Free Viking Love Beyond Time (Time Travel Romance) by Kathryn Anderson

remembered reading somewhere that human skin froze at minus thirty.  A huge explosion threw her against the side of the plexiformed corridor, causing her to bang her head - she was momentarily dazed.  Shaking herself and looking out she saw the Earth below,  it looked indescribably beautiful - like a blue jewel on a black velvet cushion.
                  As she watched, frost began to form on the inside of the plexiform.  Her feet felt like lead, she could not stand, it must be more than four minutes since she started up the freezers, why wasn’t she dead?  The lights went out and she grew colder and colder.  Shaking her head she began to crawl laboriously up the corridor, God, how much further was it?  Frost had formed on her hair and her eyelashes were freezing together, her face felt pinched and it was hard to breathe, each breath hurt her lungs.  The shuttle would have to set off at any second.
                  She tried to claw her way along, her boiler suit creaking with ice.  Luke Owen had probably gone without her anyway.  “Luke, wait!” she croaked and pulled herself further up the corridor, there was no way she was going to make it in time, she was going to die.  She sobbed, closed her eyes and fell to her knees.
                  Suddenly, she felt herself lifted into the air as yet another crash shook the ship.  Forcing open her eyes she saw she was being carried through an open circular hatch, along a crawl way into a dimly lit, warm, circular room padded from floor to ceiling apart from a blue glassed window faced by two bucket seats.  She was unceremoniously thrown into one whilst Luke Owen jumped into the one next to her. He leaned over and fastened her in “Jeez, a comatose pilot” he muttered “I’ll have to do it” leaning across her he began to flick switches on the console.  Austen took a deep warming breath and glanced at her watch - fifteen seconds before the Colossus disappeared into space.  She brushed Luke Owen’s hand aside and pressed the red ignition button.
                  With a roar the shuttle broke away from the ship and headed out into space.  Glancing into the rear view screen Austen realised that they had not left a second too soon, ice had begun to form over the escape hatch.  With a flash the  vast bulk of The Star City Colossus disappeared into space.
                  “Well, that’s that” said Luke “may I commend you on your action, Captain?”
                  Austen sighed, automatic pilot was temporarily off line.  She punched up the co-ordinates for an entry window into the atmosphere of Earth, all too aware that if they approached at the wrong angle they would either burn up or bounce off and shoot away irretrievably into space.  A series of squares appeared on the console in front of her and Austen began the complicated task of manually manoeuvring pitch and yaw to line up in order to enter the atmosphere safely.   It was a delicate operation and not helped by the frost melting on her hair and running down her face “Owen, activate the entry shields” she ordered “this shuttle is going to get as hot as hell before we’re through into the atmosphere” she bit her bottom lip and adjusted the yaw thirty degrees, then shook her head violently to get rid of the cobwebs.
                  “Shields up” Owen said suddenly, cutting into her thoughts.
                  Austen sighed with relief as the squares lined up and the shuttle began to skip along the atmosphere like a flat pebble across the water.  The shields began to glow red and they noticed the temperature inside the cabin growing hotter.  When it reached forty degrees centigrade Owen unfastened his boiler suit, the thick blond hairs on his chest glistening with perspiration.
                  Austen wriggled uncomfortably, droplets of sweat were running between her breasts and