Ouroboros 3: Repeat (13 page)

Yet as time wound on and he still was not pressed to death against the ceiling, hope lifted in his heart.

He kept speaking, kept begging her to fight it.

The words gushed from his mouth.

They were instinctual, raw, desperate.

Then he said it.

‘
Come on, Nida. You can do it. I believe in you. Come on. I love you. Come on, Nida’

It took a few seconds to realise what he'd just said.

Had he . . . just told her he loved her?

It had slipped out.

In that moment of total desperation, his emotions had loosened his tongue.

It didn’t matter though. Nothing did. No matter what he said, she didn’t move, and neither did he.

So he just waited there. Either for death or for Nida to win.

Yet though it all, he didn’t stop believing in her.

Cadet Nida Harper

It all happened so quickly. so blindingly, mind-numbingly quickly.

She woke from her terrible ordeal to find Carson above her. Then he’d begged her in his quiet tone to run the entity dry. To access it, to use all of its energy that she could.

She hadn’t understood—she’d been so confused.

When she had tried to access the entity to talk to it, she hadn’t been prepared for what would happen.

Nor did she understand it.

It had been a confusing, overwhelming sense of being controlled, of being pushed into as if someone were meticulously breaking down every barrier she had.

It had, as she’d pointed out to Carson, felt like she’d been drowning.

Over and over again. Stuck in that swirling, dancing, writhing mass of energy.

Yet that felt nothing compared to this.

Because now she fought it. With everything she had, Cadet Nida Harper tried to stop the entity from killing Carson.

She’d had to do that once before, back on the Farsight when the entity had killed the Barbarians.

.
 . . .

It had killed them. In cold blood.

She’d pushed that fact from her mind.

Now she couldn’t.

Because it was trying to do it again. Yet as it fought to push Carson towards the ceiling, she fought to hold him still.

It was the greatest battle of will she had ever endured.

Commanding the power within her was startlingly similar to using the TI implant.

So she drew on that training. All of it.

And she pushed herself into the task.

The entity fought her, it powered though her, it surged up her left arm and deep into her heart, chilling her blood as it went.

She felt like stone, or at least it tried to make her think she did.

It bombarded her with horrendous image after horrendous image, and terrifying sensation after terrifying sensation.

But she did not yield.

She couldn’t give up; she was Carson’s only hope.

She was aware that she simply stood there with one finger pointed up, very much like a statue.

It tried to talk to her, it tried to reassure her.

The entity. It told her in the calmest of tones that, ‘Carson had to die.’

He had betrayed them.

He had tried to kill it.

‘
Let him go. I will deal with him,’ it cooed in her ear.

Once upon a time, that gentle reassurance had been all that had kept her together.

When the entity had broken her out of the Academy, it was only its extraordinary ability to calm her that had stopped her from snapping.

Now she felt that calm reassurance anew. And it felt horrible. It felt like manipulation, not kindness.

The entity wanted something, and it was going to use her in any way to get it.

‘
Come on,’ it whispered in her mind, ‘trust me. I have never lead you astray. I have protected you. It is only when you have gone against my wishes that you have seen peril. You went against my will on Vex in the past, and it took you to the future. You compromised the United Galactic Coalition. All because you went against my word. You must trust me.’

She stood her ground, quite literally.

‘You must take me home before I corrupt and destroy your reality,’ it changed track, suddenly imposing half a vision over the scene. As she stood there and stared up at Carson, suddenly she saw stars streaking past as if they were falling form the sky.

She ignored them.

She ignored its words.

She fought.

And she held her ground.

Impossibly.

Somehow.

The entity grew more desperate.
‘Do not threaten your reality, child,’ it begged. ‘You would throw away the lives of everyone in this universe. You must trust me; you must get me home.’

‘
I won’t let you kill him,’ she suddenly said. Aloud. She spoke aloud. Somehow she forced her voice to carry.

It echoed around the bridge.

‘Nida?’ Carson cried. Though he’d been calling her name and telling her she could do it, now he redoubled his efforts.

‘
I won’t let you kill him,’ she spat again, her words a muffle as she tried to push them out of her aching throat and stiff lips.

‘
Do not threaten what is not yours,’ the entity screamed in her mind.

She didn’t reply. Instead she redoubled her efforts at closing it down, at forcing it back.

Nida had already learnt the lesson of accessing the entity’s power; she’d opened a time gate twice now. But this lesson was different.

And harder.

Now it fought her, tooth and nail. It riled against her, bashing through her body with its energy, willing her with every word and every second to succumb.

It would be the hardest battle of her life.

‘Come on,’ Carson begged from above.

His words washed over her. They reminded her that he was still alive, that the entity had not succeeded yet.

‘Trust me,’ the entity cried.

‘
No,’ she whispered aloud.

She meant it.

She was done trusting it. She was done taking things it said on face value.

She was done making assumptions.

It was time to really figure out what was going on here. From the entity to the Vex to the time gates, she knew instinctively she did not understand a thing. Not really.

She would find out though.

She would fix this.

And she would save him.

As that conclusion rose through her with all the power and majesty of the sun rising through the sky, she pushed back.

Using every gram of TI training she had ever received, and every scrap of will she had conjured during her journey, she forced it back.

. . . 

Finally it receded.

She could feel it slipping away from her body.

It felt like ice being dragged from her blood; it raked through her flesh and bones and left her cold and numb.

She closed her hand.

Carson dropped.

So did she.

She fell forward, losing consciousness almost immediately.

Yet with the thought echoing in her mind that she had done it.

She’d saved Carson Blake.

Carson Blake

All of a sudden he dropped.

All the way from the ceiling.

He was lucky this was a small ship, and the ceiling was only about 2.5 metres tall. Still, he had to duck and roll, and even then he busted his ankle and landed hard on his leg.

He didn’t have time to scream or to check out his injury.

Instead he limped up to her, dragging his ankle as he plunged down by her side and brought her head up in his trembling hands.

‘
Nida?’ he looked down into her face, his heart drawing to a full stop in his chest.

She was out cold.

No, not completely cold; he could feel her warmth. It was a welcome relief.

After she’d had episodes with the entity in the past, she’d always felt colder than deep space.

Now she felt normal.

He leant down and cradled her head close to his, breathing through his shock and sorrow as he did.

Soon he pushed himself up though. Soon he carried her to the med bay.

This ship was small, but it still hurt like hell to carry her that short distance.

His ankle jerked to the side every time he put weight on it. He did it anyway though.

He didn’t stop until he lay her down on one of the beds. Then he set to work mustering all of the equipment he could.

Carson was no doctor, but he still knew enough basic field medicine to hook up the right machines and ask the computer to monitor her status.

Once the system was set up, he barked,
‘what’s her status?’

‘
Cadet Nida Harper is unconscious,’ the computer told him in a monotone that belied how serious this situation was.

‘
Organ damage?’ he snapped.

‘
No. There is no significant damage. She is unconscious.’

He blinked his eyes closed and pressed his fingers hard into the lids. So hard, in fact, he saw stars erupt out at his touch.

Sighing, he tipped his head back. ‘Keep monitoring her. And manufacture and administer whatever you have to to wake her up now.’

‘
That is not recommended,’ the computer began.

‘
Just do it. As long as it won’t lead to permanent damage, wake her up now.’

The computer did not question him again—instead it set about following his command.

Robotic arms worked to manufacture some kind of drug, and soon enough a dose was administered to the side of her neck.

He didn’t have to wait long to hear her splutter.

He rushed up to her, ignoring how it felt to place weight on his ankle.

‘
This system has detected that you are injured, Lieutenant Carson Blake,’ the medical computer noted.

‘
I’ll get to that,’ he snapped. Then he returned all his attention to her. He got as close to the bed as he could, leaning down and cupping her chin in his hand. ‘Nida,’ he called to her. ‘Nida, you need to wake up. You need to block the entity out.’

‘
Ha?’ she muttered sleepily as she shook her head to the side.

‘
Nida,’ he tried to focus her, clutching her chin a little harder, but not so hard that he would do any damage. ‘Listen to my voice. Focus,’ he begged. ‘You have to block the entity off. You just fought it, remember?’

‘
 . . . Carson?’

‘
Nida, fight it,’ he commanded.

It was a command; he used every gram of authority he could still muster.

She blinked her eyes and finally locked them on him.

‘
Block it off, do what you can,’ he told her desperately.

He wanted to tell her how; he wanted to show her exactly what she had to do. The reality was, he didn’t know, though.

He had no idea what it felt like to fight the entity, just as he had no idea how exactly she’d been strong enough to try.

He did know she had to act quickly though. That’s why he’d ordered the computer to wake her up.

The entity had presumably used a lot of energy in its fight with Nida, and now was her chance to capitalise on that fact.

.
 . . .

There was also the possibility that it would ‘corrupt’ again, whatever that meant. But whatever that word truly indicated, one fact was for sure; there was every possibility that Nida’s body would start pulling objects towards her.

He couldn’t let that happen.

Yet the only thing he could do to try to stop it was to beg, then beg some more.

He watched her eyes focus, then the colour returned to her cheeks. Through it all, he said nothing; he just clutched hold of her chin, looked down into her eyes, and hoped it would all work out.

Eventually she took a steadying breath.
‘It’s like the TI implant,’ she said out of the blue.

‘
 . . . What?’

‘
Fighting it. Using it. It’s like the TI implant.’

He nodded.

As he did, a single thought danced at the edge of his mind.

Cadet Nida Harper had never been able to use her implant.

In Commander Sharpe’s words, she’d been ‘more than hopeless’.

Clearly Sharpe was wrong.

Now was not the time to write him a trite message informing him of that fact though. Instead Carson stuttered through a breath, ‘can you lock it off? Can you fight it?’

She finally nodded her head.
‘I can push it back. And it’s weak. Real weak. That fight took it out of it . . . and me,’ she answered with a tired sigh.

‘
But you did it. You did it,’ he closed his eyes and swallowed.

He only opened his eyes when he felt her soft hand on his.
‘It’s okay, Carson,’ she said simply.

He looked down to see her smiling.

He smiled too. Despite how not okay it was.

If he’d accused things of happening fast before, then he was wrong. The past half-hour had taught him a new meaning of the term fast.

He swallowed once more, only now realising that he still held her chin in his hand.

He moved to pull away.

She stopped him. She reached up, pressed her hand over his, and pushed it closer to her face.

It was not a strong move; in fact, her touch felt akin to the tickle of a feather.

Soft and gentle.

Though he could force it back with ease, he didn’t.

He enjoyed the warmth of her cheek and her fingers pressing into his instead.

They shared a protracted silence.

It was only broken when Nida let out another weary sigh. ‘What . . . do we do now?’

He had no idea.

None.

Things had just gotten dangerous. No. They’d been seriously dangerous before, but now they were critical.

He wasn’t just fighting for the Coalition any more—he was fighting to figure out what the entity was and to find a way to stop it.

He had no idea how long she could fight against it for, but he now realised he had to find a way to help her.
‘Computer,’ he turned, ‘assess Cadet Harper’s bio signs. Pay special attention to the . . . energetic entity residing in her in left palm. Try to figure out some kind of drug that can block it.’

‘
The computer does not understand your request,’ it said diplomatically.

He let out a beleaguered sigh. It had a point; his request hardly made sense to him.

‘Fine, I’ll program it in myself,’ he muttered, resolving to keep trying no matter how hard it seemed.

‘
Carson, I don’t think we can manufacture a drug,’ Nida began.

‘
We have to try; you can’t fight it forever.’

‘
I know but . . . when I was with the Vex, they somehow put a wall up between me and the entity. I don’t know how it worked, but it only broke down when I broke it down.’

‘
Unless you really want to go back to the Vex and ask them for some advice, that doesn’t help us,’ he noted bitterly.

He wasn’t angry at her—god knows he wasn’t angry at her. He was just fed up with this entire situation. It went beyond impossible. At every turn there was another problem, another dire circumstance.

He sighed again.

‘
It’ll be okay, right?’ she tried.

He didn’t say anything. Instead he walked over to the nearest panel—or hobbled, rather—and set about programming the computer to search for some kind of drug to help Nida.

‘Carson, you’re injured,’ she noted as she pushed up from her bed.

‘
I’ll heel,’ he answered distractedly as he concentrated on the panel before him.

She didn’t say anything. Instead he looked up sharply to see her push off her bed and stagger over to one of the cupboards on the wall.

‘What are you doing?’ he snapped. ‘Lie back down; you need to conserve your energy.’

She didn’t answer him. She simply pulled a first aid pack from the cupboard and stumbled over to him.

She set the kit down, then searched through it for the scanner.

‘
Nida,’ he tried.

She looked up at him as she opened the scanner.
‘You’re right, Carson; you will heel. But like the rest of us, you’ll need a little help.’

Though he wanted to reply—though he wanted to tell her to lie back down—he didn’t.

She just shot him a certain kind of look and, wordlessly, set about scanning his injury.

His stomach felt weird. It kicked. It lurched and twisted.

Especially when she got down on her knees and started pulling up the leg of his pants to get to his ankle.

‘
Nida, I can do this,’ he tried.

‘
And so can I,’ she mumbled tiredly as she selected a special kind of bandage from the kit. ‘This knits bones. It takes a couple of hours to work, but as long as you stay off that ankle, you should be fine.’

Again he opened his mouth, readying a response, but none was forthcoming. So instead he stood there and mutely waited until she was finished.

She pushed herself up, sighing heavily. For a second, she looked unsteady on her feet, and he lurched out to catch her.

Yet she steadied herself.
‘Now . . . what do we do?’ she looked directly at him.

He searched her gaze.

For answers.

Because god knows he couldn’t find them anywhere else. The rest of the universe only had questions for him. What exactly was the entity? What did it want? What was its connection to the Vex?

So many questions.

And amongst them a seed of doubt.

It was deep down in his gut, and it unsettled him with every breath.

What if
 . . .  he was wrong?

What if the entity was what it claimed to be, and its suspicious actions were all down to the so-called ‘corruption’? What if he was risking everything
 . . . ?

Maybe Nida knew what he was thinking, because she moved forward, ducked her head down, and stared up into his eyes. Though it appeared she could barely keep her eyes open, she stood there resolutely.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she admitted.

He swallowed.

She was so close that he could see the flecks in her irises.

‘
And maybe you’re right. But stop. The entity is . . . it’s . . . we can’t trust it,’ she concluded as she shivered violently. ‘It’s been manipulating us. Feeding me visions, whispering you lies. I don’t know what it really is, and I don’t know what it ultimately wants. But we can’t just follow it blindly in the hope that it’s right. We have to find out. There must be other information on it somewhere. And we need information. Facts, data. Something. Not just hope and blind trust.’

He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t; her words were exactly what he needed to hear. They rekindled his resolve, burning away the doubt as they did.

‘And if we eventually find out that the entity is right—that it’s worth trusting—then we’ll take it home. I’ll drop everything to get it back to its own dimension. But not until I know for sure. I’m done sacrificing things on a hope and a prayer.’

He nodded. Low.
‘You’re right,’ he said simply.

Because she was.

They’d both been pushed into this situation, and it was time to push back.

‘
I think I can hold the entity back for now. No,’ she quickly corrected, ‘I know I can hold it back. So we should head to the Coltex System. We should find out what the Vex did. That side of the plan hasn’t changed.’

‘
Do you still think you can . . . use the entity to open a time gate though?’ Carson voiced the question, even though what he really wanted to do was run away from it. He shuddered at the mere possibility.