Ouroboros 4: End (20 page)

Cadet Nida Harper

She bolted awake.

She flung herself forward.

‘Whoa, hold on there, Harper, you lost unconsciousness,’ someone said.

She blinked into the darkness.

Sharpe?

. . . .

What happened?

The entity, the time gate, what happened?

She pressed her fingers into the dust around her and tried to push herself up, but there was a horrible pain slicing into her side. She wheezed and brought her hand to her rib, quickly realizing it was likely broken.

. . . .

How the heck had she broken her rib?

As she surveyed her surroundings desperately, trying to make sense of what had just happened, she saw another form lying in the dust. She inched closer.

It was Carson.

She jolted, practically flinging herself at him. ‘Carson? Carson?’

‘He just lost consciousness,’ Sharpe said in a surprise but still terse tone. ‘And he should be Lieutenant Blake to you, Harper.’

What was happening?

She locked a hand on Carson’s shoulder and shook it gently. He began to rouse.

Groggily, he pushed himself up. Just as he pressed his fingers into his brow, blinking one eye open, he saw her.

There was a moment.

A strange one. It seemed to stretch on forever.

Her mind was finally catching up to her situation. The entity had deposited her back in the present, but not the present where the Chronos had been seconds away from destroying Remus 12, but when this mess had all begun.

Back when she’d first encountered the entity.

The exact moment, in fact, where Carson Blake and Sharpe had come across her in the dark after she’d touched the stone holding the entity.

As she wheezed through another breath, she had all the evidence she needed that her rib was certainly broken.

A horrible possibility suddenly struck: what if . . . somehow, it had all been some crazy dream?

What if she really had tripped in the dark, smacked her noggin, and dreamed the past few crazy months of her life?

Just as that possibility flashed through her consciousness, Carson stared at her.

Then he flung himself forward, wrapping his arms around her middle. ‘Nida,’ he said in a choking voice.

‘Blake?’ Commander Sharpe spluttered. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

Relief surged through her. It owned her. She had never felt such a powerful emotion.

It was over.

They were back.

They’d done it. The impossible. They’d fixed Vex and returned to the present.

Just as Carson hugged her tighter, she gasped. She did have a broken rib after all.

‘What is it?’ he asked in a worried tone.

She shifted back from him, pressing her hand into her side. ‘I kind of broke my rib,’ she managed.

‘Yes, you kind of did, Cadet,’ Sharpe snapped, ‘now what the hell are you two doing? I thought you didn’t know each other?’

Carson now snapped his head towards Sharpe. ‘Commander?’

‘Yes, I’m still here. Now, Lieutenant, do you mind telling me—’ he began.

Carson suddenly pushed himself up. He rocketed to his feet so quickly it was a surprise he didn’t take off and head out into space. ‘This planet is about to realign,’ he spluttered.

Her cheeks paled. She’d almost forgotten about that part.

‘The entity told us we had minutes,’ he said as he leaned down towards her.

‘Entity? Realign? Minutes?’ Sharpe jumped to his own feet. ‘Did you hit your head, Blake?’

‘Ha, I wish it were that simple,’ Carson muttered as he gently reached down and picked Nida up.

There was a moment where their eyes met.

She had to use all of her determination not to kiss him. Not in front of Sharpe. The Commander would kill her.

The look in Carson’s eyes was too much to resist, though.

As he leaned down, she pressed a hand into his cheek and kissed him.

He kissed her back, albeit quickly, as he lifted her up, careful not to bang her rib.

‘Harper?!’ Sharpe practically blew a gasket. ‘What in god’s name are you doing?’

‘No time to explain, Commander,’ Carson said as he started running towards the camp.

‘You know, I can probably walk on my own,’ Nida managed.

‘I’m sure you can; you fixed Vex’s timeline. Cadet Nida Harper, you can do anything,’ Carson said as he nonetheless carried her forward. ‘But we need to hurry; we’re running out of time.’

She couldn’t help but offer a soft laugh at that.

Running out of time?

They weren’t running out of time. They were creating it.

In minutes, Vex would realign. Their stolen history would be reclaimed.

‘What are you two doing?’ Sharpe screamed from behind them.

‘There’s no time to explain, Commander,’ Carson shouted back, ‘something is about to happen to this planet. We need to make it back to the transport and get everybody on board.’

‘Blake?’

‘Trust me,’ Carson thundered back. ‘I sure hope the entity is right,’ he added under his breath.

She placed a hand on his chest and nodded.

The entity was right.

Nida could feel it.

This planet was about to realign.

They made it back to the rest of the group in short time, and Cadet J’Etem spluttered in surprise as she saw Nida being carried in Carson Blake’s arms.

‘Nida? Are you okay? What happened?’ Her friend rushed up to her.

‘Everybody into the transport craft, now,’ Carson screamed.

‘No,’ Commander Sharpe shot back from behind him as he came to a spluttering stop. ‘I have no idea what you two are doing—’ he began.

‘Look,’ Nida pointed towards the horizon.

Dusk had just fallen, but off on the distance a light started to fall.

Blue, vivid, and racing towards them.

It took a few seconds for everybody to see it, but when they did, Sharpe was the first to react, ‘get to the transport, now,’ he screamed.

They were all seasoned officers and capable cadets, and everyone did as they were told.

In less than two minutes, everyone was on board.

In less than a minute, the ship took off.

A minute after that, Vex realigned.

She watched it from space, with one hand pressed against the portal, Carson just beside her.

In stunned silence, they both watched.

An arc of blue raced across the planet. That once barren dust bowl of a world changed.

Oceans appeared, green continents dotted amongst them. The brown gave way to life.

Vivid, colorful, splendid life.

Vex.

Everybody else in the transport including Commander Sharpe watched in stunned silence.

They would never have seen anything like this and nor would they have been prepared for it.

But Carson and Nida turned to each other, smiles spreading across their lips.

They’d done it.

They’d won, and God knows they’d earned it.

Carson Blake

He hadn’t told them everything.

Though the Academy Board had pressed him for details, Carson Blake had kept his tale short.

They wouldn’t believe him, anyway.

Travelling through time, using the power of an interdimensional entity, and finally doing the impossible by realigning an entire planet’s timeline?

Yeah, he knew enough about the Academy Board to realize that story would get him locked away.

And he couldn’t afford to be locked away right now.

He smiled across the table at her. They were sitting in his apartment, and she had her head angled towards the view. ‘Your view is better than mine,’ she said matter-of-factly.

He laughed softly. ‘It’s practically the same.’

‘No, it isn’t,’ she shook her head, her hair shifting across her shoulders. She hooked it behind her ears distractedly, and the move distracted him too.

Everything about her distracted him.

Cadet Nida Harper.

He wasn’t going to do her the injustice of referring to her as the worst recruit in 1000 years. It had always been a lie.

She was incredible.

‘Why are you smiling at me like that?’ She turned back to him, her eyebrows furrowing in the cutest of ways.

‘What, I’m not allowed to smile? We’ve been thrust through time on an impossible adventure, and somehow we pulled through. Are you saying I shouldn’t smile at that? Because you’re crazy if you think that.’

She pressed her lips together and shook her head. ‘Okay, you can smile. But seriously, your view is better than mine. It figures, considering you’re the great Carson Blake.’

‘I’m the great Carson Blake,’ he pressed a hand into his chest, shifting around the table until he sat right next to her. ‘I wasn’t the one who managed to fix the Vex’s timeline. I wasn’t the one who managed to get the entity to send us back to the present. I wasn’t the one who ended this,’ he said as he reached up and brushed the last few strands out of her face and behind her ears.

‘Nope, you’re the one who has the questionable accolade of currently dating the worst recruit in the entire Academy. Nobody out there knows what we did on Vex, not what we really did. They’re too busy dealing with the fact that an entire planet just popped into existence and how to help its inhabitants. Nope, to everybody out there, I’m still the worst recruit in 1000 years.’ As she concluded that, she brought a hand up and rested her chin on it. ‘But it’s okay. I have practice pushing on no matter the odds.’

‘You’re incredible,’ he said seriously, ‘and you were never the worst recruit 1000 years. I’ll admit, you weren’t the best cadet, but you’re the only person who could have saved the Vex, Nida. Don’t put yourself down, you don’t deserve it.’

She considered him quietly. ‘It’s okay, I’m over it now. It doesn’t matter what everybody else thinks. Sharpe’s advice has finally sunk in,’ she tapped her chest lightly, ‘all that matters is you do what’s right. Bradley and Bridget can think what they want, but in time they’ll learn that lesson too.’

He replied by kissing her softly on the head.

He still couldn’t believe how lucky he was.

People kind of thought he was mad for dating Nida, but soon enough they’d understand.

Given the chance, she’d show them just what she was capable of.

‘Ooh, I have something to show you,’ she suddenly said as she pulled back from him.

‘It better be good, because I was kind of enjoying kissing you in the sunshine,’ he said honestly as he nonetheless turned to see what she was doing.

‘Just wait here,’ she said as she ran into his room.

‘You better not be cleaning up in there,’ he quipped.

After a few seconds of rummaging around, she dashed out, her bare feet slapping against the smooth floor. She had something behind her back.

Dutifully, he stepped up, placed his hand on his hips, tried to muster a serious look on his face, and raised an eyebrow. ‘Have you just stolen something from a lieutenant’s room, Cadet?’

She nodded happily.

‘Well, what is it?’ He laughed.

She brought around a TI training cube.

His eyebrows crumpled. ‘What are you doing with that?’

She put a hand up. She placed the TI cradle on the table, pulled the cube out, and held it in her palm.

‘Ah, Nida?’

‘The entity left me a little gift, I think,’ she said in a suddenly thoughtful tone as her eyes drifted down to her left hand briefly. Then, to his complete surprise, she flicked the TI block up, and controlled it completely.

In the past, he’d seen what she was like with TI objects. Woeful.

Now, she commanded that cube with a finesse rarely seen. She had complete control of it as she spun it around the room.

He was actually speechless. Then his memory caught up with him. She’d achieved far more than this. She’d learned to control the entity, for god’s sake, getting it to open time gates and save the Vex.

TI objects would be nothing to her now.

He started to laugh. ‘Wow,’ he managed.

‘I know, right? I can’t wait to show Sharpe. It’s only taken a couple of years and a crazy adventure through time, but I finally learnt to master a level one training cube,’ she said as she shrugged her shoulders cutely.

He laughed again. ‘You are doing more than mastering it; you’ve got full control there. I’d wager you’ll jump from the bottom of the class to the top. You’ll probably be the best TI master at the Academy,’ he said truthfully.

She sunk her teeth into her bottom lip, and flicked her finger to the side, sending the TI object down towards its cradle without even having to look at it.

She walked up to him, standing right by his side. ‘But you’re the best TI master of the Academy.’

‘Not anymore.’

‘How about we share.’

She took a step towards him. Pushing up on her toes.

They kissed.

He put his all into that kiss. All the fear and frustration and anger and hope. Everything the past few months had forced him to endure.

This made it all worth it.

She had her hands wrapped around his jaw, and his were pressed into her back and shoulder.

The sunlight streamed in behind, warming them up.

It was a perfect day.

So they kissed again.

The end of the Ouroboros series.