Stars Across Time (18 page)

The gray-haired officer frowned down at her. Andie clutched her shoulder, pretending it hurt so badly that she was having a hard time talking—it wasn’t that much of a pretense.

“Didn’t think Theron had any women.”

Andie didn’t know what to make of that statement. Were they talking about soldiers? Implying that he did not have any female soldiers in his unit? Or was this a suggestion of something else?

“We got separated,” she said, hoping it was a safe statement. “And then some kidnappers captured me.” A big part of her wanted to try to send the ship after those kidnappers right now, but she sensed skepticism wafting down from the railing. She would wait until she met with Theron to mention Min-ji and the others, and hoped it wouldn’t be too late. But she had to
get
to Theron first. “Said they were taking me to some secret market to sell. I escaped, but not easily.” She held up her hand to show them the blood on it.

The officer said something to the man beside him. Andie hoped it wasn’t, “She’s obviously lying. Shoot her, will you?”

Whatever he said, he walked out of sight after that. Andie could feel the eyes of the boys upon her back. They were probably wondering why she hadn’t told them she was a soldier. Maybe they were wondering if she was a big, fat liar.

Then two men lowered a sling overboard.

“Can you climb on, make it up?” one asked.

“I’ve got one good arm,” she said. Not exactly an answer, but she gave them a determined nod. She wasn’t about to pass out when she was this close to salvation. Or at least what she hoped turned into medical attention and a cot.

When the sling reached her, she maneuvered herself onto it, her back to the hull.

“Thank you for the help,” she told the boys.

“Leeland,” one said. “Todd, Sanka, and Drew. If you or the colonel ever want to visit, we’re usually around Pier 17.”

“I’ll remember,” she said with a small smile, not promising them anything else, though she wished she had something she could give them. Aside from Theron, they were the first people who had helped her in this strange, malevolent world.

Andie kept her left hand in her lap on the ride up, in the hope that her shoulder wouldn’t move much, and grasped the rope with her right. The soldiers must have been trying not to jostle her, because the trip up was smooth, but climbing off the sling, even with their help, had her gasping and struggling not to black out again. She couldn’t lose consciousness, not until she was sure she was somewhere safe. Even if the thought of suffering through an interrogation—and managing to utter coherent responses—made her want to crawl under one of those upturned lifeboats mounted on the deck.

“I’m Major Decker,” the gray-haired officer said, stepping into sight again.

Andie forced herself to stand up straight and meet his eyes. She resisted the urge to salute—who even knew what a salute looked like here?—though it was her natural inclination when faced with a higher-ranking officer. She wondered if he commanded the ship or was in charge of army forces that were assigned to the ship. If the military was relatively small, guarding only the Pacific Northwest—or whatever ended up falling under the “Cascadian Alliance”—then the government might have simplified everything, maintaining only one branch of service.

“Andie Kim,” she said. “Aloysius, er, Theron helped me out in the mountains.” She made the slip on purpose, hoping the major might believe she did, indeed, know Theron if he had given her his first name. Of course, she had no idea if he ever used that first name. Since he hadn’t seemed fond of it, he might be known as Theron to friends and lovers, as well as the rest of the world. Lovers. Her mind snagged on that thought. Did he have one back home? For all she knew, he could be married. He didn’t seem the type to kiss a woman while being married to another, but then, their only kiss had come when he was trying to keep Bedene from believing they were plotting. And
she
had initiated it.

Not the time to be thinking about this, she told herself, noting the major’s narrowed eyes.

“We were separated later,” Andie continued, waving vaguely toward the mountains beyond the skyscrapers. She didn’t want to name anything, since she had no idea what these people called anything. “He told me to meet him at the fort—” the fort she still didn’t have a name for, ugh, “—if we were separated, and that we would... uhm.” Yes, what? Her brain wasn’t working well. Not enough blood making its way upstairs, perhaps. “I was captured by slavers, who wanted to sell me,” she repeated again. “To some market. Do you know anything about that?” There, when perplexed, turn the questions on the questioner. Maybe that would work.

“Ms. Kim,” Decker said. “I will take you to sickbay, so someone can fix up your injury, and I can eventually get you to Fort Kitsap. We’re nearing the end of a two-week patrol, but it will be three days until we’re able to deviate from our route to sail over there. However, your claims leave me in an awkward position. The colonel is well known, and this wouldn’t be the first time someone has attempted to gain favor or special privilege by claiming to be an acquaintance.” The major already had a dour face, but his lips twisted into a positively dyspeptic expression when he added, “No less than five women have shown up at the gates of Fort Kitsap, claiming to be carrying his baby.” He looked down at Andie’s stomach.

As if they’d had the time or opportunity to make that a possibility. Besides, she still had an IUD, something she had never bothered having removed after her last relationship had ended.

“Only thing I’m carrying is a bullet,” Andie said. “And it’s not his. It belongs to some idiot slaver, who I’ll happily shoot back if I ever get the chance.” She would much rather get the major focused on that aspect of her story—as much as she wanted nothing more than the sickbay treatment he had promised, she wished she could get the entire ship focused on finding Min-ji and the others.

Decker’s expression softened slightly, and he glanced at a younger officer at his side, a man with a cleft lip and glasses.

“She does seem like someone the colonel would like, sir,” the man offered.

The unexpected help surprised Andie, but she would take it from any quarter. Still, she hadn’t meant to imply that she was Theron’s
woman
, in the relationship sense. Maybe she should ask for a private interrogation with the major and try to explain everything. But would he know anything of the time machine? If he didn’t, he would never believe her.

“Perhaps,” the major said, “but the colonel’s not known for being a womanizer. All of those women who showed up, claiming to carry his child, always did so right after he left for the border, probably knowing he would be gone for months and wouldn’t be there to verify that he’d never seen them before.” Decker focused on her again. “Ms. Kim, I don’t suppose there’s any proof you could offer that you’ve been with him? I know it’s a strange thing to ask, and I apologize for prying, but aside from the pregnant women, a few of those who have claimed his friendship have turned out to be spies, hoping to acquire top-secret information.”

“Proof?” Damn, the first name wasn’t going to be enough. She knew precious little about him, except that he was an honorable man. “Like what? You want me to describe what he looks like naked?” She could certainly describe his top half, since he had been wandering around shirtless since giving her his. “His scars? He has a knot of scar tissue here—” she lifted her good arm, touching the hollow of her shoulder. “A scar from a surgery or a knife cut here—” she traced a line on her side. “And there’s another cut on his back, about here.” She waved at her lower back on the left side. “Or did you want to know what he looks like
below
the belt?” she asked, praying they wouldn’t. She couldn’t talk from experience about that.

“No,
no
,” the young officer blurted, a horrified expression in his eyes.

The major grunted and said, “It was a sword.”

“What?” Andie asked.

“The cut on the side. He got that one early in his career, defending a convoy against pirates from up the coast.” He waved in the direction of Canada—or whatever the country up there was called now. “We were in the same unit then.”

Theron had certainly been all over the place, guarding this nation’s borders. Andie hoped from the speculation in the major’s eyes that he might be closer to believing her. Or maybe he realized he simply wasn’t going to get the proof he wanted.

“Sir, if you could just take me to the fort, I’m sure everything can be straightened out. I know Theron will be on his way there. He was in the middle of a mission, and he’ll need some reinforcements to complete it. Three days is fine.” Andie forced herself not to wince. Three days would be interminable, since she knew Min-ji would have been delivered to that market by then. What if she was sold before then? What if Andie could never find her again?

Maybe the bleak expression on her face reminded the major that she was in pain—physically and mentally. Or maybe he had simply run out of questions. He waved to a female soldier, the only one in sight, pushing a mop bucket and watching curiously.

“Corporal Levitts. Come escort this woman to sickbay, please. She’s Colonel Theron’s lady friend, so treat her well. Make sure she gets something to eat and has a rack when she’s done.”

“Yes, sir.” The corporal smiled at Andie and pointed to a hatch leading below decks. After casting a few curious glances at her, she said, “
I
wouldn’t mind hearing about what’s below the belt.”

Andie nearly choked at her brazenness.

“The scars, I mean,” the corporal said with a wink.

“Uhm.”

Smiling, the corporal held open the hatch for her. “You’re lucky. Lots of women would like to see those scars.”

Though Andie appreciated the woman’s good-natured humor, she couldn’t manage a return smile. As if she didn’t have enough things to worry about, she now had to wonder how Theron would react when she found out the insinuations she had made. It hadn’t occurred to her that he might be famous among his people and that women frequently lusted after him—or sought to use him. Soldiers loved to gossip, and she expected her story would spread to the fort long before she arrived. Everything she had alluded to seemed awfully presumptuous given the short time they had spent together. She vowed to explain as soon as she saw him.

A
ndie sat on a bench inside a horse-drawn carriage, trying not to fidget as she gazed out the windows at a town that she had learned was called Port Gates. Her best guess was that they were above what had once been Kingston, but the less populated side of Puget Sound—Puget
Sea
—hadn’t been a home for skyscrapers and towering monuments, and with the shoreline so changed, she had trouble identifying anything for certain. Only the Olympic Mountains, rising to the west, remained the same.

If she hadn’t been so busy fidgeting—or trying not to fidget—she might have found the trip through town fascinating, with the mix of primitive and less primitive all around her. There were log cabins, small cottages, and surprisingly elaborate houses and buildings constructed from scrap recycled from an earlier era. At one point, she spotted a house made from the wings and hull of what looked to have been a Boeing passenger jet. Some of the roofs supported solar panels and solar hot-water heaters, whereas other houses looked like they would be lucky to have candles for lighting. In one yard, a woman was running a push mower over some well-groomed grass, but most of the plots sported vegetable gardens and fruit trees. There were horses everywhere, pulling carts and wagons up and down the streets. Every now and then, she would spot a scooter or a motorcycle parked in front of a house, but most of them had grass grown up around the wheels and rust on the frames. The overall effect was one of a much simpler world than hers, and she wondered if she would ever find a place where someone could make her a latte. At least her caffeine-withdrawal headaches had gone away in the days aboard the C.A. Nimitz. Her shoulder still ached whenever she lifted it above her head, but the ship’s surgeon had removed the bullet and given her some decent painkillers. At least this century had
that
much.

“The fort is up in the hills, ma’am,” the sergeant who had been sent to accompany her said. Another soldier sat on the driver’s bench up front, manning the horse team. “Have you been there before?”

“No,” Andie said.

She hadn’t seen the sergeant before and doubted he had been briefed on her story, but
everyone
, even those she had encountered since disembarking, seemed to know she was Theron’s “lady friend” now. As she had learned aboard the ship, the Alliance didn’t have a way to get satellites into orbit, but they did still have radio broadcasting systems. That meant everyone at this Fort Kitsap was going to know about her before she arrived. She just hoped Theron himself was there and that he could help her find Min-ji and the others. The major had invited her to sit in on a briefing and had asked her for everything she knew about the markets. To her relief, finding them did seem to be a priority for the soldiers stationed in the area, though she definitely had the impression that neither the major nor anyone else on the ship knew about the time-travel element. They thought their own women were being stolen and sold—and perhaps there was some of that too.

“It won’t take long to reach it,” the sergeant said. “It’s snugged up in the foothills at the base of the mountains. They say there are secret tunnels that run out from under the fort and to spots all over the Olympics, but I’ve never seen them.”

He smiled at her, raising his brows, and she realized he thought
she
knew something and that she might share. As if she had a clue as to anything going on in this world. In her time, the Olympics were part of a huge national park, so it was hard to imagine much infrastructure at all in there. But she supposed she could see the area having been popular with people trying to survive difficult times.

“I hadn’t heard that,” Andie said.

“Ah.”

Thankfully, he let her ride in silence as the carriage left the city. A vehicle that reminded her of a Jeep drove past from the opposite direction, with soldiers in helmets and carrying rifles inside. Nobody seemed to think anything odd about cars and horse-drawn carriages sharing the road.