Starline Read online

  “Approaching Time Port,” the young male officer at the front of the bridge called.

  She pulled out of her thoughts and looked. It just looked like a metal ring with glyphs on it, floating in the middle of space. It didn’t even seem remotely flashy to her gaze. How could they possibly use this to access the slipstream?

  “Calling a full halt. Captain, do we have a green light for go?”

  She looked at Duvall. He looked not only handsome but in control. A series of rapid-fire questions moved between him and the crew before he finally stated, “Green for go.”

  The engines began humming beneath her feet, and the deck vibrated harder than she had ever experienced before. All of a sudden, the ship moved forward toward the Port, swiftly gathering speed, and finally they were through it. A feeling of disorientation overtook her as they slammed through the time barrier. Now the starlight appeared as strands of color trailing past the ship. This was the slipstream.

  Chapter 4

  Since entering the slipstream over an hour before, Mellissa had watched, mesmerized. Duvall could see it in her face, the way she gazed through the center screen. She told him that the concept of time travel had been something that scientists in her time discussed and aimed at, but the actual reality amazed her.

  He knew she must find it mind-blowing watching the blurred lights racing by and knowing that she was seeing star trails. The first time he saw them, he’d felt small and insignificant, and yet amazingly gifted with an experience so rare. Knowing that humans had finally made the final leap from fantasy to fact awed her. It was clear in the way she studied everything. While her fingers curled in the arms of her seat she gazed with wide eyes at the movements around her.

  She turned her head, and he read surprise in her eyes. Surprise to see Duvall watching her. “What?”

  “I’m watching you. Your reactions are so clear. I’ve seen this now many times.” His hand waved toward the viewing screen. “But it’s like the first, seeing it through your eyes.”

  He grinned at her. Wait until she sees hyper drive. All those new worlds to explore. The opportunities to watch her loomed endlessly and the fascination that gnawed at him kicked up another full notch.

  Once more though, he thrust those siren-like thoughts aside. The struggle to remind himself that Mellissa wasn’t for the likes of him took more energy every time he had to shove it away. She was soft and gentle. Untrained for the dangerous and hard life he led. No woman like her could possibly want it.

  She turned her head again. He saw her mood change from anticipation to agitation.

  Why did he feel so drawn to her reactions, and more to her?

  She stood suddenly. “I’m going to grab a coffee. Can I get you something?” She inclined her head toward him.

  “I’ll come with you,” he said, rising from his seat.

  She followed him to the stairs leading to the mess hall. They moved up the winding stairs, nearly halfway there when a loud thud and a scream raised the alarm. Smoke started filtering through the halls, oily, thick, and dense. For an instant, they stood still, grappling with what could be happening.

  “What the…” Horror churned in his gut. Just what had happened? Duvall increased his speed as he took the steps two at a time now.

  He needed to get Mellissa to a safety point and find out. His thinking sharpened. The nearest possible location for him to send her was the mess. Duvall’s mind already began weighing possibilities and contingency plans as he dragged her up the last steps. She’d be safe at the meet point while he investigated and ensured the safety of the crew and the Elector.

  At the door to the mess, he turned to her. “Stay out of the way, in here. Follow any instructions.”

  Then with a whirl he turned in the direction the smoke wafted from. Engineering. He focused on the gray mass of smoke, eyes narrowing before he entered it.

  The cloud curled from the plant access way on the third deck. He skimmed around quickly, scanning for anyone in sight. No one. Grabbing his weapon in his right hand, he slipped against the wall nearest the door, then ducked his head in quickly to see what he could find. No one could see him through the billowing smoke. But he couldn’t see anyone either. Barsha!

  There was no reason for a fault with the ship, so in his mind, the only other reason was a saboteur. The itching at the base of his skull indicated just that, while his mind added that he’d have little time to find them if that was the case. With careful touches, he ran his hands along the smooth walls, finding the doorway he sought.

  Slipping through the door, he found another small alcove to his right and used it to crouch and look around. He felt his face grow hard as he called up the layout from his memory.

  This wasn’t the first incursion and caustic fury assailed him. The person carrying out these attacks had to be apprehended quickly before they could seriously damage the Elector. The last thing they needed was for the engines to go offline in the middle of the slipstream.

  In the case of irreparable damage to the ship, they could remain lost in the slipstream—irretrievable. He knew the stats. Ninety point seven percent of all ships with serious engine failures in the slipstream disappeared. Hell, he’d seen the echoes of those ghost ships with his own eyes.

  The knowledge burned his gut. The Elector carried enough food and oxygen for up to two weeks, depending where the damage had occurred, but after that… With a shake of his head, he washed off the negative thoughts. They needed to find whatever was smoking and fix it. Stars knew, anything more serious would mean certain death.

  His hands gripped the butt of his gun, wrapping around the sturdy stock. “I’ll kill them before I let the people under my command die.”

  He knew the saboteur could be any one on his crew. They were a mix of old and new hands. Most of the crew were handpicked by himself. The Admiralty had instructed him to build a crew with excellent training and experience, and for the most part he’d achieved that. He’d also agreed to trialing a system of exchanging alliance members within the ships, members of other species placed to foster a greater appreciation and sense of camaraderie.

  He needed to find whoever didn’t belong. Quickly. He hoped that it was one of the newer hands. Not that he wanted an infiltrator, but the concept of someone who had served with him for years turning them over to the Ru’Edan made his stomach churn and bile rise in his throat. No, he needed to find out what happened.

  Pulling his thoughts back, he concentrated on staying quiet, moving silently along the metal grating toward the core of the energy matrix that fueled the ship. The gray smoke hung eerily in the air. He moved onward and slipped on something on the ground, falling heavily and losing the weapon in the billowing smoke. It clattered to the ground, and he silently cursed. He found the wall and used it to rise slowly, his gaze flicking from side to side.

  Why was engineering empty? Had they all evacuated, or was it for some other reason? What should have been a hub of activity lay eerily silent. The only sound he heard was that of his labored breathing.

  Moving on and gaining space, he scanned the matrix, and a wash of relief rolled through him. From here, it looked undamaged. He shifted a little and saw the reason for the smoke and alarm. A commdesk was burning, the tiny flames on the console feeding the black, oily smoke. He coughed, the cloud around him filling his lungs.

  A lurch forward and he spied a pair of feet. “Barsha!” He crouched down, his eyes streaming as he took in the sight before him. A body.

  It was clear the crewman was deceased from the large laser hole in the center of the man’s forehead. Dark red blood, black in the dirty light, oozed along the decking.

  The fury he’d contained nearly spilled over, and he clenched his fist. “I’ll get you, and I’ll crush you for this.” No one attacked his own, and even more to the point, not on his own ship.

  He made a lightning fast decision. Until he could work out the identity of the infiltrator, he only wanted his most trusted crewmembers involved in the invest
igation. Besides, he didn’t want dozens of crewmembers in the way and potentially losing any small amount of evidence that might exist.

  On top of the crewmember lay a small piece of card. He moved forward and crouched over the body. Carefully, Duvall lifted the card to see three words printed on it. Her turn next. He pocketed the item. It would need further investigation.

  Nothing I can do for him, he thought grimly. He made a mental note to prepare a letter for the family. Max Lingstrom had a wife and a child at home. Duvall couldn’t do anything to bring the young chief engineer back, but he would tell his family about his conscientious efforts aboard the Elector.

  For now, though, his thoughts focused on how to save the ship, and save the crew. His mind continued to churn over the note. Her turn next… Who was the she? Mellissa? Meredith? He exhaled and the swirl of smoke whirled before his aching eyes. If only he’d been able to make contact with his sister. He’d tried so many times.

  He reached for his commbadge. “Grayson and Elara? I need you in the engineering section immediately,” he said, his voice grim.

  The immediate answers of “On my way” from both filtered into the silent room.

  He waited silently, casting his gaze around. But the perpetrator was long gone.

  His heart thudded for a moment as he heard noises. The clank of boots on the deck told him more than one person had entered the room. With his laser pistol somewhere on the ground, out of view, he could be a sitting duck, and it sat badly with him.

  He rose, carefully shuffling around the body while he searched for a possible weapon. Duvall’s hands touched a long, cylindrical item, and when he leaned in to investigate, he smiled, realizing it was an extinguisher.

  He grabbed it, hefting the weight in both his hands. “Who’s there?” he demanded. He would need this to put out the fire once he determined if whoever had entered the room was friendly.

  “Duvall, what in the stars name happened?” Grayson’s voice.

  He released his grip on the extinguisher, letting it drop to one hand, feeling the pull of its weight. He took a shallow breath as he looked at both of these trusted officers. On their faces lay shock when they took in the scene with the dead crewman.

  Elara handed him a breathing mask, and he gratefully put it on. Each new breath relieved the burning sensation in his chest.

  “We need to extinguish the fire. Elara, cover us.”

  She took position, her eyes hard as he pulled the cover off the extinguisher and depressed the nozzle. Foamy spray pumped toward the commdesk, covering it, and it soon smothered the fire.

  Elara dropped her stance and moved to the crewmember. Her fingers pressed against the side of his throat, and he knew she was checking for a pulse. With a sigh she closed his eyes which gazed blindly upward.

  “We need to clear the air,” Grayson’s voice ground out, and Duvall nodded.

  “And the site needs investigation. Gray…” The band around his chest eased a little. “This has got to be kept on the quiet. Whoever is doing this isn’t going to stop.”

  “I’ll handle it, Duvall.”

  Duvall watched as Grayson called for air-cleaners, which were swiftly dragged in, and Elara removed the body to the SurgiTech suite. The temperature in the room dropped to close to normal.

  Finally, as the room emptied, he lowered himself to the floor, waiting for Grayson and Elara to join him. Their faces were grimy and betrayed a bone-deep exhaustion.

  “As you’ve guessed, we have a problem,” he informed them. “It is my belief that we have an infiltrator aboard.” His bald announcement shocked in its simplicity. “Elara, I need you to find out what happened to the engineering crew. Specifically, why it was empty and if there are any further casualties…or fatalities.” He looked hard at her. “If you find even a sniff of something, I want to know. At this point, we’ll keep this among ourselves and Chowd.”

  Security Officer Chowd had silently joined them, and he loomed behind Grayson.

  “Take Chowd with you. From now on, we have to ensure everyone moving around the decks has a shadow. No one goes anywhere alone.”

  The words hung grim in the silence. Never before had it been necessary to use those methods aboard any ship he’d served on. Once this was settled, he’d be damned if it ever happened again.

  “I’m going to retrieve Mellissa. I want both of you in my office as soon as possible. We need a strategy, and we need one fast.” With that, he stood, then turned on his heel, leaving his trusted officers to attend to the cleanup.

  * * * *

  While Duvall had disappeared into engineering, the alarms kept blaring. Grayson and Elara had double-timed it out toward the smoke on his hail, and other members of the crew, disturbed, kept looking in the direction of the smoke. No one spoke a word, but the threat of alarm continued clear in the atmosphere of the room.

  Mellissa’s stomach churned. Was this it? Was her time up? She refused to admit that the thought terrified her. Falling apart now is not an option.

  She wanted, needed to do something, but in this completely foreign environment she didn’t have a clue as to what. So she waited, hands clasped, watching the crew in the mess hall. Time passed slowly as she feared what might happen to Duvall. What if someone had done something to the ship, maybe to lure him in?

  Wild thoughts swirled and her stomach clenched as visions of him facing danger pounded into her head. Maybe he was injured or dead. She pushed those thoughts away. “Come on, Mel. This isn’t helpful,” she whispered. Her imagination had always worked quickly, overactive.

  A dozen times she started to get up, but everything he and the security officers had told her filtered through her brain. If you don’t know what to do and don’t have a role, stay out of the way until you are needed. They didn’t need her making a nuisance of herself.

  It seemed like a lifetime until Duvall strode back, his gray uniform looking dirty with grimy streaks on his arms and back. His face sooty with trickles of sweat trailing down his face. His eyes looked tired and worn.

  She moved to him, faltered for an instant, then the need to hold him raced over her. Just to walk over and hold him. To feel his body warm and alive against hers. To see him unharmed. It took a lot of reminding herself that not only would that be inappropriate, but also probably unwanted. She jammed her hands in the uniform’s pockets.

  She watched as he looked at her. He gave a nod, as if he understood her emotions. Then drawing himself up, he turned to address his crew. “We have a situation in engineering. I’ll need everyone at their active stations, but before you leave, from this point…” He paused, looking around the room at each crewmember’s face. “No one.” He stopped to emphasize the point. “No one is to be on duty or to travel the ship alone. We are at alpha alert from this point. Any queries or comments, take them up with Security Officer Chowd. You’re to ensure that you’re adequately armed with weapons appropriate to your positions.”

  For an instant, he stopped and looked at her again. This time she saw something in his eyes—a fleeting glance full of hurt and sadness.

  “Today we lost a good officer. Chief engineer Max Lingstrom gave his life in his duty to the Empire, to his crewmates, and to his ship. His loss will be mourned but never forgotten.” He turned away. “Now, dismissed to stations.” He said no more. He didn’t need to. She watched the crew file past, questioning looks sent their way, but she ignored them.

  * * * *

  “Barsha!” The word erupted from Duvall’s lips.

  Mellissa looked up at him expectantly. Their eyes met, and suddenly, as if his life depended on it, he crushed her to him. His head speared down, and his eyes watched hers as their lips finally met, holding her close, his need clawing at him.

  Warm, supple, and reassuring gave way to heat. His mouth opened over hers.

  Compelling. Driving her to open for him.

  His tongue launched into her satiny mouth. She moaned. Her exotic, spicy taste invaded his senses. She felt heated and pl
iant.

  Pulling his mouth away, he lifted his head and touched his forehead to hers briefly. Looking at her, he saw her desire, banked but present in her gaze. He knew it mirrored his, felt it in her quickened heartbeat and harsh, panting breaths.

  “Not now. We don’t have the luxury at the moment, but soon. I want you.” He looked at her, his eyes seeing through her to her desire. He wanted this woman with an intensity that shocked him to the core. “I want you. No interruptions. Think about it.” He paused and looked at her to make sure she got the message.

  To hell with my mantra. I will have her. This wonderfully warm and vital woman. He wouldn’t and couldn’t give her any promises, he reminded himself. But maybe for a time, they could enjoy the passion they shared.

  “For now we have jobs to do. An infiltrator to find and a crewmember to farewell.”

  He held her hand in his, savoring her warmth for an instant. Then he turned with her and headed toward the door.

  His tasks needed completing, and he had no time to waste. Coffee would wait. They would wait. But the time would come.

  * * * *

  In a dim and dark room, far beyond prying eyes, a message formed. One that informed Crick Sur Banden of his people’s failure and McCord’s arrival with the woman. He wouldn’t send the missive yet—couldn’t until they cleared the slipstream—but soon. He would get them and the handbook. Then he would be a hero.

  Crick Sur Banden had promised him his own ship, and a senior position in his new order. All he had to do was keep the others busy so they wouldn’t stumble across the plans for Earth’s history. He grinned. Once they arrived in the time they headed toward, he could collect the handbook and personally hand it to Crick Sur Banden. Then they would know. Then they would see his commitment to the new order.

  He made plans to try again. This time, another would perish. He would get that bookpad though, and he’d deal with the woman. Nothing could stop him, and he’d prove to Duvall McCord, once and for all, that he was the better man.