Ouroboros 2: Before

All characters in this publication are fictitious, any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A Galactic Coalition Academy Series

Before

Book Two of Ouroboros

Copyright © 2014 Odette C Bell

Cover art stock photos: Burning and exploding planet Earth © I_g0rZh, Handsome adult man looking up © konstantynov. Licensed through Depositphotos.

This book was previously published under the pen name Monica Shepherd.

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www.odettecbell.com

BEFORE

BOOK TWO OF OUROBOROS

Carson Blake

Had he just . . . travelled through time?

He didn’t want to believe it; he
couldn’t
believe it.

. . . .

Yet he couldn't deny that wherever or whenever he was, he was far, far away from United Galactic Coalition help.

In fact, he was virtually on his own. All he had was Nida.

They had only left the house together briefly, to check the area immediately surrounding it. Thankfully, it appeared to be situated far up a lonely hill, with nothing but rolling pastures and dense forests as company.

It was a rare piece of luck, considering what had been happening to Carson recently.

Once they had ascertained they were alone, they had both gone back inside to thoroughly investigate the house they had appeared in.

Though Carson was trying to make a good show of it, he couldn't hide how tired he was.

The fight with the Barbarians had taken it out of him, but more than that, the use of this strange glowing red device had powered through his energy reserves like a 50 kilometer sprint through sand.

He was beyond dog-tired; every single one of his muscles was filled with a heavy, distracting tingle, and he found himself huffing and puffing after less than a few steps.

Eventually Nida rounded on him and crossed her arms. ‘For god's sake, just sit down and have a rest. I've found what I think is a bed upstairs, and you can have a nap,’ she pointed out.

He chuckled. It was a particularly hoarse and croaky move, but he hoped it relayed his point. He was not about to go and have a lie down. They had quite possibly just been transported through time to an unknown point in Remus 12's history. He wasn't going to indulge in a little sleep. He was going to find out where they were, what was going on at this point in history, and how in the hell they were going to get back to their own time. Oh yeah, he also had that niggling little problem of finding a dimensional bridge before the entity possessing Nida killed her and everything in reality.

So napping was completely out of the question.

Nida did not uncross her arms from in front of her chest though. She simply shook her head, doing an okay impression of a disappointed admiral. For just a second it seemed she had channeled the terse severity of Admiral Lara Forest, but it didn't last. It couldn't with Nida. She had a round and cheerful face, even when she was trying to guilt you.

‘
I am not going to have a sleep,’ Carson finally pointed out through bared teeth. ‘Now follow your orders, Cadet, and continue to assess this property.’

She did not snap him a salute. Instead, she just stood there, tapping her foot on the ground. ‘You look like you are about to fall down, Carson.’

Though it took a great deal of energy, he clamped his hands on his hips and regarded her with the authority of a lieutenant about to tell off a wayward recruit. He even cleared his throat menacingly. ‘Cadet Harper,’ he began.

‘
Don't give me that,’ she snapped. ‘Just sit down,’ she pleaded.

‘
Shouldn't you be the one sitting down?’ He questioned her honestly. ‘You look like hell.’ Though he tried to keep the severe, authoritative note to his tone, he couldn't. His voice broke, for more than one reason. It wasn't just the lethargy creeping in and constricting his throat; it was the memory of what they had just been through.

She brought her fingers up and tenderly touched her pale cheeks. Her eyes were hooded with shadow, and her lips were a worrying bluish pink. ‘I'm fine,’ she said after a moment.

‘
And the entity?’

Slowly she glanced down at her left hand. She pumped the fingers in and out as she stared at the faint trace of blue playing across her skin. For a moment she looked worried, then she shook her head. ‘It is just resting,’ she managed after a lengthy pause.

‘
Precisely, because it has just opened a time gate. Which means you should be resting too,’ he added immediately.

She looked up at him, the move sharp. ‘That is an illogical leap. Just because the entity is tired, doesn't mean that I am too,’ she began.

He let out a harsh, blast of a laugh. It was louder than he had intended it to be, and possibly accentuated how damn drained he felt. But he pushed on, nonetheless. ‘Nida, look at yourself,’ he commanded. ‘Your skin is the color of crushed bone.’

Her eyes blazed as she stared back at him. ‘And what about you, Carson? You don't exactly look like the picture of health. You look as though you’re about to faint. That or die.’

‘
Cadet,’ he snapped, intending to threaten her with disciplinary action.

But she cut him short by walking over to him. Without warning, she hooked her arm over his, and then led him towards a chair.

‘
What are you doing?’ He asked incredulously, ashamed that his voice wavered slightly. It was either his fatigue or her proximity, and he didn't want to admit to either. So he tried to straighten up, and ended up locking his feet in place, using his armor to stiffen his body and prevent her from moving him even a nano centimeter.

She struggled against his bulk, then finally gave up with a huff. ‘God, you are stubborn,’ she spat. ‘We only have each other to rely on here,’ she added under her breath.

‘
You're forgetting something. The chain of command,’ he noted in a dark tone.

She actually doubled back at the exact note of anger in his voice. She even blinked at him in a fearful but still kind of pretty move.

‘
Now, I am giving you an order as a lieutenant,’ Carson began. Then something rather terrible happened. A wave of weakness washed over him, and he found himself stumbling backwards.

Immediately she was by his side, hooking an arm around his waist.

She couldn't hold him though. He was larger than her, and right now he was in very sophisticated armor that was a) hard to get a grip on, and b) heavy as hell.

As he stumbled backwards, he knocked her off her feet, and sent her thumping into the cold stone ground.

He swore, trying to pick himself up, but his shoulders and knees and hips were so tired and weak and wobbly that he could barely move.

‘
Carson,’ she asked worriedly as she wriggled out from underneath him. Then she knelt by his side, picked his head up in her hands, and stared down at him.

When he blinked at her, she pressed her lips together and shook her head. ‘Looks like you need a rest,’ she pointed out sarcastically.

‘
I'm fine,’ he tried.

She just laughed.

Then she let his head go gently.

She took with her that slight, almost enchanting trace of warmth that seemed to collect over her hands and fingers. Maybe it was the entity, or maybe it was just her.

. . . .

But definitely he shouldn't be thinking about it.

Clearing his throat properly, he finally locked his palms next to him and pushed himself up into a sitting position. It felt like he was dragging a mountain.

The type of armor he wore was ridiculously heavy, and relied on an internal motor and an operating system to assist the wearer with moving it. Each section of armored plating was made out of a special reinforced smart metal, and Carson would have absolutely no way of moving it without the help of the armor’s on-board systems.

So as he sat there, his chest rocking back and forth as he panted, he suddenly wondered whether there was something seriously wrong with the armor itself.

That could account for his weak knees and wobbling hands.

With a labored breath, he reached to his side and pulled out his scanner. He opened it, but as he did so, his entire arm shook as if he were holding onto an enormous boulder and not a tiny, featherweight computer.

‘
There must be something wrong with my armor,’ he explained through a raking breath that seemed to drag through his chest as if his lungs had turned into little hands that were being forced to grasp at every last scrap of air they could.

Nida just knelt there by his side watching him. ‘Well?’

It took a long time for Carson's eyes to resolve the image appearing on the scanner. His brain wasn't playing nice, and neither were his fingers as he tried to manipulate the controls. But eventually he got back the readings he wanted to . . . and they confirmed that there was absolutely nothing wrong with his armor. It was operating at 100 percent efficiency. Which meant the problem lay solely with him.

He cleared his throat quietly. ‘It's malfunctioning slightly,’ he said in a high tone, intending to hide the truth from Nida, no matter what it took. Because while he was dog-tired, she was possessed by an entity from another dimension. And if anybody needed rest, it was her.

‘
Don't bother lying,’ she sighed at him, rolling her eyes as she did. Then she brought out her hand and clutched it around his as she took the scanner from him.

He tried to hold onto it, but he couldn't; his hands were wobbling that badly. In fact, he'd probably have trouble holding onto a feather right now.

She looked at the scanner briefly, then shrugged. ‘Now, I might be the worst recruit in 1000 years, but I'm pretty sure this tells me that you, Lieutenant,’ she stressed the word, ‘need to rest before you fall unconscious,’ her voice bottomed out low. Then she looked at him. And a series of complex emotions flew across her expression. Frustration, worry, sorrow, everything.

Though he had been seconds from snapping at her that he wasn't going to take any rest, the words died on his lips.

‘
We are back in the past,’ she noted quietly, and as she did, she held the scanner with one hand and brought her other up to cover her implant. ‘And we are far, far away from any United Galactic Coalition help. We have your armor, this scanner, the entity, and that device,’ she nodded at the implement still covering his right hand. ‘We do not have access to any medical technology. If something goes wrong, and one of us gets injured, we will . . .’ she trailed off.

‘
Nida,’ he said as carefully as he could, ‘we will be fine.’

‘
Yes, we will be fine,
if
we're careful. Now, you're the one who's falling over from fatigue. I'm not. Just go up to one of the bedrooms and rest. I'll look after things down here.’

‘
No, there is so much we have to organize,’ he began, panic actually rising in his chest at the mere thought of closing his eyes and leaving everything to Nida.

Perhaps she could read his mind, because the pleading smile on her face stiffened. ‘What, do you think I will screw everything up if I'm left to my own devices?’

He opened his mouth, but he had absolutely no idea of what to say. Instead, he mutely stared at his hands.

‘
Carson, I will be fine, trust me. I will stay in this building, and I will keep the scanner set to detect any incoming life signs. Now we are out of those tunnels, it has a pretty good range. It will work for a two-kilometer radius, and I’ll set it to constantly scan for any humanoids or sophisticated life forms. Okay?’

He found his shoulders deflating, and as they did, so did his resolve. ‘Okay . . . Cadet,’ he answered out of habit.

This caused her to give a soft laugh.

Despite himself, he joined in.

Then he let her help him to his feet, though again there wasn't much she could do whilst he was wearing his armor. Still, she provided an arm against which he could steady himself, and finally he stood.

Then she pointed to the door. ‘Just up the stairs there's a room with this round . . . bed-shaped thing, I think,’ she said.

He looked at her warily. ‘Bed-shaped thing?’

She shrugged her shoulders, looking sheepish. ‘It's flat and soft, and appears to have blankets on it.’

‘
How about I just sleep in this chair,’ he pointed out as he took a staggering step forward, locked a hand over the armrest of the chair in front of him, and maneuvered his body with great, ungainly effort until he sat roughly.

He sighed heavily then looked up at her.

She pursed her lips and shook her head. ‘You'll hurt your neck if you sleep in that chair. You should go upstairs,’ she began.

He simply raised his hand. Then he settled his head back, secured his arms relatively comfortably over his middle, and closed his eyes. ‘Good night,’ he said pointedly.

He heard her huff heavily, then eventually she walked away. Though, for at least 10 seconds she simply stood there staring down at him, possibly checking to see that he wasn't about to jump back up again.

He winked one eye open to watch her as she slowly walked over to one of the small windows on the far side of the room. With one hand hooked tensely over the long sleeve of her uniform, she held the scanner with the other and stared at it with a morose look haunting her expression.

He suddenly realized how lost and alone she must feel.

Well, alone except for him. But right now he wasn't sure how much company he could be. Though they had been through a lot together, they still didn't really know each other. He didn't know what her middle name was, where she’d grown up, or what she wanted to do if she graduated from the Academy. He had no idea what she liked to do on the weekends, what her favorite food was, or what had made her join the United Galactic Coalition Academy in the first place.