The Crucible: Leap of Faith (14 page)

All they need to do was find
evidence that Lieutenant Hargrove had contacted me, and they’d
realized I was holding something back.

…
But if they had
evidence of that at their fingertips, they would have acted
already. There was every possibility that the
Pluto
had been destroyed before
anyone had bothered to check its communication logs, and maybe
Hargrove had never got the chance to inform command that he had
contacted me. The only evidence of our communication would be in
the
Ra’xon’s
logs.

If they found it, I’d be
dead.

I tried to breathe, but my chest
couldn’t punch out far enough.

I felt trapped.

I was trapped.

In the space of about 10 minutes
I’d thrown away everything I’d worked for my entire
life.

As soon as I thought that, I
thought of Max. Easy-going, laid-back Max. The Max who’d pulled me
through the Academy, not because I hadn’t been able to keep up with
him, but because he’d always showed me the lighter side of life. He
kept me going when all my father had ever wanted to do was knock me
down.

That Max was dead.

And he had been killed by
something. Something the Joint Committee wanted to cover
up.

…
His parents would never find out
how he’d really died.

I stood there and
blinked.

I wanted to tell myself that the
Star Forces couldn’t be involved in this – that they weren’t
actually covering up his death, but simply protecting some secret.
One that was for the good of the Alliance.

So why did I feel so hollow
inside?

Because… this
didn’t add up. The
Armadale
– a strike ship – had been sent to that dig
site.

Then, suddenly,
the
Pluto
had been
destroyed and the dig site simply no longer
existed?

That couldn’t be a
coincidence.

If something had
attacked the
Pluto
, the
Armadale
would have been there to protect it.

…
Or it could have been there just
as easily to destroy it.

I tried to push that thought away.
It was tantamount to treason. But the thought was stuck – lodged
deep in my hind brain. I took another step back.

“It is suggested that you go and
take sustenance. Your duty shift begins shortly.”

I opened my mouth to tell the
computer to shut up.

Then I stopped.

“What is my duty shift today,
again?”

“The Captain has requested that
you take over the duties of Lieutenant Ma’biv while he recovers
from septican flu. The Lieutenant is the requisitions
officer.”

I smiled. I’d already known that
answer.

Requisitions officers had access
to the complete ship movements of the Star Forces throughout the
Milky Way. You needed to in order to coordinate with other vessels
so you could resupply on the run.

Your job was to update your own
supply list and coordinate with nearby ships to keep a never-ending
supply circling around the fleet.

You had access to the complete
Alliance Fleet manifest. Including the locations and supplies of
each vessel.

The
Armadale
would be on that
list.

If I turned
around right now and asked the computer to tell me where the
Armadale
was, that
information would no doubt be picked up by the Enforcement Unit.
Yet if I happened to casually glance at their location on the
Alliance Fleet manifest, it would simply be considered part of my
job.

I took a breath.

Then it hit me. What I was
thinking. Christ, this really was treason. Going behind the
Enforcement Unit’s back….

That thought couldn’t
hold.

The memory of Max came flooding
back into my mind.

I straightened my command stripes
and walked out the door.

…

Ensign Jenks

I couldn’t stop thinking of him.
Which was unusual. Most of the time I couldn’t stop thinking about
my own troubles.

It was something about the way
he’d looked at me. The undiluted sadness in his gaze. And more than
that, the fact he’d shared it with me.

His friend had died only that
morning, and it was clear that Lieutenant Commander Nathan Shepherd
wasn’t taking it well.

I was on another duty shift, and
once more I was scanning the ship, centimeter by centimeter, in my
endless task of recalibrating internal sensors.

As wild as it sounded, I kept
looking over my shoulder, kind of hoping that I would run into him
again. If only to see that he was okay.

Which was incredible. Usually I
didn’t have the time or energy to worry about other people’s
problems.

It was also dangerous. I couldn’t
allow myself to get close to a man like the Lieutenant Commander.
You didn’t rise through the ranks of the Star Forces unless you
were good at taking orders.

There was no question about what
he would do with me if he found out who I was.

So I pressed my lips together and
focused on the scanner.

As I did, I tuned into the
conversations of the crew members walking around me.

Most were inane. Some were
not.

“Did you hear? We’re stopping off
at Fa’xon One. We’re picking up Commander F’val.”

“Don’t we have
enough command staff already with the leftovers from the
Godspeed
and the
Fargo
?”

“You want to keep your voice down?
I don’t want to get another reprimand for
insubordination.”

“It isn’t insubordination. I feel
like we can’t move for commissioned officers.”

“You wouldn’t have to fear them so
much if you’d just do your job once in a while.”

“Shut up. Why the heck are we
picking up Commander F’val anyway? I thought he was the golden boy
of the Star Forces ever since his victory over the pirate factions
in the Northern Wastelands. Surely he’s too important to hang out
with the likes of us.”

“I don’t know, but I can’t wait to
meet him.”

“Really? Rumor has it he has the
personality of a pulse rifle. There was a story circulating in the
Academy back when I was a recruit that he was actually a member of
the Enforcement Unit.”

“As if.”

“What? They’re meant to be all
around us, aren’t they? The eyes and ears of the Joint Committee,
spying on our every move, searching under every bed for even a
whiff of the resistance.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Thanks. I am touched you noticed.
We should really get a hustle on though – Chief Engineer Malax is
going to crucify us again.”

I slowly turned and watched the
two ensigns hurry on down the corridor.

I’d only been faintly interested
in what they’d said, until they’d mentioned the Enforcement Unit,
that was.

A feeling of nausea spread through
my stomach.

…
They couldn’t be here for me,
could they? Maybe I hadn’t been careful enough on the station, and
maybe they’d figured out I was an escaped telekinetic
warrior.

My whole back stiffened as fear
raced through my system, my hand clutching around the scanner so
tightly I had to concentrate hard not to pulverize it. My grip
wasn’t that strong, but my mind was far, far stronger.

“You okay?” someone asked from
behind me.

I turned quickly to see the
Lieutenant Commander.

He looked… shattered. Absolutely
shattered.

It was so obvious and so
compelling that I forgot my own troubles for just a moment. “Are
you alright?”

“I look that bad, huh? Rough
night. You know… that thing we talked about yesterday?” He looked
up at me from underneath his brow. “How I mentioned that my friend
died,” his voice dipped so low it couldn’t carry.

I nodded.

“Sorry to do this, but I really
need your word that you won’t spread that information. To anyone.
It is extremely sensitive. I know it’s asking a lot, but can you do
that for me? Can you keep a secret?”

I’d heard stories about Lieutenant
Commander Nathan Shepherd before I’d met him. Brave, bold, the kind
of soldier the Star Forces loved. One who was happy to sacrifice
himself for any cause.

The man who stood before me looked
like someone else completely.

He looked real, for one thing, not
just a legend.

I suddenly realized he needed an
answer. I nodded. “I mean it, I have no one to tell. And even if I
did, I wouldn’t.”

It took a moment, but a stiff
smile spread across his face. It showed no mirth whatsoever.
“That’s good to hear. One thing’s going right today.”

He turned on his foot to
leave.

“Commander.”

He turned over his shoulder.
“Yes?”

“I… hope… you’re okay,” I pushed
the words out. I fumbled over them, but finally I pushed them
out.

One side of his mouth ticked into
the smallest smile. “Thanks for your concern, Ensign. And thanks
for the sentiment. I hope you’re okay too.” With that, he
turned.

I watched him go.

I shook my head and returned to my
task.

It had been a long, long time
since I’d been drawn into somebody else’s troubles.

Back when I’d joined the Star
Forces that had been my impetus – to help. I’d been foolish, naïve,
and gullible. But at the heart of all of that had been a sincere
desire to assist others. If I’d known then what I knew now, I would
have realized that was impossible. At least under the banner of the
Alliance Star Forces.

But maybe that was the challenge.
Though my mind told me there was no one to help in this ship or in
this tortured fleet, perhaps there was.

My thoughts drifted back to
Lieutenant Commander Nathan Shepherd. He had lost his friend, and
clearly it was causing him troubles.

For a fleeting moment, I wondered
if I could help.

…

Lieutenant Commander Nathan
Shepherd

Subbing in for
the requisitions officer should have been an easy job. But that
eight-hour shift was one of the longest of my life. In between
supervising the other crew in the various cargo bays of the
Ra’xon,
I took fleeting
glimpses at the complete fleet manifest.

It didn’t take
too long to find the
Armadale.
Though her current position didn’t put her in the
Mari Sector, it put her close. Close enough for a quick sortie to
the dig site.

As for the
Pluto,
it had been
removed from the manifest. There was no information on it – no news
that it had been destroyed – it had just disappeared. Perhaps the
Joint Committee hoped that no one would notice.

My gut kept churning, a distinct
disquiet gathering through my body until a fine patina of sweat
soaked my brow.

What should have been an easy
shift was turning into a nightmare. As every second passed, I grew
more and more nervous.

I expected the Enforcement Unit to
jump out of the shadows and take me away.

Still, I did my job. Better than I
should, considering my circumstances.

I was nothing if not thorough. The
man I'd replaced, however, didn't seem to be nearly as thorough as
me. There were whole sections of the cargo that hadn't been
catalogued yet. Indeed, certain components of the cargo bay
appeared to have been taken off the blueprints.

I threw myself into the task of
properly itemizing the ship’s stores. It was the only thing that
could take my mind from my downward spiraling thoughts.

I grabbed a series of blueprints
from deep in the ship’s databases. They would have been uploaded
when the ship had first set sail.

They'd be the most accurate, as
the ones the Lieutenant had seemed to have been changed so often,
they were now a jumbled mess.

I took a handheld scanner, latched
it onto the magnetic holster around my hip, and accessed a service
panel. Due to the size of this ship, there were several maintenance
sections you couldn't access through the lifts or the hallways. You
had to get down on your hands and knees and crawl through access
tunnels.

It was the perfect task for a man
who was being haunted by his own thoughts. I wouldn’t have to
maintain polite conversation with anyone, and I could swear and
grimace all I liked.

I gave the
respective crew under my command tasks to do, and set about
crawling through the interconnected shafts of the
Ra’xon.