Viking Love Beyond Time (Time Travel Romance) (8 page)

             
As she watched, frost began to form on the inside of the plexiform.  Her feet felt like lead, she could not stand, it must be more than four minutes since she started up the freezers, why wasn’t she dead?  The lights went out and she grew colder and colder.  Shaking her head she began to crawl laboriously up the corridor, God, how much further was it?  Frost had formed on her hair and her eyelashes were freezing together, her face felt pinched and it was hard to breathe, each breath hurt her lungs.  The shuttle would have to set off at any second.

             
She tried to claw her way along, her boiler suit creaking with ice.  Luke Owen had probably gone without her anyway.  “Luke, wait!” she croaked and pulled herself further up the corridor, there was no way she was going to make it in time, she was going to die.  She sobbed, closed her eyes and fell to her knees.

             
Suddenly, she felt herself lifted into the air as yet another crash shook the ship.  Forcing open her eyes she saw she was being carried through an open circular hatch, along a crawl way into a dimly lit, warm, circular room padded from floor to ceiling apart from a blue glassed window faced by two bucket seats.  She was unceremoniously thrown into one whilst Luke Owen jumped into the one next to her. He leaned over and fastened her in “Jeez, a comatose pilot” he muttered “I’ll have to do it” leaning across her he began to flick switches on the console.  Austen took a deep warming breath and glanced at her watch - fifteen seconds before the
Colossus
disappeared into space.  She brushed Luke Owen’s hand aside and pressed the red ignition button.

             
With a roar the shuttle broke away from the ship and headed out into space.  Glancing into the rear view screen Austen realised that they had not left a second too soon, ice had begun to form over the escape hatch.  With a flash the  vast bulk of
The Star City Colossus
disappeared into space.

             
“Well, that’s that” said Luke “may I commend you on your action, Captain?”

             
Austen sighed, automatic pilot was temporarily off line.  She punched up the co-ordinates for an entry window into the atmosphere of Earth, all too aware that if they approached at the wrong angle they would either burn up or bounce off and shoot away irretrievably into space.  A series of squares appeared on the console in front of her and Austen began the complicated task of manually manoeuvring pitch and yaw to line up in order to enter the atmosphere safely.   It was a delicate operation and not helped by the frost melting on her hair and running down her face “Owen, activate the entry shields” she ordered “this shuttle is going to get as hot as hell before we’re through into the atmosphere” she bit her bottom lip and adjusted the yaw thirty degrees, then shook her head violently to get rid of the cobwebs.

             
“Shields up” Owen said suddenly, cutting into her thoughts.

             
Austen sighed with relief as the squares lined up and the shuttle began to skip along the atmosphere like a flat pebble across the water.  The shields began to glow red and they noticed the temperature inside the cabin growing hotter.  When it reached forty degrees centigrade Owen unfastened his boiler suit, the thick blond hairs on his chest glistening with perspiration.

             
Austen wriggled uncomfortably, droplets of sweat were running between her breasts and trickling down, she would give her right arm to shed her boiler suit.  “Entering atmosphere, now” she snapped.

             
The shuttle shuddered and a glow lit the cabin, then suddenly it seemed easier.  “Thank God” whispered Austen “we’re through”.  Luke Owen turned to her and smiled and just for a second she felt a glimmering of affection for him.

             
There was silence in the cabin whilst they looked down at the mother planet, home but hostile to them.  Down there they knew no one, all the inhabitants of the place had been dead for over fifteen hundred years before they were born.

             
Suddenly Luke spoke, his voice sounding muffled in the tiny cabin.  “We’re going to have to think up a story”

             
Austen frowned “What do you mean?”

             
“To tell people.  Where we’re from, who we are.  I was thinking of being this thegn’s long lost nephew from the
Eastern Europe
, his dead brother Edmund’s son”

             
“Isn’t that a bit risky, Luke?  I mean he may hear at some point from his brother’s family in
Eastern Europe
”

             
Luke shook his head “No chance, he died unmarried and childless remember and Oswy doesn’t even know where Edmund is, or that he’s dead, communication is practically non-existent, peasants rarely leave the place where they were born.  I figure no one in
Wessex
will ever have been to that part of
Eastern Europe
, or rather
Bohemia
as its called at the moment, most won’t have even heard of it”

             
“What are we doing in
Wessex
then?” asked Austen, jiggling the controls.  Luke grinned, boyishly.

             
“I’m working on that, if he accepts us, we might get in with King Alfred, we could even find favour with him and get a grant of land, anyways, I’m sure Oswy will want to see his long lost nephew.  I’ll go out hunting and you can do tapestry and have kids”

             
Austen looked up, sharply “What the hell are you talking about Lieutenant Commander?”

             
Luke stood up and walking over to the closet shrugged off his boiler suit, he was naked underneath apart from some tiny briefs which left little to the imagination.  Austen concentrated on her controls and tried to ignore him.  She heard him moving about then he returned with a lighter weight boiler suit over his arm. 

             
“Jeez, its hot” he continued “I mean, my dear, you’re going to have to forget all you know about hyper logic, relativity, nuclear physics, quantum mechanics, black hole navigation and star ship piloting.  For the rest of your life you’re going to have to act like a woman, and you can start by never calling me Lieutenant Commander again”

             
“We’ll be rescued” she said, keeping her eyes on the enlarging land mass in front of them.

             
“Who by?  The Dolweyans? Get real Alodie.  It’s either marry me or have some smelly undersized Saxon thegn in your bed because I’ll tell you now, the men down there are the bosses and with a woman who looks like you the last thing they’ll be interested in is what grade you got in propulsion technique at Pilot School!  At least with me you’ll have a chance to be happy”

             
Austen turned and scowled at him “Does my happiness depend upon my having a husband?”

             
“In 876, yes.  Unless you belong to me you’ll have every Saxon and half the Vikings in England beating a path to your door, you need me to look after you - for Christ’s sake you’re suit’s dripping, these things are thermal lined you know, put on a cooler one” he leaned over and before she could stop him he had unfastened her boiler suit.  All she had on underneath was a black bra and black lacy briefs.

“You are asking to be floored again Owen” she snarled.

             
“Lord have mercy” breathed Luke, looking at her.  Austen removed her hand from the controls, pulled up her zipper and pushed him away from her.

             
“You may think you have it all your own way now Lieutenant Commander but when we’re rescued I’m going to personally see to it that you have trouble getting a job as a cabin boy!”

             
“Charming, and after I saved your life too” he said peevishly.

             
“True, but you’ve just used up all your credit for that and anyway I only think you did it because you couldn’t hack entering the atmosphere without automatic pilot” she glanced at her controls “we are now about to enter the thermosphere.  I advise you to shut your mouth, raise your mind from your genitals and concentrate on the radar.  There are a lot of meteors in the process of breaking up around here, some as big as footballs and if one hits us we may not survive the knock - OK?  Oh, and the thermostat in the cabin is now working which means that the temperature will soon be normal so get dressed and give me a status report”

             
Luke sat back and adjusted himself inside his briefs then pulling on his lightweight boiler suit he glanced at the console in front of him “The temperature outside is now well below freezing, we are at a height of fifty kilometres over the north Atlantic”

             
“Thank you Owen, I will require another status report in two minutes”

             
Outside the scene was indescribably beautiful,
t
hey could see both the eastern seaboard of the
United States
- or rather the as yet undiscovered
New World
,
and the western edge of 
Europe
, they would probably land around dawn.

             
Luke consulted a couple of charts and tore off a readout. He glanced up “Fifteen kilometres up Captain, approaching troposphere, temperature outside now minus two degrees”

             
The sea was clearer now - they passed through an alto stratus cloud layer at eight kilometres up and then they were skimming across the surface of the grey blue sea.

             
Owen glanced out of the window then consulted the holo map.

             
“Right, ma’am, speed three thousand kph, temperature outside ten degrees, we are cruising four hundred metres above the surface, adjust your course four degrees north, land in sight”

             
Austen reduced speed as they flew over
Cornwall
and
Devon
. “Alter course five degrees Captain” said Luke.

             
“Check” replied Austen and swinging the ship seaward they hugged the coast for a few kilometres, at length a small settlement came into view in a clearing in the forest about a kilometre from the sea. 

             
Luke looked out of the window “Bredond” he announced “in the county of Dorset” he glanced at the holographic readout above his head “A village of just under three hundred people, ruled by a thegn called Oswy, forty nine years old, married with one stepdaughter, two sons dead - that’s done it, I’ve come to Wessex as we’ve been dispossessed by the Vikings, they murdered my father, Edmund,  I think they’ve probably travelled as far as Bohemia by now - I’m chancing it anyhow.  I’ve come to offer my sword to King Alfred to avenge my father’s death - it’ll be the fatted calf and no mistake!”

             
“And me?” enquired Austen.

             
“You’re my wife, of course, angel”

             
“You’re incorrigible Owen, make it your sister”

             
Owen shook his head “No dice - you’d still have all the guys in
Wessex
round waving the wedding rings - how about betrothed?”

             
Alodie sighed in exasperation and nodded “Well alright, if there’s no other way.  Now look, I’m putting the shuttle down on the other side of this belt of trees, can you remember the direction of the village?”

             
The thirty metre spheroid shuttle came to a halt and hovered at a height of three metres in a secluded glade five kilometres west of the Anglo Saxon settlement of Bredond.  It was dawn on
7th June 876
.

*********

             
Alodie and Luke looked round.  The sky was getting lighter and they were open mouthed at the sight which greeted their astonished eyes. 

             
Neither of them had expected such lush vegetation, trees were a protected species in 2430 and the stunted objects that remained were in tree sanctuaries, these leafy soaring giants surrounding the ship were almost beyond their comprehension.

             
“God, it’s beautiful” whispered Alodie.

             
“Yeah” breathed Luke “876 when trees were trees, men were men and women were glad of it”

             
She sighed “Please Luke - enough - OK?”

             
Luke laughed “face it, Alodie, you are now officially a second class citizen”

             
Alodie snorted and got to her feet “don’t get carried away Lieutenant Commander”. 

He grinned and stretched. “Seriously hon, our best bet is to find Thegn Oswy straight away”

             
She shrugged “I suppose your right - we’d better change, turn your back”

             
He laughed “I don’t believe you sugar, look, I’ll go first and then I’ll wait outside whilst you change, although why you should want to hide what you’ve got is beyond me”.  With that Luke scrambled over the back of the seats toward the lockers whilst Alodie flicked the hypno switch.  This surrounded the vessel with harmless waves which worked directly on the algorithms of anyone coming within fifty metres of the ship, in effect hypnotising them into coming no nearer, this, in conjunction with the cloaking device, almost guaranteed the shuttle’s
anonimity
.