Ouroboros 1: Start

by Odette C. Bell

  “I once fell over when I was walking down the street as a child, and broke my hip. And then, when I joined the Academy, in my first year, I received two broken bones, four concussions, and an untold number of abrasions. To be fair to everybody else on the mission, they just knew me better than you did,” she admitted quietly.

  He looked at her as if he didn't want to believe her, then gently pressed his lips together. But his silence didn't last. “It still didn't make any sense. My instinct told me that something else had happened on Remus 12. So yeah, I kind of . . . followed you around I guess. I wanted to get the chance to talk to you, to ask what had really happened, but then . . . other things started occurring,” he admitted.

  Nida didn't need to ask him to clarify what those other things were.

  The accidents with the TI objects.

  Carson looked cold, and even though he was wearing his armour, he brought up his hands and tried to rub some warmth back into his shoulders. Then he winced.

  She stared over at him, her gaze darting across the large dent in his arm. “You are injured. You should fix yourself up,” she commented.

  “Yes, I should,” Carson noted as he shrugged his shoulders, “but we've still got three hours, and I kind of . . . want to finish talking to you first,” he managed awkwardly.

  Nida had no idea why he was being so uncomfortable, and she wasn't sure whether she should blush again. Instead, she settled on clearing her throat. “What else do you need to know?”

  “Nothing much. It just seems that I've been waiting for the past two weeks for a chance to talk to you, and it feels damned foolish to cut it short now.”

  She sat there in silence waiting for him to ask a question, but when he didn't, she felt itchy and a little flushed. Scratching at her arms and sighing, she turned around to check the consoles and panels of the bridge. The ship seemed to be running itself, despite how damaged it had become in the Barbarian fight.

  Still, it looked incredibly sophisticated. “What kind of ship is this? I've never seen one before.”

  “It's an experimental vessel,” Carson said, his voice quick with excitement. “It's incredible. If I hadn't been surprised by that second Barbarian vessel, I would have been able to overcome the both of them easily,” he added with a chuckle. Then he stopped. “Which brings me to my next question: how exactly did you get from your ship onto the Farsight?”

  “Is this ship called the Farsight?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  She paused. She searched for a way to explain what had happened to her without it sounding . . . totally and utterly impossible.

  “Well?” he prompted.

  “My ship depressurised,” she finally blurted. “The cockpit ripped open,” she admitted.

  His eyes drew wide. “Jesus Christ, how did you get out alive?”

  “Well . . . .”

  “Did you get into a spacesuit quick enough?”

  She shook her head.

  “The entity protected me. Somehow . . . space didn't affect me. The cold, the vacuum—it didn't matter. The entity just kind of, well, controlled the remnants of our vessel, and managed to make it to the Farsight.” When she stopped, she looked carefully at Carson to see whether he would burst into laughter.

  He didn't. Instead, he swallowed heavily. “I guess I shouldn't be surprised. That thing can do incredible things, and this is just another feat to add to its growing list of impossible abilities. Wow, I'm sure every single scientist in the Milky Way would want to get their hands on it to study that thing,” he added.

  Nida stiffened. She didn't do it on her own. And suddenly her eyes narrowed. “We will return to Remus 12.”

  Carson immediately put his hand up. “It was just a comment. It was just a comment. We are returning to Remus 12. You have my word.”

  Slowly Nida relaxed.

  She even let a tight breath of air through her clenched teeth.

  Carson whispered a “sorry” and winced at his mistake.

  Then silence descended between them again. She wondered whether he had finished asking his questions, but he didn't appear ready to leave her alone yet. He just sat there, occasionally running a hand down his armour, then shooting her a surreptitious look when he thought she wasn't watching.

  In a rush, she realised how lucky she was. If Carson hadn't showed so much interest in her, things would have ended very differently, wouldn't they? For one, she would have been killed by multiple flying TI objects. For another, the Barbarians would likely have destroyed her ship.

  She wanted to say something to him, but she didn't know how to frame her statement without sounding sappy.

  Carson finally pushed to his feet, touching the slash in the side of his armour as he did, his lips drawing into a thin frown. “Well, I suppose I should probably do something about this before the next surprise comes slamming our way.” He turned to walk away.

  She punched to her feet.

  He stopped and looked at her slowly over his shoulder.

  “Thank you,” she blurted.

  “For what?” He shot her a curious smile.

  “For bothering me even when I told you not to,” she managed.

  He chuckled. “Are you trying to say thank you for saving your life from the TI objects? Because if you are, you're not doing a particularly good job.”

  She shuffled her feet, and when she looked up at him, he was still staring at her unblinkingly. “Okay, fine, thank you for saving me. If you hadn't showed so much . . . interest, I'm sure I would be dead by now,” she choked over her words.

  He took a step back, then he did something strange. He bowed. “You are welcome. And I suppose I should return the thanks. If you . . . ,” his voice shook on the word you. “If the two of you hadn't boarded the Farsight when you had, I would either be dead or a Barbarian slave. I think we're even. Now, I really need to get this armour off and see to my damn arm.”

  “Do you need some help?” She walked forward awkwardly, not because the entity had control of her—it didn't—but because . . . well, she simply felt awkward.

  Carson considered her and appeared to pay special attention to the blue glow encasing her skin, then he shrugged. “Okay.”

  For a brief moment, she wondered if anybody else would have done and said the same thing in his position. She convinced herself they wouldn't. The doctors and scientists back at the hospital had been scared of the entity, and had been scared of her in the process. But Carson . . . . He was different.

  Yes, Carson Blake was different.

  He was also injured, however, and she was going to do her best to help him.

  They had several hours left until they reached Remus 12, and they would need them.

  Yet, in that moment, she could not appreciate how much they would need them. Waiting on Remus 12 was a terrible, terrible surprise.

  Chapter 28

  Carson Blake

  Things were working out far better than expected. When Admiral Lara Forest had given him the seemingly impossible task of fixing everything, he had imagined it would take herculean effort and ridiculous, ridiculous good luck.

  But it hadn't. No, things just seemed to be . . . working out. Nida had found him, and the powerful entity residing within her had dispatched the Barbarians with terrifying ease.

  And now they were all returning to Remus 12.

  In several hours, this whole sorry chapter would be over, and he could return to the Academy with Nida at his side.

  And though she was sure she would get in trouble or be transported to Jupiter substation for a lifetime of tests, he would be true to his word, and he would fight for her. He would do everything he could to convince the Admiral that she was not a problem.

  Because she wasn't. Nida herself was not dangerous. She was . . . well, nice, sweet, and yes, very awkward, but underneath that remarkably practical.

  He couldn't imagine anybody else surviving what she had with such resilience. There was an enormously powerful entity within her body,
sending her terrifying dreams and visions, and yet she was still capable of smiling and functioning normally.

  He wanted to say that he was proud of her, but couldn't think of a way to do so that didn't sound sappy and really, really pathetic.

  He kept telling himself that he hardly knew her.

  Okay, so they'd gone through some particularly harrowing events together, but still, he didn't even know her middle name, let alone how many years she had left at the Academy. The majority of her life was just a big question mark in his mind, and he longed for the opportunity to find out as much about her as he could.

  First, they had to get to Remus 12 though. Everything else could wait.

  Well, apart from his injury.

  His arm throbbed. It had been throbbing ever since the Barbarian had attacked him, and it had only gotten worse whilst Carson had been talking to Nida. But he hadn't dared interrupt the conversation.

  Because finally, finally he'd gotten the answers he'd been looking for.

  Her dreams . . . . They now made sense.

  And the injuries she'd received on Remus 12, in fact, everything was starting to fall into place.

  Though Carson wanted to head to engineering and the primary armoury locker that was there, he didn't want to walk Nida through the rest of the ship. He couldn't let her see the Barbarians.

  He had already confirmed with the computer that there were no life signs other than himself and Nida, and as he'd rushed through the corridors following her to the bridge, he'd seen what she had done. No, he corrected himself, what the entity had done.

  To put it succinctly, it had been effective.

  The Barbarians had been neutralised.

  That was the only way he wanted to describe it, because if he delved into the true facts, it would terrify him, and he really, really didn't have the opportunity to be terrified right now. He had to stay strong, at least for the next several hours.

  So instead of heading down to engineering, he simply walked over to the armoury cupboard on the side of the bridge.

  He rooted around in it until he found a set of tools.

  Then he ran his hand over his damaged shoulder again.

  Assessing it, he finally realised it was probably easier to take the armour off, and brought up his wristwatch, typing something into it.

  Instantly the armour receded from his body and back into the gloves it came from.

  However, when it came to his injured shoulder, there was a strange beep, a crackle, and that section of armour simply fell off and tumbled to the floor.

  “Well, that answers that question,” he muttered under his breath.

  “What?” Nida asked from his side.

  “Whether I had broken this armour or not. And the answer is yes. This one is stuffed. Luckily enough,” he pointed to the open armoury cupboard,” I have a supply to last me a lifetime.”

  Nida leaned down beside him and picked up the broken section of armour. Little tendrils of blue light escaped from her skin and played over the surface of the cracked plating, as if they were exploring it.

  Now completely distracted from his task, he stared at it, and he stared at her.

  She didn't appear to be aware of what she was doing, or at least not of what the entity was doing. “I can fix it. Is it important to you?” she asked.

  Her voice was not her own.

  It was the entity's. It was calm, it was sure, and it was ancient.

  Terrifyingly ancient. There was no other way to describe it. The sense you got when you listened to it was one of incalculable age.

  He swallowed, trying to control his reaction. “It's okay,” he answered clearly. “It isn't important.”

  She looked up at him sharply, and her already blue eyes flashed with a far more vibrant spark of colour. “We do not know what is important until it is important,” the entity commented.

  “Okay,” he answered dumbly.

  Really? Okay? He had been schooled in how to deal with alien races. Diplomacy, cultural sensitivity, and yes, negotiations. And yet here he was acting like a freaking three-year-old around one of the most powerful entities the United Galactic Coalition had ever discovered.

  He swallowed nervously.

  Then the entity appeared to withdraw, and Nida shrugged her shoulders, letting the broken armour plating go, and throwing it lightly to the floor. Then she looked up at his shoulder and winced. “That looks really painful,” she pointed at him.

  For the first time he looked down and considered his injury.

  Damn cheap prefabricated armour sets, he thought bitterly. If only he'd gone to the trouble of creating his own set of armour before the Barbarians had boarded, he wouldn't have this injury. “It's okay,” he managed in a falsely light tone, “it will fix pretty quick,” he added as he reached further into the armoury cupboard and grabbed a first aid kit.

  “Do you want me to run to the infirmary to get better equipment?” she offered.

  “No,” he said too quickly and too loudly.

  She blinked, her shock obvious.

  “I mean, there's no point,” he said as he coughed, forcibly calming his tone. “This will do fine,” he added, trying to smile at her.

  Though she still looked a little shocked at his sudden reaction, she shrugged her shoulders.

  He didn't want her exploring the rest of the ship.

  She'd appeared overcome by what she'd done to the Barbarians, and he couldn't let her go and remind herself by seeing the bodies.

  “Are you sure you don't want to do this in the infirmary?” she asked carefully, “I mean, take it from someone like me who gets injured all the time, you can do some pretty miraculous healing with the right equipment.”

  He laughed, but it was really awkward, and it petered out to a wheeze. “Yes you can. But I'm really not that injured. Plus, I don't want to leave the bridge, and I don't want you to leave the bridge either,” he added quickly when she looked ready to offer again. “We should just stick together until this is over,” he said firmly.

  This appeared to convince her, and she nodded.

  “Right,” he managed, lumbering over to the captain's chair and sitting in it roughly as he opened the first aid kit on his lap. Shifting through the contents, he finally found what he wanted. A long dressing made of a specific type of nano fibber that would release nano particles into the blood that were programmed to heal everything from a bruise, to completely shattered bone.

  “This will do,” he muttered as he took hold of the bandage. Then he awkwardly tried to pull up the sleeve of his uniform.

  “It's not going to roll up that far,” she pointed out lightly. “I can turnaround if you don't want to take your top off in front of me,” she managed with a little cough.

  His cheeks immediately flushed with heat. “No, I, umm . . . ,” he trailed off.

  Well, damn, wasn't this awkward.

  She looked intensely uncomfortable at his reaction, but he couldn't tell whether she was blushing; her skin was incandescent blue, after all.

  “I have no problem,” he supplied, realising that was possibly the most awkward thing he could say, and quickly admonishing himself silently.

  “Okay,” she said in a high-toned voice.

  To demonstrate his point, Carson now proceeded to take off his tunic top. It was the same uniform he had been wearing since the Academy. Though he could have changed into other clothes aboard the Farsight, he hadn't bothered yet. Well, now he pulled it off, realising his skin really was flushed as he did.

  Trying to ignore it, he dumped the top on the floor by his chair, and quickly distracted himself by tending to his wound.

  With the top off, he could see just how bruised he was. His shoulder was purple and blue, and in places, black. He had received a considerable blunt trauma. While the armour had stopped the blade from cutting into his skin, and it had disbursed the impact, it had not protected him entirely. And now he clamped hard on his jaw as he palpated the injury.

  “Why don't
you just give yourself a localised anaesthetic?” Nida asked, her voice still high pitched.

  He glanced up at her. She was standing several meters away, with her hands clasped very properly in front of her, staring at her feet.

  “I . . . well,” he began.

  “Look, I have done this many times before. Let me do it,” she announced, taking a jerky step forward.

  He wanted to tell her not to bother, but he didn't get the chance; she stumbled over to him, grabbed the first aid kit off his lap, and started administering to his wound.

  Very quickly and very professionally. Because she was likely right, she had done this numerous, numerous times before.

  She gave him a localised anaesthetic, then discarded the nano bandage he'd selected, and rummaged around until she found one to her liking. “Those other ones absorb into the skin and leave a dreadful tingle,” she announced, explaining her decision, “these ones don't.” She carefully applied the bandage, patting the edge of it down until it stuck completely.

  It took him awhile to realise he was holding his breath.

  And he didn't know why.

  Okay, maybe he did; there was a glowing blue woman attending to his wound, and that wasn't something that happened every other day.

  Now she was up close to him, he could see how alive the energy encasing her was. The light didn't simply glow; it moved, it danced, it jumped up from her flesh, travelled several centimetres, then dived down again. It was a lively, engaging pattern, and before too long, he found himself staring at her neck, then her hands.

  She cleared her throat. “It's all finished.”

  He doubled back, trying to pretend he hadn't been staring. “Great, I mean, thanks,” he added as he brought up his good hand to check the bandage.

  He had to admit, she'd done a pretty good job. If the Academy didn't work out for her, then maybe she could go into the medical sciences. He could see her as a nurse or doctor . . . . Okay, maybe he couldn't. She would likely trip over her patients and fly head-first through the window.