The Crucible: Leap of Faith (16 page)

Total loyalty, he’d called it. The
House of Lords and Ladies, though under the ultimate rule of the
Alliance Council, were unruly. They caused much division within the
Alliance.

Professor Axis had a plan to gain
their unconditional loyalty. His plan would require the deaths of
millions, if not billions.

I couldn’t feel as I stood there,
the scanner still tucked in my sweaty white palm.

I couldn’t feel anything but a
diffuse sense of despair.

At times I realized that no matter
what I did – no matter how hard I fought to stay free – I would
ultimately lose.

Though I was unimaginably
powerful, I was still only one woman.

The Alliance was greater than
me.

The Alliance was greater than all
of us.

…

Lieutenant Commander Nathan
Shepherd

It was when I was making my
torturous scramble back through the maintenance shafts that I found
it.

A panel.

It was out of place. The only
reason I noticed it was my scanner picked up a faint trace of
energy that just shouldn’t be on the ship.

There was a class of illegal
weaponry referred to as Omega guns. They were powerful and were
hellishly dangerous.

They gave off a distinct energy
signature, and though it seemed impossible, my scanner appeared to
be picking it up.

There was no way – absolutely no
way – that there would be weapons like that on this ship. She was a
flagship of the fleet, and it would be impossible to imagine her
carrying some of the most illegal weaponry in the
galaxy.

I paused, checking the reading on
my scanner.

I wouldn’t have picked up on the
energy if I hadn’t spent so much time trying to recalibrate this
small handheld scanner. In my efforts to force it to recognize the
shaft before me, I’d increased its output by a factor of
10.

And that had been enough to pick
up the faint trace of Omega weaponry.

I shook my head, incapable of
believing what I was seeing.

It was enough to force back the
wall of shock that had descended upon me.

I was sure, 100% sure that as soon
as I made it out of this tunnel, F’val would arrest me. He’d drag
me back to the capital, and there the Joint Committee would condemn
me. My father would watch over the proceedings, and he wouldn’t
shed a single tear.

Men like that never
did.

I told myself to keep moving, but
I couldn’t. Instead I brought up a hand and tentatively ran a
finger around the edge of the panel before me.

It was smooth, but here and there
were rough sections, indicating it had been pulled back a few too
many times.

“What are you doing?” I asked
myself through clenched teeth.

I gave myself my own answer – I
put my scanner down and reached around to the magnetic holster that
was locked around my hips. There were a few versatile tools you
could use to pull plating off and access various shafts.

I quickly set about opening the
panel before me.

It was tough going, and
occasionally I ran into trouble – my rotating screwdriver turning
itself off several times.

It must be defective, I thought to
myself before defaulting to the brute force approach.

Shifting until my back was pressed
up against the opposite side of the tunnel, I brought my leg up,
and I kicked swiftly at the panel. It was strong enough that my
boot dented the metal.

I kicked again and again, until I
warped the plating far enough that I could push my fingers around
the edges and pry it back.

With a grunt that echoed down the
shaft, I finally managed to tug it free.

It clattered to the
floor.

…
There was a room in front of
me.

It was large, big enough that as I
ducked my head in, I couldn’t see from one end to
another.

Frowning, I brought my scanner
around and tried to detect what was inside.

The scanner cut out.

“What the hell?” I stabbed my
fingers into its electronic display, but it refused to come back to
life.

“Computer, increase the lighting
in this section of tunnel.”

The computer did not
reply.

“Computer,” I said in a terse
breath, “increase the lighting in this section of
tunnel.”

Nothing.

“Christ, what’s going on here?” I
spat.

Feeling a knot of nerves form in
my stomach, I cautiously shifted forward until I was further into
that mysterious room.

Then, taking a stiff breath, I
finally shuffled inside.

I stood, heart thundering in my
chest.

Though it was dark, I could see
several crates stacked up neatly along the walls.

Was this a cargo room? One that
had been removed from the blueprints?

…
Or had I stumbled across
something I shouldn’t have?

That thought should have been
enough to see me turn around and walk away.

It wasn’t.

Maybe I hadn’t become a lieutenant
commander in the Star Forces out of duty to the Alliance. Maybe a
large part of my motivation had always been curiosity. I’d wanted
to be an explorer, not a mindless drone.

And an explorer never turned away
from his curiosity.

I took several more echoing steps
into the dark room, angling my head from left to right, feeling how
tense my neck muscles were as they referred tension deep into my
chest and the pit of my stomach.

My mouth was dry, but my top lip
was covered in sweat. I brought a hand up to wipe it off, noting
the slight tremble in my fingertips.

I was running out of time. I was
due to meet the Commander and the Captain in probably a little
under 12 minutes.

It didn’t matter.

I kept walking towards the
shadow-encased crates in the far corner.

When I reached them, I pushed out
a hand, fingers touching the cool metal.

Though it was dark, I recognized
what the crates were from touch alone.

They were weapons
boxes.

Shielded ones.

I took a step back, squinting into
the room, trying to use what bare illumination made it in from the
half-lit tunnel beyond.

I shuffled around the crates,
shoes banging into them in the dark, hands tracing across their
cold metal as I tried to discern exactly what type of weaponry was
inside.

Finally, with pure dumb luck, I
reached a crate that was open.

Like a cat cramming its paw down a
darkened hole, breathlessly I shoved my hand into the open
crate.

My fingers bumped against the
smooth cold metal.

I grabbed something up, hauling it
out of the crate.

It was deceptively light despite
its bulk.

As soon as my hand clutched around
its smooth angular side, it began to glow. Brighter and
brighter.

That’s when I recognized what it
was.

An Omega gun.

I almost jolted back and dropped
it, but my hands reflexively clutched around the weapon, pressing
it against my chest as my eyes drew wide.

My simple touch had been all that
was required to activate it. Now the gun glowed powerfully, letting
out a soft pulsing vibration that travelled deep into my chest and
up into my throat.

This was… impossible.

This was impossible.

Omega class weaponry could not be
aboard the flagship of the fleet. Especially in a room that wasn’t
on blueprints and couldn’t be scanned.

This was….

My mind went blank.

Every mystery I’d come across in
the past 24 hours mounted on my shoulders and threatened to push me
right through the hull and send me tumbling into the void
beyond.

There was no reason – none
whatsoever – why this ship would be carrying Omega class
weaponry.

There was an embargo on them for a
very good reason – this type of weaponry could destabilize space.
So what if it was powerful? If you used it too often, you could
tear holes in the very fabric of reality. Nobody was desperate and
stupid enough to use them.

Or at least I wanted to believe
that.

I stood there with that gun
pressed against my chest for a minute or maybe more.

I felt as if my world was tumbling
around me.

Then finally I forced myself to
take a step back. I turned towards the door, only then realizing
the gun was still in my hands.

I glanced down at it once more,
eyes traveling over the smooth angular surface, the glow from the
two antimatter chambers at the base of the gun lighting up the
underside of my chin.

I turned around, walked over to
the open crate, and placed it back inside.

Then I shivered, the move so
violent it was practically a convulsion.

I took a step back, boot squeaking
against the polished metal floor.

Revulsion swelled in my
heart.

I planted a sweaty hand over my
mouth. Though it was impossible, I convinced myself I could smell
the faint trace of the Omega weapon on my hand.

Then finally I turned. I ran right
out of the room and threw myself into the service shaft.

Suddenly the memory of what had
happened to my ship came flooding back in.

Could this be the
resistance? Could the spy from the Fargo now be aboard the
Ra’xon
? And could they be
planning an attack? With that many Omega weapons, they could
overpower the crew of this ship easily.

I had to tell the Captain. Even if
it would be the last courageous act I would ever perform in my
career, I was determined to do it. For, despite my suspicions about
the Alliance, I was still loyal to her people and always would
be.

…

Ensign Jenks

I’d been standing in the same
section of hallway for the past 30 minutes now.

I wasn’t moving, even though my
scanner kept beeping at me, insisting I continue my
task.

I just couldn’t… force myself to
continue any more.

Icy fear laced up and down my
back, sinking deep into the base of my spine, leaving a terrifying
tingle pushing down through my limbs.

To flee, I would have to attack.
Something my body had been built for, but something my mind had
never adjusted to.

The terror of taking over
another’s body or flinging them across the room and seeing their
back shatter against a wall – it was one I could never
accept.

I gave a full-bodied shudder, the
move so disruptive, I almost dropped the scanner.

I sucked in a terrified breath,
and it wheezed through my constricted throat.

Fortunately the section of hallway
I was in was relatively unused. Nobody had passed me.

I was alone.

Or at least I thought I was
alone.

Suddenly the access panel to my
side shunted open without warning.

Somebody barreled out.

I gasped, jerking quickly to the
side.

Before I could suspect an attack,
I realized it was none other than Lieutenant Commander Nathan
Shepherd.

He looked… terrified. His eyes
were wide, his cheeks slack, a truly haunted edge to his searching
gaze.

At first it appeared as if he
hadn’t seen me. He pulled himself out of the access shaft, and
turned hard on his boot without even bothering to close the
panel.

Then, just as he took a step away,
he paused and jerked his head towards me.

Neither of us said
anything.

…
We just stared into each other’s
eyes. It was a disarming experience. I’d never seen someone show as
much unguarded emotion as he was now.

I watched him swallow, the move
pronounced as his throat pushed hard against his tight
collar.

“…
Are you alright?” I asked,
barely thinking of my words as I uttered them in a quick worried
tone.

“No,” he answered. I could tell
from the shifting look in his gaze that he hadn’t wanted to be that
honest. He took a stiff breath, took another lurching step
backwards, and shook his head. He planted a hand over his face, the
fingers spread in a stiff move. “Do me a favor, Ensign.”

I tilted my head as I looked at
him. “What?”

“Guard that service
panel.”

“Why?”

“There are Omega weapons on this
ship,” he said in a shaking voice.

I didn’t react. At least not
externally. Internally I felt a swell of relief.

Though I still had a few weeks of
grace before I would have another fit, the mere knowledge that
Omega weapons were within reach was enough to fill me with much
needed relief.