wouldn’t she have done it already? And if she was sent here to spy on us, why would she make so many obvious mistakes?”

  “She wouldn’t,” I concluded softly.

  Williams nodded. Then she sighed. It wasn’t an easy sigh, and didn’t indicate release. On the contrary, it felt squeezed tight with tension.

  “Williams, what do we do?” I asked directly, even though technically I was her commanding officer, or at least had been once.

  She took a sharp step back. Was this where she was going to turn on me? Twist around on her heel and go running to tell the Captain everything I’d said?

  No.

  I watched her nod. “We need to do something.”

  I found myself smiling. Such a natural move. It felt like it exploded over my face as the slightest scrap of hope sparked in my chest.

  “Why don’t we ask the Captain to force F’val to wake Jenks up? Then we could question her. We have grounds to do that. Jenks could h
ave set up more traps. Surely we have a case to question her before F’val takes her away.”

  I considered her suggestion. “F’val’s gonna say it’s too dangerous. He’s going to say that if he wakes Jenks up, he may not be able to contain her.” Something triggered a memory, a guttural memory, one full with enough power it felt like it would make me pop. I even shivered. “Williams,” my voice dropped even though there was no one else in the room to overhear me, “you know what you said before, about that complete battle system?”

  She shook her head suddenly. The move would have appeared like a determined one, were her gaze not so fearful. “It’s impossible, Nate.”

  My mouth was dry, but I swallowed through it. “What if it isn’t? What if… Jenks is just like you? What if she was taken, and made into a telekinetic warrior, but she escaped.… and now they want her back?”

  Williams’ lip twitched.

  “From what I’ve heard about the Farsight Program, I doubt any of its so-called graduates would pledge their loyalty to the Star Forces. It sounds like complete torture.”

  Her lip twitched again, this time the move shifting deep down into her chin and even contracting the muscles of her neck.

  “And what if… what if… Jenks is valuable enough to them that they’d do anything to get her back? What if F’val is lying, and she didn’t use a device to condense those Omega weapons? What if…” I couldn’t complete my sentence. I couldn’t even complete my thought.

  This tantalizing possibility hung right out of my reach, taunting me.

  An electric shot of nerves raced down my back, tingling into every finger and toe as I took a pressured step closer to Williams.

  She took a long time to reply. Or maybe it was the pressure of the situation making every passing second feel like a year.

  “I want to say that’s impossible,” she said.

  “But?”

  “But I don’t know. The only thing I know is that the Star Forces… they’re….”

  “Monsters,” I finished with a growl. “Yes they are. The only thing we know for sure,” I said through a swallow, “is they will do anything, anything to secure their power.”