The Crucible- The Complete Series

by Odette C. Bell

  The Forgotten song swelled in my mind once more, becoming louder and louder until I swore an entire army had been transported to the space between my ears.

  I whimpered, screamed, but I didn’t let my hands drop.

  The massive body drone stamped once more, those fluid-filled sacks of its body drooping and slamming against the floor.

  Suddenly the far wall span towards us.

  I shifted a finger towards it, holding it in place at the same time as I held the ceiling and the shields.

  I was… I was running out of energy.

  The power required to hold engineering together was astronomical. So much light bled from my implants it looked as if my arms were now lasers.

  Shepherd tried to shoot at the body drone, but his bullets never reached it. Each one of them blinked out of existence.

  Seconds later, they reappeared, right by Shepherd’s face.

  With a gasp, my body reacting faster than my mind, I managed to hold them in place long enough until they dissipated.

  The body drone brought up its leg and stamped once more. The wall behind it shifted and slammed towards me.

  I screamed. Holding it in place.

  Engineering was being torn apart. If it weren’t for me, it would collapse.

  But I didn’t have any energy left over to fight the massive drone.

  When it mattered most I didn’t have enough energy.

  I was too weak.

  Too weak.

  The body drone took a lumbering step towards us, opening its mouth wide.

  I could see a void between its teeth, a long dark winding black tunnel that seemed to draw into some other field of space.

  … It was going to swallow me, wasn’t it? It was going to swallow me and take me back to the Forgotten. Then it would crush Shepherd and destroy this station, taking every scrap of Forgotten technology it could find.

  … This was it.

  The moment I’d always trained for.

  And I couldn’t do it.

  It took another lumbering step towards me.

  It started to lift its leg.

  Time seemed to slow down as the reality of the situation struck me.

  This would be my final moment.

  … No.

  A voice punched through my mind.

  It was louder than the siren song, louder than the fear. It was a voice that had always been there, throughout the horror of the Farsight Program, throughout every battle I’d fought.

  The part of me that would not roll over and die.

  It told me I had more power in me.

  I’d heard it before, back when Axis had started his training.

  It had always been there in the back of my mind, convincing me I could go further.

  And now, in my last moment, it screamed.

  It called. And I followed.

  The massive drone brought its foot down.

  I brought my hands around.

  The power coming off the engine cores was astounding. Magnetic cores had to be protected by meters upon meters of shielding. Though they didn’t have the long-term reliable output of quantum cores, they were famed for their ability to produce massive amounts of energy in an instant.

  And that’s what I needed now.

  I held the ceiling in place, held the walls at bay, and created a pocket in the shield behind me.

  I kept that vortex of power circling around Shepherd and myself to protect us.

  Then I let loose.

  And so did the cores.

  Without a shield to protect them, they sent a wall of blistering energy burning through the engineering bay.

  Just like with the Miracle, I created a funnel-like shield, directing the mass of power towards one point and one point alone – the body drone.

  It screamed as untold kilojoules of power slammed into it.

  Its body started to jitter, shake, tear apart.

  Those fluid-filled sacks burst, exploding and instantly being burnt away in the wall of energy.

  Before it fell – before it was ripped open and apart – it looked right at me. With one great hollow eye it stared.

  I knew what that stare promised.

  The Forgotten would come for me again.

  But this time they would not capture me.

  The massive drone was destroyed.

  Instantly I twisted, managed to lock the ceiling and walls in place, and concentrated on shielding off the engine.

  I kept the vortex of power around Shepherd and myself, otherwise we’d have burnt to a crisp.

  “We have to jettison the cores,” Shepherd bellowed.

  A second later my comm PIP blared. “Nightingale, you have to do exactly what I say.” It was the Chief.

  My heart sang as I heard her hurried strict tones.

  “You’re going to need to detach that section of the ship. The Miracle’s going to move in and envelop the station in its shields. You will detach that section, and we’ll destroy it. It’s a delicate operation. We have to shut down all systems, including the energy redistribution grid and life-support. The Ra’xon’s on hand and will transport everybody off.”

  “What about the other drones?” I said through gritted teeth as I kept my hands thrust forward, holding the power of the engine back.

  “You just took out the last one. We’ve fought off the attack. Now do exactly what I say.”

  I concentrated. I focused my mind into a point and followed every snapped order.

  “You’re going to have a two-second window between jettisoning the core and being transported off,” she warned.

  I didn’t answer.

  I held engineering together.

  It wasn’t hard, not now. Not now I’d found my force again.

  I wasn’t fighting against my implants – I was embracing them. It enabled me to do exactly what the Chief requested.

  With a blare that shook through the air like 1000 claps of thunder, our entire section of the station was jettisoned from the rest of the ship.

  One.

  Two.

  Just before the room could explode and take Shepherd and me with it, transport beans locked onto our bodies.

  Our molecules were disassembled and we were transported away.

  Chapter 10

  Lieutenant Commander Nathan Shepherd

  She’d done it.

  Alyssa had done it. She’d snatched our lives back from the jaws of death and somehow found the power to defeat that massive body drone.

  As soon as we reappeared in the transport room, I twisted and thrust towards her, collapsing my arms around her back and drawing her into a hug.

  I felt her cry tears of happiness, and a few touched my eyes too.

  “You did it. You did it, Alyssa.”

  I didn’t care that the chief transport officer was behind us.

  None of that mattered anymore. There was no point in keeping our relationship quiet, not when our lives were on the line.

  Eventually she pulled back from me, locking her hands on my shoulders and staring into my eyes.

  It wasn’t an endearing look – it was powerful. Maybe more powerful than I’d ever seen her.

  It was as if she’d come to some critical decision.

  A decision I’d made too.

  My father had told me that in order to defeat the Forgotten I would have to be willing to sacrifice more.

  He was wrong.

  It had taken this fight to prove that.

  You didn’t have to turn into your enemy to claim victory.

  Turn into your enemy, accept their tactics, and you’ll never win. Your enemy will just live on through you.

  To achieve true victory, you had to hold onto what you believed in.

  So I held onto Alyssa.

  …

  Annabelle Williams

  We’d… just lost something.

  I felt anger churn through the hive, I felt their wild rage.

  But we didn’t stop. Instead we sped forward.

  The
Forgotten were on the cusp of victory. Whatever defeat they’d just suffered would ultimately be irrelevant.

  Because very soon we would reach our destination and the true battle for the galaxy would begin.

  …

  Alyssa Nightingale

  I walked out of the transport room with Shepherd, hand in hand.

  In truth, I couldn’t process what I’d just done.

  I kept bringing up my free hand and staring at it.

  “You are amazing,” he said several times.

  Was I? I didn’t feel as if I’d done anything astounding.

  Instead I felt normal. For the first time I felt I’d done what was right, what was expected of me.

  And all it had taken was to listen to that voice.

  I didn’t know where we were going, but naturally we gravitated towards the observational room.

  It was empty, and we both walked towards the window.

  I locked a hand on it, sweaty palm trailing down the smart glass as I stared into space.

  The debris of the battle span outside. Crushed ships, engine casings, hull plating. It was a cloud of destruction.

  “I’m starting to think we can do this. We can defeat the Forgotten,” Shepherd suddenly said, voice filled with passion.

  “We haven’t even found the Endgame weapons yet.”

  “We have.” He took a quick step forward and smiled at me. “They found them during the battle.”

  I stared at him. “But surely we can’t know if they work yet.”

  “I heard it over my audio feed. They’re working on it. They’re confident those Endgame weapons will work. We have a chance, Alyssa. We have a chance.” Shepherd had taken his helmet off, and he held it in one hand.

  I opened my mouth, not sure whether I wanted to cheer or kiss him, or both.

  I didn’t get the opportunity. A general alarm blared through the corridors.

  Instantly we stiffened.

  “We’ve received reports. The entire Forgotten fleet are on their way,” a terrified technician screamed over the audio feed.

  I stood there next to Shepherd. Neither of us could speak.

  “They’re on their way, they’re on their way,” the technician screamed, his voice punching through the audio system and echoing down every corridor. It was so loud it rang in my ears and vibrated up my feet.

  The red alert continued to blare, and the observational window shifted its view, showing long-range scans of the Forgotten amassing upon our position.

  “We have six hours,” the technician calmed down long enough to scream.

  Six hours.

  Six hours.

  I heard Shepherd take a gasping breath, saw his chest punch out hard against his armor. “Christ,” he managed in a dead tone.

  “All crew to get to battle stations. You will be given further orders,” Captain H’agovan suddenly said. For the first time ever, her voice broke with fear. It was slight, but it was there.

  I shook as a cold shiver sliced down my back and sunk hard into my legs and knees.

  Shepherd reached out and placed a hand on my shoulder, either for his support or mine.

  I sank back against his grip until my arm pressed against his chest.

  This was it.

  The end.

  We had hours until the end.

  “… It’s not over yet,” he eventually promised in a soft tone, his breath gentle against the back of my neck.

  True, it wasn’t over yet.

  We had six hours until the gates of Hell opened.

  Then, then it would be over.

  Instinctively I turned and wrapped my arms around him, hiding my head against his shoulder.

  He returned the embrace, our bodies closing in on one another as if we were trying to hide from everything else.

  For a few sweet seconds we would take this reprieve.

  Then the fight would continue.

  Thank you for reading the Crucible: Divide and Conquer.

  Episode Six

  Fate’s End

  Chapter One

  Lieutenant Commander Nathan Shepherd

  Chunks of debris littered the corridor. Ruptured gel packs leaked from holes gouged in the walls, forming an oozing puddle of bright blue that trickled through every crack in the floor.

  Snapped cables swung from open ceiling hatches, sparking and crackling, lacing the air with the taste of burnt hair.

  I pushed my way through the mess. Slowly. One foot after the other.

  The station looked ready to fall apart. So did the crew as they dashed by, faces pale with shock. A shock that would get worse, second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour, until the Forgotten arrived.

  Then shock would transform into death.

  I pushed past a chunk of cable insulation that had spilled out of a recess in the ceiling. It revealed more of the same twisted, broken hallway beyond.

  ....

  It would be so easy to give up. There seemed no point. The Forgotten Death Giver was mere hours away, the galaxy was in disarray, and the conclusion set in stone.

  As soon as I thought that, I screwed my eyes shut, thumbing them tightly closed as I rubbed my hands over my face. I knew I transferred swathes of sooty singe marks from my fingers to my face, but I didn't care. If you couldn't look like hell at the gates of Hell, then there was no point.

  I let my hand drop as I shifted on through the corridor. I darted to the side as a team of stiff-lipped, dead eyed engineers dashed past barking orders at each other.

  Finally I reached a turn in the corridor that led to a relatively undamaged hall. It was a stark contrast to the rest of the station.

  Hooking a right, I entered a cargo bay.

  Before me, was the device.

  The device that would either condemn or save the galaxy.

  You wouldn't be able to tell from first glance that it held such power. It was a squat round disk, only about a meter tall by four meters wide. Made out of a single continuous sheet of silver metal, it looked like a support pillar that had been chopped in half.

  It wasn't. It was some kind of antenna. One that could – theoretically – send out a pulse strong enough to disrupt the Forgotten at the subatomic level, cancelling out whatever specialized energy they used to survive.

  According to Axis, it would have a limited range, but if we managed to destroy enough of the Forgotten we’d be able to pick off the rest using conventional weapons.

  I got the sudden urge to walk over to the device and run a hand across it. Would it be cold? Hot? Or would it feel like nothing at all?

  It looked too simple to be the solution to the galaxy’s survival.

  I became dazed as I stood there staring at it, ignoring the rushing feet of the various engineers and scientists as they ran about in these final few hours.

  It wasn’t until I felt a sudden touch on my shoulder that I jerked around.

  Alyssa.

  With her hand extended and rested on my upper arm she smiled.

  I was drawn in by that smile.

  The knowledge these would be my last few hours flitted from my mind, hope kindling in its place. “How are you holding up?”

  She laughed softly. “I was about to ask you the same.” Though her gaze locked on mine for a few seconds, it seemed inexorably drawn to the weapon.

  I watched her as she stared at it. Her cheeks slackened, and her brow smoothed as her lips gently parted open.

  “This will work,” I told her in a soft but sure voice.

  It took several seconds for her to answer. She shifted her attention back to me and nodded. “I’ll make sure it does.”

  We drifted into silence. Both of us turned to stare at the endgame device.

  I wanted to reach out a hand and grasp her stiff fingers, or cradle her, or lean in and brush my lips against her own. Anything, any act of intimacy in these final few hours.

  Before I could give in to that growing desire my comm PIP beeped. “Shepherd,” it was the Captain, “assem
ble with Nightingale in the discussion room. It is time for our final briefing.”

  “Aye, Captain.” I turned to Alyssa and nodded.

  As one we hurried out of the room.

  It had barely been 45 minutes since we defeated the Forgotten forces in the station’s engineering bay. Somehow it felt longer. Rather than time speeding up in these last few hours, it was grounding to a halt. Every second mattered now. Every minute.

  For they would be our last.

  We reached the discussion room. Every senior member of staff was present. I was shocked to see a number of senior staff from the station too. Maybe the Captain had already convinced them to join us, or maybe they’d come of their own accord.

  Anyone could see that unless we worked together, we’d never make it through this.

  I sat alongside Alyssa in two spare seats.

  The Captain did not sit. She stood towering over the far end of the table, hands clasped over the edge of the wood.

  She stared at each of us in turn. “This is it,” she said simply.

  Maybe it was those three words, or the way she’d said them with a short sharp puff of breath – but they flew through me like bullets.

  I stiffened, more cold dread somehow pooling in my chest. I was surprised I could still feel it. I was surprised my body hadn’t become accustomed to the fear and horror.

  “Our best scientists are currently working on the endgame device. We have a chance,” the Captain said.

  Again her words pushed through me. But this time they kindled something deep within the cold dread that laced my chest. A spark of hope. Small at first, but it could grow. It could grow.

  I shifted and stared at Alyssa, and it did grow.

  “We have battled this far, winning skirmishes that at first seemed impossible. We will do this.” The Captain plucked one of her hands off the table, clenched it into a fist, and pressed her knuckles into the wood. “But to do this, we must rely on more than ourselves. We need to gather together every force we can to make a last stand.”

  “But we don’t have time. The Forgotten are five hours away now,” someone pointed out.

  “We have a chance,” the Chief piped up, jumping from her seat and locking one of her six hands on it for support as she gestured with the other five. “My engineers are just about to complete modifications to the station’s drives. Axis was working on a special kind of beyond light booster. Theoretically, it will allow us to travel at just under the speed of the Forgotten ships.”