The Crucible- The Complete Series

by Odette C. Bell

  “It’s… Christ,” my breath felt as if it had been punched from my throat.

  “What is it?” she snapped once more, so much tension playing through her tone she sounded like a recording that had been sped up.

  “We’re reading massive disruptions in the Miracle’s primary structures. It’s as if a black hole has opened up in the middle of the ship.”

  And maybe a black hole had. Alyssa.

  Before I knew what I was doing, I let out a cry of laughter. It was short, sharp, and left me breathless.

  “We can’t start celebrating yet,” the Captain warned in a snap. “I want to know exactly what’s going on with the Miracle.”

  I already knew what was happening.

  Revenge.

  …

  Alyssa Nightingale

  I didn’t know where I was and what I was doing. I tried to fight it. I honestly did. I tried to push back the confusion, but every time I succeeded, it returned stronger than before.

  It burnt through me, gushed through every vein as if it had replaced my blood entirely.

  Everything was a haze, a shadow, a dream. Just the power.

  At the back of my mind something screamed. Something told me I had to push forward. That I couldn’t let myself give up. Give up, and Axis would find some way of disabling me. And now he knew what I was capable of, he would never let me go again.

  He wouldn’t make the same mistake he had in my cell. He’d drug me, keep me unconscious until he was sure he knew exactly how to control me.

  It would be a life worse than death.

  No.

  No.

  I had to fight

  …

  Lieutenant Commander Nathan Shepherd

  “Just hold on. Just hold on,” I begged, sweaty hands still locked over the controls as I moved the mech down from its holding place. Several massive magnetic clamps undocked from its back, shifting into a recess in the wall with a pneumatic hiss.

  I paid no attention. Instead I hunched forward, bending over my controls, eyes locked open, watering as I stared at the tiny view screen lodged into the suit’s helmet.

  I hadn’t had much experience with mechanized armor suits. They weren’t often used in battle. They were too cumbersome. A man in a bodysuit was much more agile and could fit into spaces a mech wouldn’t be able to go near. Plus, if you wanted power over agility, you went for a cruiser’s main guns. Suits were primarily used for maintenance, to protect technicians from extremely inhospitable environments like the depths of space or the crushing gravity of engine cores.

  Still, this suit would suit me fine.

  Though I hadn’t picked up as many hours with mechs as I had on gliders, the controls came to me quickly.

  I maneuvered the suit out of the dock and onto the long large walkway that split the storage room in two.

  I thought, quickly coming up with a plan. I still had the transport device. I jerked my hands off the suit’s controls and grabbed the device from my pocket. I shifted my thumb over it, smoothing away the sweat that had collected there.

  I brought it up in the confines of the cramped suit and started programming it.

  It was goddamn risky to transport a real live human being wearing a mech suit. Sometimes the particle transfer could get confused and two would become one in the most horrible way imaginable. When you would re-materialize at your destination, you would be nothing more than a lump of blood-covered metal.

  I didn’t let that thought linger. I pushed it away as I finished programming the controls and said another goddamn silent prayer.

  I didn’t know if this would work, but it was the only thing I could do. I jammed my forefinger on the primary button of the transport device and hoped for the best.

  “What the hell?” the technician in charge screamed as he saw the transport beam lance through the wall.

  I screwed my eyes shut and clenched my teeth. Then I felt that tingling escape through my body. It sank right down into my bones.

  I opened my mouth, and I let out a scream, one that reverberated around and around my suit. It was cut short as the throat and mouth forming the scream were split apart.

  My destination was the primary communications hub.

  I didn’t have the technical prowess to shut down communications from engineering. And even if I slammed around in my mech suit, trying to destroy panels, I wouldn’t make it far before the Chief Engineer initiated an automatic override of my suit and forced me to ground to a halt.

  I had more chance in main communications. Hopefully with the chaos that was Alyssa tearing her way through the ship there wouldn’t be anybody present on that deck. Hopefully.

  Christ, everything was going to come down to hope.

  …

  Alyssa Nightingale

  I… my power… it was starting to wane. Maybe it was my broken mind or maybe I’d burnt through my new implants. But I was staggering, stumbling from one foot to another as I traversed through an empty room.

  I had no idea what it had been before I’d destroyed it. Maybe a mess hall, maybe quarters. It didn’t matter. Now it was just a lump of metal, great black swathes of cloud shifting around me as random clumps of warped objects were scattered at my feet.

  My concentration kept flitting in and out, as if I kept waking up from a deep sleep only to re-enter it a second later. It was… it was one of the most horrible experiences of my life. I was aware of the fear, but at the same time it felt far away. It felt as if I could easily ignore it and lull myself back to sleep.

  “No, you’re in danger,” I stuttered to myself. “Fight. You have to fight. You have to… disable… the ship.” I fell down on one knee, head jerking to the side, my hair fanning across my face, every strand caught in the updrafts of my power.

  When I’d first been fitted with telekinetic implants, I’d nearly torn my own head off. Axis hadn’t been expecting my power. From his preliminary scans he’d assumed I’d just be another mid-range warrior with the ability to conduct a crate in the air, but not much else.

  He’d left me in a small cell and given me the task of stopping a rudimentary drone. Every time I failed to stop the drone, it would zap me with a painful electric shock that would send me shuddering to my knees, my teeth chattering uncontrollably as my head jerked from side-to-side.

  I remembered it. The pain. The excruciating pain and the shock and fear at what was happening to me. Back then I’d still been able to remember my old life as Alyssa. That goddamn naive hope I’d had when I’d entered the Star Forces. That had made the fear worse, sharper, more palpable, like a nightmare that flooded my mind.

  I brought both hands up and clutched at my temples, driving my fingers hard into the flesh. “Stop, stop,” I begged, but there was no one to heed my call. No one to answer and no one to help.

  …

  Annabelle Williams

  “What the hell is happening on that ship?” the Captain snapped, now so close to the primary view screens that the light reflecting off them pooled under her eyes.

  “The Miracle is still undergoing massive structural changes. We can’t tell exactly what’s happening. With those new shields she’s using, we can’t penetrate far enough to figure out what’s going on.”

  I watched the Captain swallow and pause. I knew she was thinking, and fast, trying to figure out what we could do.

  I swallowed again. It seemed all I could do was goddamn swallow. I hated feeling like this – so helpless. Nothing more than a witness. But I knew my place, and I knew my duty.

  I waited. We all waited.

  “Do long-range scans still confirm that the other four Star Forces vessels are still in orbit around Alpha 98?” she asked in a snap.

  I turned my head around quickly and processed the query. “Yes,” I snapped, turning and nodding at her. “They haven’t moved an inch.”

  The Captain clenched her teeth, forcing a hissing breath through them. “Then I suppose we have to make a decision…. It’s time to attack.”
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  “Captain, but the Miracle’s communications systems are still intact.”

  “I know that,” she said, voice ringing with a somber note. “But I also know that whatever is happening on that ship, it’s got something to do with our crew, and they need our help.”

  …

  Lieutenant Commander Nathan Shepherd

  I arrived in the primary communications center. Somehow my luck held and it was empty. There were a few abandoned devices scattered over the floor, and the heat sensors of my suit picked up traces of somebody’s lunch on one of the far benches.

  No hearts and bodies though. No witnesses.

  I flung myself forward. I was no engineer, as I’d already admitted, but this time I didn’t need to be.

  The primary controls were right before me. They would allow me access to the central antenna array, which was just beyond this room, lodged in a massive circular ball that jittered like an atom.

  Without a word but with a scream tearing from my parted lips, I threw myself forward. I balled up the hands of my mechanized suit and started pounding on the console, tearing through it, arms jerking from side-to-side.

  Suddenly alarms blared everywhere, cutting through the air, mixing with the continuous sound of the red alert.

  I ignored them all. I concentrated on tearing my way through the console and smashing it beyond recognition. Without it, the communications system was as good as dead, or at least for the meantime.

  I landed my final blow on the primary console, my massive mechanized fingers grabbing at a central bed of circuits and tearing them free, the live wires snapping and crackling around my gauntlets. With a twitch, I closed my hands around them, and the circuits were crushed, more sparks erupting everywhere and scattering over the floor.

  The category of mech suit I was wearing didn’t have any weapons, technically, but considering it was used to dredge out quantum cores I had access to a fine array of multi-fractal lasers.

  Bringing both my arms up and aligning them forward, I charged the lasers, aiming them at the meter-thick glass-reinforced wall that led to the communications array beyond.

  A few blasts through that glass and I’d do enough damage that it would take the Miracle a day or two to fix it. And they didn’t have a day or two.

  My laser charged just as I heard the door open from behind me.

  I didn’t shift; I held position long enough that I managed to get off a pulse from my laser cannon. It slammed into the reinforced glass and ate right through it.

  I activated my laser cannon again to charge it. The goddamn thing took at least 10 seconds between blasts to heat back up. On an ordinary mission, that would be gone in a heartbeat. Now it was a frigging eternity.

  I snapped my head from side-to-side, tracking three soldiers as they entered the room. They’d already erected a directional shield in front of the door.

  Two of them shunted forward, massive pulse rifles held in their arms. They lay down cover fire as the third one streamed towards me, a different kind of weapon held in his arms. I’d never seen it before. It was massive, and from the light pulsing along its girth, I could tell that whatever it was, it was powerful.

  While my mechanized suit was sturdy and designed for extraordinary pressure, I wasn’t dealing with idiots. Whatever gun that soldier held, I could bet it could tear through my suit in a single shot.

  My only option was to act and to act fast.

  Rather than shunt myself to the side and dodge, I slammed forward, punching one curled up fist into the floor.

  Due to the sheer strength of the suit, my fist sailed right through the metal until I reached the base of the inch-thick plating. I curled my fingers around it and yanked it backwards. It had the same effect as pulling the rug out from underneath someone’s feet.

  The oncoming soldier was pitched to the side, falling on his hip before he punched back to his feet.

  My 10 seconds was up, and as I jolted backwards, I took the opportunity to twist my body and take another shot at the now exposed central communications array. Despite everything, my aim was true, and the massive searing hot blast from my laser cannon sliced into the circular room, detonating against the far wall.

  A massive cloud of destruction spread out as the floor beneath my feet shook. The explosion was loud enough and large enough to buy me a few seconds to retreat as the soldiers picked themselves off their knees.

  One more shot. I needed one more shot.

  The soldier closest to me snapped to his feet and threw himself forward. He toted the gun and lifted it. As if in slow motion, I could see his hand tighten around the trigger.

  I acted without thinking. I shifted to the side and grabbed at the vent controls on the tiny dashboard of my mechanized suit. Like I’d said – I wasn’t that familiar with this category of mech suit, but I was familiar enough that I recognized the vent controls. And clearly some part of me was smart enough to realize that if I vented the deep pressurizing gas pack, it could buy me the time I needed.

  As I vented the system, that specialized gas erupted into the room, immediately reacting with the air and exploding.

  I ducked before it happened, throwing myself to the side, flattening my suit against the floor. I hadn’t vented all the gas, and there was just enough that the explosion didn’t obliterate my suit.

  The soldier who’d been on his feet tearing towards me with that specialized gun wasn’t as lucky, however. He wasn’t just thrown off his feet this time; he was catapulted across the other side of the room until he slammed into the far wall and dented it.

  This was it. This was it. My laser cannon had charged again.

  One more shot, I kept telling myself, one more shot.

  I flung myself forward, maneuvering until I faced the hole in the wall. My back was exposed and the other two soldiers were right behind me. Nonetheless I lined up the shot and took it.

  The laser lanced out from my hand cannon, slamming into the communications array just as I felt a hail of bullets slam into my back.

  I staggered to my knees, alarms blaring through my suit, ringing in my ears, making my teeth jitter in my skull.

  I held on. Somehow. I pivoted on my foot, the move so fast my heavy armored boot gouged out a hole in the floor.

  Then I threw myself at the soldiers.

  My armor held up. Barely.

  I reached them. With a roar splitting from my cracked lips, I grabbed the nearest one. Though he was wearing prototype armor of his own, this mech was massive.

  I bodily picked the guy up then twisted and threw him head first into the now burning remains of the communications array.

  His friend shunted backwards, strafing to the side as he peppered my suit with shots.

  More and more alarms blared inside my helmet, shrieking right in my ear.

  I ignored them, clenched my teeth, rounded my shoulder, and slammed right into him, knocking him clean off his feet.

  He skidded across the floor, dropping his gun.

  Instantly I was upon him, throwing myself forward with all the agility of a tiger.

  He got both hands around the helmet of my suit and tried to pull it off. I just rounded my shoulder and shoved it into him, rolling it back and forth as if I were trying to flatten him. I could hear his armor crunching underneath me.

  Another terrified angry cry ripped from my throat.

  He tried to shift out from underneath my weight.

  He couldn’t.

  But he wasn’t done yet. I knew suits like his could explode – could detonate should the wearer become desperate enough.

  I was determined not to give him the chance.

  So I reared back, collected one hand around his ankle, and picked him up. I threw him into the communications array along with his friend.

  The thing was on fire, every alarm you could imagine blaring through the room.

  I stared at that massive hole in the wall for half a second, then I turned, leaned down, grabbed up the gun the soldier had dropped,
and continued forward.

  I wasn’t done yet.

  …

  Annabelle Williams

  We attacked the Ra’xon, came punching out of the spatial anomaly and re-materialized into ordinary space.

  I expected all hell to break loose. I expected the Miracle to contact the Star Forces ships in orbit around Moon Alpha 98 in a nanosecond.

  While the others on the bridge were tasked with coordinating the attack, I’d been told to keep a constant lock on Alpha 98 and to inform the Captain when the other vessels joined the fray.

  I concentrated, sweat dripping down my brow, heart thundering through my chest, vibrating up and shifting hard into my jaw like a hammer pounding at the bone.

  The Ra’xon swept through space, slamming towards the Miracle.

  Immediately the Miracle backed away and started sending volley after volley at us.

  Clearly whatever was happening onboard wasn’t a sufficient disruption to stop that great ship from attacking.

  I clenched my teeth hard, swiveling my attention between my own console panels and the main view screen.

  I’d been in enough fights to know our odds. We were going to lose, but sure as hell we were going to take the Miracle with us.

  …

  Lieutenant Commander Nathan Shepherd

  I threw myself out of the room and into the hallway. Fortunately the primary communications hub was on one of the central decks, and the place was virtually deserted.

  I had to find some way to shut down the Miracle’s engines. Yet just as soon as I thought that, the floor suddenly lurched beneath me.

  I was still wearing my mech suit, or what was left of it. The elite forces soldiers had torn through it, and I’d had to permanently disable the warning alarms, lest I lose my hearing.

  The floor beneath my feet lurched again, and if it weren’t for the stabilizers in my suit, I would have pitched into the wall.

  Just as the words, “what the hell?” readied on my lips, I realized what was happening.

  An alert echoed over the ship-wide audio system.

  The Ra’xon was attacking.

  The Ra’xon!

  I threw myself forward, a massive smile digging its way across my cheeks and hard into my chin.