‘You weren't always the best cadet,’ he began.
Her heart sank.
Really?
That's not what she needed now.
People had to stop reminding her she wasn't brilliant.
Yes, she was fully aware of the fact she wasn't Carson. She didn't share his loyalty, nor his determination to save the Coalition.
She didn't have his pure heart, she couldn't use it to understand this murky moral situation.
What she had, instead, was a direct line to the entity and its guilt. To all of that shame. Not only had it broken Vex, but it had spent so long, so many eons trying to fix it. It had shepherded those people through so many iterations of their history, that the entity could not see them fall.
No doubt a better cadet could push past that and do what was necessary.
She couldn't.
With a sinking heart, she went to turn away again.
‘Cadet, I'm talking to you,’ Sharpe snapped, shifting in front of her. ‘I'm not done. Like I said, you weren't always the best cadet, but you tried.’
Reluctantly, she looked up at him.
With turgid emotion swirling through her, she was at once on the verge of tears, and also vitriolic anger.
She remained there though, watching Sharpe.
‘I didn't always . . . credit you for that. You tried, Cadet. Sometimes harder than any of the other kids. You never gave up. Despite the fact I always thought you weren't cut out for this life, you didn't quit. And I'll admit, after your first week, I didn't think you'd last another. Then after your first month, again I didn't think you'd last another. But you kept lasting. And you keep lasting. You may not have the qualities most of the other cadets do, but you've got something different. I'm not privy to what the Admiralty has decided, as it is beyond my remit. But clearly they believe in you. They believe your story,’ he stuttered as he said the word story. ‘And if it's true, Cadet, then you should be proud.’
Nida's stomach gave a twitchy kick. She had to press a hand into it, lest she jerked forward in surprise. ‘What?’
‘Cadet Nida Harper, you should be proud. I'm going to tell you a secret,’ he suddenly admitted.
She blinked quickly.
‘Sometimes the standout cadets make the worst officers. What we teach in here,’ he pointed to the ground then let his wrist flick around as he indicated the walls as well,
‘isn't always what they test out there,’ he pointed up to the sky, clearly indicating the rest of the galaxy. ‘The troubles and pressures at the Academy, aren't the ones you necessarily face in the real world. We can only teach you as best we can, but at the end of the day, being a Coalition soldier and officer will test your personality just as much as it will your training and skills. Unless you have the guile, unless you have the guts and resilience, you won't last. I've lost track of the number of promising cadets I've trained, only for them to quit, bail, or fail. I've also lost track of the number of cadets I thought would never succeed who proved me wrong. Have you ever heard of Captain Cora?’ He nodded at Nida pointedly.
She squeezed her lips together and nodded. Of course she had. Captain Cora was a legend.
‘She was one of the first cadets I taught. I thought she'd bail at the first opportunity. She had a hot head, a hot temper, and never listened to orders. Well, without her, Earth would have succumbed to a Barbarian plot years ago.’
Nida just watched him silently.
Was he building her up?
Sharpe, of all people?
‘I could tell you a whole list of others, but there's no point. Cadet Harper, you've proved me wrong, like the rest of them keep proving me wrong. You're terrible at learning to be a cadet, but you're brilliant out in the field. And I don't need to tell you, that's all that matters.’
The anger wasn't there anymore. The anger that had chewed through her, threatening to pull down every sense of resolve and morality she had ever built.
It was gone.
It died there in that moment she stared at Commander Sharpe. The man she had once assumed hated her and thought she was just a waste of space.
The man who had coined a terrible nickname.
He thought she was brilliant in the field?
‘We can't test results, kid,’ he repeated. ‘We could pretend to. We can put you through stressful situations, test you, push you to the limits, but it's still in a controlled environment. It's only when you get out there, and you know there's no one that's got your back, that we really find out what we're made off. I'm gonna tell you once more, Harper, you're a terrible cadet, but you're a brilliant Coalition soldier.’
She was stunned.
In that moment, all of her troubles fell away for a precious few seconds.
She couldn't believe this.
Though Carson kept telling her she was better than she thought, hearing it from Sharpe was the real thing.
Sharpe never lied to you just to make you feel better.
Sharpe told you exactly what he thought, and he didn't sugarcoat it.
Which meant . . . good God, it meant he actually thought she was a brilliant Coalition soldier.
Sharpe stiffened his jaw, the muscles along his neck bulging against his thick collar, making the three shiny pins that indicated his rank bulge. ‘I don't know what you're going through, but I bet I know what you're thinking. So stop it. Don't second-guess yourself, Harper. Do what is right. That's all that matters. When you get out there,’ he pointed up once more, again indicating the rest of the galaxy beyond the controlled confines of the Coalition Academy, ‘all that matters is that you do good. We try to teach you how to do that down here,’ he glanced around the corridors, ‘but we don't always get it right. Because down here is clear, and up there isn't. It's murky, it's messy. But as long as you save people. As long as you do what's right and just, that's all that matters. You've gotta be proud of yourself, and you gotta make me proud of you,’ he said as he stabbed a thumb her way. ‘Show me I was always wrong about you,’ he challenged.
She didn't speak.
What on earth could she say?
Commander Sharpe wasn't just rising to her defense, he wasn't just making her feel better—he was completely washing away the opinion she'd always held of herself.
As the weak, terrible, worst Cadet in 1000 years.
Sharpe cleared his throat, again crossing his arms. ‘Like I said, I don't know what they want you for. But, Cadet, go out there and help. Do what is right. Do what I taught you. Do something that'll make us all proud.’
She let her lips drop open.
She was speechless.
Sharpe shook his head. ‘That's where you snap a salute, turn stiffly on your foot, and race out to save the galaxy. We can only teach you how to pass tests down here, how to handle a scanner, how to use your TI. We can't teach you how to save the galaxy. We can only hope that you'll rise to the challenge when you meet it.’
He took a step back, raised his arm, and snapped a perfect salute.
Instinctively, she did the same.
‘You always did snap a bizarrely perfect salute,’ he muttered as he raised an eyebrow and shook his head. ‘I thought that was the only thing you could get right. I was wrong. Now go out and show the galaxy how wrong I was.’ He added in a grumble as he turned.
Without a goodbye, he left.
He left her completely stupefied.
She kept playing over what he'd told her, as if wondering whether it had all been a dream.
But it hadn't.
Sharpe thought she could do this.
More than that, he'd repeated the one thing she needed to hear more than any other.
Go out there and do right.
Go out there and make the rest of the galaxy proud.
As he'd said, down here in the Academy things were clear, up there in reality, they were murky.
There were no clear answers.
If you pushed on, you at least had a chance of finding one.
Giving up would condemn not just
the Vex, but the Coalition to the horrible reality of destroying them.
She couldn't give up.
She clutched her left hand into a fist.
It wasn't hard this time, the fingers didn't rake the flesh. It was just determined.
She had to help.
She really didn't think she could march into Admiral Forest's office and tell her not to destroy Remus 12.
But maybe there was another way?
If she accompanied Carson on his mission, maybe she could find it.
She just had to give herself time.
And hope.
The entity had never had hope.
It had forced its way through with violence and anger.
But she was different to it. And she would hold onto that difference.
Nida turned sharply, heading to the docking ring.
Chapter 17
Carson Blake
It was just when he was readying to tell the Admiral that Nida would not accompany them, that she ran into the docking ring.
As always, she practically tripped over the doorway, stumbling on her feet as she righted herself with an awkward smile.
He couldn't hold in his surprise. He turned to her, his cheeks probably as white as a comet's tail. ‘Nida?’ he asked in a shaking tone.
The Admiral was standing right beside him, and he knew he should have the decorum to call Nida a cadet.
Despite what they'd been through, he was still the lieutenant, and she was very much still the cadet.
But his feelings broke through his training.
He even took a shuddering step towards her, lifting a hand and spreading his fingers wide.
Why was she here?
Had she forgiven him?
There was a moment where their eyes met. It didn't last. She looked down sharply, pressed her lips together, and appeared to come to a quick decision. ‘I'm coming,’ she said in a soft tone.
The Admiral crumpled her brow. ‘Yes, you are,’ she said simply. ‘You are late. We are almost ready to depart.’
Nida looked uncomfortable, but didn't say anything.
He couldn't take his eyes off her.
When she'd walked out of his office, he thought it was over.
She was here.
Just as hope rekindled in his heart, something else quickly took it over.
Fear.
She wasn't going to do anything, was she?
She'd already made the fact that she did not want the Vex destroyed absolutely abundantly clear.
He knew the entity still had some kind of effect on her. Would it push through once more to control her?
Was it manipulating her even now, pushing her to usurp the Coalition mission and save Remus 12?
Though they were uncomfortable possibilities to consider, he couldn't stop them from churning through his gut like a violent storm.
As he stared at her, his palms became so cold and sweaty, it was a surprise they didn't ice up and stick to his pants.
The docking ring around them was chaos.
Of course it was, it wasn't every day you had to organize a mission like this. They were planning to destroy the planet, blast it from space.
Even if Carson lived through this, he doubted he would ever face something so perilous again.
The atmosphere in the place was one of only barely controlled panic. People raced forward with slack expressions, pale cheeks, and fidgety movements.
But they were all still doing their jobs.
Because they knew it mattered.
Not many people were ever given the opportunity to serve the Coalition in its hour of maximum need, but all the men and women around him were not shrinking from that responsibility.
And neither was he.
He had to remind himself of that fact as he stared across at her, because guilt once again snaked through his belly.
She seemed to have a hard time looking at him. Instead, she kept flicking her glance from her left hand out towards the rest of the docking ring.
Again fear pelted through him.
He couldn't shake the feeling that the entity still had some kind of insidious control of her.
Should he tell the Admiral?
Yes. That's what a good soldier would do.
In fact, he should have told the Admiral the moment Nida had endured that episode in his office.
He wasn't just shirking his duty by keeping that fact to himself, he was quite possibly endangering everyone.
If the entity was on the rise once more, despite the fact her modified TI was still apparently working, Carson had to step in.
Yet if he told the Admiral, what then?
They'd lock Nida away.
Worse, they'd take her to Jupiter Substation. Or maybe they wouldn't, maybe they'd realize there was very little they could do against the entity. Not when it was utilizing its full force.
For crying out loud, it had managed to force the Academy computers to initiate the End Game Maneuver. If the entity once again managed to get full control of Nida, who knew what it would be capable of?
It could easily destroy the docking ring.
It could easily destroy their ship.
And it could kill everybody on board.
Facing a threat like that, maybe Admiral Forest would realize containing the entity was impossible.
Perhaps she'd direct her attention at killing it, and Nida in the process.
So that's why Carson didn't act.
That's why he felt colder than he ever had before as he stood there and stared at her.
If the Coalition were prepared to destroy the Vex to save themselves, then they would be prepared to destroy Nida as well.
Utilitarianism dictated that the needs of the many would always outweigh the needs of the few. Nida was just one person. If killing her and the entity would assure others' survival, then Admiral Forest would make that decision.
So Carson . . . he didn't and he couldn't turn and walk towards the Admiral.
He just . . . he stood there and he watched Nida. His heart filled with hope. No, it pulsated with a pleading wish that she was okay. That she could still control the entity.
If she couldn't . . . he couldn't see her die.
She shifted about uncomfortably, until somebody came and got her, and she was ushered towards one of the many transports that would take the necessary crew up to the waiting cruiser in space.
All too soon, she was out of his sight. She wasn't out of his mind.
His guilt now drove him crazy.
He had to tell the Admiral, but he couldn't.
Forcing his lips to work and his throat to croak out the words was a Herculean task.
So Carson just . . . waited.
He waited to find out what would happen next.
He too was loaded onto a transport for the barely two-minute trip into space.
He was afforded with a seat next to a window, and in a daze, he leant one hand into the wall as he pushed his head towards it and peered out into space.
As they punched through the atmosphere, he saw the wall of blue that was the Earth below. Then he turned his head to the side to see the waiting heavy cruiser in geosynchronous orbit.
At first it was nothing more than a dot of grey-black against the swathe of dark dotted with stars.
Rapidly, in a blink even, it became huge.
Heavy cruisers were massive. Easily more than several kilometers in length and girth, they were exactly like floating cities. They had to be. They were the ships tasked with the hardest missions. Whether it be protecting the planet from some natural disaster, or fighting off the Kor Empire, you needed to have everything at your disposal, from weapons to medical facilities.
This heavy cruiser, the Chronos, also had state-of-the-art engines that could get them to Remus 12 in time.
In time to end it.
Just before Carson could let his mind turn towards that possibility, he stopped it. Dead in its tracks.
He leaned back from the windo
w, closing his eyes, despite the incredible view.
Instead he focused his mind on the one thing that mattered.
Saving the Coalition.
And saving Nida.
He had to remove the entity from her.
There was no question of that anymore.
She could control it for now, but would that last?
And what would happen when they finally arrived on Remus 12? Would the entity try to reassert control once more?
Carson had never felt more stressed in his entire life. He wasn't just stuck between a rock and a hard place anymore, he was being crushed from every direction.
His loyalty to the Admiral and the Coalition was unquestionable, yet his growing loyalty to Nida could not be overcome either.
So he just sat there, waiting for his ship to dock with the Chronos. When the docking sequence was complete, he jumped to his feet and ran for the door.
He was determined not to sleep, because he would fix this.
Everything.
No matter what it took, even if it was his life.
Carson Blake would fix it.
Chapter 18
Cadet Nida Harper
It was easily one of the strangest experiences of her life. Not only had she barely travelled in space before, but she had never been on a ship like the Chronos.
A state-of-the-art heavy cruiser, only the best of the best could ever be posted here.
And despite what Sharpe had said, Nida knew she would never have been allowed to serve on a ship like this.
You didn't only need top marks, you had to be physically fit, the best of your class, even. You also had to have endurance off the charts, and the willingness to devote every moment of your time to study.
So it was a weird experience walking on board the Chronos. It was a weird experience having seasoned officers turn to her, nod, and address her with respectful greetings.
They were treating her like . . . she was one of their own. No, more than that, like she deserved to be here.
Though it truly was a weird feeling, Nida didn't have long to feel it. All too soon she was pulled into a private meeting with the Admiral.
The Admiral wanted to know any weaknesses the Vex might have. She was apparently not convinced that destroying the planet would solve this problem.
Ouroboros- The Complete Series Page 81