Timeshadow 05

"Still picking up multiple alpha search radars," WEPs said. "Closest is two seven seven degrees and twelve miles."

"Got it – fuck!" She tried to slip back down into the trees as a blinding wave of snow hit, and grimaced when she heard WEPs blowing beets behind her. 'God, I hate that smell...'

"I'm getting some heavy ice back here," Higgins radioed. "Not sure I'm gonna make it."

"Bearing and distance!" Aronson yelled.

"From the Mission...I got zero eight five degrees and four miles."

"Okay, got it; I have the compound in sight...must be six inches...on the ground...already."

"No way we're buggin' out in this weather," Chavez said. "Ground, can you turn on some strobes...I can't see squat!"

McKaig hit the switch, turned on the perimeter strobes she'd just hastily set out.

'Damn, I'm going to have to think about giving Patty a squad of her own,' Aronson thought as she clinched her teeth, and as struggled to turn her Apache into the wind.

"Gusts over seventy, repeat seven zero knots on the ground, out of the north," McKaig said. "We've got tie-downs ready."

And fire extinguishers, Aronson didn't have to say. Feet working the pedals, hands on stick and power, she fought the wind and got her bird on the ground – then shut everything down as fast as she could. "Outside air temp at 10F," she said, warning WEPs to get ready for a blast of arctic air when she opened the canopy... "You okay back there?"

"Peachy...but I'm covered in garp."

"Yeah, I know. Smells just dandy."

"Sorry."

"Look, when we get out, check the tie-downs then go for the compound. Our tents won't stand up to this shit for very long." She saw Chavez's strobes, watched as he turned into the wind, McKaig's ground crew standing well away as he struggled to get his Apache back on the ground.

"Lead, three," Higgins said. "I think I see some strobes..."

"Three, we're down, gusts are down a little but O-A-T is ten foxtrot."

"Okay, that's it. I'm setting her down...looks like I've got over an inch on the blades... call it less than a half mile to your strobes."

"Okay, we'll come for you."

"Right. I've got two alpha searches now showing less than five miles out."

"They're moving in," WEPs said.

"Yeah. We may have to engage in this shit."

"That'll be woopy-doo."

"Bring a barf bag, wouldya?"

"Yo."

"You ready?" Aronson said, her hand on the canopy lever.

"As I'll ever be..."

"Okay, here goes..."

The wind caught the side-opening canopy and nearly ripped it out of her hand; somehow she held on but the motion pulled her right out of the cockpit...and she felt her flight suit ripping, then metal biting into her left hip and thigh. She was aware she was screaming as she tumbled to the ground, then she felt hands under her shoulders – lifting her up, carrying her to the Mission, then she felt a needle in her thigh – and the warm rush that followed felt odd – Like she felt sleep coming on fast – just as a particularly violent gust shook the old cathedral – and just as a Russian colonel pushed his way through the main doors, pistol drawn, looking seriously pissed off.

+++++

"And who are you," the woman said.

"Sandusky, Jacob, Captain, United States Navy, serial number..."

"Whoa there, Roger Ramjet. Let's keep this on a first name basis, okay?"

"Okay, so who are you?"

"Pat."

"Pat? Got a last name, Pat?"

"Probably doesn't matter. How'd you get here?"

"You don't know?"

"Me? Hell no. I got here, oh, I don't know, feels like several hours ago."

"From?"

"New York City. My apartment."

"No shit?"

"No, I haven't shit since I got here," she said, smiling. "But I'm hungry. What passes for food around here isn't worth talking about. Recycled sewage, I think, if I understood our friend there correctly."

"I have a granola bar?"

"Hey, Sandusky, you're my new best friend. Mind sharing?"

He took the bar from the pocket over his right thigh. "Probably warm, a little mushy."

"I could care less," she said, catching it when he tossed it to her.

"It's all yours," he said.

"I take it back. I wanna have your children..." she said, tearing the wrapper with her teeth.

He nodded. "Glad to hear it."

The companion walked into the room, into the light: 'Do you know each other?'

"No," Pat said. "But give us an hour and – who knows...?"

Sandusky smiled.

'You act like mates.'

"Well, Pierre, if you'd given me real food, who knows? Better luck next time..."

'I don't understand.'

"Neither do I," Sandusky said, enjoying 'Pierre's' confusion.

'If you do not know each other, I will return you to your ship.'

"Why?" she asked. "We haven't mated yet."

This seemed to seriously confuse 'Pierre'...

'But you do not know him. Why would you mate?'

"You can't tell?" she said, looking perplexed.

"Seems obvious to me," Sandusky said. "You sure you can't see it?"

'No. I can not.' 'Pierre' looked around, saw he was alone in the room and moved to leave.

She held up her hand, just one finger, until the door closed behind 'Pierre' – then she began talking, rapidly: "My name is Patricia Hahnemann, I teach physics at Columbia, my area of expertise is fusion research, reactors mainly, but I work at Los Alamos when I'm not in New York. They've been questioning me about my work, it's like they want to know how far along I am with Axion transience and Dark Matter permeability. You got that?"

"I got it, but what am I supposed to do with it?"

"When you get back..."

"Patricia, early yesterday, like in 2036, I was flying from the Teddy Roosevelt to Hawaii. Yesterday evening I landed at Hickam field, and it was December 6th, 1941. This morning my squadron repulsed the Japanese attack, the December 7th '41 attack. Now I'm here. I got zero clue where or when I'm going to be when, or if, they cut me loose."

"You what? The Japanese?"

"You heard me. These people, if that's indeed what they are, seem to want to manipulate history."

"T permeability versus invariability...of course!"

"Whatever the hell that means."

"Do you know anything about quantum mechanics...?"

"I can spell it. I think."

"Don't tell me. You're a pilot," she said through a deep grin.

He grinned too. "You wanna go – mate? I think we've got time..."

"Let me guess. A fighter pilot."

"Bingo!"

"Got it, Stud. Well, anyway, once upon a time someone discovered that when k mesons decay – when exposed to certain types of magnetic fields, T invariance begins to act strangely, time breaks down and k mesons can move around in time. I've seen them make those spheres, those blue spheres, and I think they do it by manipulating k mesons...by altering subatomic orbits with a field-generator. The trick I don't quite understand yet is, well, they can do it to this ship, too. That's got me stumped."

"Does, eh? Well, you had me at 'once upon a time.'"

"I'm sorry," she grinned, "it's just that I don't understand why they brought you here."

"Uh, he didn't bring me. We sort of ran into one another."

"Ah. Lucky you."

"He lost interest in me when he found out we don't know one another, though. That means he's..."

"...looking for someone. Someone important, probably to me."

"Or your work. Have you been working on something new. I mean, recently?"

She dropped off, lost in a thought, pondering the... "Todd Parks..." she whispered.

"Who?"

"Not who, really. More like what? A solar astronomer, a friend of my sister's, his name is Parks. He recently discovered, or rediscovered, really, what was, back in 2003 anyway, something they called the 'Death Star' – it's a huge white body that has periodically orbited the sun – several times over the last forty years or so. It appears to siphon off energy as it orbits the sun, then it disappears..."

"There's a ship, a white ship maybe fifty miles away. It looks big, and I saw it siphoning something out of our atmosphere..."

"What!" She turned, saw 'Pierre' was in the room, looking at them... "How long have you been listening?" she asked the companion.

'We are leaving this...shadow...now, and need to know what 'he' wants to do,' the companion said, ignoring her question while pointing at Sandusky.

"What do you mean, what do I want to do?" Sandusky said.

"We can leave you in this shadow, or take you to the next. This must be your choice. We will not interfere any further than we have already."

"Shadow?" Sandusky asked, confused.

"I think he means something like a destination in time," Hahnemann added.

'Correct,' the companion 'said', evasively.

"Are you married, or a lesbian?" Sandusky asked Hahnemann.

"What? No..."

"Well then, I'm staying here," he said to the companion, a wide grin on his face.

+++++

Courville watched in awe as the shuttle backed Two-nine Bravo into what looked like the hanger deck of an immense aircraft carrier; without touching down the shuttle rotated inside the bay, leaving the B-2 almost right at the edge – by the bay door – which was already closing. He thought about lowering the landing gears, wondered what the gravity inside the hanger was like, but all ship's systems were still down. He heard pumps and jacks working below, felt a jolt as something gently nudged the aircraft 'up' a few inches, then a door opened across the bay and men started walking out.

Men in uniform.

Men in United States Navy uniforms.

"That figures," Sinclair said, looking at the men below. "Navy always gets the best hardware."

"Goddamnit all to hell," Courville said, "I don't give a flyin' fuck who's down there, as long as someone can tell me what the fuck's going on." He was taking his helmet off, then his nomex gloves and safety harnesses when he saw a white haired man coming out one of the doorways; men stopped and saluted as the man walked out towards the B-2...then Courville gasped when he saw the next 'man' coming out the doorway. He – it – looked like every science fiction movie's version of an alien – tall, dark gray, triangular-shaped head, huge, black almond shaped eyes – except this 'alien' was twice the height of the white haired man, and he was following along at a much slower pace, like it was an effort for 'it' to walk.

The white haired man walked up to the B-2 and looked up into the cockpit, then waved, motioned Courville to come down.

Courville looked at Sinclair. "Well Alice, wanna go see what's down this rabbit hole?"

"No sir, not really."

"Okay. I'll go down, you lock the hatch behind me."

"Sir, should I try and arm one of the warheads?"

He looked at her and thought for a moment. "You'd have to do a manual detonation. Not sure I want to go there yet, Eve."

"Sir?"

"What?"

"You just called me by my first name. I don't think you've never done that before."

"Well, this is my first alien spaceship today, Captain. I'm feeling, generally speaking, pretty fuckin' weird right now, okay?"

"Yessir." He made his way down into the tunnel to the hatch just aft of the nose gear, hit the manual safety then the main lever and the hatch swung down. Cool air flooded the cabin as the ladder automatically deployed and slid down to the deck, hitting with a solid metal on metal clunk, and he started down the ladder – wondering why he hadn't strapped his Walther on his belt.

He felt heavy, very heavy, and it took real effort to simply pick up his foot and move it once he was on the deck...

"You get used to it," the white haired man said as he walked over. Courville saw the four stars of a Navy admiral on the man's collar and snapped off a crisp salute – which the man returned – and then the man held out his hand. "And who would you be?"

"Tom, uh, Colonel Tom Courville, sir."

"That a French name, isn't it?"

"Yessir."

"Well, nice to meet you, Tom. My name's Chester. Chester Nimitz. I'm from Texas, but don't hold that against me, okay?"

"Sir?" Courville said, growing more confused by the second – then pointing at the alien struggling up behind the admiral. "What's that?"

Nimitz turned around: "Cary! You shouldn't be out here. The gravity will..."

"Nonsense, my boy," 'Cary' said, and Courville was flummoxed – because this twelve foot tall alien sounded just like – Cary Grant.

Nimitz leaned over and whispered in Courville's ear "His favorite movie is that Philadelphia Story thing with Grant and Hepburn. Son of a bitch cries every time, too."

"I know the feeling, sir."

"Well, we're at 'battle stations' right now, and we're going to have to make a jump. Anyone else up there in that crate?"

"Yessir."

"Well, get 'em out of there. We'll probably have to dump this thing overboard before we jump."

"Sir? No! This aircraft is worth more than a billion dollars!"

Nimitz look at the B-2 again. "No kidding? Well, maybe we can get it tied down fast enough." Cary Grant leaned over and whispered in Nimitz's ear. "Say. What about those bombs?" Nimitz said. "You have four on board, correct? Will they detonate when exposed to heavy acceleration or fluxing Dark Matter?"

"Acceleration? No sir. Dark Matter? I doubt anyone knows the answer to that one, sir."

"Oh well," Nimitz said, hands crossed behind his hips, "I guess if they go off we'll be the first to know."

Cary Grant looked beside himself.

Nimitz looked very pleased with himself.

Courville was very sorry he'd gotten out of bed that morning – as he turned to get Eve Sinclair. For the first time in a long time he allowed himself to think just how much he depended on her, how much he liked her, then he turned around and looked at a twelve foot tall alien talking to an admiral who'd been dead for damn near three quarters of a century.

(C)2016 Adrian Leverkühn | ABW