Ouroboros 2: Before by Odette C. Bell Page B

her eyes, leaning even more heavily against his shoulder. In fact, he had to shore up his stance to stop from falling over.
    ‘ What?’ he prompted gently.
    ‘ I feel stretched thin,’ she finally managed.
    Though he didn’t understand, that didn’t stop him from shivering. It sounded ominous.
    ‘ We can’t rely on it,’ he suddenly announced. ‘We can’t allow it to keep helping us get out of trouble. We have to figure out how to do this on our own.’
    She just mumbled a soft yes into his ear.
    Then, despite the fact she was a cadet and he was a lieutenant, he brought up a hand and patted her head softly and reassuringly.
    Or at least he hoped it was reassuring. He wanted her to understand that he was going to do everything within his power to make this okay. No matter what it took.
    Briefly he considered going back to the building they’d first arrived in. It felt like their only safe haven on this planet, which was really stupid when you considered he had no idea who the place belonged to. Whilst it had appeared abandoned for some time, that did not mean that the owners would never return. And if they did duck back into their home to find two aliens conked out on the couch after having eaten through the contents of all of their little silver packets, things wouldn’t end well.
    So instead they continued on. Towards the city.
    He quickly realized they wouldn’t make it in one night though, not with Nida this fatigued. So, with the aid of his scanner, he directed them off the road and up into a dense copse of trees. There he sat her down, and practically seconds later she was asleep.
    He was left alone to consider the night. As he turned his head up to survey the stunning star scape of the Vex home world, he considered his problems too, which seemed to be just as numerous as the number of stars twinkling down from above.
    He did not let himself rest that night, instead he went back to the task of trying to glean as much as he could of the Vex culture from whatever radio and television waves his scanner could access.
    By the end of the night he knew a great deal more, and hoped that his next encounter with a Vex would not end up in a firefight.
     

Chapter 6
    Cadet Nida Harper
    It took her a long time to wake up. She’d been having a very strange dream. It had involved powerful flashes of light racing over a landscape, destroying absolutely everything in their path.
    It made no sense, and as she rose, she placed a hand over her eyes, trying to blink away the remnants of the dream.
    ‘ You’re awake,’ Carson announced from her side, then, almost immediately he added, ‘and guess what? You talk in your sleep.’
    She took a moment to understand his words.
    She blinked heavily. ‘Sorry? I talk in my sleep? I do not,’ she rallied.
    ‘ I’m afraid you do. At first it was something about you being very, very hungry, then a couple of names. Speaking of which, who is Harry?’ he asked, interest tightening his tone.
    She blushed. She’d dated a cadet called Harry Sinclair in her first year at the Academy. It had never gone anywhere though, and they’d broken up quickly.
    So she was damn sure she wouldn’t have talked about him.
    ‘ I do not talk in my sleep,’ she chose to repeat again in a determined and proper tone.
    ‘ Sure, just like I don’t snuffle,’ he added.
    She shook her head. Then she realized that the forest around them was lit by a gentle, early-morning glow. She looked up through the thick canopy above, and could see the brilliant colors the sun cast over the horizon as it peaked out from behind the trees. ‘How long did I sleep for?’
    ‘ You needed to rest,’ he pointed out firmly, ‘somehow the entity has provided me with the ability to speak perfect and fluent Vex. I have no idea how that works, and it sounds like the badly conceived plot of one of the books I used to read as a kid. But the point is, you expended energy last night, and you needed to recoup it.’
    She simply