Ouroboros 4: End

by Odette C. Bell

  One of her eyebrows pushed down as the other arched up. ‘He did,’ she nodded emphatically, ‘he told me the Academy doesn’t test grit and resolve and stamina, and that I have all three,’ she said in a thoughtful tone.

  Carson just swallowed his words and waited.

  ‘He said I was the type to keep pushing on no matter the odds until I found a solution. And he said that was the one quality that mattered most in space, that set apart the brave and arrogant from the successful.’

  Carson didn’t know what to say.

  ‘I’m not sure if I believe him,’ Nida admitted slowly as she clearly sifted through her thoughts. She brought her left hand up and stared at it, ‘but he’s right about one thing: I don’t give up. I never quit the Academy, even though I should probably have done so the first day I got there. I don’t like to quit,’ she admitted softly.

  Again, he had no idea what to say, so he simply stood there, listened, and watched.

  ‘I’m not sure we can save the Vex. No,’ she suddenly stopped herself, her cheeks paling, ‘that’s a lie: there is some way to save the Vex,’ her tone stiffened. Before he could worry it was the entity taking control, she pushed her lips into a smile. ‘That’s not the entity talking, Carson, that’s me. I just feel . . .’ she lifted her hand to tap her chest, ‘that there must be some way to save them. And you’re right, maybe it’s up to me to look. I can’t ask the Coalition to . . . ’ she trailed off.

  He put up a hand and muttered, ‘I understand you don’t need to say it.’ He did understand; she was talking about the destruction of Remus 12. He didn’t need her to say it and anger the entity. Plus, he wanted her to muddle her way through her thoughts, to come to whatever conclusion she was steadily marching towards. Because as she drew closer, she opened. She softened. She became herself once more, and his heart sang as he watched it.

  ‘I can’t ask the Coalition to sacrifice itself for this,’ she suddenly said with calm clarity. ‘I know that now, and I’m sorry for pushing you,’ she muttered.

  His eyes actually moistened with tears and he watched her with a still, silent expectation that nonetheless ensnared his gut and clawed up his back.

  Suddenly he was hopeful they could make it through this. Though he hadn’t let himself pray for that possibility before, now maybe she could forgive him.

  It was pretty weird to consider that several weeks ago he’d thought Cadet Nida Harper was nothing more than a strange and seriously awkward curiosity. Now he literally couldn’t imagine his life without her. The possibility they could forgive each other and move on didn’t just make his heart sing, it made it grow fat and glow as it sent a warm pulse through his chest, arms, and torso.

  Grinding his teeth together, he waited.

  She looked up at him slowly, those luminous pools of brown thankfully devoid of that blue glint and instead shining with her own light. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘you’re a good man, Carson, and I could never have made it this far without you. I’ve been pushing the responsibility of saving the Vex onto everybody else,’ she looked at her left palm again, but her eyes did not linger, ‘I can’t ask the Admiral to stop. I’ve seen what happens in the future when the Vex attack, and we must avoid it at all costs. But,’ she closed her eyes before she continued, ‘I want to look for a way to save them. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I’m going to look.’ She blinked one eye open and looked at him questioningly, as if waiting for him to push away, laugh, or dismiss her.

  He did none of those things. He simply stood there with his hands on her shoulders, and his gaze darted between her eyes.

  He was so happy to have her back. So happy, in fact, that he didn’t quite comprehend the seriousness hardening her gaze. Nor, in fact, the seriousness of her tone.

  If he’d truly listened to what she was saying and appreciated the import behind her words, he’d have understood.

  He was right: she had changed. And more than that, she’d proved through time and space that if she set her mind to something, she achieved it.

  Right now she was setting her mind to saving the Vex.

  He’d already promised to help her, and when it mattered most, she would call on him.

  For now, his gut twitched with a racing kick of nerves as she pushed forward and kissed him.

  He couldn’t say explosions flashed behind his eyes, or that his heart suddenly burst, but it was damn close.

  Relief, so powerful it felt like an ocean tumbling into a point, burst through him.

  With his arms wrapped around her and hers around him, he let that relief expunge the uncertainty, the doubt, the fear.

  It wouldn’t last, but for now, he’d enjoy it.

  Chapter 20

  Cadet Nida Harper

  She hadn't expected that Carson would come find her. But now she was more than thankful of it. He'd helped her to find the clarity she needed so much. He'd helped her to reach the conclusion she'd been drawing inexorably closer to since Sharpe had spoken to her.

  She wasn't sure whether she could save the Vex, but she couldn't ask anybody else to shoulder the burden of trying.

  Maybe it was because the entity resided within her, and she alone felt its true guilt. Or maybe it was something else. But Nida now understood this burden, this destiny, had to rest with her alone.

  Not only had the Admiral's words touched her when she'd spoken of failed responsibility weighing you down for the rest of your life, but Nida had come to her own quiet understanding too.

  Carson had helped her when he'd stumbled his way into her room only to stiffen his shoulders, cross his arms and snap at her to pull herself together, it had worked.

  This was her story, her responsibility. Though Carson had been called away, and she now sat alone at the end of her bed, she no longer felt cold and confused. In fact, she was warm for the first time since they'd arrived back in the present. She was warm and strangely she felt safe.

  Secure in the conclusion she'd made. She was going to try to save the Vex. But even though that gave her clarity and a sense of much needed calm, she couldn't allow herself to leave it at that. Now the true work would begin.

  How on earth could she save them? Granted, she had the power of the entity, but the entity had been trying to save the Vex for countless iterations of its cursed timeline. It had tried over and over again, ensnaring numerous galactic races and absorbing their technology in a desperate attempt to find any solution it could.

  If the entity, with all of its power and all of its opportunities, had not been able to save the Vex, how could she do it?

  Her stress threatened to mount once more, but she pushed it away. She wrapped her arms around her stomach and reminded herself of the warmth within.

  She could do this. She would do this.

  She pushed herself up from her bed and started to pace before her windows. With her arms locked behind her back, she stared at space—the stars streaking by in a mess of color and light. They reminded her of those terrifying visions the entity had given her back on earth.

  She would stand on Remus 12 as the stars literally fell from the sky, pushing towards her, collapsing into one point as reality crumbled.

  The entity once led her to believe that unless she helped it, it would corrupt space. It had lied; everything it had done to her had been a manipulation to force Nida to help the Vex.

  She had every right to turn from it, but she couldn’t.

  She would help it despite what it had done to her.

  Though Bridget had accused her of not understanding and appreciating what the Coalition stood for, perhaps Nida understood what the Coalition meant more than anyone else. Sharpe had reminded her of that fact when he’d bolstered her back on earth: the Coalition did what was right.

  Carson was correct, and what was right was not always black-and-white, but that didn’t stop you from pushing through a situation, analyzing it from every angle and never giving up until you found the most moral opportunity provided to you.


  It was hard, it was fatiguing, but Nida had the stamina to push on and do just that.

  So she didn’t give up. She paced in front of those windows, narrowing her gaze and staring at the streaking starlight beyond.

  She pushed her mind into her memories: Vex, Remus 12, the entity, everything that had happened to her.

  Occasionally, she would bring up her left hand and stare at it, inspecting the TI.

  She’d already looked up the medical reports on it, hoping whatever was within would somehow give her a clue on how to solve this most monumental of problems.

  She kept going back to the fact that if the entity couldn’t save the Vex, how could she hope to do it?

  She didn’t give up though. Instead she concentrated and applied herself, pulling up various data pads and accessing the holo console in her desk.

  She worked tirelessly.

  She went through Carson’s reports and everything the Academy database had on Remus 12. She fastidiously studied them.

  Her desk soon becoming a mess of various holograms as she shifted through them, panning for understanding like an old miner panning for gold.

  As time ticked on, the hours marching by, her tension built. The closer they came to Remus 12, the more she could feel the situation coming to a head. Every point of this story, was now coiling in on itself like a snake ready to bite its own tail.

  She didn’t give up, though, neither did she sleep. In fact, she barely ate. She concentrated her whole attention on the task.

  Maybe she’d never been the best at study, but maybe she’d never been equipped with Sharpe’s observation that stamina and grit and the will to continue no matter the odds were the most important qualities in the universe.

  She held onto that, and she continued until finally, finally they reached Remus 12.

  She felt it long before the Chronos jumped out of hyper speed, the stars suddenly coming to a jolting stop outside her window. In fact, she stood with her hands pressed against the glass just as the Chronos exited its priority transport route and appeared before the barren world of Remus 12. With her lips parting open and her eyes fixed on the view, she stared at that world.

  She felt the entity moving within. It writhed up her hand, threatening to push against the TI. She wouldn’t let it, and with barely any force and only half a mind, she could hold it back.

  She used the rest of her attention to concentrate on that barren world beyond. The softly spinning, dusty brown orb of Remus 12—Vex.

  She was at once reminded of the first time she’d seen it from space. All those weeks ago, on her first mission to the planet, Nida had been overwhelmingly excited. Of course she had been; it had been her first interstellar mission. As the worst recruit in 1000 years, she’d conjured the hope it could be a turning point in her less than illustrious career.

  Well, it had been a turning point. Such a grand turning point had rarely been imagined, in fact.

  She was now so very different to the Nida that had stared upon Remus 12 several months ago. She had changed in more ways than she could count, but there was one important similarity that remained: she still had the same will to push on,

  And push on she would.

  Though it was hard, she took a step back, her hand falling from the glass. Her eyes didn’t blink while they fixed on that picture of Remus 12. It was as if they were tracing it into her memory like a carver etching into stone.

  Though she’d studied for hours on end and had sifted through more information than she’d studied in her entire career at the Academy, she was technically no closer to finding a solution. She couldn’t shake the feeling there was one out there, though. She just knew that within her was the miracle she so desperately sought.

  Time was running out, though. They had barely hours to destroy Remus 12 before it realigned with their own timeline.

  She was no longer questioning what she’d do if the Vex did survive to attack. She would fight.

  Carson was right about that bit. In fact, she should never have questioned that fact. She would not let that condemned race condemn her own. She wouldn’t let the entity’s mistake poison any more races.

  She would end it here.

  Now.

  And yet she still didn’t have a solution.

  She wanted more than anything to talk to Carson, to see him, to hold him again.

  Now they’d resolved their troubles, he was back to being her rock. His mere presence could make everything make sense.

  He was busy on the bridge, though, and would be until the destruction of Remus 12 was complete.

  She wasn’t needed, or maybe she wasn’t trusted enough to join him.

  Carson had apparently emphasized to Admiral Forest that Nida could be trusted, but she was still just a cadet, right? And a cadet had no place on the bridge of the Chronos as it extinguished a planet from existence.

  So what was she to do? Just stand here and stare out of her window, waiting for that brown ball to be obliterated? To be snuffed out and set tumbling into space like nothing more than a clod of dirt crushed under foot.

  Her stomach had once kicked with nerves, now it absolutely rocked with them. It felt like earthquakes tearing through her. It was a wonder she was still standing.

  She managed it, though. With one tightly clenched fist and a pounding heart, she stood there pressing the fingers of one hand into the glass. They left a sweaty mark over the surface, a smear over space.

  She couldn’t stand here waiting until the Chronos was ready to destroy Remus 12. Suddenly she twisted, pressing her back into the glass. She jerked her eyes closed, covering her face with both hands.

  She shook her head desperately. ‘Come on,’ she begged herself, ‘you know how to do this. You must. Just think,’ she begged over and over again as she let her extreme anxiety grow.

  She felt the entity, she heard it too. It didn’t speak in words, though, just raw emotion. It screamed at her, it begged, it pleaded to be let go so it could keep trying.

  It had not tried to save the Vex for countless, countless eons only to give up now.

  She hardened her teeth against it, pushed it back, and ignored its desperation for now.

  She pushed her hands harder and harder against her cheeks and forehead. The pressure, however, couldn’t push the solution from her brain. Instead, a jumble of memories and thoughts cascaded into her, swelling together like the billowing clouds before rain.

  She kept praying for a miracle, hoping that if she thought hard enough the solution would come to hand. And yet she stood there with her back to the view, as time kept running out. The pressure of the situation mounted and mounted, and it drew through her, locking her muscles in place like a virus of ice chilling through every fiber and tendon.

  Suddenly she sank her teeth into her lip so hard she quickly drew blood. It trickled over her lip and collected in a warm trail down her chin. That too did not bring the solution to hand.

  Beating herself wouldn’t do it. Berating herself wouldn’t do it. Begging herself wouldn’t do it either.

  Suddenly she snapped her eyes open and pushed herself forward. For just a second she wanted to throw herself on her bed, bury her head under her covers, and wrap her arms tightly around her pillow. She wanted to shut her senses out, to ignore what would happen next.

  The Chronos was so well shielded and enormous, that she wouldn’t hear Remus 12 being destroyed. The ship wouldn’t shake, nor would there be a deafening boom rattling through the windows.

  It could be destroyed completely, obliterated in an enormous burst of light, yet she’d have no idea unless she faced the windows to look.

  It would be so very easy to turn her back on it . . . .

  Though that desire built and built, and she even took a step towards her bed, she stopped herself in place. ‘Keep trying,’ she told herself in the softest voice that could barely break through her bleeding lips, ‘keep trying.’

  She pushed herself to think once more, and it felt as though she was d
esperately running through the corridor of her mind, opening door after door as she searched for her miracle. Door after door after door. But they were all empty.

  Tears began to trickle down her cheeks, as she forced herself to turn around and check on the view. With wide, shaking eyes, she saw that Remus 12 was still there. Yet at any moment she knew it could be destroyed.

  Though she wanted to believe it would take the Chronos at least an hour to prepare the device required to destroy an entire planet, that didn’t change the tension of the situation.

  She wanted to blink, but she couldn’t; she kept fixating on that brown orb as she remembered how beautiful Vex had been in the past. How lush. From the purple trees to its quaint forests, it would have been a delightful alien world to explore.

  Times had changed, though. She remembered the Vex of the future with its cold clinical buildings and the Vex of the present with nothing but rubble and dust.

  Time kept on changing. And now it was running out.

  ‘Time,’ she suddenly said out loud, that word stuck in her throat. If she didn’t say it, it felt as if it would choke her. ‘Time,’ she repeated once more, her voice echoing off the walls of her empty room.

  This all had to do with time. The entity could travel through it, or at least on Vex where the barrier of space-time was thin enough to manipulate.

  Nida had sifted through everything relating to Remus 12, desperately searching for a way to save it. She hadn’t focused on time, though. Time, after all, couldn’t save Vex; it could only condemn it.

  Yet as Nida stood there and let that word roll off her tongue once more, she remembered in a burst of energy how it felt to open a time gate. To use the entity and its unique power to travel through time as if it were nothing more than a stream one could swim across. She suddenly stood a little straighter, her eyes half closing as the view within became more important than that without.

  Was she somehow close to finding a solution?

  She had to press on. She had to find out.

  Nida walked into her room, slowly turning in a circle as she stared from the door to the carpet, to the bed, then back to Remus 12.