The Crucible: Leap of Faith Read Online Free

the
expansive corridor beyond the function room, my brow was plastered
with sweat.
    I had to find more of the
compound, and I had to find it now.
    I’d foolishly thought I’d have a
few more hours until another seizure struck me. I’d been
wrong.
    If it had been up to me, I
wouldn’t have come to this party. But it wasn’t up to me. It had
been a command. The Star Forces told you went to work, went to
rest, and when to play.
    They also told you when it was
time to die.
    I walked quickly, arms huddled
around my middle, fingers digging hard into my forearms.
    I clenched my teeth together and
kept my head angled to the side, avoiding eye contact with any
passers-by.
    I was currently in the
administrative district. This district housed the Star Forces
Academy and the House of Lords and Ladies, as well as the other
crucial administrative centers that ran the Alliance. Beyond this
district were the trade markets.
    If I were lucky, I’d find what I
was looking for there.
    Nobody would be able to sell me
any compound 78. Not in its isolated form. I would have to
synthesize it from Omega class weapons. And Omega class weapons
were very much illegal.
    If you’d asked me several years
ago, I would have said it would be impossible to get such weapons
on the capital planet of the Alliance.
    Now I knew better.
    This Alliance was rotten to the
core.
    I pushed my way into a lift, half
staggering past two surprised guests. “Close the doors and take me
to the ground level,” I commanded before they had a chance to enter
the lift.
    As the doors swept closed with a
hiss, I unlocked one shaking hand from around my middle and planted
it on my brow, forcing the fingernails hard into my flesh. Pressing
my palm over my eyes, I didn’t remove it until several seconds
later when I arrived at the ground floor.
    Dropping my hand and taking a
calming breath, I walked out.
    I had to keep blinking to refocus
my gaze; it was starting to become fuzzy around the
edges.
    It was a cool night, and there was
a pleasant brisk breeze sweeping along the streets.
    On the ground floor of the
administration district were wide white walkways interspersed with
low gardens and lakes.
    Before I’d been discovered and
taken into the program, I’d loved nature. I’d always dreamt of
traveling to some pristine planet somewhere and living out my days
free from the pressures of the modern galaxy.
    I’d never get the chance.
Forevermore I’d be on the run. Though I could try to go to ground
on some distant world, it wouldn’t last. I needed compound 78 to
survive. And if I stopped taking it… things would
happen.
    My only option was to keep moving,
from planet to planet, sourcing more and more compound
78.
    I needed to keep hidden from them
– the people who’d done this to me. The best way to do that was
under their goddamn noses.
    I’d changed my identity, buying a
new one from Manticar Raiders. To the Alliance, I was now Ensign
Amelia Jenks. The Raiders were good, and nobody had a clue who I
really was.
    If I wanted to keep it that way, I
had to get more 78.
    I quickly made my way across the
grounds to the nearest transport hub. There, it was a relatively
short trip to the trade district.
    Short, that was, for somebody who
wasn’t breaking apart on the inside.

Chapter 3
    The Mari Sector, Research Dig
Alpha 78
    Manager Amy Lee stood over the
body… or whatever remained of it. A few of her researchers had
found it.
    They’d set up a security perimeter
and had already activated an environmental field.
    It was safe to breathe, yet she
didn’t really want to take off her helmet.
    Take off her helmet, and there’d
be nothing between her and the torn bloody remains in the
dust.
    Her muscles were tense, her fists
clenched by her sides.
    Ensign Weatherby had been an
idiot, but he hadn’t deserved this.
    … Whatever this was.
    This moon was uninhabited. Apart
from the crew at the dig site, there should be nobody on this
rock.
    Well, there had to be