The Sea Within Read online

  A woman in a khaki uniform similar to Jackson’s greeted them as they exited the briefing room. She explained that she would escort them to quarters where they could relax prior to physical evaluations and lunch. Elle’s head was spinning, but she tried to pay attention to the route they were taking so that she could keep her bearings.

  “Someone will be by shortly to make sure you have all the clothing and any other personal hygiene items you might need for your stay with us,” the woman explained politely as she stood to the side to allow Elle to enter a dorm room type space.

  “Thank you.” Elle remained in the doorway and watched Ted follow the woman to the next room.

  She sat on the edge of the bed and surveyed the space. The room was sterile but not altogether unpleasant. It was clean and the bed had been made with close attention paid to the corners. She’d never mastered that sort of bed making. She placed her palm on the covering to test its softness—none. And the blanket felt scratchy.

  Elle sighed. What had she gotten herself into?

  Chapter Nine

  Jackson trailed Major Riley to his office. She was wrought up. Seeing Elle in a mission briefing was the absolute last thing she’d expected, or wanted.

  “Sir, might I have a word?”

  He nodded and signaled for her to enter. She closed the door as he took a seat behind the large desk. She waited for an invitation to sit.

  “As you were, Captain.” He motioned toward the chair facing the desk. “Please, sit.”

  “Permission to speak freely, sir.”

  “Permission granted.”

  “I’ll get to the point. I have concerns about this mission team.” Jackson tried to remain calm.

  “Explain.”

  “We’ve never taken non-military personnel through the gateway. It’s physically challenging even when someone has had the training.”

  “That’s not my call.” The major entwined his fingers as he leaned forward with elbows braced on the desk. “Look, I’d prefer a military operation same as you, but BIOME is footing the bill for this ride and they think their people are the only way to guarantee that specimens are properly identified for transport.”

  “Okay, I get that.” Jackson was frustrated and trying not to show it. “I know we aren’t scientists, but we’ve done other species extractions with success.”

  “We’ve never done deep time like this. And this isn’t like catching honeybees. These phytoplankton are microscopic. What if you brought back a jug of ocean water with nothing in it? Then what?” His point was valid. If she was going to get Elle off this mission she’d have to regroup and try a different approach.

  “What sort of time are we talking about here?” She didn’t remember an exact number from the briefing, but in her defense, she was a little distracted.

  “One hundred twenty thousand years before today.”

  “That’s a big number.” She decided to table that for now. “What about the two other suits in the briefing?”

  “Private security.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since BIOME decided to fund the mission. They insisted on their own security detail.” The major frowned. “Listen, I don’t like it any more than you do, but it was a deal breaker. We didn’t really have a choice.”

  “So, who on my team is staying behind?” There’d been seven candidates in the briefing and the Slingshot only had gravity tubes for six.

  “It’ll likely be Milloy, but I asked him to sit in as an alternate in case one of the other candidates doesn’t make the cut.”

  “I understand.” Jackson stood. “Thank you for hearing me out.”

  This conversation wasn’t making her feel any more settled or at ease. She was ready for it to be over.

  “You’re dismissed.”

  “Yes, sir.” She stood up.

  “Jackson.”

  Her hand was on the door; she turned to face him.

  “You’re the best I’ve got. Mission success will be on your shoulders. I’m counting on you to see this through.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Once in the hallway, she took a deep breath instead of doing what she wanted to do, which was punch the nearest wall. She needed to find Elle and have a frank discussion about what was involved. Elle needed a reality check. There was no way that Elle understood what she was getting into. She headed back down the corridor toward the briefing room. It was empty. She figured Elle and Ted were in the quarters for recruits and trainees so she walked in that direction.

  Elle was standing in the hallway with Ted when Jackson approached. He looked familiar to her, but she couldn’t quite place where she might have seen him prior to the earlier meeting. He was a serious nerd, not the sort of fellow who normally ran in her circles. He looked as if he’d be winded climbing a flight of stairs.

  Good luck passing the physical.

  Elle looked up as she approached.

  “Dr. Graham, I’m glad I found you. Do you have a moment?”

  “Yes.” Elle hesitated and looked back. “Ted, I’ll catch up with you later.”

  “Are you sure?” Ted seemed distrustful or nervous, or both.

  You should be. Because you’ve got no idea what you’ve signed up for. But that was his problem. Jackson’s main concern was Elle.

  “Yeah, I’m sure.” Elle smiled thinly. “I’ll find you later.”

  He nodded and turned toward the mess hall.

  There was a moment of awkwardness before Elle spoke.

  “I’m glad you found me. I was hoping to speak with you too.”

  “Do you mind walking to my office? It’s a little more private.”

  “Lead the way.”

  Jackson was quiet as they walked through the corridor in the opposite direction from the cafeteria. It took several minutes to reach her office. Several minutes of painful, electrically charged silence. Possibly the longest short walk she’d ever endured. Trying to keep herself in check when all she really wanted to so was sweep Elle up in her arms and kiss her, was testing her will.

  She closed the door to her office but neither of them took a seat.

  “Jackson, I hope you know I’m as surprised to see you as you are to see me.”

  That was stating the obvious.

  “Why don’t you sit down?”

  “I don’t feel like sitting down.” Elle’s words sounded soft, almost like a plea.

  Jackson couldn’t stand the distance any longer. She reached for Elle, drew her close, and kissed her. Realizing where she was, Jackson broke the kiss just long enough to lock the door. The last thing she needed was someone walking in on them.

  Damn, Elle was so incredibly kissable. Her lips were warm and soft as she covered Jackson’s mouth with hers. Jackson was getting so turned on. She wanted to press Elle against the desk and touch her, make love to her. Elle’s hand was on her ass applying pressure, her other hand was at the base of Jackson’s neck. They fumbled toward the desk. Jackson braced one arm at the edge of the wide surface to steady herself.

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.” Jackson was breathing hard and her libido was humming. “That wasn’t why I asked you to come to my office.”

  “I’m okay with this.” Elle kissed her lightly. “You left this morning without a note, or anything. I thought maybe—”

  “That had nothing to do with you or how I felt about last night.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.” Elle slid her palms down Jackson’s arms and tilted her adorable face as she coyly looked up at Jackson. “Because I was sort of hoping I’d see you again. Although, admittedly under different circumstances.” Elle surveyed the bland office interior.

  Jackson began to see the room from Elle’s perspective. It was completely without character. This could be anyone’s office. She released Elle and took a step back. She hadn’t meant to derail a conversation, but Elle had been far too tempting.

  “Can we just talk?” Jackson motioned for Elle to take a chair and she rotated a second o
ffice chair to face Elle’s.

  Elle sat down and waited for her to say something. Elle was wearing black dress pants and heels. Her ivory blouse was open at the collar revealing a tempting view of her neck and pronounced collar bones, and that hollow space between that Jackson wanted to trace with her fingertip.

  Why was Elle so damn calm? She cleared her throat, rubbed her fingers across the stubble on top of her head briskly a few times, and exhaled. Where to begin?

  “You shouldn’t do this.” Okay, maybe that wasn’t the most subtle way to start the conversation.

  “Shouldn’t do what?” Elle seemed genuinely confused.

  “This mission. You should walk away from this. It’s too hard.”

  “I know we don’t know each other, I mean, really know each other, but I’m not going to walk away from something just because it’s difficult.” Elle sounded annoyed.

  “Look, I’m not trying to be patronizing and I hope it doesn’t sound like I am.” Jackson paused to regroup. “All I’m trying to say is that this is very dangerous and I don’t want to be responsible for your safety. The fact that we’ve slept together…well, I think it might compromise the mission.”

  “Really?” Elle smiled, which annoyed Jackson. This wasn’t funny. “You can’t be serious. Are you saying that you won’t be able to control yourself or act in a professional manner if I’m part of the team?”

  “Yes, I mean no, that’s not what I’m saying.” Elle was getting her all flustered. “I can be as professional as you can.” Now she sounded like a fifth grader. Fuck. This wasn’t going at all as she’d rehearsed it out in her head. “Let’s start over.”

  “Okaaay, I’m listening.”

  Elle ran her tongue across her lips and Jackson tried not to notice.

  “I’m serious. This is serious.” Jackson was exasperated.

  “I’m sorry. I’m still trying to get my head around all of this and whether or not any of it could possibly be true. Time travel? We’re having serious conversations about time travel. So, forgive me for taking a moment to consider the absurdity of it all.” She cocked her head and looked at the ceiling. “Although, time isn’t as linear as we imagine is it? And it takes more than a second for my brain to process the words you are uttering, so by the time I figure out what you’ve said, it’s no longer now anyway is it?”

  “What?” Did Elle just run circles around her?

  “What we think of the present, right now, by the time our brain processes the input it’s no longer the present.”

  Jackson shook her head. Science nerds were so hard to talk to.

  Elle continued as if she expected Jackson to be keeping up. “And here you are—what are you anyway? What is your role in all of this?”

  “I’m the mission commander.”

  “And as the mission commander you’re asking me to walk away from possibly the greatest scientific moment of my entire professional career?”

  “I simply want you to know what you’re getting into. This is dangerous.”

  “Can you tell me more about how the, what did Liam call it…the slingshot. Can you tell me more about how it works?”

  Jackson sank back in her chair, settling in for an even bigger discussion.

  “Do you understand how a black hole works?”

  “Yes, in theory.”

  “A wormhole acts in some ways like a black hole, compressing time and space.” She motioned with her hands, moving them together as if she was squeezing the air.

  “Are you a physicist?”

  “No, I studied engineering.” That was true, although, not completely. She had a general curiosity about physics, specifically how that applied to flight. Hell, she’d aspired to be an astronaut before the ISS went bust and exoplanet exploration was abandoned. The Slingshot was probably as close as she would get to space now.

  “This whole installation was basically designed as a super collider. A particle accelerator. This was supposed to solve part of the energy shortfall. Fusion could have provided an unlimited power source for all kinds of things.” Jackson made an arc in the air. “I mean, there were lots of energy projects abandoned for this because the payoff was going to be huge. But they couldn’t secure the funding to finish key aspects of the project.” Jackson rubbed her forehead, picturing how it had all gone down. “Politics, the recession, and public insistence on controlled spending brought things to a standstill. It was a big mess, so the private sector stepped in thinking there was money to be made in the long term.” Jackson took a deep breath. She was probably oversharing, but all the science behind what they were doing got her wound up. “Is this too much?”

  “No, I’m following.” Elle was completely focused on Jackson, uncomfortably so.

  Jackson shifted in her chair beneath Elle’s intense gaze. She tried to regain the thread of what she’d been talking about, but it wasn’t easy. Elle was insanely distracting. One more reason for her not to be on this team.

  “Okay, so the project’s scale ended up being twenty times bigger than anything physicists had ever managed before. There were cultural differences between the scientific side of the accelerator’s management and the military-industrial culture imposed by the Department of Energy. Anyway, all of this led to conflicts, endless audits, and lack of trust. And the project was basically dead in the water until about ten years ago, when it was repurposed by the Space Force as a command center.”

  “This is why I ended up at BIOME. The private sector has less red tape in some ways and more funding. I mean, ultimately, they just want to make money and in order to do that, they know they need to move projects forward.” Elle adjusted her position. She seemed more relaxed now that Jackson was just talking about science rather than trying to tell her what she should and shouldn’t do. “That is, as long as the research you’re doing actually makes them money.”

  “So, you and Ted Hoffman both work for BIOME?”

  “Yes, he’s my research partner. And you…are you in the Army?”

  “I was in the Air Force prior to joining the Space Force, both branches report to the Secretary of the Air Force.”

  “You still didn’t really explain the time travel.”

  Jackson had been giving Elle lots of backstory, the approved narrative, but not the entire story.

  “The discovery that a gateway, a wormhole, could be created happened by accident when they were trying to solve the problem of faster than light travel.”

  “That’s what Liam, Dr. Allaire, said, but how did they know that’s what they’d discovered?”

  “An unmanned drone disappeared and when it returned it was clear from the onboard sensors that it had experienced time differently than anyone thought possible.” Jackson was getting into territory she wasn’t comfortable discussing with someone who might or might not end up on the team. She needed to wrap this up and get to the point. “Look, it sort of doesn’t matter how we got here. But this is where we are and I have concerns about your safety if you choose to participate in this jump.”

  “Why are you so concerned?”

  “The Slingshot imposes serious—”

  “Why do you call it the Slingshot?”

  “What?”

  “People keep calling it the Slingshot.”

  “Oh.” Jackson regrouped. Whatever point she’d been about to make had gotten completely derailed by Elle’s question. “The acronym for the ship is SLST—Singularity Lift System Transport. But when you pass through the gateway it feels like you’re being shot into space by a slingshot, and SLST…I dunno, we just started calling it the Slingshot.”

  “Okay, I get it.”

  “Listen, what I was trying to explain to you is that traveling through the gateway, the wormhole, imposes serious g-forces. You’ll feel like your bones are being crushed even with the gravity tube to offset the stress on your body.” Jackson paused. “And then there’s the return trip.”

  “Jackson, I appreciate your concern, but I’ve dedicated my life to finding solution
s for our current environmental crisis. If there’s any glimmer of hope that I can actually affect real transformation by participating in this venture, then there’s nothing you can say to dissuade me.” Elle was firm, bordering on defiant.

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying you can’t tell me not to go. And that you shouldn’t have even tried.” Elle stood to leave. “Listen, I appreciate that you probably think you’re looking out for me here, Captain, but I can handle myself.”

  That was obvious. And Jackson could tell she’d pissed her off.

  Elle strode out of her office without looking back.

  Jackson sat looking at the open door. Now what was she going to do?

  Chapter Ten

  Elle lay on the narrow bunk and stared at the ceiling. She hadn’t seen Jackson since their earlier, somewhat heated discussion. She’d gotten a tour of the facility, been given three changes of clothing, and done one heart rate test on the treadmill which she’d passed. Luckily, she was pretty fit. She wasn’t very happy about the clothing though. T-shirts, camouflage cargo pants, and boots. Not really her style.

  The discussion she’d had with Jackson made her even more determined to be part of this mission than she might otherwise have been.

  It was true that she didn’t like to be told what she could or couldn’t do. But additionally, she wasn’t sure she trusted anyone else to see this through. She was the one who, working with Ted, had identified the date and the species. This was her discovery. The thought of traveling back in time to primeval Earth did scare the shit out of her, but this wasn’t the Slingshot’s first mission. Clearly, the team knew what they were doing since they’d done previous jumps. Right? She wondered if Jackson had been part of those missions too.

  And what about Jackson? Elle had assumed she was simply a handsomely chiseled specimen of female strength. Now it turned out she was also some borderline genius engineer who could explain wormholes in plain English. Jackson was smart, and unfortunately that just made her more alluring. Captivating or not, Jackson wasn’t going to keep her from participating in this mission.