“I haven’t been informed of anything sir, but I would be happy to check with the comm-shack.” Sergeant Dilling had been told to see to the General’s comfort, and by all means to keep him safely where he was, and out of trouble. He had no idea who this visitor was, or why he would be decked out in such an archaic uniform, but he did his best nonetheless-for the third time-returning a few minutes later to report that they had no recent communications of any note.
At this O’Connor exhaled, frustrated and eager to be up and about his business again. He needed to get to Alexandria, but this unit was quite a mystery to him.
“Just who do you say you are out here, Sergeant?”
“Sir?”
“What unit are you, man? Are you out from Siwa?”
“No sir,” said Dilling politely, answering the second question while ignoring the first. He had been told to say as little as possible about the business of the brigade, but he could see that this man was getting up a good head of steam and seemed restless to be up and about, which would be his problem. Thankfully he was reinforced by a Major from Brigadier Kinlan’s staff and was able to recede, off the hook for the moment.
“Ah, there you are General,” said Major Isaac. “I have been asked to inquire on your wellbeing, sir. I trust you managed to get a few hours sleep.”
“Quite so,” said O’Connor, “and a better breakfast than I’ve had for a good long while.”
“Splendid. Well, sir, if you would be so good as to accompany me, we’ve arranged for a local area reconnaissance. Brigadier Kinlan would be very pleased if you would come along.”
That sounded better. Reconnaissance was an art O’Connor strongly believed in, but he wondered what this was about, and asked as much.
“Well sir,” said Major Isaac, “that storm could have masked a host of unpleasantries out here, and it’s standard procedure to have a good look around before we move the column out. General Kinlan was most eager to have you along. Then we can see about getting you to Alexandria. Right this way, sir.”
At last, thought O’Connor. Things were starting to feel just a bit more normal now. For a moment there he had the distinct feeling that he was being treated like an outsider here, an interloper, and even came to feel he was being considered a prisoner! The questions that had succumbed to the weariness of the night were all with him again now. Who were these men? Why were they dressed so strangely, and by god, where did they get all these odd new vehicles? He had seen two tanks the other night, but they were gone now, and for a moment he doubted what he had seen. It must have been the bloody sand storm, a trick of light and shadow in the wind.
Yet what he saw next did little to still his mind. He was politely ushered aboard a vehicle, where two curious looking soldiers sat with unusual looking rifles, and the hatch was closed, obscuring everything from view. Yet O’Connor had a good pair of ears, and he knew the sounds of a military unit waking up in the desert, shaking off the cold, warming up and getting ready to move soon.
“You’ve obviously just come off the boat,” he said to the Major. “Yet I can’t imagine why, or even how you managed to get the ten or twenty odd vehicles you have here this far south, and it sounds like there’s a good deal more here. Just what are you up to out here, Major? A reinforcement sent to Fergusson at Siwa?”
Like Dillings, the Major had been told to divulge as little as possible and simply get the General into a secure vehicle, with no windows, and get him out to the Russian helicopter. So he fell back on the one thing that he knew might allow him a brief holding action here, and punted.
“Well sir, I haven’t been fully briefed on the situation. Brigadier Kinlan has simply asked me to convey his invitation, and stated he preferred to brief you in person.”
“Good enough, Major.” That made sense to O’Connor, and so he let the matter go, but one question after another was waking up in his head again and, when the vehicle finally stopped and he stepped out into the pre-dawn darkness, he got yet another surprise to be standing in the shadow of a massive mechanical beast, a huge metal locust, with long bladed wings.
Fedorov was there to greet him, along with Brigadier Kinlan, who saluted. The two men had conferred over how they would handle the matter with O’Connor. The only question now was whether they could pull it off.
“You can’t just come out with this cockamamie tale about time travel,” said Kinlan. “Yes, you’ve managed to drag my horse’s ass to the water, but it’s rather brackish and unpalatable. I at least had some understanding of what you tried to convey. I know what nuclear weapons are, and the strange effects they give rise to, but this man hasn’t even heard of something like radiation, let alone EMP or this fracturing of time you’re arguing. He has no framework whatsoever to understand any of this.”
