Christopher Nuttall: Second Chance

“Sirs, if it’s a practical joke, it’s one of terrifying scope,” he concluded. “So far, the police have been unable to locate the other crewmen; they must be terrified out of their minds.”

“Fuck them,” the RAF Chief of the Air Staff – Allen Chapman – muttered. “So, did it fall through time?”

Stirling took a second long breath. “Sir, I very much hope that I am wrong, but it looks as if we fell back in time.”

“Nonsense,” the Press Secretary said. “Nations do not fall back in time.”

There was a bustle of conversation. Stirling tried to sink into his seat, but Chapman stopped him. “Captain, is there any way to test this hypothesis?”

Stirling silently blessed the novels he’d read. Without them, it would have been harder to adapt to the new reality. “I can think of two ways offhand,” he said. “The first one is simple; we send a recon Tornado with fighter escort over France and see what we see. If this is all just a horrible nightmare, the French will intercept it and turn them back. If not, then we’ll know for certain.

“The second is to call the observatories and ask them to check on star positions,” Stirling said. “If they’re the same, then we might be where we think we are.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Cunningham said. “A recon flight, then; any dissenters?”

There were none. “I’ll see to it at once,” Chapman said. “The planes will be armed, just in case they meet Nazi Messerschmitt fighters.”

“Better brief them carefully,” Cunningham said. “I’ll call Number Ten and get the Prime Minister’s approval. Captain, you are assigned to this until further notice; call Captain Jackson and order him to take over your routine duties.”

“Yes, sir,” Stirling said. “One other matter; should we not call up the reserves?”

“Why?” The Press Secretary asked. “We’re not at war with Germany.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Stirling said, “Nazi Germany is at war with us.”

The meeting broke up and the various members headed back to their offices; Cunningham to see the Prime Minister, Chapman to organise a recon flight at first light, and Stirling to coordinate the… investigation. The General had promised all the support that he could scrape up, but in the middle of the confusion it would unlikely that there would be much support for hours yet. Dispatchers were working on calling in staff who were on leave; the army was being placed on alert – although no one would say for what – and the reserves were receiving preliminary warnings of a call-up.

Bloody miracle that the press haven’t caught on yet , Stirling thought, as the blank screen of CNN taunted him with its static. UNABLE TO LOCATE SIGNAL, it read, and he shivered. Whatever had happened, he was certain, was anything, but natural. They’ll be blaming it on alien space bats next .

Carefully, he picked up the telephone and placed a call. Jodrell Bank was no longer the foremost observatory it had been, but it was still one of the centres of British astronomy. The phone rang for several minutes, so he placed it on call-back and started to look up the other observatories. The phone rang again; someone had finally picked up at Jodrell Bank.

“Good morning,” he said, wondering if he’d woken the night watchman. “I’m from the crisis response team. Can I speak to the Director?”

“Speaking,” the voice said. “This is Doctor Abram.” The voice was strained. “Crisis? Do you have any idea what seems to have happened?”

“Only hints,” Stirling said, deciding not to mention the shot-down plane. “Doctor, are the stars all right?”

“No,” Doctor Abram snapped. “We were running a long-term comparison on radio sources in the sky, then there’s a massive burst of interference, and everything goes haywire, and then the stars are all out of place!”

Dear God , Stirling thought coldly. “Doctor, according to the stars, when are we?”

“I’m not quite certain,” Doctor Abram said. “I think we’re roughly seventy-to-eighty years in the past. I’ve got people trying to pin it down to a precise date, but you know how it is…”

“Certainly,” Stirling said. “Doctor, could I ask you to keep it to yourself for the moment? I assure you that you will receive full credit for the discovery.”

“I’ll try, young man,” Doctor Abram said. “Should I call you if anything changes?”

“Yes, please,” Stirling said, and gave his number. “Thank you for your time.”

The dawn broke and five aircraft; one Tornado, three Eurofighters and one tanker, headed away over France. There had been no change – CNN and the other American stations remained resolutely off the air – and the British press had been starting to ask questions. Some of the Internet – the fragments of the Internet that had survived the… whatever – was buzzing with speculation, some of it quite accurate. UFOs were blamed, as well as gods, devils and creatures from some other dimension.

“We have to make a statement,” the Prime Minister said, over the video link. “We have to tell them something, the sooner the better. There’s already been rioting in Brixton.”

“And its only five o’clock,” Cunningham said. He didn’t like the Prime Minister and it showed. “Prime Minister, we have to wait until we know for certain what’s happening.”

The Prime Minister sighed. “Parliament has already been asking for an emergency debate,” he said. “I can put it off for a day, perhaps two days, but not much longer. My own MPs will desert me.”

Stirling coughed as the video from the Tornado jet started to come though onto the screen. It had required considerable ingenuity to have it broadcast without the secure satellites, but who in this time could even hear the signal? He scowled; it was clear; Paris was no longer the metropolis that he remembered from a school trip. The room fell silent as the Tornado identified German vehicles, German fighter aircraft and a row of German bombers.

“Freeze frame,” Cunningham said, in a voice like death itself. Stirling did so, running it back slightly to capture the view of the aircraft. The silence lengthened; on the screen was the Eiffel Tower, the greatest construction in France… with a red swastika floating from the top, drifting in the breeze.

Over North France

6 thJuly 1940

Captain Sidney Jackson peered out of the cockpit of the massive 747 and peered down upon the bright lights of France. The airliner, the last flight of the day – technically yesterday – was heading for Bordeaux, and Jackson was bored. There was nothing to do; nothing, but answer French messages and wait.

“Everything alright back there?” He asked, as the stewardess came back into the cockpit. He felt the shape of his pistol reflexively; after half-a-dozen hijackings the CAA had started insisting on their pilots being armed. “What are they like?”

“Nothing particularly special,” Syeda Begum said. She passed him his cup of coffee; he passed control to his co-pilot and sipped it gratefully. “We’ve got half a dozen businessmen, one army guy from God knows where, a handful of schoolchildren, and a highbrow academic.”

“Someone you should be chatting up,” Jackson said wryly. Her skin darkened; her desires to become more than a simple stewardess were the subject of much glossop. “What’s he like?”

“Very nice, but he has his wife with him,” she said. “A classic mixed-race marriage.”

“Really?” Jackson asked. “Sounds like your sort of person. Anything that looks remotely dangerous?”