John Schettler - Grand Alliance

“Excuse me, Mister Kamenski, I’m afraid your Lieutenant here has his number wrong. 1946? Surely you meant 1865, as I cypher it.”

Nikolin translated that back, and Kamenski smiled.

“No Admiral Cunningham, the Lieutenant had it right, but to hear it right you will have to extend your hand now and take hold of the elephant’s tail.” And then he began to speak of the war, the long struggle ahead, and how the nations of the earth were now engaged in the making of weapons to prosecute it. He told them one weapon that would be forged in the crucible of this conflict would be so terrible that it would cast a deep shadow of doom on the world for generations, and one day make an end of the human endeavor on this planet. He told them how this weapon was made, and that he knew, for a fact, that many nations were now engaged in the effort to bring this terror to life. And then he slowly began to describe the arms race they would engage in, and the nuclear testing that would be a part of that, until Soviet Russia would build a bomb unlike any other, and set it off in the frozen north on October 30, 1961.

“Yes, and you have heard that date correctly as well,” he said looking directly at Admiral Cunningham. “Yes, I am speaking of all of this as though it had already happened, and from my perspective, that is true. You see, I am a man from tomorrow-your tomorrow at least-and all of this has happened, and more than once I’m afraid. The only question before us now is whether or not it will happen again-whether or not we can do something about this war without planting the seed in this Devil’s Garden that will make the next war a certainty. So I will tell you now, Miss Fairchild, how it is that our ship came to be here, and you can then tell us the same thing about your ship. Hold tightly to the tail of that elephant, Admiral Cunningham. We’re all about to climb on the damn thing and give it a good stiff spur in the gut, and hopefully you will be dragged along with us.”

Then he went through everything, the odd effects they discovered in their weapons testing program, temporal effects that were affecting the flow of time itself, and he laid out the whole impossible story, chapter and verse.

Brigadier Kinlan sat with Lieutenant Colonel Sims and Major Isaac at Brigade HQ, a thousand dilemmas on his mind. The evidence he had seen, or not seen, at the old Sultan Apache site was damning enough. Now he had Italian infantry at Giarabub, and showing every intention of marching on Siwa, the small British held oasis manned by ghosts from the past. He shook his head. When I was with this Russian Captain and his confederates they were so damn convincing. Yet now, the more I think on this the more insane it all seems, particularly when I try to talk about it with the other officers.

“I’ll have to reinforce Siwa,” he said. “Not much there beyond this Australian motorized cavalry and a couple squads of the Long Range Desert Group.”

Major Isaac shifted uncomfortably. “Excuse me, sir. You’re going to reinforce Siwa? What for?” The Major was just about to be eased over the line with information on what had happened to them, and he did not take it well. His initial reaction was to take the whole matter for a bad joke, or an idle wish that they might find themselves anywhere but the sands of the empty Libyan Desert, at any time other than the days they would now be facing. The brigade was to have made a night march to Mersa Matruh to meet roll on/roll off ships there for transfer to Toulon, and start a new deployment in Europe, until this! Was the General mad? Had he finally broken under the long strain of this endless deployment?

He soon learned that General Kinlan was stone cold sober, and in deadly earnest. He was actually telling him that he had come to the conclusion that they were no longer in their own time. They had moved, vanished, and reappeared, and it was now 1941 by every account they could surmise. They had moved in time-all of them-the entire brigade! Kinlan shared the evidence, the testimony of the Russian Naval Captain, the photographs from the library pad on both Popski and O’Connor, but Isaac remained unconvinced.

“Ludicrous!” he objected. “I’ll admit that the resemblance of these two men to those historical figures is uncanny, but you can’t really believe this. It’s rather convenient that these Russians show up Johnny on the spot when that damn ICBM comes wheezing in on us. They were obviously here for reconnaissance and battle damage assessment. Can’t you see that? And look here… You could have told me Reeves had stumbled on Shangri-La out here and I’d believe that before this preposterous story. You mean to say that Russian Captain actually told you this? And you just send him off on his helicopter with the prisoners as if it were all true?”

“Major,” said Kinlan. “Now you know as much about all this as I do. Suppose you go on over to Sultan Apache yourself and explain what happened there. Sims and I went over the place with a Geiger counter and magnifying glass. It was completely undisturbed. There was no sign of any blast damage, no wreckage of any kind, no radiation. Now you tell me how twenty square miles of British Petroleum disappear in a heartbeat like that? Tell me! I’ll gladly listen to any explanation you might have, because I haven’t got any answer aside from the one this Russian Captain gave me.”

Major Isaac folded his arms, frowning. He knew Kinlan to be a competent, no-nonsense man. For this to be coming from him was the hardest blow. There was no way in hell that the man he had known and served under for the last three years would concoct such a story. Not now, not here, with the whole damn brigade strung out in column of march and the missiles lighting up the sky. No. Kinlan wasn’t mad, nor drunk, nor groggy with sleep. He was standing there, plain as day, and telling him this was 1941! Bloody World War Two!

“Add it up for me, Major. Sims and I have gone round and round with it for the last two hours. I spent four hours with this O’Connor and by god if he isn’t the real thing I’m a goat. Then Lieutenant Horton says the stars are all wrong. The moon was wrong last night, or did you happen to notice that? You explain it! Then, when you have it all figured out, you tell me how I’m going to explain it to the men…”

There was a long silence, and in that stillness Isaac realized this was Kinlan’s real burden now. Could he have this conversation with every man in the brigade? They had been out here for months, away from home, knowing now that the lives of all their loved ones were in dire jeopardy. If the missiles were flying here, they were damn well lighting up the skies over London as well.

Major Isaac sat down, a distant, vacant look in his eyes, his expression blank, and almost lifeless. The pallor of his cheeks betrayed the awful strain they had all been under, battle ready, the whole brigade wound tight like a watch spring, under ballistic missile attack, and buttoned up in their vehicles these last 48 hours, knowing the war to end all wars had finally begun in earnest. Every man among them had the image of someone back home in his head, wondering now whether any of them were still alive, wondering what lay ahead for them, or whether they would even make it to Mersa Matruh alive before another missile came at them and the Aster 3 system was not good enough to save them this time.

“No answers?” Kinlan left the question out there, but he could see the defeated look on the Major’s face, and relented. “I didn’t have any either, Bob, so don’t feel bad. You think I bought this story hook, line and sinker without smelling the fish first? There was only one explanation that accounts for all these anomalies and makes any sense-Sultan Apache, the stars all wrong, this fellow calling himself General O’Connor, not to mention Wavell on the bloody radio chewing my ear. We’ve no satellite links, nothing on any command level channel, but plenty on the AM and FM bands. And guess what, it’s all news of the war, the last big war, news of Rommel in the desert, and Wavell’s last stand at Sidi Barani. And then there’s that Italian infantry unit down south at Giarabub. I scouted the damn thing myself. There’s a stack of photos right there on the desk, and Sims and I spent the last hour with them. So call me crazy, and yes, this whole thing sounds completely insane, but there it is. You think I’d make a fool of myself like this? Here? Now? Not bloody likely.”