Time War: Invasion

by Nick S. Thomas

  “Don’t do it. They’ll take a shot at you,” said Porter.

  “We have to try.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the only other option is to fight, and I will not have their blood on our hands.”

  “But you’d be happy with your own?”

  He shook his head and slowly stepped out into the opening. It was a low window, so he was visible from the knees upwards. One of the soldiers stepped up from behind the staff car and walked forward to get a better view.

  “Sergeant, I am unaware of any Rangers operating in this area in the passing weeks or today. Care to provide some more proof of your identity.”

  “Is it not enough that you can see what we have achieved here?”

  The man shook his head.

  “My name is Captain Reeves, and my mission was to capture key German officers at this location. Can you explain what the hell you are doing here?”

  “I told you, Captain. We have been operating as clandestine forces and saw this opportunity, so we took it.”

  The Captain squinted as he tried to get a better view of Corwin. He could see the armour and camouflage he was wearing, and it was obvious he was becoming suspicious.

  “Sergeant, without confirmation of who you are, I must ask that you lay your your arms and come out peacefully. If you are who you say you are, and it can be confirmed, then all is well.”

  “And if we refuse?”

  “Sergeant, if you refuse, then I must assume that you are the enemy, and you will be fired upon.”

  “Fuck this. If they are in our way, we put them down,” said Porter.

  “No,” snapped Corwin, "You will not fire on these men.”

  “Sergeant, lay down your weapons and step outside. You have thirty seconds to comply!”

  Corwin sighed, trying to work out some way out of their situation.

  “Twenty seconds, Sergeant!”

  The time seemed to fly by.

  “Ten seconds!”

  “Five…four…three…two…one! Last chance, Sergeant!”

  “You don’t have to do this. You don’t want this!” Corwin shouted.

  “Time is up. Come out without your weapons!”

  But he shook his head. The Captain went back to the cover of the car. Corwin stepped away from the window and to the top of the stairs where everyone could hear him.

  “Nobody uses lethal force! Nobody! You kill one of them, and I’ll kill you!” he barked.

  The first stick rushed for the door, and Corwin heard a racket as Rane and Nylund engaged them in hand-to-hand in the darkness of the hallway.

  “Ah, fuck it,” Corwin murmured.

  He put down his rifle and took a run at the opening where there was once a window and jumped. He cleared the car in what was a superhuman jump and landed in amongst the Captain and his stick. They were all too shocked to respond initially, due to the amazing stunt he had achieved, and the inability to fire for he was in amongst them.

  He reached for the first shoulder, drove a knee hard into his stomach, and knocked him out with a punch to the head. He back-fisted another and then drove a kick into the third. The power of the blow launched the man into the air in a display of power none of them had seen before.

  Gunshots rang out from one of them firing point blank with a submachine gun at Corwin. The armour on his torso was riddled with bullets, but not one of them went through. The shocked gunman stopped. Corwin grabbed him and launched him through the air. He turned to take on another when he felt the cold metal of a gun muzzle against the side of his head.

  He froze. He knew that no matter how strong he was, no matter how fast he healed, he could not survive a bullet to the head like that. His eyes panned over slightly to see it was the Captain himself holding a revolver.

  “What are you?”

  “Sergeant Corwin,” he replied confidently.

  “Of where? Your story does not add up, Sergeant. Tell your men to lay down their arms and come out without a fight, and I promise you no harm will come to you.”

  He waited for a response, and Corwin knew he had to agree.

  “Come on out!” he boomed at the top of his voice, “It’s over! Come out and put your weapons down!”

  The Captain was still racking his brains trying to make sense of it.

  “You lied about who you are, and yet you took down this whole place, why?"

  “Some truths you don’t want to know, Captain. All you need to know is that we are not your enemy, not even close.”

  “I wish I could believe that. I really do.”

  “Then do. Some truths are stranger than fiction.”

  “And you believe that, as a military man? Clearly, you are no German, but I don’t know what you are.”

  They turned and watched the rest of Corwin’s squad step out from the house under the watchful eyes of dozens of airborne soldiers. Several balked at the sight of the mountain of a man that Rane was. He was freakishly huge, to a degree that none of them could believe he was just human, and they would be right. But it was as the three women came out they were most shocked.

  “Those three are with you?” Reeves asked in astonishment, “Not a single element of the United States armed forces would allow women in a combat role.”

  “Times change, Captain.”

  It wasn’t a lie, and he didn’t know how else to explain it. The British soldiers were studying every element of their equipment and trying to understand what they were seeing.

  “Who the hell are you people?” Reeves asked, signalling for his people to take their weapons off them.

  “We are a specialist unit that uses only the latest in technologies and tactics. We are an unorthodox unit granted, but I can guarantee you, we are not your enemy.”

  He could see the Captain wanted to believe him, and their lack of use of lethal force reinforced that fact.

  “I am sorry, Sergeant, but we have to work on facts, known facts. Maybe you are with us, but you’ve offered no proof or explanation to support that. I will, however, ensure that no harm comes to you. You will be shipped back where your story can be confirmed.”

  Corwin nodded in acceptance, although it was far from the response he was hoping for.

  “Until such time as what you say can be proven, you will be considered enemy combatants, and you must comply with our orders. No harm will come to you unless you resist.”

  Corwin nodded and looked over to his team, hoping they would accept the ruling.

  Reeves turned to one of his people.

  “Get that truck going. We’re getting this lot back to the boats.”

  “Yes, Sir,” the response came.

  He turned back to Corwin. “There were two high-ranking German officers at this manor. Do you know of their whereabouts?”

  “Both dead.”

  “Your doing?”

  Corwin nodded.

  “You took his house without a single casualty?” he asked suspiciously.

  “It’s what we do, and we’re the best,” replied Corwin confidently.

  The truck engine started, and Reeves ushered them all aboard, along with a stick of his own platoon. As they began to pull away, they could see the soldiers carrying out the bodies of the two German officers for identification. Both were stripped to their underwear and bore no physical marks of injury. Reeves looked back to Corwin as they rode away. There were a hundred questions in his eyes, and yet Corwin knew there was no way he could have answered any of them honestly.

  They rode on for just a hundred metres when Porter leaned across to whisper to Corwin.

  “So when we getting out of this?”

  “We’re not.”

  Several others of the team heard the conversation and looked to him with amazement.

  “We can’t go on like this. Trying to hide from both sides in a war that encompasses the world. If we hope to have any chance of success, we need help.”

  “And you think we’re gonna get help here? What we’re gonna get is a pr
ison cell,” replied Porter.

  “The Sergeant is right,” added Beyett, “Alone we stand no chance of ever reaching Villiers. As a unit we are strong, stronger than a hundred ordinary men, or more. But without the intelligence, support, and technology that made us what we are, we are worth little more than any other squad.”

  Porter laughed. “Keep dreaming.”

  But nobody else found it funny. They passed several platoons of British infantry on the road heading northwest to the beaches. They could hear bombers passing overhead, and always the sound of artillery firing on both sides.

  “You said this operation was a disaster?” Hunter asked Beyett.

  “It was, but it went nothing like this. They never got off the beaches, and they never used airborne forces. Whatever has changed in this timeline, the war will progress in a very different fashion to the history I know.”

  “Great, so we’ve lost that advantage, too,” replied Nylund.

  “No, it’s all useful information. Sure some things have changed, but plenty will have remained the same,” Corwin replied in some attempt to calm them down.

  “Gonna be an awful lot of questions when they get us back to England,” said Beyett.

  “Questions we don’t have the right answers for. Should have just fought our way out and gone on with the mission.”

  “No, Porter, enough lies.”

  They looked at Corwin as he went on.

  “They won’t work. We can’t bullshit our way through this. We couldn’t even convince once field officer that our story was solid, so how do you think that will work when we have some serious interrogators before us? No, from now on, transparency. They aren’t willing to believe the bullshit, fine, let’s hit them with the truth.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “That we state the facts, Beyett. Who we are, where we came from, and why we’re here.”

  “That’s madness. We’ll be locked up, and they’ll throw away the keys. You know how crazy this all sounds if you aren’t the ones to experience it? Would you have ever believed a story if some strangers turned up in our time with this tale?”

  Corwin shook his head.

  “No, but we have truth on our side.”

  Porter laughed.

  “Truth, you think people want the truth?” He laughed once again.

  “I don’t see we have any other choice left. We have some proof. We have technology that is far beyond this age.”

  “That is all dead,” replied Beyett.

  “We have powers and strengths that are superhuman.”

  “If anything, they’ll probably believe we are some kind of Nazi experiment. It’s about the most likely answer. Especially as you can damn well guarantee Villiers has been implementing his ideas for enhanced soldiers by now. We’ll be seen as freaks and creations of the enemy,” said Beyett.

  “Got any better idea?” Corwin asked coldly, resting back against the bench seat of the truck.

  They could all see he was calm and completely serious, and none of them had a better solution.

  “Exactly. We go along with this and don’t cause trouble. We prove we aren’t the enemy and that we can be trusted, and we can gain the support we need.”

  Beyett shook his head, and yet he could find no other solution. They reached the beaches and saw hundreds of ships and smaller boats out at sea, as well as endless lines of landing craft, tanks, and trucks on the beaches.

  “This is not how it went at all.”

  They all waited for him to go on as the truck rocked to a halt on the beach.

  “This is like some hybrid between the disaster of Dieppe, and the triumphant success and logistical marvel of D-day, all rolled into one.”

  “And which do you think it will be, disaster or triumph?” asked Corwin.

  Beyett shook his head.

  “I just don’t know, anymore.”

  As their truck came to a halt on the shoreline, Porter made one last attempt to convince Corwin to change his mind.

  "Last chance, we can fight our way out of this now, or be caged for God knows how long."

  Corwin glared at him.

  "Don't you dare try and fuck this up. We stick to plan. Transparency and honesty, it's the only hope we have left."

  They were ushered off the truck and towards the beach, wading up to their knees before clambering aboard a rickety open top landing craft. The ramp slammed home before them. Corwin could see the look of absolute loss and defeat in the eyes of them all, except for Beyett.

  "It was the right thing to do," he said to reassure Corwin who was not entirely convinced.

  They soon found themselves aboard a small warship and heading for England. It was a bizarre turn of events, but Corwin started to feel some relief that they could finally stop hiding from the world. They'd lived and operated as an isolated team for so long, but he had never realised how significant and valuable their support network and resources really were to him.

  * * *

  45 hours later -

  The men of Corwin's platoon lay about a bunkroom in a POW camp. They had no idea where they were, nor the location of the women, but Corwin had no fears for their health. He knew they were tough, and he trusted the Allies to look after them, no matter how crazy their story seemed. The group had barely spoken any words since arriving. They were waiting for something, they just didn't know what, but they knew they were unusual enough that eventually some questions would be asked. Finally, the call came.

  "Sergeant Corwin!"

  He stood up quickly to see two guards at the door waiting to escort him out.

  "Don't fuck this up," said Porter.

  Corwin nodded in appreciation of the helpful comment and carried on. He was led to the entrance of the camp and passed many German and Italian POWs, all still wearing their uniforms, only stripped of any Nazi related insignia. Not one of the enemy had spoken to them since they arrived. They looked intimidated by the physical size and strength of Corwin's squad.

  He was show into a brick building at the entrance gates where he knew the commander of the camp resided, but instead he was led to another room in the same structure. It was a small interrogation room where a British officer sat waiting for him. As he stepped inside, a guard pulled shut a heavy barred security door and locked it. The officer was sitting casually and comfortably before him, and bore the rank of Captain. He looked inviting and friendly, gesturing for Corwin to step inside and take a seat at the table across from him. He was shocked by Corwin's muscular physique and kept looking back through a small paper file in front of him. He stuttered as he began to speak.

  "I...I...I am Captain Hotwell."

  "Sergeant Corwin," he replied politely.

  "Yes...yes...I can see that in your file. What I am trying to understand, Sergeant, is not what your name is, but who you are. The story of your capture is most unconventional. I have a report here from a Captain Reeves to say that you and your comrades captured a German command post by yourselves and with no casualties. But then you could not identify yourselves and entered into combat with his men, but that you did so without the use of lethal force. You never fired your guns, why?"

  Corwin raised his eyebrows, as that was an awful lot of information he had brought up, so he just focused on the last question.

  "Because we are not the enemy."

  "I really want to believe that, Sergeant. But you must understand, you were caught in enemy territory during a mission of vital importance. Yet the Americans have never heard of you, and they assure us they had nobody operating in the area."

  Corwin took in a deep breath. He had been playing this situation out in his mind for days, but he still couldn't find the right way to do it.

  "I can keep feeding you bullshit, or I can be straight with you, but you're not gonna like it."

  "Let me be the judge of that please, Sergeant. Give me the facts. Who do you work for, what was your mission, and why have you not identified yourself if you are indeed an ally?"

&nb
sp; "If you're willing to hear this, then I will tell it to you straight, but let me finish before you begin to doubt my story."

  "Go on." He sat back to listen intently.

  "The simple fact is this, we were there to hunt down the most dangerous man in the world; a man who should not be in this time and place, just as we should not be either. You cannot find record of us, and we cannot explain that because we were not born in this age, not in your lifetime, or anyone else alive here in this world. I never thought any of this possible until we arrived here."

  Hotwell looked both completely confused and enthralled all at once as Corwin went on.

  "A few days ago we were close to ending the world war we knew, until the leader of the enemy forces did the most unlikely of things. He travelled through time, and we went after him to try and stop him."

  Hotwell was shaking his head and smiling now.

  "Time travel? I didn't take you for much of a reader, Sergeant, but I think you might have been delving into fiction a little too much of late."

  "I told you I would give you the truth, not that you would be ready to hear it."

  That made Hotwell curious, and he leaned in across the table.

  "Okay, I will play this game to its end, and then we will get the real truth. What year have you come from?"

  "2074," Corwin replied quickly.

  "And in this 2074, what are you?"

  "Sergeant Corwin, Second Platoon, 1st Battalion, 12th Allied Infantry Division."

  "From what nation do you hail?"

  "As an Allied Division, we are drawn from many of the Allied powers. What you know today as America, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, and many more."

  Hotwell squinted as he racked his brain and thought about it.

  "France and Germany, allies?"

  "Is it so hard to believe that in over a hundred years, things might have changed a little?"

  "No, what it is a little hard to understand, Sergeant, is how you can feed me these outrageous and preposterous fantasies, and expect to be taken at all seriously. What else has changed in the hundred years since your time? Can men fly without engines, and do you live on the moon?"

  Corwin shook his head. "Then what do you believe I am?"