“She’s right on the border,” the man running the machine said to the one in charge. “What should we do, Captain?”
“Toss her back,” the Captain said. “No reason to waste oxygen taking her Below if she won’t be any use to us when we get there.”
Another man—Maynard, Talia recognized—pulled the girl away, took her to the edge of the platform, and unceremoniously shoved her off into the water. The girl screamed with panic, her cries turning to bubbles when her head dipped below the water.
Talia’s mouth dropped open in horror. They’d left the girl’s wrists bound. There was no way she’d be able to swim under the lip of the dome and make it to shore, especially not when she was panicking like that. Ballard twitched at Talia’s side, took a half step toward the struggling girl, and then seemed to stop himself.
The girl behind Talia began sobbing, and there were gasps and shocked murmurs.
Talia’s heart dropped in her chest as she watched. Adrenaline mixed with her horror and she whipped around and took a step toward the control area. “Do something! She’s going to die!”
The Captain continued about his business, not even looking up to acknowledge Talia’s cry. Maynard leered at her as he turned his back on the drowning girl to rejoin his comrades.
Ballard tightened his grip on her arm. “Quiet,” he said, his voice low. “You’ll only make it worse for yourself.”
The girl vanished into the dark water and didn’t surface again. Icy fingers closed around Talia’s heart. She numbly watched the spot where the girl had disappeared, still not believing what she’d seen.
But she had a new problem to deal with. Some sort of closure was sliding across the open area of the dome’s floor, and the dome was moving now and rapidly picking up speed.
ICE CAP Army Sergeant Owen Ballard—a man with a different name and a higher rank back home in the Marianas Trench Military Forces—stood with every muscle strung tight, his fists shaking with the impulse to dive into the water and save the drowning girl. He turned his back to the other men and watched as a clear cover enclosed the circle of water in the middle of the platform. It was too late to save her now.
He closed his eyes, pushing his anger and horror down into a compact ball, stowing it away in the place deep within him where he concealed his real identity, the loneliness of his long isolation from his own colony, and too many emotions to list.
Forcing his breathing to calm, he relaxed his stance so he wouldn’t attract any attention. He couldn’t help casting a glance over his shoulder at Captain Rogers. When Ballard had first started his mission, he’d taken the man for a fairly intelligent leader, but this proved that Ballard had been gravely wrong in his estimation of the Captain. The murder of any girl was tragic in itself, but killing one from Above violated the First Tenet of Below: Those Below shall not interfere with those Above.
It wasn’t just tragic; it was lunacy.
When Ballard had taken this undercover assignment, it had been his understanding that the Captain’s group was only planning to take women from Above for their eggs, and that the women would all be returned home afterward. It was incredibly risky, a terrible violation of the women’s bodies, and obviously went against the First Tenet. All of that was bad enough, but murdering someone from Above—there was no way to justify that kind of corruption.
Ballard’s chest tightened as he considered the repercussions of the Captain’s brash order. Any of the women—including the one who was certainly now dead—could be one of their ancestors. Or some key person in the ancestral line of important future events. Those Below didn’t have a full enough understanding of time travel to truly know the consequences of such an action. That was the whole reason for the First Tenet. The fact that the Captain had violated it so casually gave a clear message that he had no regard for the possible consequences.
Ballard looked around at the other men as the realization dawned on him—the mission to destroy the Ice Cap Army’s ability to go Above was even more critical than he or any of his superiors had realized. But he couldn’t act yet. He had to go along with this rogue group’s scheme until he discovered the location of their base.
He rolled his shoulders back, trying to release the tension in his body and focus his mind on the present moment. There was nothing to be done for the poor girl who’d been cast into the sea, and he couldn’t let the others know how deeply it horrified him. Ballard was having a hard enough time controlling his internal reaction whenever one of these miscreants pawed at one of the girls or threatened to take one over to the darker part of the platform for some “alone time,” as Gentry had put it. They’d been at sea for weeks now, and these were the first women they’d seen. Not to mention that back home many of the Ice Cap women were sickened with the plague—or dead. Ballard knew that some of the men’s behavior was expected, but it still pained him to the core. He couldn’t help thinking of his own sister, who’d been about the age of these girls when she was claimed by the plague.
The Ice Cap Colony had suffered many more deaths of women than his own Marianas Trench Colony, though his sister was one of many casualties—too many. And in a cruel twist, nearly all of the women who survived the illness were left infertile, which was presumably what had justified this mission to go Above and take these girls.
Ballard glanced down the row of young women, who looked scared and cold and were probably wondering if they’d ever see their homes again. The feisty one—Talia—who he was now taking back to sit on the floor after she’d passed the fertility test, was the one who’d cut Maynard and elbowed Gentry in the face. Her dark hair was just about the same color as his sister’s had been.
Ballard gave his head a tiny shake, pulling himself from thoughts of his own personal tragedies. Focus, man. He had critical work to do here. He hadn’t spent the last year infiltrating the Ice Cap Army and their top secret operations just to stand here and let his mind wander.
His eyes flicked once more to the athletic-looking girl who was leaning over to whisper with her friend. Despite her obvious trepidation, her eyes sparked with intelligence and determination. He wished he could have helped her escape before they began their descent to the way station. The curves of her arm and shoulder muscles, her taut abs, and the way she’d fought Maynard in the ocean and nearly escaped were proof enough to him that she could have made it. Even though she wasn’t one with the water the way Ballard and his people were, she had an obvious affinity for the ocean.
Ballard imagined running his finger down the nape of her neck, tracing the track of the water droplets that dripped from her hair, over her collarbone, and between her breasts, maybe following with the tip of his tongue—
“Ballard!”
The voice made him jump, and he was grateful for the dim light of the dome as warmth crept up his neck and flooded his cheeks, as he realized a vague tightness had spread across the front of his shorts.
Idiot! What had gotten into him?
He shouldn’t have let his thoughts wander so easily. And he shouldn’t be looking at any of the girls that way. Not that Talia was a girl. She was a bit older than most of the others, her eyes wiser and her face more angular—a woman, not a girl. And she carried herself like she knew who she was. Ballard muttered under his breath and then bit down hard on the inside of his cheek. What was that about focus that he’d been saying to himself just a moment ago? What was wrong with him? Maybe he’d just spent too much time around these Ice Cap Army brutes.
The man who’d called to him—Nielson—stood waiting. Ballard went to him, resisting the urge to look back and make sure Gentry, Maynard, and the others crowding around the girls were behaving. He truly wished he could have freed all of the girls—young women—while they were still at the surface, but first he had to discover where the base was. The only way to do that was to go along with this mission and act pleased to do so.
“Yes sir.” He saluted Nielson.
Nielson started handing him slender modified harpoon rifles.
When the colonists had first established themselves deep in the ocean, they’d designed harpoon rifles to be used on hunting trips. That changed a couple of centuries back when a group splintered off from the original united Marianas Trench settlement to form a second independent colony under the ice caps of Antarctica. In the process of splitting, the two colonies had created their own militaries. Tools for hunting became military weapons. The two colonies had never engaged in all-out war against each other, but there had been skirmishes for resources and hunting territory. And in recent decades the rifles had been used in the battles against the Rebels, a group that that risen up against both colonies to threaten the very existence of those Below and Above.
Ballard cast a glance at the Captain, who stood at the command station. Ballard had believed, as most had, that the defeat of the Rebels would bring peace. The Rebel War had certainly united the two colonies, as the armed forces from both had fought together against the Rebels. But when the plague came, things began to change—people began to change—and clearly some were using the situation to their own end. Ballard wasn’t sure how the Captain and his superiors were planning to profit from all of this, but with each day he spent under the Captain’s command, Ballard was more sure that there was some sort of black market operation of a scope that his superiors—his real ones who’d sent him on this mission—didn’t know about.
Trying not to be too obvious in his study of the maps, Ballard examined the blinking lights displayed on the monitor behind Nielson. There were half a dozen moving dots tracing the progress of this and the other five ascent ships. It looked as though they would converge at a point deep in the Gulf, not far from the Puerto Rico Trench.
In addition to the location of the rogue group’s base, he had another piece to figure out. He glanced around the command station, looking for anything that could be a “key.” From previous conversations he’d overheard, he knew that the rogues’ vehicles would only work under the command of those who held the keys. The keys could be anything—objects, even just a code that only some of the men knew.
“Give these to five of the men guarding the girls and keep one for yourself,” Nielson said, indicating the harpoon rifles. “Send the rest of the men over here.”
“What are our orders for use of these rifles, sir?” Ballard masked his repulsion at the thought of actually having to shoot one of the women. Harpoon rifles were brutal weapons.
“Just keep them in line. I don’t expect they’ll be able to stage any sort of real fight.” Nielson smirked and slid an oily glance at the women. “And if they do, there are other ways to subdue them.”
“Yes, sir.” Ballard kept his tone and expression studiously neutral.
When Ballard returned to the other men who were watching over the women, he intended to avoid giving Maynard and Gentry weapons—he planned to send them back to Nielson to get them away from Talia and the other women—but both men reached for rifles with icy smiles.
Ballard tried to pull the rifle out of Maynard’s grasp. “You’re to report to Lieutenant Nielson.”
“I heard the Lieutenant. He didn’t ask for me specifically.” Maynard clamped his free hand over Ballard’s wrist, squeezing until the grinding of tendons and bones forced Ballard to let go of the rifle. “And I can watch over your pretty little girlfriend.”
Ballard’s stomach clenched. He refused to react, but wished he’d been less obvious with Talia.
“You’re on the end,” Ballard said gruffly and gestured to the far end of the line of women.
Maynard narrowed his eyes at Ballard for a split second but complied and stalked away. Ballard outranked Maynard, and in the end the man had to obey a direct order.
The other men who remained guarding the women, now armed with harpoon rifles, spread out along the line.
“Hey, where are we going?” came a whispered voice from the floor. Ballard knew without looking that it was Talia. “And what country are you from, anyway?”
“They’re not from any country we know,” Talia’s friend hissed. Janelle was her name. “They’re sea people. Mermen.”
Ballard’s pulse thumped in surprise and he glanced down at the two women. Talia was giving her friend an incredulous look. Was it coincidence that Janelle had said something that, while not exactly accurate, was uncomfortably close to the truth? He licked his lips, his mouth suddenly dry. It had to be a lucky guess.
He glanced down at Talia again. Her arms and chest were dotted with goose bumps, and the still-damp fabric of her top was clinging to her skin. It took more willpower than he wanted to admit to keep his eyes on her face. He looked toward the command station to avoid the temptation and to mask the fact that he was talking to her.
“We’re meeting up with others,” he whispered, changing his focus to a point across the dome and barely moving his lips.
In the corner of his eye, he saw Talia imitating him, looking away so it wouldn’t appear that they were having a conversation.
“You sound and look like military,” she mumbled quietly. “But militaries don’t kidnap random drunk girls from spring break parties. Are you ex-military pirates?”
“Not exactly,” he muttered.
When he swung his gaze in the other direction, he caught Maynard giving him a sharp stare. Ballard casually shifted his feet, half-turning and moving a little away from Talia. He stared back at Maynard until the young shark-eyed Private looked away.
He wanted to give Talia some kind of reassurance, but the truth was he wasn’t completely sure where they were going. He only knew their next stop was a way station, a transfer point where they’d meet up with the other ascent ships and all of the crews and women would all get into a different vehicle to descend the rest of the way to a secret location—the base. His brief glance at the map indicated the base was probably going to be a spot deep in the Gulf of Mexico.
He really needed to get a more detailed look at the maps displayed at the command station, and even better, eavesdrop on the conversations between the Captain and the other higher ranking men. He’d seen the Captain speaking into a mouthpiece, presumably reporting to his superiors or perhaps communicating with the other ascent ships. It would be useful to hear those exchanges, too. Ballard’s superiors didn’t know the name of the Captain’s boss—the man at the head of this operation—though there was a short list of possible candidates. Ballard had his money on Major Aebrand. He’d encountered the Major when the Ice Cap Army and Trench Military had fought together during the last battles of the Rebel Wars and had immediately disliked and distrusted the man’s beady-eyed gaze.
He noticed that Talia was watching the officers at the command station, clearly trying to gain more information, too. And she was doing something with her hands behind her back. Ballard had seen the little case attached to her wrist when she first came on board and had purposely ignored it. He hoped she wouldn’t make him regret that decision.
She and her friend leaned their heads close together, whispering, and Ballard pretended not to notice.
“You really want the wiry one, Ballard, you can have her,” Gentry called in a loud voice from a few feet away. “She’ll probably try to twist your danglers off with her bare hands. Me, I’ll take her friend, there. I’ll need both hands to squeeze each of those—”
A shout at the end of the line cut him off. Good thing, as Ballard had been seriously fantasizing about aiming his harpoon rifle at Gentry’s eye and pulling the trigger.
Everyone turned to see a girl from near the end of the line, the one with no top, staggering away as fast as she could move. She pitched, nearly tripping, her hysterical cries echoing off the ship’s walls. Maynard took off after her, and Ballard hoped the man had the sense not to shoot her.
In the commotion, Ballard stepped close to Talia, quickly pulled his small folding fish-gutting blade from a pouch on his belt, and dropped it on the floor. It landed near his foot and he gave it a shove, sending it sliding back past her thigh. He couldn’t risk a glance, but hoped
he’d pushed it far enough she could reach around with her hand to grab it.
“Don’t try anything stupid,” he muttered to her. “Just hold onto that for now.”
Adrenaline raced through him. In the year he’d been with the Ice Cap rogue group, this was probably the stupidest thing he’d done. Really, it was the only stupid thing he’d done—he’d been extremely careful and played his role perfectly. But she had to know now that he was truly on her side. He just hoped she was as intelligent as he believed she was and would hold onto the blade and bide her time.
A part of his mind was telling him he was crazy for trusting this woman from Above. But his gut was telling him he’d need an ally at some point, and his choices were few. She was strong and courageous, and though she might be an unlikely partner in his mission, she was probably his best choice.
He turned his attention back to Maynard and the struggling, panicked girl. Maynard had grabbed her by the hair and was dragging her back toward the other women.
“Lieutenant Nielson,” Maynard called. “What should we do with this one?” He jerked the girl by the hair, and she cried out and clawed at his fingers.
Nielson left the command station and walked over. Ballard had a clear view of the Lieutenant’s face as he bent and lifted the young woman’s chin, looking into her face, and he didn’t like the gleam in the man’s dark eyes.
“I think this young lady and I will have a private chat,” Nielson said mildly, but loud enough for all of the women to hear.
“No!” she cried and renewed her struggle to free her hair from Maynard’s fist.
Nielson straightened and regarded her coolly. “Well, it’s either that or you can go for a swim. Your choice. We’re already a more than hundred feet down, though, so consider your options carefully.”
The Seas of Time (A Love Across Stars Series Novel) Page 3