It happened just as he closed the door.
The hangar bay shook.
It was powerful enough to see a few objects tumble over and roll over the floor.
Carson had been standing in the bridge of their tiny cruiser when he’d seen it.
Then all hell broke loose.
His own ship warned him in a quiet tone, ‘the Orion is under attack. Red alert initiated. All crew are directed to take up battle stations.’
He had just a second to look at Nida. She was seated in the navigator’s chair next to him, just an arm’s length away.
Her eyes shot wide with terror.
Then the view on their screen changed, and was replaced with a live feed from the Orion’s bridge.
‘We’re under attack,’ Travis spat at them.
‘But the Vex are trapped in time,’ Nida pointed out, her tone pleading.
‘It’s not the Vex; it’s the Barbarians. We caught them going over our broken ships like vultures.’
Carson felt sick.
He also felt like a fool.
The Vex had destroyed 80 percent of the United Galactic Coalition fleet, and what ships they hadn’t taken down to the surface of their planet before the event ended, were still in orbit.
The Barbarians were known scavengers. They existed by taking technology they found or stole. So of course they would be picking through the remains of the Coalition Fleet.
Why hadn’t he thought about this before?
He had just enough time to think that thought before he saw Travis lurch to the side as the bridge tilted.
Though Carson’s own ship was not affected, as it was still within the protection of the Orion and had its own gravity, he could see how severe Travis stumbled.
‘We have to get out of here,’ Carson barked at him.
As he said that, he used his own ship’s computer to scan the space beyond the Orion.
At first there was one ship, then two, then three . . . then he lost count.
The Orion was a heavy cruiser, but she was also a limping one.
With enough concentrated fire from the Barbarians, she would fall.
And her crew would fall with her.
Shock crippled him, but he fought past it to shout, ‘fall back, Travis; we’ve got to get out of here. We can’t fight them.’
‘No, you’re going down to Remus 12, and you are going to fix this, Carson. You’re our last hope.’
‘This is suicide,’ Carson jumped to his feet, his hands clutching his console so tightly he could have broken his knuckles. ‘We can come back later. You don’t have to risk yourselves.’
‘There’s nothing left to risk, Carson,’ Travis said quietly as the ship gave another lurch to the side.
Carson wanted to collapse. Travis’ words were like blasts from a gun.
. . . Because they were true.
One look in his eyes, and you could see the man had nothing left to hold onto but ghosts.
. . . And his command.
Confirming that fact, Travis straightened up. ‘We might get away; or they might chase us. And we can’t run the risk of Nida being captured. We have to do this now, because there may not be time again. So, go, Carson. Get the hell out of here. I’ll hold the door open for you while you leave,’ with that, Travis turned and spat at one of his officers to open up fire with all their port guns.
Carson wanted to say something; he had to convince his friend not to sacrifice himself and his crew.
But it was too late.
The view of Travis on the bridge blinked off the screen, and again Carson could see the hangar bay outside.
It was a mess of running bodies and tumbling objects.
‘Carson,’ Nida said.
He made a fist.
Then he hit the console once, and told the computer in a shaking voice, ‘continue with ignition sequence.’
She didn’t say anything.
He couldn’t tell whether she hated him in that moment—whether she couldn’t bear the idea that the Orion was sacrificing herself for the two of them.
But whatever she thought, it didn’t stop her from turning around, her fingers flying over her panel as she primed the sensors.
‘Waiting for the Orion hangar bay doors to open,’ the computer told him in an impassive voice.
‘How long will it take?’ he hissed back.
‘Approximately five minutes.’
‘What? Why?’
‘The hangar bay will have to be cleared before the doors are opened.’
‘Why can’t we just use a temporary shield?’ Carson spat back.
‘The generators are down,’ the computer replied, unfazed by his stress and fear.
Usually on a ship as big as the Orion, there was a set of powerful shields in place just before the doors. They enabled ships to fly in and out without the bay depressurising and everyone having to leave the room or pop like a balloon.
But the shields were down. Which meant the bay had to be evacuated.
Five minutes . . . .
He shivered, the move violent as it saw his shoulders push outward in a jerk.
It would be the tensest time of his life.
Nida just gripped her console, closed her eyes, and didn’t say a word.
He kept an eye on his sensors, watching a battle he could not fight in.
The Orion was strong, but she was out-gunned.
Plus, she had no defences on her stern.
So it didn’t take long for one of those agile Barbarian ships to sweep in and attach itself to the hull.
He jumped to his feet as he saw it.
He knew what would come next.
The Orion would be boarded.
. . . Boarded.
The Barbarians would flood aboard and fight the crew hand-to-hand.
He wanted to run out, grab his guns, and do what he had to to save as many people as he could.
Yet he didn’t. He just stood there staring at his screen, watching in horror as the Barbarians flooded onto the ship.
Nida now stood too, and she looked out at the view screen, her shoulders shaking.
She stared at the view outside, watching the engineers darting around frantically.
Then the doors to the bay opened.
Not the main doors—the doors back into the rest of the ship.
Though he knew that, as his scanners told him of the fact, he couldn’t see it.
The view screen of his ship was directed at the large main doors that led out into space.
But soon enough he saw what he feared most.
Two engineers came running past, their footfall frantic as they turned and fired with handguns.
‘Oh god,’ Nida shuddered back.
As she did, two burly Barbarians came into view.
They walked casually forward, one pulling a knife from its sheaf and throwing it with pin-point precision right into the chest of the closest engineer.
Carson turned his head to the side and closed his eyes.
Nida whimpered.
Their ship was still on the floor of the hangar bay—they would only rise up into the air once the main doors opened to space.
So they could see the Barbarian clearly as he walked up to their ship. The creature was massive, and craned its neck as it tried to stare into the vessel.
It couldn’t see in—the view screen was only one-way—but that didn’t dampen how spine-tingling it was to watch him try to peer in.
Nida whimpered again.
Then she straightened.
Behind the Barbarian, another lanced out with an electro blade and practically cut a man in half.
She gasped. Then her fists curled.
He swore he could see the blue crackling over them.
And if, in that moment, he’d been able to see her eyes, maybe he would have seen blue fire jumping within too.
‘Nida,’ he said, his voice shaking, ‘we have to get out of here. We can stop this from ever happening,’ he promised her.
She just stood there with her hands curled into the tightest of fists.
She did not say anything, and she didn’t turn from the view.
Not until he walked right up to her and placed a hand on her left wrist.
Slowly she looked up. Where he’d expected to see blue fire dancing in her gaze, he saw tears.
‘We can . . . ,’ he began, ‘do this,’ he closed his eyes.
She closed hers.
She shifted forward and tucked her head against his chest.
He didn’t move back.
Neither did he pull his arms up and wrap them around her. Instead, he tucked his own head down until his cheek rested against the back of her bunched hair.
Seconds passed, then it finally happened.
He felt the ship rise up into the air.
‘Hangar doors are opening. Ignition sequence initiated,’ his computer told him.
He didn’t turn around.
Though he hated the Barbarians, he didn’t want to see them sucked out into space.
In fact, he didn’t pull back from Nida until the computer warned them they were out of the ship.
Though Travis had told him he’d keep the door open—meaning he’d force the Barbarians back and give Carson a chance—Carson knew that door wouldn’t be open forever.
Pulling away from Nida and throwing himself at the nearest console, he waited.
His cruiser was still hooked up to the Orion, so he didn’t have to worry about the heavy cruiser accidentally shooting it out of the sky. Every movement the Orion made, and everything it shot, would be relayed to his ship in real-time, allowing it to chart a safe path out of there.
Still, it was a fraught experience to sit there in that chair and watch the ship manoeuvre itself out of trouble.
At one point, a small, agile, but well-armed Barbarian cruiser bore down on his ship, but before it could fire, the Orion obliterated it.
‘20 seconds until we reach orbit,’ the computer warned them.
There was already a mess of ships in space around Remus 12. The husks of the United Galactic Coalition cruisers that had fought and lost against the Vex.
Well now another great battle was waged between them, the Barbarians using whatever they could as cover.
But where those hulls offered the Barbarians reprieve, they did the same for his ship.
Their vessel darted in and out of those ghost ships. At one point, they even travelled right through the middle of an enormous heavy cruiser that had a gap the size of house right in the middle.
It was . . . an experience he wanted to wipe from his memory.
The flashes of shots, the sights of dead ships haunted by floating bodies, preserved in every detail by the cold of space . . . .
However frightful it was, it couldn’t last. All too soon, they made it into orbit, then they punched down to the surface of the planet below.
The sun was rising on Remus 12.
It was beautiful. An array of brilliant purples and oranges lit the sky like coloured fire. The clouds were pushed back to the edges of the horizon, as if in awe of that brilliant dawn.
And yet, set against it were the broken ships of the United Galactic Coalition.
It set his jaw hard.
‘Landing on the planet in 30 seconds,’ the computer informed him.
‘Come on,’ he hissed under his breath. ‘Come on.’
Nida didn’t say a word.
‘Detecting Barbarian vessels entering orbit on an intercept heading,’ the computer acknowledged.
‘No,’ he hissed, ‘come on. Just land. Land.’
Again Nida didn’t speak.
She just stood there, nursing her left hand, staring down at the bangle that encased her wrist. Or the device, rather.
Watching her stare so quietly at it was the only thing that could shift his attention.
This was all down to her now.
He could fight by her side, he could take control of the ship and dodge incoming attacks, but the next bit was her.
She alone could open the time gate.
‘Barbarian vessels nearing,’ the computer warned as it started to beep.
‘Fuck, come on, land,’ he swore.
He could see the surface of the planet coming up fast below.
That dust and rubble lighting up under the warm kiss of dawn.
It could have been starkly beautiful, but all his mind could focus on was pushing forward.
He had to do this.
Had to do this . . . .
‘Landing in five, four, three—’ the computer began.
Then their ship rocked to the side as something slammed into it.
‘Detecting damage to the port side. Projectile impacted,’ the computer beeped.
‘Projectile? What?’ he spat.
Then he heard it, and he saw it. The view screen switched from showing the approaching ground to revealing an enormous crackling hook lodged into the side of their hull.
The ship lurched as it was pulled backwards.
‘The Barbarians have hooked into the hull and are pulling this ship backwards,’ the computer informed him needlessly.
‘No,’ he called. ‘Not now. Not now.’
They were so close.
The ground was just below them.
Travis had sacrificed himself and his crew for this.
. . . They couldn’t fail now.
Not when they were so close.
Yet their ship kept travelling backwards as the Barbarians literally reeled them in.
It was . . . over.
No. He would fight.
As he looked up to tell Nida that, to promise he would give her the opportunity to finish this, no matter what it took, he saw her.
She reached forward, the move slow and tentative, her fingers spreading with shaking uncertainty.
It stilled his breath to watch.
Then he saw it.
The energy.
The entity.
That distinct blue light.
It erupted up over the implant on her wrist, encasing her arm and bursting into her outstretched fingers.
The view on the screen switched from the hook in the side of their vessel and back to the ground below.
Suddenly they stopped moving backwards.
In fact, they stopped altogether.
He heard a groaning sound filtering through the ship, and instinctively knew it was the hook in the hull.
. . . She was resisting it.
Somehow Nida was using the entity to stop the Barbarians from reeling them in.
Just as that thought arose, he tried to dismiss it as impossible.
He couldn’t.
As more energy burst up over her skin, something incredible started to happen—they got closer to the ground.
They were probably a good 20 metres from it now.
And centimetre by centimetre, second by second, they got closer.
So much energy danced over her skin that the entire bridge was aglow with it.
Looking down at his own hands, he could see that reflected glow dancing across them.
He didn’t say a word. He couldn’t ruin her concentration. So he just waited, wishing, willing, praying she could do it.
Metre by metre they neared, until finally there was an almighty groan from the side of the ship, and the computer acknowledged they’d broken free of the hook.
They shot forward, and Nida pulled her hand back just at the right time.
The ship’s own thrusters and gravity took control, and it landed.
It landed.
They’d made it.
Carson could have waited. He could have stood there in open-mouthed wonder at what she’d just done, but he didn’t.
He snapped forward, grabbed hold of her crackling arm without any fear for his own, and pulled her towards the doors.
He didn’t have to say ‘come on.’
She soon ran by his side.
They made it to the airlock.
H
e paused.
She leaned past him and entered the code that would open it.
For a moment their faces were close.
She stared at him, and he couldn’t have looked away. ‘Ready?’ she whispered.
He nodded.
They ran outside.
Chapter 30
Cadet Nida Harper
They’d made it onto the planet.
She had . . . she had used the entity. She’d tapped into its energy.
Carson had been right; she’d used it like her TI implant, but on objects other than specialised cubes and poles.
On the ground and a space cruiser, to be exact.
But Carson had been wrong about one thing—she hadn’t used the entity.
In that moment, it had wanted to save her just as much as she’d wanted to save herself.
It needed her alive, after all.
The battle of wills would begin soon though.
Now she was on the soil of Remus 12, it was time to open the time gate.
She could see the agile Barbarian ships darting down towards them.
They were not firing; clearly they had realised Nida and Carson were important somehow. Travis had given up his ship to get them this far.
More than that, presumably the Barbarians wanted to know how in the hell their hook had failed.
‘Come on,’ Carson said, shoving her forward as he did.
At first, she didn’t know what he was doing.
Now they were on the surface of the planet, she could open the time gate.
Yet in a breath, she understood.
There was a set of stairs leading down, just a few metres from their side.
He pulled her along, pushing her down when she reached it.
She stumbled, but it didn’t matter; he pulled her up.
She could have pulled herself up. She could have done this on her own.
But she didn’t have to.
He was right there by her side.
It would give her the strength to do what she had to next.
They reached the bottom of the stairwell just as the roof above shook, indicating the Barbarian ships had landed. Dust and stone hailed down upon them as they ran forward in the dark.
Well, not entirely in the dark; her skin still glowed blue.
Carson had full armour on too. Travis had given it to him before he’d left, and it now covered Carson’s whole body, including his head.
As they ran, his armoured hand was locked around hers.
Its grip was strong, and with a command from his armour, could shatter steel into dust.
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