John Schettler - Grand Alliance

He turned with a heavy heart, seeing Troyak sitting stolidly with the Marines, and realizing that he had neglected them for some time. He gave the Sergeant a long look, apologizing.

“Sergeant Troyak, I want to thank you for your patience and conduct in this situation. I know it was not easy for you when I ordered the men to stand down, but it was necessary to save what could have become a very serious situation.”

“I understand, sir. No problem here.”

“But I know you and the men didn’t like it.”

“No Marine ever wants to put his weapon down in the face of a threat,” said Troyak. “But I could see what was happening. I handled the men, and we had good treatment from the British-most of them.”

“Oh? There was a problem?”

“Just a Sergeant that thought he was too big for his trousers.”

“Right,” said Popski. “It almost came to blows.”

“I see… Well I hope you understand that is the war we’re trying to prevent. Fighting it here won’t help us do that. The British must be seen as our allies now. Understand?”

“I do, sir.”

“Very good. I want to thank you, and all you men as well. I realize it must have been a dull ride for you, and not nearly the mission you were up for.”

Popski spoke up again. “They didn’t get a chance with those Desert Witches,” he said, and Troyak smiled.

Fedorov went on to explain to them what had happened, and what it could mean to the overall course of the war. They could see that both he and Popski had been changed by the incident, and did not really understand how it occurred. Popski had a strange, haunted look in his eye, as if he were now in the company of unborn spirits from the future. He was, and that thought bedeviled him on one level. Fedorov seemed deeply troubled, almost as if he had built a sand castle on the beach, laboring with great intensity, and now had to leave it, knowing the tides would come. They wanted to know how all this had happened, and Fedorov had no real answer for them.

“It’s like so many other things that have happened to us. We don’t really know. Perhaps it was that detonation I told you about from our own ICBM. Yet it’s ironic. It began in our time as an act of violence against a perceived enemy, but it ended up sending those men to us as allies in a time of great need here. Now they share the same fate we’ve been struggling with. God go with them.”

There was a long silence, until Zykov spoke up, asking Fedorov a question that was on the mind of many of the men.

“Will we ever get back, sir-to our own time?”

Fedorov rubbed the weariness from his brow. “I wish I could answer that. I have often wondered what we would find if we tried again. We saw that world once or twice if you recall, and it wasn’t very appealing. Some of you were sent ashore at Halifax. Well the devastation we saw there and other places leads me to believe there may not be very much left of our old world.”

“But we did get back once,” said Zykov. “What about Vladivostok?”

“That was before the war started,” said Fedorov. “We appeared in that window of time between July 28 when we first disappeared, and the beginning of the war in the Pacific. We can never shift to a time where we already exist, so we couldn’t revisit those same days. If we ever did try to shift back, we would have to appear after July 28, but before the date of our return in the Pacific, and that would be a very short lease, because we already have tickets to those seats, if that makes any sense. So the only safe shift would be for us to appear after the date Kirov disappeared while under Karpov’s command. By that time the missiles would be in the air, as we have seen with this attack on the British brigade that sent them here.”

“But sir,” said Chenko, a young corporal. “If that is so, then will we find out things are being blown into the past all over the world? That was not the only missile that must have been fired.”

“I think there was another factor involved in this incident,” said Fedorov. “I’m not quite sure about it yet, but something else caused this breach in time here, something more than the detonation itself.”

Orlov took notice of that, and the fact that Fedorov had asked him to hand over the thing he found in Siberia seemed immediately related to what the Captain was saying now.

“Maybe it was that thing I found,” he said. “The Devil’s Teardrop.”

Zykov laughed at that, but Orlov was serious. “Did you see how it glowed when we saw the sky light up? Hot as hell too! I’d be careful with that thing, Fedorov.”

The crew settled in for the flight to Alexandria, but Zykov had one more question. “Captain, you say we can’t go anywhere that we already exist. Yes? Then what’s going to happen in another few months? It will be July of 1941 soon, crazy as that still sounds. Does that mean the ship can’t appear here like we did the first time?”

“We’re working on that problem, Corporal. I’ve been discussing it with Director Kamenski, but you are correct. I don’t think we can co-locate.”

“Hey Zykov,” said Orlov, lightening the mood. “Too bad, because now you can’t go kiss your own ass come July!”

All the men laughed at that.

That was just one more thing Fedorov had to worry about. A strange object in his pocket, possibly a very dangerous one, but better there than in Orlov’s pocket, he thought. I haven’t time to sort out what will happen in July now. First things first. I’ve got to go through all of this with Wavell. At least I’ll be able to speak with him directly in Russian, but how will I tell him about this? With Kinlan I had the impossible disappearance of Sultan Apache, and much more evidence. With O’Connor we had the shock of his seeing those tanks. But Wavell will be there in Alexandria, a level headed, no-nonsense man, and if I just come out with the truth he would think I’m a madman.

Thankfully, he did not have to fight that battle alone this time. By the time the KA-40 returned he had learned that the fleet was also close at hand, due in port within hours. So he radioed Admiral Volsky to tell him something very important had happened, but he needed to speak with him in person. Volsky told him to vector in on the ship and land there, and the two men had time to discuss the situation with Director Kamenski.

“I have a plan when it comes time to bring Wavell over the line,” said Volsky. “You have done well, Fedorov. It must have been a very difficult situation for you. I can only imagine your surprise, though we have had more than our fair share of that on this journey. A full British mechanized brigade?” Volsky shook his head. “Amazing. How did this happen?”

“I don’t know, sir. But it may have had something to do with this.” He reached in his pocket and produced the Devil’s Teardrop, setting it quietly on the briefing table in the plot room where they were seated. “Orlov found this on that mission to Siberia. They were off course for a time, and came to the Stony Tunguska River. He says they were investigating a sighting on the ground, and encountered a very strange artifact there that seemed to unnerve the whole away team. It was just laying on the tundra.”

Kamenski looked at the object over the top of his glasses, his cinder brows raising as he did so. “Very symmetrical… And you say Orlov said it reacted to the event that sent this British force here? Very interesting. The Stony Tunguska… This is obviously no coincidence. We already know that materials from that region found their way into that control rod that moved this entire ship.”

“What could it be?”

“Possibly a fragment of the object that fell. There is still much debate over what that actually was. One researcher, Menotti Galli, had a theory that tiny particles of the object might be stuck in the resin of the trees on the perimeter of the fall site. They did find stony particles in the trees, but not that size, and this… why, it looks metallic. It’s completely smooth, and note how it reflects the light, almost as if it were polished. Did Orlov do this?