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Tangled in Time
Braedon Carey, Col. USAF, was used to waking up in strange places. He wasn’t used to waking up nose-to-beak with a vulture. He stared at the vulture. The vulture stared at him. It dawned on him he had a vulture on his chest. He yelled. He may have waved his arms at it as he scrambled to his feet. With an air of offended dignity, the vulture retreated to a chunk of rock. Carey retreated, too, and did an SA—situational awareness—assessment. It didn’t take long. He knew where he was supposed to be and this wasn’t it. He’d flown over, driven through, and trained in and around, Area 51. He knew it as well as he knew his Dauntless. This is what he got for playing test pilot without a ship. No surprise it had turned into a Charlie Foxtrot right off the launch pad—or in this case, right out of the Garradian portal. At least the pucker factor was low with that buzzard gone from his chest. He’d been fine when he left the Kikk Outpost, but now his ribs hurt, a sign he’d bent them on something inside the wormhole. He’d thought he saw something and kind of felt the impact, though blunted somehow. Was that possible? He shifted gingerly. His ribs said it was. His brain was neutral on any subject that involved physics—not that he knew this was a physics problem. His skill set involved pointing, shooting and blowing things up. Until this moment, he’d also have said he was good at getting from point A to point B, but he hadn’t been driving. The doc and her geek team had been on the stick for this trip. He picked up his cap and slapped it against his leg before settling it on his head. He pulled out his GPS, but it couldn’t get a signal. If the GPS wasn’t working, then the SAT phone probably wouldn’t either, but he tried it anyway. He gave it a shake and tried it again. Something was gooned up. Had he bent his tech the same time he bent his ribs? The tech didn’t look bent. He shook both. Didn’t sound bent. He tried them again, just to be sure. Still no joy. He pulled his compass. It found a
pole, but it had found a pole on Kikk. Some tech had no loyalty to their home
planet. He eased the bill of his cap up some and did a slow circle, taking care
not to make eye contact with the buzzard. Could the doc have dropped him on the
wrong planet? She’d seemed to know what she was doing, while admitting she might
not, he recalled now. Kind of like those drug commercials. This will work great
unless something goes wrong, which it might. Could the misfire goon up his
retrieval? The doc had been confident while managing to not be confident about
that part, too. And now a bit from Olivia's POV: For most females of her
acquaintance, a parasol was the final touch in a proper ensemble, but Miss
Olivia Carstairs never felt completely dressed without her derringer. According
to her brother, she had a steady hand and excellent aim though she hoped not to
need either on the likely gentleman she was pointing it at. He was the only
person she’d seen since the experiment went awry—something Mama had warned would
happen when Olivia took the position as Professor Twitchet’s assistant, instead
of accepting Mr. Lester Heplinger’s proposal of marriage.
The need to keep him covered
required her to study him in way she normally considered rude, though she was
uncertain about the etiquette involved in holding someone at
His attire was as puzzling as his reaction to her derringer. His uniformly dark attire appeared to be neither in, nor recently out of vogue. His shirt clung to a chest that was very fine and the sleeves were short enough to leave improperly bare, from hand to above the elbow, his brown, muscled arms. He wore no cravat and his vest was bulky in places, unfastened, and ill-fitting, but not in a dreadful way. His trousers hung low on narrow hips and he wore a pack on his back. He was armed with a pistol in a holster like a Western gunslinger from a penny novel, had a knife strapped to his upper leg and an odd looking rifle hung from a strap under one arm. A parasol and a derringer were hardly a match, but instead of frightened, Olivia felt a need to loosen her tie, which had tightened around her neck, as if she’d tugged on it, though she knew she hadn’t. She could have also used her fan. He had fine eyes in a shade of blue that was a particular favorite. His deeply tanned skin, and the fact that he was in need of a shave, should not have enhanced the impact of his eyes. Perhaps it was the combination of height and vigor or the generally pleasing arrangement of features and form that earned her instinctive approbation. She very much hoped it wouldn’t be necessary to shoot him. Back to steampunk romance novella page. Or go to contest page to enter my contests! © 2009 Pauline Baird Jones. All rights reserved.
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gunpoint. Etiquette
aside, the gentleman didn’t appear to be someone easily intimidated by a
parasol, even one with a very sharp point. Nor did he look particularly
unsettled by her derringer. If she read the dropped jaw correctly, he was
surprised.