The Crucible: Leap of Faith (13 page)

Their heavy steps shuddered over
the metal until finally she saw somebody pull themselves up onto
her section.

They were human, or
humanoid.

Amy didn’t know much about the
Star Forces. She was an academic, not a soldier.

There were a few things, however,
she did know. As her gaze flicked jerkily over the figure before
her, she recognized the design of the armor.

It belonged to a specialized unit
of the Star Forces.

In other words, the soldier before
her – the one who was raising his gun – was from the Star
Forces.

“Wait,” she commanded, buying time
as she packed this last snippet of information into her message and
finally sent it. She brought up two trembling hands.
“Wait.”

The soldier extended his weapon.
It was an Omega class gun.

They were illegal in the
Alliance.

Yet this soldier still held
one.

“You can’t beg for your life. You
have to die,” the soldier said. And then he shot. One bullet from
his Omega gun was all it took to tear through the toughened
exterior of her mech suit and plough right out the other
side.

It tore a hole in her chest and
her limbs snapped right off her body.

Research Manager Amy Lee was dead
before her mech suit struck the metal floor.

The soldier stood above her for a
few seconds. His sophisticated armor scanned her mech suit and
picked up the message she’d tried to send. He thought nothing of it
though, as the jamming technology they’d deployed using satellites
around the moon would stop her last ditch communiqué from ever
being heard by anyone.

He considered her prone body for a
few more seconds before reaching forward, locking a foot on what
remained of her back, and pushing. Though her mech suit was heavy,
his armor adjusted, and with the lightest of kicks, he pushed her
body over the edge of the scaffolding. It sailed down to the cavern
floor far below, landing with such force it crushed a hole into the
soft rock.

He turned.

He reached a hand out towards the
wall.

Chapter 7

Lieutenant Commander Nathan
Shepherd

I woke an hour before my first
duty shift.

I let the minutes tick past as I
stared at the ceiling, one bare arm tucked behind my head, my
fingers driving hard into my skull.

For a few brief sweet seconds
after I’d woken, I forgot about Max’s death, I forgot about my
ship, I forgot about everything.

My mind slipped from thought to
thought with blessed ease.

Then reality slammed into
me.

I brought up a hand and dug my
fingers into my brow, pressing it down until the skin crunched over
my eyes and I saw stars.

And I remembered. I remembered how
we’d talked. We’d talked about how we’d go, me and Weatherby. Over
a few beers after a long night at the Academy, we’d turned to the
topic of how we’d die.

Me, I wanted to go out in a
blazing battle for the Alliance. I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to
prove my father was wrong about me.

Weatherby, he’d wanted to go in
his sleep. Though he’d joined the Star Forces, it was only a means
to an ends. He wanted to gather enough savings so he could afford a
farm on one of the colony planets.

He was less concerned with glory,
and more concerned with just living a good life.

Or at least, he had
been.

I winced as I shifted back, the
sheet falling from my chest as I sat upright and stretched my
shoulders.

I was still in the back-brace,
though it would probably come off sometime today. I’d only been
injured three days ago, but I’d be perfectly healed by
now.

I was still stiff, though. Not
from the accident, but from the tension I just couldn’t shake off.
My muscles seemed locked no matter what I did.

Finally I pushed myself out of
bed. I glanced around my room, and my gaze drifted over my
workstation.

Instantly I remembered Hargrove’s
disembodied face floating over it, his bloodshot eyes widening with
fear.

“Christ,” I said as I suddenly
remembered something. I’d forgotten to send in my corroborating
report to Star Forces Command.

I leaped over to the
bench.

It shouldn’t be too late. Still, I
should call Hargrove himself and let him know of my
delay.

I punched up the coordinates of
the original message, and commanded the computer to send a
communication.

I waited.

No response.

“There is no ship at those
coordinates,” the computer soon informed me.

“Then contact
the,” I searched my memory, “the
Pluto
instead.” That was the name of
the scout ship.

“There is
no
Pluto
on
available comms.”

I frowned and
shook my head. “What do you mean there’s no
Pluto
on available comms? You mean
they’re in a communications blackout, right?”

“No, I mean
the
Pluto
has been
destroyed.”

“What?” My voice rocked from my
throat.

“There has been
an accident. The
Pluto
was destroyed.”

“What, when?”

“The exact time is unknown.
Somewhere in the past 24 hours.”

“And what about the dig in the
Mari Sector?”

“There is no record of a dig in
the Mari Sector.”

“Yes there is,” I
countered.

“There is no recorded dig in the
Mari Sector,” the computer repeated.

I shook my head
over and over again. “Fine. Do we have any information on what
happened to the
Pluto
?”

“There was an accident. Details
have been suppressed. Investigation is ongoing.”

I locked a hand over my mouth and
pushed hard into my lips until they folded against my teeth. “Do I
have security clearance to find out what’s going on?”

“No.”

“Who has security clearance to
find out what’s going on?”

“Security clearance has been
restricted to the Joint Committee.”

“What?” My voice rattled out,
echoing around the room.

“Security clearance has been
restricted to the Joint Committee,” the computer repeated, as if I
was simply hard of hearing.

I took a shuddering step
backwards.

This didn’t make any
sense.

There’d been a
so-called accident that had destroyed the
Pluto
?

And there was no recorded
information of the dig in the Mari Sector?

What the hell was going
on?

“You are receiving a transmission
from the Enforcement Unit,” the computer suddenly
announced.

I paled.

The Enforcement Unit was a section
of the Central Command that dealt with the protection of secrets.
You didn’t get a call from them unless they suspected you of
treason.

I took a shuddering
breath.

The computer did not ask whether I
wished to receive the transmission – it simply transmitted
it.

There was no hiding from the
Enforcement Unit.

“Lieutenant
Commander Nathan Shepherd, you have just accessed restricted
information. What is your interest in the
Pluto
and its destruction?” a
toneless male voice asked.

I thought, and I thought
quickly.

If I’d been given some time, if I
hadn’t been so stressed, I wouldn’t have done what I was going to
do next: “I have a friend who is serving on that ship. We
communicate regularly. He’s a close friend. I was involved in an
accident several days ago, and I wanted to tell him about
it.”

There was a pause from the other
end of the line.

My heartbeat tripled and
quadrupled.

I’d just told an outright lie to
the Enforcement Unit.

I lived for the Alliance, and I’d
just turned my back on it.

I pressed a hand harder and harder
into my forehead. Fortunately the message was only audio, and the
Enforcement Unit couldn’t see how terrified I looked.

“We see. Who was
your friend aboard the
Pluto
?”

“Ensign Max Weatherby. We served
at the Academy together. We’ve been in contact on and off ever
since he graduated,” I added. Maybe the details were extraneous,
but I hoped they’d help prove my story. There would be a log of my
regular communications with Max.

“When were you last in
contact?”

“…
About five weeks ago, I
think.”

“Why are you looking up
information on the archaeological dig in the Mari
Sector?”

I winced. Presumably Max hadn’t
been on that dig for more than five weeks. The Enforcement Unit
wanted to know why I knew anything whatsoever about the dig site.
“I heard it from a mutual friend. Max always hated babysitting
missions. Whenever he was ordered to go on one, he complained to
anyone who would listen.” That, at least, wasn’t a lie. I felt
confident that Max would have spread news about his mission to
everyone who would’ve listened.

“We see. Standby.” The message
paused.

I swore under my breath, letting
my lips pull back over my teeth.

What the hell was I
doing?

I had to stop lying and start
telling the truth.

But it was already too
late.

This was the Enforcement Unit. I
might be a lieutenant commander, but I was nothing to them. They
wouldn’t bat an eyelid at my status. They wouldn’t care that I’d
been selected for a critical mission to the Hari system. They
wouldn’t consider my exemplary record.

They would simply cut me down. If
they suspected I’d been keeping information from them for any
reason, they would court martial me.

I couldn’t
believe this.
I had just blown away my
career.

There was a beep.
“We have corroborated your story. But, Lieutenant Commander, you
are under strict orders to share this information with no one. You
will not mention the name of the
Pluto
; you will not seek information
on it. You will not discuss the archaeological dig in the Mari
Sector. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“You are under blackout. Do you
understand?”

“Yes.”

“If you are found to share any
information about this situation, you will be court martialed.
There will be no trial. Do you understand?”

My mouth was dry.
“Yes.”

“We will end the transmission
now.” There was a beep and then silence.

I stood there, cold as deep space,
frozen like ice.

What the hell had I just
done?

Somewhere in my swell of
self-hate, the questions started to pierce through.

I could have just jeopardized my
career, but what the hell was going on here?

The
Pluto
had been destroyed?
By what?

And why were the Enforcement Unit
all over this?

Why were they actively preventing
information from spreading?

…
Could it be the resistance? But
surely if it was the resistance I would have been told. I was
already party to that secret.

My best friend had died, killed by
something nobody could identify, and now his ship and all his
crewmembers had been killed, too. And if my brief search on the
Mari Sector dig was anything to go by, I imagined that had been
destroyed as well.

All evidence had been wiped
away.

What the hell was going
on?

The computer beeped once more. I
stiffened. “This is a reminder that you are on duty in
approximately 32 minutes. It is suggested that you partake of
sustenance. Your command shift will last for eight hours
exactly.”

I locked my teeth together and
breathed through them.

Then I turned, and as hard as it
was, I dressed in the black-and-white of my Alliance Star Forces
uniform.

My fingers shook as I attached my
command stripes.

I caught a glimpse of myself in
the window. I’d never looked worse in my life.

I was like a dead man
walking.

…
Maybe I really was a dead man
walking. The Enforcement Unit had told me they’d corroborated my
story, but for all I knew, they’d keep digging.

And they wouldn’t have to push far
to tear a hole in my tale.