Ouroboros 1: Start

by Odette C. Bell

  He was running out of time. Which was a terrifying concept considering he didn’t even know how much time he had left, let alone how quickly he was running out of it. Yet he could not deny that with every second he stood there and waited for his ship to be ready, it felt as if he were throwing away the most precious resource he had left.

  He tried to distract himself with watching the ship dock around him. Usually it was a startling sight. An enormous ring-shaped building with an open roof that led straight up to an unrivalled view of the picturesque blue sky above.

  Within the building itself were multiple levels, all made of enormous, reinforced metal floors that could slide back into the sides of the building to allow ships docked on the lower levels to leave.

  It was a testament to technology, and showed just how powerful the Galactic Coalition Academy was. There was no other ship-docking complex like this on Earth, and the majority of Academy traffic came through here.

  Well, at least the majority of the spaceship traffic that actually landed on Earth. The larger vessels, from the enormous Coalition cruisers to the gigantic survey ships and resource transports, never landed on the planet. They always remained in space, only ever taking up orbit around the world, but never descending to the surface.

  Still, the small cruisers and reconnaissance vessels that were currently housed in this building were impressive enough.

  In fact, one of them in particular caught his eye as he stared across the expansive, glistening, white metal floor in front of him.

  There was a sleek-looking, blue and black cruiser about the size of a house, but narrower and with a long, almost elegant, pointed nose.

  It took him a moment to recognise the design, and he quickly realised it was one of the Academy’s newest and most experimental of ships. It was fast, it was powerful, and as an engineer gestured towards it, Carson realised it was his.

  He swallowed his shock as the engineer marched up and told him he could now take off.

  When Admiral Forest had given Carson the go-ahead to return to Remus 12, he had assumed she'd done so only out of loyalty, not because she genuinely thought it was a good idea. Yet as he stared at the experimental vessel she had chosen for him, he had to reassess his assumption.

  “She is called the Farsight,” the engineer said as he scratched grease-covered fingers over his stubble-rayed chin.

  “Damn,” Carson couldn’t keep the surprise from his tone.

  “Yeah, I know, right? Beautiful, but that being said, don’t scratch it,” the engineer grumbled. “The controls are easy enough; the same as all Academy light cruisers. This one is armed to the teeth though. So if you get in a fight, remember that. It’s a pretty big vessel for one person, but the Admiral told me you’re going on your own, so be sure to set the computer to automate all engine and systems maintenance,” the guy continued.

  Carson nodded his head, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the vessel. It wasn’t just that it was an objectively incredible sight, and clearly the pinnacle of current Coalition technology. Oh no, what commanded his attention was what it meant.

  . . . .

  Why the hell was Forest giving him this ship? Especially when she thought he was going on a useless mission.

  Something wasn’t right here, but he didn’t have the luxury of time to try to find out what it was. Instead, he snapped a salute at the engineer, then walked across the cavernous, echoing room towards his vessel.

  The closer he got, the tighter a knot formed in his stomach, until he finally reached the vessel, and it felt as though he would double over from the nerves welling within him.

  He kept walking though, and finally reached the open hangar door at the back of the ship. Walking up the reverberating ramp, he was struck by how sleek everything was inside. It was composed of smooth, elegant lines and forms, and everything was coloured in shades of clean white, shiny silver, and matte black.

  Once he made it into the belly of the vessel, he walked over to the nearest lit up panel, and he pressed several buttons in sequence, causing the hangar door to close. It didn’t creak and nor did the ship shudder; everything moved smoothly and with perfect precision.

  Realising he could hardly stand there and stare boggled eyed at this marvellous technology, he quickly whirled on his foot, headed out of the hangar bay, and into the rest of the ship.

  He briefly toured the major rooms: the compact engineering bay, the small but well-serviced galley, the main quarters, and the bridge. Feeling satisfied that everything was in order, he finally sat down in the captain’s seat. Then, with several brief commands to the computer, the ship hummed into life. It didn’t roar or rumble like a Coalition heavy cruiser; the sound of the engines as they pulsed into life barely registered.

  Offering a brief smile at how incredible this ship was, he settled into the back of his seat and watched the view screen as the cruiser took off.

  It was so automated that he didn’t have to offer the computer another single command; the ship simply followed a set exit protocol, and flew itself out of the narrow aperture of the Academy main dock. It shot into the air, and as it burst free from the open-ceiling, swathes of blue sky and white cloud surrounded it. With a single blink, the view of the city transformed from an enormous, sprawling, well-lit metropolis, to nothing but a dot on the edge of a continent. The ship moved that fast.

  Carson chuckled to himself, then with a swallow, he realised how serious the situation was, and he stiffened his smile into a frown. “Come on,” he said under his breath, begging the universe for some much-needed luck, “come on,” he repeated one last time.

  Then he settled back and he waited. He did what he could, running through the ship’s diagnostics to confirm that everything was working. Then he double-checked the navigation coordinates, to ensure he was on track for Remus 12.

  Then . . . well, he kicked his shoes off, closed his eyes, and fell asleep.

  There was nothing more to be done.

  Soon he would reach his destination, and he knew he should take the opportunity to rest now.

  But rest he would not, for though Carson did not appreciate it, at that moment, a surprise was headed his way.

  Cadet Nida Harper, to be specific.

  Chapter 23

  Cadet Nida Harper

  She could not sleep.

  Neither could she talk.

  In fact, she could barely think.

  Because something was happening to her. Something terrible.

  The pain in her chest kept building and building, and as she stared down at her hand, with a surge of incapacitating terror she saw blue tendrils of energy driving under her skin.

  She tried to bat at it, tried to grab it and pull it from her veins, but it was too insubstantial to touch. Yet she could feel it as it wiggled its way through her flesh.

  She wanted to cry out, she wanted to scream and tell the doctors what was happening to her, but she couldn’t move her lips. They were numb. No, worse than numb—they felt as stiff as the carved mouth of a statue.

  That particular image stuck in her mind, and could not be dislodged even as another surge of panic washed over her.

  She was still in the same cavernous hospital room, and the doctors were still trying, apparently, to stabilise the stasis force field that enshrouded her.

  Occasionally she watched the flickering orange and blue light, but now the only light that held her attention was that which had invaded her bloodstream.

  The doctors no longer seemed to pay much attention to her; they had grown used to the fact they could not calm her down, and now barely glanced up every time she tried to scrape the luminescent blue energy from her body.

  No matter how many drugs the robotic arm injected into her neck, they had no effect. She would feel their cool rush as they entered her body, but the tingles from the blue energy would soon surround and obliterate the drug.

  With every passing second, a sense of desperation grew within. Doom and malaise and terror pressed in on h
er, reminding her exactly of how the rubble of that planet had swirled and pitched and circled around her crumpled body.

  She tried to beg for help, but again she couldn’t move her lips, and neither could she force her voice to ring aloud. All she could do was beg over and over again in the confines of her mind.

  It was truly horrifying, agonising even, terrifying on a level she had never experienced before. And with every passing moment, it grew until she felt she would break, the fear carving her in half.

  She could no longer listen to the scientists as they muttered and debated how to strengthen the field. All she could do was lie there and ride it out.

  Just as it seemed as if she could take no more, something happened.

  Her body calmed, her limbs drawing still as a last, small jerk passed through them.

  Before she could wonder whether the robotic arm had just injected a far more powerful drug into her body, something happened to her mind. It began to fill with this warm, comforting presence.

  As it did, she was immediately reminded of a sight she had once seen. A beautiful statue of a smiling woman with a long dress and stunning hair carved in flowing lines around her.

  It was the smile more than anything—the remembered angle of the lips and the compassionate edge to the statue's gaze—that finally calmed Nida enough to stop trying to tear the blue energy from her veins.

  That presence filled her mind. It built and built, expanding into every crack of fear that had broken her will, until the anxiety lost all hold of her.

  “We must return home,” the presence spoke. Though it had no voice, somehow its meaning and intent solidified in Nida’s mind.

  Home.

  They had to return home.

  To the barren wasteland of the world the humans and Coalition referred to as Remus 12.

  Nida concentrated on that fact, and she let that glowing, warm presence calm her.

  “We cannot stay here any longer; we will corrupt, we will destroy,” the presence said, again its voice little more than solidified thought.

  Nida had to struggle to understand the words; she was losing all sense of herself, and could barely concentrate for more than several seconds at a time.

  But slowly she understood.

  Slowly the pieces started to fit together.

  And with it, a final memory slammed into place like a key being shoved into a lock.

  Nida remembered exactly what had happened to her on Remus 12.

  She recalled coming across that second set of stairs and falling down it. She'd broken her ribs, done something to her ankle, and she had lost Carson Blake's scanner in the dark. Then she had clambered up the wrong set of stairs, only to find herself in an enormous room, completely empty save for a startling statue.

  As Nida lay there following her memories, she recalled, in perfect detail, how she had walked up to the statue, marvelled at its unique beauty, and then . . . she had reached out a hand to touch the blue, glowing orb it had held.

  That was when everything had started. That was when the energy from the orb had exploded and rushed into Nida.

  She remembered it so clearly it was as if she was experiencing it anew.

  As that memory ebbed, and she again became aware of the hard medical bed below her, she opened her eyes.

  As she did, she felt something build up behind them, and she saw the world cast into a curious blue glow.

  With a disconnected certainty, she realised the energy from her left hand had possessed her eyes. In fact, as she glanced down at her body, she now realised she glowed from head to foot.

  Glancing up at the stasis field above her, she stared on in mild curiosity as the thing began to flicker. Great arcs of energy passed across it, and the orange glow became incandescent, flecks of fiery red cracking across it like plumes of larva spilling up from fissures in the earth.

  She heard the scientists screaming now. Their voices were distinct, and yet Nida did not have the concentration necessary to understand them. Instead, she marvelled at the feeling flowing through her.

  She no longer felt pain, no agony, no sickness.

  With the memory of what had truly happened to her on Remus 12, the mystery of the energy no longer haunted her.

  She understood what it was. She knew where it belonged. And as she slowly pushed herself up from her hard bed, she realised she had to take it home.

  That disembodied voice in her mind once again repeated that they had to leave Earth before they became corrupted.

  Nida did not understand what corrupted meant, but in a flash, she saw herself walking through the halls of the Academy again, destroying everything in her path. Taking sadistic, horrible pleasure in crippling and crushing everybody that stood in her way.

  “The stasis field is failing,” she heard one woman scream.

  “Jesus Christ, the generator is buckling,” another man noted with a keening cry.

  As Nida sat up, she stared through the malfunctioning field at the rest of the room.

  The machines that generated the energetic veil holding her in place were starting to warp. The metal was stretching, buckling, and groaning as it shifted closer towards the field, as if pulled by an invisible hand.

  “We have to do something,” someone screamed.

  Nida did not hear them answer.

  Instead, she stood up. As she shifted her weight to her feet, again, she found herself staring down, and she watched that blue distinctive energy trace its way over every centimetre of her skin.

  This time she did not flinch though. She no longer brought her fingernails up and dug them into her flesh as far as they would go, trying to root out every last scrap of that energy.

  Instead, she opened herself up to it.

  She surrendered to that soft, welcoming presence in her mind that told her in sweet, reassuring tones that as long as she returned home, everything would be fine.

  Everything would be fine.

  Nida took a step forward. She wasn't entirely in control of her body; it was only in concert with the presence in her mind that she managed to move her limbs.

  Though everything she knew about stasis fields told her not to reach out a hand and touch one, she did it anyway. And as her blue, glowing fingers pressed against the side of the field, it failed. In an incredible, gushing ray of sparks, the machines that manufactured it exploded.

  People screamed.

  She wanted to tell them it would be okay, but she couldn't.

  Instead, she took a laboured step forward, her movements jerky.

  She felt like a puppet being pulled along by strings, but nonetheless she made her way across the room.

  With every step she took, the devices and machines around her shifted closer towards her body.

  They grated across the floor, no matter how big nor heavy they were. Some even lifted into the air as if they had cancelled out the effects of gravity.

  Though they circled her, she did not fear they would rush towards her and crush her body.

  She simply ignored them and took yet another strained step forward.

  She was no longer aware of what the scientists were doing. She simply concentrated on the door on the other side of the room.

  She could hear some kind of alarm blaring, and the part of her that still remembered her Academy training knew it was a red alert.

  Red alert . . . ? That was serious. That would call the Academy's combined security force.

  She would not be able to get out of here. They would put every single obstacle in her path until they slowed her down. If that wouldn’t work, they would likely kill her.

  Despite that realisation, she did not stop. It did not really affect her. With the warm, reassuring presence in her mind, little could.

  She finally reached the door, and as she did, it opened.

  A team of black-clad security guards brought up their weapons and pointed them right at her.

  She should have doubled back; she should have put her hands over her head and begged fo
r mercy.

  She didn't.

  She simply took a shuddering step forward.

  The man directly in front of her was wearing a helmet that matched his black armour, but it only half covered his face. She could see his mouth, and right now, she watched as it dropped open in unmistakable fear. “Don't move,” he cried, and that same command was picked up and repeated by every member of his team.

  She took another step forward, staring at the barrel of his gun as he pointed it at her.

  She realised how dangerous it was, but again, that realisation had little of an effect on her. It felt more like some curious fact she had learnt long ago in school, rather than the unmistakably important reality she now faced.

  Without another warning, the man ducked back and he fired.

  She watched the pulse of red light tear from the muzzle of his gun.

  Then it seemed as if time itself slowed down.

  Or perhaps it didn't.

  The bullet did.

  As it shot towards her, it slowed, and then, like the metal objects had in the room, it began to circle around her.

  The security guards doubled back, shouting amongst themselves, and then they fired again.

  Seven more bullets ripped towards her, but rather than striking her and blowing her off her feet, they simply slowed and began to circle around her as if they were feathers or leaves trapped in a gently moving eddy of air.

  She took another unsteady step forward, and then another.

  She had to get out of here.

  The problem was she had never been in this particular corridor. She also knew, academically, that unless she did something, security would lock this entire building down.

  Just as that realisation dawned on her, Nida found herself leaning down.

  Her knees didn't buckle out from underneath her; slowly her body descended until she planted one hand on the flat, smooth, cold floor.

  Blue energy rushed down into the concrete, cracking it into fine powder as tendrils of the light spread out further and further.

  The security guards behind her screamed, but she had no idea what they were saying.