‘Carson?’ Nida glanced at him questioningly as she pulled back, a worried look smoothing her brow. ‘Are you okay? I’m sorry if I was pathetic before. You’ve helped me realize I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. This guilt,’ she swallowed hard, and he could feel the move as it reverberated down her arm and into his, ‘isn’t completely mine. I’ll try to control it. I’ll do what’s right for the Coalition, then I’ll turn my attention to helping the Vex.’
He stepped back from her. No, he jerked away, as if he’d been burnt.
Startled, she held out her hand cautiously. ‘What? Have I done something wrong?’
He laughed. At himself. It was bitter, it was sharp, and it hurt.
Had she done something wrong? No. He had.
‘Carson?’
‘Nida, look, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,’ the words broke free.
‘What?’
‘Nida . . . I . . ..’
‘What, Carson?’
‘They’re going to destroy it,’ he admitted.
He was meant to be a lieutenant in the Coalition. He was meant to be diligent, focused, and trained.
He shouldn't be breaking down and revealing the truth like this. Yes, she needed to know. But he had to be careful.
He couldn’t stop himself though.
Guilt crawled up his spine, crumbling the vertebrae as it did.
‘Destroy what?’ she looked cold, her skin so pale it reminded him of the white icy sheen that picked up along the sides of vessels that flew too close to comets.
He tried to stop himself. He tried to force his training to take hold as he desperately attempted to corral his emotions.
It wouldn’t work.
She had to know.
‘Remus 12. They’re . . . we’re going to destroy it.’
She didn’t say anything.
In fact, she didn’t move. Not even a blink.
Her hand was still held out to him.
It looked like it was carved out of stone.
‘I am so sorry. Nida . . . I just . . . it was the only way. I mean it is the only way. Or I think it’s the only way. Or, shit, I don’t know,’ his words stuck in his throat, and it was murder to force them out.
Not as horrifying as her expression though.
Slowly she thawed, the stiff, locked tension to her body shifting. Then her expression changed. It . . . twisted. Not with anger, but with grief.
Overwhelming grief.
Tears flooded her eyes. ‘What? No. No, they can’t do that. They can’t destroy the Vex. I have to fix it. I . . . we have to do something,’ she sobbed.
‘Nida, I’m so sorry. It’s the only way to be sure the Coalition will survive.’
She shook her head, tears flying from her cheeks at the frantic speed of her move.
He tried to shift towards her. She jerked back.
‘I can’t let them die. They can’t die,’ she begged.
Carson watched in horror.
Blue light began to amass around her left hand.
The light was not powerful enough to bleed up the rest of her arm, but it was noticeable, and cast a distinct glow against her leg.
‘Nida,’ he choked, ‘you’ve got to calm down. Nida, please,’ he twitched forward.
She clamped her hands over her face, jerking backwards like a live wire snapping free from its casing.
‘Nida,’ he reached her, and fell to his knees. ‘Nida, the entity is forcing its way through. Nida, listen to my voice. You’ve got to fight it.’
She kept her hands riveted over her eyes, and he could see tears filter through them.
She stopped twitching backwards though.
He didn’t know what to do.
Call security, and it would freak her out. The last thing she needed now was a distraction. The only hope he had was for her to regain control.
He’d never felt so powerless in his life.
‘Please, just calm down. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Just regain control. Nida, push past it. I’m sorry I lied to you. I’ll fix it. I’ll fix everything. Just fight it.’
She stopped sobbing.
It wasn’t a sign she’d regained control though.
Instead, an eerie silence spread through the room.
She wasn’t even breathing.
‘. . . Nida?’
She stood with her hands pressed so tightly into her face, the skin underneath was white from the pressure.
He swallowed, fear spiking through his heart.
He watched her hand, transfixed by the blue light, waiting for it to erupt out and encase her in full.
It didn’t.
Instead it receded.
It was categorically the most fraught experience of his life.
Eventually, however, it was over.
Nida let her hands fall.
She was back.
The blue light was back to being nothing but a faintly discernable glow.
He let out a breath that had stuck in his chest like a cork in a bottle. ‘ . . . Nida?’ he tried tentatively.
She looked wobbly, and had to press a hand into the window for support.
Her cheeks were blotchy from crying, the rest of her skin pale as powdered bone from the shock of her fight.
‘Are you okay?’ he slowly, carefully got to his feet and reached out to her.
The entity could erupt at any moment and fling him towards the ceiling.
He didn’t care.
He wanted to reach her.
She planted her right hand over the TI and slowly nodded.
‘I . . . I’ve got it. The shock of . . . of finding out what . . . is going to happen,’ she slurred her words, as if she couldn’t afford the energy to speak properly, ‘unsettled my control. I let it get through,’ she admitted.
He nodded, his neck so tense it felt like moving a tree trunk. ‘You’re okay now, though?’
She blinked languidly, but offered a mumbled, ‘yes.’
He breathed hard. Relief washed through him, though not completely.
She looked at him. Despite the fact she looked worn out, a sharpness returned to her gaze. ‘They’re going to destroy Remus 12?’
He couldn’t lie. So he nodded. Again it felt like moving a tree trunk. It also felt like breaking up with her.
Christ, they’d only been together for less than a few days. A few wild, insane days.
And he’d ruined it.
‘I’m so sorry, Nida. I . . .’ he couldn’t defend himself.
She looked nauseous, and clamped the back of her hand to her mouth.
She didn’t say anything.
It was hell to endure her silence.
Moments before, she’d thought he was incredible. What did she think of him now?
‘I . . . can’t defend what I’ve done. The decision is out of my hands now, but that doesn’t change the fact I . . . agreed with it. I thought, and maybe still think, destroying Remus 12 is the only way,’ he admitted painfully.
She watched him.
What she thought, he could only begin to imagine.
He guessed it would be hatred and revulsion.
‘So many lives are at stake,’ he tried to reason, his words quiet as his resolve crumbled before her gaze, ‘the Coalition can’t risk losing to the Vex. They can’t risk fighting them only for their ships to break through any containment line. They can’t risk evacuating Earth, nor do they have the time. They just can’t risk it. It’s the only way to be sure we’ll all survive.’
‘But the Vex will all die.’
‘It’s us or them.’
She stared at him, her attention fixed. Her gaze so piercing, her eyes felt like searchlights. ‘Why?’
‘Because . . .’ he pushed a sweaty, shaking hand through his short hair, ‘that’s the way it is sometimes.’
That’s the way it is sometimes? What kind of explanation was that? Here was his chance to convince her they were doing the right thing. He was stuffing it up. Why? He was no longer sure he was doing t
he right thing . . . .
Maybe she could see his hesitation, because she looked up at him sharply, her usually soft eyes narrowing in clear confusion. ‘Carson?’ she questioned directly, ‘you don’t believe that, do you? You lived through exactly the same experience I did. Granted, you don’t have the entity,’ she noted in a shaking voice as she brought a hand up and clutched her collar, ‘and maybe you’re not as affected by shame as I am. But you’ve met the Vex. Yes, they’re brutal, and yes, they’re willing to do whatever it takes to survive. But we can’t fault them on that, because we're exactly the same. The Coalition is willing to completely obliterate Remus 12, knowing it will condemn the Vex forever. Surely there’s another way.’
She had a point. A terrifying one. When you devoted your life to an institution like the Coalition Academy you did so through pride and duty. You did so because you believed the Coalition did good. Without them, the galaxy would be thrust into anarchy. There'd be nobody to stop the Barbarians nor the Kor Empire. The Coalition existed to foster peace and development.
But this, what they were going to do to Remus 12, sounded like something the Barbarians would do. It was perilously, perilously close to mass genocide. Not just the destruction of one race, but the destruction of their entire history.
He gulped uncomfortably, trying to swallow past a hard lump that had formed at the base of his throat. But no matter how hard he tried to shift it, it wouldn’t.
His emotions were climbing up his back, chilling every muscle and bone as they went.
At once he was pulled between the belief that they needed to destroy Remus 12 for the ensured protection of the Coalition, and yet the realization that if they did, they were no more morally superior than the Vex themselves.
The Vex were only trying to survive, after all.
Perhaps Nida saw her opportunity, because she took a stumbling step forward. One hand was held tightly against her chest, her fingers squeezed into a fist as her skin glistened with sweat. Her eyes wide open, the skin at the edges strained as her corrugated cheeks pulled her lips thin. ‘Carson, please. Think about this. The entire history of Vex is marred by people who are willing to do whatever it takes to fix their mistakes and survive. It’s only because the entity went to extremes in order to repair the damage it had done that Vex ended up like that. And it is only through the entity’s manipulation that the Vex are willing to do whatever it takes to fix their own history. Do we really want to join them? Should the Coalition do whatever it takes, too, or can’t we find some other way?’
Her questions were good. And they needed to be asked. But the conclusion would still be the same.
And Carson knew that. Though the guilt and shame washed over him with the pounding repetition of waves assaulting a shoreline, at the back of his mind he still knew the conclusion would be the same.
Regardless of the fact they would be committing mass genocide by destroying the Vex, the only alternative was to risk the entire Coalition and the continued stability of peace within the Milky Way.
When you are in charge of something like the Coalition, and the direct safety of everybody who called it home, sometimes you weren’t allowed moral luxuries. It was a cold, almost brutal thing to point out, but it was true. Admiral Forest and the rest of the Academy board knew that. If they decided there was some slim chance to save the Vex, and risked the entire Coalition based on that flimsy hope, they would condemn everyone.
Nida had put it best when she had prove to everybody in that meeting that the Vex would do whatever it took to survive. There would be kamikaze pilots, desperate soldiers, and an entire race hell-bent on sacrificing everything if only it saved them in the end.
An enemy like that has no compunction. It will not stop in the face of moral obligations.
So of course there was only one thing the Coalition could do.
Living with that conclusion, was harder than making it. For it made him realize the Coalition wasn’t nearly as good and ethical as he liked to make out.
As all these myriad thoughts chased through his mind, he pressed his lips together, his chin dimpling and creasing with deep emotion as he faced her.
Granted, she wasn’t the best recruit, but surely she understood what was going on here? Despite the effect of the entity, surely Cadet Nida Harper understood the Coalition could not risk itself to save what was very likely a doomed race.
If the entity, an incredibly powerful force, had not found a way to save the Vex in tens of thousands of years, how on earth could the Coalition hope to do it in the little time they had left?
Indeed, there was a far more telling fact. They had already lived through the future Vex attack. They had seen Travis a broken man as he led the survivors through the galaxy.
More important than that, however, was the fact the Vex had not reappeared. If their attack on the Coalition had been successful, and they had finally found the technology they required to fix their timeline, then he would have met them in the future.
But both Nida and Carson had stood upon Remus 12, and it was just as barren and dead as it had been the first time they stood upon it.
Which meant the Coalition simply didn’t have the technology the Vex were after. They couldn’t hope to fix their timeline. So the only thing they should aim to do was to protect the Coalition itself.
He wanted to point all of this out, but it wouldn’t make a difference, would it?
Standing there and staring at her pale cheeks, washed out, emotion filled expression, told him that no words were going to make a difference.
Whatever affect the entity was having on Nida, speaking to her, rationalizing through their decisions, it wasn’t going to make any difference.
So instead Carson took a hesitant step forward, his shoes pushing into the trim tread of the carpet below him softly. Half lifting a hand up to her he parted his lips and whispered her name.
She stared at the hand warily. ‘We can’t do this,’ she tried.
No, they could do this. They shouldn’t have to, but unless he was very much mistaken, there wasn’t an alternative.
There was no way to save the Vex.
‘Nida, please,’ he tried, lifting his hand up higher.
He didn’t want to lose her, which was incredible considering they'd barely been together for more than several days.
It felt longer though, of course it did. They had just endured one of the most stressful missions imaginable. For every step of it, she’d been by his side. He would have wanted no one else.
But now he was facing the very real prospect that she would never want to have anything to do with him again.
Though he could hold onto hope that once the entity was removed, Nida would return to normal, there was every possibility she would still hate him.
He'd lied to her. He'd sided with the Admiralty.
Sure enough, she took a sharp step backwards, then another. For a split second she stared at him, her wide eyes filling with tears. With shimmering, flickering attention, she faced him, then turned around on her heel so sharply her loose hair flicked against her cheeks and shoulder.
He actually stumbled forward, as if reaching a hand out to her had made him lose his balance.’ Nida,’ he said desperately.
She ran away.
Straight for the door.
She was out of it before he could push her name once more from his lips.
He could go after her. Maybe he should go after her.
Yet he found himself standing there, frozen to the spot as if his feet had sunk deep inside the icy body of a comet.
Did he deserve this?
Yes.
He was about to be complicit in the total destruction of an entire race, so he most definitely deserved this.
But did it have to be done?
Yes.
On old Earth there was a saying about being stuck in a Catch-22, being trapped against a rock and a hard place.
Well that was Carson’s life right now.
Yet, he didn’t
stop.
He mustered the courage to turn from the door. His gaze drew naturally to the windows at the opposite side of his office.
Beyond he could see the sprawling grounds of the Academy. People walked along the paths, enjoying the streaming sunshine from above.
Beyond the Academy lay the city and the bay.
Earth had been through much in its short celestial history. Humans had gone from hunters and gatherers to technological masters of their own destiny.
There had been wars, brutal skirmishes, and periods in history so dark it was best not to remember them.
But now, now humanity deserved the peace it had wrought itself.
The city out there, the people below, they deserved this beautiful sunny day in this shiny peaceful city.
Carson would not rob them of that.
If destroying the Vex was the only way to say the countless citizens of the Coalition and ensure the entire peace of the Milky Way, then so be it. Wasn’t it a tremendously small price to pay?
It was wishful thinking to assume they could save the Vex anyway. So why risk all this for such a slim chance?
He couldn’t and he wouldn’t.
He just hoped Nida would understand in time.
Right now, he had to prepare for the mission.
Though it was hard, and it felt as if a little of his heart withered up and died, he turned sharply on his foot and walked towards his desk. Carving a path through the junk, he brought up a holo terminal and got to work.
He was the head of the Force, he could not turn back now.
Yet even as he thought that, he half pushed away from his desk, angling his head down, scanning the grounds below, hoping to see her. That unruly head of messy hair, that uncoordinated, klutzy form, and that smile. The one that took your mind off your problems, and filled you with hope.
He couldn’t see her.
He turned back to his work.
Chapter 16
Cadet Nida Harper
She wasn’t entirely sure what she was doing.
She wasn’t entirely sure what she could do.
She simply knew this was wrong.
Some part of her could appreciate Carson and the rest of the Coalition Academy had a point. An incredibly important one. They could not risk the Coalition with all of its countless worlds and trillions of people on the slim hope of saving the Vex.
Ouroboros- The Complete Series Page 79
