Temporal Shift (Entangled Select Otherworld) Read Online Free PDF Page B

as I really enjoy talking about myself—could we perhaps get on with the whole time travel thing? Because I’ve yet to be convinced.”
    “Me too,” Tannis said. “Come on, Callum, what’s going on?”
    Callum nodded. “Six months ago, I met with Captain Thornton. We had a very civilized discussion and I offered to support his colonization of one of the outer planets. They would be free to govern themselves and worship whichever phony god took their fancy. They set off a few months later on the Espera , a colony ship with five hundred people and everything needed to make the planet habitable. I’m guessing they didn’t make it. Captain?”
    There was silence and Saffira turned to study her mentor. Thorne had a dazed expression on his face. She reached out and rested a hand on his knee and squeezed. “Thorne?” she said softly.
    He shook himself as if coming back from far away. “Sorry?”
    “What happened?” Callum asked.
    Thorne took a deep breath. “Forgive me, it’s been a long time.”
    “How long?” Devlin asked.
    “Ten thousand years.”
    “Shit.”
    Thorne ran a hand through his short hair, pressed his fingers to his skull. “We were leaving the system. Just passing Trakis Seven, when there was an explosion. Stronger than anything I’d ever encountered. The whole planet went up in a ball of flame. We were directly in the path and pummeled by debris from the planet. Our systems were knocked out; the ship spiraled out of control. It was over. Then we were caught in some sort of hold, sucked into a tunnel…”
    “A wormhole,” Saffira added.
    “We know that now, back then it seemed as though we were heading straight to the depths of hell. And maybe we were. It went on for a long time. We don’t know how long—the clocks had stopped with everything else. Finally, we were…spat out the other end and we found ourselves here. The ship crashed onto the planet’s surface. And we met the locals—sort of.” He went silent and sat back in his chair. “We believed we had come through some sort of portal in space. It never occurred to us that we had also shifted in time.”
    And perhaps it should have. Saffira and her ancestors knew this universe was riddled with wormholes and black holes and probably other things that didn’t even have names. They linked places and times and maybe other dimensions not even recognized by mankind.
    “Do you believe this crap?” Devlin asked.
    “Can you come up with a better explanation?” Callum asked, his tone making it clear that he believed it highly unlikely.
    “Hell, yeah. How about they came through the black hole same as we did. And they’ve been here for months, not ten thousand unbelievable fucking years.”
    “And how would you explain the wings?” Callum asked. “It took five hundred years for any of the Collective to grow wings.”
    “Maybe things happen faster here. Look, I’m not saying there’s an obvious answer, just that there is one…”
    “Of course there isn’t,” Rico said. “Occam’s razor—the most probable answer is likely to be the answer. Shit, time travel. Fucking marvelous. Did I ever tell you about my favorite TV program from back on Earth—”
    “No,” Tannis snapped. “And perhaps we could leave it for later.”
    Saffira glanced at Rico. Had he just said he’d been on Earth? How was that possible?
    Thorne rubbed his head. “So the same world is still out there. The same mess.”
    “Actually, it might be in a bit more of a mess than when you left,” Callum said. “There have been a few changes.”
    “But we don’t have to be part of that.” Thorne jumped to his feet, wings twitching. “We could go back. Our planet is still there waiting for us. I need to think on this.”
    “And I need to go check if Daisy is okay flying this thing,” Rico said. He strolled out but paused after a few steps and turned toward Devlin. He tossed him the silver flask and grinned. “I’m betting you’re going to need this