FROM THE FUTURE WITH LOVE A quick conference between Dennis, with his new radar, and the scientists at Alpha determined that there might be a pattern to the materialization of people and item shipments from the future. If this pattern were to hold true, there was to be a materialization nearby fairly soon. Of course, there was only one way to see whether or not this prediction would come true or not, and that was to go to the point of arrival and wait for it. Unfortunately, this arrival was going to happen in what was nominally Russian controlled territory, which was just my luck. I suppose that it was better not to get too used to good news. I left Peterson at Gamma to continue his research, and took a combat team to go and wait for this possible shipment from our supporters. Arriving at the location, we established a new base, called Epsilon, logically enough, close to a river nearby. Scouts confirmed that there was a Russian presence to the south. By that time, we had gotten some reinforcements, but, as usual, there were never enough people. While we were establishing the base, we heard a series of loud noises, which signaled that there was incoming materiel and that our scientists were right. I had all of our Apemen go and gather what had arrived, since time and resources were going to be of the essence, but with the limit that they were to leave anything that was too close to the Russian base, since we couldn’t risk warning them of our presence just yet. Once the base was up to snuff, we modified the lab to support weapons and opto-electronics research, and called Peterson in from Gamma. Simultaneously, I sent a scientist out to the west of the base to see if he could socialize some more Apemen to work for us. With Peterson’s help, we were to build a prototype remote control vehicle. Setting the scientists to work on the remote control aspect, I had the remaining workers start expanding and entrenching the base, adding radio capability and defenses. Since we had enough Apemen to gather materiel, we didn’t feel the need to devote any space to non-combat vehicles, since that would involve building another factory and a lot of time and resources lost. Soon after that, the scientists finished working on two technologies. First, a new method of locating materiel sent from the future, since it was difficult to localize the sound when you heard it in the field, and second, the control method for the remote control vehicles, so we were able to build a control tower and start producing them. Once they had announced that, I set them to work on some new cannon technology, since I had the feeling that we were going to need some heavy weaponry once the Russians found us. Things were proceeding smoothly when one of the unknown soldiers that we had seen before materialized right in the middle of the base. He looked upset, and was armed. I would have liked to capture him, but he looked like he wasn’t going down without a fight, and I didn’t want to lose anyone over a prisoner, so we let him out of the base without a fight. Finally, the Russians found us. I had figured that it would only be a matter of time, but I was hoping that it wouldn’t be this early, before we had gotten vehicle production up to speed. Since it was only a patrol, we were able to defeat them, but now we had added impetus to get the vehicles on line as soon as possible. Since our need for power was critical at that point, we built an additional power plant and some double cannon vehicles with heavy chassis. Well, that was the plan. All hell breaking loose in the middle of it all put something of a crimp in that plan. We were attacked by another patrol during the production of the first vehicle, and seemingly moments after we had defeated them, we were attacked by several heavy tanks from the Russian base. We were able to defeat them, but just barely. Our newly produced vehicles had sustained heavy damage, and many people were wounded. We didn’t lose anyone, but it was close there for a while. Although there was a movement among the troops to immediately attack the Russian base I decided to wait and shore up our defenses before venturing out. And lucky that I did. Not lucky because we were soon to be attacked again, but lucky because I was there to witness an event that would change the course of my past. While we were entrenching, a woman materialized in our base. She collapsed almost immediately, so a medic and I rushed over to see to her. To my total astonishment, it was Joan! I could feel my heart simultaneously trying to creep into my throat and drop into my stomach. After a few moments of treatment, she regained consciousness. She told me that the EON base had been attacked by unknown soldiers, and that she was the only one who had been able to escape, and even then, her only option was the EON, and the past. For a moment, I reveled in the destined quality of it, but then pragmatic elements again came to the fore. She said that there were going to be fewer shipments and reinforcements, since we no longer held the EON. Soon after, Lt. Lawson came to talk to me about Joan, questioning her ability to contribute. Although she said that she was primarily concerned with her ability to work, it seemed to me that her comments came mainly from thinly veiled jealousy. Although I was surprised that Lawson, a hard woman at best, and a damned good soldier, could have feelings, much less for me, I fobbed her off with an explanation of Joan’s medical condition and spent quite a while mulling the conversation over. I had time enough, as the rest of the resource collection went very smoothly, with only one interruption. Delta radioed with the news that resource drops were going to become less and less frequent, which was grim news indeed.

Introduction Mission 1 Mission 2 Mission 3 Mission 4 Mission 5 Mission 6 Mission 7 Mission 8 Mission 9 Mission 10 Mission 11 Decision Mission 12 Mission 13 Mission 14 Mission 15