“You have planned this whole thing very well, miss. I see that your reputation while working with the British higher staff in London was well deserved. As tempting as going back to the States for rest and recuperation is, however, I would prefer to stay in Manila with my Filipino troops until I can properly hand over my command to General MacArthur when he will return.”
Nancy smiled at those words.
“General, I was expecting that from you, so I had a few things prepared as a consequence. They will be handed to you once on the ship. I will not be going with you, though: I have other trouble spots to take care of. Have a good trip, General.”
“Thank you, miss.” Replied Wainwright, shaking her hand. They then exchanged a salute before Nancy returned to the TEEN TEAM, where the empty pallets had been put back in and the team of women was now waiting inside the cargo hold.
Wainwright watched her get in the scoutship, which then closed its rear ramp and took off, disappearing in the night sky. The general then turned to face his troops.
“ALRIGHT, MEN! FORM UP IN THREE RANKS, WITH THE OFFICERS AND
NCOs ALONGSIDE, THEN WE WILL MARCH INTO THAT SHIP IN MILITARY
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FASHION! AFTER A SHORT STOP IN MANILA, YOU WILL THEN FLY TO ALAMEDA NAVAL AIR STATION, NEAR SAN FRANCISCO, FOR A WELL-DESERVED PERIOD
OF REST AND RECUPERATION.”
Wild cheers greeted his words. Their spirits now high, the soldiers quickly organized themselves into marching columns, their NCOs barking orders and directives when some were too slow in finding a place in the ranks. After five minutes, satisfied that his troops were grouped properly, Wainwright and his top staff officers took place at the head of the long procession.
“TROOPS,
FORWARD…MARCH!”
The 11,632 men then started walking in cadence towards the GILGAMESH.
Major General Edward King, wearing a dirty and tattered tropical uniform, was waiting with a young woman of the Time Patrol inside the cavernous cargo hold of the ship. Wainwright, passing first the command of his column to his chief of staff, then broke away from the ranks and went to his subordinate, who had commanded his army forces in Bataan until its surrender to the Japanese. King saluted Wainwright when he stopped in front of him, then shook hands with him.
“Sir, it is a real pleasure to see you alive and well.”
“I’m alive but I was not really well until less than an hour ago, Ed. How did your men fare after the surrender?”
King’s face clouded with sorrow as he remembered the horrors he and his men had gone through.
“Not well at all, sir. Those Japanese bastards made us march over 85 miles without any food or water, then put us in a camp with only two water faucets for over 60,000 men, no sanitary facilities and little food. We lost an average of at least 500 men a day, the majority of them Filipinos, from diseases and starvation. The Japanese also kept beating us and killed our men under any kind of excuse they could find. According to our saviors, they counted a bit over 42,600 survivors as we marched inside this ship.
In total, I lost over 2,000 American and 28,000 Filipino troops between the day of our surrender and today, sir.”
Wainwright lowered his head, devastated by these news.
“My God! So many good men, gone. Ed, I have decided to stay in Manila with our Filipino troops until General MacArthur can come and do a proper takeover of my command. You will escort our survivors to the States and make damn sure that they get 818
the best treatment possible. As their commander, I am authorizing all our men and women a month-long leave of rest and recuperation. Don’t let any paper-pushing asshole in the States delay or shorten the leave for our people, Ed.”
“You can count on me, sir.”
The young woman in the gray Time Patrol uniform then politely cut in on their conversation.
“Excuse me, General, but I am to bring you to a cabin where you will be able to wash up and change. Since our trip to Manila will be very short, we have to hurry.”
“Alright then, lead on, miss.”
The trip to a small but luxurious private cabin on an upper deck took a good ten minutes, so big was the ship. The woman explained first to him the functioning of the shower and of the toilet in the bathroom attached to the cabin, then went outside in the hallway to wait for Wainwright. The general eagerly jumped in the shower and enjoyed the hot water spray for a few minutes, rinsing away the accumulated crust of dirt and perspiration on his body before soaping up and rinsing again. Feeling like a new man, he stepped out of the shower and toweled himself dry. He found a razor and a can of shaving cream by the side of the sink. He hesitated only for a second before deciding to take the time to shave. Once that was done, Wainwright went to the bedroom, where he had seen clothes laid on the bed. To his pleased surprise, he found there a standard American Army combat uniform to his size, complete with boots, underwear and cap.
There were even three stars on the collar of the shirt. A web belt supporting a holstered Colt .45 pistol was also laid on the bed. A small canvas backpack besides the bed contained two spare uniforms, some underwear and articles of personal hygiene. His morale quite high now, the general soon walked out of the cabin to join up with the Time Patrol woman, who smiled in approval while looking up and down at him.
“Much better, sir. Commanders should always look at their best.”
“Well said, miss. Thank Miss Laplante on my part when you see her next time.”
“It will be done, sir. This way, please.”
As they were in an elevator headed down to the main cargo holds level, a noise accompanied by a slight shock attracted a question from Wainwright.
“Hey! What was that, miss?”
“We just landed in Manila, sir. We are now straddling the old sports field of the Santo Tomas University, which had been turned by the Japanese into an internment 819
camp for civilians. We will pick up over 3,600 American civilians and a few navy and army nurses there, unload your Filipino troops and you, then head towards California.”
“Could I ask you to delay the disembarking for a few minutes, to give me a chance to speak to my Filipino officers first?”
“Why not?” Replied the woman, who then used her helmet-mounted radio to speak in an unknown language with someone. Wainwright couldn’t help examine in detail her uniform in the meantime, noting in particular her nametag: Eva Dittmar. That and her accent probably made her a German, but he was not going to be alarmed by that, not after what she and her comrades had done tonight. The doors of the elevator soon opened, revealing the inside of a huge cargo hold full of soldiers sitting or standing around. Looking around him as he walked out of the elevator, he soon spotted Major General King, who was conferring with some of his senior officers. He quickly walked to his group, prompting them into coming to attention and saluting.
“At ease, gentlemen! General King, I want to speak to our Filipino army officers, now!”
“Yes,
sir!”
King in turn ordered his officers to assemble the Filipino officers, making them run away in all directions while shouting orders. King used the time he was alone with Wainwright to speak to him in a low voice.
“Sir, the Time Patrol trooper who freed us said that Nancy Laplante was the point of origin of that wave of light that miraculously healed all of us. Is that really true, sir?”
“It seems so, Ed. I didn’t see it myself but others in Cabanatuan did. Laplante herself said that she produced that wall of light. Frankly, I can think of only one who could do what she did: God! It does seem that Laplante is in high favor with Him right now, whether Washington likes it or not.”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“What I mean is that Laplante herself confided to me that there are serious differences between herself and President Roosevelt concerning international policies in the post-war world. She also said that, while directing operations against Japan from Hawaii, racially motivated incidents made her abandon Pearl Harbor as a base of operation. Basically, she objects violently to the United States laws concerning racial segregation and the treatment of Asian immigrants.”
820
“She may think what she wants about our segregation laws, sir, but it is none of her business, since she is not an American.” Replied King. That drew a dubious look from his superior.
“Maybe, Ed, but can we afford to ignore her? She and her organization are turning this war upside down in a matter of days, while she personally holds powers that I would qualify as quasi-divine.”
King didn’t reply to that, obviously shaken by his arguments. The Filipino officers were starting to assemble around them anyway and they were out of time. Wainwright took two minutes to brief the native officers about what he wanted done in Manila, then sent them back to their men. The nearly 38,000 Filipino soldiers in the holds then formed up in massive columns, Wainwright at their head, as the giant access ramp of the hold lowered to the ground. The lights from the ship revealed a crowd of civilians waiting some distance from the ramp, guarded by dozens of the combat machines of the Time Patrol. Led by Wainwright, the Filipino soldiers walked down the ramp, bringing wild cheers from the civilians. A lone man in the gray uniform and body armor of the Time Patrol was waiting for Wainwright at the foot of the ramp and came to him as soon as the Filipino troops had a chance to disperse around the large campus of Santo Tomas University, searching for Japanese weapons and equipment to commandeer. The man was a tall, lean British named William Anderson who sported a small blond moustache and spoke with an unmistakable British accent.
“Good morning, General! If I may bring you up to date on the situation in Manila, I can tell you that all the Japanese within three kilometers from this campus are already dead. I have 1,200 combat robots doing an expanding, all-azimuth sweep of the city and the rest of the Japanese still alive should be dead in a couple of hours. All the strategic points and known Japanese installations have already been either taken or destroyed, including the Japanese High Headquarters for the Philippines. By the way, we found this in the files taken from the Japanese.”
Wainwright took the official-looking document written in Japanese as Anderson went on.
“This is a directive from the Japanese Army Grand Headquarters in Tokyo to all of its units, both inside and outside Japan. It directs all local Japanese commanders to exterminate all the Allied prisoners in their custody, both military and civilian, if enemy forces are either about to invade their zones of responsibility or about to invade Japan itself. The footnote at the bottom of the page was signed by General Homma, commander of the Japanese forces in the Philippines, and says that the order is to 821
receive the widest distribution possible. You may keep this copy for your own use, General.”
“The bastards!” Raged Wainwright, the Japanese order still in his hands. “And where is General Homma now, Mister Anderson?”
“Dead, sir, along with the rest of his staff. They never had a chance to warn Tokyo that we were attacking them. Before the end of this day, our robots should have completed a full sweep of the Philippines and killed all the Japanese soldiers still alive on the islands. We will then advise you when the job is finished. Where do you intend to set up your command post, General?”
“Right here, in this campus. My Filipino soldiers will help you sweep the city and ensure that no Japanese can hide. After learning about this Japanese order, I doubt that we ourselves will take any prisoners.”
“An understandable reaction, sir. By the way, you may want those to keep contact with us and with Pearl Harbor.”
Anderson then presented him with two radio transceivers, one small enough to fit in a large pocket, the other a heavier one meant to be worn like a backpack.
“The small one is already tuned to our operational frequency. The bigger one is a powerful HF/SF transceiver that can reach all around the world. The main frequencies presently in use by the U.S. Pacific Fleet are written on that tag attached to the handset.
Both radios use isotopic batteries that will last over twenty years. We will recuperate both radios after you can effect a linkup with American forces, not because we are cheap but rather because these radios represent very advanced technology. By the way, saying that you lost them won’t work: they have internal radio beacons.”
Wainwright looked at Anderson with amusement.
“You Time Patrol types always think of everything, it seems.”
“We do try, General.” Replied proudly the field agent.
13:17 (San Francisco Time)
Monday, June 1, 1942 ‘B’/Tuesday, June 2 in Philippines
Alameda Naval Air Station, Oakland
California
Voran Tess, commander of the GILGAMESH, felt relieved when the last of his American passengers was safely off his ship and the access ramps closed back: the 822
welcome from the local base authorities had been polite but cold, probably reflecting the attitude of Washington towards the Time Patrol. The European and Australian passengers left aboard would probably bring him warmer welcomes at his next stops.
Still, posting anti-aircraft guns and pointing them at his ship had not been a gesture he had appreciated much. Even General King had found that quite stupid and had blasted verbally the base commander, forcing the latter into withdrawing the guns. For Voran and his crew, who had been warmly thanked by the camp survivors as they left the ship, the attitude of the local authorities had been a bitter disappointment. With that still in mind, Voran turned his command chair to look at his pilot, Alan Mishtar.
“Let’s take off now, Alan. Our next stop will be Northolt, where we will drop off our British passengers. Helena, warn Northolt that we are about to arrive, so that the British can be ready to process those poor souls in the cargo hold.”
“Yes, Voran!” Replied the young German blonde, who was the assistant sensors and weapons officer of the ship. As she was contacting Northolt, Voran rubbed his tired eyes and shifted his body in his command chair: he had been up and at his station for over sixteen hours now. The rest of his crew was also getting tired by the high operational tempo of the latest days.
“Helena, on second thought, tell Northolt that, after dropping all of our passengers off, we will go to 60,000 B.C.E. to take a good rest period.”
“Got that!” Said Helena, pleased by his decision. She was dog-tired and really could use some sleep. One way to catch up on one’s sleep without delaying the present operations was to go back in the distant past, park the ship in Earth orbit and put the autopilot on before going to bed. Once you had slept all that you needed, you simply jumped back to five minutes past the time of your first jump and resumed operations.
For their two last trips, to Amsterdam in Holland and Melbourne in Australia, they didn’t even bother retracting and deploying again the landing legs, instead rising high enough from their latest landing spot to perform a spacetime jump to the next destination and landing again. This way, they had their last passengers disembark less than an hour after leaving Alameda Naval Air Station and were soon on their way to a parking orbit in 60,000 B.C.E.. Once in the planned orbit, Voran made a last ship-wide systems check, then spoke in the ship’s intercom.
“Attention all hands! Secure from duty stations and go for a twelve hour rest period. We will resume operations then. Have a good sleep!”
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Getting up slowly from his command chair, he rubbed his tired back and went to his cabin, situated on the same level than the bridge. The other bridge crewmembers soon followed suit.
Voran woke up with a startle seven hours later, still feeling tired. The insisting voice of the main computer then made him wake up fully very fast.
“Alert! Intruder on the bridge! Alert! Intruder on the bridge!”
Getting out of bed in a hurry, he switched on his videophone, which could also connect with the main computer.
“This is Voran Tess. Show me the intruder!”
The main computer then switched his videophone screen to the view given by one of the security cameras on the bridge. Voran now could see a young woman in a dirty T-shirt and tropical shorts bending over the pilot’s station, studying the controls. Her black hair, cut at the neck, was disheveled and dirty. Voran sighed in both relief and annoyance: at least the intruder was not an armed Imperium soldier, in which case their situation would have been very bad indeed. On the other hand, having a clandestine passenger was not something to please him. Eva Dittmar, the ship’s security officer, was going to blow a fuse on this. Voran called Eva next, finding that the German was already up and armed with a stun pistol, even though she was only wearing her underwear.
“Eva, take the time to dress properly. I don’t think that our visitor means any harm. The controls will refuse any command from her anyway. I will meet you outside the bridge in five minutes.”
Dressing quickly, Voran took a stun pistol as well before leaving his cabin. Eva Dittmar was already at the main entrance to the bridge when he arrived there and looked at him.
“She has done nothing but look at the various stations. She seems to be quite a curious woman, but she also is showing no apparent fear. I would rate her as a cool customer. She must have come aboard during our stop in Manila, then probably hid in some storage room.”
“We will know soon enough, Eva. Let’s go in!”
Pistols at the ready, they ran inside as soon as the door slid open. Crossing the footbridge leading to the bridge control platforms, set in the center of a large holographic sphere, they then ran up the stairs to the command platform, where the intruder was.
The stranger heard them coming and raised her hands as soon as she saw their pistols, shouting in English.
824
“Don’t shoot! I have no hostile intentions.”
Eva approached her cautiously, her pistol still pointed, and performed a quick search on her, finding no weapon in the process.
“Alright, miss, who are you?”
“My name is Sally Nolan. I was a prisoner in the Santo Tomas internment camp.
Before the Japanese invasion, I was working for a Texan mining company doing prospective work in the Philippines.”
“Why did you stay on board this ship instead of disembarking at Alameda?”
“Because I want to stay with you guys.” Said forcefully Nolan. “Can you imagine how exciting it could be for a girl like me to be part of your Time Patrol? I have been constantly treated before like a tomboy who wouldn’t stay in her proper place, even though I could drive and operate heavy machinery better than most of these beer-guzzling loudmouths. Then, I saw you guys, commanded by Nancy Laplante and apparently treating your women on an equal footing with men. How could I not stay on this ship?”
Eva and Voran exchanged a quick glance, then lowered their pistols. Voran spoke this time.
“You said that you can operate heavy equipment, miss. Are you good at mechanical repair as well?”
“Hell, will a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Houston be enough for you? Even with that, the most those macho morons would let me do is drive a bulldozer or a heavy truck. Now, can I put my hands down?”
“You can, Miss Nolan. By the way, I am Voran Tess, captain of this ship. This is Eva Dittmar, my weapons and security officer.”
“Cool!” Said Nolan happily while shaking Eva’s hand after that of Voran. “Does that mean that I am in?”
Voran smiled at Sally’s audacity. Nancy Laplante was definitely going to like that Texan woman.
“Only Nancy Laplante can approve your candidacy, miss, but I would say that the odds are in your favor. Do you need anything for the moment? Are you hungry?”
“I could use a good shower and a meal, if that is possible.” Said Nolan, her voice now reflecting her fatigue. Voran nodded his head and looked at Eva.
825
“Eva, could I ask you to escort Miss Nolan to a private cabin and see to her needs? Have her fitted with an apprentice uniform and make her pass a session of mnemotronic chair to teach her Neo-English, French, German, Russian and Spanish.”
“I already speak Spanish, guys.” Said Nolan quickly. “What is a mnemotronic chair?”
“A device that let’s you learn very quickly through direct transfer of knowledge to the brain. You will be able to learn those four new languages in less than an hour.”
“Wow! I can’t wait to see that. What do we do after that?”
“We will resume our operations. Our next priority task is to go pick up Australian prisoners in Rabaul, on the island of New Britain just north of Australia.”
“Rabaul? Isn’t that a main Japanese naval base?”
“It is.” Answered Eva. “Right now there is a hell of a battle going on there.”
O5:46 (Melbourne Time)
Kokopo catholic mission, near Rabaul
Island of New Britain, Solomon Islands
Southwest Pacific
“My God! I don’t know who is attacking the Japanese, but this sounds like one hell of a fight.” Said Australian nursing sister Mavis Cullen as she listened to the noise of the intense firefight coming from the Japanese naval base in Rabaul. Her comrade, nursing sister Eileen Callahan, standing like her outside the convent of the Kokopo catholic mission, nodded in agreement.
“It certainly is. It has been going on for over half a hour now. Do you think that the strange flying ships we saw a few days ago are involved again?”
“They must be, since the last time we saw one was when it sank all the ships in the harbor.”
Kathleen Parker, the matron in charge of their group of six nursing sisters, then stuck her head out of the door of the convent.
“Girls, you better come inside. The last time the Japanese got clobbered, it took all of the bishop’s influence to stop them from taking us away and throwing us in the prisoners camp with our unfortunate soldiers.”
“She is right, Mavis. Let’s go inside.”
826
They were about to walk inside the convent when a huge ship flew overhead at low altitude, spitting condensed streams of canon shells from a number of gun turrets at the Japanese base. The two nursing sisters watched with awe the behemoth pass over them, then ran inside.
“Did you see that thing, Kay?” Exclaimed Mavis. “The Japanese are going to be shredded to pieces this time.”
“I sure did. Now, let’s lock the doors and windows, quickly!”
Leading her five nursing sisters towards the back rooms of the convent, Parker gathered as well the seven civilian sisters from the government hospital at Namanula, the two Methodist missionary sisters of the mission and the wife of a plantation owner who had refused to be evacuated last December.
“Get dressed and be ready to run from the mission on short notice. The Japanese may well seek revenge on us.” Shouted the matron. The missionary sisters looked at her with shock and disbelief.
“Abandon the mission? We can’t do that!” Objected the senior Methodist sister, bringing frustration to Kay Parker.
“Do you prefer to die if the Japanese come here? We would only leave the mission for a short time anyway, until the Japanese are gone.”
“Where could we hide, Kay?” Asked nursing sister Lorna Whyte, anxious.
“In the jungle, of course!”
Taking their clues from Kay, the fifteen women hurried up and got fully dressed, then filled a few knapsacks with food and water canteens. A shout of alarm from Mavis Cullen suddenly froze them.
“Kay, a Japanese Army truck is coming up the road.”
“Quick, let’s leave by the back door!”
They were moving towards the rear of the convent again when they heard a shouted order in German from the courtyard of the mission. The two Methodist sisters immediately froze in horror.
“My God! The bishop!”
They would have turned back towards the front if Kay had not physically stopped them.
“Are you crazy? What do you expect to accomplish except for getting yourselves killed?”
“But, the bishop…”
“He is trying to save you. Don’t make his efforts pointless.”
827
As if to underline her point, they then heard a last shouted order from the bishop to the approaching Japanese, which was followed by a single rifle shot. Kay then forcefully pushed the Methodist sisters back.
“I said get out, all of you, and run inside the jungle.”
The sixteen women started running out from the back of the convent as the noise of rifle butts breaking down the front door could be heard. There was a good hundred meters of open ground from the convent to the start of the jungle, a long distance when running in female shoes while pursued by Japanese soldiers. Arriving first to the cover of the trees, Mavis Cullen turned around to see how the others were doing. To her horror, nine of the women were still in the middle of the open ground when the first Japanese soldier showed up at the back door of the convent. The Japanese raised his rifle and pointed it at the back of one of the Methodist sisters. Mavis couldn’t help flinch and look away as a rifle shot rang out. She then realized that the shot had come from the jungle and not from the convent. Looking again, she saw the Japanese soldier sprawled across the back porch. A second Japanese soldier appeared, only to be shot as well in the next second. Someone then shouted from inside the jungle.
“QUICK, SISTERS, RUN INSIDE THE JUNGLE!”
Spurred by the voice of their unknown savior, the women soon were all under tree cover, while two more shots downed as many Japanese soldiers, who were now growing much