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A Wrinkle in Time
     
    What the hell was taking them so long? Luke
Parillo had sent the urgent interstellar message over a week ago
requesting assistance. Sometimes it still galled him not to have a
starship at his disposal any longer. Not that he'd ever admit that
to anyone.
    It wasn't finding the corpses that had so
unsettled him. It was finding thousand-year-old corpses in the
midst of Earth technology from a hundred years in the future that
really set off alarm bells. And Parillo lacked the means with which
to investigate.
    Parillo kept at his work because that was the
only thing keeping him sane while he waited. On his hands and knees
on an anti-grav unit a centimeter above the ground, he used the
fine brush to clear away dust from what had been, thousands of
years ago, a breathtaking mosaic tile floor.
    "Captain Parillo."
    "I know that voice," Luke Parillo looked up
from the ruins he was excavating with such painstaking slowness. A
smile spread over his face as he got to his feet. He stepped clear
of the work area and brushed his hands on his trousers to get rid
of some of the dust. "No one has called me that in fifteen years.
It's 'Doctor' now, or sometimes 'Professor'." He strode forward,
hand outstretched.
    The lean, lanky blond caught it in a strong
handshake. "Good to see you again, Luke. Archeology suits you."
    A shadow crossed his face and he stated what
she'd left unspoken. "And I got out just in time, right?" He'd
retired from the fleet just before the rumblings from the Wyneeri
began, and a year before the War exploded across the sector.
    "You were lucky. I'm happy you did."
    "I'm not. I still think Command was wrong to
refuse my request for reinstatement once the fighting started."
    "I can understand your feelings," Darcy
Dennis followed him as they picked their way among trees and down
the rocky hillside toward the dozen prefab cabins at the base of
the slope. "But honestly, Luke, losses got so bad that there
weren't enough ships to go around. And I seem to recall you
declining to teach at the academy," she said, gently yet
pointedly.
    "I didn't think that was the best use of my
skills," he admitted. But then he shook off the old grievances.
"Captaincy suits you," he echoed her own words back with a
twist.
    And it did. The dark blue uniform, now
sporting the gold piping of command, looked good on her and she
wore it easily. The slacks had a narrow gold stripe running down
the side of each leg, and the high-collared jacket had one on
either side as well. The white jersey underneath had a crew
neck.
    Then Parillo added, "You'd better be taking
good care of my ship."
    Dennis laughed although she could tell the
words were only half joking. "You're welcome to take a look
around—after you show me what has you firing off priority one
messages to the EMF."
    "That's precisely where we're headed."
He continued out the other side of camp, snagging two flashlights
and a bag of hoverlamps from a table as he passed. "Everyone else
is on the ship," he said in response to her quizzical expression.
He'd sent the other ten members of his team up to their transport
in orbit where he hoped they'd be safer. They'd humored him and
agreed to work on surveying they could do from the Whirlwind . "It's a ten minute
walk."
    The hilly forest had little ground cover, so
it was easy to avoid the rocks as they walked. "George still your
XO?"
    "No, his promotion went through a
couple weeks ago. He's the captain of the Independence now. Had the nerve to take my Chief
Engineer with him, the bastard."
    Seeing as she didn't sound the least bit
upset, Parillo chuckled. "So did you promote from within? Or go and
filch from someone else's command staff?" He felt a surge of
parental pride that so many of 'his' officers had not only chosen
to stay in the EMF, but now had their own commands as well. And he
felt intense relief that so many had survived the war.
    "I kept it in the family. My Second Officer
was way overdue. I was lucky not to lose him