by Jessica Gunn
“I want to make this work, you know,” he said. “You’re an incredible person when you’re not trying to hold the world up by yourself. You inspire me, Chelsea. The fire you have for your dreams makes me believe that one day I’ll get to live mine. And I’d love for you to be there with me when I do.” A smile cracked between the straight lines of his lips. “But you also drive me mad.”
He wanted to make it work?
I couldn’t even process that. The only part that registered was that this was probably my third and final chance. But there were no more secrets to hide. He knew about my world; he’d lived it without even realizing it. And now he knew about General Allen. Those were all the secrets I had.
He bent down and kissed my forehead. “I don’t want to lose you.”
I let my body relax under him. He wasn’t ending it, even though he should have. I was determined to never give him a reason to. “You won’t.”
“Good.”
Still, as we fell asleep next to each other, a heavy weight pressed against my lungs. This couldn’t be that easy. It was never that easy.
helsea looked terrible. Baggy uniform, half unzipped. Dark bags under her eyes. At least part of that was my fault, for that stupid fight. For whatever our telepathy had done to spin our separate rage into one big whirlwind. Would this power ever stop growing? Would we be like this forever? First thoughts, then images. Now feelings that turned into their own physical forces.
Chelsea stood next to me in front of a projector screen opposite a crowd of thirty plus people. Major Pike gave us his blessing on our plan an hour ago, and now we were to present it so we could get moving on it. My nerves wound tight around my lungs, anxiety exaggerating every motion as I moved to disperse some of my energy.
Third cup of coffee in hand, Chelsea looked up when General Holt gave us the go ahead to start the briefing. She put her coffee down and addressed the group. “Our plan consists of three parts: assault, breach, and escape. Major Pike has taken care of the assault plans, which involve Sophia and I moving all the troops from our place-time to theirs using the Link Piece Trevor and I saw in our premonition.”
Dr. Hill and I originally thought the statue had been used as the jungle temple’s launch piece. According to Dave, that was wrong, and it was left there on purpose for us to find. To kill Chelsea and Sophia, our super soldiers, so we couldn’t time-travel to SeaSat5 at all.
“We don’t know what we’ll be walking into, or in what condition we will find SeaSat5, so at General Holt’s request, we’ve planned for the worst case scenarios,” Chelsea explained. “There will be multiple assault teams and I’ll leave that to Major Pike to explain.”
Pike stood and joined Chelsea, detailing a bunch of military jargon my brain didn’t focus on. It didn’t matter what Pike’s assault teams would be up to. Chelsea and I would be on the teams assigned to breach SeaSat5.
When Pike was done, all attention returned to Chelsea.
“You’re planning this from memory,” Josh said.
Chelsea nodded. “Yes, but the day isn’t exactly hard to forget.” She straightened and turned her attention back to the whole group. “Once we’ve accounted for the whole crew, Sophia and I will work the transfer back.”
“Because you have yet to assign me to a team, I assume I’ll be getting a Return Piece?” Sophia asked.
Chelsea nodded. “Yes. You’ll be running through the compound with the teams.”
“If we can find one,” Sophia said.
“We have to.” Or else we’d be stuck there, no better than the SeaSat5 crew was now. But even if we couldn’t find a Return Piece that’d land us back here to our home-time, we should be able to find something, anything, to get out of the Atlanteans’. “You have to figure the Atlanteans took moving SeaSat5 into account, given they were able to take the whole station and everyone on board. They didn’t just do it with one super soldier, and they didn’t do it by being on board at the time. No one unaccounted for was on the station when it was taken.”
“Unless Dave’s a super soldier, too,” Chelsea mumbled.
“He’s Lemurian,” I said.
“He’s gotta be a whole lot of something else, too,” she said. “And you can bet your ass he’s probably in the compound with them. I can’t wait to interrogate the son of a bitch.”
I wasn’t sure how I liked Chelsea’s plans for Dave. I had my own I wanted to get to, first. Like finishing the beating I’d started the last time we’d seen each other in person. “In either case, he didn’t do it. Not alone.”
“Say I find a Return Piece, what then?” Sophia asked.
“You and I work our asses off to get us back,” Chelsea said.
“And then I teleport the station to dry-dock?” Sophia shook her head. “That’s too much, Chelsea. I’m concerned we won’t be able to do it.”
“Short of SeaSat5 itself being a Link Piece,” I said, “which I’m sure we would have noticed by now, there has to be another way.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Josh said. “I want SeaSat5 back as much as you two, but this is a whole lot to risk, including relying on being able to discover how the Atlanteans traveled with the station in tow, and replicate it.”
“I thought so, too,” Dr. Hill said. “But the more I listen, the more I’m convinced we can do it.” He leaned forward to rest his hands on the table. “If Germay’s people could manufacture Link Pieces in the far future, what’s to say the Atlanteans who took SeaSat5 won’t have that technology or know-how in their current time period? Is it even a technology-based act at all?” He shook his head. “We don’t know as much as we think we do. I think the possibilities are endless. We’ll find a Return Piece one way or another.”
“Not to mention the fact that the Lemurians apparently have our backs,” I said.
Chelsea sent me a look. She didn’t believe it, either, but why else would Dave and my mother both appear to me, never mind Valerie? We’ve been played too many times, she thought.
So let’s step out of the game.
We went over a bunch of other specifics. In less than seventy-two hours, SeaSatellite5 and its crew would be home. For good.
Or so we hoped.
The transfer to the time in which the Atlanteans were holding SeaSatellite5 hurt. My knees buckled under me the second we landed, like a huge weight fell onto my shoulders and I had to hold it up through a bout of super high fever and shakes.
Then the gunshots started. Wave after wave of gunfire—bullets and lasers—tore through the air around us. The TAO soldiers returned fire and I drew my own weapon. We’d landed in the middle of a compound, in a four-way intersection. The dimly lit hallways smelled of plastic and hospital sterilization.
Chelsea and Sophia collapsed to the ground beside me. I stepped next to them and soon other soldiers, including Weyland and Major Pike, surrounded them, too. To give them breathing time, recovery from what was apparently a not-at-all-smooth transfer. Could the Atlanteans make it hard to land here to deter intruders? Was that possible?
Both Chelsea and Sophia got to their feet almost immediately and plowed onward through enemy lines ahead of a line of soldiers, swiping bullets out of the way with their water attacks. I squinted through the lack of light and pressed on behind them from the middle of the pack despite the battle continuing around us. We charged down hallway after hallway, unsure of what we’d find, only knowing what we wanted to find.
More gunfire erupted, slicing through the air with wild abandon. I ducked behind walls when I could, or crouched, to make myself a smaller target. Chelsea and Sophia stood back-to-back, pulling water out of the air and flinging it about like a hydra. They took out two waves of Atlantean soldiers with their attack before Sophia tapped Chelsea on the shoulder to signal our separation. The teams would split up now, ours in search of SeaSat5 and Sophia’s to find the SeaSat5 crew and a Return Piece. I joined those who made up the breach teams and our escort squad, and we set out into the compound searching for the station.
You’d think Dave would have given us directions once inside. The thoughts were Chelsea’s.
Feel like asking him?
She stopped short, causing me to almost smack into her. “Think you can? You two were always buddy-buddy. And he tapped into your brain after all.”
I shook my head. “No.” Even if I could, I didn’t know how to.
“What?” Josh asked.
“Telepathy,” Chelsea and I said at the same time. He’d known from earlier this week, but I didn’t think he understood it. Or wasn’t freaked out by it.
My vision grew foggy and dark around the edges. Then I was there, back in the dream-world where Dave contacted me. For a single, brief moment, Dave stood before me. Then he was gone, and the dream-world with it. My legs collapsed under my weight, knees smacking against the ground.
Josh knelt in front of me when I came to, saying something with frantic eyes and drawn brows. Slowly his words hit my ears. “Okay? Gotta move. Get up. Trevor, get up.”
I blinked a few times as he held his hand out to me. Surprising, giving what I’d done to his and Chelsea’s relationship last night—though that looked to be still intact. I took it and stood with shaky knees. Then I looked beyond Josh’s shoulder to where a green light traced the floor in front of our group. What?
“What, what?” Chelsea jogged up beside me.
“You can’t see it?” I asked.
Josh and Chelsea looked equally confused. “See what?” Chelsea asked.
I pointed to the floor. “There’s a green path…” I rubbed my eyes and shook my head. “Dave…” I don’t know, Chelsea.
Bullets ricocheted off the walls, demolishing the plaster and stone. One zipped by my head, so close the heat brushed my face.
“We need to move,” Josh said, tugging Chelsea out of the way as laser shots joined the other attacks. “Now.”
“Let’s follow it, then. Someone’s trying to show you the way,” Chelsea said, cocking her gun and letting a wave loose on the Atlanteans. “Hopefully Dave, and hopefully it’s because he feels like being nice.”
“Convenient,” I mumbled. If anything, he wants a way home.
We followed the trail anyway. Dave could be leading us into a trap for all we knew. But he reached out to us. In the very least, he needed us to get back. And that would have to count enough for now.
Long minutes passed as we followed Dave’s path, each ticking by with the occasional gunfight that grew in frequency the further into the compound we went. We found the heaviest contingent outside a double set of doors. My heart leapt from my chest up into my mouth.
“There. Behind those doors. I can guarantee it,” Chelsea said. Oh my God. We’re so close. Almost there. Almost—
I can feel it, too, I responded. I don’t know how, but I can.
Bullets tore through our group. Lasers blazed green, reflecting like strobe lights against the gleaming white walls of the hallway. A TAO soldier next to me screamed as a bullet ripped through him. Blood spewed out of a wound in his shoulder and he dropped to the ground in pain. Crimson soaked his black uniform and spilled onto the sterile tile floor. Pike and another soldier yanked the injured man off to the side, ducking behind another hallway corner.
The rest of us—Chelsea, Josh, and three others from our group—fired back at the enemy soldiers blocking the doors. Shouts and cries of agony filled the corridor as one by one our opponents fell to the ground. Their blood crept across the tiles toward us as their eyes gazed unseeing at the ceiling.
The hallway became eerily silent as the last of our gunfire died out. I stepped past body after body, careful to avoid walking through blood. Even more careful not to look at anything below waist level for too long. My stomach roiled as we made our way to the thick metal doors before us. I grabbed the handle, but it clicked. Locked. I pulled my rifle up and use the butt of the gun to smash into the knob. Each crash reverberated in my hands and up my arms, but I didn’t stop until the handle fell with a loud clank. SeaSat5 was right there. Right behind these doors. I shoved them with my shoulder until they swung wide open.
My eyes were met with the most beautiful sight since the first time I saw her.
SeaSatellite5. Intact. Whole.
Chelsea slapped a hand to her mouth and exclaimed, “Holy freaking Hell.”
hen the doors opened, a blue shimmering consumed my vision, so bold and so bright I had to bring my arm up to shield my eyes. Inch by inch I slowly pulled my arm away, taking it all in. SeaSat5—but there was more, and I could not believe it. “Holy freaking Hell.”
SeaSatellite5 was a Link Piece. A legitimate, bona fide, Link-freaking-PIECE. It stood magnificently before us, waving around like a mirage in the desert, pavement on a hot summer’s day. I knew the others couldn’t see it, but how had I not seen this before?
“Chelsea?” Pike asked.
I lifted a finger toward the satellite station, easily the most beautiful thing I’d ever laid eyes on, and I’d seen Machu Picchu at sunset. I’d seen many things, sights no one in their right mind could ever fathom seeing. But gazing at SeaSat5 from the outside was the most downright glorious thing I’d ever laid eyes on.
“It’s the station.” I could barely get the words out. My jaw dropped to the floor in awe, my throat constricting with emotion. The adrenaline coursing through my veins was no help. Tears stung my eyes. After two years, here it was. After forever, my home sat before me. And it was beautiful.
“It’s a Link Piece?” Trevor asked. He was so close I felt his warm breath on my face. It reminded me of home, too. Of the nights we’d shared and everything of mine I’d given to him, never to be returned.
I nodded and forced myself to snap out of this reverie. “We’d better get going. That’s probably why they wanted the station in the first place. And it’s glowing, which means it’s still a Link Piece that goes somewhere.”
No wonder Valerie said the station was invaluable. She knew. Had she known all along, from the day I set foot on SeaSat5?
“Agreed,” Major Pike said. “Let’s move out.”
We split up from the doorway. Weyland’s team started looking for a way to breach the Heli-Dome, while my and Trevor’s team headed for Shuttle Dock where we then split up again. As we went our separate ways at the inner staircase landing, my eyes lingered on Trevor.
Be safe, I warned him. Regardless of what’s between us, be safe.
You too. He started to climb the stairs then turned back to me. Please.
Please what? Stay safe? Of course I planned to. But his eyes held something different. They were too full of pleading and sadness, laced with longing, not the determination that should have been there. I didn’t know what he meant, so I didn’t respond. My throat constricted and I swallowed hard. Would I always have this feeling when I looked at him? I loved him once, and he knew everything about me. And yet, somehow, we’d become strangers.
After a few moments he shook his head and resumed climbing. I waited a few seconds then directed Dr. Hill and Josh up the stairs after him.
As we climbed up through all the Science Decks, memories slammed into me with the force of a sledgehammer.
Up, up, up we climbed, strangely encountering no resistance whatsoever. Our footfalls echoed off the walls, a loud staccato against the silence that continued until we reached the Residential Deck where my and Valerie’s old quarters were. When we approached my door, I peeled back the casing of the electronic key lock I’d used so many times before. I rearranged some wires as Trevor taught me, then replaced the cover and typed in a code. It beeped and allowed us access. The second I stepped inside, I froze, my entire body ceasing all movement unrelated to keeping me alive.
Everything down to the hair on Valerie’s rug remained exactly how it was the night I’d left for shore leave after the hijacking. Even my bed, now covered in a layer of dust, remained made to perfection. I swallowed hard and blinked rapidly. I wasn’t going to cry, I wasn’t. But this room, being here, being on board SeaSat5
, caused my heart to swell, and an anxiety pit the size of a watermelon formed beneath it.
We were here. We were doing this. And this was our one and only shot.
I stepped forward and yelled for Josh to shut and lock the door behind us. He and Dr. Hill pushed my dresser in front of it. I signed onto Valerie’s computer and pulled USB drives out of my vest pocket, plugging them in one by one. Trevor and I figured Valerie did something weird to her computer during the hijacking so I could contact the Admiral—that I hadn’t done as much as I thought in reconnecting the communications buoy. Valerie, we thought, probably connected her computer to the rest of the main system. If that were true, the macros Trevor wrote should be able to use that connection to run a quick security sweep and general system diagnostic to see how far off we were in our guesses.
“Here goes nothing,” I said as I sent a number of diagnostics to start.
Before they came back with results and fed the data through to the Bridge, my radio went off.
“Lieutenant Olivarez and Dr. Gordon found.” It was one of TAO’s soldiers, but not Sophia. “Repeat, Olivarez and Gordon found. Delivering now. Continuing search. Over.”
My heart stopped. Sunk. Flip-flopped. Swelled again. Burst.
Freddy. Helen. They were found and being brought to the station. They were alive.
I stared down the diagnostics and willed them to move faster.
Who knew how much time we had left before the Atlanteans figured out where we’d gone.
ommander Devins being delivered. Over.”
I drowned out everything after that. All that mattered was getting Hummingbird working again. At least the shield part of it. I gained tunnel vision somewhere between the third and fourth diagnostic parameter, testing and relaying information to a digital buoy on the Bridge. If they found all the senior staff, they’d know what to do with it. If not, I’d be there soon, barring being attacked by Atlanteans or the jerry-rigged system failing entirely.
