by Katzen, Kris
A Wrinkle in Time
Kris Katzen
Published by Bluetrix Books, Smashwords edition.
© 2011 by the author
Copyrighted material. All rights reserved. Please do not reproduce in part or in whole without the express prior written consent of the author.
A Wrinkle in Time
What the hell was taking them so long? Luke Parillo had sent the urgent interstellar message over a week ago requesting assistance. Sometimes it still galled him not to have a starship at his disposal any longer. Not that he'd ever admit that to anyone.
It wasn't finding the corpses that had so unsettled him. It was finding thousand-year-old corpses in the midst of Earth technology from a hundred years in the future that really set off alarm bells. And Parillo lacked the means with which to investigate.
Parillo kept at his work because that was the only thing keeping him sane while he waited. On his hands and knees on an anti-grav unit a centimeter above the ground, he used the fine brush to clear away dust from what had been, thousands of years ago, a breathtaking mosaic tile floor.
"Captain Parillo."
"I know that voice," Luke Parillo looked up from the ruins he was excavating with such painstaking slowness. A smile spread over his face as he got to his feet. He stepped clear of the work area and brushed his hands on his trousers to get rid of some of the dust. "No one has called me that in fifteen years. It's 'Doctor' now, or sometimes 'Professor'." He strode forward, hand outstretched.
The lean, lanky blond caught it in a strong handshake. "Good to see you again, Luke. Archeology suits you."
A shadow crossed his face and he stated what she'd left unspoken. "And I got out just in time, right?" He'd retired from the fleet just before the rumblings from the Wyneeri began, and a year before the War exploded across the sector.
"You were lucky. I'm happy you did."
"I'm not. I still think Command was wrong to refuse my request for reinstatement once the fighting started."
"I can understand your feelings," Darcy Dennis followed him as they picked their way among trees and down the rocky hillside toward the dozen prefab cabins at the base of the slope. "But honestly, Luke, losses got so bad that there weren't enough ships to go around. And I seem to recall you declining to teach at the academy," she said, gently yet pointedly.
"I didn't think that was the best use of my skills," he admitted. But then he shook off the old grievances. "Captaincy suits you," he echoed her own words back with a twist.
And it did. The dark blue uniform, now sporting the gold piping of command, looked good on her and she wore it easily. The slacks had a narrow gold stripe running down the side of each leg, and the high-collared jacket had one on either side as well. The white jersey underneath had a crew neck.
Then Parillo added, "You'd better be taking good care of my ship."
Dennis laughed although she could tell the words were only half joking. "You're welcome to take a look around—after you show me what has you firing off priority one messages to the EMF."
"That's precisely where we're headed." He continued out the other side of camp, snagging two flashlights and a bag of hoverlamps from a table as he passed. "Everyone else is on the ship," he said in response to her quizzical expression. He'd sent the other ten members of his team up to their transport in orbit where he hoped they'd be safer. They'd humored him and agreed to work on surveying they could do from the Whirlwind. "It's a ten minute walk."
The hilly forest had little ground cover, so it was easy to avoid the rocks as they walked. "George still your XO?"
"No, his promotion went through a couple weeks ago. He's the captain of the Independence now. Had the nerve to take my Chief Engineer with him, the bastard."
Seeing as she didn't sound the least bit upset, Parillo chuckled. "So did you promote from within? Or go and filch from someone else's command staff?" He felt a surge of parental pride that so many of 'his' officers had not only chosen to stay in the EMF, but now had their own commands as well. And he felt intense relief that so many had survived the war.
"I kept it in the family. My Second Officer was way overdue. I was lucky not to lose him in the meantime. And the new Chief Engineer is quite the golden girl. You keep up with the scuttlebutt, right?"
He searched his memory a moment. "Ah, yes. Alynda Burnette, right? The most recent whiz-kid from the academy."
"No, no. She's an ancient twenty-five years old now. I think there's another child prodigy already. Some physicist." She looked around when Parillo stopped but saw nothing besides more woods and hills.
"Right here," Parillo walked around an oddly-shaped outcropping and moved aside some fallen branches to reveal a metal hatch.
A hatch bearing an EMF insignia that was recognizable yet clearly different. The background coloring had changed from a pure black to darkest navy, and the style of the stars framing the Earth, and of the Earth itself, was more ornate—an artistic representation instead of photographic.
Dennis let out a low, long whistle. "Not what you expected to find."
With a grunt of agreement, Parillo handed Dennis a flashlight then turned on his own. She followed her former commander inside, the two beams of light playing down three steps and illuminating a short passage that ran longwise between the two parallel walls.
They were inside the double hull of a ship. The stairs stopped at another hatch. Parillo pried it open and activated the hoverlamp which, spewing brightness that made both people shield their eyes, floated lightly away and to the ceiling at the center of the room beyond the interior hatch. Then he got out of the way so she could see for herself.
They stood on the bridge of a starship, one that had the same layout she was accustomed to, only smaller and on one single level. There were two stations fore, presumably con and ops or the like, and two chairs in the center of the circular area. Several more stations lined the aft wall. It would have looked like a perfectly respectable and fully functional bridge if not for the fine layer of dust...
...and the dead bodies all around.
Nothing but skeletons remained, human skeletons. Although the environment had been sealed, it had been neither dry nor cold enough to preserve the flesh, which had long-since vanished along with the clothing the ill-fated people had worn.
Both of the central seats were occupied, as were the two forward stations. Three more sets of remains lay in the back.
"I think the fleet needs to work on clearer communications," Dennis said sharply. "Because the message I got was the equivalent of 'an archeologist found some ancient bodies. Go check it out.' If they hadn't included your name, I wouldn't have come at all." She touched her comlink. "Dennis to Nyranik."
"Yes, Captain?"
Parillo raised an eyebrow and shot Dennis a look at the boyishness of the voice. She grinned back at him and held up a finger.
"Adams, what readings are you getting from my location? Any lifesigns? Or energy spikes?"
"No, Captain. Reading two humans and that's all. Are you standing in a buried ship?"
"That's right. Have Alynda and Jairgage beam down to these coordinates with a full science team."
"Aye, Captain. How about Saran, Sir? You know he'll be asking."
"That's fine. Dennis, out. Saran is chief of security and he takes his job very seriously," Dennis explained, then grinned and addressed Parillo's inquiring look from before. "Adams's not as young as he sounds, Luke. Almost ten years out of the Academy, in fact. So," she circled the bridge, careful not to disturb anything, "I take it you haven't explored the ship yet?" The only footprints in the dust were those she herself was leaving.
"No. I hated waiting, but I didn't want to risk it without any ba
ckup."
The shimmering and humming of the transporter made them turn to face the dark blue screen. Two columns of sparkling light in front of it coalesced into a study in contrasts.
A petite woman with engineering insignia on her collar had chocolate-colored skin, wide-set, deep-brown eyes and a halo of curly black hair that framed her delicate features and just brushed her collar. Parillo doubted the top of her head would reach his shoulder. With her tiny frame, he was sure she was often mistaken for a child from a distance, or even sometimes up close.
Next to the diminutive woman, the other officer appeared that much more imposing. Easily six feet tall, big boned and well muscled, her almond-shaped eyes and straight black hair, flowing to her waist and worn loose except for a headband, showed her Chinese decent. Parillo had never seen such a tall Asian. He estimated her age at somewhere in the mid forties. She held a medical kit in one hand and a medical scanner in the other.
Dennis introduced them. "This is my Chief Engineer, Alynda Burnette, and my CMO Jairgage Chen. Professor Luke Parillo."
"A pleasure, Professor," Burnette flashed him a sparkling smile even as she went to work with her handheld scanner. Following the tracks Dennis had just made, she scanned each station around the bridge.
"Nice to meet you," Chen said, her own smile much more low key and serene than her crewmate's. "Saran and his security team are right behind us, Captain They're setting up a perimeter"
"Can you tell what killed them?" Dennis asked, gesturing around the compartment.
Chen consulted her medical scanner before saying, "Not with this, Captain. Perhaps more sensitive instruments on board can help. Whatever happened, happened a millennium ago from our perspective."
"Maybe," Burnette said, still circling the room. "Unless they somehow died before getting thrown to the past. I'm getting conflicting readings. But that's to be expected, considering. The ship has been here over a thousand years, but it definitely originated in the future." She gave a satisfied "Aha!" then brushed away some grime. "2613. That's the old-Earth year on the placard. The only question is, how long after that did the ship end up in the past."
"What about..."
Burnette anticipated Parillo's suggestion. "All logs have been completely erased, Professor. There is nothing left."
"Deliberately wiped? Or as the result of some attack or accident?" Dennis asked.
"I can't tell yet. After we check everything over, we'll see if she powers up. If so, that might give us some answers."
As if on cue, the security team arrived. Six of the bunch carried loads of equipment with them in cases both hand-held and with shoulder straps. Each carried a hand weapon. Three others, including a strapping brunette man, wore heavy rifles slung across their backs.
"Captain, I'd like to start with Engineering," Burnette said.
Dennis nodded. "Report in every ten minutes until the ship is confirmed clear."
"Aye, Sir," Burnette took off across the bridge with Saran at her heels. A hoverlamp, set at much lower luminosity, floated behind them courtesy of Parillo.
Using a magnetic handle, Burnette opened one of the accessways and would have started down the ladder but Saran tapped her on the shoulder. She gave a laugh that was almost a giggle. With a bow both elegant and exaggerated, the engineer stepped back and allowed the head of security to go first.
"See what you can find here," Dennis told the rest of the scientists, "Then work your way down deck by deck. You two," she spoke to the security personnel, "are with us. We'll scout ahead." She gave a knowing half smile, "Assuming you care to join us, Professor."
"Need you ask, Captain?"
Despite dirty looks from the two remaining security officers, Dennis took the lead and swung around onto the ladder. The light spilling in from the bridge showed that the accessway led the height of the ship, meaning all five decks. Based on its apparent size, Parillo estimated the ship would have had a crew of about forty.
One of the men from security followed Captain Dennis and the other went last after Parillo, who activated another lamp to track them before he descended the ladder.
It took Dennis a moment to get the door open below. Once she was finally able to break the seal, she swapped the magnetic handle for her pistol before pushing the door open and going through.
"Burnette to Dennis," the girlish voice echoed weirdly down the shaft.
"Yes, Commander?" Dennis replied as Parillo and the last security officer followed her out into a corridor. The air smelled as stale and moldy as on the bridge, and an identical layer of fine dust whorled around their boots as they walked.
"Four more sets of bones down here, Sir. No sign yet of why."
"Acknowledged. Stay in contact."
"Captain Dennis, I realize how unorthodox this will sound," Parillo said as he adjusted the hoverlamp to higher luminosity. "But if I may make a suggestion..." he waited for her assent, then continued, "I think we could greatly benefit from my wife's powers of observation, and puzzle-solving skills. She has a great deal of experience solving mysteries."
Dennis did a double take. "Your wife? Congratulations. I had no idea."
"We tend to keep things private," Parillo explained. "She's one of the archeologists. Vale."
Besides, Parillo didn't speak his thought out loud, She will kill me if she doesn't get the chance to see this.
Dennis signaled her ship. "Adams, contact the archeologists. Request that Vale come down to our location.
#
Dennis leaned forward, elbows on the conference room's oval table, and fixed an impatient glare on Parillo.
"The tests were almost completed," Parillo said as he claimed an empty chair. "I'm sure she'll only be another few minutes."
Dennis's entire senior staff had gathered for the meeting. Parillo recognized Dr. Chen, Cdr. Burnette, and Lt. Saran. A young woman from the investigating team was also present, presumably as the Science Officer. Dennis addressed her as Kalli. Two strangers—male, both commanders—had to be her First Officer, and Second Officer.
The doors slid apart to admit Vale, and Parillo's spirit soared. It didn't matter if five minutes had passed, or five years. He had the same reaction when his wife walked into a room. She wore a plain dark green pullover and paler green trousers, and the same style work boots as he. To his eyes, she looked gorgeous.
He'd left the fleet for her—for himself, he corrected—when he could no longer bear their long separations. And while he sometimes missed the old life—even a great deal, on occasion—he never once regretted the choice.
"Ms. Vale, you found something worth waiting for, I hope." Dennis's mild tone questioned the results rather than criticized the delay.
"Just Vale, Captain. And yes, if we're lucky anyway. I can't promise yet, it's way too soon. But I have a program going over the physical computer drives. We might be able to recover those logs after all."
"How long?"
"Several hours, I'm afraid. It's incredibly intricate work."
Parillo noted that several officers, most particularly Saran and Kalli, looked most interested in her statement. He'd likely have to run a bit of interference seeing as the program wasn't legal.
He hid a rush of relief and gratitude when Dennis steered the conversation in a different direction. "Jairgage, did you find a cause of death?"
"No, Captain, not definitively. It's been too long and there is no obvious damage to any of the bodies. I'm getting readings of residual radiation, but it's such trace amounts, and the particles don't decay at a constant speed, so there is no way to tell if levels were lethal or not."
"Well we didn't find anything either," Dennis said, for Vale's benefit. "The ship was designed a standard crew of around forty," she concurred with Parillo's estimate, "but could handle two or three times as many in case of emergency. We only found evidence of ten people on board."
"That fits with how Engineering looked," Burnette said. "The way the systems were set up, almost jury-rigged in places, they c
ompletely lacked safeties like redundancies and shutoffs. Whatever they were doing, Captain, it looked like a test run."
"An experiment that went wrong?" A contemplative look settled on Dennis's face. "A test flight would explain the minimal crew. What else did you find out about the engines themselves?"
"I have no clue what several of the components do. We're still trying to figure them out. I'll need to power up the ship to do more."
Adams's brows drew together. "Is that wise? We don't want a repeat of whatever killed them."
"I can't do anything else without power. It won't do me any good to take it apart. I'd still have no clue what some of the parts are for." Burnette shrugged. "How badly do we want to solve the mystery?"
"We could wait for the results of the computer scan," Saran said.
Burnette opened her mouth to reply and the impish sparkle in her dark eyes told Parillo it wasn't going to be in agreement. She never got the chance.
The ship careened to one side, hurling them all from their chairs. The alarm claxon blared and lights went red, then completely dark. The emergency lights that came on were so faint that Parillo figured they were only at quarter power.
"Sound off!" Dennis barked as she pulled herself slowly to her feet. Blood ran down the side of her face.
Chen's voice came first. She was hunching over Kalli's still form. "She's out cold. I don't know how bad the injuries are. I should get her to sickbay."
"Can you manage?"
"Yes, sir,"
No one else reported any injuries, although all looked worse for wear. Saran was favoring his left leg, the XO cradling his right arm. Ugly bruises were already showing on everyone else.
Dennis tried her comlink but got no response from it, or from the door. She and Saran pried the doors open. He immediately crossed the corridor to an accessway hatch and opened it manually.
"Chen, go," Dennis said as her security chief stepped aside.
The doctor hoisted her patient over her shoulder and still managed to dash out of the room, which thus far was cooperating and staying still.
