He watched it with the same suspicion kindling in his heart he’d first held for the creature within her.
All those weeks ago back at the Academy, when he’d first heard her whisper for help whilst she’d slept, he’d thought there was something wrong with her.
And after her accident with that TI pole at the E Club event, Admiral Forest had treated the entity’s presence in Nida as an infection.
Over time, he’d grown to trust it though.
Now, once again, he was back to realising he had to save her, and that the thing in her hand—the so-called Goddess of the Vex—was an infection, a parasite, something that had to be removed.
He didn’t dare articulate a word of this though.
‘Nida, listen to me. Trust me. Please, just run it dry. Force all the energy you can out of it.’
‘Carson, that will corrupt it. We . . . we need to protect it,’ she began, shifting back as her eyes closed in a slow, tired move.
‘Nida,’ he snapped forward, realising he had barely seconds. ‘Fight it, do you hear me? Fight it. The entity is going to try to take control of you.’
She shook her head, but it was a small move. ‘Carson,’ she said.
Her left hand started to crackle with energy.
In fact, it vibrated with it.
He had to do something, but what?
Blast her out into space and hope that the resultant energy the entity would have to use to keep it and her alive would tax its reserves?
Maybe he should have pretended to go back to Remus 12, waited for an opportunity, and tried to trick it into using its energy.
It didn’t matter though.
He’d acted.
Now he had to deal with the consequences.
‘Nida,’ he cried as loud as he could, trying to cut through her reverie, ‘just . . . fight it. Fight it. It’s going to try to take control of you,’ he warned again, his blood a raging torrent as it pumped through his body, his breath little more than a staccato rhythm of pants.
She slumped back.
Shit.
One single second passed.
She opened her eyes, sat forward, and pointed at the ceiling.
He lifted off the floor.
Right into the air.
He had a bare moment to see her face. To watch her features displaying an easy calm as the energy crackled over her body, leaping almost in pleasure as she continued to point to the ceiling and he continued to lift towards it.
. . . .
He’d lost.
He’d tried to fight the entity, but he hadn’t factored how strong it was.
He didn’t have the time to think of how much of an idiot he was though. There was just a single second where he could stare down into her eyes and try to calculate how much he was just about to lose.
It would be more than his life.
It would be the United Galactic Coalition, and it would be Nida too.
Everything.
He felt himself slam towards the ceiling, then, just before he struck it and snapped his spine, he stopped.
One centimetre form the smooth hull, he came to a sudden and complete halt.
He could only just manage to twist his head around to stare her way.
She still stood there perfectly still with one finger raised at the ceiling. Her expression was impassive, as if she were contemplating nothing greater than the opposite wall.
She looked like a statue, a statue that had been invaded by a pervasive blue light that ate through every last centimetre of it.
‘Nida,’ he managed to push her name from his throat, ‘fight it,’ he tried.
Whether she was fighting it or not, he couldn’t tell; for all he knew, the entity could merely be playing with him. Savouring its last move.
Yet as time wound on and he still was not pressed to death against the ceiling, hope lifted in his heart.
He kept speaking, kept begging her to fight it.
The words gushed from his mouth.
They were instinctual, raw, desperate.
Then he said it.
‘Come on, Nida. You can do it. I believe in you. Come on. I love you. Come on, Nida’
It took a few seconds to realise what he'd just said.
Had he . . . just told her he loved her?
It had slipped out.
In that moment of total desperation, his emotions had loosened his tongue.
It didn’t matter though. Nothing did. No matter what he said, she didn’t move, and neither did he.
So he just waited there. Either for death or for Nida to win.
Yet though it all, he didn’t stop believing in her.
Chapter 21
Cadet Nida Harper
It all happened so quickly. so blindingly, mind-numbingly quickly.
She woke from her terrible ordeal to find Carson above her. Then he’d begged her in his quiet tone to run the entity dry. To access it, to use all of its energy that she could.
She hadn’t understood—she’d been so confused.
When she had tried to access the entity to talk to it, she hadn’t been prepared for what would happen.
Nor did she understand it.
It had been a confusing, overwhelming sense of being controlled, of being pushed into as if someone were meticulously breaking down every barrier she had.
It had, as she’d pointed out to Carson, felt like she’d been drowning.
Over and over again. Stuck in that swirling, dancing, writhing mass of energy.
Yet that felt nothing compared to this.
Because now she fought it. With everything she had, Cadet Nida Harper tried to stop the entity from killing Carson.
She’d had to do that once before, back on the Farsight when the entity had killed the Barbarians.
. . . .
It had killed them. In cold blood.
She’d pushed that fact from her mind.
Now she couldn’t.
Because it was trying to do it again. Yet as it fought to push Carson towards the ceiling, she fought to hold him still.
It was the greatest battle of will she had ever endured.
Commanding the power within her was startlingly similar to using the TI implant.
So she drew on that training. All of it.
And she pushed herself into the task.
The entity fought her, it powered though her, it surged up her left arm and deep into her heart, chilling her blood as it went.
She felt like stone, or at least it tried to make her think she did.
It bombarded her with horrendous image after horrendous image, and terrifying sensation after terrifying sensation.
But she did not yield.
She couldn’t give up; she was Carson’s only hope.
She was aware that she simply stood there with one finger pointed up, very much like a statue.
It tried to talk to her, it tried to reassure her.
The entity. It told her in the calmest of tones that, ‘Carson had to die.’
He had betrayed them.
He had tried to kill it.
‘Let him go. I will deal with him,’ it cooed in her ear.
Once upon a time, that gentle reassurance had been all that had kept her together.
When the entity had broken her out of the Academy, it was only its extraordinary ability to calm her that had stopped her from snapping.
Now she felt that calm reassurance anew. And it felt horrible. It felt like manipulation, not kindness.
The entity wanted something, and it was going to use her in any way to get it.
‘Come on,’ it whispered in her mind, ‘trust me. I have never lead you astray. I have protected you. It is only when you have gone against my wishes that you have seen peril. You went against my will on Vex in the past, and it took you to the future. You compromised the United Galactic Coalition. All because you went against my word. You must trust me.’
She stood her ground, quite literally.
‘You must t
ake me home before I corrupt and destroy your reality,’ it changed track, suddenly imposing half a vision over the scene. As she stood there and stared up at Carson, suddenly she saw stars streaking past as if they were falling form the sky.
She ignored them.
She ignored its words.
She fought.
And she held her ground.
Impossibly.
Somehow.
The entity grew more desperate. ‘Do not threaten your reality, child,’ it begged. ‘You would throw away the lives of everyone in this universe. You must trust me; you must get me home.’
‘I won’t let you kill him,’ she suddenly said. Aloud. She spoke aloud. Somehow she forced her voice to carry.
It echoed around the bridge.
‘Nida?’ Carson cried. Though he’d been calling her name and telling her she could do it, now he redoubled his efforts.
‘I won’t let you kill him,’ she spat again, her words a muffle as she tried to push them out of her aching throat and stiff lips.
‘Do not threaten what is not yours,’ the entity screamed in her mind.
She didn’t reply. Instead she redoubled her efforts at closing it down, at forcing it back.
Nida had already learnt the lesson of accessing the entity’s power; she’d opened a time gate twice now. But this lesson was different.
And harder.
Now it fought her, tooth and nail. It riled against her, bashing through her body with its energy, willing her with every word and every second to succumb.
It would be the hardest battle of her life.
‘Come on,’ Carson begged from above.
His words washed over her. They reminded her that he was still alive, that the entity had not succeeded yet.
‘Trust me,’ the entity cried.
‘No,’ she whispered aloud.
She meant it.
She was done trusting it. She was done taking things it said on face value.
She was done making assumptions.
It was time to really figure out what was going on here. From the entity to the Vex to the time gates, she knew instinctively she did not understand a thing. Not really.
She would find out though.
She would fix this.
And she would save him.
As that conclusion rose through her with all the power and majesty of the sun rising through the sky, she pushed back.
Using every gram of TI training she had ever received, and every scrap of will she had conjured during her journey, she forced it back.
. . .
Finally it receded.
She could feel it slipping away from her body.
It felt like ice being dragged from her blood; it raked through her flesh and bones and left her cold and numb.
She closed her hand.
Carson dropped.
So did she.
She fell forward, losing consciousness almost immediately.
Yet with the thought echoing in her mind that she had done it.
She’d saved Carson Blake.
Chapter 22
Carson Blake
All of a sudden he dropped.
All the way from the ceiling.
He was lucky this was a small ship, and the ceiling was only about 2.5 metres tall. Still, he had to duck and roll, and even then he busted his ankle and landed hard on his leg.
He didn’t have time to scream or to check out his injury.
Instead he limped up to her, dragging his ankle as he plunged down by her side and brought her head up in his trembling hands.
‘Nida?’ he looked down into her face, his heart drawing to a full stop in his chest.
She was out cold.
No, not completely cold; he could feel her warmth. It was a welcome relief.
After she’d had episodes with the entity in the past, she’d always felt colder than deep space.
Now she felt normal.
He leant down and cradled her head close to his, breathing through his shock and sorrow as he did.
Soon he pushed himself up though. Soon he carried her to the med bay.
This ship was small, but it still hurt like hell to carry her that short distance.
His ankle jerked to the side every time he put weight on it. He did it anyway though.
He didn’t stop until he lay her down on one of the beds. Then he set to work mustering all of the equipment he could.
Carson was no doctor, but he still knew enough basic field medicine to hook up the right machines and ask the computer to monitor her status.
Once the system was set up, he barked, ‘what’s her status?’
‘Cadet Nida Harper is unconscious,’ the computer told him in a monotone that belied how serious this situation was.
‘Organ damage?’ he snapped.
‘No. There is no significant damage. She is unconscious.’
He blinked his eyes closed and pressed his fingers hard into the lids. So hard, in fact, he saw stars erupt out at his touch.
Sighing, he tipped his head back. ‘Keep monitoring her. And manufacture and administer whatever you have to to wake her up now.’
‘That is not recommended,’ the computer began.
‘Just do it. As long as it won’t lead to permanent damage, wake her up now.’
The computer did not question him again—instead it set about following his command.
Robotic arms worked to manufacture some kind of drug, and soon enough a dose was administered to the side of her neck.
He didn’t have to wait long to hear her splutter.
He rushed up to her, ignoring how it felt to place weight on his ankle.
‘This system has detected that you are injured, Lieutenant Carson Blake,’ the medical computer noted.
‘I’ll get to that,’ he snapped. Then he returned all his attention to her. He got as close to the bed as he could, leaning down and cupping her chin in his hand. ‘Nida,’ he called to her. ‘Nida, you need to wake up. You need to block the entity out.’
‘Ha?’ she muttered sleepily as she shook her head to the side.
‘Nida,’ he tried to focus her, clutching her chin a little harder, but not so hard that he would do any damage. ‘Listen to my voice. Focus,’ he begged. ‘You have to block the entity off. You just fought it, remember?’
‘ . . . Carson?’
‘Nida, fight it,’ he commanded.
It was a command; he used every gram of authority he could still muster.
She blinked her eyes and finally locked them on him.
‘Block it off, do what you can,’ he told her desperately.
He wanted to tell her how; he wanted to show her exactly what she had to do. The reality was, he didn’t know, though.
He had no idea what it felt like to fight the entity, just as he had no idea how exactly she’d been strong enough to try.
He did know she had to act quickly though. That’s why he’d ordered the computer to wake her up.
The entity had presumably used a lot of energy in its fight with Nida, and now was her chance to capitalise on that fact.
. . . .
There was also the possibility that it would ‘corrupt’ again, whatever that meant. But whatever that word truly indicated, one fact was for sure; there was every possibility that Nida’s body would start pulling objects towards her.
He couldn’t let that happen.
Yet the only thing he could do to try to stop it was to beg, then beg some more.
He watched her eyes focus, then the colour returned to her cheeks. Through it all, he said nothing; he just clutched hold of her chin, looked down into her eyes, and hoped it would all work out.
Eventually she took a steadying breath. ‘It’s like the TI implant,’ she said out of the blue.
‘ . . . What?’
‘Fighting it. Using it. It’s like the TI implant.’
He nodded.
As he did, a single thought danced at the edge of his mind.
Ca
det Nida Harper had never been able to use her implant.
In Commander Sharpe’s words, she’d been ‘more than hopeless’.
Clearly Sharpe was wrong.
Now was not the time to write him a trite message informing him of that fact though. Instead Carson stuttered through a breath, ‘can you lock it off? Can you fight it?’
She finally nodded her head. ‘I can push it back. And it’s weak. Real weak. That fight took it out of it . . . and me,’ she answered with a tired sigh.
‘But you did it. You did it,’ he closed his eyes and swallowed.
He only opened his eyes when he felt her soft hand on his. ‘It’s okay, Carson,’ she said simply.
He looked down to see her smiling.
He smiled too. Despite how not okay it was.
If he’d accused things of happening fast before, then he was wrong. The past half-hour had taught him a new meaning of the term fast.
He swallowed once more, only now realising that he still held her chin in his hand.
He moved to pull away.
She stopped him. She reached up, pressed her hand over his, and pushed it closer to her face.
It was not a strong move; in fact, her touch felt akin to the tickle of a feather.
Soft and gentle.
Though he could force it back with ease, he didn’t.
He enjoyed the warmth of her cheek and her fingers pressing into his instead.
They shared a protracted silence.
It was only broken when Nida let out another weary sigh. ‘What . . . do we do now?’
He had no idea.
None.
Things had just gotten dangerous. No. They’d been seriously dangerous before, but now they were critical.
He wasn’t just fighting for the Coalition any more—he was fighting to figure out what the entity was and to find a way to stop it.
He had no idea how long she could fight against it for, but he now realised he had to find a way to help her. ‘Computer,’ he turned, ‘assess Cadet Harper’s bio signs. Pay special attention to the . . . energetic entity residing in her in left palm. Try to figure out some kind of drug that can block it.’
‘The computer does not understand your request,’ it said diplomatically.
He let out a beleaguered sigh. It had a point; his request hardly made sense to him.
‘Fine, I’ll program it in myself,’ he muttered, resolving to keep trying no matter how hard it seemed.
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