CHAPTER NINETEEN

 

 

 

Nova blinked. Bright lights shone in her eyes. She squinted against the glare and looked around. She was still in the Confederacy ship's command pod, but all the lights were on. It looked almost new, if it weren't for the angle and the piles of debris stacked against the wall.

"Codon?" she said.

"Oh I see you've finally woken up," Codon said, stepping into Nova's field of view.

"How long have I been asleep?"

"About an hour. I was about to pull the chair out from under you to wake you up. There's been a lot of movement."

She blinked a few more times, clearing the miasma from her mind, and pushed herself higher in her chair. She looked up at a screen that took up most of the wall. It showed the view outside.

The Ancients had been busy. Half-built ships scattered across the sand between huge weapons that glowed red and blue.

"It won't be long before they're ready to go," Codon said. "I don't suppose you're ready to pull a miracle out of the air?"

"I had a dream of the future. I have to go back in there."

"Whoa, hang on. You had a dream and now you're going to give yourself a death sentence?"

"No. Yes. Maybe," Nova said, standing up. Her back and limbs were stiff, but some of the exhaustion from before was gone.

"What if it was just a dream?" Codon said, giving voice to Nova's biggest fear.

"Do you have a better plan?"

"No."

"Then I'm going in."

"And once we impossibly get past them, what's your plan?"

"I don't have one."

"So you're relying on luck?"

"It wouldn't be the first time." She massaged her temples as she spoke. Sharp jabs of pain shot through her brain every few seconds.

"Well better to die fighting I suppose," Codon said. "Because this damned ship isn't getting off the ground any time soon."

"Lock and load," Nova said.

She pulled the pistol out of her belt and checked it over. As she turned it on its side, a trickle of sand fell out and clattered to the floor. Tiny, shining crystals spread out across the metal.

"Sand!" she said. "From the tomb. See? It wasn't just a dream!"

"Nova," Codon said and rolled his eyes. "You've spent the last two days in a desert. That sand could have come from yesterday. There's no reason to assume it came from the future."

Nova bit her lip but she couldn't argue. Her trip to the future could have been another hallucination, hell, she could be hallucinating right now. All the other images had seemed so real and yet each time she'd come back to reality, or at least, what she thought was reality.

"I'm ready," Codon said. He wore a Confederacy issued side arm at his belt and a less-conventional heavy-duty shotgun slung across his back.

"All right." She put her gun back into its holster and led the way through the ship.

The path was familiar, right down to the dangling pipes and pieces of torn wiring. They climbed over fallen furniture and avoided the mangled bodies. They were almost at the exit door when Nova tripped on a loose piece of piping and stumbled against the wall. Her arm scraped along the jagged metal, flesh tore from her arm and clung like limp cloth to the sharp steel.

She cried out and gripped hold of her wrist. It stung. The pain coursed up from her wrist, through her arm, elbow, all the way to her shoulder. The wound burned hotter as she gripped tighter.

She forced her eyes down to look at the damage. Blood poured out around her fingers, seeped over her hand and dripped to the floor. A wet, crimson splatter dotted her shirt, which was already dyed red from Tobius' blood.

A strip of her flesh dangled from the jagged piece of metal behind her.

She stared at it and then back to her arm. She squeezed tighter but more blood seeped out and made her hands slick.

She turned to Codon. "Do something!"

He stared at her.

She legs quaked and her head spun. Her knees collapsed and she slammed onto the metal floor, shins first. The drop made her head snap forward and her eyes locked on her injured arm.

So much blood.

It created a pool by her legs that reflected the dim lights of the ship. The red was deep, crimson.

Codon squeezed her shoulder and said something but she couldn't make out his words. Her vision dimmed and all sound turned blurry, indistinct. It wouldn't be long now and the last drop of blood would fall out of her veins. She'd be dead.

Codon pulled on her arm.

Couldn't he see that she was dying? Couldn't he let her do it in peace?

She gritted her teeth and pulled her shoulder out of his grasp. She clutched her injured arm to her chest but the wound was too big, too deep.

The bloody pool on the floor got deeper.

Strength flowed out of her arms and she couldn't hold them up. They flopped to her sides and without pressure, the blood flowed faster. It cascaded from her arm and into the pool like a red waterfall. Her eyes locked on the rapids and ripples which splashed away from the waterfall's base.

Then she was there.

She stood next to a red lake. A waterfall dropped sticky crimson droplets into the pool. A rusty smell filled the air.

She smiled, and dove into the pool, head first. She broke the surface with a splash and stared up at the bright sun overhead.

The sun.

She frowned and looked up from the puddle. Something wasn't right about it. It was too bright… or not bright enough. It was the wrong color. And wait, there were lots of them, all lined up in a row… like lights.

She turned in circles. As she spun, the red pool and waterfall disappeared. The lights brightened. She blinked against the glare.

She was kneeling on the floor, staring up at ceiling lights. Her legs ached, wrist stung. A small cut marked her arm.

"What the hell are you doing?" Codon said. He shook her arm.

"What?"

"What the hell happened? You were walking along and suddenly you collapsed to the floor wailing about blood."

"I cut myself…" she said, trailing off as she looked at her arm.

"I'd hardly call that a cut."

She clasped her head in her hands and stared down at the floor. There was no pool of blood, or a red waterfall.

"I don't know what's happening to me," she whispered.

Her heart pounded in her chest. She'd been so sure she was going to die and yet it had all been part of her madness. It was just like the quicksand. How many times would she have to die before she really went mad? If she wasn't already.

"When will it stop?" she said. She rocked back and forth.

"I have no idea. But you're sure their helmets will break? That wasn't a delusion?"

"I… I…" Nova looked up at him, begged for him to take charge, show her the way.

He frowned down at her.

"I don't know," she said.

"Then I'll be damned if I'm going in first," he said. "After you."