He ground earth from his vision, blinked. Sitting up from the mud and shit and snow, he pried his arms from the impact mark, rolled to free his legs. His helmet was gone. He heard the stutter and stammer of his cardiac shield attempting to lock on to
West at his side, face gouged by
“This isn’t good.”
“Hope?”
She crawled through the trench towards her partners. “Lock’s splintered.”
“Yeah.”
Stutter.
“Shit. Let me see that.”
Chest heaving, breath a whisper, the author rolled to his back. Benton checked the readings on his shield. “Okay, it’s stabilizing.”
“Where are we?” West held his riflescope to a silver eye.
“Over/under target, that’s for sure.”
“Okay.” He patted Paul’s cheek. “Can you move?”
“Yeah. Just a little headache.”
“Nose’s broken. Maybe your cheekbone. You’ll be fine.”
“I’m placing a beacon in the Stream. Should be able to lock in a few.”
“Good. Let’s head toward the ridge.”
Lights flickered in the valley around the lake.
Their landing in this time had been particularly rough. West now saw the probable cause of the temporal disruptions in the worldline.
There were scores of black vessels surrounding the lake. One had crashed into an island at its center. From the sky, the stiletto shapes of Judas warships strafed the ground with lances of white laser. Smoke and fire, screams and static snaps. A shattered upload generator struggled to connect to the Enemy mind-essence under a barrage of weapons fire. Judas and Enemy fought hand-to-hand by the thousands. Humans fading into the shift, humans downloading from the mind-essence, a sweep of snow and cutting wind. The lake was frozen. Ice splintered with shadow.
A squadron of Judas Mujahadin passed over the huddled Judith, dropping dozens of pattern-charges into the midst of the Enemy horde. One vessel slowed, a fan of zeros and ones sprinkling West, Benton, Paul. Landing struts descended, and retro-forces kicked up spatters of mud.
It landed.
I remember the throb of nose and right cheek, splintering into eye socket above and rattling teeth below. I don’t remember writing Judas or Enemy into anything else. It concerned me. More blood. I spit again. Breathing was getting easier, marginally, as my blood slowed and thickened. The cardiac shield was quiet.
I guess I’d never really seen a spaceship. I knew it wasn’t just that, but the tickle behind my eyes grew into suspicion and fear. A lucky shot from the valley below slammed into the starboard nacelle of the Muj and dissipated harmlessly into phase shielding. Returning fire from the craft ignited two of the disabled Enemy ships. Shards from the blast tore into and through the field of combatants.
I’d seen it all before…but I’d never
A hull ramp descended from the Muj’s belly. Armed Judas soldiers ran down the plank, surrounded us. At least the weapons were pointing out, not in. That was a good sign. And one Judas—
“Commander West?”
The frown and flicker of confusion was unmistakable, but he proceeded to hide it well beneath his mask of coagulating blood and diced cheekbones.
“Yeah, I’m West.”
Silver eyes swept forth, back under furrowed brows, sculpted with laser precision, fixed on Adam’s again. “Sir?”
“Listen…” The firefight below and above intensified. “I’m not
Realization. “Shit, sorry. Let’s get back to the ship.”
They ran.
That disconcerting joggle in the stomach as inertial dampening systems compensate in an alien atmosphere, butterflies: monarchs? and he felt the suck of the vacuum chair as they rose into a sky shot through with beams of light and plumes of black.
Beside him, Benton wiped beads of nervous sweat from her upper lip. One eye was developing an unpleasant bruise from their rough entry into the wrong When. She caught him looking and smiled quietly, looked toward the front of the cabin where the battle chamber elevator was falling to the floor. The Muj captain got off.
“Okay, let’s figure this out. I just checked with our batteries; nav’s taken us to strato, so we’re out of the battle for the moment.” She palmed the release mechanism on her armor, and silver blades retracted across torso, limbs, settled in seams. “You’re not Commander West.”
He pried himself from his seat, reached to shake her hand. “Not yours. We seem to’ve landed wrong.”
She shook. “It happens. Captain Mindel Frost, Judas Mujahadin Kate, out of Fort John Wayne.”
His eyes lit up. “Mindel Frost? You know Breine Frost?”
“My father.”
“He served with me in the first Jaguar war.”
“I know.” She shrugged. “Same here, too.”
“Is he—”
“Pattern erased two years ago standard.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“So what’s your business in this When?”
“Well…” West looked over at Paul. “It’s complicated.”
Frost turned to the author. “You are..?”
“Paul.”
“Right.”
“We’re here to fix some things, but it might not be exactly here. Can we take a little trip north?”
“Where to?”
“Search Judith ME for coordinates for Lascaux.”
“Judith Em Ee?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
the most painful of our memories jarred loose from the recesses and wrinkles of gray-pink flesh by that most poignant of our senses: scent, and I knew watching her wasn’t good for me. Smelling her was worse.
Scent and taste intrinsically linked: mouth-melting mints, fireplace logs, the claw-footed table, the brown ceramic cup into which he’d spit chewing tobacco juice and saliva, the taste of tongues and lips, teeth closed to bar entrance into mouths, adolescent, yearning, to be rid of the heat and roofing nails, the tear of white t-shirt and back, scars now, wounds then (and this is how we heal by primary) intentions uncertain: cigarette smoke and vodka? The pressure of three on a green flannel comforter, giggles, sisters, shaking hands move to breasts, necks, cheeks, and taste and scent collide in their spectrum, lost in themselves, the self a wondering observer from the periphery of my own world, taste and scent collide in the thrash of limbs, descent of clothing to tiled floor, callused fingers within softest folds, the shudder and gasp, the disconcerting slap of flat sweetness, sweat, the tang of exertion and desire, and desire across all senses, all pasts brought forward into tomorrows constructed solely of
