The Seas of Time (A Love Across Stars Series Novel)

by Christine Castle

  With a quick prayer, she darted out of the stateroom and back to the stairwell, gripping the gun in one trembling hand. If anyone came from either direction, she’d be caught.

  Heavy footfalls overhead were growing louder. She flew down the stairs to the lobby level, and then skidded to a stop. She’d be too exposed going through this wide-open space. Instead of crossing the vaulted room, she angled left down a dark hallway. She ran, looking for a hallway off to the right that would lead her across the ship to the side where she’d seen Ballard disappear. There was a shout behind, and she sped up. A quick glance over her shoulder showed no one had come this way yet. She looked around, her heart in her throat. Keep going or duck into a room?

  There! A branching hallway was just ahead. She reached out to grab a doorjamb, sliding to a stop so she could make the sharp right turn. Running full-tilt, she whipped her head right and left, looking for a place to hide.

  But before she could stop and unlock a door, a group of men appeared around a corner ahead of her. Three guards, with Ballard handcuffed in the middle of them.

  BALLARD HELD in a groan as he was jerked roughly to his feet and marched out of the stateroom where he’d been held under guard. Things were going from bad to worse. Shoreditch, the Ice Cap man Ballard had served with in the Rebel War, had indeed recognized Ballard as a member of the Trench Military, just as he’d feared. Ice Cap still didn’t know his true mission here—they believed he was connected with the raiders—or he’d be dead already. It was small comfort, though. At this point, there was no convincing anyone of his innocence, and he’d be a prisoner until the Ice Cap rogues decided what to do with him.

  The guard walking ahead of Ballard stopped and tensed. “What the. . .?”

  Looking around the man, Ballard nearly tripped over his own feet when he realized Talia was a few yards away and heading straight for them. She stopped, skidding a little, and aimed the pistol at the lead guard. The two guards behind Ballard moved forward, pulling up their rifles.

  Realizing she planned on using her weapon, Ballard rammed into one of the guards, sending him sprawling forward and his rifle skittering forward toward Talia, and then pressed back into a doorway to avoid getting hit by Talia’s shots.

  She fired, and he heard her first shot bite into the wall. The next shot hit one of the guard’s legs. The third guard had his rifle trained on her, taking careful aim. Ballard sprang from the doorway and kicked out, jamming his heel hard into the man’s ribs. His shot went high and he stumbled into the wall.

  Talia charged at the guard who’d gone sprawling, who was now scrambling after the rifle that had clattered to the floor when he fell. She got to the rifle first and scooped it up. She fired the pistol and her shot sank into the tender spot where the guard’s neck met his shoulder. He screamed and clawed at the barbed needle bullet. When she got to Ballard, she shoved the pistol into his hands and snatched up the rifle belonging to the screaming injured guard.

  Ballard shot the other disarmed guard in the shoulder, knowing it wouldn’t be fatal but that the man would have a very hard time aiming and firing a weapon at them.

  Talia looked wildly up at him. “Where do we go?”

  He nodded back the way Talia had come and took off running, and she ran alongside. He threw a look at her, still not quite believing what he’d just witnessed. “I’ve never been the damsel in distress.”

  “Neither have I,” she muttered, with an edge of wry amusement in her voice.

  They both slid on the moldy floor as four men appeared around the corner ahead. Ballard didn’t hesitate, raising his still-handcuffed hands to fire the pistol. Smart of her to realize he could still handle a pistol with his hands bound. Three of the men went down. Another fired and white-hot pain exploded in Ballard’s shoulder. He opened his mouth to cry out, but no sound came as the pain momentarily took his breath away.

  The guy fired again, aiming for Ballard, but Ballard was already pitching off-balance and out of the way of the shot. The man had stopped so he could steady his aim, switching his attention to Talia.

  Talia let one rifle fall to the floor and pulled the other one to her shoulder and fired it, but the shot zoomed down the hallway and the bullet pinged into the wall. She clicked the trigger ineffectually, probably not knowing she needed to move the next bullet into the chamber.

  With black blotches dotting his vision, Ballard used his good arm to raise the pistol and he fired at the man, hitting him in the stomach.

  “The hatch,” Ballard said through gritted teeth. “We need to go for the submarine, we’re too outnumbered here.”

  Talia nodded, and they rounded a corner and sped up. A couple of shots zoomed past them from behind, and they made another hard left turn, temporarily putting themselves out of range of their pursuers.

  Every step was jarring agony on his shoulder. Ballard glanced down. The tail of a harpoon bullet jutted from the front of his shoulder and the head of the harpoon stuck out the back. He wished he hadn’t looked. The pain he felt now was enough to make him light-headed, but it would be nothing compared to when he had to pull the barbed bullet the rest of the way through his shoulder. It was rubbing against bone, he suddenly realized. At least it hadn’t struck any vital organs and didn’t seem to have pierced a major blood vessel.

  Talia clearly remembered the way, and went ahead of him as he started to slow a little. Blood ran down from both sides of the wound and dripped off his elbow. He caught up to her at the ladder. She’d already disappeared down the tube that connected to the sub’s hatch.

  “How do I open it?” she called up to him.

  “Hit the red button and wait for it to turn green.” He turned and stepped down onto the first rung, groaning in pain as his injured shoulder was forced to move with his good one. Drops of blood splatted on the rungs.

  “It’s not turning green!”

  “It takes a minute, it has to go through pressure and seal checks.” Breathing heavily, he lowered himself a few more rungs.

  She cursed under her breath. “We don’t have a minute.”

  Shouts above were growing louder. The men had probably found his trail of blood and knew that he and Talia were going for the Sea Dragon.

  He went down the ladder as far as he could, crowding over her to shield her from being exposed to the shots that were surely seconds away. Talia reached up past his knees, and he realized she was holding the keys. When she waved them at his handcuffs, they popped open, and she caught them in her other hand before they fell.

  Now free, his injured arm dropped to his side and he hissed through his teeth, sucking in a breath against the pain. “Thanks,” he said through clenched teeth. “When the light turns green, spin the wheel to the left and the hatch will pop open.”

  Noises above drew his attention. When a face and a rifle appeared at the tube’s opening, Ballard fired the pistol, hoping it wasn’t Lee or Benjamin at the other end. He pulled the trigger again, but the pistol was out of ammo. “Talia, the rifle!”

  She passed it up to him, and he leaned back against the wall of the tube to balance on the ladder with his hands free. He held the rifle with his good hand, steadying the end against one of the rungs above, and started firing anytime something moved at the opening of the tube. Arms and a rifle appeared, and a bullet pinged off the hatch below. Talia shrieked just as another bullet grazed Ballard’s bicep, and he winced and let out a low groan.

  “It’s green, it’s green!”

  He looked down to see Talia straining at the wheel, and then turned his attention back up the tube. He flipped the rifle to semi-auto and held the trigger, spraying bullets up the tube, no longer worrying about conserving ammo. He heard the hatch seal pop and felt his way down after Talia, still firing.

  Lowering himself into the Sea Dragon, he let the rifle drop into Talia’s waiting hands, and then reached up and slammed the hatch closed. He dropped a few feet to the ground and immediately regretted it as bolts of pain radiated from his shoulder in re
action to the impact. His vision clouded, but he pushed the pain away, his fingers flying over a control panel on the wall to start the sequence for releasing the sub from its dock to the base.

  She stood next to him, looking up at the hatch. “Can they open it?”

  “No, once the sequence is started they can’t unlock the hatch.” He tried to keep focus as dizziness nearly overwhelmed him. He gestured off to the right. “We need to get to the control rooms, though, and make sure they don’t try to override us remotely once we’re undocked. It’s not far.”

  Ballard cradled his arm and took the lead, moving as fast as he could through the deserted corridors. When he stopped at the control room, Talia unlocked it and held the door for him.

  She sucked in a breath as he passed. “Ballard, your arm.”

  He shook his head. “I’m fine, we’ll worry about that later.” He slid into the seat in front of the left-most console, and she stood beside him.

  “It’s not fine.” Her voice shook, and she was still breathing hard from their escape and run through the Sea Dragon.

  “Let me get through this first.”

  She went quiet, but he could feel her growing anxiety as she kept glancing at his shoulder. She moved over to his other side, away from the harpoon sticking through him.

  “You know how to drive this thing?” she asked.

  “I know enough.” He swiped at the screen, first disabling all remote controls. “It’s been modified so that nearly everything is automated. Mostly just a matter of finding the right sequences and firing them off in the right order.”

  “Can I do anything?”

  “Tell me you’ve still got those keys, and you’ll be my hero for the second time today,” he said.

  She produced them with a flourish, and they traded a quick grim smile.

  “It’ll take me just a couple of minutes to set everything, then we’ll be away and they won’t be able to bother us.” The first thing he did was go into the master override and reset the main security code. He was extremely lucky that the base hadn’t already tried to do it.

  “What about the other sub, can they fire torpedoes at us?” Talia’s voice came from near the door, and he heard the sounds of her rummaging around.

  “As far as I know, neither sub is armed. When the two subs were reclaimed, the torpedoes had been sunk in the water for too long to be safe for use, so they were buried.” He set the last few sequences to take them away from the rogues’ base, and started the first one, then went back through them to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. “That’s the story I heard, anyway.”

  “Well, I hope you’re right.” She appeared next to him and knelt down at his side.

  He glanced down to see that she’d raided a first aid kit. She began swabbing at the slice on his bicep, where the shot in the tube had grazed him. He paused what he was doing on the console’s screen long enough to meet her glance. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” The corners of her mouth lifted in the tiniest of smiles as she wrapped gauze around his arm.

  Her eyes flicked over to the bullet sticking through his other arm, and he realized she’d gone pale. “I don’t think a bandage is going to be enough for that. I can’t believe you’re still conscious,” she said. “At least it’s not bleeding as much anymore.”

  He finished his final checks, and a wave of dizziness overtook him. His eyelids dropped heavily and a surge of nausea rolled around his stomach and threatened to press upward. Cold sweat began forming all over his body. “Talia, the infirmary. You’re going to have to pull this thing out and sew me up.”

  “Okay . . . okay.” She was nodding, her eyes huge and round. Her voice trembled as she helped him stand. “Hold onto me, I won’t be able to get you up if you fall.”

  “Do you remember the way?”

  “Yes.”

  She pulled his good arm around her shoulders, and he leaned on her as much as he dared.

  He focused on the sound of his own ragged breaths, trying to ignore the cold that was setting in, causing his muscles to spasm with little shivers. His adrenaline was wearing off, and his body was really starting to react to the bullet wound. Blood loss . . . nausea and cold . . . shock. He couldn’t pass out. Letting his head hang heavily, his eyes unfocused. It was as if someone else’s feet were moving his body.

  By the time they reached the infirmary, his brain was fogged and his movements were loose and clumsy.

  Talia somehow got him onto the exam table, laying him on his side so there wasn’t any pressure on the harpoon.

  Cabinet doors opened and slammed.

  She came back to him and her face appeared in front of his. “I opened the locked cabinets and found this.” She held up an injection device and then pressed it against his arm several inches below the harpoon.

  There was a soft pop and then warmth spread up his arm and down to his hand. His eyelids sagged with gratitude as the pain immediately began to dull. She waited a minute before reaching for his arm.

  “I’m sure you’re still going to feel this,” she muttered. His arm jostled a little, and he felt her hands on his skin. “I’m sorry, Ballard.”

  As she grasped the harpoon from the back and wrenched it through, he let out a roar, a sound that seemed to come from somewhere else. It felt like a jagged-toothed beast had just ripped away his shoulder.

  For a few seconds, white noise filled his ears and black spots blotted out his vision. Then Talia’s voice seeped through, and she was cursing.

  “Try to hold still,” she was saying. “I’ve got to slow the bleeding before I can sew you up.”

  Time seemed to be doing strange things. One minute, she was holding gauze to the two openings in his shoulder. Then he blinked, and suddenly she was bent over his shoulder holding a needle with a tail of thread, and there were small tugs at his skin. The next time he opened his eyes she was watching him, her unblinking gaze glued to his face.

  She held up a metal bowl. “You should drink some water.”

  She tipped it to his lips. Much of it spilled as he tried to drink while lying on his side, but it was cool relief across his parched throat. His eyelids drooped again.

  The fog started to clear, and his eyelids cracked open. He groaned and squeezed them shut for a moment. Then he turned to look at Talia’s handiwork. There was a thick square of gauze taped over the front of his shoulder, and another on the back.

  He drew a deep breath and managed to summon a small smile. “I hope your sewing skills are better than your aim with a pistol.”

  “Very funny.” She narrowed her eyes and gave him a wry look, but it didn’t mask her relief.

  He slowly pushed himself up with his good arm and swung his legs over to the side of the exam table.

  Talia raised a hand and stepped forward to clasp his forearm, her forehead creasing with concern. “Be careful, I don’t want you to—”

  In one swift motion, he slipped his hand around her lower back, pulled her to him. “Thank you, Talia.” He pressed his lips to hers. At first, she tensed in surprise, but as he held her she relaxed against him.

  After a few seconds her back went rigid under his hand, and she stepped back out of his embrace, avoiding his gaze. He searched her face. Why had her energy toward him cooled suddenly? Maybe she was nervous about being alone with him on the sub? He could hardly blame her for that. Despite everything they’d experienced together, she probably still felt like she hardly knew him. And he was, after all, one of the men who’d taken her from the beach. She was probably acutely aware of how very far from home she still was.

  He pushed off the exam table to the floor and stood there for a few breaths to make sure his balance was steady. He still felt light-headed, but the shot had dulled the pain to a throbbing ache, and that alone gave him renewed energy. Talia had turned to the tray, cleaning up the supplies.

  Ballard watched her for a moment, wondering if he should ask why she’d pulled away. But they didn’t have time for heart-to
-heart talks. “We should get to the con-comm room. I’m sure the base is going ballistic.”

  They walked swiftly through the corridors, the silence filled only by the mechanical humming of the sub. He needed to get into an immersion tank very soon. Small cracks had begun to form at his knees, elbows, and wrists, and patches of his skin were starting to flake. The tank would help his injuries heal faster, too.

  “Thank you for busting me out of there, Talia. They were convinced that I’d been working with the raiders, someone recognized me from my Trench Military days, and things were looking extremely grim.” He glanced down at the bandages on his shoulder. “And thank you for patching me up. You’ve been incredibly . . . brave.” He wanted it to sound more significant than it did, to really make her see how impressed he was by her quick thinking and fearless action.

  “You would have done the same for me.” She cleared her throat and wrapped her arms around her middle. It was a subtle movement, but he couldn’t help a pang of disappointment at the distance that was suddenly springing up between them.

  In the con-comm room, he scanned the messages from the base. Threats, accusations, even a few choice insults.

  “Are they trying to communicate with us?” Talia asked.

  He tilted his head and gave a short, wry laugh. “Let’s just say I probably don’t have any friends left in Ice Cap Army.”

  “Ballard.” Talia’s near-whisper pulled his attention from the monitors. “We have to get Janelle and the other girls out of there. It’s killing me that I had to leave them. If anything happens to Janelle . . .” She pressed her lips together and then blinked rapidly and shook her head. “We just have to get them out.”

  His chest tightened at the emotion he read in her eyes, in the slight tremble of her lips. “I know,” he said quietly.