Ouroboros 3: Repeat (8 page)

Wait.

They had to wait.

And hope that it work out.

Hope the entity recharged in time. And beyond that, hope that she was right. Hope that by opening the time gate, she wouldn’t corrupt the entity and take the rest of reality with it.

It was a big if.

But she had faith.

Call it her connection to the entity, but she knew that she could do it.

So she just listened to his desperate shouts, and all the while held onto his hand as tightly as she could.

Then she closed her eyes and beckoned it forward.

Carson Blake

He couldn’t believe it.

He just couldn’t believe it.

She was alive.

She was right by his side, her hand in his.

To confirm that fact, he redoubled his grip.

Sure enough, he could still feel her fingers; he could still enjoy the reassuring warmth of her palm.

But that didn’t change what was happening to them.

Though Carson now appreciated that the events of the past few weeks—ever since he had awoken on Remus 12 only to be told Nida was dead—weren’t real. They’d been some kind of manufactured illusion.

He didn’t understand it, not really, and though Nida appeared to know more, now wasn’t the time to question her.

Now was the time to fight, yet he had nothing to fight with.

Now was the time to defend themselves, but there’s wasn’t the time.

One look around him at the crushed and battered machines along the opposite wall told him that whatever time-period they were in contained powerful and technologically advanced Vex. Vex that could reach right into his mind and convince him Nida was dead.

But more than that, trick him into sharing the battle capability of the United Galactic Coalition. Trick him into showing what he could do.

That fact played at the edges of his mind, and brought with it unbelievable guilt.

He couldn’t think of that now though.

He had to do something, anything.

Yet there was nothing to do.

So he just stood there holding her hand.

For her part, the worst recruit in 1000 years seemed calm. Terrified, yes, but still deceptively calm. It was as if she’d given into something, as if she’d realised some important fact that enabled her to rise above this situation.

He hissed her name again, and in response, she tightened her grip.

She’d told him to wait.

To wait for the entity to recharge, as she’d put it. Then she was going to use it to open
a time gate.

 
. . . .

It sounded impossible. And if it wasn’t impossible, it sounded deadly.

The entity corrupted every time it used its energy, so reaching inside it and forcing it to open a gate sounded like suicide.

Yet he didn’t question her, didn’t pull her back.

Because he trusted her.

The emotion locked him to the spot. It saw him standing silently by her side.

It wasn’t to be confused with hope either; he didn’t wish that she was right.

He just knew she was.

The pressure of the situation was rapidly washing away the fog that had eaten him for the past few weeks—or at least the few weeks that had passed whilst he’d been trapped in that vision.

It all seemed insubstantial now. And impossible.

How could he have believed that Nida had died in her room? How had he let people convince him of that?

Now was not the time for self-admonishment though.

Because now it was over.

The opposite wall actually melted away.

Yet there was no heat.

Though the whole thing glowed a hellish red and orange, no heat buffeted into the room frying the both of them into crisps.

It was, yet again, a testament to how powerful these Vex were.

Incredible.

And unstoppable.

It was over.

As the wall melted away, he saw soldiers behind it readying their weapons.

Though their faces were obscured by helmets, he recognised their stances. He understood their intent.

And time just slowed down.

As the realisation that this was it—that this was the end—shot through him before the soldier’s bullets could finish the job, he turned.

He crumpled over her as she stood there resolutely, her eyes closed and her expression calm.

He brought his arm around her head and rested his cheek against her ear.

‘Sorry,’ he whispered in her ear.

Then he waited to be shot.

 . . . .

No bullet lanced across the room. No weapon arced towards him.

Nothing.

Instead, in a wash of energy, he felt her skin vibrate.

And he saw it.

Through his tightly closed eyes, he saw the glow.

The blue.

The light.

It washed over her. And just as it had on the roof, it rapidly turned to white.

Bright, powerful, blinding, incandescent white.

It occupied the room like a presence.

And as it did, he felt the entity.

All around him.

Inside, outside, everything.

She lifted off her feet, her hand still in his.

He tightened his grip, terrified of letting her go.

Yet she wouldn’t let him fall; she took him along with her as she pushed into the air.

He heard surprised shouts from behind him, then finally the blast of gunfire.

Red-hot bursts of plasma flew towards them, yet before they could hit, they slowed, bent, and took up orbit around Nida, flying around in a vortex above her head.

He had just a moment to stare at them in complete surprise before he felt it.

Time slowed down.

Or if not time, then something.

Something that made the endless progression of change meaningful.

Whatever eternity sat beyond history.

It wrapped around him, and it wrapped around her.

Then the floor beneath him gave way, as did the walls and ceiling.

They did not break apart as they had in his vision.

They simply drifted away as if he were leaving them far behind.

And he was.

They fell through time.

This time together.

This time they could not be torn apart.

Cadet Nida Harper

She did it.

She opened the gate.

She forced her mind into the task, and once again called on the power of the entity. As it surged within her, she used that power to divide time in half. To break through the binds that kept it riveted to the spot. Until it lapped around her, washing over her body as if she’d shattered the dam that held it at bay.

She enjoyed the sensation, yet she did not lose herself to it. And neither did she lose herself to the power of the entity.

She controlled it until the gate opened and finally closed.

Then they arrived.

In another time and another place.

She struck the ground, rolling to the side, her body suddenly filled with unbelievable fatigue.

Yet she did not black out.

She forced her eyes to remain open.

She would not be surprised again. She would not lose consciousness only for the Vex to capture her.

That would have been what had happened last time. When she’d opened the time gate on that rooftop in the past, she would have plunged through, and both her and Carson would have lost consciousness immediately, leaving them easy targets for the Vex of the future.

Well not this time.

She heard him fall behind her.

He was out cold.

Yet he was alive.

For the briefest of moments, she closed her eyes and held onto that fact.

They were both alive.

They’d made it out of there.

But to when and to where?

She forced her eyes open again.

She was in some kind of chamber. It was cold, it was dark, and there were no decorations. Just a floor, ceiling, and walls, all hewn from rough stone.

Instantly she recognised her surroundings.

The tunnels of Remus 12.

She’d been here before.

Yet before she could race up to the surface to see if the stars were falling from the sky or whether a troop of Vex were waiting for her, she stopped.

Pain blasted through her.

The entity stared to vibrate, hot and frantic.

She could feel it corrupting.

She could feel it trying to tear itself apart as it lost all control of itself.

Then the dust picked up from her feet. The rubble cascaded in chunks form the ceiling. Rocks pulled themselves from the door frame.

And all of it plummeted towards her.

As it did, her implant burned into her flesh as if it were now operating way beyond its capacity.

She had just a moment to recognise what was happening in between her crippling bouts of pain.

The entity was having another attack, and this time it could be its last.

For there was no one to protect Nida now. Carson was out cold.

The glowing red device he’d used to protect her was gone too, as was his gun and armour.

She was on her own.

The rubble rained down, striking her head, cheeks, arms, and torso.

She fell to her knees, trying to protect herself in between gasping as more pain gouged through her like swords slicing open her arms and legs.

Larger stones struck her back and legs, one even glancing off her ear and cutting it. Blood spattered forward, then instantly turned, trapped in the vortex. It swirled around her until it splattered across her closed eyes and mouth.

She could smell it, taste it.

And she knew more would come.

She heard more stones pulling from the ceiling this time.

She had seconds.

She used them.

Just as her desperation reached its peak, she remembered.

Her resolve. Her decision to do whatever it would take to save the entity, Carson, and the United Galactic Coalition.

She was quite possibly everyone’s last hope.

So she fought.

She stood.

She let the rocks slam into her.

And she concentrated.

She could access the entity with ease now. She knew where it resided. She knew what it felt like.

And she also knew how to lock it away.

How to block it off from her body and mind.

That is what she now did.

She wrapped herself around it protectively, sacrificing her own self to the chaos of corruption.

She could feel it break through her.

But it did not kill her. It couldn’t do to Nida what it could do to the entity. For Nida was part of this reality. She was not some cross-dimensional being.

She was human.

So she fought with what she had. She curled her mind tight around the entity and protected it.

 . . . .

It worked.

She saved it, or at least she thought she did.

For she could not appreciate at the time what it would take to truly set the entity free.

The rubble fell from the air. The rocks scattered around her, and the dust dashed lightly and innocently against her shoulders and face.

She did it.

She saved herself and kept the entity safe at the same time.

Before she could truly consider what she’d just achieved, Carson stirred.

She dropped to her knees beside him.

‘
Carson,’ she said in a single breath. ‘Carson,’ she repeated as she leaned down as close as she could get.

She planted a hand flat on his chest, and soon enough she felt him move against it.

His eyes blinked open and a groan escaped his lips.

‘
What . . . ,’ be began. Then he tried to snap upright.

He couldn’t though. He appeared weak. Plus, Nida still kept her hand weighed down firmly on the centre of his chest.

‘Carson,’ she whispered, relief washing through her and making her shoulders tremble.

He looked up. Right at her. Though it appeared to take him a great deal of effort, he managed it. His gaze flickered and he kept blinking, yet the emotion behind it was clear and strong.

‘Oh my god, you really are alive,’ he pushed his hand up and let it rest alongside her cheek.

She leaned into it, unashamed that tears trickled down her cheeks as she smiled wildly.

‘Wait, how did we get out of there?’ Carson shifted forward now, using all his strength to sit.

She let him, pushing back on her haunches as she watched him stare wildly around the room. He shifted his head with strong, almost frantic movements of his neck.

His eyes were wide—she could see it even in the relative darkness.

In fact, this cold stone room would have been pitch black were it not for her.

Her hand glowed. And more than that, her body did too. It was subtle, it was slight, but it was there. From her feet to the top of her head, ever centimetre of her skin shone gently with that blue light.

He finally turned back to her and stared, wide eyed at her face and hands, and then back up to her face.

‘What’s happening?’ he hissed, his confusion evident.

She took a brief moment to simply smile at him. To enjoy the moment.

She wasn’t cruel enough to be taking pleasure in his surprise.

It was the simple fact he was alive. That they were both alive.

Pressing her lips closer together as her chin dimpled and her cheeks fattened high into her eyes, she nodded.

‘
Nida?’ he asked once more.

‘
I opened a time gate,’ she finally said.

In a shudder, a wash of recognition crossed over his features, slackening them as it did.
‘Oh my god . . . you did it. We got a way?’ As if to confirm that fact, Carson placed one of his trembling hands on the ground below him and trailed it through the dust and rubble.

It was in stark contrast to the room they had left. That room had been clean, advanced,
and definitely not full of rubble.

She smiled again.

She couldn’t help it.

Then he asked three little words that cut through her joy.
‘Where are we?’

She blinked hard.

Though she’d ascertained they were back in the tunnels of Remus 12, there was one fact she was yet to confirm.

When they were.

Her back straightened of its own accord, propelling her upwards as she stood quickly.

Turning on her bare feet, she sought out some clue. Yet she instinctively knew there was little she could find out down here.

This room was too simple to hold the secret of when they had travelled to.

Which meant one thing: she would have to go back up to the surface of the planet.

What would meet her there, she did not know. The stars could be falling from the sky, or a troop of advanced Vex could be waiting to pull her back into an illusion.

She didn’t drop back to her knees though. She remained standing.

Carson needed her.

And that was a truly strange fact to consider.

She’d once been as weak and pathetic as they came. She’d been the worst recruit at the Academy, and a total failure. She’d had to wait for others to protect her, for Carson to save her from the awful fate that had befallen her.

Yet now she knew she could do it on her own. To confirm that fact, she brought up her right hand and stared at the patina of cuts sprinkled across the flesh.

They were still bleeding gently, a silent reminder of how she’d protected the entity from being corrupted barely several minutes ago.

She took a brief moment to remind herself of that fact.

She had just saved herself. She had just stopped the entity from corrupting.

‘
Nida?’ Carson questioned as he now rose to his feet.

He appeared weak, yet he still managed to stand on his own.

‘We need to go up to the surface to find out when we are,’ she confirmed aloud.

He would already know that—he was freaking Carson Blake. Despite how much he’d been through, and whatever that simulation had done to him, the leader of the Force would still be under there.

‘I still . . . what the hell happened back there? Or then,’ he corrected in a muddle. ‘What were they doing to me?’ he asked in a quieter voice.

She turned on him, then, with a little breath, she explained all she’d grown to realise.

Everything she’d found out, from the nature of the simulation, to the constant mentions of something called the ‘event’.

As she drew to a stop, Carson just stared at her. She could see how wide his eyes were from the reflected glow of her own skin.

‘They kept me running through that simulation,’ he finally admitted in a voice that was little more than a croak, ‘they kept distracting me whenever I questioned anything . . . and I gave them what they wanted,’ he concluded as he shook his head bitterly.

Nida shook her head even more firmly.
‘You couldn’t fight against it, Carson. They appear to be far more technologically advanced than the United Galactic Coalition.’

At that admission, he drew a sharp breath.
‘And I just gave them the keys to all our locks. I can’t believe what I’ve done . . . .’

‘
Carson,’ she took a step forward, ducked her head low, and stared up into his face, trying to focus his attention, ‘you couldn’t fight it. It wasn’t your fault.’

‘
You fraught it.’

‘
I don’t know how,’ she admitted with a sharp breath of her own, ‘I just . . . maybe it was the entity, maybe it was something else. The point is, no one is going to blame you. I don’t blame you,’ she added in a hoarse voice.

He appraised her with his lips turned into a thin line, then shook his head.
‘I just . . . .’

‘
We have to keep going,’ she snapped, realising that the best thing to do was probably distract him. Despite what had just happened, he was still the leader of the Force, right? He still knew that you had to push past your emotions in times of stress and import.

As soon as she thought that, she shuddered. For the Vex had clearly understood that—that’s how they’d kept Carson distracted, that’s how they’d stolen the secrets from his mind.

‘I’m just so sorry,’ he began. ‘I thought you were dead . . . I believed it. It didn’t make any sense, and I didn’t do anything to confirm it,’ he continued.

‘
Carson.’

‘
I just kept doing my duty, like that was all that mattered.’

‘
Carson.’

‘
I can’t believe—’

‘
Carson,’ she closed the distance between them and grabbed up one of his hands. She held it as tightly as she could. ‘We have no idea what’s going to happen next. We don’t really know for sure why the Vex wanted that information on the United Galactic Coalition, and what they really wanted to do with the entity,’ she admitted through a cold shiver, ‘but we aren’t going to find out here.’