“In the plane, father.”
Letting Margaret in the arms of the Queen, King George the Sixth walked down the steps and towards the shuttlecraft, the rear ramp of which faced him. Anthony Eden and Jennifer Collins were emerging from the craft at that time and bowed to him in respect.
“Please, this is no time for formalities. How is Group Captain Townsend?”
“He was partly treated while in the Imperium but the Time Patrol will have to continue the treatment for a few days to finish healing his torture wounds, Your Majesty.”
Answered Eden while pointing at Townsend on his gurney. The King went to his equerry and looked down with concern at the bandages covering him.
“God, what have they done to you, my poor friend?”
“I would rather not give you the details, Your Majesty. They were ready to torture the Princess as well but the King of the Imperium intervened in extremis and took her 616
under his protection. I am afraid though that Brigadier Laplante may be enduring now what I went through.”
Only then did the King realize that Nancy was not aboard the shuttlecraft.
“She stayed behind? Why?”
It was Otto Skorzeni who answered him in a glum voice.
“It was the only way to ensure the safe departure of Princess Margaret and of Group Captain Townsend, Your Majesty. The Imperium is officially holding on to her until we return all the other Imperium prisoners we have. Personally, I believe that they will renege on their word and will try to get vital information out of Nancy, apart of probably preparing an ambush for the return of our shuttlecraft.”
“The bloody bastards!” Said the King in an atypical public outburst of rage. “We must get her back safely. Do you feel that your Time Patrol can snatch her back?”
“We will get her back, Your Majesty.” Replied firmly Otto. “I will now go back to our base to brief my superior on this. We will also bring Herr Townsend with us to complete his medical treatment. You should have him back in top shape in a few days.”
The King then looked at Eden, who nodded his head.
“I agree with the assessment of Agent Skorzeni, Your Majesty. Miss Laplante suspected as well that she was falling into a trap but felt that this was the only way to get the Princess out safely.”
“Dear God!” Said the King, discouraged. “She sacrifices herself for us…again.
When I think that some members of the cabinet still think of her as a traitor. Will there ever be justice done to her name?”
“Your Majesty,” said Eden softly, “after this, nobody will be able to call her a traitor. That is if we can get her out of the Imperium alive.”
“Nancy is not dead yet. She has more than one trick under her hat, Your Majesty.” Replied Skorzeni with conviction. “We will find her and get her back.”
On that, Otto had the British stand clear of the shuttlecraft, then closed the access ramp.
The King was watching the craft fly off when Eden spoke softly to him.
“Your Majesty, there is something you should know about Miss Laplante.”
Eden then told him about the documentary on Yeshua they had viewed in the Imperium royal palace. The King was staring at Eden in disbelief when Margaret, who had approached them with the Queen in tow, added on to the story with juvenile enthusiasm.
“That’s right, Father, and Saint Mary Magdalene is now living with the Time Patrol with the son of Jesus.”
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13:09 (Central Europe Time)
Wednesday, June 27, 3386 ‘A’
Global government headquarters
Zurich, Central Europe
The secretary nodded his head to signify to Boran Kern that the videoconference was set up and all the links had been established. Kern looked briefly around at the 24
live screens on the bank of monitors facing him, then spoke in a clear, strong voice.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the High Council, please excuse the haste with which I called this videoconference but some urgent developments concerning the Time Patrol are necessitating the taking of some important decisions. I will now let Doctor Farah Tolkonen brief us all on the latest news.”
“Thank you, Chief Administrator.” Said politely Farah from her own video link.
She then spent a good ten minutes exposing the situation concerning the Imperium, finishing with a request for the authorization of the High Council to launch a rescue mission to save Nancy Laplante. She had personally thought that the need for such a mission was self-evident, thus she was quite shocked at the storm of protestations and negative reactions from the council members. The most vehement one was Golen Bartok, Global Chief of Security.
“Doctor Tolkonen, you are telling us that Miss Laplante was ready to go to war to protect those three Imperium scientists. Now you want to launch an operation that would be surely considered an act of war by the Imperium? Are you crazy? You are asking us to risk the security, even the sheer survival of our whole society just to protect three persons and save another one.”
“But, isn’t it obvious to you? The Imperium is intent on attacking us anyway as soon as they will know how to find us. Nancy Laplante may be in the process of being tortured right now by the Imperium to extract from her that information. Besides, how many lives are you ready to throw away to appease the Imperium, Mister Bartok? What will the Imperium ask for next time as a price for not attacking us?”
“I warned the council before about not approaching this Imperium for any reason.
Now, look at the mess your Laplante has put us in.”
Farah became livid with anger.
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“We were simply filling our mandate given by this council, which is to protect history from illegal tampering. The Imperium raid on 1942 ‘B’ London was just such an illegal tampering, and of the first magnitude to say the least. We used the minimum force possible to thwart that raid and Nancy risked her life on a diplomatic mission to try resolving peacefully this crisis. Now you would be ready to dump her in order not to take risks yourself? You disgust me, Mister Bartok.”
“Please, let’s keep this debate civil.” Interjected Boran Kern. “Mister Bartok, I agree with Doctor Tolkonen that the Time Patrol filled its mission strictly according to the mandate we gave it.”
“Then let’s change that mandate right now.” Replied Bartok. “The Time Patrol should from now on be confined strictly to the direct defense of the Global Council and should be barred from returning into Imperium space. The chances are that the Imperium will then either ignore us or will not be able to find us.”
To Farah’s anger and disbelief, the majority of the council members voiced their agreement for Bartok’s suggestion. Boran Kern and a mere handful of members tried to sway the others towards supporting the Time Patrol, but were overruled in a snap vote called on the question by Bartok. Boran Kern tried a last plea to change the mind of the council.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have created the Time Patrol to protect us from the effects of illegal manipulations of history. It has done its job superbly up to now, taking risks and facing dangers none of us would be either ready or able to face. Since its creation I have carefully studied the history of humanity and if there is one major lesson that can be arrived at from it, it is that cowering away from a potential aggressor only brings more grief later on. I know that we are a pacifist society but I would urge you to let the professionals of the Time Patrol handle this crisis the best way they see fit.”
“Chief Administrator,” replied Bartok, now feeling more audacious with the support of most of the council members, “you authorized the creation of the Time Patrol!
You supported Miss Laplante even when she made grave errors of judgment. Now you want to risk the survival of the Global Council for her. I suggest that your judgment is greatly clouded when it comes to matters concerning Miss Laplante and the Time Patrol and that you should step down as Global Chief Administrator as a result of your poor judgment.”
“I second the motion for a vote of non-confidence concerning Chief Administrator Kern.” Said Daran Mien, the Global Science and Education Administrator and direct 619
superior of Farah Tolkonen. His heart heavy, Kern had no choice but to conduct the vote called for by Bartok and Mien. His shoulders sagged when he lost the vote by a margin of 16 to 7. According to Global Council constitutional rules, he now had to transfer power in the hands of the Global Vice-Chief Administrator, Tran Ming, until a Global Council-wide election could be conducted. Unfortunately, Tran Ming was one of the council members who had voted for barring the Time Patrol from returning to Imperium space.
“Mister Tran Ming, you are now officially the interim Global Chief Administrator until such time that a public election could be held for the post. The formal exchange of duties will take place tomorrow morning in my Zurich office.”
“Thank you Mister Kern.” Replied Tran, obviously satisfied with himself. He then addressed Farah. “Doctor Tolkonen, I now order you to bar your ships and your members from Imperium space and to organize defensive patrols around the Solar System. Your combat robots are to be put under the direct command of Chief of Security Bartok, who will deploy them as protection around key government and public facilities.”
“What if I refuse to do so?” Replied Farah bitterly.
“Then I will direct our security services to impound the ships of the Time Patrol and to disarm your members. Don’t force me to use our robots to do so, Doctor.”
Tears of rage and disappointment rolling on her cheeks, Farah stared at her video camera.
“Mister Tran, you are ordering me to abandon my best friend, who may be tortured to death right now. That person once saved my life, plus the lives of many other citizens of the Global Council. On top of that, you are taking away some of our best defensive assets, to put them under the control of an incompetent who couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag and who never risked his life to defend anybody else. The decisions of the High Council today will doom the Global Council to an eventual invasion and takeover by the Imperium. I cannot possibly obey such foolish and unjust orders.”
As Tran Ming was left speechless for a moment by Farah’s defiance, Boran Kern activated his computer and opened a secure program protected by a codeword only known by him. That codeword, along with others, was due to be passed on to Tran next morning at the official exchange of authority. Kern had never thought that he would be pushed into doing what he intended to do now, but the stupidity and cowardice of Bartok and of other members of the council left him no choice. Selecting an option in the 620
secure program, he typed in the codeword that would enable it, then pushed the ‘enter’
button after a short hesitation. The command signal took only a second to reach its intended targets, modifying the programming of the command protocols controlling the Time Patrol combat robots. The option he had just enabled had been intended to prevent an invader who would have gained access to Global government command facilities from gaining control of the combat robots. Those robots were now going to obey only members of the Time Patrol. Boran Kern completed his work by entering another codeword and erasing the secure program from the government databanks.
Tran Ming was ranting and raving at Tolkonen when Boran returned his attention to the video screens.
“Doctor Tolkonen… Doctor Tolkonen!”
“Uh, what, Mister Kern?”
“Would you accept me in your Time Patrol?”
His question, asked in a calm voice, surprised Farah.
“Now? We could be about to be shut down by our own robots, Mister Kern.
What would be the point of joining us?”
“That won’t happen, Doctor: I just turned full control of all our combat robots to the Time Patrol. I made that a permanent arrangement. When are we going to get Miss Laplante?”
Joy appeared on Farah’s face, while disbelief showed on the faces of Ming, Bartok and many others.
“Mister Kern, I could kiss your four cheeks. Do you need quick transportation to New Lake City?”
“Yes, but give me an hour to pack and say goodbye to my wife first. I will be at my Zurich home.”
“Mister Kern, what do you think that you are doing?” Shouted Tran Ming, furious.
Kern looked with disdain at the screen showing Ming.
“I’m doing what I hope many citizens of the Global Council will do: show some backbone at last. In all my years of political life, I had not realized how low we had sunk in terms of moral fiber and courage. Gentlemen, in earlier centuries, your cowardice would have earned you a sentence of death by firing squad. Now, I will join the people of the Time Patrol to try to protect all of the Global Council from your own stupidity. If I die, then I will at least have done my part. Goodbye, Mister Ming.”
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Ignoring Ming’s protests, Kern got up from his seat, then switched off the monitors before looking at his technical secretary.
“Please pass the word around, Mister Ganter: those who want to join the Time Patrol in the defense of our society are welcome to go to New Lake City. Technicians and engineers will be especially needed, along with qualified pilots.”
“It will be done, sir.” Said the young man timidly. “Good luck, sir!”
“Thank you, Mister Ganter.”
Kern was about to leave the videoconference room when two men of the security services, the same ones who provided protection to him until now, burst in, stun pistols at the ready.
“Mister Kern, I am sorry about this but we have to arrest you for being accomplice to an act of mutiny against the High Council.”
“Correction, gentlemen: you are the ones who are about to be stopped.”
The two men were confused for a second, until a voice came from behind them.
“Drop the pistols, gentlemen, slowly and gently.”
The two security men looked behind them and saw an ancestor in full body armor pointing a stun pistol at them. Two combat robots stood at the ready besides him, their weapons turrets pointed at them. The security men immediately dropped their pistols, which Kern picked up and slid inside his belt. Bypassing the two men, Kern went to the ancestor, a young German man named Michel Hofmann.
“I must commend your timing, young man. Did you come in a time scooter?”
“I did, sir. I will get you to your home and secure it, so that you can pack up quietly, then will bring you to our base.”
Without warning, Hofmann shot in quick succession both security agents, who fell unconscious on the floor. Kern was a bit shocked by that.
“Why did you do this?”
“So they couldn’t hear what I wanted to tell you and thus alert the High Council.
We are pulling out of this century entirely with all our ships and equipment.”
08:27 (North America Central Time)
Wednesday, June 27, 3386 ‘A’
Time Patrol headquarters
New Lake City University campus
American Great Lakes area
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Boran Kern found Farah Tolkonen ‘A’ in her office, surrounded by a whirlwind of activity. Everybody seemed to be either running around with things, passing or receiving directives or dismantling equipment and packing it prior to moving out. Filling most of the view out of the windows of Farah’s office was the gigantic mass of the heavy time transport ship GILGAMESH, resting on its landing legs on the lawn adjacent to the headquarters building and with its cargo ramps deployed. Anti-gravity platforms and forklifts loaded with pallets of equipment and supplies kept going to and fro the big ship.
On seeing Kern, Farah got up with a big grin and went to him to shake his hand.
“It is a true honor to have you with us, sir. I still can’t thank you enough for releasing the command authority over our combat robots to us.”
“I figured that you would need all the help you could get to face the Imperium, Doctor. Besides, Bartok wouldn’t have a clue on how to use them properly. It would have been a waste of 10,000 perfectly good robots.”
“Quite true. We are loading most of them now on the GILGAMESH, apart from 200 robots who will secure our facilities until we are ready to depart.”
Looking out through the bay windows of Farah’s office, Boran saw something that sent a rush of blood to his brain: advancing in four perfectly lined up columns towards the transport ship were thousands of combat robots, emerging from the hangar where they had been stored. The university students watching from a distance the camouflage-painted war machines had their mouths gaping in awe at the spectacle.
“Now, that is what I call military power.” Said Boran. Farah nodded, somber.
“Let’s hope that we won’t have to use them much: they represent a lot of destructive power, especially the point defense robots.”
“Point defense robots? What are those?”
“Four hundred very mean machines, sir. They were part of the last batch of robots we ordered and you may not have been aware of them. They are much bigger and heavier than our standard combat robots and are meant to protect fixed installations against attacks from warships. You can see some of them now emerging from their hangar.”
Boran Kern had no difficulty spotting them at the end of the columns of robots: they nearly were the size of a heavy truck and sported armored turrets with very long gun barrels.
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“The point defense robots, or PDRs in short, weigh 38 tons and move on twelve large wheels but can fly and jump spacetime, like our other robots. Their main armament is a four-barreled hypervelocity rail gun that shoots 20mm high-density shells at muzzle velocities of five kilometers per second. With that kind of kinetic energy, the shells will rip clean through any ship. Added to their rail gun is a missile launcher with eight ready-to-fire missiles, plus four small close-in defense turrets with machine guns and grenade launchers. There is also a 150 megawatts pulsed laser and protective shields. We will keep twenty PDRs deployed around our installations until our departure, in case the Imperium shows up.”
“Damn! All this weaponry scares me.”
“Welcome to war, sir. By the way, isn’t your wife Tomi coming with you?”
Boran shook his head sadly.
“No! She decided to stay here and try to repair the political mess created by the High Council. She is hoping to eventually reverse the decision of the High Council, maybe through public opinion. I will miss her, though.”
Boran quickly went over his bout of nostalgia and looked back at Farah.
“What do we do next? Can I help in any way?”
“Once packed up and ready to go, we will leave for our new secret base in the distant past, while a small expedition will precede us and go to 1982 ‘B’ Montreal. As for helping, you could help support the morale of our members’ families, who are finding themselves about to be exiled in time. If you could help them organize for departure and do things like escorting them into town, so that they could withdraw funds from their bank accounts and do some ultimate shopping for essential personal items of hygiene, it would be appreciated, especially since you are so well armed.”
Boran looked down at the two stun pistols still slipped inside his belt and smiled.
“I guess that I was asking for that. Uh, why are you sending people to 1982 ‘B’
Montreal?”
“We have a baby to save.” Said Farah, dead serious.
08:13 (Montreal Time)
Monday, June 14, 1982 ‘B’
Maternity wing, Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital
Montreal, Province of Quebec
Canada
624
Constable Edouard Bertrand, of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, didn’t pay much attention to the young nurse who entered the nursery he was watching discreetly from a chair in a corner of the hallway. The coming and going of nurses and doctors was constant around here and he was looking more for any suspicious-looking visitor to the nursery, especially fit men between the ages of twenty and forty. He was one of four undercover federal policemen keeping watch over a day-old baby that may or may not one day change history in a big way in 1940. Few people actually realized who little Nancy Laplante was, but the British government had been worried enough about her to ask the Canadian government to provide discreet protection to the infant and its parents.
Another young nurse soon showed up, leading Pierre Laplante, Nancy’s father.
Both entered the nursery, where the previous nurse was conversing with Suzan Laplante, who was breast-feeding her little Nancy. Bertrand then became suspicious when the conversation between the nurse and Nancy’s parents, while still kept in a low voice because of the babies sleeping in the nursery, became somewhat agitated. He was rising from his chair when three big men emerged from a nearby elevator, flower boxes in their arms. An alarm bell immediately rang in Bertrand’s mind: the men had hard expressions and their suits were clean and well pressed, contrary to the customarily shoddy looks of the mostly haggard and tired fathers that normally visited the nursery. Then things happened too quickly for Bertrand to think. As one, the three men opened their flower boxes and took out of them three pump-action shotguns.
Bertrand was reaching for his holstered revolver when one of the men fired once at him, peppering his lower torso with pellets and projecting him backward against the wall.
Dazed by pain and shock, Bertrand slid down to the floor as the three men repeatedly fired their shotguns at the other undercover policemen and at anybody who was in their way. With a supreme effort, he took out his revolver and fired once, hitting one of the attackers in the left leg. A second shotgun blast then hit Bertrand. He didn’t see the two nurses disappear with the Laplantes in flashes of white light before he died.
09:08 (GMT)
Wednesday, June 27, 3386 ‘B’
Scoutship TEEN TEAM
London, Imperium
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Ingrid Weiss made her scoutship emerge under cloak about half a kilometer from the Imperium royal palace, flying at low altitude. As soon as the palace was in sight, Tom Allen, sitting forward and down from Ingrid’s pilot seat in his gunner’s seat, directed a long-range camera towards the palace roof landing pad. The shuttlecraft with Princess Margaret on board had disappeared just one minute ago and Nancy should still be on the roof with King Stan. The TEEN TEAM had actually left New Lake City a good hour after the return of Amelia’s shuttlecraft but had jumped to this precise moment with the hope of picking up Nancy before anything bad could happen to her. Otto Skorzeni, Klaus Manheim, Jack Crawford and George Townsend, sitting in the four observer seats besides and behind the pilot’s seat, watched their video screens anxiously as the camera zoomed on the palace roof.
“There she is!” Shouted Tom Allen, making Ingrid’s heart jump in her chest. “I knew it! Those Imperium bastards have just put her under arrest.”
“Are you recording all this, Tom?”
“Yes, Ingrid. I even have sound from the directional microphone coupled to our camera. I’m putting the audio on loudspeaker.”
They then listened and watched as General Veck taunted Nancy, only to be killed by her. A concert of cheers greeted that scene. What followed happened so quickly that they did not have the time to react before Nancy disappeared into thin air. Otto slammed his fist on his armrest in frustration.
“She went into phase shift. How the hell are we supposed to find or contact her now?”
“She will have to return to normal time soon enough, Otto.” Replied Jack Crawford. ‘’I suggest in the meantime that we send a cloaked probe to follow King Stan inside the palace in the meantime. What he will say and do in the next few hours could be of crucial importance to us. I will set it to record for the next twenty hours and then send the data on a compressed, encrypted burst transmission after it jumps to a remote location.”
“Good idea, Jack.” Said Ingrid approvingly. “Tom, send another cloaked probe on a programmed search for Nancy in and around the palace.”
“Consider it done, Ingrid.”
It took a minute or so for Tom to program his probe and send it on its way. By then King Stan was heading inside the palace with his bodyguards and his guards commander.
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The two cloaked probes followed close to the king, gaining access to the inside of the palace and then splitting up, with one probe staying with King Stan and the other starting a methodical, floor-by-floor search for Nancy. It would complete and then repeat the search cycle for an hour before jumping back outside to report. The crew and passengers of the TEEN TEAM could now only wait nervously for either the results or a sign from Nancy. To their collective relief and joy, the voice of Nancy came in on the radio half an hour later, speaking in Hebrew.
“Any Time Patrol ship, this is the bitch! I will be at my first ever reemergence point for the next ten minutes. Do not acknowledge and proceed to pickup point, out!”
After the first cheers, Otto looked questioningly at Ingrid.
“What would be that so-called first ever reemergence point, Ingrid?”
Ingrid only had to think for a few seconds before smiling to herself.
“That could only be the spot near Northolt where she was abandoned with her car in September 1940 after being kidnapped near her Manitou Lake cottage in 2012. I know those coordinates nearly by memory.”
Punching in frantically the said coordinates on her control panel, Ingrid then grabbed her flight controls and put her i