The Crucible: Leap of Faith (9 page)

Chapter 5

Mari Sector, Star Forces Light
Cruiser Barrage, in orbit around Moon Alpha 78

The crew of the
Light Cruiser
Barrage
had been informed about Ensign Weatherby’s
death.

His body was transported to the
medical bay for an autopsy. What remained of his body, that
was.

The doctor in charge hadn’t seen
injuries like this since she’d treated a group of soldiers mauled
by a Samvarax tiger.

The claw marks dug into his back
were distinctive and unmistakable.

She couldn’t believe her eyes,
though. That moon was meant to be uninhabited. The only life forms
down there were the crew of the research dig.

…
So what the hell had killed
Ensign Weatherby?

Doctor Wallace stood in the middle
of her medical bay, staring down at her autopsy table.

She’d already run all the scans
she could, and had sent the results off to Star Forces Medical
Command immediately.

This dig may be a civilian
enterprise, but Ensign Weatherby had been Star Forces. And the
Alliance Star Forces took any death of their personnel
seriously.

Though she’d finished the autopsy,
she was still no closer to finding exactly what had killed
Weatherby. The claw marks she could distinguish, as well as the
rupture patterns through the muscles of his chest.

But what had caused that damage…
she had no freaking clue.

She stood a few meters from the
table, shivering.

She’d been a doctor for over 50
years now. She’d treated some of the most horrendous injuries you
could imagine. But there was something about the state of that body
that undid her nerve, strand by strand until it felt as if she was
standing there completely exposed.

She pressed her teeth together and
took a steeling breath, but it did nothing to calm her
agitation.

Standing back, she locked a hand
on her cheek and tapped her thumb over her jaw. Then, with a retch,
she realized she was still wearing her isolation gloves. There was
blood on them, and that same blood was now streaked across her
cheek.

She let out a stuttering yelp and
lurched towards the decontamination cream dispenser. She slathered
it over her hands and wiped it over her whole face, even getting
some in her eyes.

She blinked past the pain until
she was satisfied she’d scrubbed enough that every trace of blood
had been removed from her body.

There was no need to be so
fastidious – the computer had already confirmed that Ensign
Weatherby’s body was not carrying any pathogens. If it had been,
she would have worn a full EV suit.

So the only reason to scrub the
blood from her face so fervently was that it disturbed
her.

Deeply.

There was no one else in the
medical bay, so she was free to admit that to herself.

There was something about this
case that stole away her grit.

Suddenly there was a beep from the
console behind her. She startled so badly her elbowed jolted into
the decontamination cream dispenser, and a great big glob fell down
and splashed over her shoe. Swearing, she leaned down, smudged it
clear with her fingers, and cleared her throat. “Doctor Wallace
here.”

“Doctor Wallace, this is the Star
Forces Central Command. We have received your report into Ensign
Weatherby’s death.”

She blinked, face crumpling in
surprise. “Central Command? This is low priority,” she countered.
The Central Command were the same unit that housed the Joint
Admirals Committee. They dealt with the very security of the
Alliance, not with autopsy reports.

“We will decide
our priorities. Your ship will now stand by. We are sending
the
Armadale
to
deal with this situation.”

“This situation?
The
Armadale
?” She
couldn’t keep the surprise from her tone. The
Armadale
was a strike vessel. The
kind of prototype ship you sent in to deal with pirate
infestations, not to deal with curious autopsy
reports.

Her mouth was dry, and her heart
was beating so hard in her throat, it felt like it would tear the
flesh in two.

“You are instructed to complete
further tests. You will send those tests to us
directly.”

She dearly wanted to ask what the
hell was going on, but she had to be careful. Sass the Central
Command, and she could lose her career. She took a breath, pressed
it through her clenched teeth, and found herself saying
automatically: “send through the test instructions.”

“We already have. We will be in
contact again. Central Command out.”

She stood there and blinked. But
before her surprise could shake through her too much, she found her
gaze pulling towards the shattered remains of Ensign Weatherby once
more.

That sick feeling flared in her
gut again, and she took another step back, swallowing
hard.

The computer beeped to indicate
Central Command had sent through their instructions.

She slid her gaze over to the
panel, even though she was at the wrong angle to see it correctly.
For some reason – despite how crazy it sounded – she didn’t want to
turn her back on that body.

But she simply had to.

…

Ensign Jenks

I would have at least three weeks
before I had another seizure. I needed to figure out where I could
find more Omega class weapons before then.

Though they were illegal, that was
a mere technicality.

There’d been some
on my old ship, the
Fargo
. I had no idea who’d stashed
them there as there was a House of Lords and Ladies embargo on
them. They were very much illegal. Omega weapons, when used
incorrectly, could jeopardize space-time, causing minute fractures
in the fabric of reality. The fractures would heal, given time, but
if enough accumulated, a black hole could form.

And yet they had
still been on the
Fargo
.

There would
probably be some on the
Ra’xon
too, I figured.

The first thing you learnt about
the Galactic Star Alliance was its rules did not apply to its
rulers.

All I had to do was find the
weapons….

My whole life was currently
devoted to surviving. To finding my next dose of compound 78.
Without it, my telekinetic abilities would reveal themselves, and I
would be taken back into the Farsight Program.

I hadn’t always been like this.
I’d had dreams once upon a time. I’d also been naive. Five years
ago, before I’d been picked up by the Farsight Unit and transformed
into a telekinetic warrior, I’d been stupid enough to join the Star
Forces.

At the time, I’d thought the
Alliance was the greatest champion of good in the
galaxy.

I’d quickly learnt we
weren’t.

During a routine medical test, my
natural telekinetic abilities were uncovered. Paired with the
powerful implants which had been inserted into my elbows and
heightened by the experiments they’d run on me, I had enough power
to tear a ship in two.

But that wasn’t my point. When
Professor Axis had created me, he’d envisaged something far
grander.

Something he termed a Complete
Battle System.

Using my telekinetic abilities, I
could take over a battlefield.

I could lift into the air and take
command of a whole army. Not the kind of command where you offered
orders – but a far more direct, insidious one were you took control
of everybody and every weapon.

You could play with the soldiers
like puppets, throwing them towards the enemy, heedless of their
protests and their physical limitations.

Though there were others gifted
with the same base-level telekinetic abilities as me, they’d always
told me I was special. Every other poor soul they’d tested before
me had rejected their implants and died a horrendous death, their
bodies literally ripping apart cell by cell.

With me, the implants
held.

I was their success story. I was
Professor Axis’ child.

A child he’d made dependent on
compound 78.

Technically I
didn’t need compound 78 in order to use my abilities.
I needed it to live.
Why?
Because they had altered my body to make me dependent on
it.

It was means to ensure I could
never leave freely on my own.

Compound 78 was a rare compound,
and if I hadn’t found a way to synthesize it from Omega weapons, I
would have been exposed long ago.

Now I was forced into a desperate
race across the galaxy, traveling from planet to planet as I tried
to source the weapons and stay way under the radar.

Strangely, it was much easier to
hide whilst under their noses.

I knew they would never suspect
that I was still a member of the Star Forces.

They were too sure of themselves,
and that would ultimately be their downfall.

Cracks were forming in the once
great Alliance, and a growing resistance was trying to break their
way through.

I wished the resistance every
luck, but I had to keep my head down. If the Alliance found me,
they would use me against the rebellion, and crush it in an
instant. They wouldn’t care about collateral damage or loss of
life. They’d never cared about such factors in the past.

Taking a deep, deep sigh, I
finally opened my eyes. I was still in bed. I was on duty in
approximately five minutes, leaving me no time to grab something to
eat.

Reluctantly I pushed up, wiped a
hand down my face, and took a steadying breath. Then I stood and
dressed in the same uniform of those who had persecuted me. Once I
was done, I stared at myself briefly in the mirror before turning
sharply on my boot and heading out of the door.

It was time again to serve the
Alliance.

…

Lieutenant Commander Nathan
Shepard

I slept that night in my new
quarters. The Captain was kind enough to allow me the next day
off.

I needed the rest.

A heavy pressure had formed in the
center of my chest. It wasn’t damage from my accident.

Just tension.

I couldn’t
believe my own ship had been attacked. Getting past the ship’s
defenses was one thing, but planting explosives in the
Godspeed
right under my
nose was another.

I sat in my new
room. My quarters had a window. It was strangely angular compared
to the curved walls of my quarters aboard the
Godspeed
. I found myself constantly
tipping my head to the side as I considered the view of space
through it.

The
Ra’xon
was at least ten
times as big as the
Godspeed
. She was much better
equipped, too. Sure, she was no cruise liner, but there were
recreation areas, multiple mess halls, and my quarters were at
least three times as big as they’d been on the
Godspeed
.

This wasn’t a holiday,
though.

In approximately three weeks, we’d
arrive in the Hari Sector.

Then my infiltration of the
Rebellion would commence.

I sat on the edge of my bed,
pumping my fingers in and out as I angled my head towards that
slice of view.

I was lost in
reflection.

We were currently completing our
countdown to departure. Soon this massive ship would leave its
berth, and we’d begin our mission.

The ship-wide comms had alerted
all personnel to get to their stations. With nowhere to go and
nothing to do, I sat on the edge of my bed and stared out the
window.

The view started
to shift. As we decoupled from the station, there wasn’t even a
shudder. On a ship as small as mine, you felt it, but on the
Ra’xon
there wasn’t even
the faintest of vibrations.

There was a reason she was one of
the flagships of the fleet.

One of them.
These days the House of Lords and Ladies kept asking for more and
more imperial cruisers to be built. A few short years ago
the
Ra’xon
had
been the biggest cruiser in her class. Now she was easily
outclassed by at least three other heavy
cruisers.

God knows how many resources it
took to keep creating these monumental ships, and god knows where
they came from.

“But it’s worth it,” I found
myself saying out loud, a real hint of irony in my
voice.

One of my hands clutched into a
fist, white lines of tension streaking down my knuckles.