Authors Notes:

Terra Nova canon says that Commander Taylor spent 118 days at TN alone. I wondered why, and so I wrote about one possibility. I hope you believe it is plausible. If you are wondering where in canon Outpost B is covered, it isn't. It's my literary construct, also plausible, for an emergency shelter near the main colony. It would be logical for them to have one. I have conveniently used it as a secret sanctuary for characters to have some private moments.

Also, you'll note that I have expanded my old "Mark and Maddy" Story title to be "Mark and Maddy and the Terra Nova Chronicles" so that I can write and add continously to this story as an anthology of TN stories. I very much appreciate how so many of you fellow Terra Nova fans have supported me and seem to really like my TN stories, and are quite vocal in your support. Those nice comments keep me writing for you. I just wish, like all of you, that that series would return, and I could just watch the show instead of writing fan fiction! :)

Chapter 21: Trust Fall Part 3

AD 2142

Pilgrimage One stood before the time portal – the entire security team and a number of key construction workers who would become the facilities management staff when they were done. They knew from the robotic probes that a teeming jungle with many fearsome creatures and other dangers awaited them on the other side, along with a million tons of provisions, vehicles, weapons, power, security equipment, buildings, medical supplies, food, communications gear, and habitats that had been sent forward. All of which they had to assemble quickly to survive.

They had to get Terra Nova ready, so that the next rounds of pilgrimages to follow had a place to live and work. The most fit survivalists had to go first to secure a foothold in the untamed land, so that scientists, and engineers, laborers, and families could survive in the following rounds. The handpicked seed corn of humanity was going to Terra Nova, to assure that in a dying world, humanity would go on. It was a like a second 'Eden'. Competition would be fierce in the interview process to be part of the 'Pilgrimages' ahead.

Taylor stood in line as the first to go through the temporal rift. Wash smiled standing behind him. It was so much like Taylor. If something terrible was to happen, he would shoulder the burden first - before subjecting his men and women to the problem. That is why people were so loyal to him. She gladly stood behind him in the second in line at the Portal.

General Philbrick took Taylor aside suddenly and whispered in his ear. Taylor frowned, and whispered back emphatically. The old General stood firm. Taylor's shoulders grew limp, he sighed, and then stood back straight. He walked the length of the ramp. The portal crackled and seethed with enormous energy, the opening arced, nearly blinding everyone on the ramp, and Taylor walked through.

There was instant silence, but for a low electronic hum as the Portal cycled and reset. Taylor had disappeared.

The Portal Controller announced to Philbrick, "He's there sir. Sensors confirm."

Wash held her breath, shouldered her pack, and started down the long metal ramp to the Portal as it began its recharging process to send her there next.

But General Philbrick, who had been presiding over the first trip to Terra Nova, stood in front of her, "Lieutenant Washington, halt."

"Sir?" she questioned.

"Taylor is the only one going today, Lieutenant. We cannot afford to put more than one of our top people at risk until we are certain survival is possible."

"But he is alone, sir," she complained.

"Is there anyone more capable of surviving alone in a hostile environment than Commander Taylor, Washington?" Philbrick asked rhetorically.

"No sir, it's just…" and she held her tongue. What she was about to say would have been insubordinate. As well as profane.

Philbrick chided, "Then stand down, soldier. You and your colleagues will await further orders."

"Yes sir," she saluted.

This just didn't feel right, and seemed very sudden to just send one person into the unknown. She turned and ordered her compatriots to go back to their quarters. She figured it would only be a day, or a few days before they would join Taylor. She was completely wrong.

….

Taylor arrived on the other end of the journey, groaned and immediately fell, seized by vertigo. He was disoriented and bilious, and lost most of his breakfast. The medics had warned him, and he took their medicines. But it still hadn't completely offset the effects of the travel to not only another time but also another dimension. It was serendipitous that was the physics of it, that Lucas himself had discovered. Anything that happened here would not affect the future of the Earth was he and everyone else in mankind knew. Lucas joked once that it was not possible to go back and 'kill your own grandfather'.

What Taylor contemplated but never asked: how would their presence on this alternate Earth affect the future history of billions of unborn humans in the alternate Earth's future? You could kill your alternate self's grandfather. He felt guilty, potentially robbing billions of people of their very existence because of his greedy dying world's chance for survival. Sometimes he speculated that this world they were invading - well before the first human ever existed - maybe got it 'right' with their chance at being stewards of their Earth. But it was a moot point now. They were here, and whatever time line was to be on this Earth was now forever altered.

It was his own survival he was more worried about currently. He was not happy that at the very last second, Philbrick, his friend, colleague, and long time superior officer insisted he go alone. Apparently his son Lucas had told the old General he had seen some instability in the equations for large groups crossing all at once. In point of fact no human had crossed through until now. Everything prior had been robots, equipment, and instrumented lab animals. Lucas had noted long ago, and Malcolm had corroborated his hypothesis, that an unstable Portal could wreak terrible harm to the rift and to the Earth's on either side.

He understood his son's caution, but was not sure if he was really comfortable with being 'the guinea pig' under the General's insistence at crossing over alone in a time of uncertainty. But he never disobeyed Philbrick's orders before. Taylor's desire to be here was stronger than any misgivings or doubts he had. He stood tentatively; feeling better, he shouldered his pack, and headed for the Terra Nova main site. He made a mental note that for future Pilgrimages that he needed medical staff stationed at the crossover point to tend to those who were disoriented coming through. They also needed better control over the entry point. He was at least two klicks away from the planned crossover target. A moveable Portal on this end was high priority.

He arrived at the Terra Nova site, and was very pleasantly surprised. The drones had been busy for months ahead of the Pilgrimage erecting all the pre-fab buildings, pathways, and were working on the critically important security fence. But it was far from done, and his security was entirely his own responsibility for now. He noted some small reptiles wandering through the site, curious, taking some exploratory bites and licks at the metal and composite structures, startling at the bad taste, and running away. Some of the buildings were clearly in the wrong place or had mistakes in assembly.

He looked at the additional modular buildings stored to the side of the main construction, and knew what he had to do first, so it would be undiscoverable. He had not intended to do this special project alone, but decided that it might be better this way. Perhaps that is what Philbrick had intended as well. The General always had his direct orders, but sometimes had hidden intentions in those commands that were all for the greater good.

His first night in the jungle was sleepless and pure terror. His unfamiliar scent attracted dinosaurs large and small, and so he slept high in a sturdy tree, and prayed that none of them were tree climbers. Or tree eaters. So the first pilgrim repeated this pattern night after night. He mused that being a 'pilgrim in a tree' surrounded by all this high tech security gear was a true irony.

Each day he helped monitor the robotic construction, altering some programming to move this or change that. The most important activity was after his first month of his arrival was to make sure the reactor and the central computation core got safely buried, secured, and operational. Without either of those, he might as well strip to a loin cloth and live in the jungle like a caveman. Wash would get a true laugh out of that, though the thought of her in bearskins was equally amusing, even though he knew that there wouldn't be bears for eons to come.

Other than the assuring the proper installation of the reactor and computer core, he concentrated, when not being threatened with being eaten, on finding a secret location for Outpost B. Outpost B was built specifically to be a totally secure independent facility for Pilgrimage One and a few others while Terra Nova complex was built, although on a very cramped, temporary basis, it could protect the entire planned population of the colony. It was designed to be completely impregnable against the largest carnivore by being built underground, which would also allow it to survive earthquakes and lava flows, all but one erupting directly under them. He needed to pick the right place – far enough away from Terra Nova to never be discovered - but close enough that if there ever was the need to evacuate the complex, they could get there safely on foot and in the all terrain vehicles.

One day he found the ideal location, near a beautiful lake with a waterfall cascading down from a mountain, surrounded by ginkgo trees and ferns. It would hide the airlock entrance perfectly. He made the geological survey and this site was stable. There were no faults or fissures, nor any volcanic activity nearby. So he programmed the construction robots to bring the parts of the Outpost here, and start digging. He set them to the task of inserting Outpost B into the hillside behind the waterfall. It progressed nicely. At the end of the second month, the hidden refuge was complete, and he started living there. The command center had a perfect view of the main Terra Nova construction site. Outpost B would outlast them all. And only he and Philbrick would know that Outpost B even existed, and it would stay that way.

He continued his routine of supervising the construction robots, plus added a lot of his own blood and sweat to building Terra Nova. He was very satisfied in the progress of the erection of the colony. It would have gone up faster with the labor of entire first Pilgrimage, but it was acceptable progress. He accelerated the finalization of the huge electro-acoustic security fence, as there were some larger predators in the area that were much more formidable than anyone had predicted. A couple of times those huge animals discovered the bite of his sonic rifles, and knew to keep their distance. But they would get braver. The T. Rex' were not the biggest bullies in the woods.

Communications from Hope Plaza had been silent for more than two months. He knew that two way transmissions only worked when the Portal operated, but it was frustrating to him that the project leadership needed so much time to correct anomalies. He had the stray thought that the Portal was so broken he'd be the only one here forever.

At nearly the end of the fourth month of being alone, Taylor was grousing and talking to himself, and second guessing his assignment. He had no idea what was wrong back at Hope Plaza. He momentarily hoped that he had not been 'set up' for failure, but dismissed the thought. Philbrick would never do that, and despite a running argument with his son over Ayani's loss, there were no more than the usual family arguments over the years with him. He would just have to wait and trust. The good thing for the First Pilgrimage would be that Terra Nova would be marginally functional as they walked in. The Second Pilgrimage, which would bring Dr. Wallace and the bulk of the scientists to start their research, could be accelerated.