The Crucible- The Complete Series

by Odette C. Bell

  That presence built and built, more power rushing off me, cascading out, gushing towards the wall.

  The wall filled my consciousness. There wasn’t room for anything else. For no other memory, for no other thought.

  Just the wall and what was behind it.

  I was its key. I would open the door that had kept it back.

  And then, finally, it would be free.

  I tried to scream once more, jerking my head from left to right, but nothing happened.

  No sound.

  Then I began to hear something. A low grating groan, coming from the direction of the wall. As my power slammed into it, more and more light filtering off my form, the wall began to shift. Move. Convulse as if it were a wave crashing to shore.

  Despite the inescapable brightness of my telekinetic power, I could still see. My eyes weren’t burnt from my skull.

  The wall shifted more and more. It looked like a sheet flapping in the wind.

  I could no longer hear the screams of my crew. Either they’d been drowned out by the metal undulations of the wall, or they’d stopped.

  While the light pouring off me couldn’t kill me, perhaps they weren’t as fortunate. Perhaps I’d already burnt them to a crisp.

  I… I was more terrified than I would ever be in my life. Than anyone had ever been.

  I tried to whimper.

  I couldn’t.

  I tried to scream.

  No scream would come.

  Instead I remained there, floating in the air, arms pulled wide by my sides, power cascading off me.

  I remained there and waited for the wall to open.

  …

  Alyssa Nightingale

  God it was coming out.

  It was coming out.

  There’d be no stopping it now.

  I could hear it calling to me. Reaching out for me.

  But I was too far away. It couldn’t catch me.

  It wanted me. Wanted me more than it wanted Williams. It could do so much more with my form. But without me, it had no option but to use Williams instead.

  I felt crippled.

  I could barely move.

  Both Shepherd and I were still in the observational room, staring, slack-jawed and terrified at the view on the screen.

  There was nothing we could do. I knew that. But I couldn’t stop begging Shepherd to do something. Anything. To save us all.

  There was nothing Shepherd could do.

  There was nothing any of us

  …

  Lieutenant Commander Nathan Shepherd

  I had no idea what was going on.

  No clue.

  I’d never seen anything like this. I’d never felt anything like this. The terror tumbling through my form was sharper than anything anyone had ever experienced. It felt as if it would carve my body into pieces and crush me into dust.

  I stood there with one hand locked on the edge of that main console, my arm shaking so badly it felt as if it would tear from my shoulder socket.

  I could barely breathe. And yet I was holding up better than Alyssa.

  She was crumpled beside me, whimpering, staring with tear-streaked eyes at the view playing along the observational window.

  Williams.

  Williams.

  She’d been lifted into the air like a puppet without strings.

  Her implants were on. There was so much power rushing off them that it looked as if a star was being born.

  All that power centered on the wall.

  There was so much interference, but there was still enough visual to make out what was happening to that megalithic slab of metal.

  It was undulating like a wave. I’d never seen anything like it. What’s more, neither had the sensors. The Ra’xon’s sophisticated external scanners had absolutely no idea what they were picking up.

  Something new.

  Something terrible.

  The Ra’xon had tried to beam Williams out. We couldn’t. Heck, with the amount of power coming off her, it was questionable we could even send down a shuttle without it being torn apart by gravitational eddies.

  I brought a hand up and locked it over my mouth, feeling the sweat laced fingers press against my teeth.

  There was nothing I could do.

  There was nothing anyone could do.

  …

  Annabelle Williams

  I fought it. I tried to fight.

  I couldn’t.

  I was too weak.

  In a rush, in a flash, it entered my mind.

  It took me over completely.

  And the wall opened.

  As my eyes closed, as I lost all control of my body, I saw it.

  The wall simply melted, gushing down into a massive puddle at the bottom of the crater.

  And beyond? Beyond was darkness.

  The deepest darkness you had ever seen.

  It reached out.

  …

  Alyssa Nightingale

  “No!” I screamed, the word tearing from my throat, coming up from my unconscious, practically destroying my body as I spat it out with all my force and fury.

  The wall fell away.

  In its place, darkness loomed. A darkness that could not be permeated, despite the powerful light still gushing off Williams’ form.

  I… I….

  I started to shake. Quiver, jerk so badly it was as if my composite atoms were about to pull free and bolt around the room.

  I knew what would happen long before the Ra’xon’s sensors began to go haywire.

  Something was going to come out of the wall.

  Something that had been waiting in the darkness for eons.

  Sure enough, suddenly Shepherd gasped. It was such a shaking, pitching breath it sounded as if his lungs had been crushed.

  I tilted my head back, forced myself to open my eyes, and stared.

  It was coming out of the wall.

  It was awakening.

  I clutched a hand over my mouth and sank down to my knees again, bones driving hard against the unyielding floor.

  Shepherd was right there next to me, one hand clutched on the railing that led around the side of the observational screen.

  The live footage from the dig site kept playing across it.

  I started to shake. My whole body twitched, like I was convulsing.

  Anabelle still floated there, right in front of the wall, her body suspended in clouds of power.

  I twitched so violently I almost fell backwards.

  Shepherd dropped to one knee and wrapped an arm around my back.

  Neither of us said anything as we watched in horror.

  Finally that wall melted away completely, every last remnant of the metal disappearing.

  The yawning darkness was revealed in its totality.

  Something moved within.

  I whimpered. It was a sharp, instinctual move. It came up from my center, from my soul.

  “Alyssa?” Nathan wrapped his arm harder around my back.

  “God,” I said between my fingers, my hand still clamped hard over my face. “God.”

  “Lieutenant Commander,” the Captain’s voice suddenly boomed over the comms.

  “We have to get to the bridge,” I suddenly said, punching to my feet and bringing a surprised Shepherd with me.

  “You have to get to the bridge,” the Captain mirrored my words.

  Shepherd looked torn as he stood there, one arm still pressed firmly around my back.

  I didn’t give him time to hesitate.

  I twisted, grabbed his wrist, and pulled him forward.

  It was coming through. The presence was coming through into this universe.

  That which was beyond the wall.

  My implants surged with energy. I had to use all my self-control not to turn them on.

  It was as if the thing beyond the wall was singing to them, calling out to them. Beckoning them.

  As we ran, my implants began to glitter with power, a faint gold glow picking up around my arms
.

  “Alyssa?” Nathan jerked his head down to my arm. “Are you alright?”

  “We have to get to the bridge,” I repeated like a mantra. “We have to get to the bridge.”

  I could feel it more distinctly now. The presence. Now the wall was open, there was nothing between me and it.

  It was horrifying.

  I ran faster, throwing myself into a full sprint, Shepherd still held firmly in my grasp.

  “What happened to Annabelle? God, what happened to her?”

  I didn’t answer. Though I thought I knew the answer.

  What had happened to Annabelle should have happened to me. It would have happened to me if Shepherd hadn’t gotten me off that moon when he had.

  “It’s awakening,” I managed through a tortured breath.

  “What’s awakening?”

  I didn’t know. Not fully. I couldn’t conceive of what exactly was behind that wall.

  I just knew how terrifying it was. How dark.

  “Bridge,” I managed through another struggling breath, “we have to get to the bridge.”

  “What the hell is happening, Alyssa?”

  What was happening?

  We were all about to die.

  …

  Lieutenant Commander Nathan Shepherd

  My heartbeat pounded in my ears, thrummed through my veins.

  I was wired with fear.

  Annabelle… she’d… something had happened to her.

  Alyssa was still pulling me forward. I could have tried to break her grip, but I knew instinctively that she wouldn’t let me.

  She looked terrified. Absolutely torn apart by fear.

  A red alert had picked up across the ship long ago, blaring through the corridors, that flickering light bleeding across the walls.

  The Ra’xon had been forced from battle to battle for the past few days, but I instinctively knew this was different.

  Something was down there on that moon.

  The Forgotten.

  My father’s words punched into my mind.

  We reached a lift, and when the doors didn’t open fast enough, Alyssa helped them along with a burst from her implants.

  She shoved me inside.

  Her face was pale with shock, her skin so white it looked as if all the blood had drained away from her body. She shook as she stood there, too, every breath seeming harder than the next.

  “What’s going on?” I tried once more, moving a step closer to her, even though we were already side-by-side.

  She jerked her head to the left and gazed up at me. Her pale brown eyes were wide, rimmed with white. “Shepherd,” she gulped, “I… we just have to get to the bridge.” She suddenly winced, a powerful twitch crossing down her shoulders and causing her to stagger to the side.

  I grabbed her arm to steady her. “Alyssa?”

  “I… I’m fine.”

  “No you’re not. What’s going on?”

  “It’s trying to get inside my head,” she suddenly admitted.

  I froze. My body felt colder than the ice core of a comet. “What?” my voice shuddered from my constricted throat.

  She turned to me sharply. “I think you’re right.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Whatever is behind that wall,” she wheezed through a breath, “it’s behind my implants too.” She brought up both her arms, for the first time dropping her grip around my wrist.

  I watched her stare at her implants, a faint gold glow still picking up over both and playing along the fabric of her sleeves.

  “Alyssa?”

  “I can feel it in my head. Calling me.”

  Nerves tangled in my gut, tying me up until it felt I couldn’t move. “What?”

  “If it hadn’t been Williams, it would have been me,” she admitted as she closed her eyes and winced.

  “What are you talking—”

  The lift opened. We reached the bridge.

  It was chaos.

  The Captain sat on the edge of her seat, her back as stiff as a pole as she watched the main view screens, her eyes shifting with the darting speed of a cat.

  She turned as soon as she heard the lifts open. “Get to tactical.” She jammed a hand towards a free station to her left.

  I did as I was told.

  Alyssa followed.

  “What’s going on, Captain?” I sat roughly in my seat, set my fingers darting across the controls, and turned to stare at the Captain.

  She didn’t make eye contact; she stared at the view screen.

  The footage of the dig site was still playing across it.

  I gasped, a breath rattling in my throat.

  The darkness was starting to push its way out of the now open wall.

  It moved like a cloud.

  Williams still hung there, suspended in the air.

  “We’ve got to save her,” I bellowed, terror ripping through me as I watched that dark cloud loom towards her.

  “There’s nothing we can do.”

  “Beam her out,” I spat.

  “We’ve tried. There’s massive spatial interference.” The Captain shifted further in her seat until she practically stood.

  I jerked my head back to the screen just in time to see that cloud snap forward.

  I buckled forward, letting out a choked breath.

  It consumed her.

  The cloud rushed past Annabelle.

  I froze.

  … She was dead.

  Annabelle was dead.

  “That spatial disturbance is building,” one of the sensor techs screamed. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s like… it’s like something’s trying to push its way into our space.”

  “Keep scanning it,” the Captain snapped.

  Williams was dead.

  She was dead.

  “Contact engineering. Tell them I want our engines operational now.” The Captain never took her eyes off the main screen.

  The view on the screen changed, the cloud billowing as if a strong wind had driven through it.

  I saw Williams.

  She was still there suspended in the air.

  She was still alive.

  “Captain, we have to do something,” I begged. “Williams is still alive.”

  “There’s nothing you can do for her,” someone said in a soft voice.

  It was Alyssa. She was still standing beside me, her pale face turned towards the screens.

  “What?” I shifted to face her.

  She looked… horrified.

  “There’s nothing you can do for her. It’s got her now. We… we need to leave.”

  “Captain!” the sensor tech bellowed, “there’s something coming out of that wall.”

  “What do you mean?” The Captain faced him.

  “Something… something’s forming out of it.”

  Everyone watched in horror as shapes started to emerge from that impenetrable darkness.

  At first it was impossible to tell what they were.

  Then one or two snapped forward, punching high into the sky, aiming towards the Ra’xon.

  “They’re ships!” the sensor technician screamed.

  “Ready weapons,” the Captain spat.

  The ships moved so goddamn fast, they punched through the upper layers of the moon’s thin atmosphere and smashed their way towards the Ra’xon.

  “Shoot them down,” the Captain bellowed.

  The Ra’xon let loose with a volley of ion blasts. They should have been enough to take down a light cruiser.

  They weren’t enough to dent those two small ships.

  “Our weapons are having no effect.”

  “Phase torpedoes, now.” The Captain sliced a stiff hand towards the screen.

  Phase torpedoes were the strongest weapons in the Ra’xon’s arsenal. The warheads were as large as the tiny ships assaulting us. It seemed like a ridiculous waste.

  No one questioned the Captain’s order.

  The torpedoes were launched, and both slammed
into the tiny vessels.

  “Direct hits,” the tactical officer called. “Good god,” she said in another breath, “we’ve managed to disable but not destroy them.”

  What the hell were we dealing with here? Those torpedoes should have obliterated those ships, scattered their remnants through the moon’s atmosphere.

  “Captain, more vessels are forming from that void,” the sensor tech warned in a shaking voice.

  We all turned our attention back to the main view screen. Sure enough, more vessels were picking their way out of the darkness.

  “We have to leave,” the Captain said all of a sudden.

  “Captain,” I twisted in my seat, staring at her, “our team is still down there.”

  “I know that,” she admitted in a broken tone, “but there’s nothing we can do against those ships. We have to leave.”

  I knew she was right. But goddammit, I couldn’t leave Williams. Not if there was a chance she was still alive.

  Alyssa still stood beside me, her back ramrod straight, her hands clutched into such tight fists it was a surprise I didn’t see blood trickling between her fingers.

  She stared at the view screen.

  Those sleek unknown vessels kept punching towards the Ra’xon. We were managing to pick off the smaller ones, but it was inconceivably hard for their size. They were little more than single-person vessels, and yet they packed the punch of well-equipped military cruisers.

  “Chief, all power to engines. We need to get the Ra’xon and the Miracle out of here. Now.”

  “I’ll give you everything I’ve got, Captain,” the Chief roared.

  “We need to get out of here,” Alyssa suddenly said in a small terrified tone.

  The exact note of panic in her voice terrified me. A wave of nerves punched down my neck, setting every hair on end. “Alyssa?”

  “We have to get out of here,” she said, louder now, voice still shaking.

  “Lieutenant—” the Captain began.

  “We have to get out of here,” Alyssa practically screamed.

  The bridge fell silent as everyone watched her.

  Her breath became rapid, punching her chest out like hands rattling at a cage.

  “Alyssa—”

  “It’s waking up,” she cried, “it’s waking up. We need to leave. We need to leave.” She sank down to her knees, crunching her body low over her legs.

  I wanted to fall to my own knees to check on her.

  I couldn’t.

  “We can’t fight it. We don’t have a chance. We have to leave,” she screamed, voice pitching high.