The Crucible- The Complete Series

by Odette C. Bell

  “I have recalled her. She claims she is currently completing an important task—”

  “It doesn’t matter. Get her out of that crater now.”

  “What’s going on, Lieutenant Commander?”

  “Any telekinetic warrior down there could be in real danger.”

  There was a pause.

  “I have recalled her. She has assured me she is on her way.”

  I watched Shepherd close his eyes and let out a relieved breath.

  “Lieutenant Commander, I want to know everything you do, now,” the Captain demanded.

  Shepherd turned to the CMO. “Fill her in.”

  “Where are you going?” the CMO demanded.

  “To check on Williams. I know her,” he said ominously.

  “She wouldn’t ignore a captain’s order,” the CMO pointed out.

  Shepherd didn’t look convinced. “Fill the Captain in.” He turned sharply on his boots and headed for the door.

  I followed.

  “Stay here, Alyssa,” he said as he turned over his shoulder sharply.

  “I’m coming,” I stated flatly. “There’s nothing wrong with me. Plus, I think I’m going to have a better chance of convincing Williams than you will. I know what happened to me. I can explain why it’s dangerous.”

  He couldn’t argue with that.

  We dashed out of the medical bay just as the CMO started filling in the Captain on what we’d learnt.

  I instinctively knew we didn’t have much time. As the seconds ticked by, they counted down to something.

  Hell.

  Chapter 9

  Annabelle Williams

  I hadn’t expected the Captain’s desperate order for my return.

  I hadn’t even reached the dig site yet.

  I didn’t know how I felt about being recalled to the Ra’xon. In part, it relieved me. I didn’t want to be down here. As soon as I’d set foot on this planet… something had welled within me. A desperate kind of fear that couldn’t be quelled by reason.

  And yet, now I’d been recalled, I didn’t want to go.

  Something was keeping me here.

  It was a compulsion. It reached deep inside my chest, and locked me in place, like mag clamps docking a cruiser.

  For the umpteenth time, I brought a hand up and wiped the condensation from my visor.

  My security team was with me.

  As we walked, we didn’t say a word. Our shuttle was only one hundred meters away now. I could see it in between the beads of condensation along my visor. It was just up a small hill.

  Despite Shepherd’s warning, no one else had met another one of the so-called creatures.

  That all changed. In a flash.

  I think I knew what would happen before anyone heard a sound. Before the noise of claws scattering over the rock and dust met our ears, I turned.

  I jerked my head to the left, my eyes snapping wide, my breath freezing in my chest.

  I screamed. Well before I saw it.

  Something threw itself out of the darkness. It slammed into one of the security personnel, driving hard into his chest, claws sinking into his abdomen and back so quickly a splatter of blood arced over the dust.

  All hell broke loose.

  The remaining three security officers started firing.

  I activated my implants.

  As I did, I felt something. Not fear. Not terror at seeing someone torn down.

  … Just something.

  Far off.

  Something calling me.

  For the briefest moment, I twisted my head, realizing I was turning back towards the dig.

  Then there was more scattering. More claws. More dark shapes in the night.

  Our small team backed together. Though the security officers were good, and their aim was true, our bullets did nothing.

  The creatures shifted around them, transporting in an instant. Blinking out of existence only to reappear a few centimeters to the side.

  It was impossible.

  I should have been screaming; I should have been terrified.

  I wasn’t.

  That compulsion was building more and more. In fact, the second I’d activated my implants, my fear had been washed away completely.

  I heard the security chief make a desperate call to the Captain. “We’re being mowed down. We need backup. We need backup.”

  They continued to fight.

  Me, I could do nothing but stand there. I’d activated my implants with the intention of helping. Now I could do nothing but watch. Watch with that semi-cold, detached feeling one gets when one is observing nothing more than a movie. A play. A fiction.

  There were countless creatures out there now.

  Flashes of dark in the night.

  They were driving us back.

  Back towards the dig.

  …

  Lieutenant Commander Nathan Shepherd

  Alyssa and I were headed to one of the communications decks.

  We didn’t make it.

  When we were halfway there, we received a desperate call from the Captain. “Something’s happening down on that moon, Lieutenant Commander. Williams’ security team has just been attacked.”

  “What?”

  “We’ve positioned the Ra’xon directly over the crater, and we’re using probe cameras to pick up footage of what’s going on. Head to one of the observational rooms. There is one on your deck.”

  I didn’t question.

  With Alyssa at my side, we ran.

  We reached the room, the door sliding open as I grabbed the frame for support and threw myself in.

  The room was massive and located on the starboard side of the ship. One wall was nothing but a massive window. While it could show space directly outside, it could also be programmed like a view screen. Technically it was a backup should the computer be so badly disabled that it would be unable to show telemetry and footage. There were other such windows all around the Ra’xon. If your view screens failed, at least you’d be able to see what was in space around you.

  I didn’t have to activate the primary observational window. It flicked on by itself.

  I saw footage of the moon below us.

  My heart skipped a beat and then another. It felt like it would crack open and blood would spill over my boots.

  I saw three shapes from above. They were running, pitching themselves forward, some falling only for others to grab them up and hurl them onwards.

  My ears started to ring.

  I heard Alyssa gasp and throw a hand over her mouth.

  “What’s happening down there?” I snapped at the Captain.

  “Williams’ security team has been attacked by the creatures you identified.”

  My heart really did stop this time. I felt it shudder and then freeze.

  That’s when I saw them. Black shapes. They flit in and out like shadows at the sides of a flickering candle.

  “Our team is being forced back to the dig site,” the Captain said.

  I felt sick. Nausea drove through my stomach so hard it was a surprise I didn’t fall to my knees.

  “What?” I felt my cheeks pale.

  “We’re trying to beam them out. But for some reason, we can’t get a lock. There’s too much interference.”

  “No, you have to get them out. You have to get them out before it’s too late,” Alyssa suddenly said, speaking between her fingers as she drove them harder and harder against her mouth. I could see her knuckles pop out from her already white and pasty skin.

  “There’s gotta be something we can do,” I forced myself to say.

  “We’re working on it,” the Captain assured me.

  I could barely feel my limbs. Standing here above the action with no way to help was hell.

  Alyssa started to shake, and she sucked another grating gasp between her fingers. “It’s pulling her back towards the wall,” she suddenly said.

  A chill feeling escaped over my spine, every hair standing on end as I turned my head to
wards her. “What?”

  Alyssa didn’t look at me. Instead, she locked her wide open eyes on the screen and did not blink once. “Those creatures are pushing her back to the wall. It’s not going to let her go.”

  “… What’s not going to let her go?” I could barely control my voice.

  “It’s too late, Shepherd. We’re too late.”

  …

  Annabelle Williams

  We ran. The security chief pulled me along, firing over one shoulder as he tried desperately to keep his team alive.

  It wouldn’t matter.

  There would be no escape.

  As we threw ourselves over the dust covered ground, I could barely see any more. So much condensation had built up over the front of my visor it looked as if I was walking through a torrential downpour.

  But I could still make them out. Flashes in the darkness. The creatures.

  They should have terrified me. They didn’t. Something was still reaching out towards me. It had wrapped its hands around me now, and would not let go.

  What remained of our small team crested the hill.

  Before us was the dig site.

  I almost stopped. I would have if the security chief had been pulling me forward.

  It was….

  It was….

  I couldn’t describe it.

  It was like home.

  Like returning home.

  That crater was sunk deep into the ground, lit up here and there by hover lights.

  There was a sudden scream to my side, and another of the security officers fell to the creatures.

  A slice of blood arced up and splashed over the arm of my EV suit.

  I looked down at it slowly.

  I felt nothing.

  I wanted to feel something. I couldn’t. There was no room in my head.

  Something was filling it like water rushing into a dry riverbed.

  “Come on!” the security chief roared. He pushed me towards the lifts at the edge of the crater.

  The creatures kept driving us forward.

  Our desperate footfall scattered chunks of rock in every direction.

  The lifts were now 50 meters ahead of us. 40. 30.

  There was another scream. Another security officer fell.

  That left only me and the security chief.

  I saw flashes of his face through his visor. His eyes were plastered open, his mouth rigid with shock. He kept firing over his shoulder, sweaty fingers sliding over the trigger of his gun.

  His bullets did nothing. The creatures were too fast.

  10 meters. The lift was right in front of us.

  Five meters now.

  I heard a scattering right behind us.

  “Go!” The security chief rounded his shoulder into my back and shoved me forward, practically throwing me into the open lift.

  Then I heard something slam into him. Heard flesh being torn, heard blood splattering over the ground.

  I tumbled into the open lift, back slamming into one side.

  Just as I opened my eyes to face the creatures, the lift started of its own accord. The railings slammed down and the inertia shields flicked on.

  I saw the creatures stop.

  They didn’t surge forward any more.

  The lift rattled beneath me, shaking badly. I had to spread my hands out and draw my knees in to keep myself stable.

  That presence was still in my mind, calling to me louder and louder.

  It was so loud that even though I received desperate communications from the Ra’xon and the dig crew in the crater, I couldn’t hear them.

  I kept shaking now. Violently.

  My implants were still on. Even if I’d wanted to shut them off, I couldn’t.

  They glowed brightly, too. Much more brightly than they should.

  Something was increasing my power. Reaching into me and doing something to my implants.

  I should have cried, screamed, begged.

  I didn’t.

  Instead I sat there with my arms locked around my knees, my body shaking just as badly as the lift below me.

  With a grating stop, the lift arrived at the bottom of the crater.

  I unwrapped my arms from around my middle, stood, and walked out.

  I felt myself do all of those things, but it wasn’t me doing them.

  I walked towards the wall.

  I could see the rest of the dig team down here, pelting towards me, faces slack with shock.

  They tried to help me.

  I ignored them.

  I… couldn’t… do anything but walk towards that wall.

  Then I heard something filter over the communications system of my suit. One voice that broke through the reverie.

  Shepherd.

  “Williams. Williams. Get out of there. Get out of that dig site. Stay away from that wall.”

  “Na-Nathan?” my voice shook.

  “Yes! It’s me. Annabelle, you’ve got to trust me. Don’t go anywhere near that wall. Annabelle, fight it.”

  “Na-Nathan, I… I can’t.”

  “Williams, please. Please, don’t take another step towards it.”

  Tears started streaking down my cheeks.

  I tried with all my might to stop my limbs from taking another step forward.

  I couldn’t. It was like trying to tether photons.

  “Annabelle, please,” he called once more.

  “Nathan, h-help me,” I managed.

  I could feel it now. The fear. Nathan’s desperate call had broken the dam holding it back.

  It rushed through me. Consumed every cell.

  But there was nothing I could do.

  Nothing I could do.

  I screamed.

  …

  Lieutenant Commander Nathan Shepherd

  “Williams. Williams!” my voice pitched high, terror ringing through it.

  I gripped the edges of the console before me, leaning towards the observational screen, eyes locked open.

  “Williams!” I called once more.

  There was nothing.

  Her audio feed cut out.

  That last pitching scream echoed in my ears, slamming through my mind like a bullet.

  Suddenly Alyssa gasped. She pitched to the side, and I threw a hand out, locking it over her arm to steady her. “Alyssa?”

  She was pale, deathly pale, and her breathing came in sharp pants.

  “What’s going on?”

  She brought a hand up and collapsed it over her chest, stiff fingers curling in as she clutched hard at the fabric of her uniform.

  “Alyssa?”

  “I… god… I…” she couldn’t push her words out.

  I shifted around and grabbed an arm around her middle just as she fell forward, losing all strength in her legs.

  I guided her gently to the floor. Once she was stable, I snapped a hand up and slammed it on my command PIP.

  She darted out and grabbed my wrist. “No. I don’t need a doctor. I’m fine. You have to concentrate on getting Williams out of there. You have to get Williams out of there before it does something to her,” Alyssa’s words came out in a tumble, a jumble of emotion as her eyes opened wider and wider, tears brimming them and trickling down her cheeks.

  It was such a raw display of feelings that it felt as if someone had wrapped their hands around my heart and was shaking it with all the power of an earthquake.

  “You have to get Williams out of there. Before it… before it….”

  “What’s happening?”

  “That… the wall. That… wall. What’s behind it – it’s going after her. It’s going after her, Nathan. I know it’s going after her!”

  “Alyssa, calm down,” I begged.

  It was clear she couldn’t calm down. Her whole body was shaking. She wasn’t convulsing, but she was close.

  I’d never seen anyone more terrified.

  I went to tap my command PIP again, but she stopped me. She locked her sweaty hand around my wrist, fingers pressing hard into
the flesh. She brought her face forward with a lurch, her head jerking up, her hair flaring around her cheeks as she stared at me. “Get Williams out of there,” she begged.

  Before I could say anything, she pushed me back, locked a hand on the wall, and pulled herself to her feet.

  “Alyssa—”

  “Help me!”

  Before I could insist she go to the med bay, something happened. The view along the observational window changed. The smart, hyper-sensitive probe cameras of the Ra’xon shifted, zooming in all the way down to the crater below.

  I stood there, speechless as I watched.

  Something was happening to Williams.

  I couldn’t see her in perfect detail, but I knew it had to be her. It couldn’t be anyone else.

  There was someone standing there in the center of the dig site, facing the wall as every other person ran from them.

  Williams started to burn with light. It was the only way to describe it. So much illumination powered off her form that the console in front of me flashed up a warning to say it had to auto adjust brightness of the footage to keep them within safe levels.

  Alyssa crumpled, but she didn’t fall all the way to the floor. Instead both her knees drove hard into the metal plating, letting out a resounding clunk. She wrapped one sweaty arm around the console to balance herself, and reached the other one forward, typing something desperately onto the electronic pad.

  I’d never seen her eyes wider. It seemed as if they would swallow the whole world in their desperation.

  “We have to do… we have to do something,” she begged over and over again.

  What?

  There was nothing we could do.

  …

  Annabelle Williams

  I couldn’t stop it.

  I couldn’t pull myself away.

  The force of that presence had now lifted me up off my feet. It had reached deep into my implants and activated them, channeling a level of power I had never before experienced.

  So much light surrounded me and spilled off my form that it felt as if I’d been turned into the center of the sun.

  I could hear my crew screaming behind me, but gradually the screams were becoming far off, almost insignificant.

  My mouth was locked open, my eyes as wide as they would go. I tried to scream, but no sound could come out.

  There was no way to express my fear. There was no point, either.