Author's note: Here it is, the somewhat-awaited conclusion to my branching
story. I already made the disclaimers in the previous chapters, so the hell
with that part. Between-chapter research was (inadvertantly) provided by
arhuaine, via her fic Blue Skye Dreams (it's good! read it.)
The gound around the Alexis' was pretty plowed up. There were some
broken walkers lying around, and several more inactive ones standing around.
Blood scented the air, and wrecked buildings were nearby. It looked like the
place had been bombed, which, they reminded themselves, it could well have
been.
"OK," Alex said as he walked over to one of the empty Jaguar Vultures
"Whoever thinks we've shifted into The Empire Strikes Back, raise your hand."
"Those aren't AT-STs," Alexi said as he raised his hand "AT-STs have
no arms, fewer lasers, and all in all look quite a bit ...less...advanced...
what the fuck have we gotten ourselves INTO? Although I suppose a better
question would be-"
"-where and when have we gotten ourselves into." Alex finished his
thought as he seperated their chronobackpacks.
"Damnit! I HATE talking to people who can replicate my thoughts!"
Then a searchlight snapped on. "FREEZE, STRAVAGS!"
"OK, now the question is what." Alex said as they turned to face the
Mad Cat. It definatly had an advantage, considering that it was about 40 feet
talle than them and armed to the teeth.
"Fight, flight, or surrender?" Alexi said as three Elementals came
powering towards them.
"That depends on you." Alexi murmured "If I chronoshift, the odds are
you'll be turned into charcoal P.D.Q. Or you could try to chronoshift unaided,
but the odds of that working are slim to none. Or you could just let me jump
around and pray."
"Jump. Go for the big motherfucker. I'll see what I can do about her
bitches."
Alex crossed his fingers, prayed that his template wouldn't get killed
(it would really suck to have that on his conscience if he ever met Zeroleen)
and jumped towards the Mad Cat. To increase Alexi's odds of survival, he jumped
to the point between him and the Mad Cat, giving the Cat a target to track
for a split second before he chronoshifted between its legs. Jumping up on
one of the protrusions on the Cat's leg, he climbed towards the pelvis. ("The
better to C4 you, my dear.") Then he say the first Elemental coming
dangerously close. "Ummm...Alexi...HELP!"
Alexi was nowhere to be seen.
*OK, pal, you want to mess with me?* Alexi had dodged onto the far
side of the Mad Cat when Alex had first chronoshifted. Drawing a bead on the
first Elemental, he started shooting "Eat bullets, you mother...Christ! What
are those?" The bullets were being absorbed harmlessly by the powered armor.
Then the Elemental fired its SRMs.
Alexi was saved by a stroke of pure luck. As the SRMs homed in on him,
the Mad Cat took a step backwards. Its knee rose and, almost as if had been
planned, blocked the Elemental's projectiles.
Deciding not to have to trust luck again, Alexi used the cover of the
leg to get close to the Elemental. If he could keep it between himself and the
other two, he might stand a chance until Alex did... whatever he was planning
to do.
Alex, using the diversion his template had provided, had reached the
joint between the 'mech's leg and its pelvis. While the 'mech was
phenomenally good at destroying most targets it's own size, it was useless
against a single human clinging to it's legs. Reaching up, he started planting
C4 charges in the hip joint. One of them, strategically applied, could level an
average-sized building. After planting four of them, Alex grabbed his
controller and chronoshifted to the ground. Behind him, a brilliant burst of
fire and light erupted from the walker. It staggered and keeled over. Alex
stared at it in amazement: the joint he had bombed looked badly damaged, but
the walker was already regaining its feet.
As the Mad Cat toppled, Alexi used the diversion of the flaming walker to rush
the first Elemental. Jumping onto it's back, he tried to pin its mechanized
arms into a full nelson.
"Easy, James Bond" he heard the person inside the armor murmur as the
mechanized "hands" pried his arms off as if he they were made of string. The
Elemental then did a very effective body-slam. As he wheezed for breath, he
heard a popping noise behind him. It was Alex, and he could feel him yanking
off his chronobackpack as the Elemental tried to maneuver around Alexi for a
good shot.
"I'll be back," Alex said as he yanked of Alexi's chronobackpack "but
I can't let them get this." Then with another pop, Alex was gone.
In the captured Inner Sphere 'mech barn, Alex reappeared. Looking
around, he saw a whole bunch of deactivated 'mechs... and no guards.
*Figures,* he grinned to himself. *they probably thought that no one
could get through the God-knows-how-many layers of security to get here. And
in most cases, they'd be right. These fuckers picked up on chronoshifters, for
chrissake. I've got to figure out how to how to get Alexi out. But in the
meantime, I'll see what's in these machines.*
Twenty minutes later, he had discovered two things about the walkers:
he couldn't make head or tail of the computer system, and that they were the
best machines to cannibalize that he had ever encountered.
Then he heard footsteps, and looked up. It seemed to him that he had
been wrong about the 'no guards' bit.
Meanwhile, Alexi was having the screws put into him by Menaz and one
of the other Clanners.
"All right, stravag, I have had it with this. I do not have the correct
drugs here, so I cannot extract any information from you that I can rely
on. There is something odd about you, I will grant that. Your accent and
colloquialisms are adequate testament to that. However, I do not buy the whole
'time travel' bit at all. Yes, there was a war between the United States and
the Soviet Union on Terra about a thousand years ago, and what of it? The
records show no indication that either side was capable of traveling through
time. If that had been the case, that side would have simply gone back and
time and altered history so its enemy never rose. And yes, I know you claim it
was an accident. But for some reason, I am not biting. I will conduct a more
thorough examination later. In the meantime, I will leave you to your owner,
bondsman."
Tom was lying about a hundred meters from where the
interrogation had been taking place. For some reason, he had noticed Menaz
was being a lot less vicious with the new prisoner, whoever he was, the he had
been two days before. Maybe he was temperamental as far as torture was
concerned. Or maybe something had gone wrong, and he wasn't risking a
fatality. Or there was something more to that 'property' comment that Menaz
had made two days ago... "since Czeny basically owns you at this point, it
would be judicious to not try to pull any fast ones." Maybe he was worried
about laying into another person's property without prior approval. He knew
that Czeny had given Menaz the OK, but this other person may not have. Then he
saw the person in question striding across the field. "Holy shit, that guy's
in for rough time."
And for once, Czeny, who was sitting right next to him, didn't beat
the shit out of him for talking. All he did was nod in agreement.
The person in question was probably the only person on the planet
whose life Czeny hadn't threatened at one point or another. He was an
Elemental pilot, supposedly the finest in his sibko. He was 7'7" of solid
power, and smarter than most other Elemental pilots. He also had a very short
temper. If the trueblood Czeny had threatened him, he probably would have
killed Czeny on the spot.
9mm shells rattled to the floor as Alex walked out from behind a
captured Champion, guns blazing. The guards fell to the floor, very dead, but
the damage had been done. As soon as they didn't report, all hell would break
loose.
*It doesn't matter now...OK, it does," Alex thought as he chronoshifted
out. *I managed to fix Alexi's backpack... sort of.* It turned out that he had
his power regulator had conked out when he fell on his pack. The resulting
surge that had happened when he had tried to shift had hurled them both into
some random point in space and time. He had fixed the regulator, but there was
a problem: the power cells were drained in the pack, and he needed to figure
out some way to power the jump back. *No, FIRST thing I need to do is help him
escape. Let's see if I can dig my template up.*
*Easier said than done,* he though as he began his 40th jump. *I need
some way to pick him out from all these other people. Every building has been
leveled except the walker barn, so everyone except the guards are asleep in
the open. In the dark, one person looks pretty much like another.* Then, as he
reappeared, he realized that he was where he had first appeared on this
nutcase world. There was the same person lying on the ground, the same scent
of blood in the air.
*Prisoner. Let's see what he knows.* walking carefully over to Tom, he
placed one hand over his mouth and his gun to his temple. Tom's eyes snapped
open, but he realized the implication of the gun to his head. He kept quiet
and still.
Pulling Tom away from the sleeping Czeny, Alex removed his hand and
spoke in a whisper: "You alert anyone I'm here, and I ventilate your cranium.
I'm guessing that you're a P.O.W., so I think you can fill me in on this crazy
place without calling for help."
"I won't call for help, you got that right." Tom whispered back "I'll
help you if you release me...and by the way, what's a P.O.W?"
"Prisoner Of War. All right, deal. How do you get these handcuffs
off...they seem to be glued on... should I be worried about this?"
"This is no time for fucking jokes!" Tom hissed as Alex snickered "You
can get them off with the cylinder on Czeny's belt."
"Czeny?"
"The guy who was sleeping near me. Clanner, and a certified psycho.
Also, watch out; he's a light sleeper."
After Alex had gotten the handcuffs off, he and Tom headed away and
quickly filled each other in on their respective situations. Alex had already
guessed Tom's general circumstances, but didn't know the historical background
of where they were. Tom didn't know anything about Alex, but he decided that
any shot at escape was worth trying. After they had filled each other in, they
went to rescue Alexi.
The rescue went off without a hitch, except that Tom nearly panicked
when he saw the giant Elemental pilot staring at him. Then he realized that he
wasn't really staring, but was sleeping with his eyes open.
"Hey," Tom said as the three of them picked their way towards the
'mech barn, "Are you two related? If-" Then they both turned to face him at
once. "Holy shit! You two are clones!"
Then he looked for the light that had allowed him to see them so
clearly; it was the reddish light of early dawn. Morning was coming.
An hour later, they had reached the barn. As they neared the doors,
they could see that the place was still crawling with guards. That route of
escape was blocked.
"OK, Tom, what was it that you had in mind?" Alexi asked as they
ducked behind the wreckage of an Orion. "'cause getting into the 'mech barn is
out. Is there any way you can substitute...whatever you were planning to do?"
"Well, I was planning to tie your packs together and then plug them
into a 'mech core to power the jump. It will be righting the time stream, so
it should... oh SHIT!"
"What?"
"I forgot! I'm a product of this future! I can't go back with you!"
"What? Can't you..."
"It doesn't work like that. If I go back, I may disrupt history to the
point where I was never born."
"HEY!" Alex cut in "I've got another oh shit: a group of people seem
to be coming for us. They're still far off, but the 'mech won't..."
"That's it!" Tom and Alex yelled at the same time "use this 'mech to
power the return trip. That is, if it's reactor hasn't been breached."
It hadn't. After that, it was relatively easy for Tom to wire the packs
together and onto the Orion's power leads. As he prepared to engage the
circuit that would sent them back, Alex turned to him.
"You don't have to do this. You could still turn us in, save
yourself... not that I want you to, or anything."
Tom considered for a moment. "Naah. If I get killed, it's inevitable.
Czeny would never excuse me trying to run away. He thinks I'm his property now
(long story) but I think he's going to find an excuse to kill me anyway.
Turning you in wouldn't help that."
"We'll remember this. Thanks, pal, for whatever it's worth."
Tom nodded and engaged the circuit.
Alexi and Alex instantly felt like they were being run through a
washing machine again. They didn't know if this would work, but it was the
only chance. After several minutes of gut-wrenching transition, they dropped
onto the ground where they had begun. But one thing was different: still plugged
into their backpacks was the broken Orion.
"Hah!" Alex exclaimed as he got up "20th-century Earth! Never so glad to see it. Guess absence really does
make the heart grow fonder."
Then a Prism bolt shattered the barracks next to them.
"Ruin my moment, whydontcha, God?" Alex yelled at the sky as
the two of them, and their 'mech, chronoshifted into the safety of their
Allied base.
Tom, meanwhile, watched his allies and the 'mech he had plugged them
into disappear in a blue burst of energy. He stood staring at the spot even as
he heard the guards coming up behind him.
"Hey!" he heard Czeny's voice shout "Don't touch him! I want to handle
this stravag myself." Then he heard the now-familiar metallic sound of Czeny
pulling his knife.
*Right before you die, your mind is supposed to become very peaceful.
I wish mine was.* Taking a deep breath, he turned and faced Czeny.
FIN.
story. I already made the disclaimers in the previous chapters, so the hell
with that part. Between-chapter research was (inadvertantly) provided by
arhuaine, via her fic Blue Skye Dreams (it's good! read it.)
The gound around the Alexis' was pretty plowed up. There were some
broken walkers lying around, and several more inactive ones standing around.
Blood scented the air, and wrecked buildings were nearby. It looked like the
place had been bombed, which, they reminded themselves, it could well have
been.
"OK," Alex said as he walked over to one of the empty Jaguar Vultures
"Whoever thinks we've shifted into The Empire Strikes Back, raise your hand."
"Those aren't AT-STs," Alexi said as he raised his hand "AT-STs have
no arms, fewer lasers, and all in all look quite a bit ...less...advanced...
what the fuck have we gotten ourselves INTO? Although I suppose a better
question would be-"
"-where and when have we gotten ourselves into." Alex finished his
thought as he seperated their chronobackpacks.
"Damnit! I HATE talking to people who can replicate my thoughts!"
Then a searchlight snapped on. "FREEZE, STRAVAGS!"
"OK, now the question is what." Alex said as they turned to face the
Mad Cat. It definatly had an advantage, considering that it was about 40 feet
talle than them and armed to the teeth.
"Fight, flight, or surrender?" Alexi said as three Elementals came
powering towards them.
"That depends on you." Alexi murmured "If I chronoshift, the odds are
you'll be turned into charcoal P.D.Q. Or you could try to chronoshift unaided,
but the odds of that working are slim to none. Or you could just let me jump
around and pray."
"Jump. Go for the big motherfucker. I'll see what I can do about her
bitches."
Alex crossed his fingers, prayed that his template wouldn't get killed
(it would really suck to have that on his conscience if he ever met Zeroleen)
and jumped towards the Mad Cat. To increase Alexi's odds of survival, he jumped
to the point between him and the Mad Cat, giving the Cat a target to track
for a split second before he chronoshifted between its legs. Jumping up on
one of the protrusions on the Cat's leg, he climbed towards the pelvis. ("The
better to C4 you, my dear.") Then he say the first Elemental coming
dangerously close. "Ummm...Alexi...HELP!"
Alexi was nowhere to be seen.
*OK, pal, you want to mess with me?* Alexi had dodged onto the far
side of the Mad Cat when Alex had first chronoshifted. Drawing a bead on the
first Elemental, he started shooting "Eat bullets, you mother...Christ! What
are those?" The bullets were being absorbed harmlessly by the powered armor.
Then the Elemental fired its SRMs.
Alexi was saved by a stroke of pure luck. As the SRMs homed in on him,
the Mad Cat took a step backwards. Its knee rose and, almost as if had been
planned, blocked the Elemental's projectiles.
Deciding not to have to trust luck again, Alexi used the cover of the
leg to get close to the Elemental. If he could keep it between himself and the
other two, he might stand a chance until Alex did... whatever he was planning
to do.
Alex, using the diversion his template had provided, had reached the
joint between the 'mech's leg and its pelvis. While the 'mech was
phenomenally good at destroying most targets it's own size, it was useless
against a single human clinging to it's legs. Reaching up, he started planting
C4 charges in the hip joint. One of them, strategically applied, could level an
average-sized building. After planting four of them, Alex grabbed his
controller and chronoshifted to the ground. Behind him, a brilliant burst of
fire and light erupted from the walker. It staggered and keeled over. Alex
stared at it in amazement: the joint he had bombed looked badly damaged, but
the walker was already regaining its feet.
As the Mad Cat toppled, Alexi used the diversion of the flaming walker to rush
the first Elemental. Jumping onto it's back, he tried to pin its mechanized
arms into a full nelson.
"Easy, James Bond" he heard the person inside the armor murmur as the
mechanized "hands" pried his arms off as if he they were made of string. The
Elemental then did a very effective body-slam. As he wheezed for breath, he
heard a popping noise behind him. It was Alex, and he could feel him yanking
off his chronobackpack as the Elemental tried to maneuver around Alexi for a
good shot.
"I'll be back," Alex said as he yanked of Alexi's chronobackpack "but
I can't let them get this." Then with another pop, Alex was gone.
In the captured Inner Sphere 'mech barn, Alex reappeared. Looking
around, he saw a whole bunch of deactivated 'mechs... and no guards.
*Figures,* he grinned to himself. *they probably thought that no one
could get through the God-knows-how-many layers of security to get here. And
in most cases, they'd be right. These fuckers picked up on chronoshifters, for
chrissake. I've got to figure out how to how to get Alexi out. But in the
meantime, I'll see what's in these machines.*
Twenty minutes later, he had discovered two things about the walkers:
he couldn't make head or tail of the computer system, and that they were the
best machines to cannibalize that he had ever encountered.
Then he heard footsteps, and looked up. It seemed to him that he had
been wrong about the 'no guards' bit.
Meanwhile, Alexi was having the screws put into him by Menaz and one
of the other Clanners.
"All right, stravag, I have had it with this. I do not have the correct
drugs here, so I cannot extract any information from you that I can rely
on. There is something odd about you, I will grant that. Your accent and
colloquialisms are adequate testament to that. However, I do not buy the whole
'time travel' bit at all. Yes, there was a war between the United States and
the Soviet Union on Terra about a thousand years ago, and what of it? The
records show no indication that either side was capable of traveling through
time. If that had been the case, that side would have simply gone back and
time and altered history so its enemy never rose. And yes, I know you claim it
was an accident. But for some reason, I am not biting. I will conduct a more
thorough examination later. In the meantime, I will leave you to your owner,
bondsman."
Tom was lying about a hundred meters from where the
interrogation had been taking place. For some reason, he had noticed Menaz
was being a lot less vicious with the new prisoner, whoever he was, the he had
been two days before. Maybe he was temperamental as far as torture was
concerned. Or maybe something had gone wrong, and he wasn't risking a
fatality. Or there was something more to that 'property' comment that Menaz
had made two days ago... "since Czeny basically owns you at this point, it
would be judicious to not try to pull any fast ones." Maybe he was worried
about laying into another person's property without prior approval. He knew
that Czeny had given Menaz the OK, but this other person may not have. Then he
saw the person in question striding across the field. "Holy shit, that guy's
in for rough time."
And for once, Czeny, who was sitting right next to him, didn't beat
the shit out of him for talking. All he did was nod in agreement.
The person in question was probably the only person on the planet
whose life Czeny hadn't threatened at one point or another. He was an
Elemental pilot, supposedly the finest in his sibko. He was 7'7" of solid
power, and smarter than most other Elemental pilots. He also had a very short
temper. If the trueblood Czeny had threatened him, he probably would have
killed Czeny on the spot.
9mm shells rattled to the floor as Alex walked out from behind a
captured Champion, guns blazing. The guards fell to the floor, very dead, but
the damage had been done. As soon as they didn't report, all hell would break
loose.
*It doesn't matter now...OK, it does," Alex thought as he chronoshifted
out. *I managed to fix Alexi's backpack... sort of.* It turned out that he had
his power regulator had conked out when he fell on his pack. The resulting
surge that had happened when he had tried to shift had hurled them both into
some random point in space and time. He had fixed the regulator, but there was
a problem: the power cells were drained in the pack, and he needed to figure
out some way to power the jump back. *No, FIRST thing I need to do is help him
escape. Let's see if I can dig my template up.*
*Easier said than done,* he though as he began his 40th jump. *I need
some way to pick him out from all these other people. Every building has been
leveled except the walker barn, so everyone except the guards are asleep in
the open. In the dark, one person looks pretty much like another.* Then, as he
reappeared, he realized that he was where he had first appeared on this
nutcase world. There was the same person lying on the ground, the same scent
of blood in the air.
*Prisoner. Let's see what he knows.* walking carefully over to Tom, he
placed one hand over his mouth and his gun to his temple. Tom's eyes snapped
open, but he realized the implication of the gun to his head. He kept quiet
and still.
Pulling Tom away from the sleeping Czeny, Alex removed his hand and
spoke in a whisper: "You alert anyone I'm here, and I ventilate your cranium.
I'm guessing that you're a P.O.W., so I think you can fill me in on this crazy
place without calling for help."
"I won't call for help, you got that right." Tom whispered back "I'll
help you if you release me...and by the way, what's a P.O.W?"
"Prisoner Of War. All right, deal. How do you get these handcuffs
off...they seem to be glued on... should I be worried about this?"
"This is no time for fucking jokes!" Tom hissed as Alex snickered "You
can get them off with the cylinder on Czeny's belt."
"Czeny?"
"The guy who was sleeping near me. Clanner, and a certified psycho.
Also, watch out; he's a light sleeper."
After Alex had gotten the handcuffs off, he and Tom headed away and
quickly filled each other in on their respective situations. Alex had already
guessed Tom's general circumstances, but didn't know the historical background
of where they were. Tom didn't know anything about Alex, but he decided that
any shot at escape was worth trying. After they had filled each other in, they
went to rescue Alexi.
The rescue went off without a hitch, except that Tom nearly panicked
when he saw the giant Elemental pilot staring at him. Then he realized that he
wasn't really staring, but was sleeping with his eyes open.
"Hey," Tom said as the three of them picked their way towards the
'mech barn, "Are you two related? If-" Then they both turned to face him at
once. "Holy shit! You two are clones!"
Then he looked for the light that had allowed him to see them so
clearly; it was the reddish light of early dawn. Morning was coming.
An hour later, they had reached the barn. As they neared the doors,
they could see that the place was still crawling with guards. That route of
escape was blocked.
"OK, Tom, what was it that you had in mind?" Alexi asked as they
ducked behind the wreckage of an Orion. "'cause getting into the 'mech barn is
out. Is there any way you can substitute...whatever you were planning to do?"
"Well, I was planning to tie your packs together and then plug them
into a 'mech core to power the jump. It will be righting the time stream, so
it should... oh SHIT!"
"What?"
"I forgot! I'm a product of this future! I can't go back with you!"
"What? Can't you..."
"It doesn't work like that. If I go back, I may disrupt history to the
point where I was never born."
"HEY!" Alex cut in "I've got another oh shit: a group of people seem
to be coming for us. They're still far off, but the 'mech won't..."
"That's it!" Tom and Alex yelled at the same time "use this 'mech to
power the return trip. That is, if it's reactor hasn't been breached."
It hadn't. After that, it was relatively easy for Tom to wire the packs
together and onto the Orion's power leads. As he prepared to engage the
circuit that would sent them back, Alex turned to him.
"You don't have to do this. You could still turn us in, save
yourself... not that I want you to, or anything."
Tom considered for a moment. "Naah. If I get killed, it's inevitable.
Czeny would never excuse me trying to run away. He thinks I'm his property now
(long story) but I think he's going to find an excuse to kill me anyway.
Turning you in wouldn't help that."
"We'll remember this. Thanks, pal, for whatever it's worth."
Tom nodded and engaged the circuit.
Alexi and Alex instantly felt like they were being run through a
washing machine again. They didn't know if this would work, but it was the
only chance. After several minutes of gut-wrenching transition, they dropped
onto the ground where they had begun. But one thing was different: still plugged
into their backpacks was the broken Orion.
"Hah!" Alex exclaimed as he got up "20th-century Earth! Never so glad to see it. Guess absence really does
make the heart grow fonder."
Then a Prism bolt shattered the barracks next to them.
"Ruin my moment, whydontcha, God?" Alex yelled at the sky as
the two of them, and their 'mech, chronoshifted into the safety of their
Allied base.
Tom, meanwhile, watched his allies and the 'mech he had plugged them
into disappear in a blue burst of energy. He stood staring at the spot even as
he heard the guards coming up behind him.
"Hey!" he heard Czeny's voice shout "Don't touch him! I want to handle
this stravag myself." Then he heard the now-familiar metallic sound of Czeny
pulling his knife.
*Right before you die, your mind is supposed to become very peaceful.
I wish mine was.* Taking a deep breath, he turned and faced Czeny.
FIN.