She turned sharply on her foot and regarded him as surprise shot through her flickering gaze.
They were that close already?
“Is there anything else . . . you need to do?” Carson asked. There was a different note to his voice, a far more diplomatic one, and she quickly realised he wasn't talking to her.
“I don't think so,” she answered, realising that if the entity really did want to do something, it would do it without asking.
Again, silence descended, but this time it was less awkward and far more expectant.
The past several weeks had been leading up to this point, and now it was almost here.
It would all be over soon.
“I've been careful to scan and rescan this system to ensure there aren't any surprises,” Carson typed something on a panel then pointed at the screen. “Though I doubt the Barbarians have too many more of those ships, we can't be too careful.”
She nodded, feeling a little ill as she did. She placed a hand on her stomach, pushing her fingers hard against the loose fabric of her uniform.
She stared fixedly at the view screen.
It showed space, flecks of stars, swathes of colourful constellations, and then, in a flash, a planet.
Remus 12.
Home.
She started to shake.
Her whole body convulsed.
She couldn't stop it.
“Nida?” Carson pushed away from the console he was working on and ran to her side. “Are you okay?”
It took her a long time to answer yes. “I think the entity is just excited,” she tried.
“Right,” he answered slowly. “Right. Well hold on. I just engaged the landing sequence, and the computer should take everything from here. I'll set us down in the same compound we were investigating two weeks ago.”
She nodded.
Then she waited.
And it was, categorically, one of the hardest things she'd ever done.
The closer they neared the planet, the more frantic the energy within her became.
She could feel the entity's desire to return home. And it was unfathomable.
She kept on shaking until finally Carson reached up and actually wrapped an arm around her shoulders, standing by her side as he did. Together they stared at the view screen.
She could feel the bulk of his arm pressing into her back, and it was strangely reassuring. Though she still shook, it no longer bothered her.
“Nearly there,” Carson said needlessly.
He kept saying the same statements, as if simply repeating them would make the situation more manageable.
She didn't point this out to him. Instead, she let him stand there and hold her in place.
As the ship plunged into the atmosphere, her eyes drew wide.
The scant clouds on the skyline rushed around the Farsight as it plunged towards the surface of the planet, and they reminded her exactly of her dreams. Standing on Remus 12, all of that rubble and dust swirling around her in a powerful vortex of destruction.
. . . .
She forced her eyes closed.
As if on fast forward, she saw a replay of every single vision the entity had ever given her.
Soon it would be over, she told herself.
Then she would see them no more.
With that reassuring thought, the ship gave a shudder, and she snapped her eyes open to see that they had landed.
“Come on,” Carson said from her side, giving her arm a squeeze.
If she had been her usual self, she would have pushed him away and pointed out she was perfectly capable of standing and walking on her own.
She wasn't though, and she enjoyed his presence far more than she was willing to admit.
Together they walked from the bridge, through the halls of the ship, and towards the hangar bay.
Once they were in the hangar bay, Carson took a moment to shake his head at the completely broken Coalition cruiser she had flown into the Farsight.
It was still sitting there in the centre of the hangar bay, leaning on one side, an enormous gaping hole in the cockpit.
He appeared ready to say something, but he quickly pressed his lips shut, and concentrated on opening the hangar bay doors instead.
As the doors opened, Nida could not help herself any more.
She ran forward, straight at the barren wasteland of Remus 12.
The dust and rubble were like open arms, waiting to embrace her.
“Nida, wait up,” Carson commanded from behind.
She heard him jog down the ramp; his heavy, armoured boots making the whole thing shake and reverberate.
Soon he was by her side, but he didn’t pull her back; he simply matched her pace.
“Where are we going?” he asked eventually.
She couldn’t answer.
All she could do was search for it.
Home.
That one word was all she could think of. Home.
Home.
She stumbled forward, searching.
It was dusk on Remus 12, and slowly the day gave way to night. Above her that beautiful, almost luminescent stars cape glittered.
She stared at it as she ran forward, and as she did, she felt something.
She understood something.
Something terrible.
The stars were not right.
They were different.
She stumbled to her knees.
Instantly Carson leaned down, trying to help her up. “Nida?” His eyes flickered with concern. True, genuine concern. “Are you okay?”
She couldn’t answer.
Instead, she began to shake again.
“Nida?” He drew his arm around her shoulders once more.
The move appeared to be easier for him now. She could still remember when he had been hesitant to touch her—now he did it with ease.
“Something isn’t right,” she finally managed to move her lips and make her voice rattle from her parched and constricted throat.
“What are you talking about? Is there a problem with the entity?” He shuddered, but still held an arm around her shoulders.
“This planet . . . . Something isn’t right,” she managed again.
Carson pulled away from her, typing something on his wristwatch. Then he turned a full circle, surveying the dust and rubble around them. When he faced her, he simply pressed his lips together and shrugged. “I’m not detecting any enemies. It’s just you and me. No other life forms, no buildings, no other ships, no other power sources. We are alone.”
She wanted to be reassured by his words, but she couldn’t. Because he didn’t understand.
“They aren’t right,” she pointed up to the sky.
He followed her move, then narrowed his gaze. “The stars?”
“They don’t match the ones I saw in my dreams. There is something wrong,” she flattened her sweaty palm over her implant protectively.
He placed a hand carefully on her shoulder, looking into her eyes as she finally raised her head. “We’ll find that statue. We'll return the entity. Come on.”
She let him pull her forward.
They walked and walked, looking for those stairs that led down, but they could not find them.
As dusk settled into night, desperation kicked in. Nida stumbled forward, pushed on by the frantic fear of the entity.
Though Carson was by her side, and picked her up every time she fell over, there was nothing he could do.
Just as it appeared she would never find the stairs, she found them.
She did so by tripping over a stone, landing on her knees, and rolling.
“Nida,” Carson called from behind, lurching forward and grabbing her arm before she could roll face first down the stairwell.
He tried to help her to her feet, but as soon as her eyes locked on the dark, descending shadows of the stairs, she lurched forward.
“Be careful,” he begged.
She didn't listen.
She ran down.
It didn't matter that it was dark down here; she was glowing, after all.
She saw the other set of stairs.
She ran up them as fast as she could.
She made it to the room.
It was dark in here now. It wasn't how she remembered. It was different because the blue glow that had encased it now encased her.
Carson called her name again, then finally ascended the stairs to stand next to her.
For several seconds he was silent.
Then she began to walk forward, and he immediately reached out to grab her shoulder. “We need to be careful,” he hissed.
She simply shrugged out of his grip.
Then, once again, she was drawn towards the statue. It was as if invisible tethers were pulling her closer.
She reached it.
The glow from her body was now as vibrant as it could be, and it threw out so much light it lit up the room completely.
The statue stood before her, but in a moment of powerful confusion and fear, she realised it was different.
It was falling apart.
Whereas once it had been beautifully carved, depicting a woman in vibrant health, her hair and dress flowing in an invisible wind, now she could barely recognise the form of a head, torso, and several crumbling hands.
“What is this?” Nida gasped.
“How do you return the entity?’ Carson asked quickly from her side.
She couldn't.
She simply couldn't, because something was terribly wrong.
“Nida?” This time Carson seemed hesitant to place a hand on her shoulder, and he ducked to the side, bringing his head down until he stared into her eyes. “What's going on?”
It took all of her effort to draw her gaze off the statue and onto his. “Something happened to the statue. It's . . . broken.”
His expression crumpled. It was clear he didn't understand. Quite possibly because she had no idea what she was talking about herself.
But she understood one fact as clear as day. Something was terribly, terribly wrong.
“What do I do?” she whispered—not for Carson's benefit, but for the entity's.
She tried to reach out to it; she tried to conjure up its presence.
But all she felt was its shaking, palpable, terrible fear.
“What is it? What's wrong?” she asked the entity out loud.
Then she started to twitch again, but this time pain shot through her body as she did. With a terrified gasp, her knees gave way from underneath her, and she fell down.
She did not strike the cold, carved, stone floor; Carson caught her.
This time he wrapped both arms around her, and stared directly into her gaze. “Nida, what's going on?”
She tried to answer. Tried to cobble together an explanation that would make sense.
But she didn't get the time.
For, at that exact moment, something rumbled on the surface of the planet high above.
Chapter 30
Carson Blake
He had her in his arms, and he could feel how violently she was shaking.
It was agonising to watch; he just couldn't do anything to help her.
She kept repeating that something was wrong, but he had no idea what it was.
Then he heard it.
The rumble.
For a split second, he wondered whether it was an earthquake. Then he understood what it was.
And he froze.
A ship.
A large ship was landing on the surface of the planet above. And, if he was any judge, it was close, damn close, quite possibly exactly above this hollowed out, cavernous room.
He stiffened.
Could it be the United Galactic Coalition? Had Admiral Forest already sent reinforcements?
There was one way to find out.
His scanner.
He'd picked it up several minutes ago when he had found it at the bottom of that mysterious stairwell.
True to its design, it was still working. Okay, so it had several scratches and a big dent in its side, but it could function. And right now, he brought it out of the magnetic holster on his hip and stared at it.
If the ship above were Coalition, they would be sending out a standard Coalition greeting on all frequencies.
He would also be able to pick up a specific energy signature that all Coalition vessels had.
. . . .
The ship above was not Coalition.
His heart sank, faster than a bullet shot from a gun.
He jerked his head up. “We need to leave,” he snapped.
She stared at him, her mouth open, but no words coming out.
“Nida,” he hissed again, “it's the Barbarians,” he said the word, but his voice shook like a child's as he did.
Though his scanner was small, and could not penetrate too far above to the planet's surface, the readings it managed to relay confirmed one terrible fact.
There was a Barbarian ship parked right above them.
“We have to do this now,” he whispered again, his voice barely registering above a tight breath, “release the entity. We have to leave.”
Nida didn't appear capable of understanding him. She simply stood there, staring past his right shoulder and up at the crumbling statue.
He shifted his hands around until they were placed heavily on her shoulders. “Nida,” he gave her a little shake. “Please.”
That word seemed to wake her, and she finally looked at him. “This is the wrong time,” she said simply.
It was such a strange statement considering the circumstances, and he gave a bitter, harsh laugh. “Yes it is, but we can't exactly go up there and tell the Barbarians to wait.”
She shook her head, staring at him with a dull gaze that told him the entity was half in control. “This is the wrong time,” she spoke each word slowly as if every syllable had the import of a magic spell or incantation.
He went to say that he understood, but he stopped.
Because maybe he didn't.
There was something about the quality of her gaze and that terrible certainty shaking through her words.
“Nida?” he whispered.
“We have arrived at the wrong time,” the entity said.
“What do you mean the wrong time?” he asked breathily. Though he was hardly running around engaging in combat, he felt winded. He stood there, panting, still holding her shoulders, trying to understand what was happening here.
“Space time has distorted. We are trapped,” the entity said.
His hands fell away from her shoulders. “What do you mean?”
The entity stepped forward. Or rather, it forced Nida’s body to step forward. As he was standing right there in front of her, she simply pressed into him. Then she brought a hand up, and placed it flat on his chest.
Before he could shift back, he felt something.
And then he saw it.
Flashes of a vision.
The planet around them, the statue, and a strange, impossible sight of stars compressing down into a single point.
So much information was relayed to him in that moment that he simply could not comprehend it.
Then she shifted back.
She took her palm from his chest and let her arm drop to her side.
“What was that?” He clutched at his armour, dragging his fingers across the strong, cold plating. “What was that?”
“We are running out of time,” the entity said.
At that admission, Carson glanced up.
The ceiling of the room was shaking, and fine particles of dust were drifting down. They covered his boots, alighted on his shoulders, and several landed on his upturned cheeks and lips. He brushed them off. Then he snapped his gaze back to her. “Tell me how to free you,” he spoke only to the entity now. “Tell me where you have to go. I will take you there.”
“I am not from your space time.”
“Not from my space time . . . ? Do you mean dimension?” he spluttered.
Nida appeared to consider him. “Yes, dimension. I am not from this realm,” she brought up her hands and considered the light racing across them. “We are from a dimension close to your own. Too close. Sometimes one leaks into the other. That is how I have come to be here. But I cannot stay,” the entity returned Nida's gaze to him, and deep in her blue lit eyes he saw an even more powerful burst of light. “If I stay here, I will destroy myself and I will destroy others with me. I must go home.”
“How do we get you home?”
“This planet is a bridge. It is a point that aligns with my dimension. At certain times, it forms a bridge between our worlds.”
Carson nodded, though he was having trouble keeping up. Other dimensions? Bridges between worlds? This sounded a lot more like the plot of a particularly unscientific holographic movie, and less like reality.
But he did not dare interrupt.
“To return home, I must go to a time when the bridge is active.”
Carson took a breath. He could understand that . . . kind of. Then he abruptly shook his head. What was he thinking? Was the entity suggesting time travel?
“We must find a bridge,” the entity continued.
“Okay, but how do we do that?” Do we just wait here . . . for one to form?”
The entity shook Nida’s head. “Remus 12 has unstable time,” it answered cryptically.
“What does that mean?”
He wanted to know everything the entity had to say, but, for the love of god, Barbarians had landed on the planet. He had no idea how long it would take them to find this room. They couldn’t stay here.
Just as that realisation formed, Nida put up a hand. “We are safe in this room for now,” she answered, as if she could read his mind.
“Fine, but what do we do now?” he asked through a pressured hiss.
“We must find a time gate and travel to another point in Remus 12's history,” the entity announced.
Carson just looked at her. Slowly. Because what she had just said made absolutely no sense.
“We must continue to use the time gates of Remus 12 to search for a bridge to my dimension.”
. . . .
“Sorry, what?” Carson wiped a hand across his mouth. He'd been on his fair share of strange missions—space wasn’t a simple place, after all—but what the entity was suggesting was insane.
Time travel simply wasn’t possible.
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