ADVENTURES THROUGH TIME (2025 Edition) by Michel Poulin - HTML preview

CHAPTER 16 – EXILED IN TIME

09:03 (GMT)

Saturday, May 23, 1942 ‘B’

10 Downing Street, London

England

Nancy Laplante’s arrival in front of the Prime Minister’s official residence in the heart of Whitehall District didn’t exactly go unnoticed: wearing full body armor and armed to the hilt, she came down from the sky and floated down to the sidewalk, using the built-in gravity drive of her body armor. The armed soldiers and policemen guarding the residence didn’t know how to react at first, pointing their weapons at Nancy until she raised the protective visor of her helmet. One soldier then came to attention and saluted, soon imitated by the others.

“Sorry, Brigadier: we didn’t recognize you.”

“At ease, soldiers! I am here simply to talk with the Prime Minister. Is he in?”

“I believe so, Brigadier.”

“Thank you!”

Going to the front door of the residence, Nancy knocked on it and waited. A butler soon opened the door and looked at her with surprise for a moment before bowing.

“I gather that the Brigadier would like to see the Prime Minister?”

“You gather right, Henry. Is he available?”

“He is upstairs with General Ismay, in his private office. I will go announce you. If you may please wait in the lobby, Brigadier.”

Nancy entered the residence and took a seat in the lobby while the butler went upstairs at a near run. He was back in barely a minute.

“The Prime Minister will receive you now, Brigadier.”

Getting up, Nancy negotiated the stairs two by two and marched in the Prime Minister’s office, stopping at attention and saluting Churchill and General Ismay. The latter returned her salute, then came to her with a wide smile to shake her hand.

“Thank God, you are safe and sound, Nancy. A splendid job you did, getting the return of Princess Margaret.”

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In contrast, Winston Churchill was a lot more circumspect, staying behind his desk and looking reserved.

“Are you here to blast me verbally or to be nice with me, Brigadier? Prime Minister bashing has turned into a popular sport lately.”

“Sir, I am here to inform you on the status of our problem with the Imperium. By the way, you can call me simply Nancy, or Miss Laplante: I resigned my rank, remember?”

“You effectively did, Miss Laplante. So, where are we with the Imperium now?” Nancy spent a good ten minutes briefing him and Ismay on the situation, finishing with the mutiny staged by the Time Patrol against the Global Council orders not to rescue her. Churchill had to sit, struck by the enormity of that.

“You are telling me that, apart from still having to erase the Imperium, you were disavowed by your own Global Council and are now on the run?”

“Not on the run, sir. Just temporarily in exile. We pulled back to a new, secret base. From there, we plan to erase the Imperium by putting a quick end to this war. Such a drastic modification of history, especially if followed by a few other measures, should ensure that the Imperium disappears forever.”

Both Churchill and Ismay glanced at each other, unable to believe their luck. Nancy’s next words however cooled down somewhat their glee.

‘’I need to be honest with you on an important point, Mister Prime Minister. The Imperium came into being because the British Empire was kept whole after this war and grew in power, to the point of becoming the dominant superpower in the World, a role that would have normally been grabbed by the United States if not for my appearance in England in 1940. We also discussed many times in the past my views about the British Empire and the need for Great Britain to let go its colonies. Erasing the Imperium will necessitate that the British Empire fades from history, as it did in the original timeline. It doesn’t need to happen overnight and can, and should be done, progressively and carefully after this war is over. However, if Great Britain refuses to give up its empire, the Time Patrol will then be forced to do it for you. Don’t shout at me yet, Mister Prime Minister. The alternative to that is a worldwide nuclear war in the decades to come, a nuclear war that will nearly snuff out the Human race on this planet and will lead to the formation of the Imperium. That Imperium, apart from having kidnapped Princess Margaret, is now resolved to find and then destroy with nuclear weapons the Global Council. I will not let that happen, Mister Prime Minister. Dismantling the British Empire

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would be indeed a small price to pay to prevent the death of all those billions of people in the future.’’

Churchill looked at her with a bitter expression.

‘’Then, why come to us if you are intent anyway on forcing us to give up our colonies, Miss Laplante?’’

‘’Because I would rather have it being done by you, voluntarily, than doing it for you. We can do this together and end this war quickly, or I can pull all the stops and act unilaterally to do what has to be done, for the sake of Humanity. Another reason to seek your cooperation is the fact that, even if we end this war quickly, there will still be hundreds of thousands, even millions of refugees and victims of the Nazis to care for. The Time Patrol has highly advanced technology, but it doesn’t have the resources or personnel to care for theses masses. The main reason I came today is to ask your permission to use R.A.F. Northolt as a reception point for the people we will free from the Nazi jails and extermination camps we will shut down. This means installing a large refugee camp and a field hospital on its grounds. We also would like to install a mobile command post there, in order to better coordinate our actions in Europe.’’ Churchill was silent for a long moment, obviously conflicted by the price England would have to pay for such a quick victory in this war. He finally nodded his head once and bit on his cigar.

‘’Very well, Miss Laplante. England will do what it must do. You can have Northolt. General Ismay will take care of the details for you.’’

13:56 (GMT)

Control Tower

RAF Air Station Northolt, West of London

England

“You seem quite anxious, Mister Denison. You should try to relax a bit.” Wing Commander Denison, base commander of RAF Northolt, stopped pacing the floor of the control tower long enough to look at Air Commodore Nicholls, commander of the Northolt Sector headquarters.

“Me, nervous, sir? I receive spaceships on my station all the time. Thank God that the Germans are quiet today.”

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“Actually, they have been quiet for a long time…over England that is. I can’t say that my fighter pilots are complaining about that, though.” The two senior officers were then quiet, letting the three air controllers and the duty air operations officer do their job. A shout of surprise from one of the air controllers made then turn around quickly, in time to see Nancy Laplante, wearing a gray uniform, a helmet and body armor, float outside the tower at the level of the big windows of the watch room. Before they could react to that, Nancy disappeared from outside the tower, then reappeared inside, a few paces from Air Commodore Nicholls. She saluted him smartly while grinning to him.

“Sir, it is a pleasure to see you again.”

“The pleasure is mine, Brigadier.” replied Nicholls, shaking her hand. “Are your ships about to arrive?”

“They just finished surveying and mapping your airfield from above, sir. The heavy transport GILGAMESH will be the first to come down. It is a saucer-shaped ship with a diameter of 300 meters.”

“Three hundred meters?” exclaimed Wing Commander Denison. “I hope that you have only one ship that big, miss. If not, I will run out of space quickly.”

“Do not worry, Mister Denison: our next biggest ship is only 200 meter-long.”

“Only 200 meters, she said.” said Denison while rolling his eyes up. A huge shadow then appeared on the vast grass area in front of the control tower. The British looked on in awe as the GILGAMESH made a smooth landing in one corner of the airfield, resting on twelve gigantic landing legs. To the British’ astonishment, two huge hull sections of the massive transport ship then opened like a sea shell, revealing a cargo bay inside. In the cargo bay was actually what looked like a twenty story-high building resting on multiple legs. The building then started floating out of the cargo bay and into the open as Nancy spoke.

“This is what we call the ALPHA mobile command and support module. It is basically a mobile field outpost, able to fly and to jump spacetime. It will be our command center while in Northolt. Do you mind if we position it in that empty parking lot near the sector headquarters, Mister Denison?”

“Uh, not at all, miss.”

As the flying building, towering over the other buildings in Northolt, floated down to its designated spot, a number of flying cranes emerged as well from the GILGAMESH,

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transporting what looked like thick slabs measuring fifty meter-long, fifteen meter-wide and five meter-thick.

“Those slabs are actually expandable mobile storage shelters. We literally acquired them at the last minute before departing the 34th century. These are extensively used in the future as storage shelters for temporary, remote facilities. They sit on pneumatic legs which adjust to the terrain to let the shelter be perfectly level and then expand upwards like an accordion, their pneumatic sides inflating to make them very rigid. Four of these storage shelters will be positioned well away from all other buildings, as we will use them to store our ammunition supplies.” Denison and Nicholls actually counted a total of fourteen such shelters flying out of the GILGAMESH. As soon as they were in position and ready to be dropped in place, pneumatic legs deployed from under the slabs, on which they rested. The roof panel of each shelter then slowly rose, revealing walls made of inflatable partitions. Ten minutes after deployment, the fourteen slabs were transformed into spacious, 3-story shelters, complete with access ramps. An army of heavy robotic forklifts then started shuttling between the GILGAMESH and the shelters, moving pallets loaded with various supplies and equipment. Two big buses also rolled out of the giant transport ship and went to the ALPHA mobile module, where over sixty persons disembarked from the buses and entered the building. The attentions of Denison and Nicholls were then attracted to a big column of moving machines exiting the transport ship via the main ventral ramp.

“What are those, Colonel Laplante?” asked Denison, intrigued.

“Combat robots, our main ground combat assets. We have with us 10,000 standard combat robots, plus 240 Point Defense Robots, bigger and meaner machines meant to protect against ship attacks. Our best weapons are still our ships, though.” As if it had been a signal for them to appear, the thirteen other ships of the Time Patrol then floated down from the sky, landing in two widely spaced rows not far from the Northolt’s control tower. Grabbing a pair of binoculars, Nicholls read the names painted on the nose of the ships.

“Hmmm…quite an eclectic bunch of ship names. I see one named BRITANNIA, while there is another named WALKÜREN and a third one named WHITE ROSE OF STALINGRAD. Your crews must be a real mixed bag.”

“You will soon have a chance to meet them, sir. I must warn you that some of them were Germans.”

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“GERMANS, HERE?” nearly shouted the old officer. He then caught on her choice of words. “Why did you say that they were Germans?”

“Because they are now, like all the other members of the Time Patrol, simply citizens of the Global Council, the future civilization which used to support us. Again, I will explain all that to you at a later time.”

Nancy then looked at Wing Commander Denison.

“Mister Denison, if that hangar you offered for our use is still available, we will gladly take possession of it so that we could park our shuttlecraft inside.”

“It certainly is, miss. Hangar number five is yours. What about the Quonset hut sitting empty near the Men’s Mess?”

“We won’t need it. You may thus regain the use of that Quonset hut. Be prepared however to have 340 extra persons to feed, starting tomorrow. That number will go down to 282 the day after, when part of our forces will leave for the Pacific theatre.”

Denison quickly noted down those numbers and bowed to Nancy.

“Well, you will excuse me now, so that I can arrange a few things on the base. Could I expect you at the Officers’ Mess for supper tonight, Brigadier?”

“I will be there, along with my combat aircrews and my field agents, Mister Denison.”

Once Denison had left, it was Nancy’s turn to excuse herself with Nicholls: she truly had a million things to check on right now.

06:49 (GMT)

Friday, June 29, 3386 ‘B’

HMIS ROYAL SOVEREIGN

Royal Imperium Navy Base Northolt

Despite the obvious haste and efficiency of everybody involved, King Stan still was wriggling with impatience in his command chair on the bridge of the ROYAL SOVEREIGN as the behemoth finally took off from its base just outside London. They had to clear Imperium space before the damn Time Patrol could have a chance to erase them along with the whole Imperium. He knew that his crew would be at a disadvantage against the Time Patrol despite the huge firepower of the fleet flagship: they were new at this time travel business, while Nancy Laplante had amply demonstrated that the Time

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Patrol knew about every trick in the books on the subject. That was one of the reasons why the persons accompanying his family on this mission included the best historians and astrophysicists he could get on such short notice. Some of these illustrious scholars had been actually dragged out of bed by troopers with very strict orders. That thought made Stan look uncomfortably at the major from the Ministry of Security sitting in one of the observers’ chairs of the bridge. Stan didn’t know how much he could trust him or his contingent of security guards, even after the death of General Veck. That major and some of his troopers had however led the raid on Buckingham Palace in 1942 and were thus the only ones with real experience in dealing with the Time Patrol on the ground.

The super battleship climbed quickly to low Earth orbit, at which point the captain of the ship pivoted his command chair to face the King.

“What is our precise destination, Your Majesty?”

“Stay in orbit over England, Commodore Nousma, but jump back in time to, say, August 15 of 1940, at noon London time.”

“Yes, Your Majesty!”

Ken Nousma then gave a series of curt orders to his bridge crew. When everything was set and ready, he pushed the large purple button on his control panel. A short flash of white light enveloped the whole bridge. Nousma was about to order a passive sensors sweep when the engineer in charge of monitoring the time distorter system shouted in alarm.

“SIR, WE ARE STILL IN 3386! THE COMPUTER REGISTERED AUGUST 15 OF 1940 AS A NON-EXISTENT DATE.”

“What?” exclaimed Nousma before leaving his seat and going to the engineer to review the indications on his workstation with him. He quickly had to agree with the engineer and turned to face the King, who was watching this with growing gloom.

“Your Majesty, our time distorter is apparently working fine but we bounced back when it could not complete the jump to the requested date. It was as if time itself did not exist then.”

“But that’s impossible!” raged Stan. “Where then is all the rest of history?” Prince Len, who had paled on hearing all this, suddenly understood everything.

“Dad, I think I know why we can’t go to August 15 of 1940: Nancy Laplante had not arrived yet from the future.”

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Stan stared at his eldest son, shocked by the implications of what the teenager had said. He however respected Len’s opinions when it came to history: on that subject the young man was surprisingly knowledgeable for his age.

“Go on, Son.”

“Well, Nancy Laplante arrived near London from the future on September 2 of 1940. What I suspect is that her actions then actually created the history we know. She probably created us, along with our whole timeline. Laplante probably comes from the main historical timeline, the one which goes back all the way to the creation of the Universe.”

“Your son may very well be right, Your Majesty.” said one of the astrophysicists sitting in the rows of observers’ seats. “In this case, we probably will be able to jump back only as far as September 2 of 1940. If this is true, then we will have to find the correct wave frequency of the main timeline and then modify our time distorter accordingly before we could jump to the main timeline.”

“Which is where the Time Patrol and its supporters are probably sheltering, which means that they are for the time being out of reach from us.” said Stan, bitter. “How long would it take to find that frequency?”

“It could be a while, Your Majesty. We basically will be feeling our way in the dark.”

“But we can’t sit here and wait for results. We are vulnerable here and now.”

“What about going to, say, October of 1940, Dad?” suggested Len. “It would put us in a safe date when Laplante would not have had a chance yet to go back to the future to create the Time Patrol. We would however have to be careful not to touch or hurt Laplante then: she was still influencing heavily the British government of the time and thus shaping our eventual making.”

“Remind me later to give you a medal, Len. Commodore Nousma, jump to October 15 of 1940.”

“Right away, Your Majesty.”

Entering the new date in the computer, the pilot of the battleship then nodded to Nousma, who pushed again the jump button. This time, the flash of light was longer and the view of Earth on the display screens changed noticeably. Nousma sighed quietly in relief.

“We are now over England on October 15 of 1940, Your Majesty. Communications officer, find the frequency for the BBC and put it on loudspeaker.”

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Some antiquated style of music mixed with radio static soon could be heard by the occupants of the bridge. King Stan relaxed visibly then: they were now safe from the threat of being erased. This was however only the start of their mission. He turned towards the scientists sitting behind him.

“Ladies and gentlemen, your next task is clear: find us a way to access the main historical timeline. In the meantime, we will sit in orbit under strict electronic silence. Let’s get to work.”

09:31 (Paris Time)

Sunday, May 24, 1942 ‘B’

Champs Élysées, Paris

France

Jacques Bigot was enjoying one of the rare nice things left to him in this war: sipping a good wine at a quiet café in Paris. It helped him forget about the food rationing, the German occupation and the bleak war news. Today was an even worst day than usual for him, for the young British woman who had been his resistance cell’s clandestine radio operator had been arrested last evening by the Germans while she was having her suitcase radio repaired in an underground shop in Paris. Since the Germans were now undoubtedly torturing the unfortunate Mary Coleman to find out for who she was working, Jacques had been forced to evacuate his farm near Paris, along with his wife Mariette and his assistant, Pierre Soulange. They were now hiding in the basement of a friend’s house until they could figure out what to do next. Unfortunately, trying to free Mary from the clutches of the Gestapo was not a realistic option. Remorse at being helpless to help Mary had pushed Jacques in going to this café, where he was probably going to get drunk in order to temporarily forget about war’s cruelties.

Exclamations from the persons around him and along the Champs Élysées suddenly made him look up like them. His jaw dropped at the sight of the fleet of fantastic flying ships now floating silently overhead at medium altitude. One of the ships in particular was gigantic, its shadow covering the whole center of Paris. A female voice then boomed down from the sky, speaking in perfect French.

“People of Paris, this is Nancy Laplante speaking on behalf of the Time Patrol. The German occupation of France and the war itself are soon to be put to an end. This

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is a message of hope for you, but also one of caution: do not take precipitous actions now that could endanger you or others around you. The Time Patrol will take care of the German occupation forces in the next few days. For the Germans listening to this, I have only one thing to say: be ready to lay down your arms and to surrender when the Time Patrol will come back. If you do that, you will be spared and returned home. If you resist or, worst, commit atrocities against the French people, then you will be exterminated without mercy. To show you how futile it would be to resist, we will now take and destroy the headquarters of the German security and police forces in France, lodged on Avenue Foch, and the Gestapo center on Rue des Saussaies.” Jacques Bigot, like the other French men and women around him, then shouted with joy as the noise of loud gunfire erupted from two separate spots in the city. The few German soldiers and officers visible around the Champs Élysées paled and either ran away or jumped into their vehicles to head towards their respective garrisons and offices.

09:33 (Paris Time)

Gestapo interrogation center

Rue des Saussaies, Paris

“WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, YOU IDIOTS? LOCK ALL THE DOORS IMMEDIATELY!”

The panicked orders from the head of the Gestapo center made the SS soldiers guarding the main door push the big bolts in place. They were putting a thick wood beam across the heavy double doors when the doors blew in their faces, sending deadly wood splinters around the front lobby and killing or wounding the guards and the Gestapo officer. A squad of SS soldiers running down the stairs to the lobby stopped dead in their tracks when two intimidating machines the size of big men rolled inside the building. Twin bursts of machine gun fire then cut down the soldiers within a second. The robots then headed up the stairs, floating up the staircase while firing at any German who showed himself up. A dozen more robots followed in their heels, splitting up and methodically exterminating the SS guards and the Gestapo staff, with only the unidentified civilians encountered by the robots being stunned instead of being shot or blown away. The few panicked Germans who tried to flee by the back door of the building were greeted by merciless fire from four waiting robots and cut down as soon as they showed up.

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In one of the basement interrogation rooms, the two Gestapo men working on Mary Coleman left her at the sound of the first detonations, running out in the hallway only to be shot down by Nancy Laplante, who had jumped directly to the basement level with two combat robots. Her assault rifle at the ready, Nancy cautiously checked the doors lining the hallway one by one, finding most of them to be cells, some occupied by prisoners in mostly bad shape. She did not try to give those prisoners some first aid yet, as she had to make certain first that all the German personnel were disposed of. Once that was done, she activated her helmet microphone.

“BABYLON, this is Nancy. Send medical teams to my location in the basement at Rue des Saussaies: I have seven beaten up people in need of help.” Nancy then entered the interrogation room where Mary Coleman was still tied naked to a chair and, crouching besides her, examined her with growing sadness. The young woman had obviously gone through about every torture technique in the Gestapo books, something Nancy was particularly qualified to judge. The woman was semi-conscious and couldn’t even see Nancy, as her two eyes were swollen shut.

“The bastards!” Raged Nancy in a low voice. “Miss…miss, can you hear me?”

“Ye…yes.” answered softly Mary through her puffy lips. “Who are you?”

“I am Nancy Laplante. My people and me are now exterminating the Gestapo staff. You will soon be out of here and transported to safety, miss. I will now untie you.” She was finished doing that when Rebecca Milner showed up with Sylvie Comeau and two Global Council aircrews pulling three anti-gravity gurneys which floated a meter off the ground. Rebecca quickly examined Mary, shaking her head in disgust at the end.

“She may be suffering from a cranial trauma, on top of everything else. She will need urgent medical treatment.”

Helped by one of the aircrews, Nancy put Mary on one of the gurneys, covering her and adjusting the safety harness over her before following Rebecca in the next-door cell. Another beaten up young woman lay on the hard floor there. She was however fully conscious, albeit in obvious pain.

“Miss Laplante, is that you?”

“Yes, I am Nancy Laplante. What is your name and why are you here?”

“My name is Claudette Besson. I ran a resistance cell until two weeks ago, when the Germans raided our hideout. Some of my fighters are still here: I could hear their screams as late as yesterday.”

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“Some? Where are the others?”

“Mostly dead. My interrogator taunted me by telling me that three of my female agents had been sent to a camp called Ravensbrück.”

Nancy paled at the mention of that name.

“My God, the poor girls! That place is hell on Earth for women. What are the names of your agents, Claudette?”

“Lisette Devereux, Sylvie Masson and Maryse Renault. Could you really do something for them, Miss Laplante?”

“I will do the impossible for them, Claudette, I solemnly swear. We will now evacuate you. Please relax and let my friends take care of you.” Claudette Besson was then loaded on a gurney and led away. The job of evacuating all seven prisoners took ten minutes, with the loaded gurneys brought outside the main entrance, where a shuttlecraft had landed vertically in the street. Two PDRs and eight combat robots were covering both ends of the street, engaged in a firefight with German army units trying to react to the assault on the Gestapo center. The Germans definitely were having the worst of the fight, their fire proving ineffective against the robots’ electro-magnetic shields. Once the freed prisoners had been loaded into the shuttlecraft, Nancy signaled its pilot to lift off, which she did promptly. Jean Bigras, armed with a TERMINATOR assault rifle-grenade launcher combo, then emerged from the building, followed by the combat robots which had stormed it. Heavy smoke was now pouring out of a number of windows. Jean went to Nancy and reported to her while standing at attention.

“All the Germans are dead and the Gestapo archives are now burning.”

“Was there any French staff or visitors inside, Jean?”

“None, Nancy. All the civilians I searched had German identity papers on them.”

“Alright! How about cleaning up those two groups of German soldiers before leaving?”

A big grin appeared on Jean’s face.

“I’m game, Nancy. They won’t be able to say that they had not been warned, though.”

“Then take the left end of the street. I will clean up the other end.” That took a mere minute to do, the Germans cut down in a heavy crossfire from both Nancy, Jean and the robots. After a quick call to George Townsend’s assault group to ensure that the attack on the headquarters on Avenue Foch was going according to plan,

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Nancy regrouped her combat robots and her PDRs and flew off with them and Jean back towards the BABYLON. Less than twenty minutes after the start of the attack, the whole Time Patrol fleet flew away southward, leaving the Germans in Paris stunned and shaken.

The next stop of the fleet was over the city of Lyon, where a public message was read again before the Gestapo headquarters and the main jail there were assaulted, cleaned up and put on fire. The fleet then reversed course, heading North at top speed before paying successive visits to the French cities of Strasbourg and Metz, then to the Belgian capital of Brussels and to the Dutch cities of Amsterdam, The Hague and Rotterdam. By then, a total of 687 persons had been freed and sent to England by shuttlecraft and hundreds of SS, SD and Gestapo members killed, with no losses on the Time Patrol’s side. Nancy then gave her troops one hour to rest a bit and eat before the fleet headed towards Copenhagen, destroying the Gestapo and SD offices there before making stops in Riga, the capital of the now annexed state of Latvia, and Leningrad, in the Soviet Union. The stop over Leningrad was different from the previous ones, though. For one, the public announcement in Russian was followed by the sending of dozens of remotely controlled cargo platforms loaded with tons of flour intended for the starving population of the besieged city. While the ecstatic Soviets quickly unloaded the pallets dropped on the ground by the cargo platforms, the Germans’ response was much less friendly. Their 88mm anti-aircraft guns opened a heavy fire aimed at the Time Patrol fleet, while the German field artillery tried to target the points where the food was being delivered. The anti-aircraft fire proved worthless against the electro-magnetic shields of the ships but the field artillery actually caused Soviet casualties on the ground, prompting Nancy into issuing a terse command to her scoutships.

“All scoutships, this is Nancy. Locate those artillery pieces, and then slice their barrels in two with your lasers.”

For the sophisticated sensors on the scoutships, locating the German guns by detecting the shells they fired and calculating their trajectory and thus their point of origin was child’s play. Laser beams then cut through the thick steel barrels like hot knives through butter, leaving the German gunners mostly unhurt but shaken and swearing. For good measure, Nancy ordered the anti-aircraft guns to be destroyed as well, as they could also be used against ground targets. Through all this, none of the German members of

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the Time Patrol hesitated or faltered in carrying out their orders and directives, to Nancy’s delight and relief.

The fleet’s next two stops were Moscow and Stalingrad, where Nancy delivered messages of hope intended to boost the morale of the Soviet population. She however knew too well that the Soviet citizens would need a lot more than that before being able to enjoy lives that would be truly bearable. They would need first to be rid of both the German military menace and of a few monsters presently residing in Moscow. That was planned for later. Nancy did however use the stop over Moscow to have a number of spy probes placed discreetly inside the Kremlin and the headquarters of the NKVD, the Soviet secret police of the time. With that taken care of, the fleet moved once again, this time towards Warsaw.

The plan of action for Warsaw was actually more involved than the ones for the other cities so far. For one thing the situation there was a lot more delicate, with a crowded Jewish ghetto and the Polish population in general at the mercy of a ruthless German occupation force which would not hesitate for an instant in extracting a bloody revenge from defenseless civilians if attacked by the Time Patrol. Nancy thus had little choice but to hand quickly a decisive defeat to the German forces in Warsaw. That would in turn mean a strong and sustained effort by both air and ground forces. The fleet thus went under cloak well before arriving over Warsaw and spent the first hour observing the movements of the German forces in the city and pinpointing the locations of their barracks and depots. When she was satisfied that she had enough information to act, Nancy called Fernand Brunet, Sean Brady, George Townsend and Jack Crawford on the bridge of the BABYLON. The four men were joined there by Mona Zirel ‘A’ and Maran Tolvek ‘A’, the six of them facing Nancy across a tactical display table. Nancy looked at them with calm resolution.

“Lady and gentlemen, what you are about to accomplish will be crucial for the success of our overall mission. It will mean for you long, dangerous days of combat against a ruthless enemy who will not hesitate to shield its attacks with civilian hostages, or to threaten mass hostage executions in exchange for your surrender. The moral pressure on you will be extreme at times, with the very lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians depending on your actions. You will have to be hard and to keep in mind our ultimate objective: the liberation of Europe from tyranny. You may have to sacrifice a

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few lives for that, but the truth is that we cannot afford to lose this battle. You will not be alone, however. Apart from the PDRs and combat robots which will go down with you, the scoutships TEEN TEAM and BRITANNIA will be temporarily detached from Task Force BABYLON and will stay under cloak over Warsaw, ready to provide to you fire support on demand. Four reconnaissance probes will also be stationed over the city to provide you with continuous air and ground surveillance of Warsaw. In the first phase, you will discreetly go down to the Jewish ghetto and establish a command post there before positioning your robots while the fleet starts bombarding the main German garrisons and facilities. The second phase will start when the Germans decide to move in any way against the ghetto. That will be the time for you to show your full strength. You will then try to attract the Germans in a series of ambushes and kill zones, to both deplete their numbers and hopefully to convince them to leave Warsaw alone entirely. Fernand, you will be in charge of our forces in Warsaw, with George as your deputy. Mona and Maran will take turns at monitoring the sensors displays of your command post. Do you have any questions?”

“One, Nancy.” said Fernand Brunet. “What if the Germans try to starve the ghetto into submission?”

“That will not happen, Fernand, as we will be sending in regular shipments of food by shuttlecraft. One of your tasks on arrival in the ghetto will be to find and mark a reasonably protected landing zone for our shuttlecraft. Don’t hesitate to use the knowledge the Jewish underground has of the ghetto. How is your Yiddish, by the way?”

Brunet smiled at her question.

“As good as it was 250 years ago. My Polish is also on a par.”

“Excellent! Any other questions? Then get ready to go and good luck to you all. Advise me just before you depart.”

Farah Tolkonen ‘B’, who had volunteered with her two assistants to be part of the fleet, watched the five men and one woman leave the bridge, then looked at Nancy, speaking softly to her.

“Nancy, from what I know about this war, I understand that the health conditions in the ghetto are atrocious. There will also probably be many civilian casualties once the fighting starts. I wish to be allowed to go down to the ghetto with the others with some medical supplies, to set up a first aid station there.”

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“But you would need some assistance down there, Farah. You can’t be alone to care for patients for days.”

“Then lend me the use of one or two of your nurses. I am sure that there will be many volunteers if you ask around.”

Nancy was silent for a moment, mentally debating Farah’s request. Her own Girl Scout attitude then convinced her. Switching her radio to fleet-wide frequency, she then spoke calmly in her microphone.

“Attention all hands, this is Nancy. I am requesting two volunteers who are medically trained and who would be ready to go down to Warsaw and stay there to help Doctor Tolkonen ‘B’ take care of the wounded and sick in the Jewish ghetto. You have five minutes to make your mind and report by radio to me. Out!” It took less than a minute for the first call to come in.

“Nancy, this is Patricia Wilson. I and Sylvie Comeau are ready to go down anytime.”

Nancy grinned: she didn’t expect less from the two ex-Canadian Army field nurses.

“Alright, Patricia: you’re on, along with Sylvie. Transfer to the BABYLON now, so that Farah ‘B’ could brief you two.”

Nancy then smiled to Farah.

“It seems that you were right, Farah. You can use a cargo platform and load it with medical supplies and equipment. Take at least two of our medical evacuation capsules as well: they will be useful in sending critical cases to Northolt. Make sure also that you and your nurses are armed: I don’t expect the Germans in Warsaw to play by the rules of the Geneva Conventions.”

Farah was about to turn around and leave the bridge when she nearly bumped into Natia Mindicor, the ship’s young stewardess.

“Oh, sorry, Natia.”

“Actually, I was coming to speak to you and Nancy.” said timidly the giant teenager. “I wish to go down to Warsaw with you, Farah.”

“We were asking for medically trained personnel, Natia.” cut in Nancy. Natia looked resolutely back at her.

“I am a qualified medic, Nancy. It is part of my formation as a stewardess. Besides, I would like to help people more than by simply serving food and drinks around. I may not be combat trained but I have seen you guys often enough during your field exercises to know what to do.”

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“Oh, and what are you supposed to do if fired upon, Natia?”

“Duck!”

“That’s my girl. You’re signed on. Follow Farah, who will liaise with Fernand Brunet and his team. Good luck, girls.”

“Girls?” said Farah in mock protest. “I am twice your age, kid.” Natia giggled as she followed Farah out of the bridge.

17:22 (Warsaw time)

Gesia Street, the Jewish Ghetto

Warsaw, Poland

“I hate to say this, but I think that these houses are now available.” Mona Zirel ‘B’, at the controls of the time scooter transporting Fernand Brunet and Jack Crawford, winced at Jack’s remark: visible down in the street was a line of bodies lying on the sidewalk in front of what had probably been the homes of the unfortunate Jewish men, women and children now lying in pools of dried blood. Contrary to most of the houses and buildings of the Jewish Ghetto which they had flown over, nobody was visible at the windows or balconies of those four townhouses. Very few passersby were visible either, probably cowered by this most recent display of Nazi act of random murder and terror. Brunet pointed at one of the houses, a solid-looking, four-story apartment building made of stone blocks.

“Mona, fly around this house. I want to see its rear access.” Mona did so, piloting the scooter to a hover above the rear courtyard of the building. They were presently cloaked, so they didn’t have to worry about being seen. Brunet scanned visually the area below, then smiled.

“This building will do just fine. Let’s take possession of it discreetly before someone else does. Mona, can you go down in that courtyard?”

“No problem, Fernand. I could even use the covered passage between the street and the courtyard. By the way, once cleared of debris, I believe that this courtyard will be suitable to land a shuttlecraft. It will be a tight fit but it will do.”

“I had that in mind too. Fly inside the covered passage.”

Once under the arched passage, which had its street-side end closed off by twin doors large enough for a horse carriage, Mona landed her scooter and switched off its cloaking field. All three of them stepped off the machine and proceeded to unload their

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equipment and weapons. Jack also put in place four time beacons to facilitate the arrival of the other members of their team and their robots. With Mona’s scooter well out of the way of the beacons, Maran’s scooter and Farah’s cargo platform quickly joined them in the covered passage. Jack and George, their assault rifles at the ready, then entered the house via a connecting door that had been smashed open, probably by German SS troops. After a fifteen-minute search, the house was declared safe and the positioning of the group’s equipment and supplies started. They occupied mainly rooms giving on the rear of the building, reserving the street-side rooms for firing positions. The ground level, with its floor sitting directly on stone foundations, was reserved for the storage of robots and other heavy supplies. The first floor went to Farah ‘B’ and her medical team, while the second floor became their command post. The third floor was turned into living quarters and safe storage rooms for medical supplies and the team’s food and water reserves. When Fernand Brunet was satisfied that they were well established, he went down to the ground floor to find Sean Brady and Jack Crawford coordinating the arrival by spacetime jump of part of their force of combat robots. Over forty combat robots were already positioned in the rooms of the ground floor with a view on the street, while thirty robots faced the rear windows or secured the covered passage. Ten robots were busy as well cleaning up the debris clustering the courtyard, dumping them in a corner. The courtyard was soon ready to accommodate landings by shuttlecraft, prompting Fernand into calling the BABYLON via his helmet radio.

“BABYLON, this is TROJAN Team. We are now in position in a strong building with a rear courtyard just large enough to land a shuttlecraft. You may start ferrying in supplies, starting with ammunition reserves for our robots, followed by medical and food supplies for the Jewish population. I am now sending the precise coordinates of the corners of the courtyard.”

Walking in succession to each corner of the yard, Brunet then read off the coordinates indicated by his personal locator system. A terse response by radio then followed from the BABYLON.

“We have your coordinates, TROJAN Team. We will first send you three loaded cargo platforms, along with a forklift robot and two technicians. Northolt has been advised and is now loading up a shuttlecraft with food supplies. I believe that canned pork wouldn’t be acceptable, right?”

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“Definitely not!” replied Fernand, happy that someone had not lost his sense of humor in the middle of this bleak business. “We will be awaiting your supplies, BABYLON.”

Backing off to the rear entrance of the covered passage, Fernand looked up at the windows of the opposite building sharing the courtyard with their building. Dozens of people of all ages were now looking down at him and at the robots, a mix of awe and fear on their faces. Fernand, who had expected this sooner or later, decided that this was the time to play the good neighbor and called Sean Brady on his radio.

“Sean, this is Fernand. I am going to liaise with our backdoor neighbors. Please take over from me here: supplies are about to arrive in the courtyard.”

“I’m on my way.” replied the Irishman. Fernand, taking a squad of ten combat robots with him, crossed the courtyard and entered the opposite building via a door which gave access to a wide ground level hallway. A group of nine men and women, some of them old persons, backed off in fear, ready to flee upstairs. Fernand stopped and, smiling, spoke politely in fluent Yiddish.

“There is no need to fear me, ladies and gentlemen. Me and my friends are here to help and protect you.”

One of the men, a bearded one in his early thirties, stepped cautiously forward.

“What kind of things are your friends? Are they men inside small tanks?” Fernand couldn’t help smile at that analogy: it would have actually made sense to explain his robots in terms the present technology could understand.

“There are no men inside these machines. They are just that, machines, but ones that can think and act by themselves and even talk. I call them robots and they are formidable instruments of war which will soon be used against the Germans. I actually have nine friends with me who just established themselves in the building on the other side of the courtyard, plus I am expecting shortly more people bringing in supplies and food for the inhabitants of the Ghetto. We are from an organization called the Time Patrol and led by Nancy Laplante, the Canadian time traveler also known by the Germans as ‘Die Wolfin’. And no, Nancy Laplante is not dead.” The Jewish man opened his eyes wide, while the people behind him started exchanging excited comments at the mention of food.

“You would bring food for us? Thank God! I am Rabbi Shimon Huberband, head of the house committee for this building. I know someone who runs a number of soup

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kitchens and who could help distribute fairly your supplies. I can vouch for his absolute honesty and integrity.”

“I certainly would like to meet him in due time, Rabbi Huberband. Right now I am mostly concerned about keeping our arrival in the Ghetto discreet for a while yet, at least until our first loads of supplies are in and safely stored away.”

“How long are you planning to be here, mister…”

“Oh, excuse me: I forgot to present myself. Agent Fernand Brunet, of the Time Patrol.”

They exchanged a handshake, with Huberband eyeing with interest Fernand’s equipment and weapons.

“A Frenchman? I do speak some French.”

“You may keep speaking Yiddish or Polish: I speak both fluently. To answer you, we will be here until the Germans are thrown out of Warsaw and the war is over, which should take a few days at the most.”

“A few days? Are you mad or hallucinating, mister?”

“Not one bit, Rabbi. Understand that we come from the 34th century and that the Germans are no match for our weapons and equipment. Talking of the Germans, would you mind if I position permanently a few of my robots inside your main entrance, to prevent any German or Jewish police from entering?”

“Uh, go ahead, sir. The 34th century you said?”

“That’s it! Please give me a minute and I will then give you a tour of our command post.”

Fernand went quickly to the front door and opened it slightly, looking cautiously outside. On the opposite side of the street, thirty meters to the left, was a big, sinister-looking building with barred windows and surrounded by a tall perimeter wall, with two Jewish policemen guarding its main entrance. He was already aware of that building, which was the Ghetto’s prison, controlled by the Jewish police, which was in turn collaborating with the Germans. Fernand was going to have to watch that building closely until he could deal with it properly. He turned around after closing the door and spoke to one of the robots in Neo-English.

“Unit 240, you and your squad will stand guard in this building until further notice and prevent any German or Jewish police from entering it. Try to minimize any disruption to the daily routine of the people living here. Rabbi Huberband will identify to

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you the actual occupants and legitimate visitors to this building. Do you have any questions, Unit 240?”

“Yes, sir! Are we to stay covert for the moment?” asked the robot in a normal male voice, making the Jews around it gasp with wonderment.

“You will effectively stay covert until told otherwise or until a direct threat forces you to expose yourself. You may now take your post with your squad.”

“Yes, sir!”

The ten robots then split up, some staying in the hallway and the others going inside the apartments flanking the main entrance. Fernand Brunet then gently took Shimon Huberband by one arm, leading him towards the rear courtyard.

“Let me go and present you to the members of my team, Rabbi Huberband.” They exited the building just as a cargo platform appeared in the courtyard in a flash of light, making Huberband jump back from fright.

“Dear God! What kind of sorcery is this?”

“Not sorcery, Rabbi, but science of a very high level.”

Fernand let Huberband watch for a moment the unloading operation, with a robotic forklift rolling off the cargo platform with a heavy pallet of ammunition already resting on its fork blades. While the forklift brought its pallet inside the team’s building, two 34th century technicians presented themselves to Fernand. Thankfully, someone had thought about fitting them with helmets and body armor, along with backpacks containing some necessary field gear. Huberband could only look up in awe at the giant man and woman as they spoke in turn to Fernand in Neo-English.

“Robotics Technician First Class Ron Buran, sir.”

“Robotics Technician Second Class Mira Althea, sir.”

“Welcome to Warsaw and thank you for volunteering for this assignment. You do understand that we will be at risk here and that the living conditions will be quite Spartan?”

“We know the risks, sir.” said Buran softly, who then smiled. “We did join the Time Patrol to find a really challenging job after all, sir.”

“That’s the spirit. Follow me and I will give you the grand tour of our facilities, along with Rabbi Shimon Huberband here.”

There was another exchange of name and handshakes between the technicians and Huberband before Brunet led them inside the team’s building after they were presented to Sean Brady. They met Jack Crawford in one of the rooms of the ground floor, busy

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assigning arcs of fire to the robots covering the windows of that room. From there, they took the stairs to the first floor and entered a living room which had been turned into an improvised first aid station. Huberband eyed with envy the sophisticated medical equipment of the team and the ample medical supplies in evidence as Fernand presented him.

“Doctor Tolkonen, this is Rabbi Shimon Huberband, the head of the house committee for the building behind ours. Rabbi, these are Doctor Farah Tolkonen, Nurse Patricia Wilson and Nurse Sylvie Comeau. Starting this evening, they will be able to provide medical care to the wounded and critically sick, apart from distributing some medical supplies to the doctors already operating in the Ghetto. Uh, Farah, where is Natia?”

“Upstairs, preparing supper for the team.”

“Then we will meet her there.” replied Fernand before leading Huberband out of the treatment room and up the stairs to the second floor. As they went up, the Rabbi asked something in a discreet voice.

“Pardon my curiosity, sir, but how come some of your people are normal, while the others are bald giants?”

“Simple, Rabbi: I and the other normal people are from the 20th or 21st century, while our giant members come from the 34th century. Humans evolved a lot during those thirteen centuries. Don’t forget that time travel is our specialty after all. Ah, here is our tactical command post.”

They were greeted in the small, converted living room by Mona Zirel ‘B’, who looked up from her portable workstation and smiled politely to Huberband.

“Good evening, sir. My name is Mona Zirel.”

“A charming name for a beautiful young woman, Miss Zirel. I am Rabbi Shimon Huberband. I live in the building behind yours.”

“Pleased to meet you, Rabbi Huberband. I…”

An incoming signal on her workstation then cut her off, making her read quickly the message in red letters on one of the video screens of her console.

“Fernand, flash traffic from the BABYLON: the fleet will open fire in ten minutes, unless you deem that this is too early for us.”

Brunet immediately contacted by radio Sean Brady, down in the courtyard.

“Sean, this is Fernand. How are we doing with the supply drops?”

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“All three cargo platforms have dropped their loads, which are now inside our building. The shuttlecraft from Northolt arrived two minutes ago and should be finished unloading in a few minutes at the most: that robotic forklift is a godsend.”

“Excellent! Warn the pilot of the shuttlecraft that the fleet is opening fire in less than ten minutes. He will have to jump as soon as he lifts off.” Fernand then looked at Mona, who was still waiting for his decision.

“Tell the BABYLON that we are ready and that they can start sending the rest of our combat robots and our PDRs down, directly in the street in front of our building. Rabbi, I am afraid that I will have to cut your visit short. I will not send you away empty handed, though. Let’s go back down.”

Huberband, obviously malnourished and thin, had difficulty following the quick pace of Fernand as he was led down to one of the ground floor rooms, which was now packed with boxes, bags and containers of many kinds. Grabbing an anti-gravity platform stored in one corner of the room and activating it, Fernand then selected a few bags and boxes, along with a large tin can, putting them on the anti-gravity platform.

“Rabbi, this is only the first load of food to be delivered. All this is for the occupants of your building. As soon as we can organize a proper distribution with your friend that runs soup kitchens, the rest of the food in this room will be given to the people of the Ghetto. There will be a lot more coming regularly.” Huberband, unable to believe his good fortune, couldn’t stop tears from running out of his eyes as he contemplated the treasures on the platform.

“I…I can’t accept all this just for the people of my building, not when the whole Ghetto is starving to death.”

“Rabbi, there are maybe 300,000 people or more in the Ghetto right now. Dividing what is on this platform now won’t do any good. As soon as your friend shows up here, then a proper distribution will be done. Let this make a real difference to at least a few people.”

Fernand, not letting time to Huberband to protest further, started pushing the platform out of the storage room but stopped abruptly and went to a box, opening it and taking out a smaller box.

“I nearly forgot something. Let’s go!”

Crossing quickly the courtyard with Huberband in his heels, Fernand entered the apartment block and unloaded the food supplies in a corner of the entrance lobby, near the main staircase. He then looked gravely at the Rabbi.

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“I will now let you in charge of distributing this food to the families of this building. Be advised that we are about to attack massively the Germans in Warsaw and that my robots will very soon start clearing the Ghetto of all the Germans in and around it. It should be safe for Jews to walk the streets of the Ghetto at leisure in less than two hours. Our ships will pass an announcement to that effect then. I now have to run: I have a battle to direct.”

“Wait! I didn’t thank you yet for all this.”

“You can do that later, Rabbi.”

As Fernand ran away with the anti-gravity platform, Shimon approached the bags and boxes and caressed them, as if to reassure himself that they were not mere figments of his imagination. He then saw the small box Fernand had taken last and opened it. He cried at the sight of the chocolate bars inside. Then, what sounded like the start of a brand-new war erupted outside.

Appearing in quick succession along Gesia Street, twenty big and powerful Point Defense Robots, along with 740 combat robots, then split up and spread inside and around the Jewish Ghetto, following the general guidance from the TROJAN Team’s command post. The PDRs took fixed positions along the outer perimeter of the Ghetto, each provided close protection by ten robots, with the task of interdicting all the avenues of approach to the Ghetto to the Germans. Two hundred other robots spaced themselves along the outside of the ten-foot wall erected by the Germans to cut the Ghetto off from the rest of Warsaw, while 300 more robots actively searched and hunted down any German unlucky enough to be inside at that time. In the meantime, the Time Patrol fleet switched off its cloaking generators and appeared in the sky above Warsaw at the same time it fired a rain of projectiles and laser beams at the German installations in and around the city. The German armored vehicles, artillery guns and aircraft within fifteen kilometers of the city center were targeted, with only a very few escaping destruction. The barracks of the SS troops inside Warsaw were also flattened by fire from the cruiser KRONOS, which used its heavy rail guns for the first time, while the Gestapo office was raided by Nancy in a manner similar to that in the other cities previously attacked by the Time Patrol. A bit over 42 minutes after the appearance of the robots on Gesia Street, the Time Patrol fleet stopped firing, then delivered a minute-long message by loudspeaker before speeding westward, leaving the surviving Germans,

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shocked and stunned, to contend with the two scoutships and the 820 PDRs and combat robots left behind to defend the Jewish Ghetto.

As soon as the fleet left for Berlin, Fernand Brunet sent Jack Crawford and twenty combat robots to the big, three-story stone building housing the offices of the Ghetto’s Jewish Council, also known as the ‘Judenrat’. The Judenrat was tasked by the Germans to run the day-to-day administration of the Ghetto and enforce via the Jewish Ghetto police their rules and directives. Those directives included the rounding up of persons for deportation towards so-called work camps like Treblinka and the assignment of Jewish labor to the German-run armament factories in Warsaw. Those were all good reasons in Jack Crawford’s mind to pay an early visit to the offices of the Jewish Council.

Jack actually flew with his robots to the council’s office building on Grzybowska Street, surveying the streets under him for any German who could have survived through a miracle the sweeps by hundreds of robots. The sight of Jack and his robots approaching at low altitude was too much for the Jewish policemen cowering under the arched main entrance of the Judenrat’s building, with them running inside to hide in the basement. Making a running touch down near the entrance, Jack then tried the heavy wooden door: it was unlocked. Simply pushing it, he then entered and went to the receptionist’s desk, situated in a corner of the lobby. While apparently very calm and relaxed, his eyes scanned continuously his surroundings from behind his lowered helmet visor. Pulling up his visor, he then gave his best smile at the terrified young woman sitting at the reception desk, talking to her in good Yiddish.

“Excuse me, miss, but could you tell me if the Chairman of the Jewish Council is available?”

Looking first at the big automatic grenade launcher and rifle combination weapon held by Jack, then at the robots behind the ex-US Navy SEAL, the receptionist managed to answer in a shaky voice.

“Mister Czerniakow is in his office, sir. Who shall I announce?”

“Agent Jack Crawford, of the Time Patrol. Tell him that this is a bit of an urgent matter.”

“Uh, yes sir!”

The young woman then picked up the telephone on her desk and formed a number, then spoke while involuntarily looking again at Jack.

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“Hello, Mister Czerniakow? This is the front reception desk. A Mister Jack Crawford is here to see you urgently. He says that he is from the Time Patrol… No, sir: he is definitely not German… Yes, sir. I will do that.”

The woman then put down her telephone receiver and smiled weakly at Jack while getting up.

“I will lead you to Mister Czerniakow’s office: there are very few other employees left at this hour.”

“After you then, miss.”

They walked to the main lobby staircase and went up to the first floor, with the robots following close behind, floating over the stairs. Jack was finally introduced inside a relatively modest office, where a man in his sixties and wearing glasses greeted him cautiously, eyeing his equipment and the robots behind him while shaking hands with Jack. Jack noticed that the man was obviously better nourished than the other Jews he had seen up to now in the Ghetto.

“Good evening, Mister Crawford. I am Adam Czerniakow, Chairman of the Jewish Council. Would you like to sit down?”

“I will stand, if you don’t mind, sir. I won’t take much of your time anyway.”

“As you wish, mister.” Said Czerniakow, staying up as well. “Could you tell me more about your Time Patrol?”

“With pleasure, sir. We come from the future, from the 34th century to be more exact. Our leader is Nancy Laplante, whom you must certainly have heard about before.”

“How could I not have heard about Miss Laplante?” replied Czerniakow, smiling. “She was our best hope until she supposedly died a year ago. I thus should assume that she is alive and well.”

“You certainly can, sir. For reasons that are too complicated and long to explain here, the Time Patrol has decided to put an end to this war and to try making a better world out of it for all to live in. Our fleet, which you saw in action just a few minutes ago, has been in action over the whole of Europe since early this morning. We have been concentrating in eradicating the offices of the German secret police and the SS security forces in occupied Europe. Our fleet is now over Berlin, and will have cleaned up the Nazi leadership by tomorrow morning. The war in Europe should then be over fairly quickly, probably in a few days.”

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“But that’s excellent news! My people will owe you a great debt. How could I be of help?”

“For one thing, sir, you will refrain from now on from obeying or enforcing any order or directive coming from German authorities. Consider all their past edicts as null and void. You have a reputation as a decent and well-intentioned man, even though you carried out the Germans’ orders. Other members of the Jewish Council have rather less shining reputations, however. The Time Patrol is thus issuing a number of directives concerning the Ghetto. You may want to write them down, sir.”

“Of course! Give me a second, please.”

Czerniakow hurried behind his desk, sitting down and grabbing a sheet of paper and a pen.

“Go ahead, mister.”

“First, the Jewish Ghetto police is to cease all activities and will be disbanded. The Time Patrol will take charge of security and policing in the Ghetto until further notice. The members of the Jewish police who committed atrocities and violence on behalf of the Germans will be prosecuted and punished by us. Second, all participation in the German war effort is to be ended as of now. Those working in German-owned factories or in any factories producing war material shall stay home for the moment. In compensation, the Time Patrol will provide emergency food and medical aid to the inhabitants of the Ghetto. Third, there will now be free circulation between the Ghetto and the rest of Warsaw. Your people should be made aware however that there may be still pockets of German forces left around the city and should proceed with caution. The Germans may yet counter-attack by bringing in fresh forces, but we will be ready for them. Fourth, the Jewish Council will have no longer a say in the distribution of food, medical aid, work organization and housing until a democratically elected council can be voted in. There has been too much corruption and profiteering from certain members of the Jewish Council in the past and you have lost the confidence of your people. The Time Patrol will make temporary arrangements in the meantime.” Czerniakow gave Jack a hurt look.

“Mister Crawford, I have always acted in the best interest of my people. Who will feed the people of the Ghetto and administer the distribution of services and goods, if not the Jewish Council?”

“The Time Patrol will work directly with the self-help organizations of the Ghetto and the soup kitchens in feeding and caring for the population of the Ghetto. Those who

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have apartments or houses in other parts of Warsaw and who can go back to them are free to do so. The Time Patrol will coordinate with the Polish city authorities concerning this to gain their cooperation.”

“What tells you that they will be ready to help us Jews, mister?” said Czerniakow in a bitter tone. “Too many Poles have been too happy to make a profit on our back or to sell us out to the Germans.”

“True, but many have also risked their lives to help you, like the people of the Rada Pomocy Zydom, also known as the Zegota. Leave the convincing to us, sir. If you will now excuse me, I will go take care of a few more things. Have a good evening, Mister Czerniakow.”

“You too, Mister Crawford.”

Czerniakow watched Jack leave with mixed feelings. Could his Time Patrol, even with its fantastic technology, defeat a military machine which counted millions of soldiers and which had conquered the whole of Europe in mere months? More importantly, would these people keep their promises? If Czerniakow had to go with his previous experiences, then he had doubts about that.

Leaving the Jewish Council building, Jack decided to walk this time, in order to have a better feel for the atmosphere of the Ghetto. Taking Zelazna Street and going north along the wall which enclosed the Ghetto, he soon crossed the footbridge linking the southern and northern parts of the Ghetto. His assault rifle was at the ready as he approached the gate in the wall on Chlodna Street. He however found only the four robots assigned to guard the gate. Continuing north and turning right on Ogrodowa Street, Jack stopped in front of number 29. A plaque besides the door designated it as the Warsaw Jewish Orphanage. Thinking for a moment about his son Steve, now nearly four years old, Jack then decided to pay a visit to the orphanage and climbed the steps of the main entrance, ordering his robots to stay outside. A visibly fearful woman in her late thirties opened the door after his third knock and looked with wide eyes at his weapon, then at the robots down the stairs.

“Who…who are you?”

“Agent Jack Crawford, of the Time Patrol. We just threw the Germans out of the Ghetto and I was hoping to visit your orphanage, in order to see if we could provide some help.”

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Hope appeared on the woman’s face, who opened the door wide and let Jack enter. She then showed him to a big lobby full of children who were half-heartedly playing with a few toys. Jack saw immediately why the children showed so little energy: their thin bodies and emaciated faces were sure signs of slow starvation. Jack felt his heart break as the children recoiled in fear at the sight of his weapons despite the reassurances of the woman who had opened the door. Jack activated his helmet radio microphone as the woman left him to get the director of the orphanage.

“Farah, this is Jack, over.”

The answer came after only a couple of seconds.

“This is Farah. Go ahead, Jack.”

“Are you very busy at this time, Farah?”

“Not at all, Jack. In fact, we had only one little patient show up since we opened shop. What’s up?”

“I am now at the Jewish Orphanage, at 29 Ogrodowa Street. There are over a hundred severely malnourished children here who could use medical attention and food. Do you think that you could come with some medical and food supplies quickly?”

“I would be delighted to, Jack. I will be there in less than fifteen minutes.”

“Thanks! You can guide yourself on my twenty robots which are presently standing in front of the orphanage. Jack, out!”

The voice of Fernand Brunet immediately followed his conversation with Farah.

“Jack, this is Fernand. Be advised that the BRITANNIA has landed in

Muranowski Square, so that its crew could rest a bit. I have assigned forty combat robots to guard it while it is on the ground. The TEEN TEAM is continuing to engage pockets of German forces in Warsaw. The BRITANNIA will replace it on station in six hours. How did it go at the Jewish Council?”

“Reasonably well. I met the chairman of the council, Adam Czerniakow, who seems to be a decent enough man. After I leave the orphanage, I will take care of the prison on Pawia Street.”

“Good! You know our policy about those who collaborate in acts of atrocities, Jack.”

“I certainly do. Jack, out!”

A man in his sixties with a goatee, moustache and balding head came to him as he finished speaking in his microphone. The man, wearing a tired but well-cut three-piece suit, shook his hand while bowing.

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“Mister Crawford, I am Janusz Korczak, director of the Jewish Orphanage. Is it true that the Germans have been chased out of the Ghetto?”

“It is, sir. The Time Patrol has started today a campaign to put an end to this war and has been raiding German occupying forces across Europe all day. Most of our fleet is now over Berlin, cleaning up the Nazi leadership, but I am part of a sizeable force left behind here to protect the Ghetto and finish cleaning Warsaw of the Germans. Before you ask, the Time Patrol originates from the 34th century and is led by Nancy Laplante, the Canadian time traveler.”

A big smile appeared on Korczak’s face at those words.

“Those are splendid news, sir. We will now be able to care for our children without fearing possible deportation. There are so many horrible stories going around about the German work camps where our people are being deported.”

“Sir, those so-called work camps are actually extermination camps. They are on our list of priority targets to be liberated, though. To come back on the subject of your children, one of our doctors is on her way to here to check on their health and to bring some supplies and food to them. I understand that you are a doctor yourself, sir?”

“I am. How did you know that?”

“Through historical files about this war, sir. Don’t forget that we travel through time.”

“Uh, of course. Please, let me show you around the orphanage.”

The tour given by Korczak showed to Jack that the orphanage was kept clean and well organized, with the staff being obviously devoted to their young charges, but it was also too obvious that both the children and the adults were slowly starving to death. While well equipped, there was precious little food in evidence in the kitchen and the pantry of the orphanage. Jack was still looking in shock at the five loaves of bread and the pot of watery cabbage soup which were supposed to be the supper of the close to 200 children of the establishment when he recognized the voice of Farah Tolkonen, coming from the lobby. Accompanied by Korczak, Jack went to the lobby and met there Farah, who was holding a large medical kit. Behind her was Sylvie Comeau, pushing an anti-gravity platform full of bags and boxes. Korczak, like his staff and the children, looked up with disbelief at the 220-centimeter-tall Imperium scientist and doctor. The director then saw what was on the anti-gravity platform and nearly burst into tears at that sight.

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“May God bless you, good people! This is like life being restored to my children.”

“Don’t get excited too quickly, sir: this is only the first load out of our vehicle. There is at least five times as much still to be brought inside. Is your cook close at hand?”

“She is.” said Korczak before turning around and yelling towards the kitchen. “ALINKA, COME HERE, QUICKLY!”

A woman in her forties came at a slow run, which was all that her little reserves of energy permitted her. Farah took four big rounds of cheese out of a box on the platform and presented them to the cook.

“Here is some mild cheddar cheese. Could you cut them in slices as appetizers for your children’s supper?”

“Here, I will help you carry them to the kitchen, Alinka.” Offered Jack, realizing that the thin woman didn’t have the strength to carry the cheese. Followed by the cook and Sylvie Comeau, still pushing her platform, Jack brought the cheese to the kitchen and put them on top of a counter, then searched through the platform’s load and grabbed a number of tins of corned beef, putting them on the counter as well.

“That should put some meat on the menu for tonight. Have a good supper, Misses Alinka. I have to run now.”

Leaving the kitchen, Jack joined Farah and Korczak in the lobby.

“If you will both excuse me now, I have something else to take care of. Farah, I will leave with you ten of my robots to keep an eye on your cargo platform and to watch over the orphanage afterwards. Take good care of the kids.”

“I certainly will, Jack. Be careful out there: it is quite spooky and the night is falling quickly.”

“Spooky? Farah, nothing can scare a US Navy SEAL.”

“Still, be careful. You’re a good man.”

“I know. My wife keeps telling that to me.” replied jokingly Jack before walking out of the orphanage. Giving first new directives to ten of his robots, he then walked eastward on Ogrodowa Street, followed by his remaining ten robots. Darkness was effectively starting to fall, which filled the unlit street with shadows and dark corners where a German or a collaborator could hide from normal sight. Jack’s helmet was however equipped with both a low light level camera and a thermal imaging camera, which gave him about as good a view as if in full daylight. Turning north at the next corner, he then saw a group of bodies lying in the street, about fifty feet ahead. His

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weapon at the ready and scanning continuously the façades along the street, Jack approached the bodies, soon recognizing them as seven dead German soldiers. By the multiple bullet impacts on them, he guessed that they had been killed by some of the robots which had swept through the Ghetto. Those Germans had however been stripped of their weapons, ammunition and web gear, raising a suspicion in Jack’s mind. He then spoke in his helmet microphone.

“Fernand, this is Jack, over.”

“Go ahead, Jack.”

“I have just encountered a group of dead Germans off Ogrodowa Street. Did you have our robots strip the Germans they killed from their weapons and gear? The ones I am looking at now have been disarmed.”

“Our robots had no directives about stripping weapons from dead Germans, Jack. My guess would be that some Jews took their weapons. I was kind of expecting that.”

“Me too, but I hope those Jews won’t start shooting at everything they can’t identify. We will soon have to contact the Jewish underground and liaise with them.”

“Agreed! Are you heading towards the prison now?”

“I am. I will report back once I am finished there. Jack out!” Resuming his advance, Jack walked past four street intersections, encountering or seeing only a few civilians who quickly hid or walked away on seeing him. Since they were not armed, Jack let them go, concentrating his attention on the corner of the Ghetto’s prison visible a block away. He was about to turn the corner with Pawia Street, along which the prison stood, when a shout in Yiddish was followed quickly by a rifle shot, then by more shouts. Jack faced the leading robot while switching his weapon to the stun mode.

“Unit 230, your squad will use only stun beams for the moment. Do not fire until I say so or unless I am hit. Deploy behind me in extended line.” A second shot rang out as Jack left the cover of the building’s corner and walked resolutely towards the prison, his electro-magnetic shield switched on. Four men and one woman holding rifles and crouching in front of the wall surrounding the prison turned their rifles on Jack as soon as they saw him. Jack immediately shouted in Yiddish.

“THIS IS THE TIME PATROL. DROP YOUR WEAPONS IMMEDIATELY AND RAISE YOUR HANDS UP OR MY MACHINES WILL ATTACK.” While the four men complied fairly quickly, the woman took more time to put her rifle down, swearing in Yiddish as she got up. Jack, making her as the probable leader of the

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group, walked straight to her, stopping two paces from her and examining her with a cold expression. The woman, a small one in her late twenties with hair cut short, looked back at him defiantly with fiery eyes. Jack had to recognize that she had guts aplenty, but spoke to her in a firm tone.

“Lady, the security inside the Ghetto is right now solely the business of the Time Patrol. Why were you attacking the prison?”

“Because the Jewish policemen inside are nothing but dirty collaborators who helped murder their own people. Who are you to stop us from punishing these criminals?”

Jack took one step forward, looking down at the Jewish woman as he towered over her by a full head.

“I am Agent Jack Crawford, of the Time Patrol, and I say that we will enforce law and order in the Ghetto for the time being. If you want those policemen punished, then you will have to present a case in front of a court. In the meantime, let us do our job.”

“Idealist!” She spat out, not impressed one bit. “What courts condemned all the Jews who were killed by the Germans? What were the crimes committed by those Jews apart from practicing their religion? Why should these bastards inside that building get any more chances than the old men, women and children they helped murder?” Jack softened his attitude as the woman spoke with contained rage. Unknown to her, Jack had just received a radio message from Mona Zirel, who had been monitoring the whole incident via the video signal from one of the robots. Mona had also been able to match the woman’s face with an archive picture contained in the databanks of her computer.

“Miss Zivia Lubetkin, I fully understand your feelings about this and I don’t blame you for trying to kill those men. However, vigilante justice right now will only keep the Ghetto into chaos. If you want to go around Warsaw to hunt down German soldiers, or stand guard at soup kitchens to prevent the theft of food, that is fine with me. You may take back your rifle but I will ask you to leave this area now.”

“How could you know my name?” asked the woman, truly stunned.

“Let’s say that the Time Patrol has extensive historical archives covering this whole war, miss. Would a certain Mordecai Anielewicz be with you by chance?”

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“I’m here!” said a thin young man in his early twenties before walking slowly to Jack, obviously worried about attracting a reaction from one of the robots. Jack then gave a brief order in Neo-English that made the robots point their weapons down at the pavement, which helped relax the Jewish fighters. Anielewicz had a new look of hope on his face as he faced Jack.

“You really are here to help us Jews?”

“We are here to help everyone who had been suffering under the German occupation, Mister Anielewicz, not only the Jews. You just happened to be the ones most in need of urgent help.”

“Maybe we could discuss a joint defense strategy for the Ghetto with you? After all, we know the place very well.”

“A sensible proposition. Please give me a few minutes and then I will lead you to the Time Patrol command post in the Ghetto.”

“Could I come too?” asked quickly Zivia Lubetkin.

“Of course, miss. Now, please excuse me.”

Turning to face the prison, Jack then shouted at the top of his lungs.

“HEY, YOU ASSHOLES INSIDE! YOU HAVE ONE MINUTE TO COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP BEFORE WE BLOW THIS BUILDING TO BITS!” Lubetkin giggled at that.

“You are, uh, quite eloquent, mister.”

“US Navy SEAL training is not conducive to good manners, Miss Lubetkin.”

“I thought that you were part of the Time Patrol.”

“I am! I also was in the US Navy before. We have a real international cocktail of members in the Time Patrol. We actually consider ourselves citizens of Humanity, not of any specific country.”

“Hmm, a nice utopia, but still a utopia.”

“You may think differently in a few years, miss. Ah, here they come.” Jack had the twelve men who ran out of the prison line up in front of him on the sidewalk, spread-eagled against the wall, then searched them one by one. Reading carefully the identity papers and official passes he found on them, he separated five of them from the rest, with one man found with a whip on him being roughly pulled away by Jack. Raising his assault rifle, Jack quickly shot the five men standing in the middle of the street, then finished them off with shots to the head. Zivia Lubetkin stared at him with wide eyes when Jack turned around to face the other prisoners.

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“And you lectured me about courts of justice?”

Jack looked back at her with a grave expression.

“These men have already been judged by the highest court on Earth: History. Their crimes were well documented in our historical archives.” Jack looked at the remaining prisoners, now shaking with terror, and made a dismissing motion with his weapon.

“Consider yourselves unemployed from now on: the Jewish Ghetto police has been dissolved. Where are the keys to the cells?”

“In the guardroom, left after the main entrance. Can we go now?” asked one of the men, nearly stuttering with fear.

“Good! Now, fuck off!”

The seven Jewish policemen didn’t waste any time and ran away, leaving Jack facing Zivia.

“What about letting your men free the prisoners while I lead you and Mister Anielewicz to our command post?”

“That sounds good to me, mister.”

Zivia gave a few directives to three of her men, then followed Jack with Mordecai besides her and the robots keeping the rear. It took them only a few minutes to arrive and enter the building occupied by the TROJAN Team. Zivia whistled in appreciation at the sight of the dozens of combat robots occupying the ground floor.

“You seem to control a respectable force here. I saw your machines at work: they ate the Germans raw.”

“We control a much larger force in Warsaw than what you just saw: we have a total of 800 combat robots similar to those following me, plus twenty big machines mounting heavy support weapons. We also have two spaceships in direct air support, one of which is presently on the ground in Muranowski Square while its crew is resting for a few hours.”

Zivia and Mordecai exchanged surprised looks: they would have never dreamed that those people had such an impressive force already in place. At least, the Ghetto was now secure from German attack. As if to contradict their thoughts, an explosion echoed from inside the Ghetto, quickly followed by two more explosions. Jack immediately ran up to the second-floor command room, Zivia and Mordecai close behind him. Fernand Brunet looked up from the portable workstation manned by Mona Zirel, eyeing critically the two Jewish fighters before looking at Jack.

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“The Germans have started firing randomly with mortars on the Ghetto. Three mortars are firing from this park near the Vistula River. The TEEN TEAM is already moving in for the kill.”

Zivia and Mordecai, like Jack, looked at the spot designated by Brunet on the city map showing on the main screen of the workstation. A multitude of various symbols were overlaid on the map, with one green symbol moving fast towards the park pointed by Brunet. Zivia shook her head in incomprehension.

“How could you locate these mortars so quickly? Do you have some of your machines observing them?”

“No, miss. Our robots and ships simply have detectors which have no equals in this time. We located these mortars by tracing the trajectories of their bombs back to their point of origin. Watch this secondary screen: it is showing what the gunner of our scoutship is looking at.”

Three more explosions echoed in the night as they looked at the screen. The picture of a park quickly grew in clarity and size, to finally center on a group of 26 German soldiers manning three medium caliber mortars dispersed through the trees of the park. A shower of small explosions suddenly bracketed the Germans, shredding them to pieces. Blinding beams of light followed, stabbing directly the mortar tubes and melting them down. A young female voice then came out of the speaker of the workstation.

“TROJAN Team, this is TEEN TEAM: the mortars are now out of action for good.”

“Good work, Ingrid.” replied Fernand in his microphone. “Keep patrolling that area for a while: there may be more Germans around.”

When Fernand looked back at Zivia and Mordecai, he saw that the Jews were now tense and had unslung their rifles.

“Ingrid, that’s a German name.” said Zivia, suspicious. Fernand stared back calmly at her.

“First, miss, I would leave those rifles alone if I were you before my friend Jack makes you eat them. Second, yes, Ingrid Weiss is German, like many members of the Time Patrol, but that didn’t stop her from firing on German Army soldiers. Like me and many other members of the Time Patrol, Ingrid also happens to have been a Jew in a previous life. She also is the adopted daughter of Nancy Laplante.”

“A previous life?”

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Patiently, Fernand took a minute to explain the concept of reincarnation as it applied to members of the Time Patrol, leaving Zivia and Mordecai deeply shaken.

“My God! Is this why your Time Patrol decided to help us in the Ghetto?” asked Zivia.

“We will help and protect any innocent person in need as long as the integrity of history permits it, miss. However, Nancy Laplante does have a strong affinity with Palestine. Her first incarnation was born in Jericho over 9,000 years ago and three more of her incarnations were spent at least partly in Palestine. One of them was as Sarai of Ur, wife of the great patriarch Abraham. As for Ingrid Weiss, she was Agar, the Egyptian slave girl who had a son from Abraham, and was a Moroccan Jew in an ulterior life.” A triumphant exclamation from Mona Zirel then made them all look at a secondary screen of her workstation.

“WE GOT HIM! Nancy just scooped up Hitler and some of his higher staff at his East Prussian headquarters.”

Her heart nearly jumping out of her chest in excitement, Zivia watched with glee the screen where a dejected-looking Adolph Hitler was visible, his hands tied and with two combat robots escorting him out of a ship compartment. Both she and Mordecai then screamed in pure delight.