If it weren’t for the wall her modified TI afforded her, she might have succumbed to it. Instead it was as if she could hear its pleas from behind a thick pane of glass—just within earshot, but quiet enough to ignore, if she wanted to.
Regardless of what the entity felt, however, she knew the Coalition was her salvation. No matter how menacing their forms, they were only here to help.
Still, it was hard to reconcile her own feelings with those of the entity’s. While she tried to slow her breathing and enforce calm upon her mind, the entity’s passionate pleas undid her resolve like a tailor plucking at thread.
It will all be okay, she told herself firmly.
You’re home, she added
Then the rest of the soldiers filtered into the room. They brought with them lights, and for the first time she could see—everything from the destruction gouged into the walls, to the cuts arranged across her skin.
And as the soldiers let their helmets recede, she could see their expressions too.
In every detail. From the width of their white-rimmed eyes, to the pull of their thin lips.
She wasn’t home yet.
Chapter 6
Carson Blake
It didn’t take long for his elation to recede. Initially he wanted to jump forward and embrace the first Coalition soldier he saw.
Then reality caught up to him.
He registered their expressions, their stances, their obvious fear.
Of Nida.
His stomach sank. It could have fallen right out of his gut and tumbled to his feet.
They weren’t home yet, were they?
As he realized that, the soldiers raised their guns, and pointed them at her.
He twitched as fear ripped through him. Instinctively—without thought, without question—he stepped in front of her.
‘Hey, what are you doing?’ he couldn’t keep the anger from his tone. Though seconds ago he’d wanted to embrace these soldiers as friends, now he knew he couldn’t trust them. ‘We’re Coalition,’ he spat, ‘we’re Coalition.’
‘We know who you are,’ a guy said. He didn’t drop his gun though.
Nida put her hands up slowly.
'Put your guns down,' Carson snapped, moving in front of her again. 'Put them down,' he growled.
'No,' one of the soldiers at the back of the group snapped. Moving forward through the pack, Carson quickly recognized the man. Commander Harrington.
Though the guy outranked Carson, he didn’t care. Only one thing mattered to him now: Nida. They’d gone through too much for it to end like this. She was a frigging hero. The way she’d fought off the entity, the lengths she’d gone to to save the Coalition—she deserved a parade and a commendation, not the hostile welcome of a firing squad.
‘We’re on the same team,’ Carson pointed out through bared teeth. ‘Lower your guns. Please.’
‘No,’ the Commander repeated, his voice calm but firm. 'She broke out of the Academy, transported all the staff out of the city, and stole a ship.'
'She's fine,' Carson spat, his neck muscles so tense, it felt like they’d snap and ricochet around the room, 'she's fine,' he pushed his words out in a desperate mess.
‘We’re following procedure. She is a danger—'
‘Nida didn’t do any of those things. The entity did.’
'And the entity, where is it now?' the Commander barked.
'It's . . . contained,' Carson managed through a swallow.
'Contained?' the Commander's voice pitched with suspicion. 'What exactly does that mean?'
'It means it's of no risk to anyone, and I’ve got this under control,' Carson said. 'She is fine,' he said again, speaking each word slowly and clearly, as if that was all it would take to make the soldiers lower their weapons.
'We will be the judges of that,' the Commander snapped.
'Like hell. I told you she's not a risk,' Carson warned, stepping in front of her again.
'Lieutenant,' the Commander hissed, clearly ready to reprimand Carson for snapping at a superior.
'We don't have time for this,' she whispered.
She was right: they didn’t. But it was the wrong thing to say to a team of already jumpy guys with guns.
The Commander and every member of his security team visibly tensed. 'Is that a threat?' the Commander looked her up and down warily.
She shook her head. Her eyes were wide, and from the slick, smooth look to her brow, he could tell it was covered with sweat. But she stood her ground, right next to him, and she didn’t move back.
That meant something.
Christ, she’d changed. She’d faced off against terrors more frightening than most Academy cadets would ever dream of. And yet she was still standing.
Despite the immediacy of the situation, his heart flared with pride.
Nida took a short breath and continued, 'we have a warning, a message for the Coalition,' she tried.
The Commander simply tensed all the more. He looked ready to snap. Which was never a good sign in a man holding a gun.
Carson had to handle this. Her mere presence was freaking them out.
'Nida, I’ve got this,' he put up a hand.
She ignored him. 'Look, you can take me to the brig if you want to. Or the med bay. Or you can stun me if that’ll make you feel better. But just listen.'
The Commander, who was turning out to be a singularly cold man, arched an eyebrow. 'I'm leaning towards all three,' he noted in an uncharacteristic moment of flippancy, or sheer honesty.
Carson took a sharp breath that sounded like a whip traveling through this compact room.
Guys like the Commander didn’t joke around. He wasn’t making a casual threat. Plus, Carson knew he’d be following procedure on this one: stunning Nida and taking her to the med bay would be the simplest way of dealing with her.
There was no freaking way Carson was going to let that happen though. Not as long as he was breathing and had a weapon of his own.
Before he could come to Nida’s defense, she sidestepped him, locking her hands firmly and nonthreateningly before her as she did. 'Just . . . just listen,' she tried again. 'Soon a race known as the Vex are going to attack the Coalition. We need to be ready.'
'Who the hell are the Vex?' the Commander crumpled his eyebrows together and narrowed his eyes.
She sighed deeply. 'You . . . you might have trouble believing this,' she began.
Carson put up a hand again. 'Later, we'll tell them later,' he whispered, realizing her message would likely tip the Commander over the edge. The Vex, time travel, and a guilt-ridden inter-dimensional entity out to screw the rest of the galaxy in order to fix some past mistake . . . yeah, the Commander wasn’t going to readily believe that. He would, however, take it as an excuse to stun them and drag them back to the brig.
'No, you'll tell us now,' the Commander ordered.
Carson let his gaze darken, till he knew he was fixing the Commander with the kind of expression that would get him court martialed and sent straight to the worst prison planet in the system. 'At the point of a gun? Either take us into custody or don't. But don't keep aiming at her,' he let his tone ripple with menace. It was strong and hard like steel.
It also got the Commander's attention. 'You better watch yourself, Lieutenant. I don't care if you're the head of the Force; nobody talks to me like that. I earned my rank; I deserve better.'
'You have no idea what we've been through in the past few weeks. You have no idea what we've sacrificed to get you this warning. We deserve better,' Carson pointed between himself and Nida, the passion building in his chest like a flare ready to explode.
'Alright, I’ve heard enough. Take her into custody. Stun her if you have to. As for you, Lieutenant, I will write up your behavior in my report.'
'You aren’t going to take her—' Carson began.
'It's fine. It's fine,' she assured him as she stepped forward and raised her stiff hands up by her head. 'I'm not going to be any trouble.'
&nb
sp; He turned to look at her.
Right at her.
If Remus 12 had burst into flames behind him, he wouldn't have cared.
He was ready to fight this entire team, if he had to.
She understood that, right?
She offered him the smallest of smiles, and mouthed, ‘I’ll be fine.’
Then they took her.
Chapter 7
Cadet Nida Harper
She had never been inside a Coalition brig before.
It was strangely pleasant. The décor was simple. She had a sturdy bed attached to the wall, and the lighting was a pleasant orange yellow.
Though she was technically alone, there was a guard stationed just outside her cell. She could see his head peer through the crackling force field of her door every other minute.
They thought she was going to explode or something. That or turn blue and take over the ship.
Though Commander Harrington had wanted to remove the 'suspicious device' from her left wrist, as he'd put it, Carson had managed to convince the man to leave it on.
And she was more than thankful of that fact.
She was still dog-tired.
After they'd arrived on the Orion, she’d been taken straight to the brig. Well, after a team of scientists and doctors had outfitted it with medical scanners.
She was too much of a 'risk' to be taken to the med bay, apparently, so they'd decided to move all of their equipment to the brig.
It wasn't in her room though—it was in the room next door. Nobody wanted to run the risk of her trashing anything in a swirling vortex of death.
She could still hear the equipment. A persistent low buzzing noise travelled through the wall right behind her. If she pressed her ear up to it, she swore she could feel heat too.
There was nothing to say; there was no one to talk to. But there was a lot to think about.
Too much.
At first she was filled with a detached sense of curiosity at her novel surroundings. It was kind of neat to be in the brig. Or at least to her completely tired mind it was.
At any moment she expected Carson to come striding in, ready to set her free. Because he would be trying with every breath to explain what had happened to them, right?
He'd be convincing the captain of this ship that she wasn't a risk.
. . . .
What if it didn't work? What if Carson couldn't convince anyone she wasn't a threat? What if they wouldn't believe his story?
As her nerves built, she sat forward, rested her elbows on her knees, and closed her eyes firmly.
She had to get out of here.
She had to make the Coalition understand the risk it now faced.
No matter what it took, she was prepared to do anything.
As soon as she entertained that thought, her mood soured.
She rested back suddenly, her head banging lightly on the wall behind her.
She didn’t open her eyes. She kept them firmly closed as she considered one point: the entity had been prepared to do whatever it took to fix its mistake.
Was she any different?
. . . .
Yes, she was. She wasn't trying to kill people; she was trying to save them. Just because she was ready to break a few rules to get the Coalition to understand the threat they’d soon face, didn’t mean she was on the same level as the entity. It had condemned whole races in its endless effort to wipe away its sins.
She would know when to stop.
. . . .
She couldn't stop thinking though.
As soon as she concluded that, her mind returned to another point.
The entity's power.
She blinked one eye open to flex her left hand. She saw the fingers spread wide and then snap in again.
It felt like hers; it was hers.
But she could still sense the power and potential of the entity within. It was like she could sense a massive wall of water held at bay by a single door. If she opened that door, she could let it spill out and cover whatever she pleased.
Every time she accessed the power, it became easier to do so.
But it also felt . . . wrong.
She was taking something that wasn't hers. And even though she was in a life or death struggle with the entity, she couldn't wipe that fact from her mind.
She was using it. She was taking its power because it was easy.
. . . No, she corrected herself, not because it was easy—because she had to. She had to save every last person she could.
As she struggled with those hefty moral thoughts, she thought of Carson. She understood, without a doubt, that if he knew what she was thinking, he would tell her to stop. He’d reaffirm she was doing the right thing.
Yet knowing he would support her couldn't make her stop.
It wouldn't be that easy to wipe away this dilemma.
Again she blinked one eye open to survey her left hand.
Her current train of thought soon led to another: could she really live with the entity for the rest of her life? Could she really endure this struggle forever?
Her current plan was to keep it away from Vex so it could never interfere with another iteration of that cursed planet's timeline again.
But would that mean she would keep it inside her until the day she died? And what would happen then? Would it jump to another host?
Or could she find some way to contain it, or, in fact, kill it?
. . . Could she kill it?
It had done a lot to her, and god knows it’d killed millions upon millions of souls, if not more, in its reign of terror. But could she actually end its life? Murder had to be a last resort, never a matter of convenience.
Realizing she wouldn't be able to think through any of this and actually come up with a satisfying answer, she soon sighed and flopped a hand over her eyes.
She would have to wait.
Though time was running out, she would still have to wait.
. . . .
Chapter 8
Carson Blake
He'd done it. Christ it had taken some convincing, but finally the Captain had agreed to release her. It’d taken Carson offering up his own command as collateral to convince Captain Ragini Singh to give Nida a chance.
And he knew enough about Captain Singh to know she would take Carson up on his offer; if Nida turned out to be a threat—if she trashed half the ship—then Carson would be kicked right out of the Academy.
He didn't care.
He would offer up his life in a heartbeat, so his command was an easy sacrifice to offer instead.
As he walked through the corridors towards the brig, he couldn't control his pace. He wanted to sprint. He wanted to put his armor on and move as fast as modern technology would allow.
He didn't run though. He just walked really, really fast.
When he reached the brig, he faced off against Commander Harrington again.
The guy stared across at Carson with only barely contained contempt.
'You got your way then,' the Commander noted as he nodded to one of his deputies. 'Open up the cell. But be on guard. Any suspicious activity at all, and we stun her.'
Carson wanted to say something, but knew he couldn't let himself. The only words that came to mind were all the kinds you never shared with a superior.
Instead he curled one hand into a fist and locked his jaw.
And he waited.
To see her.
They'd hardly been separated for five hours, yet it felt like an eternity. They had been together for almost every step of this journey, and he couldn't afford to leave her side until it was finally over.
As one of Harrington's deputies opened her cell door, he noted as another cautiously turned off the massive force fields flickering in place just behind it.
He'd seen fields like that. But never in a standard brig scenario.
She bolted upright. He watched her sit and swivel her head until she faced him.
Her eyes were wide as they fixed on him.
/>
He wanted to jump right through the force field and embrace her.
He needed to feel her close by, until there was no space between them at all. Only then would he be able to confirm she was fine.
It would be kind of inappropriate though. So instead he simply flexed his hand and tightened it into a fist, repeating the move as sweat collected between his fingers.
She had a conflicted expression as she stared between him and Harrington. He could see the fear flickering within her eyes, yet the smile creeping across her lips as she glanced his way.
He wanted more than anything to tell her everything was fine, and she’d be safe now.
He couldn’t.
He had no idea what would happen next.
Admitting that sent a shot of nerves slicing down his back, chilling every muscle as it went.
Carson twitched, and sucked in a sharp breath. Then he finally ignored decorum and reached a hand out to her. He watched her cheeks tighten, her brow crumpling with concern. ‘Am I really free to go?’ she asked in a small, tight voice.
Harrington let out a sharp, punch of a breath. ‘You are not free to go. Whatever he’s said to the Captain,’ Harrington nodded Carson’s way, ‘know this: I’m watching you. If you try to do anything to this ship or crew, I will stop you.’
There was so much vehemence behind Harrington’s words, it was a surprise they didn’t send Nida cowering backwards.
Instead she simply stood her ground and stared at him. Though her expression flickered with deep concern, she pressed her lips together, took a breath, then shook her head. ‘I’m not here to hurt anyone. We’re here to help you,’ she said directly.
A few weeks ago, she would have cringed at a superior's reprimand, let alone outright threat. Now, though she was clearly affected, she still pressed on.
Carson kept reminding himself how much she’d changed, but it really was amazing to see how far she’d come.
Cadet Nida Harper was no longer the worst recruit in 1000 years—she was rapidly becoming one of the bravest people he knew.
He couldn’t help but smile. Which was crazy considering Harrington had just threatened to shoot her.
She reacted to his smile though. Nida’s cheeks warmed, and the fear that had played through her eyes dimmed.
Ouroboros 4: End Page 3
