The Crucible: Leap of Faith (2 page)

If it didn’t form?

You fell.

A leap of faith.

Those words echoed in my mind as I
brought a hand up and ran it over my chin, short fingernails raking
through my afternoon stubble.

Why did it feel as if everything I
was doing these days was a leap of faith?

I wasn’t a dramatic man. I’d been
trained well. I knew that one of the greatest threats you would
ever face was your own mind. Space travel had come a long way since
humanity had first set out to explore the stars. Still, there was
something so alien and lonely about those vast wastelands of space.
If you didn’t have your wits about you, it would turn against
you.

Something was happening in the
galaxy. It had been building for years now. Discontent. Whispers of
a new enemy. As every year passed, I heard more and more stories.
Maybe they were just that – stories – or maybe they were more. But
one thing was for sure: there was a growing disquiet amongst the
citizens of the Alliance. I saw it reflected in the faces of my
crew. You had to concentrate to notice it, but it was there, in
every new wrinkle, in every narrowed gaze, in every tight-lipped
frown.

It was as if the Milky Way was
building towards… something.

Something.

“Lieutenant Commander, I heard
your ship docked this morning,” someone said from behind
me.

The soft words, the lilting accent
– there was only one person it could be.

I turned around to see Lady
Argoza. Her family ruled over an area of space at least 100 systems
wide. They were one of the most powerful forces within the House of
Lords and Ladies. And they were good, kind-hearted folk, which
seemed to be a rarity these days.

Though the Lady was only my age,
I’d grown up with tales of her humanitarian missions. With nothing
but her personal guard in tow, she would go into disaster areas to
offer aid. She’d also be present at the aftermath of battles,
administering to the wounded and supplying much-needed medical
equipment.

She was a saint.

And she was also
stunning.

Her race had the smoothest,
softest skin, and the most vibrant wide eyes. Locks of ice-white
hair tumbled down from her head, and her smile was the kind that
could take you to the stars.

My lips kinked into an awkward
grin, and I instantly brought up a hand to smooth down my short
hair. “Lady?” There was the slightest kick of nerves to my tone. I
could command troops into battle, but it always did me in every
time I tried to talk with Argoza.

A lovely smile spread across her
lips. She clasped her hands before herself, and she nodded low,
hair tumbling over the dark blue collar of her tunic. “I assume you
will be at the function tonight?”

“I’d better if I want to keep my
command – it is being held in our honor, after all. So it would be
pretty rude not to show up,” I said, instantly regretting my choice
of words. They sounded flippant and arrogant.

Driving my teeth together I tried
to hide a wince.

There was no point in acting like
a love-struck teenager around Lady Argoza – half the goddamn galaxy
was after her. A simple lieutenant commander in the Star Forces had
no chance.

Still, I swear she put more effort
into her smile, her soft lips pushing high into her cheekbones. “Of
course. I will be there too,” she said as she kept her hands
clasped in front of her, and she took a low bow, “I would relish
the opportunity to thank you for your heroic efforts.”

I had to try extremely hard to
stifle a snort.

Heroic efforts? I’d been doing my
job. The same with my crew. When we come across that civilian
transport being drawn towards a black hole, it had been our duty to
intervene. Leave them to die, and we would have gone against
everything we’d been taught.

We weren’t heroes. We’d just been
there at the right time.

Maybe Argoza could sense what I
was thinking because she shook her head lightly. “You sell yourself
short, to borrow a phrase from your own people. You are a hero,
Lieutenant Commander Shepherd,” she said my name slowly, and it
sounded like honey pouring from her lips.

I found myself smiling
again.

“Will you be in the capital for
long?”

“Just a couple of days. There will
be the function tonight, then my ship has to go through routine
maintenance. Then we’ll be… off on a mission,” I said. I didn’t
need to tell her the details of that mission – to be honest, I
barely knew them myself.

Such was the nature of my
job.

Approximately six months ago I’d
been recruited into the Fair Strike Operation. A top-secret
intelligence mission for the Joint Admirals Committee. I’d been
given a top-of-the-line prototype reconnaissance vessel and a crew
hand-picked from the best.

Our remit was simple: carry out
the orders of the Joint Committee, whenever they were received. You
could be halfway through rec leave only to be ordered to a mission
halfway across the galaxy. It didn’t matter.

My crew and I were here to
serve.

It was an honor – one of the
greatest honors in the Star Forces. Only the cream of the crop were
picked for the Fair Strike Operation. Almost everyone else only
knew it as a legend.

“If you find yourself in need of
company, I am at your disposal.” With her hands still pressed in
front of her chest, Argoza nodded low once more.

Damn, I could have blushed at
that. “No, no, Lady, you’re far too busy to hang out with the likes
of me.”

She looked confused, then another
one of those pleasant smile spread her lips. “We choose what is
important in our lives.”

A kick of nerves raced through my
gut.

But before the nerves could ignite
into anything interesting, someone called the Lady’s name. She
arched her long elegant neck around as one of her many aides came
breathlessly to her side.

“Lady, the House of Lords and
Ladies is about to begin voting on the new security
policy.”

Lady Argoza’s once pleasant smile
froze, and she gave a determined nod. “Very well.” She turned to
walk away but then turned to face me. Those laser-like white-blue
eyes reminded me of stars on a moonless night. “I will see you
tonight, Lieutenant Commander.”

With that, she walked away, her
robes floating around her.

Unashamedly, I stared until she
was out of sight.

Then my mind caught up with me.
The House of Lords and Ladies was about to vote on the new security
measures.

I knew which way the vote would
swing.

Though there were still a few
voices of reason in the House of Lords and Ladies, a growing
disquiet was spreading like wildfire. While there were no new
threats to speak of, there was a definite sense of tension in the
air.

And when people are afraid, they
do stupid things. It hadn’t taken long for one of the Mandrican
senators to suggest sweeping changes to the security laws. They
would tighten up immigration, provide the Star Forces with new
enforcement powers, and, most importantly, they would redirect
resources for more ships and more weapons.

The Star Forces was already
battle-ready. We had more cruisers than we knew what to do with.
Most of them were just sitting around in dock waiting for the day
they’d be needed. But if that day never came, they’d be a massive
waste of time and resources.

But….

But –
but something.
Something
was happening. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but this galaxy was
changing, almost from beneath my feet.

As I thought that, I looked down
at my polished regulation boots, then let my gaze slide up until I
stared past the city and to the horizon beyond. Locking my gaze on
the point where the land met the heavens, I
concentrated.

It was time to push away my
disquiet, if only for a few hours, and prepare for the function
tonight.

Then I could worry about the
future. Because then I would be on the bridge of my ship, and I’d
be able to do something about it.

Chapter 2

Ensign Jenks

I stood with my head pressed up
against the door. I ground my sweaty flesh against the smooth
metal, face contorted in pain, eyes squeezed shut.

With bared teeth, I waited for my
agony to pass.

My hands jittered by my sides, my
body now so sweaty it had soaked through the blue-black of my Star
Forces’ uniform.

Another wave of pain hit me, and I
brought my head back and slammed it against the door, letting out a
soft whimper as I did.

It didn’t help. Nothing
would.

Except more compound
78.

In a snap, the pain ended, and the
nausea washed over me instead.

I took a staggering step back and
locked a hand over my mouth. My fingers slipped over my skin, and
it wasn’t until I dug my nails into my flesh that they
stilled.

For several moments I stood there
and forced myself to breathe. With my eyes half closed, I staggered
backwards and forwards, my limbs like jelly.

Now the nausea abated. It was
replaced with a high-pitched ringing echoing through my
head.

It felt like horrendous static
building in my brain.

With one last tortured gasp, it
too ended.

I staggered over to the adjacent
wall, planted a hand into it, and guided myself to my knees. My
fingers left sweaty prints trailing down the smooth plain
metal.

I brought my knees up and crunched
them hard against my chest, locking my head against them with my
arms as I rocked back and forth.

I had to get more of the compound.
If I didn’t, I’d fall apart.

With a deep breath, I blinked my
eyes open quickly and rested my head against the wall behind me. At
first my gaze was unfocused, but slowly my eyesight cleared. I
stared at the plain ceiling of my quarters.

Fortunately my
roommate was on duty. Not that she was actually my roommate. I
wasn’t stationed aboard this vessel – I’d been picked up with a
number of other crew from the Light Cruiser
Fargo
. She’d faced mechanical
troubles after a critical failure in our engine cores, and this
ship – the
Godspeed
– had assisted.

That critical failure had, in
part, been caused by me.

Not intentionally, but did that
matter?

I brought my head forward and
slammed it against the wall behind me. The move echoed around the
room.

I released my hands from around my
knees and pinched a trembling hand over the bridge of my
nose.

Though the bulk of the pain had
passed, there was always a constant headache driving through my
skull. It felt like someone taking a sonic ice pick to my
cranium.

As much as I wanted to stay there
pressed up against the wall, I couldn’t.

I had to get off this
ship.

Then I needed to find more of the
compound.

I couldn’t
function without it. And if I didn’t find a way to function,
they’d find me.

If they found me, they’d drag me
back to their facility and continue their experiments.

Though it was hard, I pushed
myself to my feet. My fatigued limbs shook back and forth, but
within seconds settled.

I pressed my lips together and
took a deep breath through my nostrils.

I was calming.

By my reckoning I’d have another
few hours before my next attack.

I brought my fingers up and
neatened my collar, running a hand down my trim uniform.

Then I walked into the tiny
bathroom of my quarters and dried my sweaty body with the
directional heater.

Once I was done, I walked out of
my door, and out of the ship.

I couldn’t afford to stay in one
place for too long.

…

Lieutenant Commander Nathan
Shepherd

This was one hell of a
function.

I wouldn’t call it a party,
though. Not for me. My crew, however, were having a great
time.

They deserved it.

I didn’t.

I kept eyeing the balcony outside.
The air out there would be cool, and the constant drone of the
party wouldn’t reach through the flex glass walls.

Though I was holding a drink –
actual champagne from Earth – I hadn’t bothered to take a sip.
Instead my fingers periodically tightened around the flute, the
tension referring down my wrist and deep into my arm.

I caught sight of my reflection a
few times in the shiny panel of the bar. The top brass had really
gone all out, and there were actual bottles of real alcohol lined
up on the shelves, reminiscent of that old Earth style I was so
fond of.