Time Transit By Kay Austin -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HIGH PRAISE FOR TIME TRANSIT! "What a wild ride! I couldn't put Time Transit down!" —Morag McKendrick Pippin, w/a Elspeth McKendrick, award-winning author of Perfidia. "A fresh, fun new voice in time travel romance, Kay Austin takes readers for a fantastic ride!" —Susan Grant, bestselling author of The Scarlet Empress "Kay writes an intriguingly different time travel with humor and smart plotting." —Lucy Monroe, award-winning author of Moon Awakening "Kay delivers an imaginative read with an unusual twist on time travel." —Theresa Scott, author of Northern Nights "… A wild torrid trip back and forth into the past, present, and future." —Harriet Klausner, Books N Bytes "Fast-paced and action-packed…" —Midwest Book Review "It will be interesting to see where Kay Austin takes this idea." —Kathy Sova, The Romance Reader -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A TIMELY QUESTION Maude's chronometer pulsed off the seconds. She should give it up. They were already overdue at Reacclimation. The now-deserted commons wouldn't stay that way, not if someone triggered a search and launched a retrieval team. If security squawked, she and Gil would be located, swarmed, and hauled off—Gil to Reacclimation and her back to Rogue Central for a well-deserved slap on the wrist. It was dangerous to linger. Her pulse hammered at her wrists, her throat, and her temples. Every instinct she'd cultivated and honed for Rogue missions recommended abort. But Maude's heart wouldn't yield. She had to know. "Gil, do you… remember me?" she ventured. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Other Love Spell books by Kay Austin: TIME ROGUES -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LOVE SPELL® January 2008 Published by Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc. 200 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016 If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book." Copyright © 2008 by Kay A. Austin All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. ISBN 10: 0-505-52715-4 ISBN 13: 978-0-505-52715-8 The name "Love Spell" and its logo are trademarks of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc. Printed in the United States of America. 10 987654321 Visit us on the web at www.dorchesterpub.com. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To the Rogues in my life, Pat and Mom; thanks for believing in me and applying swift kicks when I didn't. To Chris Keeslar, the best of the best; thanks for the challenge to explore the future and bring it to the page for SHOMI. To Meredith Bernstein, a class act; thanks for your unfailing support. To Veda and Bev and the rest of the Tacoma Readers Group; thanks for your passion for the written word. To the countless number of friends, family, and readers who inspired and blessed me; thanks for the gifts of conflict and compassion that nurture my dream. And to the chief Rogue in my life, God; without you, I am nothing. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PROLOGUE Earth's Core, 2152 I'm dead. I'm still breathing but I'm also gut-shot, bleeding, hurting, and alone. If help is on the way, it won't get here in time. I'm doomed. Death for a twentysomething gal, even a devil-may-care Time Rogue like Maude, was premature. She'd been forewarned, so it should have been preventable. Right? After all, Rogues saved lives and she was one of the best—a prodigy, they said. But she couldn't save herself. Could she? Maude sniffed the air. Sulfur. Brimstone. It was cool and dark on this isolated tram platform within an inactive volcanic flume. Too cool. The enviro-sensors only activated with movement, and she hadn't moved for what seemed like hours but probably only amounted to a few minutes. Her auto-transit from the past had been rough. Lacking safeguards, standard Core tracking devices and all but the basic time-travel protocols, her unauthorized mission to defy death and fix fate was iffy and dangerous for even the healthiest Rogue. And she wasn't healthy—not by a long shot. Less than an hour ago, a bullet had changed everything. She moaned and gripped the edge of the mesh partition helping to keep her upright as another wave of pain spiraled through her. She'd never endured such agony. After two hundred missions logged on her identilog and countless brushes with death, her luck, her skill and her time had run out. She wouldn't survive the hour. She couldn't; she'd lost too much blood. She'd given up trying to staunch the flow pulsing from the wound in her belly. But she hadn't given up on rescue. Not entirely. "Help?" The cavernous dark space swallowed her voice. Maude released her hold on the partition and slid like a mass of ooze to the soot-coated tile floor. It was sufficient movement to activate the limited atmospherics. The ambient lighting swelled like a swift sunrise, accompanied by scratchy acoustics of chirping larks and rustling leaves. Without viewscreens, the simulated setting was incomplete but still a welcome comfort. Maude felt less alone. And when the flickering heat lamps struggled to life and dissipated some of the chill, she managed a smile. Nominal accommodation. A default setting for atmospheric enhancements at isolated stations supporting minimal use. But by the looks of it, this station hadn't been used or serviced recently. If the lingering odor of rotten eggs was a true indication of elevated magma activity, this section of the sub-orbital tram system might have been abandoned. From countless evacuation drills, she knew all too well that it wouldn't take much—a pyroclastic surge of heat or a burp of poisonous gas—to fry her stem to stern, teeth to toenails. Drutz. Gut-shot or not, she needed to clear the area fast. "Hellllp." It sounded like a pathetic bleat compared to the ear-bustin', hoot and holler volume she could manage effortlessly until a few hours ago. But it still might be enough for the sensors in Core to pick up. She blinked back the sweat blurring her vision and focused on the chunky device mounted on the mesh partition. More rotten luck. First the bullet and now this, a communications relay fouled with grime and nonfunctioning. Her cry for help hadn't been received by Core. Gigadrutz. What a day. With her transmitter smashed—the first casualty of the bullet that had also penetrated her flesh—her emergency and impending expiration were well-kept secrets from all who would or could save her life. Core could. Thanks to the cadre of super-intellects like Charlie, technology existed that could do almost everything, including fix time rifts and repair seemingly lethal wounds like hers. Seemingly lethal? Maude's lips twitched, curving into a half smile. It just wasn't in her to give up. She clung to the faint hope that against all odds her arrival on this platform had somehow registered on Core's grid. By design, safety systems were full of redundancies. The presence of life-forms automatically dispatched retrieval trams: another system default for stations beyond Edgeville. But just how far beyond Edgeville was she? She rolled her head from side to side, looking for some landmark to identify her location. She spotted a sign and gasped. That can't be right. Outskirt 13? This was where her mission to save herself had started nearly thirty rotations ago. Or was it? She rubbed her eyes and looked again for confirmation. Awash in the lemony light from the fake sunshine, the letters were unmistakable. Thirteen miles from Edgeville and help. She was almost home. On foot and bleeding she'd never make it, but on a sub-orbital tram she'd be patched up and sucking down some of Charlie's bad tasting, cure-all liquid nutrient in no time. All she had to do was hold on until the tram arrived. She glanced at the spreading darkness on her camo-colored garb. She'd hold on. She had to. Not only for herself but to prove to everyone that Charlie was always right. Time Rogues never died on his watch. Maude grimaced as another wave of agony buffeted her senses. She fought the urge to give in and pass out. It was a struggle, but by applying her Rogue skills she managed to briefly detach herself from the pain. She focused on Charlie: boss, surrogate papa, and resident genius for Core's crucial maintenance and recovery department. He called her "Kid"—and maybe she still was one—but he'd also promoted her to Rogue status anyway, weathered her novice days, and saved her life more than once. Memory of the first rescue—more than two thousand rotations ago—was sweet and vivid: Charlie pulling her out of the Children's Cabala, an Edgeville orphanage, after a skill-scan registered her Rogue potential. It had been a momentous event for Maude. She'd been gifted with a friend, the Rogue family, and the will and purpose to survive against the odds. Thanks to Charlie, no matter how bleak her fat...
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