John Schettler - Grand Alliance

Nine months out here in the desert had given him an uncanny sense of how to navigate, even in conditions like this. He knew where his column was when the lights went out and they had lost all satellite links and GPS. So he got in his FV432, pulled out a compass, only to find the needle was spinning like a top! Something was certainly wrong, but he moved south, able to follow the fading remnant of the column’s tracks. Sixty ton tanks leave a good footprint on the desert wherever they go, and he had sixty Challenger IIs in the brigade. It wasn’t long before he saw the familiar shape of Hill 587, and realized he had come east to the edge of the Qattara Depression. Beyond this point the land would cascade down in a steep escarpment into the silted, wadi infested Sebka that was completely impassible to vehicles. But behind him he had the stony plateau where the Sultan Apache facilities should be… and they were gone.

Not destroyed… not blasted to hell by another damn Russian ICBM… The desert was a sublime, immaculate wasteland, with fresh drifts of windblown sand forming even here. This was something he had not counted on; something no man could factor into his operational planning, no matter how closely he read the manual and adhered to the principles of the Operational Art. This was something wholly unaccountable, a madness that had come upon him like the desert storm, obscuring all reason and sanity and presenting him with the bewildering prospect of having to lend credence to the impossible story spewed by this Russian Captain.

Popski, O’Connor, and a Russian Naval Captain… Now he had the distinct feeling that O’Connor had never once laid eyes on the Russian, and knew nothing whatsoever of the man. If this was an act, aimed at distracting him into immobility here, it was masterful.

Sims was back, with the Russian in tow, and he folded his arms, thinking. “Very well,” he began, looking at the Russian. “I’ve done what you asked of me, and had a good long look at the facilities, at least the place where they once existed. That is no longer the case.”

Popski translated, still with a completely befuddled look on his face as he did so. When Fedorov realized they were again to meet with the commander of this force, he had quietly spoken with Popski to try and prepare him for what he might soon hear.

“Popski,” he said. “I must discuss our situation with this officer, and you will hear many things that will make absolutely no sense to you. I know it will be confusing, and I will do my best to explain it all to you later, but for now, can you simply serve as my voice and translate what I say? My English can get the essence across, but I’m afraid my vocabulary is somewhat limited still. Just translate, and I’ll sort this all out for you once we set things right with the British.”

“Good enough,” said Popski, but it was not long before he did begin to hear strange talk between these two men, some of it stupefying nonsense, other things complete mysteries to him, words and terms he had never heard or used before, though these two men clearly seemed to know what they meant.

“It is as I have told you,” said Fedorov. “The facilities remain where they were, but the timeframe has changed. There was a missile strike on your position, and a detonation, correct?”

“You ought to know about it,” said Kinlan, still nurturing the assumption that this man and his band of Russian Marines were out here to guide in those warheads.

“I assure you, I knew nothing, because I was not there, General. I was not in that timeframe at all. I was here all along. Understand? I have been here for the last six months, my ship and crew as well, and all of us trapped here in this time-in this war.”

“You’re telling me you had some kind of an accident aboard ship?”

“It had something to do with our reactors.” Fedorov did not want to get into all the details of Rod-25, Tunguska, the fragmented time that event had caused, the hidden places in the world where fissures in time had been created to allow men and objects to make impossible journeys through time. It was enough to try and give this man some footing here, some kind of solid ground to stand on, as shiftless and windblown as it all might seem now.

“General,” he said through Popski. “When this storm finally abates, your systems will settle down, but you will never establish satellite links again-ever. In fact, you will never again receive another message or word from the world you knew. The only communications you will ever pick up will be things of this world, of this time, and the year is 1941-January of 1941 to be more precise. That is why the stars and moon seem to conspire against you. Believe me, I was a navigator by trade before being promoted to my present position. When this first happened to us, I used my skills as a navigator to determine the stars and moon were not what they should be, just as your men did.”

Popski could not help but cast a furtive glance at the night sky above as the evening settled over the scene and the first stars were again visible in the slowly clearing airs.

“Then you’re trying to tell me this man O’Connor is the real thing? This fellow Wavell that was bending my ear ten minutes ago is indeed General Archibald Wavell?”

“Correct. Impossible, but true. It took us a very long time to determine what had happened to us, and relate it to the strange effects of a nuclear detonation. Apparently the same thing has just happened to you. We determined that these effects have a radius-like the EMP effect can influence an area beyond the core blast zone. Well, even if this detonation missed its target, you must have remained inside the zone.”

Kinlan stood with that for some time, removing his sand goggles to get a better look at the man, noting the unfailing sincerity in his tone and expression. He allowed himself a question, even though it would admit to grudging acceptance of this whole wild scenario.

“Then how do we get back?”

Fedorov gave him a look of real sympathy and understanding, then spoke quietly. “That may no longer be possible.”

“What? You mean we’re marooned here, for good?”

“For good or for ill, but you are here, that much you will inevitably come to realize and believe, just as we did. And being here is a matter of grave concern, not simply for your own fate, or the lives of the men you command, but for the fate of this world. Do you understand what I am saying now, general? You are no ordinary man here-not in this time and place. This is the Western Desert of Egypt in 1941. You know what is happening here now, and why men with names like Wavell and O’Connor are before you. And you will soon hear of another familiar name-Rommel. He is here as well, and undoubtedly up to the same old tricks that confounded the British for years in this campaign. But you can change all that, General Kinlan.”

“Change it?” Now Kinlan remembered his own impulsive vow to Major Sims, that he would kick Rommel’s ass half way to Berlin if he found him.

“Yes,” said Fedorov. “That is the real dilemma now. We faced it, talked endlessly about it, debated it, and then we realized we could not remain here in the midst of this terrible war without choosing sides. And General, there was some contention among our ranks over that choice. There were those who were very embittered over the hostility and enmity that has grown between our nations in our day. It was a struggle, but my Admiral held firm and eventually opted for reason in the face of all this insanity.”

“Admiral?”

“Leonid Volsky. You have heard of this man?”

“Volsky. He’s the commander of the Red Banner Northern Fleet, or at least he was before your ship went missing.”

“Correct, and he was to transfer to the Pacific Fleet just as the incident at the Diaoyutai/Senkaku Islands ignited hostilities there. That little squabble was going to become something that would eventually devour the entire world. The missile attack you experienced was undoubtedly a part of all that, and your presence here may be the only safe ground you could have found for your men and vehicles. You know damn well that there would have been a second strike, and a third if your air defense prevented that.”