Ouroboros 1: Start Read online

  Because it was just a normal frigging step, and there was nothing to be worried about.

  “Come on, get over it,” she commanded herself.

  Sighing, she walked down the stairs.

  The scanner had fallen a fair way down, and she had to travel quite far into the shadow of the stairwell until she leaned down to pick it up.

  Her breath was shallow, and she couldn't seem to force enough air through her dry throat.

  Her heart kept pounding dramatically too.

  She held onto the scanner with a firm, almost terrified grip, then she turned sharply on her foot to race back up the stairs.

  A part of her was objective enough to realise she was being seriously pathetic here. For Christ’s sake, she was on an alien planet, granted, but one that had no life, no secret weapons, and no malevolent mercenaries—in fact, it had nothing more dangerous than a few treacherous holes that could trip you up. And yet the prospect of descending a set of darkened stairs had her adrenaline pumping as if she were about to dive into the sun.

  She tried to roll her eyes at her own pathetic lameness.

  Suddenly she stopped.

  She felt something.

  A vibration.

  Slight, and coming from behind her.

  Her scanner started to beep dramatically.

  She frowned, glancing down at it.

  It was registering some kind of energy source.

  Which was impossible; there were no energy sources on this planet. It had already been scanned multiple times, and no one had ever come across anything more powerful than a particularly mighty piece of dust.

  Yet as the scanner beeped, she couldn't deny her eyes.

  “Okay,” she said slowly. “Time to go and tell Sharpe what you've found.”

  She took another step up the stairs.

  Hesitating, she stopped.

  She turned over her shoulder to look back down the darkened stairwell and into the tunnel below.

  She'd been instructed to do a mineralogical survey, but she knew Sharpe just wanted to keep her occupied, or at least the appearance of occupied, so the Force didn't question why he'd brought along such a soppy and hopeless cadet.

  Sharpe thought she was more than useless, and he expected her to come back with nothing worthwhile.

  . . . .

  So what would he do if she returned with some incredibly valuable information?

  What if she found something really important in this tunnel?

  That would shut the belligerent Commander up.

  So what was the harm in going and investigating this tunnel herself?

  If she found anything, she could really use the brownie points.

  As soon as that thought crossed her mind, she shook her head resolutely.

  No.

  It wasn't safe.

  With that, she ascended the stairs.

  Dusk had settled even darker around her by the time she emerged.

  With a sigh, and one final glance over her shoulder at the stairwell, she made her way quickly back to Sharpe.

  When she reached him, he was locked in what looked like a seriously important conversation with none other than Blake.

  “There's something more on this planet, I'm sure of it. I don't think we should leave yet,” Blake said quietly.

  Sharp was about to say something, then he looked up to see Nida loitering around behind them. “Yes, Cadet? Is there any reason you're eavesdropping?”

  Nida knew her face blushed a bright red at the allegation, and she even sucked in a startled breath. “Um, what? No,” she answered ineloquently.

  “Then what is it?” Sharpe snapped.

  “Um, I found something,” she managed, wondering how to explain her story in a way that didn't sound dumb.

  Sharp sighed heavily. “Leave it to the report.” He turned back to Blake, shooing her away with a sweep of his hand as he did.

  She didn't move off. Instead, she gritted her teeth. “Ah, sir, I found something you should probably see,” she managed again.

  “I don't care about the mineralogical survey; it can wait,” Sharpe snapped again. “Now go away, Cadet.”

  She knew she should leave before he gave her a reprimand for ignoring an order, but she stood her ground nevertheless. “I found a set of stairs that lead to a kind of tunnel under the ground. They aren't on the blueprint we got from the ship,” she forced her words out in a string of nervous mumbles.

  Sharp turned his attention back to her, and this time Blake glanced her way as well. He narrowed his startling violet eyes. “Sorry, what?” he questioned quickly, straightening up as he did.

  “Ah, over there,” she pointed randomly over her shoulder. “Or was it over there?” she put more thought into it, turned around, and surveyed the rapidly darkening compound to figure out where the stairs lay.

  “Where?” Sharpe asked angrily.

  “Oh, ah,” Nida surveyed the compound, looking for a landmark or anything that could help her get her bearings.

  “Just use your scanner, Cadet,” Sharpe hissed.

  “Oh yes,” she mumbled quickly.

  She was flustered.

  Really flustered.

  And for some damn reason, she couldn't use the scanner. After several mortified seconds of trying, she looked up at Sharpe and shrugged. “Um. . . .”

  “Give it here,” Sharpe snatched it off her. Then he poked at the thing. Slowly he turned it over and realised there was a long crack up one side. “What have you done to this?”

  Oh damn, she really had broken it. God, she was the unluckiest girl in the universe.

  “Oh, that, I fell over, and the scanner tumbled down the stairs. That's how I found them—the stairs,” she added meekly.

  Sharp sighed.

  “Sir,” Blake said, proffering a hand to Sharpe for the scanner.

  Sharp handed it to him whilst shooting Nida a withering look.

  “Let's have a look here,” Blake muttered as he typed something quickly. Then he pulled the operating chip out of the back, stared at it with a frown, and shot her a quick glance. “It just fell down the stairs? Are you sure? It looks like it's been landed on by a cruiser.”

  Nida pressed her lips together to stop herself from saying something stupid.

  “I think I can still . . . ,” Blake trailed off, clear concentration crumpling his brow. Seconds later, he grinned. “Alright, got it. Thanks, Cadet,” he nodded her way affably, then headed off through the dark compound, Sharpe at his side.

  Sharpe shot her another disdainful look, but didn't say anything as he marched off.

  Which just left Nida alone. So much for the stairs winning her brownie points. Now she would have to explain broken equipment to Sharpe . . . again.

  Damn, everything she touched turned to dust.

  With a truly rattling sigh, Nida wandered back into the compound.

  She intended to find a nice flat rock to sit on. Sharp would no doubt shout at her for being lazy when he returned from the mystery stairwell, but she was already in trouble, so Nida didn't really care if she added another nail to her coffin, as old humans would say.

  Just as she sat down, she saw the unwelcome sight of Sharpe marching up to her.

  She jumped to her feet, stumbling awkwardly as she did.

  “Cadet,” he spat, “you really screwed up that scanner. It's given us messed up coordinates.”

  Damn it. “Sir,” she winced, “um, I'm sorry.”

  “Don't be sorry, yet,” he added ominously, “just come and help us find those stairs.”

  Nida scurried forward, Sharpe striding along at her side.

  Soon they both reached Blake. He was standing there, frowning down at the scanner. “I thought these things were meant to be tougher than this,” he muttered as he hit the bottom of the scanner with the base of his palm.

  “Alright, find the stairs, and you better not be mistaken about this,” Sharpe added under his breath.

  Dread coiled up her spine, and Nida g
rimaced into the darkness. It would just be her luck if the stairwell had disappeared as quickly as it had formed. Sharpe would kill her for wasting his and precious Lieutenant Blake's time.

  She ran forward, twisting her head this way and that as she looked for any sign of a familiar landform.

  Just as genuine worry sliced through her belly, she saw it.

  A familiar lip of shadow.

  “There it is,” she breathed through her monumental relief. “Just over here,” she added in a far stronger tone.

  She led the two men forward to the dark opening of the stairwell.

  “What the hell?” Blake peered down into it, checking his own scanner as he did. “This was most definitely not on the blueprints.”

  “There's an energy reading too,” Nida remembered, bringing a finger up as she pointed it out, almost as if she was an excited child reciting some recently learned fact.

  “What?” Blake snapped his head around. “I'm not picking up an energy source.”

  “Cadet Nida is likely mistaken,” Sharpe insisted at once.

  She hadn't been mistaken about the stairwell, though, had she? She wanted to point out. Instead, she bit her tongue and peered past Blake at the dark shadow in the ground.

  Her stomach twisted as a kick of fear passed through her.

  There was something . . . not right about that tunnel.

  “Alright, let's go,” Blake waved them forward.

  “Shouldn't we wait for the rest of your team?” Sharpe asked.

  Sharpe was a commander, and Blake was a lieutenant, Sharpe very much outranked the guy. And yet, like almost everyone else at the Academy, Sharpe held this sense of awe for Blake that meant the lieutenant was treated like a freaking admiral.

  “We'll just do an initial check.” Blake shrugged his shoulders. “The scans suggest everything is fine.”

  “Alright,” Sharpe agreed. “Cadet, go back to the compound,” he added as he turned from her and headed down the first few steps.

  “Yes, sir,” she managed easily.

  Though she'd found the stairs, she really didn't mind being told to head back to the compound.

  While she was technically meant to be an explorer, she didn't want to explore that dark shadow in the ground.

  “Hold on,” Blake put a hand out in a stopping motion.

  A spike of fear rushed through her as she worried whether he was about to suggest she come along with the two of them anyway.

  He didn't. Instead, he handed her his scanner. “It's getting pretty dark out there, and considering yours is broken, you're going to need something to see by,” he held it there until she took it from him.

  She offered a stuttered thank you, then he nodded, gestured towards the tunnel, and walked off with Sharpe at his side.

  She stood there for several seconds, watching the both of them descend into the shadows. Though Sharpe turned on the light source in his scanner, and the little device threw out powerful illumination, it didn't feel as if it could do much to the darkness. It was so damn cold and black down there.

  Nida gave a sudden shudder as they both walked out of sight.

  Then she realised how dark it was out here, and fumbled with Blake's own scanner until she managed to get the light source working.

  Turning your scanner's light on was a basic lesson at the Academy, and happened somewhere around the first day, and yet she had to try hard to remember how to make the little device work properly.

  She really was the worst cadet in 1000 years, she realised as she slowly turned and made her way back to the compound.

  She didn't make it.

  As she walked along, once again she stared at the beautiful night sky above. There was absolutely no light pollution on this planet, so the stars cape had nothing to compete with, and shone with astounding brilliance.

  She could even pick up the colourful swathes of constellations and gas clouds. She took several steps as she stared above, and once again tripped over something.

  This time she went flying, and she didn't hit the ground.

  She tumbled down an incline instead.

  Her body beat against something that felt suspiciously like steps, and she rolled down and down until her back thumped hard against a cold and unyielding floor.

  She lay there and gasped for several seconds, feeling pain ripping through her body.

  Yet after she sucked in several calming breaths, she realised she was still alive. With an enormous groan, she tried to sit up, and promptly checked herself for broken bones as she did.

  Everything seemed to be okay. Yes, she was in a great deal of agony, but she couldn't find any puncture wounds, and seemed to be able to move all of her muscles satisfactorily.

  She groaned again as she realised she'd let go of the scanner.

  In fact, she couldn't see it any more.

  Because she couldn't see anything. Wherever she was, it was completely dark down here. There was barely enough light to make out the shape of the stairs directly to her left.

  Stairs.

  Hold on, seriously? Had she just found another set of random steps?

  Before she could realise what a stupid coincidence that was, she began crawling around on the floor, searching for the scanner.

  Clearly, it had tumbled from her grip as she’d fallen, and somehow it had turned off its light in the process.

  That or it was broken.

  . . . .

  Knowing her luck, it was most definitely broken.

  Great. She had just stuffed up Carson Blake's own personal scanner.

  Crawling around, she searched and searched, but she couldn't find it.

  She sat back on her haunches, swearing as she did.

  Then she turned her head, angling to what she thought was the stairs.

  After her fall, she’d lost her sense of orientation, and she realised with a pang of fear, she didn't know which direction up was.

  So she crawled until her fingers finally brushed against the reassuring incline of a step.

  She began to pull herself up. Though she could stumble to her feet to stand, knowing her luck, she would trip and fall back down on her ass again.

  With every step she clambered up on her hands and knees, she realised just how much her side hurt. It was hard to breathe, and with a groan, she realised she'd probably bruised her ribs.

  Fantastic.

  She was never going to be allowed to go on a mission ever again. She'd broken two scanners and herself.

  Sharpe was going to go mental.

  Or maybe he wouldn't. Maybe she could pretend she accidentally lost Blake’s scanner, and she could lie about the fact she'd fallen down another set of stairs, pretending she'd bruised her ribs by just . . . breathing too hard.

  At that completely stupid thought, she let out a little pitiful laugh.

  Then she realised how damn dark it was down here, and a new flurry of fear escaped over her back, chilling the skin as it went.

  Crawling faster, she finally reached the top of the stairs.

  But she didn't reach the world outside.

  The beautiful stars cape did not sparkle down to greet her.

  Instead the looming shape of a room did.

  One that was lit softly by a faint, blue glow.

  Oh dear.

  The fall had disoriented her, and somehow she’d climbed up the wrong set of stairs.

  Clearly, the tunnel she’d tumbled into had more than one set of steps leading up.

  Great. Now she had to climb down again and head up the other set of stairs, still in the dark, and still on her hands and knees.

  Before she turned and headed back down, she slowly surveyed the room.

  There weren't meant to be any energy sources on this planet, she remembered, but whatever was making that blue glow clearly wasn't natural.

  She narrowed her eyes and tried to figure out what it was.

  Some kind of statue.

  She could make out the shape of a body, carved out of stone, on
the far wall.

  The room was completely empty apart from that statue and several dark, shadowy recesses that suggested other stairwells leading down into more dark and treacherous tunnels.

  She gulped.

  “Turn around, head down the stairs, and get back to the group,” she said aloud, flinching as the sound of her voice reverberated around the empty room.

  The architecture down here was completely different to the compound above ground, quite possibly because this room was not ruined.

  And now that she could see the smooth walls and the delicate lines of the statue, she appreciated what this planet must have once looked like.

  It was a beautiful sight, mesmerising even.

  Yes, that's the right word, mesmerising.

  Before she could stop herself, she took several steps forward, and then another, and then another. She ignored the pain stabbing through her ribcage, and strode confidently towards that statue.

  It was as if the thing was reeling her in.

  The closer she got, the more astounded she was by its beauty.

  It was the shape of some alien woman, dressed in a flowing gown, with beautiful lines of hair tapering across her face and shoulders.

  She had the kindest of smiles, and her hands were held out in front of her, clasped around some kind of blue orb.

  The orb was glowing—the sole light source illuminating the room—and the nearer she got to it, the more the glow caught her attention.

  Something appeared trapped in the orb, something that danced and writhed like bodies through smoke.

  She reached the statue.

  She stared up at it, her mouth agape.

  In an instant, she forgot all of her pain and agony.

  She stretched a hand towards the orb.

  On the very first day at Galactic Coalition Academy, they told new recruits two things. Never leave your team behind, and never do anything stupid.

  Space is, quite frankly, not a safe place.

  Given the chance, it would throw everything from spatial anomalies, to menacing aliens, to booby-trapped planets your way. So if you wanted to survive, you had to live by the rules—stay with your team, and most of all, be smart.

  Now, she knew it wasn't smart to reach her hand out to touch the orb.

  It was glowing with such a peculiar energy that even a newborn baby would realise it wasn't something you should touch.