TimeSlip by Caroline McCall Read Free Book Online Page B

didn’t
tell them anything.” Her eye closed as she lapsed into unconsciousness.
    Jake bent over her. “Strom, we have to get her to a hospital
quickly! She probably has internal injuries.”
    “No hospital, Ingrid is coming back with me.”
    “Strom, are you crazy!” Pete shouted. “You could be
court-martialed for that.”
    “I don’t give a fuck. Give me your com unit, Jake.” Jake unpinned
his badge and fastened it on Ingrid’s bloodied dress.
    Strom lifted her unconscious body into his arms. “Central
Com, this is Captain Strom Hallstrom, two to return. Lieutenant Svenson is
injured. Transport us direct to Med Unit One.”
     
    Ingrid’s long dark hair trailed gently in the stasis gel, it
seemed to have a life of its own. She looked like an angel, a floating angel.
Or perhaps she looked like a mermaid, except for her legs. He was growing
fanciful. He hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours. Not since he’d brought her back.
The doc had kept Ingrid sedated the whole time. There had been a lot of
whispered conversations around him and he knew that he was in trouble. He had
broken the primary rule that everyone learned at the Academy, the prime
directive that was drummed into every cadet on their first day. Don’t bring a
civilian home with you, no matter what, and he had smashed right through it.
    Strom dropped his head into his hands. The doc said that
back in her own time, Ingrid could have died. They had been sent to save her
from Raoul, but instead she had saved him and the others. He had broken every
one of his own rules since he met her—never let anything interfere with the
mission, never let anyone get under his skin, never fall in love. Now Ingrid had
paid the price.
    The door opened. His dad had arrived with Leona. Strom knew
that his actions could affect them too. His dad was a wily old devil who had
been through more than his fair share of skirmishes, both on and off-world. He
would survive. He wasn’t too sure about Leona. She was in charge of the
mission. What a nice little family mess he had made. His father’s hand pressed
lightly on his shoulder.
    “You get some rest, son. I’ll sit with her for a while.”
    Strom slept for sixteen hours straight. When he woke,
Ingrid’s scars were gone. Even the laser knife burns. The doc had offered to
wipe her short-term memory, but that meant she would forget him too and he
didn’t want that. He knew she wouldn’t either.
    Leona called a meeting the next day. Ingrid was better,
physically anyway. He wasn’t going to be court-martialed, but he was severely
reprimanded and it would appear on his permanent record. After kicking his
heels in debriefing for a few days, Strom was ordered to take Ingrid back and
complete the mission. It was too far advanced to risk a change of personnel
now.
    He had confessed that he had stolen Jake’s com badge to
bring Ingrid back with him. Hopefully, when this was over they wouldn’t go too
hard on the others. As for him, he and Raoul had a date that he was really
looking forward to and Raoul was going to pay for everything he had put her
through.
    All of the secret thoughts he had entertained about Ingrid
were completely out of the question. He knew that now. Ingrid couldn’t stay in
his world and how could he live in hers? There was hardly an inch of him that
wasn’t tech-enhanced. He was a walking, talking, million-credit military
investment that Fleet Command wouldn’t give up without a fight. How long would
they have together before the Department of Temporal Security sent someone
after him? A temporal extraction team that would drag him back to his own time
and wipe his memories of her? He felt a sudden stab of pain. They would take
him, but what would they do to Ingrid? He couldn’t let that happen.
    He had been sent to save her and stop Raoul, but their
intervention in her life had almost killed her. He had asked Ingrid to trust
him, but in the end he hadn’t managed to protect her. His own wife—and he