Ouroboros 3: Repeat

by Odette C. Bell

  ‘Carson,’ she whispered, relief washing through her and making her shoulders tremble.

  He looked up. Right at her. Though it appeared to take him a great deal of effort, he managed it. His gaze flickered and he kept blinking, yet the emotion behind it was clear and strong.

  ‘Oh my god, you really are alive,’ he pushed his hand up and let it rest alongside her cheek.

  She leaned into it, unashamed that tears trickled down her cheeks as she smiled wildly.

  ‘Wait, how did we get out of there?’ Carson shifted forward now, using all his strength to sit.

  She let him, pushing back on her haunches as she watched him stare wildly around the room. He shifted his head with strong, almost frantic movements of his neck.

  His eyes were wide—she could see it even in the relative darkness.

  In fact, this cold stone room would have been pitch black were it not for her.

  Her hand glowed. And more than that, her body did too. It was subtle, it was slight, but it was there. From her feet to the top of her head, ever centimetre of her skin shone gently with that blue light.

  He finally turned back to her and stared, wide eyed at her face and hands, and then back up to her face.

  ‘What’s happening?’ he hissed, his confusion evident.

  She took a brief moment to simply smile at him. To enjoy the moment.

  She wasn’t cruel enough to be taking pleasure in his surprise.

  It was the simple fact he was alive. That they were both alive.

  Pressing her lips closer together as her chin dimpled and her cheeks fattened high into her eyes, she nodded.

  ‘Nida?’ he asked once more.

  ‘I opened a time gate,’ she finally said.

  In a shudder, a wash of recognition crossed over his features, slackening them as it did. ‘Oh my god . . . you did it. We got a way?’ As if to confirm that fact, Carson placed one of his trembling hands on the ground below him and trailed it through the dust and rubble.

  It was in stark contrast to the room they had left. That room had been clean, advanced, and definitely not full of rubble.

  She smiled again.

  She couldn’t help it.

  Then he asked three little words that cut through her joy. ‘Where are we?’

  She blinked hard.

  Though she’d ascertained they were back in the tunnels of Remus 12, there was one fact she was yet to confirm.

  When they were.

  Her back straightened of its own accord, propelling her upwards as she stood quickly.

  Turning on her bare feet, she sought out some clue. Yet she instinctively knew there was little she could find out down here.

  This room was too simple to hold the secret of when they had travelled to.

  Which meant one thing: she would have to go back up to the surface of the planet.

  What would meet her there, she did not know. The stars could be falling from the sky, or a troop of advanced Vex could be waiting to pull her back into an illusion.

  She didn’t drop back to her knees though. She remained standing.

  Carson needed her.

  And that was a truly strange fact to consider.

  She’d once been as weak and pathetic as they came. She’d been the worst recruit at the Academy, and a total failure. She’d had to wait for others to protect her, for Carson to save her from the awful fate that had befallen her.

  Yet now she knew she could do it on her own. To confirm that fact, she brought up her right hand and stared at the patina of cuts sprinkled across the flesh.

  They were still bleeding gently, a silent reminder of how she’d protected the entity from being corrupted barely several minutes ago.

  She took a brief moment to remind herself of that fact.

  She had just saved herself. She had just stopped the entity from corrupting.

  ‘Nida?’ Carson questioned as he now rose to his feet.

  He appeared weak, yet he still managed to stand on his own.

  ‘We need to go up to the surface to find out when we are,’ she confirmed aloud.

  He would already know that—he was freaking Carson Blake. Despite how much he’d been through, and whatever that simulation had done to him, the leader of the Force would still be under there.

  ‘I still . . . what the hell happened back there? Or then,’ he corrected in a muddle. ‘What were they doing to me?’ he asked in a quieter voice.

  She turned on him, then, with a little breath, she explained all she’d grown to realise.

  Everything she’d found out, from the nature of the simulation, to the constant mentions of something called the ‘event’.

  As she drew to a stop, Carson just stared at her. She could see how wide his eyes were from the reflected glow of her own skin.

  ‘They kept me running through that simulation,’ he finally admitted in a voice that was little more than a croak, ‘they kept distracting me whenever I questioned anything . . . and I gave them what they wanted,’ he concluded as he shook his head bitterly.

  Nida shook her head even more firmly. ‘You couldn’t fight against it, Carson. They appear to be far more technologically advanced than the United Galactic Coalition.’

  At that admission, he drew a sharp breath. ‘And I just gave them the keys to all our locks. I can’t believe what I’ve done . . . .’

  ‘Carson,’ she took a step forward, ducked her head low, and stared up into his face, trying to focus his attention, ‘you couldn’t fight it. It wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘You fraught it.’

  ‘I don’t know how,’ she admitted with a sharp breath of her own, ‘I just . . . maybe it was the entity, maybe it was something else. The point is, no one is going to blame you. I don’t blame you,’ she added in a hoarse voice.

  He appraised her with his lips turned into a thin line, then shook his head. ‘I just . . . .’

  ‘We have to keep going,’ she snapped, realising that the best thing to do was probably distract him. Despite what had just happened, he was still the leader of the Force, right? He still knew that you had to push past your emotions in times of stress and import.

  As soon as she thought that, she shuddered. For the Vex had clearly understood that—that’s how they’d kept Carson distracted, that’s how they’d stolen the secrets from his mind.

  ‘I’m just so sorry,’ he began. ‘I thought you were dead . . . I believed it. It didn’t make any sense, and I didn’t do anything to confirm it,’ he continued.

  ‘Carson.’

  ‘I just kept doing my duty, like that was all that mattered.’

  ‘Carson.’

  ‘I can’t believe—’

  ‘Carson,’ she closed the distance between them and grabbed up one of his hands. She held it as tightly as she could. ‘We have no idea what’s going to happen next. We don’t really know for sure why the Vex wanted that information on the United Galactic Coalition, and what they really wanted to do with the entity,’ she admitted through a cold shiver, ‘but we aren’t going to find out here.’

  He finally lifted his chin and looked at her evenly.

  He didn’t say anything.

  So she just stood there and watched the reflected light from her body casting shadows over his.

  ‘We need to find out when we are, and we have to get the entity back to its home. That’s it. That mission hasn’t changed,’ she summarised. ‘But we also have to stop the Vex.’

  Carson took a heavy breath, drew into another pointed silence, then finally managed, ‘but . . . the Vex never existed at the same time as the Academy. What exactly are they going to do with this information?’ Hope twisted through his tone, altering the pitch of his voice as it echoed through the room.

  Nida considered his point. Yet it did not afford her any comfort. For it was one she had already thought of.

  She knew the Vex had never existed at the same time as the Galactic Coalition. According to their best estimates, the inhabitants of Remus 12—
the Vex—had died 2000 years before Nida and Carson’s own time.

  The United Galactic Coalition was barely 450 years old.

  Whatever wiped out the Vex, happened in the past.

  So regardless of what point in the Vex’s history Nida and Carson had travelled to, it made the information they’d shared irrelevant, right?

  Nida wasn’t so sure of that.

  The one thing this entire situation had taught her was that it was dangerous to make assumptions.

  ‘They’re long dead in our time,’ Carson repeated, clearly holding onto that fact. ‘The United Galactic Coalition should be safe.’

  Suddenly a cold energy passed over her back, and she clasped a hand on her chest.

  In a shiver, she remembered one of her visions.

  The most horrible by far.

  The one where she had stood upon the ruined surface of Remus 12 looking up into orbit to see the destroyed United Galactic Coalition Fleet. All those ships, all those people.

  All destroyed.

  Carson stepped in closer, even though she was already right by his side. ‘What is it?’

  ‘My vision,’ she croaked, ‘the one I had when we were with the resistance,’ she shook her head as she spoke, feeling the tears well within her eyes. She blinked them back, but they just kept coming. ‘I saw the Coalition Fleet destroyed.’

  Carson didn’t say anything.

  ‘I saw bodies floating in space, cruisers torn in half . . . .’

  ‘We don’t . . . we don’t know that’s the future,’ he tried.

  ‘But what if it is?’

  Again, Carson didn’t say anything. He simply stood there and stared at her silently, his expression one of tortured guilt. ‘We don’t know . . . ,’ he tried one last time.

  No, they didn’t know. But the mere possibility that it could be true, sent Nida’s stomach tumbling around and around until she had to clutch a hand over her mouth to stop from falling over.

  ‘I took us to the future,’ she finally realised. ‘I opened the time gate. I let us fall into the hands of the Vex.’

  ‘Nida, no. It wasn’t your fault. You got us away from that roof. If you hadn’t, god knows what would have happened.’

  She tried to let his words still her, but they wouldn’t.

  Though she had once believed she’d pushed her guilt and indecision away for good, now it came flooding back. It surrounded her, pushing down from above until she could see nothing but what she’d done.

  She trembled.

  ‘Hey, if it’s anyone’s fault, it’s my fault,’ he tried.

  . . . .

  It was no one’s fault.

  That sentiment struck her, and she held onto it.

  It sounded as though it came from the entity. It felt that, even though it was still immeasurably weak, it was reassuring her.

  And she let herself be reassured.

  Soon after, she straightened.

  She considered Carson in the dark and silence once more.

  ‘We just have to do something,’ she finally concluded. ‘Go out there, find out when we are and . . . do something. If we’ve finally made it back to our own time, then we warn the Academy. If we’re back in the past with the Vex, then we fight them. We do what we can to find out what their plans are, and we stop them.’

  ‘And if we’re in our future?’ Carson asked quietly.

  ‘Then we see what’s happened,’ she choked.

  In that moment, they held onto each other.

  Slowly, they parted and faced the rough-hewn door on the other side of the room.

  ‘Let’s go,’ she finally said, nodding forward.

  ‘Wait, just one thing. You opened the time gate . . . but what happened to the entity? Won’t it corrupt again? What if you have another episode? I don’t have my armour, nor the device, not even my gun,’ Carson blurted out.

  Nida managed the smallest of smiles.

  ‘Nida?’ he asked, his confusion almost palpable.

  ‘You don’t have to worry about that any more.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean I can stop it,’ she brought up her hand and showed him the cuts across it. ‘The entity already corrupted before you woke up. And I . . . stopped it.’

  He just looked at her, his brow slack with barely-concealed awe. ‘You did what?’

  ‘Look, it’s hard to explain, but I can access it. The entity. I know where it is, I know how to get to it. That’s how I opened the time gates. And it means I can protect it when it corrupts. I don’t really understand . . . .’

  ‘Neither do I,’ he breathed, then he tightened his grip on her hand, ‘but I trust you.’

  She turned to look at him, her eyes shimmering with tears. She locked her gaze on his face, and could not look away.

  ‘Come on,’ he finally motioned forward with his head.

  They walked out.

  Chapter 16

  Carson Blake

  He could hardly believe any of this.

  But he had to.

  He had to keep going.

  He couldn’t sit crumpled on that cold stone floor wallowing in his grief.

  He had no real idea what he’d done—what sensitive United Galactic Coalition information he’d shared with the Vex—but Nida was right. They just had to keep going. They had to find out when they were, and react accordingly.

  Nida had tried to convince him that none of this was his fault, that he couldn’t possibly have fought against the simulations forced on his mind by the Vex.

  But she didn’t understand.

  They’d made him believe she was dead . . . and he’d just accepted it in the end. He hadn’t fought it. He hadn’t fought for her. He hadn’t dropped everything to find her.

  He felt sickened by his actions. He didn’t care that the Vex had likely been manipulating him the entire time—that the fog that had assailed him had probably been their efforts to push the questions from his mind. It didn’t matter because he was so disgusted at what he’d done.

  They were no longer holding hands. It was too dangerous in these narrow and dark tunnels. Yet in that moment, he dearly wanted to reach out to her. When his fingers were locked around hers, it made him forget he’d ever believed she could have died.

  She’d taken the lead, which made sense when you considered she was their only light source.

  But it was more than that.

  Nida was taking the lead in the decision making too. Something had happened to her, something that had tempered her once hesitant personality. She seemed quicker to get over setbacks and more determined than she’d ever been.

  And, if she was to be believed, she’d done the impossible and could now interact with the entity easily.

  He was quietly impressed. No, impressed wasn’t the right word—it was took weak.

  He was proud.

  That’s it.

  Her success felt like his success, even though he knew he’d had little to do with it.

  Cadet Nida Harper was achieving this all on her own.

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ she mumbled nervously under her breath as she walked up the stairs before her.

  They were nearing the surface now; the air was starting to smell fresher.

  His stomach suddenly kicked with fear.

  He had absolutely no idea what they would find up there.

  Though the existence of ruined tunnels suggested they must be in the future, sometime after the Vex had destroyed themselves, he was done making assumptions.

  Because assumptions had almost killed him multiple times already. He’d trusted Cara, and she’d turned on them. He’d trusted the simulation, and it had manipulated him.

  Now he was determined to trust only two people.

  Himself and Nida.

  So he walked a little closer to her.

  He still couldn’t believe she was alive.

  His heart kept pounding in his ears at the knowledge of it. And every time he caught a glimpse of her face, it felt as if
a weight lifted off his chest.

  Pressing his fingers into his implant, he forced a smile. It was bitter but relieved.

  So relieved.

  He’d never felt more relieved in his whole life, in fact.

  He could barely class it as an emotion; it felt more like a fire.

  The closer they got to the surface, the more he got a handle on himself.

  They had to be careful. Really careful.

  This place was dangerous. They’d already proved that 100 fold.

  So he told Nida to slow down, to be careful.

  She obeyed silently, and they both crept upward, only moving when it was absolutely clear there was no one and nothing around.

  It was slow progress, yet with every step, his anticipation roared louder in his mind.

  The fact he didn’t know what he’d find up there cut up and down his spine like clawed hands.

  He controlled himself though, until they reached the final set of stairs leading up.

  Straining his eyes, he could see the starlight above.

  This was it.

  Christ, this was it.

  His heart no longer pounded in his chest so much as ricocheted around it. He had to plant a hand on his neck and pat it just to stop from hyperventilating.

  But he controlled himself.

  People were relying on him.

  Nida, the United Galactic Coalition, everyone. And though it had become abundantly clear that Nida could now look after herself, he couldn’t let her down.

  So he crept forward.

  One step at a time.

  They climbed together.

  Though Carson wanted to leave her behind in the tunnels, she insisted. There was no way he could pull rank any more—gone were the days she would cower at his tone.

  Their footfall, though soft, rang out, and he concentrated on it as they finally reached the last step.

  With his heart in his mouth, he stared around him. He span on the spot, his eyes as wide as they could be.

  It was night, yet there was enough illumination from the star scape above that he could see the surface of the planet around him.

  Dust. Rubble. Rock.

  But no Vex. No gleaming cities, no futuristic technology.

  They were in the future.

  He could have crumpled to his knees in relief.