Wrinkle in Time (9781458093967)
Page 2
"Burnette..."
"On my way to engineering, Captain."
Dennis let her go ahead as well. Burnette had much further to get to engineering down several decks, since the conference room was only one level below the bridge. At least she was descending the ladders and didn't have to climb up. She took the same hatchway Saran had opened for Chen.
Parillo glanced over as Vale slid her hand into his. Even in the gloom he could read her questioning look.
Dennis answered the silent question for him when she said, "You two, with us."
They emerged onto a smoke-filled bridge. The fire suppressant system was obviously out, because two crewmembers were using hand-held equipment to extinguish flaming consoles. Vale gave Parillo's hand a squeeze then went to help them.
Dennis helped the pilot back to his station even as she barked, "Report."
"Running on emergency backup at thirty percent." The sandy haired ensign who replied looked impossibly young to Parillo's eyes, as if the boy should have been home playing in the backyard. "I'm just getting sensors back now."
The viewscreen flickered, then showed a ship about half the size of the Nyranik. Its round main hull had four nacelles attached above it, arranged equidistant and all angled outward. Those nacelles were all pointed away from the planet as a blinding blue beam sprang from the bottom of the ship.
"Captain, they're firing at the surface, at the downed ship," Saran said.
Parillo clenched his teeth as he watched, knowing everyone else on the bridge shared his frustration. After a few minutes, the ship ceased firing. Its nacelles flared a deeper blue, and the ship vanished.
"Power coming back, Captain," Saran said as the lighting returned to normal. "Communications working. Shields at a hundred percent. Engines also. Damage reports all coming in negative. Dozens of injuries in sickbay, though. None critical."
"What just happened?" Dennis sank into the center chair.
"The wreckage is completely destroyed, Captain." Saran's words confirmed the news everyone already anticipated. "I'm not even reading trace metals any more. It's been completely disintegrated."
Vale gave a little snicker, drawing everyone's attention. "They don't know we removed the backup computer core."
#
"Readings coming in now for batch one," Vale swiveled her chair away from the panel she'd been hunching over in the science lab on the Whirlwind. "Just another minute and we'll have the logs." She turned back to check more settings.
Parillo stood at his wife's side, his hand resting on her shoulder. The rest of their team pressed in close to see, as did Dennis, Adams and Saran.
As they were directly behind him, Parillo heard Saran whisper to Dennis, "Don't you think we should clear the lab?"
"You think I should send you back to your ship?" Vale asked casually without looking up, feigning misunderstanding.
"Pardon?" Saran sounded downright shocked to Parillo's ears.
"She's politely reminding us we're not on our ship," Dennis explained, saving Parillo the trouble.
"Still, security concerns..." Saran tried again.
Taking his cue from the wry smile Dennis directed his way, Parillo said, "Lieutenant, what Vale says, goes. But don't worry, she considers you perfectly trustworthy. I vouched for Captain Dennis, who vouched for her whole crew."
Saran scowled mightily. Only with supreme restraint did he appear to take the cue from his captain and fall silent.
Parillo had no doubt that his own erstwhile security chief, now Captain Dennis, would be in for a debate once back aboard her ship. Luckily she seemed to realize that the EMF could not arbitrarily declare jurisdiction over non-military matters or civilian ships.
Dennis's XO's words cut into Parillo's reverie. "I thought this was your dig?" Adams asked.
"Oh, it is. I'm the lead archeologist. Vale, however, is the Whirlwind's captain.
"All right, girls and boys, here we go. This should be a reconstruction of the captain's log." With a flourish, Vale hit three controls.
Static and snow played across the monitor. The figure of a man coalesced, never clear but still perfectly recognizable and sitting on the wrecked ship's bridge. He wore an EMF uniform. That much was clear from the insignia and the similar tailoring. But the color of the uniform was different. He wore a black crewneck under the light blue instead of white under navy that Parillo and the others were used to..
In the background, three other crewmembers could be seen as well. Their uniforms matched his, with the same color adjustment.
Audio kicked in in mid sentence.
"...experiment isn't going well. We've yet to figure out how to survive the trip, but we're getting much closer. Zenrel says she only needs a little more time. Normally we'd be overjoyed at being so close to a breakthrough. But ironically, time is what we don't have."
Even the wavering picture didn't dilute the exhaustion on his deeply lined face. He rubbed his eyes then brushed aside a recalcitrant strand of gray hair. "The raiders are only half an hour away, and no friendly ships are in range to intercept. Our engines are completely dead, as we knew they would be. We'd relied on secrecy to protect us, but somehow word got out. Word not just of the timeship, but of its location has leaked.
"The crew has taken a vote. We agree that under no circumstances can we allow the raiders to capture this technology. The damage they could do with it, not just across the galaxy but across time, is simply unimaginable. If they had the ability to go anywhere, anywhen, it would be impossible to apprehend them.
"So, after we've finished recording our logs, we will transmit them along with all our data to EMF Command. It will be days till they receive them, but at least there will be no mystery about our disappearance. Then, we're going to activate the timestream. At the same time, we'll erase all data in all the ship's systems, including all our logs.
"It would be better to simply destroy the ship outright, but with all the new engineering brought in, and all the standard engineering we took out to make room for the new, we don't have the means.
"On behalf of all the crew, don't let this project fall by the wayside. Don't give it up because of this setback. It's important to all of us that it continue. Don't let us down."
The log ended.
The scientists from the Whirlwind and officers from the Nyranik stood silent, each lost in thought. Then Vale saw another indicator light flashing that more information had just been calculated.
"Would you look at that." She reread it to ensure she hadn't missed something, but the particle readings were double checked for accuracy. "This ship isn't from our timeline, or a splinter of it. It's from a parallel line, an alternate universe. They didn't just go back in time, they jumped dimensions."
"Another time and another place," Parillo murmured.
"But why not simply destroy it before we found it?" Dennis voiced what Parillo, and a number of them, were thinking.
Vale shrugged. "Maybe they're not that accurate yet. Or perhaps there are other reasons we can't imagine. At least it looks like the crew successfully escaped the raiders, and that the research continued. That's something."
Parillo agreed. The sacrifice they'd made was noble regardless. But he was especially glad it hadn't been made in vain.
Judging by Saran's stern visage, he certainly thought his EMF should be responsible for their counterpart's research. And Parillo knew Vale would happily give him a copy of all the information.
After ensuring she also had one for herself.
Something told Parillo that his and his wife's adventures were about to get a lot more interesting.
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