Ouroboros 2: Before (8 page)

‘
So I wouldn’t tell anybody about . . . the straps,’ she coughed around the words, realizing how terribly embarrassing it would be when she was finally forced to wear one of those silly costumes, ‘or I will tell Farley about the fact you snuffle, and I’m sure they will try to re-enact that,’ she added for effect, ‘loudly and
publically
.’

He crossed his arms, still holding the scanner, and shook his head. ‘What you are engaging in here, Cadet, is called trying to manipulate an officer. And I am afraid that I will not be blackmailed,’ he spoke with all the deathly authority of Commander Sharpe.

It had an immediate effect on her, and she straightened, almost considering snapping a salute.

‘
Now, we should continue with our mission,’ he said in that same dark tone.

‘
Fine then,’ she conceded with a sigh, ‘but please, please don’t tell anyone,’ she begged.

He looked as though he was going to warn her again, but gave up halfway through.

Then she could see, that under his mask of authority, he was still blushing. But only slightly.

She decided suddenly that she didn’t want to know why. So she marched past him. ‘Okay, come on, time to save the universe,’ she said flippantly, even though it was definitely not something one could be flippant about.

For all Nida knew, she would soon lose her life in the most terrible way imaginable. Either the entity would become corrupted, and it would destroy her in the process, or one-day it would leave her, and she feared that in doing so she would become nothing more than an empty husk.

That thought mollified her. It stamped out the fire of her embarrassment, and practically wiped the strange interaction she had just had with Carson from her mind.

Instead, she concentrated on what would happen next.

The city.

Vatron.

Carson Blake

‘
Pull it together,’ he said silently under his breath, shaking his head as he did.

Nida was several steps ahead of him, and he stared at her back and winced as he admonished himself.

He was nothing more than a bundle of embarrassment and nerves, and it was agonizing.

He felt like he was a fresh faced recruit again. Which was stupid when he paused to think about it, because when Carson had been an undergraduate at the Academy, he’d been, for want of a better word, a cad. It was only when he’d graduated that he’d gone through a major personality overhaul due to the enormous responsibility that had been thrust upon his shoulders. But before that, he’d been smooth, suave, and, simply put, successful with women.

But now that part of his history felt like it had never happened.

He’d had to change his behavior so radically when he’d become a lieutenant, that his old habits weren’t just buried, they were gone completely.

And while Carson was more than happy of that fact, considering he had grown to loathe how he had once behaved, right now he wanted a little bit of Mister Suave back. Of Mister Charming, of Mister Confident.

Because the way he was reacting around Nida was, to put it simply, like a schoolboy.

He wasn’t a goddamn schoolboy; he was freaking Carson Blake, head of the Force.

Struggling with those thoughts, and getting absolutely nowhere with them, he continued to walk quietly by Nida’s side.

Though she was horrified by what the women of this time wore, and justifiably so, she had now withdrawn. And he could tell her sudden silence wasn’t just her silently musing about all those straps.

She was undoubtedly considering the entity and what would happen next.

He was struck with the sudden urge to tell her everything would be okay, but knew he couldn’t simply keep on repeating that. He had to show it. That would be the only thing that would count.

Realizing he had promised to fill her in on all the information he had gleaned on Vex culture, he cleared his throat uncomfortably. It took until he said her name for Nida to pay attention to him.

‘
Sorry,’ she mumbled quickly, ‘I’m a little distracted.’

‘
That’s okay,’ he cleared his throat, ‘I just thought you might like to know more about the Vex.’

‘
Of course,’ she added automatically.

‘
Well, as far as I can tell, they are split up into three provinces, and this province is called Borez. As I said before, it’s chauvinistic, male centric, and alarmingly violet. They have strict and brutal laws. The other two provinces are known as Dorga and Frux.’

‘
And what are they like?’ she asked, but she still sounded distracted.

‘
Better than this place,’ he answered simply. ‘I suggest that if we can’t find anything about the dimensional bridge or any time gates here, we should find some way to head over to one of the other provinces.’ As he mentioned that, he realized how wild the suggestion was. Though they now understood more about the culture of the Vex and could at least speak their language, navigating this vast world would be yet another step.

‘
Okay,’ she said simply.

Again she didn’t sound as if she was paying complete attention to him. In fact, she still stared dead eyed at her left hand.

Despite the number of light, tender, or downright awkward experiences they’d shared, he couldn’t forget what was happening to her. And it seemed neither could she.

Feeling humbled by that, he admonished himself for pulling rank on her before. Even if it had mostly been a game.

‘
Is there anything else I need to know?’ she asked after a long pause.

‘
Well, the Vex appear to have had an uneven technological progress throughout their history. For a large part, they are quite agrarian, but then my scanner has come across mentions of quite sophisticated technology too. While they have radio communications, relatively undeveloped television, and appear to be looking into utilizing microwave bandwidths, their medicine is second rate, and their architectural construction techniques are woeful. They are still using stone and brick and mortar. They don’t even have proper heating, and still resort to combustion fires for cooking and temperature regulation.’

‘
What have they been concentrating all of their energies on then?’

‘
War,’ he said plainly, and with far too detached a tone. Because he wasn’t just learning some set of curious facts here about an ancient alien race. He was, right now, on Vex, and though he had a set of armor from the future, and a strange alien device that acted like his telekinetic implant, but could manipulate all forms of matter and with greater power, he was not invulnerable. And neither was Nida.

Now the warlike tendencies of the Vex should be one of his top priorities.

‘
War?’ she questioned, no longer distracted by her hands. She looked at him enquiringly, and he could see a flicker of worry crumpling her brow.

‘
War,’ he repeated. ‘Hence the fact they have made great leaps and bounds in their communication techniques, but not in medicine or the usual comforts of life.’

‘
Hold on, if they were so fascinated by war, you would think they would have put at least some research into medicine too,’ she challenged.

He shook his head. ‘Not when life is cheap. And it appears that life is worryingly cheap to a Vex,’ he noted in a gravelly tone.

He didn’t like the look she now shot him. It was vulnerable. He didn’t hate it because he thought she should be stronger; it frustrated him because he couldn’t do anything to assure her that everything would be okay. Because, the more he learned about the Vex, the more he realized how dangerous this impossible mission really was.

Now, more than ever, he wanted the entity back, which was strange when you considered how much trouble it had caused. But the fact was, it knew more about this situation than anyone or anything else. If only it could tell them exactly where the dimensional bridge had shifted to, Carson and Nida wouldn’t have to go through this rigmarole.

And even if it couldn’t tell him exactly where the bridge was, at least it could tell them what kind of thing they were to look for. While Carson could fancy that something as enormous and incredible as a bridge between dimensions would have noteworthy effects on the space around it, he wanted to know more. If only he understood those exact spatial distortions, he could set his scanner to search for them. Though it didn’t have the range to penetrate this whole planet, at least he would be able to confirm whether one was nearby.

. . . .

He suddenly considered what he had just thought, and shook his head at how damn bizarre it was. Seriously, he was a lieutenant in the Galactic Coalition Academy, and he knew science, or at least he hoped he did, and this wasn’t scientific in the least.

But he also knew as a lieutenant in the Galactic Coalition Academy he always had to keep an open mind. That was the first rule of interstellar travel. Though there were a great number of similarities across the many races that inhabited the Milky Way, there were still surprises. Sometimes violent, sometimes horrible, sometimes incredible, sometimes wonderful. But always surprises.

So maybe, if he tried really hard, he could accept the existence of the entity, the bridge between dimensions, and the time gates. But when it came time to writing up his report on this mission, it would be a hell of a tale.

‘
Is there anything else I need to know?’ Nida suddenly questioned. ‘What should we avoid? I mean, apart from dressing like a prostitute,’ she blinked quickly, ‘if this nation has been at war, won’t they have an active military? Guards or police or something? Won’t they be suspicious if we run into them?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, this province has an active military, and from what I can tell, they are vicious and suspicious. And double yes, we will want to avoid them.’

She sighed heavily. ‘What else? What’s the current political situation? And if they close the gates to the city at night, aren’t we going to require some kind of identification? I mean if they are as paranoid as they sound, I’m sure they’re not going to let just anybody walk into their city. Come to think of it, while we both now speak perfect Vexian, do we have accents? Will they mistake us as travelers from one of the other provinces?’

Though she had once been distracted, now she was focused, and she was bombarding him with questions.

He had to put his hands up. ‘The short answer is I don’t know.’

She stared at him with wide eyes. ‘That’s not good enough,’ she said in a small voice, ‘last night you had to shoot a guy, and while that worked in the middle of nowhere, I’m not sure it will work again.’

He conceded her point by offering a sigh. ‘I know it’s not good enough, but I really don’t know what else to say.’

‘
Carson,’ she suddenly clutched her hands into fists, and he could see that she was digging her fingernails hard into her palms. It was likely only the thick fabric of her gloves that stopped her from cutting herself. ‘I don’t want to go into that city if I don’t know what will happen. I know I was all for it last night, but I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to
—’

‘
We don’t have an option,’ he snapped. ‘Unless the entity can tell us exactly what to do, then we have to figure it out for ourselves. And the only plan I can come up with that makes any sense is to gather as much data as we can. From scientific to historical, if we could just find mentions of anything that could suggest the existence of a bridge between dimensions or time gates, then we’ll have a hope. If not . . .’ he trailed off.

‘
Carson,’ she repeated, still digging her fingernails into her palms, ‘I’m terrified,’ she said simply.

‘
I don’t know what to do,’ he snapped back, ‘just . . . tell us, god dammit,’ he suddenly shouted.

She stumbled backwards, startled.

‘
I’m not talking to you; I’m talking to the entity,’ he clarified through clenched teeth. ‘Now tell us, for crying out loud. Stop playing games. If you know something, help us out. If going to the city is suicide, let us know. You must know more than you told us. So please,
please
help us.’

Though Nida had stumbled back, and her mouth dropped open from surprise, now she froze on the spot. Slowly her lips closed, and as they did, a trickle of blue light escaped over them. ‘We do not know. We cannot sense the existence of a bridge between dimensions until we are up close. They are only as large as a fraction of an atom. We are not capable of sensing whether this place has one. We must simply search until we find.’

Carson shook his head bitterly. ‘That’s not good enough. This planet is enormous, and it is split up into three warring factions. We can’t exactly wander around each of them looking for a crack in an atom,’ he spat, all of the complicated and confused emotions he had felt that day suddenly surging into one ball of anger. It sat in his stomach, burning bright and hot.

‘
You must search,’ the entity spoke through Nida, ‘find. Look.’

‘
This task is impossible. There must be some way to figure out where the dimension bridge is in this time zone without searching every single particle on the entire planet,’ his voice shook with incredulity and almost petulant indignation at the impossible task the entity had given him.

‘
I cannot give you more, but I can confirm that you are right. You should search the records of this planet for any mention of strange spatial disturbances.’

Carson took a quick step forward, his heart leaping at the fact the entity had finally given him some usable information. ‘What do we look for exactly? What kind of spatial disturbances will the bridge between dimensions create?’

‘
They suck matter into a point. The effect will only last for several meters around the radius of the crack in space, and it will not be strong enough to mimic the effects of a black hole. But objects, nearby trees or plants or stones or people, will be pulled together into a ball.’

Carson’s lips dropped open. ‘That would be easy to spot,’ he noted in a shaky voice.

‘
As for time gates, you have already seen the spatial effects that accompany them. Objects float in their vicinity. There are multiple time gates on this planet, and they shift around, but only every few years. If you find mentions of them, there is every chance they will still be active.’

Carson briefly closed his eyes. Finally he was getting somewhere. Why hadn’t he thrown a hissy fit and demanded to talk to the entity sooner?

When he opened his eyes, he noticed that Nida was wobbling on her feet. ‘Do what you are already doing. Travel to the cities, use your scanner to find whatever information you can. Trawl through that data for any mention of those unique spatial disturbances.’

‘
Hold on, how long does a bridge between dimensions last? I mean, does it appear for a few seconds and disappear again? Because if it does, we’re screwed,’ he answered honestly.