Time Slip
Caroline McCall
Blush sensuality level: This is a sensual romance (may have explicit love scenes, but not erotic in frequency or type).
Shocked by the brutal murder of her colleague, curator Ingrid runs for her life through the dark exhibit halls of the museum where she works—straight into the arms of Temporal Agent Strom. He’s been sent back in time to stop a twenty-sixth-century criminal who is stealing artifacts from the past.
Falling in love with Ingrid wasn’t part of the mission. Strom knows they can have no future together. Five hundred years separate them, but the attraction that flares between the couple is impossible to resist. Their brief, passionate affair has consequences. When Strom returns to his own century, Ingrid must find a way to send him a message across time.
Ellora’s Cave Publishing
www.ellorascave.com
Time Slip
ISBN 9781419935589
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Time Slip Copyright © 2011 Caroline McCall
Edited by Briana St. James
Cover design by Syneca
Photography by VojtechVik/Shutterstock.com
Electronic book publication September 2011
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Time Slip
Caroline McCall
Chapter One
Winter 2524
Despite the partially regenerated arm, the man in stasis-pod six had a body that would make a four-star general blush, something she was trying not to do in front of a junior ensign.
Her face assumed an expressionless mask as she continued her inspection. Floating in the clear stasis gel was two hundred and forty pounds of Alpha Class combatant, enhanced with a titanium skeletal frame and the latest in nanotech sensory and communications systems. His left hip was imprinted with a small barcode denoting, rank, DNA group, education and number of kills. The kill ratio was high, and she knew it didn’t include the ones from his last mission. Her eyes flashed the ensign an icy stare that wiped the grin off his face.
“His tattoos are in breach of Star Regulation 339.29.”
“Sorry, Ma’am. We usually remove them in stasis, but next time the guys are off world they just get ‘em back on. General Holmes turns a blind eye—”
“I am not General Holmes.”
The ensign blushed nervously. “Yes, Ma’am. Sorry, Ma’am.”
The offending artwork stretched from the left side of his face to his hip, a swirling, intricate pattern of Celtic and Norse symbols, merging into a wolf’s head low on his abdomen. ATarsian wolf head. I wonder how may women have seen that particular work of art? Two words were tattooed on the underside of the big toe of his right foot.
This time the general did blush.
She crossed the chamber to the spaceport window. Med Unit One was situated on a narrow promontory away from the main space station. In the event of a contagion or new viruses, it could be sealed off instantly, or if there was a real emergency, jettisoned completely. Through the porthole, she could see the vast inky darkness of space. Far below was the small blue planet she used to call home.
“How did he lose the arm?”
“He caught it in a launch station door, rescuing one of the hostages on Tarsus Four, Ma’am. Doc says Captain Hallstrom tore his own arm off. Can you believe that?” The ensign eyed the sleeping form with a mixture of admiration and revulsion.
The general could believe it. Strom was creative, intelligent and ruthless. Three qualities he would need for his next mission. “Thank you, Ensign. That will be all.”
She waited until she heard the swish of the automatic doors closing behind him before she turned to face the pod again. “Central Com, this is General Leona Hallstrom. Authorization code one-zero-alpha-seven-alpha-zero.”
“Affirmative,” the disembodied voice of the Central Computer System responded.
“Captain Hallstrom is being reassigned to the Department of Temporal Security, effective immediately. Download a full cultural, security, and language pack for early twenty-first century Earth into his memory.”
“Affirmative, please indicate precise location of next assignment.”
“Dublin, Ireland, 2011. The Captain also requires knowledge of archaeology and European art to doctoral standard.”
“Will that be all?”
The general looked at his sleeping face. In stasis, Strom’s dark, sherry-colored eyes were open, which was a little disconcerting. If he knew she was here, those eyes would quickly turn cold. Once they had looked at her with affection, and perhaps the possibility of something more, but they hadn’t spoken in over five years—not since she’d married his father. It was perhaps the only time she had ever surprised him. She pursed her lips and tried not to smile. Maybe it was time she gave him another little surprise.
“Will that be all?” Central Com’s disembodied voice came again.
“One further requirement. The Captain also requires a knowledge of Women’s Studies to Master’s degree level.” She didn’t want to be around when he woke up with that one.
Early spring 2525
He heard a sudden whoosh as the stasis gel drained into a tank below him, and Strom Hallstrom floated slowly downward until his body rested on the base of the Medi-Pod. He flexed his left hand. It almost felt the same. Once they had completed the tech enhancements he would be ready to return to duty. His glance ranged downward. All present and correct, but Wolfie was gone. Damn medi bureaucrats.
“Full report, Com.”
The micro-computer embedded in his skull replayed a series of data across the retina of his right eye, all systems were normal. Then he sat up abruptly, banging his head hard against the lid of the pod.
“Damn and blast. Who authorized this?”
Seventy-two hours of enhancement surgery, rehab and mission debriefing followed. Strom was usually a patient man, but by the time they had finished with him, he was ready to go supernova. His first officer and chief engineer, Jake Svenson and Pete Olafson, were waiting in the lobby. Jake had used the downtime to secure a date with two nurses for later that night. The men jumped to their feet when he came through the door and rushed to greet him.
Jake gave him a lopsided grin. “I hate to be the one to break it to you, Boss, but Regen hasn’t worked. You’re still an ugly bastard.”
Strom clapped him on the shoulder
. “Good to see you too. Now let’s get out of here. I need a drink.”
* * * * *
Saturn’s Mead—it was far from Saturn or mead, but it was cold and alcoholic and it was almost eight months since his last beer. The bottles clustered in an ever-increasing pile in the middle of the table of the crowded spaceport bar.
Pete’s eyes streamed with tears as he listened to the story of Jake’s latest romantic entanglement.
Jake swigged his beer. “She said she was a twin, but I didn’t realize that the other one was a man. That balcony sure got cold after midnight.”
Strom sat back in his chair and laughed along with them. But inside he felt withdrawn, somehow disconnected from the warm merriment of the bar. The last mission had been a bitch and three months was a long time to spend in Regen. It would take a while to reconnect. The server brought another round, on the house. She tossed her long blonde hair, giving Strom a meaningful look. Jake winked at her and nudged Strom, who shook his head.
“He never ploughs the same field twice.”
“Shut up, Pete.”
But it was too late. She had already heard him and her face flushed as she turned away. Strom had slept with her before the last mission. A half remembered episode of too much alcohol and random sex.
“I can’t. I take up my new post tomorrow morning.”
Strom couldn’t believe it when he was given his latest assignment. He was due three weeks’ furlough and sick leave, but it had all been cancelled by the Department of Temporal Security. What the fuck did they want with him?
Pete’s face was flushed from the beer. “Ah, the DTS—the hive of the wicked step-mother. Didn’t you and she have a thing?”
There was a crash of empty bottles as the chair disappeared from under him, leaving Pete on his back with his legs in the air, much to the amusement of the other drinkers. “We never had a thing.” Strom dropped a pile of credits on the table and left the bar.
* * * * *
“Good morning, Captain, the General is expecting you.”
I bet she is. Strom’s anger simmered just below boiling. A sleepless night in a lumpy bunk at the flight station hadn’t helped, and the anti-rejection meds for the tech implants in his new arm were making him feel nauseous. Pete had commed him several times during the night to apologize, but it wasn’t Pete’s fault. He knew that he had overreacted, and he hated when anyone got under his skin.
General Hallstrom sat behind the antique desk; her face was cool and expressionless, as usual. He sat down without being invited and lounged back in his chair, knowing that his disrespect would irritate her almost as much as if he called her mom. He would save that one for when he really wanted to piss her off. Strom’s eyes took in the chestnut hair, folded into a neat chignon, and the pristine uniform, which barely showed a crease. The bitch must sleep standing up.
Leona regarded him patiently, as if he was a particularly tiresome child. The reality was that she was barely five years older than him.
“I wanted to speak to you privately before the meeting. I hope that you won’t let our personal relationship interfere with the mission.” Her expression was friendly, but guarded.
His eyes narrowed. So Leona was afraid that he would damage her precious reputation. “I never let anything interfere with the mission.”
Strom detected a flicker of hurt in her expression, but he ignored the brief spasm of guilt. If Leona wanted to play at being friends, she could wait ‘til Pluto melted. “Let’s get this briefing over with.”
The mission-advisory team consisted of three temporal agents, two nerds who specialized in temporal probability studies, and an aging historian and twenty-first-century cultural analyst. He seemed to be the only muscle—the rest of them wouldn’t know one end of a weapon from the other. If this was a geek outing, what did they want with him? If he agreed to take on this mission for Leona, he would insist on having his own team with him. Strom sat back and waited.
“First, how about we have a quick revision session on temporal mechanics?” Leona looked pointedly at Strom.
“The simplest way to consider time is to imagine it as a tree-like structure with an infinite number of branches, in which the future is not yet determined. We know that a great number of factors can affect the outcome. At the Department of Temporal Security, we work to minimize any interventions, which would have an adverse impact on the time line we live in.”
She paused, taking a sip of water. “We also monitor incursions into the past for illegal or terrorist purposes. Com, dim lights please, and display file.”
The room darkened and the overhead screen lit up with the image of a man, Raoul Jasson, one of the most notorious Cyraelian terrorists. His clothes and hair might have been old-fashioned, but Strom would recognize that face anywhere. The images flashed by—London, New York, Paris, Rome and finally Dublin. The MO was the same in all cases. He presented himself as a security specialist to international museums, relieved them of their most prized portable treasures, replacing them with twenty-sixth century replicas. The real treasures were sold to private collectors in his own time for millions of credits, creating a nice little fund for Raoul and his boss, crime-lord Atam Sorza.
The lights came back on again. Strom tapped his fingers impatiently on the table. “Would someone like to tell me why I’m here?”
Leona looked around the table. “Gentlemen, if you could give me five minutes alone with the Captain.”
She waited for the room to empty before sliding an archive file across the table toward him. It was a paper photograph. Strom had seen them in museums as a child, but he had never held one before. A smiling girl in a garden, her long dark hair fell around her shoulders in waves. She was utterly different from the females of his time, slender and delicate, with no weapons enhancements and little or no muscle. She was just, soft. He could probably break her in two with one hand.
But it was her expression that captivated him. She looked into the camera with such love, such naked adoration in her eyes that Strom felt like a voyeur. This was a personal image, something to hold, to treasure. He experienced a surprising stab of jealousy for the photographer; he was certain it was a man.
“Pretty,” he murmured. He didn’t slide the photograph back. Instead, his hand rested lightly on the sleeve.
“Strom, look at the photograph again.”
He scanned the image, running it through his internal database, checking it against criminals, known terrorists and missing soldiers, nothing.
“No, Strom. Look with your eyes.” He glared impatiently at her. What was this, a guessing game?
In the background were a few people wearing twenty-first century clothing. He looked at the girl’s eyes again. She seemed to be looking at him, smiling for him. She was carrying a single rose and she wore an unusual ring on her left hand. Two wolf heads intertwined, their eyes were set with tiny Cerulian rubies. Strom felt as though he’d been punched in the chest. It was his grandfather’s ring—a souvenir of his first trip into deep space. The ring had been made off-world, more than four hundred years after this photograph was taken, and it was hanging on a chain around his neck. His finger reached inside his uniform, it was still there.
Strom’s eyes shot up. “No chance that this is a fake?”
Leona shook her head. “I’m sorry, Strom. I’m afraid it’s real. From what we’ve been able to find out about the girl, she’s the one who first uncovered the museum thefts. Raoul murdered her the same year this photograph was taken. We need you to stop him.”
Strom was surprised by the level of anger that burned through him. He had witnessed the aftermath of battle, the horror of death among the civilian casualties, but that was just business. This felt personal, almost.
“Tell me.”
Leona’s expression was tinged with pity. There was something bad coming. “Her name was Ingrid Sorenson. We believe she was your wife.”
Dublin 2011
“Calm down. Calm down. Just calm down, Sorens
on.”
Ingrid repeated the words like a mantra as she crawled slowly to the end of the storage bay. She hadn’t heard their voices for at least five minutes, but that didn’t mean anything. They could still be here, waiting for her. Ingrid winced, her knees hurt from crawling along the concrete floor. The sheer stockings and short dress weren’t exactly designed for running away from killers and the blood on her hands had already started to dry. Ingrid suppressed a cry as she looked at the dark stains, David’s blood.
She had wanted to go to the police about the missing artifacts, but David thought it might all be a mix-up and he had insisted on speaking to Raoul first. Dear, gentle David, museum curator for thirty-five years. He was due to retire in two months’ time and they had killed him. Just shot him dead in front of her. Tears rolled down her face again. Stop it, stop it. Don’t think about that now.
Ingrid took a deep breath before inching slowly into the passageway. So far so good. If she could get to the stairwell, she could make her way to the kitchens and the emergency exit there.
“Have you found her yet?” The radio blared to life in the next storage bay and Ingrid had to bite her lip to stop herself from screaming.
“Not yet. But we have all the exits covered.” The man’s voice faded as he walked in the opposite direction.
If she couldn’t go down, she would have to go up. It was a big museum. She knew every inch of it and it would take them a long time to search two floors of exhibits. All she had to do was find somewhere to hide until the museum opened up tomorrow morning. Who was she kidding? The telephone system was disconnected. They were armed, they wanted to kill her and they had all night to find her. She was toast.
The wonderful thing about nineteenth-century buildings was the number of staircases. All built to ensure that the common working man didn’t have any contact with the important gentlemen scholars. Most of them weren’t on the map—no one wanted the visitors to use them. Ingrid made her way up the creaky, narrow backstairs to the next floor, Prehistoric and Neanderthal Man. Her cell phone was in her desk drawer, just one floor away. Then she could ring for help. She almost began to feel hopeful.
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