Stars Across Time (16 page)

“My name is Colonel Aloysius Theron,” he said, cutting away the bonds and the gags of the first two women. “I’ve been undercover with your kidnappers, waiting for a moment when I could act, to get you away from them. I need you to help me help you now. We need to reach my fort. From there, we can get you back to your own time. To your own world,” he added, not certain anyone would have explained the time travel element to them yet. “There’s a border patrol office in about twenty miles. We’ll see first if the truck can be salvaged, but if it can’t, we’ll need to walk.” He handed the knife to one of the women, indicating that she should free her friends. “I need a couple of people to stand guard while I check out the truck. Anyone here willing to shoot the bastards who kidnapped you if they show up again?”

“Oh yes,” one woman said.

Some of the others who were still gagged nodded vigorously.

Others shrank back from him, perhaps not believing his words. Or maybe they were too scared to react. Aside from a woman who might have been in her twenties, most of them were closer to thirteen or fourteen. He loaded a few rifles that had been left behind and handed them to those willing to take them. It wouldn’t be his first time training troops.

• • • • •

Andie still had the smoke grenades and the matches. She clung to that one bit of hope as the damp, rickety motorboat guttered through the water. Bedene hadn’t thought to check her other leg after taking her knife. What she would do with the paltry weapons, she didn’t know, but she would try again later, if she could get her hands free. This time, they were tied behind her back. She wished she had chosen her moment better. Bedene had probably been waiting for her to try something; he had certainly been ready as soon as she had tensed. He had been trained as a soldier once, too, she reminded herself.

Min-ji sat next to her on a damp wooden bench—there was a wheelhouse in the front of the craft, with a few extra seats, but Bedene hadn’t thought the women deserved to sit somewhere dry. She peered over the side.

“Still thinking of swimming?” Andie murmured.

Men sat on the benches ahead of her and behind her, some occasionally pulling out poles to push away clumps of seaweed with garbage tangled in them. More than once, the poles had been used to push the boat away from something just under the surface that scraped at the hull.

“Not with my hands tied behind my back.” Min-ji shrugged her shoulders. “We didn’t practice that on swim team.”

“Your coach must have been short-sighted for not realizing you would need that skill one day.”

“I’ve seen a few of the buildings you were missing. The tiptops of them, anyway.” Min-ji nodded to shadows beneath the waves rippling across the surface.

“The remains of Bellevue?”

“Probably. I am surprised some of the taller buildings didn’t survive.” Min-ji waved at the water around them, at the lack of skyscrapers rising from the sea.

They were heading toward the diminished Mercer Island now. It was blocking the view of anything to the west, aside from the Olympic Mountains, though even those were hard to see now that the clouds had thickened, with the rain coming down harder. Andie wondered if any of Seattle’s skyscrapers had survived. A two-hundred-foot rise in the sea level, Min-ji had said. She was fairly certain the Space Needle was at least five hundred feet high. Of course, there could have been any number of earthquakes in the intervening years. She couldn’t decide if she wished one of the men was more talkative and would explain the past centuries to her, or... not. Maybe it was better not to know. Especially if whatever had happened to precipitate the changes had happened, or
would
happen, within her lifetime.

“Can we have something to eat soon?” Ruth Marie asked. “Will we be there soon?”

She almost sounded hopeful at the latter. The rain had plastered her long hair to her face, and she looked miserable. Everyone did. Even the men. Not that Andie had any sympathy for them.

“Maybe your new owners will feed you,” one man said with a cruel smirk.

“They’ll feed you in the pen,” Bedene said.

“Pen?” Andie mouthed. She imagined some stockyard where animals—women—were kept and fattened up for sale.

“Capitol Hill,” Min-ji said, her eyes on the horizon ahead. “Or maybe it’s Capitol Island now.”

The boat had chugged around the northern tip of Mercer Island, and what should have been the western side of Lake Washington had come into view, what was visible above the waterline, anyway. Islands dotted the waterway ahead, with a larger landmass arising to the north.

“I’m trying to decide if I’m amused or horrified that what used to be multi-million-dollar properties are underwater now,” Andie said.

“The people who bought them are long gone. They don’t care.”

“Someone got jilted on the inheritance.”

“The U-Dub will all be underwater,” Min-ji said.

“Think my prof will take that as a valid excuse for why I didn’t bother finishing my dissertation?”

They fell silent after that, their eyes focused forward as Capitol Hill approached. Once they rounded it—assuming they
were
rounding it—they would be able to see what remained of the iconic Seattle downtown area.

Movement in the distance made Andie shift her attention. Another boat—a large ship, actually—shared the sea with them. She bit her lip, her thoughts flirting with escape again. If there were military or civilian ships traveling these waters, might the crews help women in distress? Since Bedene had gone out of his way to get off the highway and avoid the border guard, Andie assumed there were authorities who would object to kidnappers.

As they passed the southern end of the Capitol Hill island, more ships came into view. They weren’t the big freighters that had once sailed into and out of the Seattle docks regularly, but rather smaller vessels, mostly sailing ships, though she spotted smokestacks rising from the decks of the larger craft.

“Nuclear power?” Andie wondered. It seemed like more of civilization would have remained in a less degenerative state if people were still using nuclear power.

“Could be coal,” Min-ji said. “Or even wood. The forests have really regrown. Of course, that could just be a result of a much smaller population drawing on them as a resource.”

Andie decided she didn’t care what they burned for fuel, so long as the crews might help. She noticed that Bedene’s route wasn’t entirely straight. He was directing the man in the wheelhouse to hug the islands whenever they could. Trying not to attract attention? Would the little packets Min-ji had made create enough smoke to look like a flare? A cry for help? Probably not, unless she could shoot them up in the air.

The buildings Andie had anticipated finally came into view. The tops of them. More skyscrapers than she might have expected had survived and rose up out of the sea, including the upper half of the Space Needle. The glass windows at the top had been broken and were gone. That was the case with most of the buildings Andie saw as they drew closer. Lots of broken windows. In some places, huge chunks of the walls had fallen away, and the insides lay open to the elements. Whatever office furniture and decorations had once been inside had long since been removed. Graffiti ran up and down the sides of the buildings and also marred the interior walls. Some structures listed like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. In other places, skyscrapers that should have been there were missing. Perhaps the rubble lay piled at the bottom of the sea, two hundred feet below.

None of the big ships were sailing close to the ruined buildings, but as Bedene’s craft arrowed toward them, Andie wondered if one was their destination. It seemed an unlikely place for a bunch of rich people to come to buy women. A few rowboats and motorboats even smaller than theirs drifted between the skyscrapers. She watched one crew get out with bags and pickaxes, and climb through one of the gaps in the walls. Another craft had divers and a winch and crane. Salvage crews. Legal? Illegal? She had no idea. None of them made eye contact or did more than glance at Bedene’s boat, then look away. She sighed, determining them unlikely rescuers. Still, if she and the others could escape and were swimming through the water, maybe someone would take pity on them and pull them out.

“This isn’t a good area to be a castaway,” Bedene said from behind them. “In case you were thinking of another escape attempt, Tattoos.”

“That man watches me much too closely,” Andie muttered. She didn’t telegraph her thoughts
that
much, did she? Maybe when she was hatching plans, she was the female equivalent of an evil overlord, stroking a cat and rubbing a goatee.

The man piloting the craft cursed and glanced back. “Military ship, Bedene.” He thrust his arm toward the windshield in the wheelhouse.

“Find us some cover, Rudi,” Bedene barked.

Andie stood and peered past the wheelhouse, trying to see the ship. An iron or steel ship with blue paint glided into view, visible between the buildings. It had sails, as well as two smokestacks, and its sides bristled with large guns, with more weapons mounted on top. It reminded her of those vessels from the late 1800s, during the transition from sail to steam power. She spotted people out on the deck, people in uniform, and her heart lifted. If any of them were half as decent as Theron, they would be sure to help people in need.

Someone grabbed her—Bedene. “You women, get in the wheelhouse.”

“I’d rather stay out here,” Andie said. “In case the sun comes out. I need to work on my tan.”

Bedene was shoving her toward the door before she finished the sentence. Andie stuck her foot out, catching the hull next to the jamb. She looked at the other women, hoping for help if she opted to resist. That vessel couldn’t have been more than two hundred meters away. Andie could stay afloat and swim that far with her hands behind her back; she was sure of it.

“Damn it, woman,” Bedene snarled, hefting a pistol.

Certain she was about to get struck in the back of the head, Andie lunged forward. But she leaped back almost as quickly, turning her side toward Bedene. She hurled a side kick at him. He jumped away, nearly tripping over one of the seats, but she didn’t connect. There was no way she would get lucky and knock him overboard, not with her hands behind her back. The other kidnappers rose to their feet, reaching for her.

Andie lunged into the wheelhouse and hooked the door with her heel. It was latched to the deck, but she kicked it free, the momentum slamming it shut. A lock—was there a lock? Yes—a deadbolt.

Aware of the driver turning in his seat, she bent and grasped the bolt with her teeth. As she twisted it, the driver’s hands caught her shoulders, and she was hurled to the front of the cabin. Her back struck the wheel hard, and the impact wrenched her shoulder. Tears sprang to her eyes. She bared her teeth, fighting off the pain. The driver lunged for her. She didn’t know if she had succeeded in locking the door. All of this might be for naught, but she couldn’t stop fighting. If nothing else, there wasn’t anybody steering at the moment. Maybe they would crash into the side of a building, and the military ship would come over to investigate.

She leaned against the wheel, jumping and bracing her back against it, though the motion torqued her shoulder further. She kicked out with both legs as the man charged in, his hands outstretched. The soles of her shoes landed squarely against his chest, shoving him backward, but she also toppled to the deck. Groaning, she struggled to roll to her feet with her hands behind her, but smashed against the wall instead. She spotted a lever that looked like it might be a thruster and butted her head against it.

The boat lacked a powerful motor, but it still surged ahead. The corner of a ruined building loomed ahead of the craft.

“Get her,” came a muffled cry from outside of the wheelhouse. Someone banged on the door.

The driver had recovered and came in again, leading with his foot this time. Andie rolled away, but she had limited room to maneuver, and the toe of his shoe clipped her. Her head clunked against the base of the control panel. Hands wrapped around her shirt, yanking her to her feet. She jerked her knee up, trying to catch him in the groin, but he was keeping her at arm’s length. She dipped her head and snapped her teeth at his arm, refusing to give up. If she could delay the men, the military ship might find their activity suspicious and come over to check them out.

“Hold still, bitch,” the man snarled, shaking her.

“Put that smoke out,” someone outside yelled.

Smoke? Andie hadn’t had a chance to get to her matches, and she wasn’t even sure the smoke packets remained tied to her thigh after all her bucking around.

Someone banged on the door again. “Watch out! We’re going to crash.”

Andie’s captor cursed and shoved her aside. She stumbled into the wall, but had a good look at a building looming ahead of them. The pilot reached for the thruster control, but Andie came in again, kicking him in the back of the knee. A few seconds more of delay, and they would crash.

A gunshot fired, and she leaped back, thinking someone had decided to shoot her. But Bedene had shot the lock. He flung the door open, ran in, and grabbed her. Andie tried to fight back, but she was already off balance, and the rage swimming in his eyes fueled his muscles, for he lifted her bodily, her feet leaving the deck. Andie found herself hoisted and carried outside, a smoky haze in the air. Had something caught on fire? She hoped so.

She expected to be thrown to the deck and tied again, but with a roar of frustration and anger, Bedene heaved her into the air. She was so startled when she struck the icy sea that she sucked in a breath before she caught herself. Water burned down her throat and into her lungs. She coughed, sputtering and gasping for air, even as she kicked, struggling to stay afloat without the use of her arms.

“Andie, look out!” Min-ji yelled from the boat.

Andie glimpsed the smoke-filled deck with Min-ji standing in the middle, a flare or something like it in one of her hands. Someone punched her, and she toppled to the deck. Bedene was in the way, so Andie couldn’t see if she was all right. Bedene! She realized he was holding a gun a split second before he fired. At her.