The Crucible: Leap of Faith by Odette C. Bell Read Free Book Online Page B

“My
crew—”
    I twisted my head
towards the window. I could see that the Ra’xon was already sending support
ships out towards the embattled Godspeed .
    “The Ra’xon is attending to
it.”
    The Lieutenant Commander still
held my arm as he attempted to push it off one last
time.
    He failed, but his fingers stayed
in place. With a bleary languid gaze he looked up at me as I knelt
beside him.
    He didn’t say anything; he just
held my gaze.
    … It was one of the most
confronting experiences of my life.
    Then Lieutenant Commander Nathan
Shepherd lapsed into unconsciousness.
    Not too long afterwards, a first
response unit arrived. Medical personnel attended to the Lieutenant
Commander, and we were then both taken away.
    I don’t know why, but despite my
best efforts, my gaze kept slipping towards Lieutenant Commander
Nathan Shepherd.
    …
    Corridor 46 A
    The cleanup started straight away.
The hull had to be reinforced before the emergency structural
shielding sapped the engines.
    A team of technicians were sent to
reinforce the hull plating.
    Junior Engineer J’lax floated
outside of the station in a mech suit. He was part of a contingent
of 10 engineers sent to repair the hole on the exterior of the
station.
    As the thrusters of his suit
maneuvered him towards his destination, confusion crumpled his
brow.
    His three eyes slid from left to
right, taking in the extent of the damage.
    It was massive. Most of the hull
plating along a 100-meter section had been torn clean
off.
    … Except for one four-meter
subsection.
    He blinked all three of his eyes
simultaneously.
    In the name of the goddess, he
just didn’t understand.
    His gaze flicked from left to
right again, picking up the trail of destruction that stopped
abruptly for four meters, then continued for another 50 meters
after that.
    He hunched over the controls in
his mech suit, running a quick structural scan and comparing it
with the blueprints of the station.
    … There was no special structural
support in the small section that was completely undamaged. No
extra shielding, no reinforced plating.
    “Hey, Frazon,” he initiated his
comms, “you see what I’m seeing?”
    “I’m seeing a lot of work,” Frazon
said, voice shaking. “That ship did a heck of a lot of damage when
it tore free from its moorings.”
    “No. That four-meter section just
above there.” He sent Frazon the coordinates.
    “What about it? It’s probably
reinforced.”
    “It isn’t. There’s nothing about
it on the blueprints.”
    “We need to fix this damage,”
Frazon snapped, the stress obvious in his tone, “and you can’t rely
on the blueprints. They’re not always accurate.”
    Not always accurate? On a station
as complex as this one, they had to be. As an engineer, you needed
to know exactly where everything was at all times, lest you cut
into some innocent looking piece of plating only to find it housed
part of the life-support system.
    “Get to work,” Frazon said
tersely.
    J’lax shook his head and did what
he was told.
    …
    Lieutenant Commander Nathan
Shepherd
    I woke screaming, demanding to
know what happened to my ship.
    Everyone tried to assure me it had
just been an accident. None of my crew had been killed, though a
few were seriously injured.
    As soon as they’d stabilized me
sufficiently and hooked me up to a self-moving back-brace, they
discharged me.
    I’d shattered four vertebrae and
fractured my skull in three places.
    The only reason they were
discharging me was because I’d been called to an emergency meeting
with senior Star Forces members who were on the station.
    My injuries would heal quickly.
They’d already fused together my bones, and the mechanical
back-brace was just there for additional support.
    It was so small, you couldn’t even
tell I was wearing it.
    Modern medical technology was
incredible, but there was one thing they still couldn’t do – tear
the shock from your body when you’d undergone what I
had.
    Though they’d fixed