Ouroboros 3: Repeat (9 page)

He finally lifted his chin and looked at her evenly.

He didn’t say anything.

So she just stood there and watched the reflected light from her body casting shadows over his.

‘We need to find out when we are, and we have to get the entity back to its home. That’s it. That mission hasn’t changed,’ she summarised. ‘But we also have to stop the Vex.’

Carson took a heavy breath, drew into another pointed silence, then finally managed,
‘but . . . the Vex never existed at the same time as the Academy. What exactly are they going to do with this information?’ Hope twisted through his tone, altering the pitch of his voice as it echoed through the room.

Nida considered his point. Yet it did not afford her any comfort. For it was one she had already thought of.

She knew the Vex had never existed at the same time as the Galactic Coalition. According to their best estimates, the inhabitants of Remus 12—the Vex—had died 2000 years before Nida and Carson’s own time.

The United Galactic Coalition was barely 450 years old.

Whatever wiped out the Vex, happened in the past.

So regardless of what point in the Vex’s history Nida and Carson had travelled to, it made the information they’d shared irrelevant, right?

Nida wasn’t so sure of that.

The one thing this entire situation had taught her was that it was dangerous to make assumptions.

‘They’re long dead in our time,’ Carson repeated, clearly holding onto that fact. ‘The United Galactic Coalition should be safe.’

Suddenly a cold energy passed over her back, and she clasped a hand on her chest.

In a shiver, she remembered one of her visions.

The most horrible by far.

The one where she had stood upon the ruined surface of Remus 12 looking up into orbit to see the destroyed United Galactic Coalition Fleet. All those ships, all those people.

All destroyed.

Carson stepped in closer, even though she was already right by his side. ‘What is it?’

‘
My vision,’ she croaked, ‘the one I had when we were with the resistance,’ she shook her head as she spoke, feeling the tears well within her eyes. She blinked them back, but they just kept coming. ‘I saw the Coalition Fleet destroyed.’

Carson didn’t say anything.

‘I saw bodies floating in space, cruisers torn in half . . . .’

‘
We don’t . . . we don’t know that’s the future,’ he tried.

‘
But what if it is?’

Again, Carson didn’t say anything. He simply stood there and stared at her silently, his expression one of tortured guilt.
‘We don’t know . . . ,’ he tried one last time.

No, they didn’t know. But the mere possibility that it could be true, sent Nida’s stomach tumbling around and around until she had to clutch a hand over her mouth to stop from falling over.

‘I took us to the future,’ she finally realised. ‘I opened the time gate. I let us fall into the hands of the Vex.’

‘
Nida, no. It wasn’t your fault. You got us away from that roof. If you hadn’t, god knows what would have happened.’

She tried to let his words still her, but they wouldn’t.

Though she had once believed she’d pushed her guilt and indecision away for good, now it came flooding back. It surrounded her, pushing down from above until she could see nothing but what she’d done.

She trembled.

‘Hey, if it’s anyone’s fault, it’s my fault,’ he tried.

.
 . . .

It was no one’s fault.

That sentiment struck her, and she held onto it.

It sounded as though it came from the entity. It felt that, even though it was still immeasurably weak, it was reassuring her.

And she let herself be reassured.

Soon after, she straightened.

She considered Carson in the dark and silence once more.

‘
We just have to do something,’ she finally concluded. ‘Go out there, find out when we are and . . . do something. If we’ve finally made it back to our own time, then we warn the Academy. If we’re back in the past with the Vex, then we fight them. We do what we can to find out what their plans are, and we stop them.’

‘
And if we’re in our future?’ Carson asked quietly.

‘
Then we see what’s happened,’ she choked.

In that moment, they held onto each other.

Slowly, they parted and faced the rough-hewn door on the other side of the room.

‘
Let’s go,’ she finally said, nodding forward.

‘
Wait, just one thing. You opened the time gate . . . but what happened to the entity? Won’t it corrupt again? What if you have another episode? I don’t have my armour, nor the device, not even my gun,’ Carson blurted out.

Nida managed the smallest of smiles.

‘Nida?’ he asked, his confusion almost palpable.

‘
You don’t have to worry about that any more.’

‘
What do you mean?’

‘
I mean I can stop it,’ she brought up her hand and showed him the cuts across it. ‘The entity already corrupted before you woke up. And I . . . stopped it.’

He just looked at her, his brow slack with barely-concealed awe.
‘You did what?’

‘
Look, it’s hard to explain, but I can access it. The entity. I know where it is, I know how to get to it. That’s how I opened the time gates. And it means I can protect it when it corrupts. I don’t really understand . . . .’

‘
Neither do I,’ he breathed, then he tightened his grip on her hand, ‘but I trust you.’

She turned to look at him, her eyes shimmering with tears. She locked her gaze on his face, and could not look away.

‘Come on,’ he finally motioned forward with his head.

They walked out.

Carson Blake

He could hardly believe any of this.

But he had to.

He had to keep going.

He couldn’t sit crumpled on that cold stone floor wallowing in his grief.

He had no real idea what he’d done—what sensitive United Galactic Coalition information he’d shared with the Vex—but Nida was right. They just had to keep going. They had to find out when they were, and react accordingly.

Nida had tried to convince him that none of this was his fault, that he couldn’t possibly have fought against the simulations forced on his mind by the Vex.

But she didn’t understand.

They’d made him believe she was dead
 . . . and he’d just accepted it in the end. He hadn’t fought it. He hadn’t fought for her. He hadn’t dropped everything to find her.

He felt sickened by his actions. He didn’t care that the Vex had likely been manipulating him the entire time—that the fog that had assailed him had probably been their efforts to push the questions from his mind. It didn’t matter because he was so disgusted at what he’d done.

They were no longer holding hands. It was too dangerous in these narrow and dark tunnels. Yet in that moment, he dearly wanted to reach out to her. When his fingers were locked around hers, it made him forget he’d ever believed she could have died.

She’d taken the lead, which made sense when you considered she was their only light source.

But it was more than that.

Nida was taking the lead in the decision making too. Something had happened to her, something that had tempered her once hesitant personality. She seemed quicker to get over setbacks and more determined than she’d ever been.

And, if she was to be believed, she’d done the impossible and could now interact with the entity easily.

He was quietly impressed. No, impressed wasn’t the right word—it was took weak.

He was proud.

That’s it.

Her success felt like his success, even though he knew he’d had little to do with it.

Cadet Nida Harper was achieving this all on her own.

‘It’ll be all right,’ she mumbled nervously under her breath as she walked up the stairs before her.

They were nearing the surface now; the air was starting to smell fresher.

His stomach suddenly kicked with fear.

He had absolutely no idea what they would find up there.

Though the existence of ruined tunnels suggested they must be in the future, sometime after the Vex had destroyed themselves, he was done making assumptions.

Because assumptions had almost killed him multiple times already. He’d trusted Cara, and she’d turned on them. He’d trusted the simulation, and it had manipulated him.

Now he was determined to trust only two people.

Himself and Nida.

So he walked a little closer to her.

He still couldn’t believe she was alive.

His heart kept pounding in his ears at the knowledge of it. And every time he caught a glimpse of her face, it felt as if a weight lifted off his chest.

Pressing his fingers into his implant, he forced a smile. It was bitter but relieved.

So relieved.

He’d never felt more relieved in his whole life, in fact.

He could barely class it as an emotion; it felt more like a fire.

The closer they got to the surface, the more he got a handle on himself.

They had to be careful. Really careful.

This place was dangerous. They’d already proved that 100 fold.

So he told Nida to slow down, to be careful.

She obeyed silently, and they both crept upward, only moving when it was absolutely clear there was no one and nothing around.

It was slow progress, yet with every step, his anticipation roared louder in his mind.

The fact he didn’t know what he’d find up there cut up and down his spine like clawed hands.

He controlled himself though, until they reached the final set of stairs leading up.

Straining his eyes, he could see the starlight above.

This was it.

Christ, this was it.

His heart no longer pounded in his chest so much as ricocheted around it. He had to plant a hand on his neck and pat it just to stop from hyperventilating.

But he controlled himself.

People were relying on him.

Nida, the United Galactic Coalition, everyone. And though it had become abundantly clear that Nida could now look after herself, he couldn’t let her down.

So he crept forward.

One step at a time.

They climbed together.

Though Carson wanted to leave her behind in the tunnels, she insisted. There was no way he could pull rank any more—gone were the days she would cower at his tone.

Their footfall, though soft, rang out, and he concentrated on it as they finally reached the last step.

With his heart in his mouth, he stared around him. He span on the spot, his eyes as wide as they could be.

It was night, yet there was enough illumination from the star scape above that he could see the surface of the planet around him.

Dust. Rubble. Rock.

But no Vex. No gleaming cities, no futuristic technology.

They were in the future.

He could have crumpled to his knees in relief.

Then he heard it.

Nida gave a strangled, truly frightening cry.

He spun on his foot, expecting the worst.

She was not ensconced in a vision though. She merely had her heard directed up as she stared above her.

Slowly he tipped his head back too.

He couldn’t see anything. Just the stars. Granted, there seemed to be smaller flashes of light, as if the sun of this system was illuminating satellites in orbit, but that was it.

She gasped again, forcing her hand over her mouth.

‘Nida, what is it?’ he reached out to her.

‘
Oh my god, oh my god,’ she repeated through sobs.

Fear rose through him in a spike.
‘What?’

‘
It . . . it’s the future. I can . . . .’

Alarm now shot through him hotter and harder than he’d ever felt it.
‘What’s going on?’

‘
Over there,’ she pointed now, over his shoulder towards a hill in the distance.

He could barely make it out.

There was a dark shadow, and that was about it. But there were dark shadows all around him.

He now considered it more carefully though, straining his eyes until his vision could resolve the details.

‘And over there,’ she turned and pointed behind her.

‘
What, what are you pointing to? What’s happening?’ he snapped as he whirled on his foot.

‘
The United Galactic Coalition,’ she choked. ‘It’s . . . .’

He froze. His muscles just stiffened as if they’d been cast in concrete.

No.

No, it couldn’t be.

Suddenly he understood her fear.

Suddenly he recognised it.

When Nida had undergone her vision in the resistance, and she’d seen the United Galactic Coalition destroyed, she’d been inconsolable.

Now he recognised that fear.

He pushed himself forward.

He wasn’t thinking.

He just ran towards that dark shape in the distance.

He powered forward. It didn’t matter that he was still weak from whatever the Vex had done to him; he just pushed towards that shape.

‘Come on,’ he hissed, ‘come on.’

His eyes were wide, his mouth open, his body a blur as he pelted forward.

He kept stumbling, his bare feet snagging in the holes and dips in the ground.

It didn’t matter though; nothing could stop him.

The balls of his feet stung from the impact of his frantic footfall, and no doubt he lacerated them on the sharp edges of stones. Yet, once again, it didn’t matter.

He had to get to that shape.

He had to confirm she was wrong.

It took a long time, but soon he reached it.

As he did, his heart sank.

It sank faster than it ever had before. It took with it every scrap of hope he could muster.

It was a chunk of hull plating. Before he could question whether it belonged to a Coalition ship, he saw the remnants of their insignia over the side.

He ground to a halt, still about five metres away.

he planted his hand over his mouth and he breathed through his sweaty fingers.

He couldn’t blink.

He couldn’t speak.

He couldn’t take a single step closer.

All he could do was stand there it total, ashen shock.

Finally he heard footfall behind him, and soon Nida rushed up to his side. She was puffing, and had to collapse her hands onto her knees to regain her breath.

Then she lifted her head, and he could see her eyes draw wide as she stared across at the hull plating.

Her whole body was still lit up; that blue glow encased her completely. It was far more evenly distributed than he’d ever seen it. And it no longer flickered. It was simply a constant, steady light.

Without a word to him, and with only a bare tremble, she walked forward.

He couldn’t move, but she could, and soon enough he forced himself to join her.

Together they assessed the chunk of hull.

It was, obviously, badly damaged. It had clearly been torn from whatever ship it had once formed an integral part of.

It smelt of a combination of burning metal and sulphur.

He pressed the back of his hand over his lips.

The plating was on the low side of a hill, and now Nida walked silently up it.

He followed her lead.

They reached the top. They stared down.

Into a valley.

A valley full of broken ships.

At the sight of only one chunk of hull plating, Carson had held out the slimmest scrap of hope.

Perhaps only one ship had been destroyed. Perhaps Nida had been wrong.

Yet now that hope evaporated. It burnt up and drifted away in the wind.

Below him was a graveyard.

Ship after ship, all destroyed, all mangled.

All United Galactic Coalition.

Neither of them said a word.

There was nothing to say.

Nida collapsed first. She just descended to her knees, then down to a seated position.

Without a single word, not a mumble, nor a cry, she brought her knees up, locked her arms around them, and nestled her head against her legs.

She wasn’t crying. She didn’t rock back and forth.

She simply sat there and crumpled up into a ball.

As for Carson, he just stood there. Staring.

He wanted it to be a dream.

It wasn’t.

There was no fog invading his mind, nobody trying to manipulate him.

Just reality.

He had no idea how long he stood there, staring, yet eventually she rose.

She pushed herself up, and finally the tears stared to flow.

She sobbed softly. It wasn’t a grand display of emotion. She didn’t clutch at her face and scream at the horror of it all. She simply closed her hand over her eyes, whimpered, and finally turned away.

And that was a far more poignant display of emotion. Far more chilling.

He turned away now too.

Together they stood on the opposite side of the hill, staring down to that singular piece of destroyed hull plating.

He wanted to collapse a hand around her shoulders and whisper it was all okay.

Except it wasn’t.

It was all gone.

Their future. Their past. Everything they lived for.

The United Galactic Coalition was gone.

‘
Nida,’ he finally pressed the word out in a tortured breath.

Though his voice hardly carried, she turned.

She let her hand drop from her face.

She stared across at him, her eyes lit up by that blue glow.

It was his only comfort. No, she was.

He reached out to her, and she leaned into him.

It wasn’t an embrace. It wasn’t a hug. They simply held onto each other in that moment because they were, quite literally, all they had left.

Again, she was the first to pull away. And again, he had no idea how long they remained there in silence.

‘We have to do something,’ she finally croaked.