Ouroboros 3: Repeat (19 page)

It was not an answer to her question.

She looked confused, then her eyes drifted down as she once again looked at her device. ‘J’Etem could have learnt to control the entity in a heartbeat,’ she pointed out glumly.

‘
I don’t want J’Etem,’ he said.

Again, he didn’t answer her question.

She looked up again, her gaze flickering and confused. ‘But, anyone else would have been able to do a better job than me.’

‘
Firstly, we don’t know that. The entity might interact with our TI implants and technology, but that does not for a second mean that a TI master would have an easy time fighting it. That’s a huge assumption, and it’s one I don’t buy. And second, I don’t . . . want anyone else . . . but you,’ he added.

At first, it hadn’t been obvious that he wasn’t answering her question, now it was.

She looked up at him. And slowly her confusion melted away.

‘
I . . . ,’ she began.

She stopped.

If time had slowed down before—now it sped up.

It burst forth like a river breaking its banks.

Nida pushed forward, and before he knew it, she was kissing him.

It took a moment for his mind to catch up; his body, however, wasn’t that slow.

He brought his hands up and pressed them into her back as he drew her closer.

It was not a desperate kiss, and he’d certainly had more passionate ones. She wasn’t groping wildly at him, and neither was it a quick peck.

It was a glimpse at a different kind of time. Slow and memorable, he logged away every detail as if he had eternity to do so.

From the warmth of her cheeks, to the soft embrace of her lips, it all imprinted on his mind.

Years from now, he’d be able to close his eyes and remember every microsecond of this experience.

Eventually she pulled away. Though she looked up at him at first, she suddenly stepped away.

As a hot red blush flooded up her cheeks and neck, it was clear she realised what she’d just done.

‘
Sorry,’ she mumbled as she pulled away further, pressing her fingers hard into her lips as if to contain any further kisses that could slow down time.

He couldn’t help but smile in response. In fact, even if the ship had suddenly sprung an oxygen leak or lost a few decks, he would have kept smiling.

This was well over-due. Their relationship had been building for weeks now. Gentle at first, the more they went through, the faster his need to be with her built. It wasn’t all desire though. It wasn’t a passionate longing; it was so much more.

They’d shared something he’d never shared with anyone else. Adversity. Comfort. The struggle to keep going forward.

‘Sorry,’ she repeated again.

‘
 . . . Why?’ he laughed. ‘That you didn’t do that sooner?’

She blinked prettily, her confusion obvious.
‘I . . . shouldn’t have kissed you. I . . . I’m sorry.’

He laughed again.

He felt so relieved.

Which was incredible when you realised he was now entering into one of the most dangerous phases of this mission. In a few hours, the Orion would leave for Remus 12, where Nida would have to fight the full power of the entity to return them to their own time.

Yet he couldn’t deny the surge of relief he now felt. It was as if he’d been liberated from some great burden.

Maybe it was just the prospect her kiss confirmed she was interested in him, maybe it was more.

It didn’t matter. With time, he’d find out.

‘
I’m sorry, Carson,’ she mumbled again.

‘
I’m not,’ he could have pushed forward and kissed her again, but he didn’t. He just stood there in the middle of his room looking at her, trying to let his expression convey everything.

Absolutely everything.

He wanted her to understand from the flickering look in his eyes that he’d never been so sure about something in his life, that he’d never felt this free.

When he’d first met her, he’d thought she was nothing more than an awkward cadet unsuited for the Academy. Now
 . . . there was no point in describing how he felt.

His affections had taken some time to grow, and they weren’t done yet.

So he settled for just looking at her.

‘
I’m not your type,’ she suddenly announced.

‘
Sorry?
’

‘
You like women like Bridget or Cara,’ she added in a soft voice, ‘strong, fiery, wilful, competent. I can barely operate a scanner,’ she reminded him.

Once more, he just stood there, his smile growing even while his confusion at her words did. His body still tingled though, still knew what it wanted.

Connection.

But his mind operated enough to comprehended her words, and he finally frowned.
‘I don’t like Bridget, and as for Cara, she tried to kill me.’

Nida held his gaze for a fraction of a second, then looked down at her hands as she industriously brushed the thumbs together.

‘Nida, I . . . ,’ he trailed off. ‘I can’t think of what to say,’ he quickly admitted, ‘because all I can think of is you.’

This made her look up. Slowly. It was such a delicate move, yet inside her gaze he
caught that flash of determination. No, not a flash; Nida did not have a fiery personality. She was no Cara. Where Cara burnt, Nida moved like water. Gentle and flexible, but when it got going, could extinguish any fire and engulf any heart.

‘
. . . Are you serious?’ she still looked hesitant. ‘You’re Carson Blake,’ she clarified, as if that meant something.

‘
I know who I am. And you’re Nida Harper. What’s your point?’

‘
That . . . you’re the best of the best, and I’m—’ she looked at her hands again.

It wasn’t like her to be small. Not these days anyway. She’d come so far.

In fact, witnessing her incredible transformation first hand made Carson worry that one day he’d be superseded by her. Whilst he’d reached the peak of his abilities, she was just getting started.

Every impossible situation they faced seemed to shut him down, while it just opened her up.

He knew, 100 percent, that given time, she would become brilliant.

She was already brilliant, he reminded himself. But the point was, she would get over any teething problems she had with the Academy, and she would shine. Or maybe she’d leave the Academy and head off into some other area. It didn’t matter; whatever happened next, Nida Harper was just getting started.

Could she see that? Did she really appreciate what she’d done over the past few weeks? Overcoming the entity? Finding out what it wanted? Coming up with a plan to save the Galactic Coalition?

She’d achieved more in a few weeks than most admirals did in their whole careers.

‘Carson . . . you’re,’ she began.

‘
If you’re about to point out I’m Carson Blake again, don’t,’ he laughed softly.

She opened her mouth, then closed it.

Again silence descended over them, and once more time appeared to stretch, slowing to a trickle as it moved around him like the lightest of breezes.

On instinct, he held a hand out to her.

She automatically took it. It happened so quickly, it was clear she hadn’t paused to think.

He closed his fingers around hers just as her eyes drew wide.

‘Make a deal with me,’ he suddenly offered.

She stared at him in surprise, her cheeks still touched with heat.
‘Carson?’

‘
If you don’t point out I’m Carson Blake again, I’ll never mention people used to call you the worst recruit in 1000 years.’

Her surprise turned into mild amusement, her bottom lip wobbling until she offered him a dimpled smile.
‘Ah . . . okay.’

‘
I’m not the person I once was, Nida,’ he added softly, ‘and I’m not sure I ever really was the person you believed me to be.’

Her dimpled smile became more fragile, as her eyes drew wide.
‘Why are you saying this?’

‘
Whoever people thought we were, isn’t who we’ve become. Before you asked whether I would have wanted to be stuck on this mission with someone else. If you’d asked me that a month ago, when it had begun, I might have answered yes,’ he told her truthfully. But before she could look crestfallen, he added, ‘I would have been wrong. I wouldn’t be here today without you.’

His last statement had multiple meanings. Not only would he have died long ago without Nida’s help, but he wouldn’t have wanted to get this far with anyone else. Not a member of the Force, not an admiral, not J’Etem, not Travis. No one else.

Slowly her smile returned, puffing up one cheek, then the other.

Again they shared the most glorious moment of silence, and once more it stretched longer than ordinary time would allow for. All around him, he swore he could glimpse eternity.

Then she brought her bottom lip down and sunk her teeth into it. ‘Is this just an excuse to hold my hand?’

He spluttered, but the move quickly turned into a laugh.
‘I kind of hope I’m smoother than that,’ he added through another light chuckle.

She joined in.

They petered out together. They stopped. They looked across into each other’s eyes, and they kissed again.

He couldn’t describe it; he didn’t want to. No analytic part of his mind registered activity as his lips were pressed against hers. The rest of him sung though. It tingled. It shone.

He logged it all away though. Every moment, every feeling, because he would need it.

This was the calm before the storm. Their last friendly port before they struck out on the final chapter of their journey.

Cadet Nida Harper

She didn’t know whether to be wildly happy or cripplingly sad.

Carson felt the same way about her, she knew that now.

But knowing that brought something new.

It raised the stakes.

She wasn’t just doing this for the United Galactic Coalition. She wasn’t just doing this to figure out some way to help the Vex—if in fact she could. No, now she didn’t want to lose him.

She’d had him for barely a few hours, but that was enough to know she couldn’t fail him.

She was standing just outside of the bridge of the Orion. Travis and Carson were inside, discussing and re-discussing their battle plans.

Meanwhile she stood in the corridor with her head directed up at the view beyond. There were large windows running along the top half of the wall, and she considered that dark mass of space behind them. She focussed on those bright dots of stars.

To think the entity had once made her believe that it could pull them from the sky. That, if she didn’t do everything she could to stop it from becoming ‘corrupted’ it would destroy the universe.

As she stood there and concentrated on those luminescent specks scattered over the dark blues and blacks of space, she started to understand.

The stars might not fall from the sky if the entity failed, but they would fall from Vex’s sky. Because everything the entity had done was about that lonely planet lost in time.

Not for the first time, and not for last, she stared at the TI device locked around her left wrist.

Carson had suggested that, with time, she might learn to control the entity, drawing on its power to manipulate objects just like an ordinary implant allowed one to move TI blocks and poles.

 
. . . .

Could she do that?

As she stared at the device, she pushed deep to find the entity.

It was still there.

And yeah, she could sense its power. With just a little concentration, she could probably find a way to use that power too. She could open more than a time gate—she could probably open a hole in the hull before her. She could lift a cruiser, she could mow down an army.

At that thought, her head jerked to the side, tears briefly swelling in her eyes.

She remembered what it had done to the Barbarians. Even though they were undisputed enemies of the United Galactic Coalition, no one deserved to die with such brutality.

So she wouldn’t turn into it. She made a promise to herself then and there that whatever she faced, she would not succumb to the full power of the entity.

She would only use it to get the mission done, nothing further.

‘
Hey, what are you looking at?’ someone asked softly behind her.

She knew who it was long before she turned to face him.

Carson.

She wanted to jump back into his arms.

She wanted to stay pressed up against him until time stopped again, and it was just the two of them.

Maybe he saw that desire flickering in his eyes, because he gave a discrete cough as Travis walked up behind him.

‘You ready?’ Travis asked directly. He didn’t pause to say hello, he didn’t check to see how she was—he just looked at her right in the eye and asked if it was time.

Yeah, it was time, and yeah, she was ready.

With a private little sigh, she nodded her head. Then she saluted. Because Travis was technically a captain, and she was technically still a cadet.

Travis offered her one in return, then blew a breath of air through his teeth.
‘I can’t believe we’re going back there,’ he said quietly.

Her skin chilled as she realised what he was saying.

The last time Travis and the Orion were at Remus 12, was when most of the coalition had been destroyed.

‘
It will take us less than a day,’ he suddenly announced. ‘With so few ships left in the fleet, no one else is hogging the priority transport routes,’ he explained in a hoarse voice.

Both Nida and Carson just nodded in silence.

‘The Orion will be ready for anything, I’ll promise you that. This crew isn’t big, but we’ll do what we can. Which reminds me, how’s the TI device going?’ he nodded down at her left hand.

She brought it up and considered it as she sucked in a calming breath.

Whether she wanted to stop time or not, it would no longer be slowed down.

She could feel the situation building and building.

It felt like she’d been standing in a babbling brook that had just turned into a raging river. She would be washed forward no matter what she held onto.

Despite that thought, she got the sudden urge to hold onto Carson just to see if that, amongst everything in the universe, could keep her still.

She didn’t though.

She just swallowed a smile and nodded once more.
‘It’s doing its job. I can still feel the entity, but it’s like there’s a wall between us. It can’t get to me, but I think I can still get to it,’ she added.

‘
That’s exactly what I want to hear,’ Travis conceded with another beleaguered sigh. ‘Now we just have to get you two back to Remus 12, and you have to open a time gate, go through, and fix this,’ his tone became firm and sure as he finished, then, seemingly out of the blue, he gave a hiccup of a laugh. ‘Wow, I can’t believe I just said that. That doesn’t sound like a mission plan—it sounds like a bad plot from one of those ridiculous adventure books Carson used to read as a kid.’

‘
Hey,’ Carson jumped to his own defence, ‘they had a certain kind of charm.’

‘
Yeah, but plausibility wasn’t it,’ Travis chuckled again. All too soon his chuckling ended though. ‘I guess I can’t fight the reality under my nose though. Like it or not, that’s the plan. I’m man enough to just throw a salute and get on with the job.’

‘
That’s very big of you,’ Carson said through a light laugh. ‘But I bet the fact time travel is possible is going to fuel quite a few drunken ramblings in the future. I imagine I’m going to have to put up with some seriously bizarre questions from you when this is all over.’

Travis began smiling, then he stopped.

She knew why.

They would never see this Travis again.

If they managed to change their time line, he would just . . . no longer exist.

Carson coughed, his cheeks slackening, all trace of humour melting away from his expression.

‘You’ll fix this,’ Travis nodded once at his friend, ‘you’re still the leader of the Force.’

Carson didn’t say anything.

A moment that had begun light and friendly, was now dark and sad.

Because no matter what Nida found to distract herself, her mission remained.

She forced herself to stand straighter, forced her chin to lift.

She could do this.

As she pushed tentatively past the wall the TI device erected between her and the entity, she could sense its power still pulsing within.

She knew she could open another time gate.

‘Well then, I guess there’s nothing more to be said,’ Travis pointed out as he took a solid step backward.

‘
There’s one more thing,’ Carson stopped him and pushed out a hand. ‘Tell us good luck, because I think we’ll need it.’

Travis looked momentarily confused.
‘You’ll be fine. Even though you’ll face off against Barbarians when Nida opens that gate, we’ll ensure you have enough fire power to fight them off. Plus, we’ll send through a Class 1 Deep-space Communication Microarray with you, and the second you arrive in your own time, it will send an encoded message to the United Galactic Coalition, telling them everything. Even if something were to happen to you and Nida,’ Travis said in a quiet tone, ‘it would do the job. It’ll warn our friends.’

Carson nodded.

. . . .

Nida didn’t.

That tight feeling was back in her stomach. The one that told her this would not be as easy as it seemed.

Though both Carson and Nida already knew that the Barbarians would be waiting for them when they got back to their own time line, that wasn’t what made her stomach suddenly tense.

. . . .

She just knew it wasn’t over.

It wasn’t going to be easy.

This journey had been hard from the outset, and it wasn’t about to change now.

Yet now she had something she hadn’t had before.

And that something—some one, rather—turned and offered her a low and reassuring nod.

‘Everything will be fine,’ Travis tried.

Carson just looked at her, and she looked back.

They shared a deep connection in that moment, one that told her he felt exactly like she did.

That there had to be more.

Yet at the same time, neither of them were going to turn away.

As if to confirm that fact, they both spun on their heels and snapped Travis a salute.

‘Captain, thank you for your assistance,’ Carson said.

‘
We won’t let you down,’ she added.

Travis snapped a salute in return, then, with a nod, turned and walked back to the bridge.

‘I never thought I’d say this,’ Carson acknowledged in a quiet tone when Travis was out of earshot, ‘but command actually suits him.’

She smiled.

And when Carson turned to look her way, her smile grew.

It was not a distinctly happy move though; it did not brighten her cheeks nor make her gaze dance with energy.

It was just . . . all she could manage right now.

Without a word, he walked up to her, and as one they turned to the view.

They both looked up at the stars shining beyond.

‘
It’ll be fine; we’ll do everything we can. We’ve both come a long way,’ he added.

She reached out her hand and grabbed his.

They were standing side-by-side, so she did not have to reach far.

Still, it was probably something she shouldn’t do in public.

Though it wasn’t against the rules for two members of the Academy to get together, it was frowned upon. Relationships, after all, made work uncomfortable.

Carson didn’t pull away though. Instead he locked his fingers tighter around hers.

He could have been smiling, but she couldn’t see it; he still had his face directed at the view beyond them.

Space.

Infinity given form.

Carson kept ahold of her hand, and she kept ahold of his until finally he was called away.

Then all she had to do was wait.

They would reach Remus 12 soon.

And the final chapter of their journey would begin.