The Crucible: Leap of Faith (3 page)

In principle, I should have been
enjoying this party. In practice, I couldn’t push the nerves from
my mind. Every time I smiled and joked with a member of my crew, my
disquiet was right there at the edges of my thoughts, waiting for a
quiet moment until it could take over.

I saw a break in the crowd, and
pushed forward to move through it, keeping my gaze locked on the
quiet balcony outside.

That’s when I heard a low grumble
by my left. “Fleeing already, Lieutenant Commander?”

I turned to see Commander F’val.
He was from the Mancor race. Tall, he had a powerful build, sinewy
muscles leading up to an angled jackal-like jaw. Despite the color
of his skin, he looked unnervingly similar to those dog-headed gods
from ancient Egypt.

“I wouldn’t call it fleeing, just
retreating. You know me, Commander, I never lose a
battle.”

The Commander drew back his lips
and laughed. It was a harsh, hiss of a noise. “Not in the mood to
enjoy your own party?”

I considered the Commander’s
question in silence.

My silence was enough to answer
his question.

“Did you hear the results of the
House of Lords and Ladies vote today?”

I nodded stiffly.

“To think, they are so eager to
keep giving us more and more power, and yet no direction. Don’t
they know what happens to an over-resourced army?”

“It rusts and dies,” I said,
incapable of keeping the bitterness from my tone.

“Or it turns against its masters,”
the Commander said as he brought up his glass and made a mock
salute. “Not, of course, that anyone within my ranks would be
disloyal to the Alliance.”

I smiled. It was a brief move. I
found my gaze slipping towards the quiet balcony once
more.

F’val gave a soft snort. “Don’t
let me stop you.”

“No, that’s alright,” I began, but
the Commander had already turned away.

I considered him as he walked
towards the bar. He had such a powerful figure, but his power
didn’t stop there. It was laced through every movement and every
word. Unlike me, F’val had been in the Star Forces for decades.
He’d lived through countless skirmishes and commanded his crew
through a multitude of victories.

He had wisdom where all I had was
a niggling sense that something… wasn’t right.

As that thought stabbed through my
mind once more, I let out a frustrated sigh, and I made my
determined way towards the balcony.

I walked right through the flex
glass, and it reformed seamlessly around me, letting out nothing
but a slight popping noise like bubbles breaking.

I expected to be alone on this
balcony.

I wasn’t.

There was a woman standing with
her arms pressed against the railing, her shoulders hunched
inwards. She had short plain strawberry-blond hair that was cut
blunt to her jawline. She had a slight figure that didn't stand out
from the crowd.

In fact, everything about her was
unremarkable. And yet, I still recognized her. Ensign Amelia
Jenks.

She wasn’t a
member of my crew, we’d just given her a lift with the other
members of the Light Cruiser
Fargo
.

Because the top
brass were feeling in a particularly generous mood, all of
the
Fargo
’s crew
had also been invited to this function.

Most of the rest of them were
inside, quaffing the genuine alcohol and feasting on the fine
cuisine.

She, however, stood there and
stared at the night sky.

As her hands clutched the railing,
they gave a slight tremble.

She must be cold, I
figured.

I wasn’t sure whether I should
disturb her, so I walked up to the railing a few meters away and
tried to focus on the view.

My gaze kept slipping back to
her.

Quiet. Contained. There didn’t
seem to be a hell of a lot going on with Ensign Jenks. Still, as
she turned to me briefly, I gave her an encouraging smile. “I hope
you’re enjoying the party, Ensign.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant Commander,
I am,” she said quickly, but from the dazed look in her eye I could
tell her words were automatic.

I gave her another
smile.

She didn’t reciprocate. She kept
looking past me, eyes locked on the night sky. Her gaze didn’t
drift down to the city, they just locked on the horizon.

I found myself frowning. There was
a definite… somber quality to her watchfulness. It reached deep
inside me and—

“Lieutenant Commander Shepherd,” a
familiar voice said from behind me.

I turned, a smile spreading over
my lips long before I saw her.

Lady Argoza. She was dressed in a
magnificent purple and gold gown. With a high-cut neckline and
elegant sleeves, it hugged her form perfectly. With her blazing
white-blue eyes and her shimmering, almost transparent
frost-colored hair, she was easily one of the most beautiful women
I’d ever seen.

“Why are you out here, Lieutenant
Commander?”

“Just getting some air,” I
replied. “It’s such a pleasant night, and—”

Before I knew what she was doing,
Lady Argoza reached up and hooked an arm through mine. “The night
can wait. You should enjoy this party… you’ve earned
it.”

Even though I followed every word
she said, I got the strange feeling she actually meant something
else.

I shouldn’t enjoy this party
because I’d earned it; I should enjoy it because it would be the
last I would see for a long time to come.

As the Lady led me away, I found
my head turning, my gaze drifting back to Ensign Jenks.

She hadn’t moved. There was a
definite tension in her shoulders as she latched hold of the
railing, and just as I walked through the flex glass, I saw her
hands tremble once more.

…

Ensign Jenks

I couldn’t take this any
longer.

I left the party, quietly,
avoiding everyone.

Which wasn’t
hard. Amongst the crew of the
Fargo
, I was known as a loner. I had
no friends, I interacted with no one. I kept to myself and followed
orders.

I couldn’t afford companionship. I
couldn’t drag anyone else into this nightmare.

By the time I made it out into the
expansive corridor beyond the function room, my brow was plastered
with sweat.

I had to find more of the
compound, and I had to find it now.

I’d foolishly thought I’d have a
few more hours until another seizure struck me. I’d been
wrong.

If it had been up to me, I
wouldn’t have come to this party. But it wasn’t up to me. It had
been a command. The Star Forces told you went to work, went to
rest, and when to play.

They also told you when it was
time to die.

I walked quickly, arms huddled
around my middle, fingers digging hard into my forearms.

I clenched my teeth together and
kept my head angled to the side, avoiding eye contact with any
passers-by.

I was currently in the
administrative district. This district housed the Star Forces
Academy and the House of Lords and Ladies, as well as the other
crucial administrative centers that ran the Alliance. Beyond this
district were the trade markets.

If I were lucky, I’d find what I
was looking for there.

Nobody would be able to sell me
any compound 78. Not in its isolated form. I would have to
synthesize it from Omega class weapons. And Omega class weapons
were very much illegal.

If you’d asked me several years
ago, I would have said it would be impossible to get such weapons
on the capital planet of the Alliance.

Now I knew better.

This Alliance was rotten to the
core.

I pushed my way into a lift, half
staggering past two surprised guests. “Close the doors and take me
to the ground level,” I commanded before they had a chance to enter
the lift.

As the doors swept closed with a
hiss, I unlocked one shaking hand from around my middle and planted
it on my brow, forcing the fingernails hard into my flesh. Pressing
my palm over my eyes, I didn’t remove it until several seconds
later when I arrived at the ground floor.

Dropping my hand and taking a
calming breath, I walked out.

I had to keep blinking to refocus
my gaze; it was starting to become fuzzy around the
edges.

It was a cool night, and there was
a pleasant brisk breeze sweeping along the streets.

On the ground floor of the
administration district were wide white walkways interspersed with
low gardens and lakes.

Before I’d been discovered and
taken into the program, I’d loved nature. I’d always dreamt of
traveling to some pristine planet somewhere and living out my days
free from the pressures of the modern galaxy.

I’d never get the chance.
Forevermore I’d be on the run. Though I could try to go to ground
on some distant world, it wouldn’t last. I needed compound 78 to
survive. And if I stopped taking it… things would
happen.

My only option was to keep moving,
from planet to planet, sourcing more and more compound
78.

I needed to keep hidden from them
– the people who’d done this to me. The best way to do that was
under their goddamn noses.

I’d changed my identity, buying a
new one from Manticar Raiders. To the Alliance, I was now Ensign
Amelia Jenks. The Raiders were good, and nobody had a clue who I
really was.

If I wanted to keep it that way, I
had to get more 78.

I quickly made my way across the
grounds to the nearest transport hub. There, it was a relatively
short trip to the trade district.

Short, that was, for somebody who
wasn’t breaking apart on the inside.

Chapter 3

The Mari Sector, Research Dig
Alpha 78

Manager Amy Lee stood over the
body… or whatever remained of it. A few of her researchers had
found it.

They’d set up a security perimeter
and had already activated an environmental field.

It was safe to breathe, yet she
didn’t really want to take off her helmet.

Take off her helmet, and there’d
be nothing between her and the torn bloody remains in the
dust.

Her muscles were tense, her fists
clenched by her sides.

Ensign Weatherby had been an
idiot, but he hadn’t deserved this.

…
Whatever this was.

This moon was uninhabited. Apart
from the crew at the dig site, there should be nobody on this
rock.

Well, there had to be something.
The injuries Weatherby had sustained weren’t natural. He hadn’t
fallen over. The ground hadn’t given out from underneath him and
crushed his body.

No. His EV suit had been torn to
shreds, the flesh within ripped apart – leaving the unmistakable
impression of claws.

Whatever had done this had torn
right through his chest.

There was blood everywhere. It was
mixing with the condensation of this planet, but it was still thick
and sticky by her feet.

Lieutenant Hargrove – the leader
of her Space Forces detachment – stood above the Ensign’s body, his
expression both grim and concerned.

To him, this mission was simple.
This wasn’t the kind of operation where people died.

Hating that her hand trembled, she
brought it up and wiped it over the visor of her helmet.

“Just take the damn thing off,”
Hargrove growled, voice low and rumbling.

“There’s no need for that tone,”
she managed as she reluctantly disengaged the seal of her helmet
and pulled it off, a cloud of condensation puffing around her face
before it dissipated.

“Don’t you dare,” Hargrove
snapped. “The report you submitted to Star Forces said there would
be no threats on this moon. You said this place was
uninhabited.”

“It is uninhabited.”

“Something did that to him.”
Hargrove extended a stiff finger at what remained of the Ensign’s
body.

“A ship must have landed,” she
began.

“Our ship hasn’t detected any
incoming vessels. There is no one on this moon but us.”

She shivered. The
move snaked deep into her body, making every muscle tremble. She
brought up her hand to wipe it over her face, but stopped when she
felt the rough fabric of the EV suit. As her fingers shifted in
front of her face, she saw a faint shimmer of red.
“What the hell is this?”
she hissed.

Hargrove barely looked at her.
“It’s his blood. It’s evaporating and mixing with the air. It’s
this moon’s goddamn atmosphere. We need to act quickly if we are to
preserve the crime scene.”