The Sea Within Page 7

  “I thought you’d gone,” Elle whispered, between kisses.

  “I was about to leave, but…” She didn’t finish the statement. She kissed Elle instead.

  This was a surprise. She’d planned to drift quietly off to the afterglow of sex, but it seemed Jackson had other ideas. Part of Elle was excited that she’d been wrong about Jackson running for the door, but another part of her was sounding alarms because she’d been wrong. Unpredictability made Elle a little uncomfortable.

  Jackson carried Elle back to the bedroom. She laid Elle on the bed then rocked back on her knees to unfasten her pants. In her haste to be between Elle’s legs, she shoved them down but not all the way off. Once she was lying next to Elle, Jackson kicked them free.

  “What made you change your mind?” Elle needed to know.

  “About what?”

  “About leaving.”

  “You’re beautiful.” Jackson’s gaze was intense. “How’s that for a reason?”

  Elle wasn’t convinced but appreciated the compliment.

  “Is there something you’d like? Is there something I can do for you?” She felt she’d already received a lot from Jackson. It seemed as if the balance was unequal.

  “Yeah, this.” Jackson braced Elle’s thighs against her shoulders and caressed her clit with her tongue. She angled her head up just for a moment. “I couldn’t leave without tasting you.”

  Jackson started again to caress Elle’s sex with her tongue. The torment was exquisite. Elle fisted the sheet on either side. Jackson’s tongue slid inside and then Jackson’s mouth was on her, but her fingers were there too. Jackson was driving her higher and higher. She feared she might spontaneously burst into flames.

  They’d had sex earlier, but this was different. The intensity of Jackson’s focus had ratcheted up, times ten. Elle was at her mercy and she was coming fast.

  She raised up, trying to pull Jackson’s face toward hers. She wanted to feel Jackson’s weight on top of her when she came. Jackson obliged, reading Elle’s need without her uttering a word.

  Jackson was rocking on top of her, bracing her thigh against Elle’s sex. Elle clung to Jackson’s shoulders. Jackson was applying pressure in just the right amount in just the right place. She was coming undone.

  Elle cried out, dug her nails into Jackson’s ass, and shuddered—the muscles in her legs jerked with release and she slumped back onto the pillow. She wanted to say something, to cry out, but Jackson kissed her, deeply, swallowing the words.

  Elle was spent. Jackson’s head was against her breast, her breathing now slow and even. Her arm was draped across Elle’s midsection. The sheet partially covered them to waist height. Elle caressed Jackson’s shoulder lightly and then let her palm come to rest on Jackson’s head. She rotated just enough to press her lips against Jackson’s forehead.

  “Rest now,” she whispered. Jackson didn’t stir.

  Elle was content to hold Jackson until she herself drifted off. She didn’t have a lot of experience with one-night stands, but this didn’t feel like one. There had been an intensity, an intimacy to their lovemaking that had taken her breath away. She wondered if that had been partly what scared Jackson off and at the same time compelled her to stay.

  Eventually, sleep seeped in from the edges of her mind. Tomorrow was a big day. With Jackson spooned close, she let sleep pull her under.

  Chapter Eight

  As promised, the sleek black car with a US Space Force insignia on the door was parked at the curb promptly at eight. Elle climbed into the back seat and settled in for the forty-minute drive north to the substation. The humorless driver was in uniform and other than saying good morning, hadn’t uttered a word. Liam had instructed her that the driver would pick her up and deliver her to an installation north of the city where she’d get the rest of the story about this secret mission. It all sounded like something out of a comic book, all cloak-and-dagger, secret society—the stuff of mystery novels. The part of her personality that didn’t handle unknowns well threatened to revolt, but her curiosity was too strong. She had to know. And in order to know she was going to have to venture out of her comfort zone.

  She sank into the seat and watched the city speed by the window. It was a luxury to have a driver and not have to ride the train. She could get used to this sort of treatment. Maybe secret societies were worth investigating.

  Elle tried to picture where Jackson was this morning. She’d woken alone, satisfied, and just the least bit foggy from the enjoyable lack of sleep the night before.

  She wasn’t surprised that Jackson left in the wee hours of the morning without saying good-bye. But she was a little disappointed Jackson hadn’t at least left a note or something. Would they see each other again? It would all be on Jackson’s terms now. She had no idea how to reach Jackson, but Jackson knew where she lived. The power balance of that was too one-sided. Maybe she should have thought that through a bit more before inviting Jackson up for a drink.

  Elle was tired and must have dozed for part of the drive because their arrival seemed too quick. She had to show the security guard her ID before the driver was allowed to proceed. He parked near the entrance of what looked like a tunnel. A very serious woman greeted her when she exited the car.

  “Good morning, Dr. Graham. I’m Nikki West and I’m here to escort you to the briefing.”

  “Thank you.”

  Nikki was pretty and intimidating at the same time. This amused Elle and she wondered if she could ever pull off that same combination. Nikki also gave off a definite lesbian vibe, but maybe that was simply the uniform talking. Nikki motioned for Elle to take a seat in something that looked like a modified golf cart, army green with a roll cage. How far were they going? The base must be much larger than it appeared from the entrance. Elle held on to the side bar as Nikki hit the gas. They turned sharply and descended into the sleek, smooth sided tunnel.

  * * *

  Jackson closed her laptop and checked the time on her oversized diving watch. She had ten minutes before the briefing started and she was in desperate need of more coffee. There was just enough time for her to swing by the mess hall and pick up a black coffee to-go.

  She stood and stretched, feeling stiff from lack of sleep. She’d left Elle’s place around three thirty planning to get some shut-eye before reporting to base, but she couldn’t quiet her mind enough to actually doze off. The mess hall was buzzing when she entered, offering background white noise for her thoughts.

  Why had she stayed?

  Her fingers had been curled around the door latch. She’d opened the door but then froze, released the handle, and the door had clicked shut on its own. Jackson had felt momentarily shaken and dropped to the sofa, seated quietly in the dark until Elle appeared, like a gorgeous ghost.

  Replaying the sight of Elle, naked, in the kitchen stirred her insides. She closed her eyes and swallowed. Fuck. She definitely wanted to see Elle again. She should have left a note or something. What an ass. She knew where Elle lived. She’d make it up to her by sending flowers.

  She sampled the coffee and then topped it off before grabbing a lid. The exchange reader pinged as she swept her ID across the surface to pay for the beverage. The corridor was crowded but much quieter than the cafeteria. Soldiers in uniform, civilian engineers, and random support staff wearing orange coveralls wove around her. She was lost in her own thoughts.

  A soldier saluted when she presented herself at the door. She returned the salute and waited for the retinal scan to verify her identity. The door lock clicked and the soldier opened it for her.

  “Thank you.” She took the last open seat at the oval table without surveying the room.

  “I think everyone is present. I’d like to personally welcome you to Space Operations Command.” Major Riley spoke from his chair near the center of the table. “Let’s take a moment to introduce the team. From our side, this is First Lieutenant Steve Milloy, first lieutenant and pilot Ken Wallace, and commanding officer for this missi
on, Captain Jackson Drake.”

  Jackson scanned the table for the first time. Something about hearing her name dragged her brain from the fog she’d been lost in all morning.

  She almost choked on her coffee.

  Seated at the far end of the long oval table was Elle. She was sure her surprise mirrored the expression on Elle’s face as they locked gazes. What the fuck?

  “Thank you, Major.” Liam Allaire sat across from Major Riley at the center of the table. “Some of you I know.” He glanced in Jackson’s direction. “For those of you I haven’t met, I’m Dr. Liam Allaire, director of BIOME Industries. I’d like to introduce paleoclimatologist Dr. Ted Hoffman. And paleobotanist Dr. Eliza Graham. And two members of the BIOME security team, Cliff Harris and Ed Nunez.”

  Holy shit. She couldn’t take her eyes off Elle.

  This was a mission briefing. What the hell was Elle doing here? The coffee roiled in her stomach. She set the cup on the table and dropped her hand to her lap to still the shaking.

  “Dr. Allaire, would you kick off the meeting?” Major Riley adjusted in his seat. His forearms rested on the table. He was casually at attention at all times.

  Liam got to his feet, allowing his fingers to keep light contact with some notes on paper in front of him.

  “Just to recap where we are, let me begin with this.” He glanced around the room. “By 2099, the oceans will become too hot for phytoplankton to photosynthesize. Between 1950 and now, we’ve seen almost a complete die-off.”

  That was pretty depressing. That meant they were only ten years from a complete die-off.

  “Traditionally, environmental advocates have focused on climate. But climate and the health of our oceans are related. Tiny phytoplankton float in the ocean unnoticed, yet they once constituted half the organic matter on Earth and they provided two-thirds of the earth’s oxygen.” Liam glanced at Elle. “Thanks to the research of our team, I think we have a real chance to repair some damage here.”

  Elle was making every effort to mask her shock at seeing Jackson enter the room for this briefing. She was rattled by Jackson’s presence and was completely unable to read Jackson’s face. She was wearing a sharply pressed khaki uniform and her cool expression gave nothing away. How the hell had they ended up at this meeting together? Captain Jackson Drake. She silently repeated Jackson’s full name a few times. The fact that Jackson was in the meeting wasn’t even the strangest part of this. She scanned the group seated around the table.

  She was in a room full of professionals, scientists, and military personnel discussing time travel. Time travel!

  Liam had briefed her prior to the meeting and she was still trying to come to terms with the possibilities of such an insane revelation. And yet, on some level she wasn’t surprised.

  In some ways, time travel made perfect sense. One of the only ways to understand the current crisis was in the context of deep time. In the realms of the distant geological past. Current generations were being plunged into deep time, like it or not, by the once-in-a-million-year environmental changes currently taking place all over the globe.

  Climate change deniers had some damaging, unrealistic, and downright stupid views of the planet’s deep past as an essentially static state of affairs. But it was almost impossible to understand what was happening in the present without understanding its context in the past.

  “The Pacific Ocean covers one-third of the surface of the entire planet and holds half the world’s water.” Liam rotated to make eye contact with everyone seated around the table. “We’re in the best location for finding the species we need to reseed the ocean, if your team can get us to the right window of time.”

  “If you can give us the date, we can get you there.” Ken Wallace, the pilot, chimed in. He was cocky for sure. “Once we opened the gateway, probing it was the easy part. It was as though we had always been living in a closed room and someone opened a window.”

  She doubted that was completely true. It couldn’t possibly be that easy. Elle wasn’t a physicist so she wasn’t sure she was following the science, but she’d hold some of her questions for a smaller group setting. For now, she focused on listening intently to every scrap of information being shared.

  “For the newcomers in this room, what I’m about to share with you is classified.” The major was serious, his expression stern. “In layman’s terms, we were looking for travel faster than light and accidentally discovered that we could go around the law of relativity and create a gateway, a wormhole that would allow us to fold spacetime.”

  “Forgive me, but have you actually done other missions prior to this one?” Elle didn’t want to disrespect the group, but she had to ask. This seemed like a giant leap. Regardless of the top-secret status, she found it hard to believe that the military had been able to keep this operation secret.

  Major Riley pressed a com button in the center of the table. “Gary, can you bring in the sample?”

  The room fell silent for a few minutes. A middle-aged man in a white lab coat entered with a container about the size of shoe box with glass on three sides, and a screen on the fourth side. The major motioned for Gary to place the container near where Elle was seated. She sat back as he placed the square container in front of her. The minute Gary stepped back, she and Ted leaned forward for a closer look. She blinked in disbelief.

  “Is that—? Are those—?”

  “Honeybees.” Major Riley answered as if that was the most obvious thing in the world.

  “But honeybees are extinct.” She looked at Liam. Pollination had to be done by hand, or by machine.

  “We retrieved them from a time prior to extinction.” Major Riley poured a glass of water for himself and took a sip.

  The room was quiet for a few minutes except for the low buzz from the bees.

  “Physical evaluations begin this morning at ten-hundred.” Major Riley stood. “All of you will need to remain here at the facility until you’ve been cleared for the mission or relieved of duty to return to your homes.”

  “Major, do you mind if we keep the room for a few minutes?” Liam stood. He must have sensed the multiple questions queuing up in Elle’s head.

  “Not a problem. Take your time.”

  She watched Jackson file out of the room with the others without even a backward glance. The urge to follow was almost too great, but she’d deal with that later, for now she needed answers from Liam. He waited until the door closed before taking his seat. He swiveled to face Elle and Ted.

  “Harris, Nunez, would you mind giving us a few moments?” The two men in dark suits nodded and exited. Elle had only just met them, and her first impression was that they looked like very serious Secret Service agents.

  She was a scientist and not used to all this, whatever this was. It all felt almost comical. Also, Elle had no idea that Ted was attending this briefing. He’d not mentioned it and now, given the secrecy surrounding this place, she understood why.

  “I’m sure both of you have lots of questions, but if you give this a little time, you’ll get answers.” Liam was trying to put them at ease.

  “I was unaware that we’d be kept here once we arrived. I didn’t pack any clothes or…” Elle let the statement trail off.

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t able to tell you much, and if you’d known you would be staying here for a few days you’d have felt compelled to talk to someone about what you were doing.” Liam poured himself a glass of water. “They will provide clothing and other personal items.” He took a few sips of water before continuing. “Listen, you’ll both have to pass the physical before they approve you for the mission.”

  “Why?” Research didn’t normally require physical tests of stamina.

  “Apparently, this device, the passage is a little rough.” Liam was serious. “They call it the Slingshot.”

  “I see.” Elle was trying to process things but needed more time. “What if we don’t pass the physical?”

  “Then you can’t make the trip. Ted know
s the when and you know the species. I selected you both for this to ensure success. I was doubling the chances of success by selecting two candidates.”

  “What else can you tell us about the device—this Slingshot.” Ted had been silent. Why did he seem so much more resigned to all of this than Elle? “Time travel has always been theoretical, but I assume that’s what we’re talking about here.”

  “You’re correct. Black holes bend time, but we could never get past the event horizon, a boundary past which nothing can return.” Liam paused. “However, we also knew that, in theory, a naked singularity could exist.” Liam was talking as if the science behind what he was explaining was easy to grasp, but Elle was struggling to synthesize the information. Also, the way he kept saying we signaled that he’d known about this long before today. “In principle, such singularities could be created by compressing very light particles such as neutrinos sufficiently quickly. The trick was to arrange neutrino emitters spherically, aim them at one central point, and ramp up their beam. Such a singularity would not need to be massive in order to work.”

  “But wouldn’t the singularity create excessive gravitational pull?” asked Ted.

  “Yes, but they have equipment in place to offset the increased gravity.” Liam stood, a clear sign that this conversation was coming to a close. “You’ll be here for at least forty-eight hours. I’m sure you’ll get better answers from the crew than you will from me.”

  “How dangerous is this, Liam?” Elle couldn’t stop the question.

  “I won’t lie to you, Elle. This is a risky venture, but given where we are, what choice do we have?”

  She nodded. He was right. And if someone was going to have to do this, then it might as well be her. She knew the species they needed to reseed the seas. They probably only had one shot to get this right.