The Sea Within Page 17

  Was it possible that she was finally moving on? Could there be a more inopportune time to have this realization? Now that the world was ending…now was the moment she was going to fall in love again?

  Fall in love?

  Where did that come from?

  Jackson rummaged in the kitchen and made coffee while she mulled all this over. They were in one of the worst situations she’d ever been in and yet, she was actually in a good mood. Maybe she was really losing it. She laughed and shook her head.

  “What’s so funny?”

  She turned to see Elle in a rumpled T-shirt standing in the doorway to the galley. Elle had put on her underwear, but no pants. Elle had great legs, long and toned. Jackson sipped her coffee as she leaned against the back counter of the small galley and enjoyed the view.

  “I was wondering to myself if I was cracking up.”

  “Ooh, that’s too much honesty before coffee.” Elle squinted at her. She lifted the cup from Jackson’s hand and took a few sips. “Where’s yours?” She shuffled to a chair, taking Jackson’s coffee with her.

  “It’s good to know that even in a disaster, you maintain your sense of humor.”

  “Was I being funny?” Elle quirked an eyebrow as she unabashedly drank Jackson’s coffee.

  This whole morning-after encounter felt so charmingly normal that Jackson had to force herself to remember where they were and what lay ahead. She turned back to the console and made a second cup of coffee, then joined Elle at the table.

  “Thank you for last night.” Elle was serious. “I’m sorry if I was too needy.”

  “I was feeling the need for closeness too. The need to feel something…normal.” Jackson slouched in her chair. “No need to thank me.”

  Elle smiled thinly, as if her brain was just now waking up to their new reality.

  “That bruise looks bad.” Elle leaned forward with her elbows on the table. “How are you feeling?”

  “Sore, but I’m okay. You?”

  Elle simply nodded. It was impossible to articulate how she was feeling. She’d focus on physical things for the moment. The coffee was warm and satisfying, although she was a little cold. She left the galley to change into cargo pants. Jackson watched her come and go.

  “I was feeling a little chilly.” She sat back down facing Jackson.

  The SLST was sort of like an oversized Airstream trailer. That would have been the way she’d described it. The curved walls and ceiling were appealing, the shape of the long narrow ship felt familiar somehow and foreign at the same time. Her grandfather had owned a vintage Airstream. When gas was no longer affordable, he’d parked it on a lot in the foothills of the Sierras and constructed a biodome around the trailer. She’d spent many days in her childhood hanging out there. Looking back, she always credited that early exposure to a small oasis in the wild for her love of nature and botany.

  “Where did you just go?”

  “Sorry, childhood flashback.” She’d zoned out for a moment without meaning to.

  “A good one?”

  “Yes.” Elle smiled. “Vacations with my grandparents in their vintage Airstream trailer.” She couldn’t help surveying the room. “This ship reminds me of a tricked-out Airstream.”

  “Yeah, I guess it does sort of have that feel.” Jackson mimicked her review of the space by looking at the ceiling and around.

  “Tell me something about yourself.” Elle sipped her coffee.

  “Like what?”

  “Did you have a happy childhood?” Elle hesitated. “I’m just realizing there are things about you I’d like to know.”

  “I suppose so. Maybe not as happy as yours?”

  “Why do you say that?” Elle furrowed her brow.

  “You just seem so…normal…well-adjusted…optimistic.” Jackson tilted her head as if she were reading some list from inside her mind.

  Elle laughed.

  “I think you can take optimistic off that list.” Elle studied Jackson. “What’s normal anyway?”

  They were quiet for a moment. It seemed obvious Jackson wasn’t going to volunteer details unless Elle asked.

  “Do you have any siblings?”

  “Yes, a brother.”

  “Are you going to make me pull information from you? Will you just please talk to me?” Elle leaned forward. “Pretend we’re friends and we want to get to know each other.”

  “Even though we’ve both declared we don’t want to be friends.” Jackson’s statement was playful.

  “Yes, despite that.”

  Jackson took a deep breath.

  “Okay, I have a brother, he got involved with a rough crowd. He was in prison for a little while on drug charges. He’s out now and working on a protein farm in Southern California.” Jackson paused. “We’re not really close. He hates the military.”

  “Parents?”

  “I don’t really remember my mom. She left my dad when I was pretty young.” Jackson had a far-off look in her eyes, as if she was remembering things she hadn’t thought about in a long time. “My dad was a good guy. He did his best. We just never had much. I joined the military in order to attend college and ultimately become a pilot. The Air Force was my way out.”

  “And then at some point you joined the Space Force?”

  “Yeah.” Jackson took a swig of her coffee. “What about you? You have a sister, right?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Just a good guess from the photo I saw at your place.”

  “Yes, she’s younger than me by a couple of years. Her name is Olivia. She lives in the Midwest with her husband. She’s not into science at all. She’s an accountant.”

  For some reason that amused Jackson.

  “My mom and dad also live in the Midwest. My dad is a lawyer and my mom teaches English at a university near where they live.”

  “Wow, super normal.”

  “Yes, I suppose.” She worried that normal was code for boring.

  “So, you grew up in the Midwest then?”

  “Yep, just outside of Chicago. I moved out to California after grad school.”

  “I suppose that explains part of it.”

  “What?”

  “That intangible thing that makes you so likeable.” Jackson grinned. “I’ve always liked people from the middle states.”

  “Thanks, I think.” Elle was amused by Jackson’s personality assessment.

  They were quiet, each lost in her own thoughts, until Jackson spoke.

  “I have an idea.” Jackson leaned forward with an earnest expression.

  “That sounds promising.” It seemed sharing time was over. Elle still had a million questions, but she’d table them for later.

  “First, can you tell me how the phytoplankton multiply? I mean, do they need to be delivered in some special way to the ocean when we get back?”

  Jackson was suddenly more serious, all business.

  “When growing conditions are right, phytoplankton multiply quickly through various means of asexual reproduction.” Elle paused, collecting her thoughts. “The simplicity of plankton enables them to reproduce easily and quickly. Fast-growing dinoflagellates typically divide through binary fission.”

  “Whatever that means.” Jackson’s words were laced with sarcasm.

  “Sorry, dinoflagellates are basically single-celled eukaryotes—algae.”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to just say algae?”

  “No, not really.” Elle was amused by the question. “And fission, in biology, is the division of a single entity into two or more parts. And then regeneration of those parts into separate entities resembling the original.”

  “Asexual reproduction. Okay, I get it. Phytoplankton are like microscopic marine rabbits who divide and multiply without assistance as long as the sea water is available.”

  “Well, if that makes it easier to understand, then yes.”

  “Okay, then I think my plan might work.” Jackson was serious again. “I think we could swap the containers.”<
br />
  “Explain.”

  “I can purge one of the water tanks on the ship. We could store the sea water samples in that empty tank and put fresh water into the gallon sample containers.”

  “What good would that do?”

  “I can alter the trajectory of the re-entry so that we land in the ocean.”

  “But I thought the slingshot only traveled through time, returning to the same location?” Elle tried to remember the details from the brief training she’d had before departure. “Won’t we return to the same place we departed from?”

  “It is possible to change the re-entry coordinates. It’s a little risky, but I’m fairly certain I can alter our course so that we splash down in the ocean.” Jackson paused. “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes.” At this point, Elle would literally follow Jackson anywhere.

  “In a water landing, the ship should automatically purge the water tanks and take on air to keep the ship from sinking.”

  “Purging the harvested phytoplankton into the sea.” Elle’s heart raced. This was a genius idea. “Once in the water, the phytoplankton would do their thing.”

  “And then we deliver the sample containers just like we’re supposed to.”

  “Only once they’re at the lab, Liam will know he’s basically got tap water with nothing in it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Jackson, can you really make this work?”

  “I’m an engineer, remember? And a pilot.”

  “This is a terrific plan. This might actually work.” Elle extended her hand across the table and Jackson took it. Elle squeezed lightly. “We could actually see this through and achieve what we set out to do.”

  “Yes.” Jackson finished her coffee. “We’ll be groggy when we land. I’ll figure out a way to get a coded message to Nikki. We’ll need someone on our side, watching our back.”

  Elle was optimistic, for the first time since her encounter with Ted at the beach. She was feeling as if they really might be able to turn this whole thing around.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Probably.” Elle sipped loudly. “My stomach isn’t awake enough to know for sure.”

  “Well, either way, we should eat.” Jackson stood and checked packets of food as she talked. “We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us and we’re gonna need to keep our strength up.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  After breakfast, the first task was securing the bodies in their assigned gravity tubes. The body bags were oddly dehumanizing. Jackson had to focus on each task while she pushed back the memories that the bags brought up for her. Wallace was the last crewmember put in place. Jackson strapped him in and then had to lean against the tube structure for a minute with her eyes closed.

  “Are you okay?” Elle placed her hand on Jackson’s back.

  Jackson nodded but kept her eyes closed for a few more seconds.

  “No, you’re not. What’s going on?” Elle’s question was filled with concern.

  Jackson straightened and took a deep breath.

  “This, the black bags, they remind me of the…the day Camille died.” She met Elle’s gaze.

  She sometimes talked with friends about Camille. About missing her, about things she remembered. But she never talked about the Tyvek suits or the body bags or the fact that she never got to say good-bye. The entire contagion site had been locked down. The dead were bagged and numbered unceremoniously. The whole scene was brutal, and she just couldn’t shake it.

  “I’m so sorry.” Elle wrapped her arms around Jackson’s waist and hugged her tightly.

  She slowly returned the embrace, a little afraid that contact between them would bring tears. This was not the time for tears, but tears didn’t always follow direction.

  “Thank you.” She didn’t know what else to say.

  “It must be terrible to have that memory haunt you.” Elle’s words were muffled, quiet, since her cheek was pressed against Jackson’s shirt. “It’s okay to talk about it.”

  “There’s nothing to say.” But she knew that wasn’t true. She touched the screen to lower the glass door of Wallace’s tube.

  “Why don’t we take a break?”

  “No, I’m fine. Really.” Jackson knew she sounded defensive.

  “I don’t think that’s true and I wish you felt safe enough with me to be honest.” Elle wasn’t buying it.

  “It has nothing to do with you.”

  “Except, I’m the one that’s here and I would really like to know you, Jackson.” She placed her hands on Jackson’s forearms for emphasis. “Will you talk to me?”

  Jackson swallowed. This was the part she was never very good at—vulnerability. Every ounce of training she had was in contrast to this, and that training had served her well, in most ways. Elle was looking at her, waiting for something. She might as well start with the truth.

  “Elle, I’m not very good at this.”

  “Which part?” Elle’s fingers lightly squeezed her arm.

  “The talking part. The sharing.”

  “Just start small.”

  Jackson rubbed her face and stepped away from Elle, out of her reach. She had her back to Elle when she started talking.

  “The day Camille left for LA I asked her not to go.” Jackson dropped her head and sighed, still not facing Elle. She braced her hands on her hips. “I begged her not to go.”

  Elle was quiet and made no move to touch her.

  “I had a bad feeling and I didn’t want her to take the assignment.” Jackson turned toward Elle, but kept a few feet of space between them, not an easy feat in the narrow compartment. “But that was her job, to go where outbreaks happened to try to minimize the spread.”

  She rubbed the stubble on top of her head briskly with her fingers, as if that would dislodge the mental image.

  “She thought she could save the world, even if that meant sacrificing herself.” Jackson frowned. “Maybe I’m just selfish. Maybe I wasn’t willing to share her with the world. I mean, we had a life too.”

  Elle hugged herself and kept quiet. Her expression was warm. Her eyes telegraphed empathy. Maybe she’d lost people too. Maybe Elle really did understand. It was all coming back to her now; she couldn’t stop.

  “The thing that I regret most is what I said to her when she left. I begged her to stay, and when she wouldn’t I got angry, I said hurtful things to her.” Her words came out raspy from the lump rising in her throat. “I actually said she was selfish. I called her selfish. I shouted at her as she was leaving.”

  Jackson swiped roughly at a tear with her hand. The tears made her angry.

  “I shouted at her. I said she was selfish. When in reality, Camille was the least selfish person I’ve ever met. She was—” A sob choked off the words.

  Elle was in her arms again, holding her as she fought the tears.

  “It’s okay. She knew you didn’t mean it.”

  “I never got to make it right. I never got to tell her how amazing she was.” Jackson took a big shuddering breath. “I never got to tell her that she was the brave one. Much braver than I am.”

  “Jackson, listen to me.” Elle held her face in her hands. “I am certain that what Camille thought of at the end was only how much she loved you and of the life you shared, not some stupid thing you said because you were hurting.” She wiped at a tear with her thumb. “Look at me.”

  Jackson tried, but Elle’s caring gaze was only making the hurt rise to the surface.

  “She loved you, Jackson.” Elle paused. “And she knew that you loved her.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I know you.”

  Elle tugged her down until their lips met. Salt from her tears mingled as Elle’s tongue teased hers. The kiss deepened and she gave in to it. She clung to Elle, drawing her close, holding her tightly.

  “Oh, Elle.” She pressed her damp cheek to Elle’s.

  “I’m here, Jackson. I’m here.” Her lips brushed the outside edge of Jackson’s ear
. “Please let me in.”

  Jackson felt something break away inside. Some tethered weight she’d been anchored to. She inhaled sharply, deeply, and squeezed her eyes shut. She held on to Elle as if letting go might mean floating away, losing herself. She cried softly, her shoulders shaken by sobs as she allowed herself to be held.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Elle stared at the dispenser as it filled the first, then second cup with coffee. It was late afternoon. They had spent the bulk of the day moving the seawater samples to one of the main tanks on the ship. And then afterword, rinsing and filling the empty gallon containers with freshwater from one of the other tanks. The bulk of the work had only taken a couple of hours, but it involved a lot of trips from the cargo area up into the infrastructure of the ship, into the network of crawl spaces overhead.

  Her arms felt like jelly from lifting gallons of water over her head and up to where Jackson was perched on the scaffold.

  After all the heavy lifting, she took a brisk shower while Jackson worked on altering their return flight. She’d needed the per volume weight of the sea water to make the calculations for re-entry, adjusting for the weight calibration of the ship since now the sea water was in the tank instead of where it was supposed to be. Which made the tail of the craft lighter than anticipated. It wasn’t about the total weight, because that was the same, it had to do with distribution and balance. At least that’s how Jackson had explained it and her tired brain had tried to keep up.

  Coffee seemed in order, so she’d set about figuring out how to make it.

  Elle walked down the slim, tapered corridor to the pilot’s position. Jackson’s broad shoulders were visible on either side of the slender aviator’s chair. If it was possible, in their current scenario, Jackson actually seemed relaxed. Some of the tension she’d carried in her shoulders was gone. Elle leaned past her to set a cup of coffee on the console for her. Jackson was typing on a keypad and didn’t look away from the readout nearest where she was seated. She was facing a bank of screens, angled to mimic the curved surface at the nose of the ship.