Ouroboros 2: Before (5 page)

He clutched his neck, and let his stiff, sweaty fingers drag across the muscles. ‘Sorry,’ he managed, ‘I’ve just never been comfortable with . . .’ he trailed off.

‘
You don’t have to explain yourself,’ she said lightly, but it was clear she was only trying to be polite.

‘
No, I think I do. Look, my life is quite different to the one you probably think I have. I am not the legend of the Galactic Coalition Academy. I work hard, just like everybody else. That’s it. I do my job.’

She pressed her lips together and nodded, but she didn’t look at him.

It was clear she didn’t believe him.

And just for a second, that irritated him again. Before he could stop himself, another wave of frustration billowed through his chest, snapping his mouth open as it did. ‘I’m just an ordinary guy, honest. I’m not a captain, an admiral, or even a commander. I’m only a lieutenant. I’m just ordinary,’ he repeated. Because, for some reason, it was critically important Nida understood he was normal. He wasn’t some untouchable legend. He was just a guy. Not that different from her, or, at least, a little more coordinated, but still ordinary.

She finally looked up at him. It was clear that he had made this once light interaction into something uncomfortably intense. She stopped rubbing her arms and instead held her hands tightly in front of her, as if she were on parade. ‘Okay,’ she said simply.

‘
I’m just ordinary,’ he repeated again, kicking himself for being so pigheaded. He had to stop saying that, and he had to drop this before he freaked Nida out even further.

But she now flicked her gaze up and held his. ‘Except you’re not,’ she said in a soft tone that was nonetheless steady.

‘
What?’

‘
You are the head of the Force, and you have mastered the use of the telekinetic implant. People rely on you. People trust you. And you get things done. Carson, you’re not ordinary,’ she still spoke in that same deceptively quiet tone that nonetheless rang with certainty.

He swallowed. ‘Yes I am,’ he began, sounding as petulant as a child.

‘
You’re not, and that’s a good thing. If you weren’t here, if you hadn’t been so persistent in looking out for me on Earth, I would be dead. You, Carson Blake, are why we are both here. You’re not ordinary, and that’s a good thing,’ she looked at him as she spoke, and she didn’t once blink, and neither did she drop her gaze. She also still held her hands tightly in front of her.

From her body language to her calm certainty, watching her was transfixing.

He swallowed. He tried to defend himself, but he couldn’t think of anything to say.

Because concealed in her statement and the way she had said it was a compliment. Okay, it hadn’t even been concealed. She had outright said that if he’d been anyone else, she wouldn’t be alive.

He swallowed again. Then he managed to shake his head. ‘You’re overstating things. Anybody else could have done what I did.’

‘
Except for me,’ she laughed lightly, but if the move had been intended as carefree, it wasn’t. She looked unusually small in that moment, and she finally unhooked her hands from in front of her, and brushed the fingers of her right hand over her left palm. ‘Maybe if I had been somebody else, things would never have gotten this far. I mean, a real cadet, someone not as useless as I am, wouldn’t have made the same mistakes. They wouldn’t have touched the blue orb in that statue room,’ she picked over her words slowly, as if she were trying to hide her emotion, ‘they wouldn’t have kept everything to themselves. They would have figured out what was going on sooner, and they would have gotten the appropriate help before it was too late.’

She no longer looked at him. Instead, she stared at some innocuous patch of dirt on the cold, grey, stone floor.

Without thinking, he stepped right in front of her, breaking her gaze. He dipped his head down, until she looked up into his eyes. He simply shook his head. ‘This is not your fault. And you did everything you could to stop this. People didn’t believe you,’ he stabbed a finger at the ground as he spoke, unable to keep his passion from poisoning his calm resolve. Though he wanted to speak with authority, he ended up talking with an unmistakable note of frustration instead. ‘You are the last person who can be blamed for this.’

She pressed her lips together, but didn’t say anything more. Instead, she dropped her gaze and stared at her left palm.

Again, without thinking, he grabbed it and held it in his own hand, covering that faint dancing blue glow with the girth of his palm and fingers.

She was a cadet and he was a lieutenant, and he really had to stop touching her. Okay, you were permitted to engage in bodily contact when it was necessary, like when you were tackling somebody out of the way of an enormous Barbarian. But the point was, he had to stop touching her in moments like this.

Emotional, poignant, almost scary moments. Moments that stretched like time shouldn’t, and that practically vibrated around him with strange, unknown promises.

It took a lot of effort, but he finally dropped her hand and stepped back, reinstating their personal space.

She was still staring at her hand, but there was the slightest of smiles warming her cheeks. ‘Okay,’ she whispered.

‘
Okay?’ he croaked, completely unsure of what she was agreeing to.

‘
Okay, so maybe it wasn’t all my fault, and maybe I did try hard to let people know what was happening. But,’ she took a steadying breath, ‘I still don’t think you’re normal. And thank you, for not being normal,’ she added, awkwardly.

He opened his mouth, but he couldn’t say anything.

He wasn’t sure whether he should thank her, argue further that he was normal, or tell her it was time to change the subject of this conversation.

But she made the next move. ‘I guess now that we both have disguises, we can’t put it off any longer. We should . . . go out.’

Briefly, he took that to mean something else, and blinked hard, but soon realized what she meant. Nodding his head entirely too quickly, he cleared his throat and tried to straighten up. ‘I think you’re right. We can’t waste any more time.’ He closed his eyes and sighed. ‘I can’t believe I just said that. We are about to go out on an unknown alien planet, and mingle with the inhabitants. We are so screwed.’

‘
The Academy teaches that a good cadet never gives up,’ Nida said as she shifted past him and towards the door. The heels of her shoes clicked against the hard stone, and the elegant skirt she wore swished around her ankles. She turned over her shoulder, her new white hair cascading around her. ‘So, come on. If Commander Sharpe were to ever find out that we gave up,’ she whistled through her teeth.

He chuckled. It wasn’t the best joke he’d ever heard, in fact, it wasn’t even funny, but she’d made it. So he laughed.

Then they did it, they headed out.

It was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. It was at once completely different from every proper United Galactic Coalition mission he had ever been on, and yet exactly the same as the incredible adventure stories he’d enjoy as a child.

Tales that had been filled with crazy scientific explanations, unfeasible amounts of danger, ludicrously violent enemies, and stupidly specific missions.

Realizing how ironic that was did not, however, dampen how serious this situation was.

Because nothing could.

That thought steeled him, and Carson rustled up what determination and courage he would need for what he knew would come next.

Cadet Nida Harper

She was strangely distracted.

It was strange, because she had a lot that should be commanding her attention. An entity from another dimension resided within her body, and if she did not return it to its home, all of reality could be destroyed.

. . . .

And yet, she couldn’t help but recall, in exact and exquisite detail, how tenderly Carson had applied the disguise. From the neck ridges, to the spots, to the hair, her cheeks and scalp still tingled from his precise touch.

Which was just stupid. For one, he was Carson Blake, and for another, hello, she had the weight of the universe on her shoulders. She was allowing herself to be distracted by the most trivial of facts, and she had to push all memory of him away.

Which was very, very hard, considering he was right by her side.

They had finally left the house. And it felt strangely like leaving her home, even though she’d only resided in it for half a day. Still, it was undeniably scary to leave those solid stone walls and step out into the world around.

Dusk was starting to settle in, and it was longer and filled with more vibrant reds and gem-like purples and oranges than its equivalent on Earth.

She did not have the time to appreciate it though. Neither did she have the opportunity to judge just how lovely the meadow and forests around her were.

They were lush, and the grass was soft, long, and looked almost exactly like the lawns and pastures of her home world.

The trees were somewhat different though, taller, lanky, and their foliage was tinged with orange and blue.

Still, just like trees everywhere, they had a lovely, age old, calming presence.

She would have adored the chance to pluck Carson’s scanner up, and spend the rest of the night investigating them. That, after all, was what a good cadet of the Galactic Coalition Academy should do. Her primary ream it was exploration. But somehow she doubted that Carson would let her lounge around in the forest for the rest of the day.

‘
There is a densely packed populace approximately 20 kilometers from this position,’ he suddenly announced as he regarded his scanner.

‘
20 kilometers?’

He closed the scanner and nodded at her. ‘If we walk fast, we will be able to make it tonight,’ he said, sounding exactly like a determined Academy lieutenant.

She made a face though. She couldn’t help it. She was still, despite her eight hours slumber, tired. There was this . . . aching weariness in her bones. Though she could move, and in a pinch, she could run, she was aware she had to be careful.

Despite the fact Carson was still looking at her, expecting a reply, she suddenly turned her attention to her left hand. Even though it was covered by one of her black gloves, she turned it around, considering it intently.

‘
What is it?’ He whispered, despite the fact they were very much alone.

‘
Nothing, 20 kilometers? One night? Okay, I guess we can make it.’

He considered her with pursed lips, and maybe he was about to point out that fitness was a necessary ingredient to a successful cadet. But he didn’t say anything. Instead, he regarded his scanner again. ‘Hey, if we’re lucky, maybe we don’t even have to go into town. I mean, the bridge could be anywhere, right?’

He was clearly trying to cheer her up, and she offered him a smile, even though she didn’t exactly feel any better.

‘
Speaking of which, how are we going to know when or if we find a bridge between dimensions? I mean, is it going to be obvious? Is it going to be like that time gate? Is everything going to be floating around it?’ Carson asked again.

It wasn’t the first time he had voiced this question. If their whole mission to the past was to find a dimensional bridge, then they jolly well had to know how to identify one.

But the problem was, no matter how many times Carson questioned her, she didn’t have an answer for him.

The entity was too tired to tell her anything, and would only communicate with her or through her when it absolutely had to. Apart from that, it appeared that Nida and Carson were on their own.

She smiled at him glumly, and it caused him to sigh loudly and heavily.

‘
Great, I don’t know what I’m looking for, have no idea whether it’s even in this time zone, and we have no idea whether running the risk of going to that city is worth it.’

She wanted to reach a hand out and pat his shoulder, but she restrained herself.

He always looked strangely intense whenever she touched him. Or, rather, she always felt strangely intense whenever she touched him.

Which was stupid, when she paused to think about it. She had already told Alicia that she wasn’t interested in a man like Carson Blake. And, to be perfectly honest with herself, she had to admit that a man like Carson Blake would never, ever be interested in somebody like her. He needed a woman who was as determined and capable as he was. He wouldn’t want somebody he had to pick off the floor every time she tripped over her feet, and neither could he possibly harbor romantic intentions for the worst recruit in 1000 years.

Realizing she was distracting herself yet again, she shook her head.

‘
Right, in the absence of all other information, I guess we should . . . at least head to that city to check it out. We can be discreet.’ Carson furrowed his brow with determination, but his lips were still drawn thin with worry. Both moves cancelled each other out, and simply left him seeming unsure of himself. Then his eyes sparked with a sudden realization. ‘We should also try to find out and amass as much information about the Vex as we can. I mean, the entity said that this planet is very close to its dimension. It said the space and time around here are affected by that proximity,’ he brought his free hand up to gesture to the rolling meadow and the dust above. ‘If that’s the case, then maybe the Vex have noticed this,’ his voice became hesitant as he clearly tried to describe a complex concept, ‘I mean, if your planet sat on the edge of a dimensional rift, I’m sure somebody would eventually notice something strange.’

‘
What are you saying?’

‘
I’m saying, that, just maybe, the Vex know more about the dimensional bridge and the time gates than we do.’

‘
You mean, you think they know where the other time gates are?’ Her eyebrows crumpled in disbelief.

‘
I’m saying they could, and even if they don’t know where exactly, I’m saying we can amass as much as they do know, and go through it ourselves. We can’t discount the collective observations of the people of this planet, both in the present and the past. They’ve been living on this planet for god knows how long, and we need to take their observations and experiences into account. It will help us to develop a more complex model of what the dimensional rift looks like. And if we can build up enough information, we might be able to make predictions about where the bridge has moved to.’

It sounded logical . . . but it also sounded flimsy. She didn’t want to point that out to him though, as he appeared so excited by the news. So instead she tried to smile encouragingly, but as she did, she uncontrollably clutched onto her left hand.

Not for the first time, she wanted the entity back, which was incredible, considering what it had put her through. From the dreams, to the accidents with telekinetic objects, to what it had done to the Barbarians.

. . . .

She couldn’t deny she had this yearning for it to return. It was such a calming presence. It would also know what to do. Or at least she hoped it would. Or maybe it wouldn’t. For if it knew exactly where the dimensional bridge had moved to, presumably it would have sent Carson and her to that exact point in time. It wouldn’t have bothered with all of this. Which meant, unfortunately, that even if or when the entity returned in full, they wouldn’t be able to rely on it.

‘
What are you thinking about?’ Carson asked her, and she realized she had withdrawn into a lengthy and pointed silence.

She shook her head, pushing her bright white fringe from her eyes and locking it behind her ears. ‘That I wouldn’t mind a really big bowl of pasta with butter, soya sauce, garlic, and cheese,’ she lied.

Carson considered her strangely, then smiled. Widely.

In fact, the smile easily took over his whole face, pushing his cheeks into his eyes, and opening them wide. ‘That sounds great.’

‘
It is good,’ she said, chuckling as she did. Then she told him exactly how to make it, and it was a fittingly comforting distraction.

‘
Okay, when we get back to the Academy, and we will,’ he said determinedly, ‘you can make it for me.’

She spluttered. ‘You mean you would actually eat food that I’ve cooked?’ She patted her chest.

Though he looked cheeky when he’d said she could make him the dish, now he paused.

‘
I mean, considering I’m so clumsy. Who knows what I would put in the pasta.’

She enjoyed his crumpled expression, and gave a soft laugh.

‘
I guess that’s a good point, considering you made us eat strange silver powder from a foil packet earlier today,’ he conceded.

‘
You were the one who ate it first.’

‘
I guess I was, but anyhow, I think I’m game enough to try your cooking,’ he managed through another grin.

She liked it when he grinned. It made things seem less serious, or if not less dramatic as a whole, then more manageable.

‘
You know, if I cook for you, you’re going to have to do my homework for me,’ she suddenly announced.

He coughed loudly. ‘I’m a full lieutenant of the Galactic Coalition Academy, and I cannot be bribed.’

‘
I’d put a lot of cheese and garlic on your pasta,’ she tried.

He put his hands up. ‘And it’s a deal. I’ll do all of your homework for you. When we get back to the Academy,’ he added in a quieter tone.

When they got back to the Academy.

And that was a big if.

Even if they could somehow manage to find the bridge and release the entity back to its own dimension . . . Nida wasn’t entirely sure what would happen next.

Though she’d heard the entity promise Carson that once it left her she would be fine, she wasn’t so sure.

She didn’t know what it would feel like to have the entity leave her, and as soon as she considered that possibility, she felt like shaking.

The mere mention of having it removed was like having her life cut short.

For the next several hours, they walked in relative silence. After some time, Carson returned the scanner to his belt, fixing it inside a leather pouch. On the opposite side of his hip was another leather pouch that held his gun. Even though they both agreed it was a serious risk bringing the gun along, Carson had decided not to leave it behind. In his own words, he wanted to be armed.

The closer they neared the city, the more fearful she became.

The more she clutched her left hand too. She pressed the fingers together, or clutched it into a fist, or rubbed her palm against her implant.

She was beyond nervous.

Though it had been a slow build up, she could no longer deny the fact this was really happening.

Soon they would become acquainted with the Vex.

A race that would eventually be totally and utterly destroyed. For she had stood on this planet before, far in the future, when it had been nothing more than a dust bowl filled with rubble and nothing else.

Nobody knew what had happened to the Vex, in fact, nobody had known what the race that had once lived on Remus 12 had been called, but suddenly their history became very important to her.

Had they been obliterated by a spatial anomaly? Had another alien race conquered them only to strip the planet bare, and leave them with nothing but dirt and stone? Or had they done this to themselves?

All of the possibilities were equally as frightening. What was far more frightening, however, was that Nida got the sudden impression that she would eventually find out.

Possibly first hand.

Shuddering slightly but trying to hide it by shrugging her arms around herself, she took a step closer to Carson.

Somehow that made everything feel better, if only slightly.

But right now she would take slightly.