Resistance Base "Homestead," Balkan Mountains

SC-80 stood on one of the observation posts overlooking the front gate of the fortress, a Resistance uniform on his shoulders and a Loompa-sized MP5 submachine gun in his hands. Though he was technically exempt from guard duty as an officer, the Captain still volunteered for it; he loved being outdoors in a place like this, seeing the sky and smelling the trees. A natural reaction to having spent most of my life inside a space colony, he thought, but the idea immediately troubled him. It seemed hard to believe…the Lunar Base seemed like something from another life, another time. Which in a way it was, but it disturbed SC-80 how much of it he had already forgotten.

At one time, he had known the layout of much of the facility; now he could only remember bits and pieces. It might have all been a dream, he mused idly as he gazed across the landscape, perhaps the others and I really did come from New Atlantis…or perhaps there isn't a New Atlantis, either. Perhaps we just had our brains addled in an airplane crash, and we have always been members of the Resistance. He shook his head. It was not a serious line of thought, but it was honestly terrifying how little there was to connect them to their true lives among the stars. Each of the four Loompas had a single uniform, their only proof that their home had existed or ever could exist in some timeline or other; aside from that, they only had their physical similarities and their numerical designations, both of which…just as they had explained to their fellow Resistance members…could have been adopted rather than given to them had birth. Not birth, the Captain reminded himself. Inception. He swore aloud and shrugged his jacket a bit tighter about his shoulders, glaring up at the overcast sky with sudden dislike rather than appreciation. Suddenly the world that stretched away on all sides was far too big; he wanted to be back down in the caves with a solid roof of earth over his head. He was tired, he was cold, and above all he was confused…but he should not have been. Whatever happens, we're going home, he thought, glaring out at the forest with resentment. Truth be told, the Captain very much wanted a drink at that moment.

Fortunately, however, something happened just then to dispel his increasingly dark musings. The steel decking of the observation platform transmitted the vibration of approaching footsteps, and then a soldier appeared from around the corner. "I've been sent up to relieve you, sir. General would like to see you in his office," the man said, not the slightest bit fazed by using an honorific on someone less than half his height.

"Thank you," SC-80 replied with a nod, surrendering his position at the railing and making his way back along the walkway and into the interior of the base. He descended through a series of stairways and narrow tunnels to the motor pool, drawing up and watching as the main gate opened to admit a long line of trucks. Most of them were supply carriers, but the three in front contained something else entirely. The tailgates dropped and waiting soldiers helped freed prisoners down from the backs of the trucks. They were mostly Oompa-Loompas, with a few "Big Folk" thrown in; while they had been hooded during their journey, they must have had their mandatory isolation and security checks performed already. The hoods were removed as they left the truck, allowing the group to see where they were. Many of the faces under the hoods were skeletally thin, obviously freed slaves, and they stared around at the walls of the motor pool as if they were entering the Promised Land. SC-80 smiled to himself at their looks of wonder; if he had time later, he would have to see where they had come in from. Most likely they had been brought up from the Congo, liberated during the recent attack on Chadworth's mining operations. It was still up for debate whether Command considered said attack a success or not; the Captain knew enough tactical precedents to argue it either way, but he kept his opinions to himself.

He was just turning to head down into the main tunnels when something stopped him. He looked back at the crowd of liberated slaves and was struck by a vague sense of unpleasant recognition as his eyes passed over the face of one particular Oompa-Loompa standing near the back of the second truck. The man turned, now looking toward the Resistance officer who was welcoming the group to its new home, his features hidden by a curtain of filthy hair. The Captain shook his head…It's just your imagination. He turned and headed down the tunnel.

Ten minutes later, he was approaching the door to General Bucket's office. The two soldiers outside recognized him immediately, one of them opening the door for him; the Captain nodded to the soldier and stepped inside, stopped in front of the General's desk and saluted. "You wanted to see me, General?"

Bucket nodded. "Indeed I did." He stood up from his chair and crossed to the situation table, the Captain climbing up on a stool beside him. General Bucket opened a packet in his left hand and pulled out several black-and-white photographs, which he spread on the table. "This is it, Captain. My man inside Chadworth Industries reports that the repairs to your ship have been finished, and the company hopes to make orbit by the end of the month." The pictures were much like those Bucket had showed him six months before, only they now showed an intact spacecraft rather than a wreck. Deepstar Five had indeed been put back together, though many of the replacement components did not match the size and shape of the originals. Even the repaired hull plating was different, resulting in a Frankensteinian mishmash of Wonka and Chadworth construction. She's even uglier than before, the Captain thought with a grin, but the humor only lasted for a brief moment.

"They intend to fly her?"

The General nodded, withdrawing the rest of the packet's contents and spreading them out on the table. "Apparently, your Mr. Wonka managed to impress them. The ship has been moved from the main company labs to the Chadworth aeronautics facility near Heathrow Airport." The General looked sideways at the Captain. "According to our agent, Chadworth Industries went absolutely wild when they opened up that ship; they've been bringing in experts from all over the world to look at it. Our man could not say much about it…told me I wouldn't believe him if he let on what they thought they had. Care to elaborate?"

The Captain smiled. "You wouldn't believe me either, sir. I'm afraid I'll have to show you."

"Well, that's where this comes in," Bucket said, unfolding a set of plans. "This is a complete map of the facility where they're keeping the ship. Right here, in fact, in this hangar." He pointed. "It's in the middle of the structure, but has a set of overhead doors which will allow you to pilot the vessel straight out into open air. You and your men are the only choice of retrieval team we have, unless you could familiarize some of our people with operating the vehicle."

The Captain shook his head. He was quite certain that he could not familiarize Resistance personnel with how to operate the spacecraft, and he did not intend to. The moment we're onboard, it's straight into space and right back into the past. "It's not that I don't trust Resistance personnel, sir. But, truthfully, I couldn't train anyone else…even if I had to. She was a prototype, and even I won't remember half the controls until I'm actually back in the cockpit. I'll be the one at the helm…the man who died in London was…"

"Your pilot. Yes, I remember." Bucket briefly placed a hand on the Captain's shoulder, and then turned back to the plans. "Well, that settles that much. You and your boys will serve as retrieval team. That being the case, I would like to acquaint you with a possible mission profile I've worked up. Sadly, my inside man is no longer present to assist you once you reach the facility; Chadworth Industries was getting suspicious, and so he was compelled to take leave. Before he left, however, he managed to install a lovely little uplink into the facility's computer network, allowing us to tap in and block security feeds, open doors, whatever you need. Obviously you'll have to move quietly, but you're small enough to use the air ducts to move about. No offense, of course."

"None taken."

"Once you actually reach the spacecraft, a device has been fitted allowing you to open the launch doors from inside the cockpit…and we, meanwhile, can trigger every alert and warning right across the board…send the facility's workers into a panic. By the time they figure out what's happening, you'll already be away. How fast is she?"

"Not fast enough to outrun fighters. She's not that aerodynamic."

"Well, we can take care of that, too. We'll use the same communications scrambler that got the two of us out of the Tower so successfully. The point is that we're not worried about alerting the enemy once you're airborne; Sakagawa's computer genius and a squadron of our jets can take care of anything the enemy throws at you. But if we tip off the enemy before you reach the ship, well, things will get complicated."

"Insertion point?"

Bucket hesitated. "There is one, but you may not like it. Trying to break into the facility is almost impossible…cameras, dogs, electric fences, motion sensors…the whole works. There is a daily cargo delivery, however, which might allow you to smuggle yourselves in. The crates are scanned, of course, but we have ways to beat that…all you have to do is say the word, and we'll prepare a container. The problem, obviously, is that you will be locked inside a crate; if anything goes wrong, you won't stand a chance. And the scanning devices don't operate on the local facility network. We won't be able to tap in and give you a free pass; if the box doesn't fool the scanner on its own, you'll be done for. Obviously, we will put every possible effort into ensuring that doesn't happen…but all the same you would be trusting your lives to a crate."

"But it is the safest way in?"

"Comparatively speaking, yes."

SC-80 nodded. "Let's do it. We don't have time to try anything else."

"For which you have my deepest apologies," the General replied. "You should have known about this weeks ago, but the decision to get the ship flying came down rather suddenly. Until Monday, your vessel was still in pieces all over Europe, components being analyzed by various laboratories. Then a report went up to the CEO, and the next day orders came down that the ship was to be reassembled and prepared for flight immediately."

SC-80's face was grim. "End of the month…that's just over two weeks, sir. And that's without travel time."

"I know. We need to get you on your way to England as soon as possible, once you've had time to brief your people. In the meantime, I'll send Sakagawa on ahead to get things ready." Bucket gathered the various documents and placed them back in their envelope. "This is for you; it's a complete mission brief, but it's not much. I'm sorry it's not more."

"It's enough, General," SC-80 said. "Whatever happens, sir, well…thank you for everything." He felt a sharp twinge, a painful mix of emotions. "When I see Mr. Wonka, I will do all in my power to persuade him to join this fight. I know him, sir, and I am certain that he will agree the time has come for action." SC-80 struggled to smile; the guilt he felt at that lie was much greater than he had imagined it would be. I only hope we can set things right…then none of it will matter.

"We will be awaiting your signal," Bucket replied solemnly. "In case I don't see you boys again, good luck and Godspeed." He extended a hand, and the Captain took it. Then SC-80 saluted and left the office, a sense of fatalistic anticipation building in his chest. This is it.

SC-80 immediately headed for the small bunkroom that now served as quarters for himself and the other three members of the Deepstar crew; while they shared the room with eight other Loompas at night, one of them Jonesy, the room was usually empty at this time of day. The Captain radioed the others as he walked, ordering them to meet him…whatever else they might have been doing could wait. The Captain arrived first and commandeered the table in the middle of the empty bunkroom, spreading out the variety of documents that General Bucket had given him. The Doctor was next, followed by RA-48…IP-101 took another ten minutes to arrive, appearing with a broad smile. He reached into the breast pocket of his tunic and plucked out a neatly folded piece of paper, straightening it and setting it on the table with a flourish. "My friends, behold…a genuine…all-original…moderately but evenly worn…ten-pound note! I got it off our friend the history teacher; he said he'd give it to me for free, the old money being worthless and all, but I insisted on giving him an even trade for it. And thus, here it is!" He made another flourish and bowed.

"Is it the right year?" the Doctor asked curiously, picking up the bill.

"Ummm…not quite," IP-101 said awkwardly as he straightened up. "It's about two years off, but it was the oldest one I could find. Almost nobody down here has pre-War money."

"Well, we'll just have to hope that no one checks the date for a couple of years," the Captain said, taking the note and inspecting it. "Or at least for a couple of hours, anyway. It's irrelevant so long as Charlie Bucket can pass it off at the candy store. With the Golden Ticket contest underway, I'm sure the proprietor won't remember which ten-pound note came from which child. Any risks you can think of, Doctor?"

RP-18 sighed. "After the last run, I'm really not sure you want to ask me that question. But my answer is no; offhand, I can't imagine anyone checks dates on money often enough for it to matter."

"We're still going to go through with it then," RA-48 said quietly, almost to himself. Everyone else at the table, however, turned to look at him.

The Doctor's voice did not lose its calm, but his expression was darker than any the Captain or 101 had ever seen before. "I thought we had already discussed this. I'm always willing to listen, 48, but you're beginning to border on treason."

"Let him speak," the Captain said, somewhat surprised; he had never known the Doctor to censor an opinion before.

"I didn't mean anything by it," 48 said evasively, avoiding eye contact. "I just…"

The Captain slammed his fist down on the table, his calm tone rising to a bellow. The discomfort he had felt earlier was coming back in spades, and he was suddenly furious for some reason he could not understand. "DAMN IT ALL, 48! I WILL NOT HAVE MEMBERS OF MY CREW OPERATING WITH MISGIVINGS ABOUT THE ASSIGNMENT! IF YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY, THEN SAY IT!"

The entire table was shocked by this outburst, but the look of surprise on 48's face quickly hardened into a mask of resolve. "All right, sir. I'll say it. We've been here for just over six months now. It's not as if we have an easy life, but it's not terrible. And there are a lot of things we don't have back home…like children, and dogs, and native cooking, and real trees. General Bucket is waiting for the support of 'New Atlantis' before he makes the big push against Nova Britannia, but we all know he doesn't need it. We can win this war, without fairy tales and magic technology. And then we could live here with the rest of the Oompa-Loompas, and our people would be individuals with different jobs and different faces and different clothes and different everything! A real people again, not just clones grown from a template! And we could go and have wives and children of our very own…" 48's words choked off with a strangled sort of noise, and his head fell forward to rest in one hand. He looked up, almost on the verge of tears. "I'm sorry, Captain…and Doctor…and you too, 101. I'm so sorry, I just…I…I just get to thinking sometimes, you know? I mean I want to go home, of course I do. But when we do, all the pretty girls and the little children just cease to exist! So does Jonesy and all our other friends! So do the rest of our people! It's back to a world of clones, the unnatural price for our survival! As bad as things are in this place, it's still almost better than how they are back home! And I couldn't get on the ship and fly away without at least acknowledging the alternative, without saying it out loud just once, you know? That's all. Just this once, I had to look at it out in the open!"

The Captain sighed heavily; he suddenly felt very tired and about a thousand years older than he really was. "I know, 48," he said, his voice sympathetic. "I really do know. I'm sure we've all been thinking at one time or other. I know I have." His expression became resolute. "But you know well that we can't stay here. Our loyalty to the Fuhrer demands it. And what of all the other things that we would lose if we stayed? What about the peaceful world that the Fuhrer's benevolence has sought to create? Can we just kiss all of that goodbye?" He paused, and his voice softened again. "Allow me to rephrase. I have to take back the ship and try to set the timeline straight. Anyone who will come with me is welcome…and if anyone wishes to stay here, for however brief a time might follow…it will not be held against him. We might have created a branch universe or something, and all of this might just carry on even once we've reset things! Who knows? Anyway, I need your commitments now. Things are moving up, and I have to be in London as soon as possible to retrieve the ship. Chadworth Industries hopes to have her flying by the end of the month."

"I'm with you," IP-101 said.

"And me," added the Doctor.

"And me," finished RA-48. "I…I just had to get it off my chest is all."

"Certainly," the Captain replied. "As far as I'm concerned, that conversation never took place. Now, to the business at hand…" He had not gotten far when there was a knock on the wall, and Jonesy ducked around the doorframe, wearing his usual grin.

"Well, I can see you blokes are doing your part for the war effort and all…playing Monopoly, are we?" He raised a hand. "Just joking, o' course; sorry to butt in, but I forgot this." Jonesy lifted a tool satchel from the end of his bunk; he had been working in the motor pool for the past two months, putting his technical skills to use legally for the first time in his life. He picked it up and left, lifting a hand in farewell as he disappeared around the corner.

"Do you think he heard?" 48 asked quietly after Jonesy was gone.

"Doubt it," the Captain said flatly. "With all respect to him, he isn't the type who would have kept quiet if he did." And with that, SC-80 continued his briefing.