Just as she was starting to catch her breath, a blaring alarm sounded throughout the ship and the overhead lights started flashing.
“Oh my God, what now?”
Penny put a hand to her racing heart and struggled to her feet. She lurched out of her cabin as the ship bucked again, like a horse with a bee under its saddle, and found that Y’lla was already out in the main corridor.
“Y’lla!” she exclaimed. “What is it? What’s happening?”
“I don’t know!” Y’lla was already running up to the front of the ship. Penny followed her and found Rive fighting with the steering yoke.
“Something’s gone wrong with the propulsion system!” he yelled over the alarm, as Y’lla and Penny skidded to a halt. “We’re never going to reach Yown Beta like this. I’ll have to pull in to the nearest spaceport first for repairs.”
“But the only one near us is Hell’s Gate!” Y’lla protested. “That’s a dangerous station, Rive!”
“Can’t be helped,” he shouted, frowning at the instruments. “It’s either that or we go adrift.”
That didn’t sound good to Penny, though going to the one space station in the whole solar system she had been specifically warned against didn’t sound good either.
Still, what choice did they have? Like it or not, they were on their way to Hell’s Gate.
Four
They made it to the Hell’s Gate Station—a huge conglomeration of metal structures with many different designs—just in time.
The parts of the station looked like they had been welded together in a half-ass fashion as different people decided to add onto the weird structure. Penny thought the whole thing must be ten miles long—at least it looked that big as they approached it.
Like a weird, bulbous skyscraper made up of lots of different parts laid on its side, she thought.
But of course, there were no gravity constraints in space so if you wanted to build big, you could.
Rive fought the bucking ship all the way but finally managed a fairly smooth landing at the far end of the station in the docking area. Penny breathed a sigh of relief when he at last was able to turn off the thrusters and the alarm stopped blaring. The overhead lights stopped flashing too, thank goodness!
“Whew…” The big Kindred wiped a hand over his brow. “That was a close one.”
“I could feel how worried you were through our link.” Now that he was done fighting with the controls, Y’lla went to her husband and wrapped herself around him once more.
Rive comforted his wife and took comfort himself in her warm embrace. Maybe a little too much comfort.
“Mmm, you look amazing in that warm-skin, darling,” Penny heard him murmur to Y’lla, who was also wearing the skin-tight, black silk outfit—it looked sleek and sexy on her, due to her tall, slender build. “And you feel amazing too,” he added, his big hands starting to roam over his wife’s body.
“A-hem,” Penny cleared her throat loudly and pointedly. There was only so much of this canoodling she could stand—especially when they were in such a dire situation!
“Oh, sorry.” Rive and Y’lla pulled apart for a moment.
“What’s wrong with the ship?” Penny asked, before they could start up again.
Rive frowned thoughtfully.
“Well, I can’t be sure but it felt like the propulsion system threw a rod.”
“Is that bad?” Penny asked.
“It’s not good,” Rive admitted. “But I have a repair kit on board and a parts printer as well, in case we need to manufacture any spare parts.”
“So you think you can fix it yourself, darling?” Y’lla asked him anxiously.
“With a little help from you two,” Rive said. “It’s a big job but with three sets of hands, we should be able to handle it.”
“So we won’t have to go into the spaceport at all, then?” Penny asked uncertainly.
“I don’t think so,” Rive said cautiously. “Commander Sylvan was careful to make sure we had everything we’d need to survive in case of an emergency. That’s why he insisted we bring the parts printer with us.”
“And we’ve got plenty of food cubes, you know,” Y’lla added. “So we should be able to stay right here in the shuttle while we get everything fixed and then continue on our mission to Yown Beta.”
Penny felt a surge of relief mixed with possibly just the tiniest smidge of regret. She had never been off Earth before and she could tell just by looking at the Hell’s Gate structure that it must have been built by many different alien cultures over hundreds of years. It was an archeologist’s dream come true.
But of course, she reminded herself, it wouldn’t be safe to go explore the massive structure at all. Far better to stay safe aboard the shuttle until they could get it fixed and then go on with the mission as planned. Still, she couldn’t quite squelch the little voice in the back of her head that wished it could go exploring.
It was the same little voice that had led her to get lost in some underground caves she and her cousins wandered into in Kentucky when she was a kid. The same voice that had urged her to spend time in the Peace Corps in her gap year before college. The same voice that had led her into archeology in the first place and to jump at the chance for this interstellar mission before she even knew what it was about.
Penny supposed that little voice—that impulse she felt to see and try and do new things—was the thirst for adventure. It was the main reason she could never imagine settling down and having kids. Even if she had been tall and thin like Y’lla instead of on the short side with too much “junk in the trunk” and had a hundred guys after her, she still would have wanted to go exploring instead of having a “normal” life.
Penny had no idea that little voice inside her was about to be answered in a big way—a way that would change her life forever. If she had known, she probably would have done a lot of things differently.
But at that moment all she knew was that they had to get the ship fixed and try to get on with their expedition.
Five
Rive opened the service hatch to expose the engine and they got to work on the propulsion system.
It turned out the system had thrown a rod, which in this context seemed to mean that a long metal tube had buckled and broken. Rive announced he would need to print a new one in pieces and then put it together and replace it.
“It’s complicated but it can be done,” he said decisively. “It’s just going to take a few days.”
“Should we call the Mother Ship and let them know we’ve run into trouble?” Y’lla asked a bit anxiously.
Rive frowned.
“No need, darling. I don’t like to worry Commander Sylvan for nothing.”
Penny wished he would put in a call anyway—it would have made her feel better to know that the Mother Ship knew they’d been having some problems.
Unfortunately, though Kindred males were so much better than human men in so many respects, it seemed they shared the trait of not wanting to ask for help. Maybe it was just a male ego thing that couldn’t be bred out, no matter how nice or kind or civilized a race was, Penny thought dryly.
“Well, I’m going to take a shower,” she said decisively, looking down at her hands. “I’ve got this black grease from the engine all over me.” She raised an eyebrow. “Er…unless you two would like to take one first?”
Because of water restraints on board, only one shower could be taken at a time. In fact, Rive and Y’lla made it a practice to shower together, as Y’lla had confided to Penny, for just this reason.
She rather doubted that water limits were the only reason they showered together. Honestly, the two of them would take any opportunity to make love and from the thumping and groaning she’d heard coming from their cabin—which could clearly be heard over the sound of water rushing—they were definitely doing more than showering in there.
But Rive shook his head.
“No thank you, Penelope. I still have a few more things to do down in t
he engine compartment before I’m ready to get cleaned up and start printing the new rod.”
“And I’ll stay with Rive and make sure he doesn’t get lonely,” Y’lla smiled seductively at her husband and gave him what she no doubt thought was a sly wink.
“That will be fine, darling.” He returned her look with interest. “You’re a dirty girl, you know,” he murmured to her, clearly forgetting that Penny could hear him. “But I bet I can make you even dirtier before we go get cleaned up.”
Penny had to fight not to roll her eyes. Who talked like that outside an erotic romance novel? And could they really not keep their hands off each other even when the two of them were covered in engine grease?
She had an idea she was about to find out if she didn’t beat a hasty retreat. Turning tail, she fled down the main corridor, back to her room with its tiny bathroom—or “fresher” as the Kindred called it. She would doubtless have plenty of time to take a long, leisurely shower while her two shipmates screwed each other’s brains out.
They weren’t quiet about it either. As she washed her hands and started to get out of the tight black warm-skin, which she’d been wearing all this time, Penny heard the moaning begin.
The thing about Rive and Y’lla, she thought, was that Rive was every bit as vocal as his wife when they made love. Of course, Penny had had her share of roommates in college and grad school who were screamers, but all of them had been girls. She’d never heard a man shout and carry on every bit as much as his female lover when they went at it. But Rive and Y’lla were truly in a class by themselves.
“Gods!” Penny clearly heard Rive groan. “You’re so tight, my darling! Your sweet little pussy massages my shaft just right.”
“And you’re so big and hard!” Y’lla moaned right back. “Oh Goddess, Rive, I fall in love with you all over again every time you fill me!”
Good grief! This time Penny did roll her eyes. She knew full well that the Kindred formed a mental link with their mate once the two of them bonded. Couldn’t her shipmates have kept their lovemaking silent by thinking the pornographic things they were shouting at the top of their lungs?
Apparently not. Either the two of them had totally forgotten about her presence on the ship again, or they were complete exhibitionists—which was entirely possible, come to think of it.
Penny turned on the shower to try and drown them out, but it didn’t do any good.
“Pound me!” Y’lla was wailing. “Fuck me hard, Rive! Make me yours all over again! Fill me with your seed!”
“Not yet, my darling,” he growled back. “I’m not done pleasuring you yet. First I want to—”
And then the sound of their voices abruptly cut off.
Penny frowned in surprise. What was going on? After a solid week of making love out loud, had her two shipmates finally decided to keep it down? But why would Rive stop shouting in the middle of a sentence like that?
She turned off the shower, which had just begun to get steamy, in order to hear better. But there was no thumping or bumping or slapping or squelching or any of the other loud physical sounds she associated with being forced to overhear Rive and Y’lla’s lovemaking.
What was going on with them?
Whatever it is, it’s their business, Penny told herself firmly. I’m just going to take my shower and wait a little while to be sure they’re done before I go back out there.
But the sudden silence was unnerving. There was no sound at all coming from the front of the ship—not even the constant soft humming of the auxiliary motor which never stopped running.
What was going on?
Penny told herself she didn’t want to know—didn’t want to see. Despite being forced to overhear her shipmates’ lovemaking for the past week, she was not an eavesdropper or a voyeur.
But something was wrong—she just knew it. She felt it.
What could it be?
This is a dangerous station—Kat and Commander Sylvan both said so, she reminded herself. What if some evil person snuck in and killed them both and they’re in the ship with me right now?
But she hadn’t heard the shuttle’s side door open or the sound of any kind of weapon discharging. So what was going on?
At last Penny’s anxiety overcame her desperate urge not to catch her shipmates in flagrante delicto. Slipping back into her warm-skin and boots, she quietly opened her cabin door and peered cautiously out into the hallway.
She would just go a little way down the hallway, she promised herself. She would take a quick peek and try not to see too much—just to be sure that Rive and Y’lla were all right.
Walking as quietly as she could in her thick boots, Penny made her way towards the front of the ship. It was harder to be quiet than usual because every noise she made seemed to echo in the sudden silence. She couldn’t even hear any breathing sounds coming from her shipmates. What in the world was going on?
When she got to the front part of the ship, she edged her head around the corner to see into the cockpit. Rive and Y’lla were there, all right and just as Penny had feared, they were right in the middle of making love. But they weren’t moving—not even to breathe.
In fact, the two of them appeared to be frozen in time.
Six
Penny put a hand to her mouth to stifle a scream—not that her shipmates would have heard it. Both of them were completely motionless and frozen in the middle of their intimate act.
She took a step forward and looked at them more closely. Rive was sitting in the pilot’s seat with his trousers down around his ankles but at least he was still dressed from the top up. Y’lla, on the other hand, had taken off her warm-skin completely and was buck-naked in her husband’s lap.
The tall blonde Kindred woman was facing her husband, straddling his hips. Clearly his shaft was buried inside her and she was riding him enthusiastically.
But the two of them had been frozen right in the middle of the act. Y’lla’s long blonde hair was flying out behind her in a wave that was suspended in mid-air and Rive’s mouth was open in a moan as he gripped his wife’s hips and thrust up into her. They appeared to be staring into each other’s eyes soulfully as they pounded away at each other—but neither one was moving an inch.
Penny stared at the shocking scene, trying to make heads or tails of it. What was happening to her shipmates? Why had they been frozen?
In fact, everything in the cockpit seemed frozen—all except for the digital chronometer furthest from the pilot’s chair. It was the main timekeeper of the ship, which all of their wrist chronometers were synchronized to. It was located on the wall, above Penny’s head and as she looked at it, she saw that it was still steadily ticking off the seconds and minutes and hours.
Except as she watched, the seconds stopped ticking by. The time had read 8:24:36. But as Penny watched, the 36 refused to turn into 37. She kept watching, glancing at the chronometer on her wrist and saw, after a minute had passed, that the 24 hadn’t turned to a 25 either.
It was as though time had suddenly stopped.
The thought froze Penny in her tracks and she remembered the conversation she’d had with Rive and Y’lla all about temporal anomalies. Could it be that her shipmates were stuck in a time pocket? Could an anomaly be passing through the ship like a giant, invisible bubble of slowed-down time?
At least, Penny assumed it was a slow-time bubble because neither Rive nor Y’lla appeared to have aged any. They both looked to be the exact same age as they had been just a few minutes before when she’d left them to go take a shower.
If her theory was true, she was in deep trouble. The controls to the ship and the communications system were both within the area affected by the time bubble. And if she tried to go into the cockpit to use either of those parts of the ship, Penny would probably be caught in the slow-time area too.
But how could she be sure her hypothesis about what was happening was correct?
To test her theory, Penny ran and got a fork from the food-prep area. Making
sure she was standing at least two meters back from the cockpit, she threw the fork towards the front of the ship.
The fork flew the first meter and a half…and then stopped in mid-air, a good half meter shy of the cockpit entryway. Penny’s eyes widened as she saw where it was, frozen in mid-flight.
“But…I was just standing there,” she whispered to herself, looking at the position of the fork and measuring the distance from it to the cockpit. “Not even a minute ago!”
Then she remembered how the chronometer on the wall above her head had stopped while she was watching it. And then the fork she’d thrown had frozen even further down the corridor.
There was only one conclusion she could draw from these two events and it made Penny shiver.
The slow-time bubble was growing—expanding further into the ship—and she was right in its path.
Just as she had this thought, a strand of her long, chestnut hair, which had gotten loose from the bun at the nape of her neck, tickled her face. Penny reached up instinctively to swipe it away but as her hand moved upward from her waist to her face, it froze suddenly in the air right in front of her.
Penny stared in horror at her frozen hand. It didn’t feel any different but when she tried to move it, it refused to obey her. She couldn’t wiggle her fingers—couldn’t even twitch them. It was as though her hand had suddenly become disconnected from the rest of her body, even though it was still attached.
It is disconnected, whispered a little voice in her head. It’s in a different time than the rest of you. And if you don’t get out of here, Penny, you’re going to be stuck the same way Rive and Y’lla are. And who knows if anyone will ever find you, or even if they do, if they’ll be able to save you? After all, how do you save someone from a temporal anomaly?
You could be trapped here forever.
This last thought galvanized her into action. She yanked the arm of her affected hand backwards with all her might. To her relief, the hand began to work again at once but the fact that the invisible time bubble was so close to her freaked Penny out. It was expanding quickly, like poison gas she couldn’t see—she had to get away from it before it caught her!
Stolen Page 4
