The Crucible- The Complete Series

by Odette C. Bell

  “What is that thing?” Her eyes widened.

  I pulled myself to my feet. “Have you got it?”

  “It can’t move.”

  I summoned all the courage I had and forced myself forward, grabbing the gun from my hip holster and levelling it at the creature.

  The two slits in its face opened, and it swiveled black, moist eyes towards me.

  I’d never seen anything so horrifying. This galaxy was large enough that it had every possible type of life form. I’d seen creatures that would make a man’s stomach lurch. After a while, however, you started to get used to the difference in forms, shapes, and colors. You lost the tendency to think everything looked like a monster.

  But this, this goddamn creature before us… it did something to the mind. Made the heart speed up until it felt like it would explode.

  “What do I do?” Alyssa snapped, voice wavering.

  “Just hold it. Hold it.” With a gun still trained on the creature, I brought up my scanner, thumbing it on with a shaking hand.

  The thing’s eyes locked on me.

  Then it – it disappeared. In a blink of an eye.

  I jolted backwards again.

  “What the hell?” Alyssa gasped.

  “What did you do to it?”

  “Nothing. It disappeared.”

  “What?”

  “It disappeared.” She shifted towards me, arm banging up against the side of my suit. She still had her hand outstretched, but there was no longer anything for her power to do. That gold light simply eddied around her elbow and hand, twisting in and out, lighting up the underside of her helmet, catching underneath her wide open eyes.

  “That’s impossible. We didn’t see a transport beam.” I shifted closer to her, pressed my arm right up against her back.

  We stood there together, circling around, staring at that barren moonscape before us.

  “… We… we should push on,” she finally suggested. “And warn the other teams,” she added in a snap.

  “I’ve already done that.” With a forced breath, I pushed forward. Unashamedly I was right next to her. It wasn’t for her protection; it was for mine.

  “Do you think that’s what killed your friend?” Alyssa asked in a tight frightened voice as we continued forward, her hand always held high, her implant now on continuously.

  I thought about it and then nodded.

  I felt cold, thoroughly cold.

  “Have you ever seen anything like that before?” she questioned.

  I shook my head.

  She was clearly looking to me for answers, but I had none.

  We walked on in complete silence.

  The only known method of particle transportation in the galaxy was with a matter transference beam. It required a hell of a lot of energy, but as I brought up my scanner and nervously typed into it, I realized there was no signature of such energy.

  That thing had just… disappeared.

  Which was impossible.

  My father’s warning came flooding back. I would believe him, he’d promised. And when I found out the truth, I would return.

  I shook my head suddenly.

  “What is it?” Alyssa jerked her head towards me.

  “Never mind,” I said, teeth pressed hard into my lips.

  “I trust you,” she suddenly said.

  At first her admission floored me, then I realized what she meant. She wanted to know if I trusted her too, right?

  I took a breath. “You know my old man is Admiral Shepherd, right?”

  She nodded, a few strands of hair falling in front of her face under her visor.

  “I had to interrogate him.”

  She didn’t reply. Her gaze dropped to her feet briefly, and it took quite a while for her eyes to wander back to my face. “How did it go?”

  “It didn’t. I didn’t interrogate him – he interrogated me.”

  “Sorry?”

  “It’s a long story,” I said through a sigh. “I just… let’s say I never got on with my old man. We have fundamentally different views.”

  “What did he say to you?”

  My stomach tightened. I didn’t want to tell her, yet at the same time, I couldn’t stop myself. I had to get this off my chest. “That I couldn’t trust the resistance,” my voice was small, a whisper, as if I hoped she wouldn’t hear.

  At first she didn’t respond. Then I heard her let out a whistle of a breath. “It makes sense. He’s trying to undermine your trust. But you believe him, don’t you?”

  At first I felt tense, then I realized there was no malice behind her words. In fact, she was looking at me with a soft expression. No matter what she did, however, she didn’t drop her hand. She was making constant tiny movements of her forefinger, and around us a vortex of air had appeared.

  If any more of those creatures showed themselves, she’d be ready.

  I battled with my conscience. I didn’t want to admit that I’d started to doubt the resistance.

  She kept looking at me expectantly.

  I closed my eyes for the briefest second. “I do believe him,” I finally admitted.

  I waited for her to react, to tell me I was a fool. To radio the Captain, to spread the news.

  She didn’t. Instead her gaze became unfocused for a few seconds. “I don’t trust them either,” she admitted.

  I stiffened. “What?”

  “Why should I? I mean, I trust the Captain, I trust most of the crew, and I trust you,” she said, voice dipping low.

  The tension that had wrapped its way around my stomach suddenly eased. Tingles replaced it. “You do?”

  “But I don’t trust the resistance.”

  “Why not?” I pried further.

  “Because I don’t know enough about them. And I guess… I’ve been taught not to trust.”

  I lowered my gaze.

  “What did he tell you, though?”

  My stomach clenched.

  “It’s alright; you can tell me,” she prompted in a soft tone.

  I swallowed. “He told me that the resistance is being manipulated, controlled.”

  “By whom?”

  “The Elogian Factions.”

  She paused. I had no idea what she was going to do. I still feared that she would turn on me, tell me I was an idiot for believing such a tale. Clearly my father was just trying to manipulate me.

  That's not what she did. She nodded. “It makes sense.”

  “It does?”

  She looked at me sharply. “Of course it does. You've noticed it too, right? The resistance seem to have a lot of tech, a lot of people, but not a lot of success. And their targets are small. It's almost as if somebody doesn't what the resistance to win, just cause a lot of trouble.”

  I let out a trapped breath. She was right.

  We continued to walk, now in a pensive silence. I listened to the sound of my footfall reverberating up through my environmental suit.

  Condensation was picking up across my visor. This moon had an odd atmosphere, not enough to breathe, but enough that water condensed out of the air and covered everything.

  Alyssa didn't let her hand drop. I was gratified she was here. Without her, that… thing would have killed me.

  A thrill chased up my spine as I thought of it, as I remembered those black slit-like eyes.

  It didn't take long to reach the edge of the dig site. My stomach clenched, every muscle up my back growing tighter and tighter as a strange kind of fear took hold of me.

  We rounded the side of a hill and looked down into a massive crater dug into the ground. There was various equipment strewn around, from massive hover lights to lifts.

  Alyssa came to an abrupt stop several meters from the edge of the crater.

  I couldn't see her face – the bulk of her suit was in the way, but I fancied I could still read her body language.

  She looked terrified.

  “Alyssa?” I hazarded in a careful tone.

  She took several seconds before she stiffly
turned her head to me. Her eyes were wide, the whites rimmed around her soft brown irises.

  “What is it? Are your implants acting up again?” I shoved my words out in a single breath.

  It took a while, but eventually she shook her head. “… It's… I…” she trailed off.

  A kick of nerves raced through my gut.

  “Alyssa?” I moved a step closer to her, boots crunching over the water-clogged dust. “You okay?” I ducked my head down as I tried to stare up into her eyes. “Are you sure your implants aren’t acting up?”

  The Doc had given her the all-clear for this mission, but suddenly I wasn’t so sure it was a good idea. There was something about the tension crumpling her brow, her stiff and wary stance. Something about how wide her eyes became as she stared down into the crater beyond.

  A few members of the R’axon had already made it down to the crater. I could see them milling about below, lit up by the powerful hover lights.

  “Alyssa?” I brought a hand up and rested it on her shoulder.

  She doubled back, pushing into me.

  “Whoa.” I steadied her. “What’s going on?”

  She shook her head and took another jerked step back. She sucked in a shaking breath, one that wheezed and hissed over her comms.

  “That’s it – we’re heading back to the ship. You need to go to the med bay—”

  “No, I’m fine.” She balled her hands into fists, one implant still activated, and took a determined step towards the edge of the crater.

  Don’t ask me why, but the fine hair along the back of my neck stood on end as she stared down over that plummeting ledge.

  … Something didn’t feel right.

  “No, we’re going back to the ship,” I insisted.

  “Shepherd, it’s fine,” she sighed, trying but failing to hide her tension, “I just… it doesn’t matter. I’m over it now. Let’s push on.” She twisted on her heel, disturbing chunks of rubble and sending them cascading over the cliff.

  I shoved to the side and stood in front of her. “Alyssa, you’re not going down there—”

  “I’m fine. Look, it was nothing. I just… it sounds stupid, but that crater….”

  “What? That crater what? What’s wrong?”

  She looked up at me sharply. I could see her eyes beyond the condensed screen of her visor. “Nathan—”

  “Don’t tell me it’s nothing. What’s going on?”

  She dropped her head until she stared at her feet, her gaze never straying to the side to the crater beyond. She sighed. “I don’t… I guess I’m scared by it,” she admitted in a soft tone.

  “Of course you are, that creature—”

  “No,” she looked up sharply, eyes blazing, “not the creature – it’s something else.”

  I swallowed. Hard. Until I could feel my throat press against the hard fabric of my suit. “What is it?”

  “I just… never mind. I’m fine now. It’s probably just latent adrenaline from my time on the Miracle.” She took a sharp step back and shrugged me off, skirting around me to continue along the side of the crater.

  I paused to watch her. Her head was always locked between her shoulders, never twisting to the left or right once.

  I drove my teeth together and thought quickly.

  “Don’t say it, Nathan.” She suddenly turned over her shoulder and flashed me a look. “I’m telling you I’m fine. Now come on – the rest of the team will need us.” She brought her hand up and a few crackles of power blazed over it.

  Us, or her?

  I ignored my intuition and rushed after her. While my heart wanted to tell her to get back to the med bay, my brain knew she was right: we did need her. If there were more of those creatures down there, she may be our only hope.

  Apprehension punched through me, rattling my bones and shaking through my chest.

  This had better work out, or I’d never forgive myself.

  Chapter 7

  Alyssa Nightingale

  Something wasn’t right. I felt….

  I brought a hand up and locked it over my brow again, digging my fingers hard into the flesh.

  We’d reached the lift system that ran down one side of the deep crater. The drop was at least 100 meters.

  I could see the rest of the resistance recon team milling about below, all of them with their heads twisted to the left as if the very same thing had caught everyone’s attention at once.

  Shepherd and I walked onto one of the lifts. It rattled under our boots, letting out a piercing metal cry as it started to descend slowly.

  I felt… god, I couldn’t put my finger on it. My gut churned, my heart fluttered, and it felt as if my insides were turning to liquid.

  I tried to hide it from Shepherd. He was already worried enough about me as it was. Fortunately the constant condensation forming over the visor of my suit stopped him from seeing the sweat that had slicked my brow and was now running down my temples.

  Whatever the rest of the recon team were looking at, we couldn’t see it yet. The hover lights that should have been illuminating the whole dig site weren’t operational yet. There were only a few of them dotted around the crater, centered above the recon team so they could see what they were doing.

  Something formed in my stomach the lower the lift went. It wasn’t nerves; it was something far purer. I felt a kind of fear I’d never endured before. It was so sharp it felt as if it would cut me in half.

  I remained straight, rigid even, one hand clasped around the lift railing as I held the other high, my implant still activated.

  The lifts should have been much faster than this, but they needed maintenance. So we had to wait an agonizingly long time as they descended meter by meter into that crater.

  Shepherd shifted towards me, without a word, his boots grating against the metal plating of the floor. He leaned next to me, locked his hands on the same section of railing, waited a few seconds, then turned to face me.

  His expression was….

  “Alyssa,” he said softly, tone so gentle it might as well have been a feather on skin, “we can go back. Are you sure you want to do this?”

  I should have answered immediately, but I… I couldn’t.

  As we descended lower and lower, my neck snapped to the left. My eyes couldn’t penetrate the darkness, but I knew something was out there.

  Something was out there.

  At the far end of the crater. The same thing that had captured the rest of the recon team’s attention.

  “Alyssa?” I heard Shepherd shift, his suit rustling as he tilted his head to the left and stared in the same direction. “What’s out there?”

  I didn’t answer. Couldn’t.

  He shifted again, this time closer. “Al—” my name died in his throat.

  We reached the bottom of the crater.

  The lift let out a shrill beep, and the railing unlocked with a reverberating click.

  The railing started to lift up to let us out. I strode forward, head still twisted to the side, and I used my power to lift the railing faster.

  I needed to… needed to see what was out there.

  Shepherd rushed after me, EV boots skidding in the dry crumbly rock and dust.

  I ignored everyone, everything around me.

  I was being drawn towards it like two poles of a magnet locking together.

  “Hey, wait up,” Shepherd tried.

  His words were distant somehow, just echoes far back at the edges of my mind.

  “Alyssa—”

  I reached the center of the crater.

  I stopped. I tilted my head back and stared.

  One of the hover lights cut to the left suddenly, its beam slicing towards the back of the crater and lighting up the far left wall.

  … The wall.

  Shepherd reached my side and stopped. “Aly—” he gulped. “What the hell is that?”

  I commandeered several passing hover lights, using my power to direct them over to the wall.

  They f
loated towards it, soaring high into the air as their powerful illumination beams sliced across the wall.

  I saw glimpses of a sleek white-grey metal.

  My stomach clenched as something drove hard into my gut. It was that fear. That growing gathering fear. It felt like Hell itself wending its way tighter and tighter around my middle until I couldn’t breathe.

  Shepherd was beside me, but he was silent. I could see him in my peripheral vision, his head turned back, his eyes wide with shock.

  We stood in silence and stared.

  Before I knew what I was doing, I took a step forward, and another, boots churning through the disturbed dust all around me.

  Whatever was before me – that wall – it was so large that the powerful hover lights couldn’t illuminate it all at once. They only provided slices of it, flashes like a dying dream.

  It was enough to… compel me. Yes, that was it – it was compelling. It drew me forward step by step.

  I was barely aware of anything else. Not the people around me, not the ground below me, just that wall. Just those tantalizing glimpses of glittering grey-white.

  ….

  I wanted to touch it. No, I needed to.

  I took another jittering step, but stopped, abruptly, as Shepherd dashed forward and locked a hand over my arm.

  His grip wasn’t hard, but the effect was like being punched in the face. He pulled me out of my sudden reverie, and I let out a rattling gasp.

  “Alyssa?” His gaze searched mine, eyes darting to and fro, brow creased with clear worry. “Are you alright?”

  “I… I’m fine….” Though I tried to maintain eye contact with him, I couldn’t; my gaze jerked back to the wall.

  He shifted around until he stood between me and it. He dipped his head down, shooting me the kind of look that commanded attention. “Alyssa,” he said, slowing down each syllable until it sounded like he was spelling out my name, “something isn’t right here. I think we need to go back to the Ra’xon.”

  “No,” I said, the word punching from my throat. I was surprised by my own forcefulness.

  Not as surprised as Shepherd, though. His features slackened and worry paled his cheeks. For the briefest moment he turned over his shoulder and glanced at the wall. With a shiver that ran hard into his shoulders and back and rumpled the fabric of his EV suit, he snapped his attention back to me. “That’s an order, Lieutenant.”