The Crucible: Leap of Faith (17 page)

“You know what an Omega weapon is,
right? They are illegal,” his voice cracked.

“Yes, sir,” I forced myself to
say.

“I… have no idea how they got to
be on board this ship,” he said. Again his emotions appeared to be
unguarded. His reaction – with all its raw surprise – appeared to
be genuine.

Nathan Shepherd appeared to be a
smart man. Yet he must also be a fool. He must be under the
impression the Alliance were governed by the same rules they set
down for others.

He locked a hand on his mouth and
took a staggering step backwards. “Ensign… look after yourself.”
With that, he turned and walked away.

I ticked my head to the side,
watching him until he was out of sight.

He didn’t just appear to be
rattled at the prospect of finding illegal weaponry on board this
ship. Lieutenant Commander Nathan Shepherd looked shattered. He
looked as if he was barely hanging onto his sanity.

Could this shock him that much, or
was there something else going on?

For the briefest moment I allowed
my thoughts to be taken over by his troubles.

Then I reminded myself of my
own.

Commander F’val was here for me.
And I would not allow myself to fall.

I looked left and right, ensuring
nobody was coming down the tunnel. Then I took a step towards the
open access panel. I locked a hand on the metal lip, leaned down,
grabbed the door to the service panel, then shifted inside it with
a smooth move.

I closed the service panel, using
my ability to jam it shut. Then I turned, a faint trace of
yellow-gold light picking up over my elbows and trailing down to my
hands. It was sufficient that I could now see my own reflection in
the shiny panels to my left and right. With a determined, grim
expression pressing across my face, I pushed forward.

If I was going to fight my way out
of this ship, taking a cache of Omega weapons with me would give me
a very special advantage.

Chapter 8

Lieutenant Commander Nathan
Shepherd

I stood before the Captain’s
office.

I had to use every ounce of my
training not to shake in my boots.

My heart wasn’t so much beating
anymore, as shuddering forward then stopping, shuddering forward
then stopping.

I’d never felt so much tension
rush through my body. It was murder just to breathe.

But finally, finally I brought up
a white knuckled, shaking hand and extended a finger towards the
intercom button. “Lieutenant Commander Shepherd here.”

“Come in,” the Captain
said.

The door opened.

I didn’t even have any time to
compose myself.

The Captain was sitting behind her
massive desk, and Commander F’val stood in front of it, his hands
clasped behind his back.

Both of them turned to face
me.

Their expressions were
unreadable.

I waited. Waited like a man facing
a firing squad.

The Captain cleared her throat.
“I’m glad you could finally make it. What kept you?”

What kept me? A cache of goddamn
Omega weapons and the fact I was a dead man walking.

I swallowed. “Sorry, Captain. I
was in the service ducts when I received your command. The
blueprints for that area are quite tricky. I kept taking wrong
turns.”

“Understandable. This ship can be
a warren at times. Now you are here, please take a seat.” She
gestured to the only other chair in her room.

I swallowed again and slowly moved
towards it.

I sat, even though the only thing
I wanted to do was run.

The Commander didn’t appear to be
paying attention to me.

Appear, being the operative
word.

For all intents and purposes he
was staring past the Captain at the shiny reflective panel between
the two windows behind her desk.

The panel would presumably show
him my reflection.

I waited.

Why was the Captain stringing this
out?

Or perhaps the Commander hadn’t
told her of my treachery yet.

“You’re probably wondering what
this is about and why I called you from your duties.” The Captain
steepled her massive fingers as she shifted back in her chair, the
thing groaning under her weight.

I didn’t answer.

I waited.

“We believe
the
Ra’xon
has
taken on a traitor. The same traitor who was responsible for the
accident on your ship.”

…
Good god no. They couldn’t think
that I scuttled my own ship. Could they?

“We took on 10
members from the
Fargo
. It’s one of them,” the Captain said.

….

I sat there. I could feel the
weight of my back pushing into the chair. I could feel my breath as
it whistled past my partly closed lips.

It took a while for my brain to
work, though. To understand what she’d just said.

“That’s why I’m here,” said the
Commander. “We have credible evidence that there is a spy aboard
this vessel, and we want your help to root them out.”

“My help? Why?” It was an
insubordinate thing to say, but I couldn’t control my mouth right
now. “I mean, how can I help you?”

“First things first, tell us
everything you know about Ensign Jenks,” the Commander said without
pause.

My heart skipped a beat. “Sorry,
Jenks?”

“She transferred aboard your ship,
and then aboard this ship. She was close to the site of the
accident, but mysteriously received no injuries,” Commander F’val
said in a monotone as he stood there with his arms
crossed.

My brow crumpled. “I thought… she
was just… lucky,” I managed in a stuttering tone.

Then I stopped and thought about
it for the first time.

I’d been almost killed in the
corridor. Though Jenks had been closer to the source of the
explosion, she was fine.

Absolutely unscathed.

The Captain suddenly waved her
hand to the left, and a hologram appeared over the desk. It showed
a view of the station from the outside.

It must’ve been taken just after
the explosion, because you could see the whole deck had been
virtually obliterated, structural shields the only thing keeping it
in place.

The Captain ticked her finger to
the side, and the picture suddenly zoomed in.

Right in the middle of that path
of destruction, there was a section about four meters squared that
was… fine. The hull was completely untouched.

“What am I looking at?” I looked
up at the Captain.

“This section of hull was
approximately 50 meters away from your position when the explosion
struck.”

“…
And?” I swallowed.

“And,” the Commander leaned in,
pointing a scaly finger towards the hologram, “Ensign Jenks was
there.”

I swiveled my gaze from the
hologram, to the Captain, then finally to the Commander. “… And?
Was that section reinforced? Surely this isn’t really evidence, she
was just lucky.”

“That section of hull was not
reinforced. There was no shielding, there was nothing in place that
could have saved it,” the Captain explained as she sat back. It was
the first time I noted the tension in her shoulders.

“But hold on,” my
thoughts struggled to catch up to the situation, “isn’t that,” I
leaned forward and stabbed a finger right through the hologram, the
light shifting around my hand like smoke, “the only reason the
station survived? If… what you’re suggesting is correct, and Ensign
Jenks is behind this, and she somehow shielded that section of hull
to protect herself, why would she do that? If her plan had always
been to knock the
Godspeed
into the
Ra’xon
and send it colliding into the station, then she
hampered her own mission.”

“We don’t know. All we know is
that small section of hull,” the Commander gestured to the hologram
again, “should have been destroyed. Every simulation we ran proved
that, but it wasn’t. And because it wasn’t, Ensign Jenks
lives.”

There was now a ringing in my
ears. With every passing second it was getting louder and
louder.

Unless the Commander was playing
an elaborate game, he wasn’t here to drag me away, was
he?

Nobody knew about my
treachery.

….

“You look as if you’re having
trouble believing this,” the Commander noted.

I shifted higher in my chair,
trying to hide my true feelings better. “To be honest, I kind of
am. I’ll admit to you, I barely know Ensign Jenks, but she doesn’t
seem the type to…” I trailed off.

“According to reports, she has
always had a troubling personality. Quiet, disengaged, and clearly
distracted. She fits the bill,” the Captain noted.

In my mind, spies were smoother
than that. They hid their true feelings. They did exactly what I
was doing – they maintained a friendly helpful disposition even in
the face of defeat.

Ensign Jenks – she was just a
woman who was running from something.

There wasn’t the faintest hint of
righteous fervor anywhere in her.

Something didn’t fit.

I swallowed uncomfortably. “Do you
have an issue with this, Lieutenant Commander?” The Captain leaned
even further back in her seat, locking her gaze on me. “You have
permission to speak freely.”

I nodded stiffly. “Okay then. This
still doesn’t make any sense. If you’re right, and Ensign Jenks
really was the spy who scuttled my ship, then why would she protect
that little four meter section of hull? Why would she be there in
the first place? Surely she would have been as far away from the
explosion as she could get? And surely she wouldn’t have bothered
to protect that small section of hull, considering it was the only
thing that saved the station and this ship.” I pointed a stiff
finger at the floor. “Sorry to be so frank, Captain, but something
simply doesn’t add up here.”

“We cannot guess
what her motivations are. And you are correct – we still do not
know if she’s culpable. But she seems to be the best place to
start. The Commander has requested your help in interrogating her
and the other members of the
Fargo
. I am redeploying you to his
command.”

I blinked. Then I swiveled my head
slowly to stare at the Commander.

He was looking at me… intently.
With his arms crossed in front of his chest, his head tilted to the
side, and his vibrant eyes locked on mine, it was impossible not to
note the quality of his attention.

I found myself swallowing
again.

“It is imperative that we find the
spy before they can do anything to this ship,” the Captain
added.

Suddenly I sat up straight, a
memory punching into my mind.

“What is it?” Concern flashed
through the Captain’s gaze.

“Christ, I…” I had to think
fast.

The Omega weapons. I hadn’t told
anyone about the Omega weapons yet. No… worse than that, the only
person I told was Ensign goddamn Jenks.

I planted a sweaty hand over my
brow, my fingers jolting over my nose before I let them fall to my
lap.

I had to make a decision. A short
sharp decision. And it had better be the right one.

Should I trust the Captain and the
Commander? Should I continue to trust the Alliance?

Or should I keep my discovery of
the Omega weapons to myself?

There was so much in this
situation that didn’t add up.

Somebody was keeping
secrets.

I just wasn’t sure who.

The Captain’s brow furrowed.
“Lieutenant Commander, what’s the problem?”

I had to make a
decision.

So I did.

I looked up into her eyes
directly. “I was going to wait till your meeting with the Commander
was over – considering he’s not a member of this ship – but you
need to know this now,” I said, coming up with a pretty good lie on
the run. It wasn’t customary to share intimate security details of
your vessel with an officer not attached to it.

I watched the Captain press two
hands into her desk and lean forward. “What is it?”

“Do I have permission to share
critical security information with the Commander?”

She nodded.

“I found… when I was checking
through the service ducts, I found a store room that wasn’t on the
original blueprints and that my scanner couldn’t
detect.”

A deep frown pushed its way across
the Captain’s face. “My requisitions officer has complained to me
before that our internal scans are not always accurate. Due to the
great number of engine cores on this ship, certain service ducts
cannot be scanned accurately. As for the original blueprints, we
have made modifications to this ship before.”