It was hell leaving him like this, but she had to. She had to do what was best for the Vex and for the Coalition, and this was it.
She knew it was.
She walked inside the vessel and pressed the button next to the hatch to close it.
She watched Carson duck forward, and suddenly saw one of his armored hands wrap around the hatch. He tugged it up, fighting against the power of the ship for long enough to duck underneath.
He slammed his way inside.
She gasped, stumbling back, her shoulder hitting the wall just behind her. This was a small ship, after all.
He was going to fight her. He was going to try and drag her back, wasn’t he?
She felt sick, but she knew she couldn’t let him.
Before she could bring her left hand up, he brought both his up instead. ‘You’re not going without me,’ he said simply and directly, his electronic voice shaking through their closed compartment.
Surprise rushed down her spine, making her shiver as it did. ‘What?’ she jerked back from the wall.
‘You’re not going without me, Cadet,’ he said in a firm, officious tone that reminded her he was a lieutenant of the Coalition Academy.
She didn’t understand. It was clear he didn’t believe her and that he couldn’t give up on the Coalition. So what the hell was he doing?
He took a firm step forward, facing her. His helmet suddenly receded.
She watched his eyes come into view, and was immediately caught by the power of his expression.
‘You’re not going without me, Nida,’ he said. ‘We started this together, and we’re going to end it together.’
She stared into his eyes. He stared into hers.
She’d experienced jumping through time before, but she’d never experienced time standing still. In that moment, it did. In fact, it felt as if the universe was whittled down to nothing more than their locked gazes.
Eventually he shifted past her. ‘We have 10 minutes to get down to that planet before Chronos destroys it,’ he told her curtly. ‘If you’ve left any crew on board. What have you done with them, by the way?’
‘They’re all safe. I just used the on-board scanners and transporters to send them all to a remote part of the ship. I haven’t stopped the countdown, though’ she assured him as she popped a hand up quickly, ‘I haven’t altered the weapon.’
He pressed his lips together, blew a heavy breath through his clenched teeth, and closed his eyes. ‘Alright then. I suppose that means the rest is up to us.’
She watched in surprise as he darted towards the tiny cockpit, instantly leaning over the command chair to pound directions into the navigational computer.
For all she knew, he could be setting the self-destruct. She didn’t shift forward to check. She trusted him. She trusted him.
Soon enough the ignition sequence began, and their tiny ship lifted up and shot towards the docking bay doors. Before it reached them, that great hunk of metal shifted up and out, revealing space, and they pierced the enormous blue crackling shields that separated the vacuum beyond.
She didn’t breathe, she didn’t speak, she didn’t think, she simply waited. And wished. God did she wish that this would work.
Neither of them sat. Carson stood by her side, one hand locked into the command seat as his face was directed at the view.
They both stared at Remus 12.
Their tiny ship punched through the atmosphere. As it did, she shuddered, for she remembered the view of the sky filled with broken Coalition ships. So many bodies tumbling in the void.
She pushed through that hellish memory, closing her eyes briefly as she did. When she opened them, the surface of the planet opened out below. All that dust, all that rubble, all that destruction. With every heartbeat, it came closer and closer, until she felt the ship start to decelerate and the computer beeped that landing was imminent.
She started to prepare herself. She knew she had barely minutes as soon as her feet touched the surface of Remus 12. She needed to open a time gate. She had to plunge all of her energy and will into the entity, forcing it to rip a hole in the fabric of reality, to allow them to travel back to when all this had begun.
She found herself clutching her fingers into her left hand so tightly she started to draw blood. As soon as she did, Carson leaned over, locked his palm around hers, pulled her fingers back, and looked into her eyes.
Again time stood still, yet it could not stand still forever. In seconds, they landed.
She jerked to the side, slammed her palm on the door beside the hatch, and waited in agony as it opened.
They both flung themselves through, Carson even rolling, his armored back disturbing the dust and sending up little clouds as she jumped down beside him.
As she darted out of the shadow of their vessel, she looked up. The Chronos was so enormous that she could see it above as a tiny black dot. There were no clouds to obscure it, and as dusk set on this planet, the dying sun glinted off its enormous hull.
She didn’t let herself be stilled by that sight, nor the knowledge that within the Chronos was building the power to obliterate the planet.
‘Tell me what to do,’ Carson snapped. ‘Do we have to head back down to the tunnels? Do you need help?’ He pounded his questions out with no breath between them.
She didn’t answer. Instead, she tore her eyes off the view. She stopped staring at the dust. She stopped remembering the destruction.
She tuned within, to the entity beyond the wall that was her modified TI. Deep down. That well of blue. That endless river of shame and guilt. She pushed into it, and though it embraced her, ready to consume her, ready to control her, she kept hold of herself.
This is the only way, she told it, the only way.
And maybe, just maybe, it heard her, for its resistance broke.
In a split second, she pushed right through to the center of its power, and Nida opened a time gate.
She could feel the force swelling around her, spilling out of her veins as if she was pumping forth a river of crackling blue blood.
She could feel the dust below her feet start to pick up and swirl around her in a vortex.
Carson darted forward and grabbed her hand, and she wrapped her fingers so tightly around his armor it was a wonder she didn’t break the reinforced plating.
He didn’t jerk away, though. Instead, hand in hand, side-by-side, they stood as time opened up around them.
She started to lift off her feet, and she brought him with her.
Only when she could feel the power at its fullest did she open her eyes.
The vortex of light and dust and matter swirled faster and faster and faster, impregnated by the blue energy spilling from her hand. The power built and built and built, and just as Nida swore she saw a flash from the atmosphere above, it happened: time opened up and swallowed them back into the past.
They both struck the ground with a thump as time spat them out the other end. She fell onto Carson’s chest, his arms wrapping around her. But as always happened when they travelled through time, soon he weakened and fell to her side.
She herself was only barely conscious. The power it had taken to force the entity to travel 5000 years into the past was almost overwhelming. She fought to stay awake, the lethargy creeping up on her, sinking deep into every bone, muscle, and inch of flesh.
Somehow she remained awake. Forcing her hands into the grass below her, she pushed up with a shuddering breath.
She opened her eyes and faced the world.
She was in a field, a lush field tall with golden strands of grain. Above, a night sky glistened with an astounding star scape. The light bleeding off the cosmos above was enough to see by. As was the blue energy dancing up and down her palm.
With every breath, she became stronger, because with every second that passed, the entity stopped fighting her. It curled in on itself like a frightened child. As it did, it receded into her, it’s once startling light pouring back into her hand, lea
ving twitching, dancing shadows darting against the sides of her modified TI.
It took a long time to muster the energy to stand, but soon enough Nida managed it. Pushing her hands into the grass and forcing herself up, she swayed unsteadily, clutching her hands around the golden grain for support. With her head still angled towards the sky, her lips parted. She let out a surprised breath at the beauty.
She remembered standing on the dust bowl of Remus 12 and staring out at that lost world, wondering what it once looked like. This. This was what it once looked like. Before the entity had ruined its timeline, this was the beautiful Vex of the past.
‘Incredible,’ she whispered as she took an unsteady step forward.
Though she wanted to explore this lush pasture land and on into the beautiful purple and green forests beyond, she couldn’t leave Carson.
Eventually she dropped her head down to stare at him. She shifted forward, leaning down onto her knees as she clutched a hand against his cheek.
His helmet was still off, and she could see his head lolled to the side, his eyes closed and his features slack with unconsciousness.
Smiling, she kept her hand pressed into his warm cheek.
He’d come with her. Carson Blake. Though she’d been resigned to do this on her own, she was incredibly grateful he’d come along. It could take them the rest of their lifetimes, but with him by her side, she knew she could do it. She could fix Vex.
She rose to her feet, her arms slack against her sides as she once more stared above.
She barely felt the entity anymore. It was just a pulse of light residing deep in the center of her left palm. As she turned down to face it, she saw its light was only a pinprick against her skin.
Though the sight of the cosmos above was incredible, she let the sight of the entity withdrawing capture her attention instead. With her head on a thoughtful angle, she drew the fingers of her other hand lightly across her palm.
While opening the time gates had unquestionably made the entity tired, she knew instinctively that was not what was happening. The entity was not drawing within to recuperate. Something else was happening.
Was it weakened?
Was it dying?
A quick breeze flickered through the trees beyond, swaying over that golden grain and brushing it close to her legs. She spread her palms out wide, the heads of grain brushing delicately across her fingers and tickling the skin.
Before she could become distracted by that feeling, she focused her mind.
This was it. This was the point in history where the entity pushed through and broke Vex’s timeline. She had to observe everything she could, search for every clue, uncover every fact. Going forward, that would help her find her solution.
She took several steps away from Carson. Turning on the spot, she narrowed her gaze and peered appraisingly at the world around her.
What was she expecting to see? The entity carving a crack in the air above her as it spilled forth like blood from a wound? Or the world below lurching and splitting up as that blue light shot up like lightning into the sky?
As she turned and turned, that grain brushing against her legs, she saw nothing, just the gentle breeze meandering over the meadow under the touch of starlight from above.
As she stared, the entity withdrew more and more. She could no longer see it. It did not light her up, did not course through her veins. It was a mere shadow now, its presence so small it could easily be mistaken for nothing more than a memory.
What was happening? Was it dying?
As she considered that fact, the wind picked up faster. Now it smashed the grain against her legs, scattering over her uniformed thighs and knees.
She twisted her head around, her eyes narrowing as she stared above.
Suddenly a black mark appeared against the stars.
At first, it was nothing more than a line. Then it started to crackle, growing wider and darker as clouds formed around it in the previously clear sky.
Nida didn’t take a step back, though her first instinct was to throw herself at Carson and cover both of their heads with her hands. She stood her ground. She faced it.
She knew what it was. As the entity withdrew from her palm, she could feel it spilling out of that crack in the air.
It couldn’t be in two places at once, could it? It couldn’t reside both within her palm and in the sky at the same point in time.
So, as the entity pushed through into this time from its dimension, it left her hand.
The wind now rushed so fast, her hair flew about her in a gale. It was cold, it was whipping, and it howled over the hill and trees beyond. As that crack formed above, lightning arced out of it, a deafening roar tumbling over the land.
She simply stood, her fringe a mess, her cheeks white from cold, but her eyes fixed as she concentrated on the crack cutting its way into this reality.
There was still the tiniest shadow of the entity within her palm. An anchor. A root that kept a fragment of it locked into her and her time.
That crack kept forming, growing deeper, wider, darker. The light of the cosmos beyond was now covered by that swathe of crackling energy.
She should have been terrified. She should have fallen to her knees and wrapped her arms around her body to seek out what little defense they could provide. Instead she stood and she faced it.
‘I want to help you,’ she suddenly said, her voice nothing compared to the boom and roar rolling over the land. ‘Show me how to help you!’
Though the entity was now nothing more than a mere presence within her. She was still connected to it, and she could still draw on its power. Its incredible power.
A month ago, it had assaulted her with images of destruction. Corruption, it had called it. Objects forcing their way towards her, circling around and collapsing into a point.
Terrifying.
She remembered how it made her feel, watching the universe crush in on her . . . .
She still had that power in her hand. And she could still call on it. She could still use it.
She was still standing. That was all that mattered.
The grain flattened around her, the trees groaning and snapping under the force spilling from the crack. Yet she was still standing.
As she glanced at Carson, she knew his armor would be keeping him safe. For how much longer, she couldn’t tell.
Only the entity’s presence kept her safe, yet as it dwindled, she had no idea how much longer she had.
The entity was leaving her. As that crack in space formed, time was running out.
No, time was always in her hand.
And it was time to use it one last time.
A plan formed in her mind. It had been forming since this adventure began.
The entity once assaulted her with visions. Visions of corruption. Those same visions now filled her mind, and they gave her the solution she so desperately sought.
What if she could draw that crack in space towards her? What if she could use all her will, energy, and stamina—her grit—to stop the entity from leaving her?
She knew it couldn’t be in two places at once. Either the entity left her and the crack in space opened completely, or the entity remained, stopping that crack in its tracks.
. . . .
She had no idea whether this would work.
She wasn’t a scientist, in fact, she’d failed science on multiple occasions.
She had something else though: access to the entity and its boundless knowledge.
She also had hope. Kindling deep in her heart, the kind of faith that told her to try.
Unless she accessed the entity and stopped it from leaving her, the pressure pouring down from above would kill her anyway.
Though the force surging from the crack was astounding, she raised her hand up. She closed her eyes, and she plunged her mind right into the core of the entity that remained. That final flickering speck of light.
It should have been impossible to shut her senses off from the stor
m, from the lightning, from the energy, from the force pushing down and flattening the grain to nothing but dust. Yet it was easy.
A calm certainty spread through her as she closed her eyes. She saw nothing but the darkness of mind, darkness with a single speck of blue light puncturing it.
She pushed towards it.
Once she had feared the entity, once it had feared her. But now she sprang towards it with open arms, offering it the one solution it had always sought.
Nida was a terrible cadet, but she was willing to give the only thing she had: the will to never give up. And though the entity shared that exact same characteristic, hers was tempered by kindness, not hatred.
She let that kindness build through her. It kept her safe as she opened up to that last remaining scrap of the entity.
She called to it, sang to it, whispered, begged.
They could end this together, if only it trusted her enough to help.
As she embraced the entity, she connected to its wisdom—its endless, boundless knowledge. Once upon a time, that connection would have terrified her. She would have been a loss in the foggy depths of its reality. Now she held onto her clarity as she plunged deeper and deeper.
Finally, she reached the entity. It rose up to meet her. There wasn’t time for words. There wasn’t time to convince it she knew how to save it and Vex. For time was condensing into a point, coiling in on itself over and over again in an endless loop of eternity.
To do this, she needed the entity’s full power. She needed its trust. And in a moment, a single moment—for that’s all that there was—she gained it.
That moment stretched on and encompassed her entire journey. With that endless dimensional being before her mind, in a single instant flashed every experience she’d endured over the past several months, from meeting Carson, to the statue, to the Vex. They all condensed in on a point.
The entity rose up and released itself. It used the last of its energy and gave it to her.
She opened her eyes.
The darkness above was now all-encompassing. And a crack—blue and vibrant and violent—was forming directly above her.
She didn’t shudder back. Instead she reached her left hand up and called on the entity itself. She used its power to pull the crack in space towards her. She kept her feet anchored to the ground, the crushed wheat a carpet of gold dust by her shoes.
Ouroboros 4: End Page 17
