Bob Mayer - D-Day: Time Patrol

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.

T here once was a place called Atlantis. Ten thousand years ago, it was attacked by a force known only as the Shadow, on the same day over the course of six years. The last attack led to Atlantis being obliterated to the point where it is just a legend.

There are many Earth timelines. The Shadow comes from one of those alternate timelines (or perhaps more than one). It is attacking our timeline by punching bubbles into our past that can last no more than twenty-four hours. In each bubble, the Shadow is trying to change our history and cause a time ripple.

By itself, a single time ripple can be dealt with, corrected, and absorbed. But a significant time ripple that is unchecked can become a Cascade. And six Cascades combine to become a Time Tsunami.

That would be the end of our timeline, and our existence.

To achieve its goal, the Shadow attacks six points in time simultaneously; the same date, in different years.

The Time Patrols job is to keep our timeline intact.

The Time Patrol sends an agent back to each of those six dates to keep history the same.

This is one of those dates: 6 June.

Where The Time Patrol Ended Up This Particular Day: 6 June

The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. General Dwight D Eisenhower

S tand in the door!

Mac barely had a chance to grip the metal frame around the opening in the side of the plane before he was slapped on the rump and the jumpmaster screamed, Go!

Mac went on pure instinct, throwing himself out of a perfectly good airplane, chin tucked, hands around the reserve across his belly. The airplanes prop blast immediately ripped away the leg bag containing the Thompson submachine gun and the blasting caps. Mac was automatically counting, One thousand, two thousand, three thous then the opening shock of the parachute jerked him upright.

He checked above, and the twenty-eight-foot diameter hemisphere above his head appeared intact. He looked down. He was 700 feet above ground, just the dark mass of Earth below. There was a little time, so he glanced about. Quiet, other than the fading sound of a planes engines. Lights here and there in the countryside. But no flak, no artillery, nothing martial to foreshadow the greatest invasion the world would ever know. The Day of Days was yet to kick off with fireworks.

Mac was going to be one of the first with boots on the ground, but he would be gone before the day came to a close.

Hopefully.

Where was the drop zone? The Resistance should be showing a light. Why else had he, whoever he was before he left the plane, jumped? Fortunately, there was an opening among the trees almost directly below.

This was a T-7 chute, the download reminded himno toggles to steer with, so he reached up and grabbed the risers, pulling, trying to gain some control. He felt like a target. The green chute was silhouetted against the dark sky, and he felt a moment of empathy for Roland, whod been the first to jump in on so many Nightstalker missions.

If a bullet came, he knew he wouldnt hear it; it would just be one moment here and then not here, sort of like traveling in time, except with no consciousness in the not-here. He took a deep breath then exhaled, hearing the air rush around his canopy.

Feet and knees together, knees slightly bent; the training from the Black Hats at Fort Benning during Airborne School was deeply ingrained. He glanced down once more, and then he saw the deeper black opening of the well directly below him.

It is 1944 A.D. The worlds population is 2.2 billion. World War II is well on its way to taking fifty to eighty million, depending on who is doing the math, out of that number. National Velvet, starring Elizabeth Taylor, is released; Auschwitz is photographed by a British surveillance aircraft; Anne Frank and family are arrested; IBM dedicates the first program-controlled calculator; Hitler survives another assassination attempt; George Lucas is born; the 1944 Summer Olympics, scheduled for London, are postponed; The siege of Leningrad is lifted; Jimmy Page is born; Kurt Gerron films a Nazi propaganda film in a concentration camp, then is sent with his entire crew to die in Auschwitz; the Great Escape; No Exit is published by Sartre.

And Mac saw no exit if he went down that well.

Some things change; some dont.

Mac pulled on the risers, trying to slip the canopy, but the ground was rushing up now, the way it always did in the last fifty feet of the jump. There was movement to one side, and he saw the woman with the gun.

T hen perhaps you should be dead, Beowulf said. Perhaps you are already dead, which would explain how you got in here, and why you do the bidding of the Goddess Hel.

The hair on the back of Rolands neck tingled, a warning hed learned never to ignore. He looked at the barred double doors across the entrance to the great hall of Heorot. Is there another way in here?

Beowulf shook his head. Only the front can be opened from the inside. We sealed every other door.

Roland realized his, and Beowulfs, mistake as the monster dropped from the smoke hole in the roof and landed on the stone floor with a solid thud, right next to the fire pit, its massive weight cracking the flagstone beneath.

Nobody ever looks up.

Roland could hear Nadas voice echoing inside his head just as the sound of Grendels arrival echoed outside of it.

Roland spun to face the monster as it shredded two of Beowulfs thanes before they were awake, blood, viscera and flesh splattering about.

It is 452 A.D. The worlds population is 190 million. Fifty-two percent of those humans live in India and China, seventeen percent in the rest of Asia, seventeen percent in Europe, ten percent in Africa, and the rest of the world has only four percent; Attila leads the Huns in an invasion of Italy; King Vortigen marries Rowena and becomes King of the Britons; Saint John the Silent is born and will become known for living alone for seventy-six years; Emperor Valentinian III flees from Ravenna to Rome trying to escape Attilas invasion.

With his first glimpse of Grendel, Roland realized this was a lot worse than he had imagined it could be.

Some things change; some dont.

Kala Chitta Range, Pakistan, 6 June 1998 A.D

Into the valley of death we go.

Doc blinked, trying to get oriented. The man whod spoken was definitely inside his personal space, less than a foot in front of him, holding a piece of paper in front of Docs face. Message decoded, sir.

Doc took the piece of paper. He was in a small cave, hole, whatever; he couldnt quite make out his surroundings in the dark. Doc read it in the very dim glow from a single chem light that the man cupped in his other hand.

The words were scrawled in block letters:

TASK FORCE KALI A GO

VIA PRESIDENTIAL AUTHORIZATION

CODE FOUR KILO NINE NINE ECHO TERMINUS

REPEAT GO

VERIFY

CODE FOUR KILO NINE NINE ECHO TERMINUS

KALI WHEELS UP IN THREE ZERO MIKES

TIME ON TARGET FOUR HOURS ONE FIVE MIKES