Simon Hawke - The Nautilus Sanction

“What about Verne and Land?” said Andre.

Lucas sighed. “We protect them, if we can. If not, well, they’ll just have to fend for themselves.”

When they were well out of sight of land, Drakov signaled the Nautilus. Within a short time, they saw its dark bulk rise up out of the waves, dwarfing the small ship they were on. Verne, who had shrugged off most of the effects of his hangover with the help of the tangy sea air, had joined them at the railing and he gasped as he saw the Nautilus rise.

“I have never seen her surface before!” he said. “What an incredible sight! She breaks the surface of the water like an island rising from beneath the waves. Small wonder sailors took her for a sea monster. She looks both terrifying and majestic.”

As the lines were tossed, bringing the schooner and the submarine closer together, men came up behind them, two for each of them, one on each side. They were grasped firmly while others, standing before them, covered them with pistols. This time, they were not black powder weapons or revolvers. These were lasers.

“Henceforth,” said Drakov, coining up to them, “you will be kept under constant guard. I shall not make the mistake Falcon made in underestimating the three of you. You shall be separated, from Verne and Land as well as from each other. Two men will remain with you at all times. Two more will serve to reinforce the first two. I know you had planned to search my cabin for the warp discs. Land told me. Perhaps he is sincere in wishing to join me. Perhaps it is a plot you hatched. In either case, I will not trust him quite yet. He will be watched, as well. If all goes according to plan, and I see no reason why it should not, you will all come away from this unharmed.”

“Just what is-” Lucas began, but Drakov interrupted him.

“No questions, Mr. Priest. T-Day is approaching. I have no more time for pleasantries nor for being a gracious, tolerant host. Take them below.”

They were escorted down into the submarine and immediately separated. The orders given to their guards were clear. They were not to be let out of sight even for a moment, not even while going to the head. The guards would say nothing to them and they kept well apart, both holding lasers at the ready, so that if one was jumped, the other could fire, killing his shipmate if need be. Drakov had not exaggerated. He was taking no chances whatsoever.

Each of them, in their separate areas of the ship, kept thinking the same thing. Whether Martingale could bring help or not, the missiles must not be fired. There was only one way to guarantee that. Kill Drakov and destroy the sub. There were three against more than a hundred and that number would grow sharply when they reached the secret base in the volcano off New Guinea. And they could not act, even if they were able to, before they reached that base. For the present, there was nothing to do but wait.

They did not have to wait for long. Soon after they had submerged, the transition signal sounded throughout the submarine. They each felt the effects of temporal teleportation as the mammoth sub translocated to another time. Lucas bit his lower lip and stared at his two guards, who returned his gaze unblinking, both their lasers pointed directly at his midsection.

Whatever happens, Lucas thought, it won’t be long now.

Moses Forrester sat in a straight-backed chair behind a small table on the raised stage of the briefing room on the sixty-third floor of the Temporal Army Corps Headquarters building at Pendleton Base. On the table before him was a steaming mug of coffee, which was periodically freshened by his orderly. Beside the coffee mug was an ashtray into which he tossed his wooden matches, an archaic affectation, and tapped out his pipe. He smoked continually and, to pass the time, watched the terminal before him, which he had switched to outdoor scan.

The cameras showed him different views of the Departure Station sixty-three stories below. There was no sound, for he wanted none, but he could imagine the sounds out there. It was part of the world he lived in every day. Down there in the Departure Station, men and women of the Temporal Army Corps congregated in groups in the center of the giant plaza as ground shuttles zipped through the crowds, carrying the supplies and personnel to their clockout points. Many soldiers sat in the bars which ringed the plaza, enjoying a last drink or two before being clocked out to their missions. Overhead, skimmers wound their way through the maze of pedestrian spans which connected the various buildings of the base. A computer-generated voice announced departure codes and grid designations for the soldiers to report to.

Code Yellow 38, Grid 600. To the Spanish-American War. Code Green 67, Grid 515. To an arbitration action in Korea. Code Indigo 14, Grid 227. Destination-the Asteroid Belt in the 24th century, scene of the last modern, non-temporal war.

Soon it would change. The departure grids would be replaced by warp discs, but meanwhile, the new technology had not reached the regular corps yet. Only the First Division had them. Only the temporal adjustment teams and a group of renegade time pirates led by Forrester’s own son.

The soldiers sitting before him in the briefing room were very different from the regular troops assigned to arbitration conflicts, though they had all come from those ranks. Unlike those outside in the plaza, who were dressed either in disposable green transit fatigues or in period costumes-Cossacks, Mongols, Waffen SS, Rainbow Division, Vikings, Celtic knights-the commandos in the briefing room were dressed for action in blue battle suits woven from nysteel, lightweight, flexible one-piece garments that would deflect most ammunition but not, they all knew only too well, laser beams or plasma from an auto-pulser. All the commandos had their equipment at their sides, weapons and floater-paks, ready to be donned in an instant. Each had programmed his or her warp discs with the partial coordinates for the attack. They lacked only the final coding for the sequence-the precise time.

As they sat there, some napping, some talking quietly, some smoking, some eating sandwiches, others just simply staring straight ahead, the time had already passed long since. But the event of that long past time they were awaiting had not happened yet. They waited for history to change. Each hoped the change would not be significant enough to overcome temporal inertia and affect the timestream. History did not report a battle taking place in the interior of an extinct volcano on an island off the coast of Papua, New Guinea, in the 19th century. With luck, history never would report it.

Sergeant Wendy Chan, a small raven-haired, delicate-looking woman whose outward appearance gave the lie to her thin, yet exceedingly fit body which had been wounded scores of times in temporal conflicts, sat talking quietly with Staff Sergeant Martin, who nibbled on a pastrami sandwich. Captain Sullivan kept running his hands through his close-cropped black hair and rubbing his temples, trying to calm his nerves. It had been a long time since he had seen any action and he fervently hoped his battle instincts were still sharp. Lieutenant Bryant, his face calm-looking and world-weary, sat staring off into infinity, creating an aura of dispassionate isolation about himself. They were all in the same unit, yet they had never gone into battle together en masse. Outside the briefing room, the hectic activity of the base proceeded as usual. Only a few were aware of what was about to take place.

Forrester would be leading his people into battle. No one could guess his thoughts as he sat there, waiting with the rest of them, smoking his pipe and sipping coffee. He appeared perfectly composed. No one knew he was being eaten up by guilt. None of the people in the briefing room knew Drakov was his son. The last time they had met, father and son had confronted each other in deadly combat. Forrester should have killed him then, but he had been unable to. Now the time had come to pay the price, and he stared at the screen before him to avoid seeing the faces of those under his command, many of whom would soon be dead because he had failed to kill his son when he had the chance. A part of him had not been able to do it, even while another part told him that he must. He had hesitated, and he had lost. As the minutes lengthened into hours, he steeled himself for what was to come. He did not wonder if he would survive the battle. He no longer cared.