Chapter 16
"Any time now, Doc," Garibaldi shouted impatiently.
Sheridan's face went grim as he watched Bashir jab the trigger several more times in quick succession, with the same lack of result. "What's wrong?"
"I don't know!" Bashir returned, scowling at the uncooperative weapon. "That field must be jamming the phaser controls too!"
"Well that's just great!" Garibaldi bellowed back at him.
"If we don't take out the jammer, we won't even be able to get out of here," Sheridan announced firmly. "Now I, for one, don't accept that. We need options, people."
"We've got to blow up that hut," Garibaldi said in a defeated tone, turning to peek around the cart and look for likely targets.
Marcus clambered to one knee, staring at them through the falling rain. "Oh, is that all?" he snapped sarcastically.
Bashir bit his lip unwillingly, staring at his phaser. "There's one thing we could try," he suggested hesitantly. The look Sheridan shot him all but said, Well go ahead and tell us, dammit!
The doctor fumbled with his phaser with mud-slicked fingers before finding the small catch that popped the tiny control pad into his hand, and exposed some of the inner workings. He'd never taken the Academy tactical combat courses that included anything more advanced than basic phaser maintenance, but he hadn't been best friends with one of the best engineers in Starfleet for seven years without picking up a few things here and there. While he worked, he tried to explain over the continuing sound of gunfire and rain. "I'm trying to bypass the main controls so I can rig this thing to overload. Normally you can do that without jury-rigging it, but something's affecting the control circuits, so I'm going to have to do it manually." He searched his memory for the details of what he was trying to do, and absently continued, "If we can get close enough…"
"Instant grenade," Garibaldi completed, suddenly looking interested. "Captain, that just might do it. It's a long shot, but what the hell else do we have?"
Sheridan didn't appear entirely happy with the solution, but finally nodded. "All right. Marcus, if we give you a diversion, can you get close enough?"
Marcus glanced around the cart wheel and studied the distance to their target, and the distance to the nearest edge of the clearing. "I suppose I don't have a choice, do I?"
"No."
The Ranger had expected no less. Had even come to expect it. It annoyed him all the same. He gave Bashir an appraising glance, and a mental shrug. If the doctor couldn't keep quiet and stealthy, they were both dead. If he could manage it, they still might end up dead. He ended up simply pointing in the direction of the nearest edge of the clearing from where they could make their approach, and said, "Just give the word."
"Consider it given."
Marcus ducked out of the way, towing Bashir in his wake. Henry Pleasants, quickly picking up on the rudiments of the plan, barked, "All right boys, give 'em the full measure! Go to automatic!" Further down the line, Nate Caudell repeated the order at a parade-ground bellow.
The smooth, staggered firing of the Confederate soldiers suddenly gave way to a roaring, ripping eruption of rifle fire that belched outward from their patchwork defenses, tearing into the trees and tents on the far side of the clearing. It was doubtful if any of those barely-controlled rounds struck a Rivington men, but while it was going on, few of them had the daring to expose themselves long enough to return fire. Sheridan joined in with some wild bursts from his PPG, and Garibaldi quickly followed his lead, scooting from cover to cover and sending flaming plasma discharges downrange. They'd all soon be out of ammunition at this rate – the Confederates were going through entire magazines in seconds, and Sheridan was down to his last PPG cap.
Marcus and Bashir were making good use of that time, rushing across the short, deadly open space before they reached the dubious shelter of the brush and trees nearby. Once under that cover, they rushed through the brush on all fours, Bashir sputtering and coughing as soaked branches and leaves smacked him in the face in the Ranger's wake. Despite their attempt at speed and stealth, though, they still attracted some random gunfire, and soon buzzing bullets were dropping twigs and leaves on their heads, forcing them lower to the ground. It wasn't long before Marcus called a halt, still a solid eighty yards from the big Quonset hut.
"Doctor, tell me you can hit that thing from here," Marcus said wryly. "Because we're not getting any closer, unless you're bullet-proof."
Bashir exhaled noisily. If he had been able to stand, it would have been well within his capabilities to hurl his phaser right on to the hut's sloping roof. But that was clearly out of the question, which left him trying to hurl a phaser across most of the length of a football field while lying on his face in the middle of a thick, damp mess of ferns. In all honesty, he wouldn't have bet on his making a throw like this in a baseball game on a holosuite, let alone while being shot at.
"Okay Julian, you can do this," he whispered to himself. Then he turned sideways, pulling himself into a position from which he could whip his right arm across his body, using it not unlike a catapult to fling the phaser as far as he could manage. His fingers tapped out the final adjustments and commands into the phaser's "dumb" computer, and it suddenly let out a high pitched whine. The whine increased into a howl, and Bashir muttered, "Here goes nothing." He drew back, and flung the now-keening phaser so hard that he felt a muscle in his shoulder tear in the awkward position he was in.
The irregular shape of the phaser spun through the night air, spinning end over end. Bashir's genetically enhanced hand-eye coordination was very good, and his accuracy excellent.
Even that had its limits, however, and the phaser dropped down at almost precisely the right range… forty feet to the left of the Quonset hut. It went off in a thunderous explosion, rocking the ground, and sending a blazing orange fireball rising into the sky. Gunfire slackened off from both sides, and several Rivington men fled from the scene of destruction, one of them shrieking, his clothes on fire. The Quonset hut remained, apparently untouched.
"Well doctor, I do hope you have another brilliant plan," Marcus quipped sourly.
As soon as the roar of the blast died away, Garibaldi poked his head out of cover long enough to survey the scene. Sheridan remained crouched behind his chosen cover, frantically trying to reload his PPG, and the first thing he heard clearly as the thunder ended was Garibaldi's less-than-promising reaction. "God damn it! I don't fragging believe this!"
"I'd sure love to know how you made a bomb like that," Henry Pleasants observed, "but your aim leaves something to be desired, it must be said."
Sheridan's PPG whined as his last cap snapped into place, and he leaned around the rail car to confirm the worst. It was an impressive blast for an overloaded weapon, he had to admit. But despite the casualties it had inflicted on the Rivington men, their own situation had suddenly gone from bad to worse. Their one ace in the hole was gone, whatever was jamming their communications with the ships in orbit was still active, and they'd just expended most of their remaining ammunition paving the way for that phaser-bomb.
"Captain, we're gonna need another plan real soon, or the only thing they'll be beaming up from this place are corpses," Garibaldi warned. He launched another salvo of plasma bolts as he spoke, dropping the expended cap and slapping in a new one without even glancing down at his weapon.
Mind racing for a new plan, Sheridan studied the immediate area, searching in vain for something he might have missed earlier – some trick of the terrain, or simply something that would serve as a weapon once their ammunition was gone. He was still coming up blank when the Quonset hut in the middle of the Rivington men's encampment exploded.
"Explosion" was a word that didn't do the event justice. It went up as if from a small nuke, an enormous blue and white flash that left everyone facing that direction seeing spots as the light faded into an angry red and the concussion threw them backwards. Garibaldi appeared to be saying something, but all sound was quashed by a subsonic rumble that rocked the ground, and rent the air. Trees and brush in the camp joined several of the tents in suddenly bursting into flame, heated to the point of ignition by proximity. That first, outward blast of air was suddenly reversed, as the raging fireball drew in the surrounding oxygen to feed itself, and Caudell screamed a soundless imprecation as his hat flew off his head, and towards the inferno. Even at the distance they were at, the rain soaked into their clothes began to steam.
The conflagration was as short-lived as it was intense, fortunately, and the now faintly glowing cloud of smoke and debris drifted heavenward, the receding noise finally allowing other sounds through. Henry Pleasants was crouched no more than five feet from Sheridan, but his shouted voice sounded distant and small all the same. "My compliments to your doctor, Captain! It appears I spoke too soon!"
Sheridan only shook his head, dumbfounded. He'd seen the phaser explode, and there was no way it could have been responsible; not unless that Quonset hut had been holding a few tons of rocket fuel. But the colonel's comment made him wonder about how Marcus and the doctor had come through that blast, as close as they were to it.
Garibaldi seconded his opinion. "No way, Colonel! Whatever that was, we didn't do it!"
Catching his breath, Sheridan realized suddenly that there was one sure-fire way to test the doctor's theory during the respite the massive explosion had granted them. He was fumbling through his unfamiliar clothes for the Starfleet issue communicator when it saved him the trouble by chirping to life of its own accord. If anyone was speaking through it, he was in no condition to hear it. Finally locating it, he brought it to his mouth, and squeezed it between his thumb and forefinger, answering with his automatic, "Sheridan, go."
"Captain Sheridan, this is Commander Riker. The jamming field is down, but hold your fire."
Hold our fire? Sheridan echoed mentally. Then he shrugged, and turned to give the order, but Pleasants had overheard.
"Hold your fire, boys!" he roared, then moved down the line to repeat himself, to make sure everyone heard. Caudell picked up on the order and added his own finely-developed sergeant's bellow to the command.
Garibaldi perked up suddenly. "Hey, Captain, you hear that?" Several of the men were glancing up in consternation now, as a strange, staggered series of high-pitched shrieks rolled through the woods from behind what was left of the Rivington camp. "Energy weapons!" He laughed suddenly, and slowly came out from behind his pockmarked shelter. No incoming fire forced him back.
Moments later, figures began to emerge from the trees flanking the smoldering gap left by the blast. Garibaldi kept his PPG firmly in hand, though at a more relaxed stance, and he waved down Caudell and two of the Confederate soldiers who were still warily covering these potential threats with their weapons. These figures, however, were wearing the distinctive black and grey jumpsuits favored by Starfleet, and accompanied by another wearing the similarly colored uniform distinctive to Babylon 5's command staff. Those particular color choices only made them harder to see, lit as they were mainly by the fires still burning around the blast zone.
Sheridan emerged from cover, soaked, exhausted, and grimy, peering through a gentler rain and a mix of smoke and drifting fog, his attention almost entirely focused on his first officer. He didn't wait for their approach, starting off across the newly secured clearing, followed by Garibaldi and more slowly, the Confederates. The two groups met nearly in the middle.
Commander Riker stepped forward, sheltering his face from the rain with one hand. "Captain, good to see you." Seeing the confused looks he was getting, he explained, "When we figured out there was some kind of jamming field at work down here, Captain Picard sent us down to assist. If there's some technology at work that can block out sensors, communicators, and transporters, then cultural contamination is most likely a moot point." He finished that sentence with his eyes on the Confederate soldiers.
"Believe me, we appreciate the assistance," Sheridan conceded wryly. Then his gaze turned back to his first officer. "But that doesn't explain what you think you're doing down here, Susan. I gave you a direct order," he said severely.
"In point of fact, you didn't," Ivanova pointed out directly. "Sir. You ordered me not to go down with your team."
"I…" Sheridan's heated response died in his throat. Ivanova was technically correct. "Dammit Susan, that's not the point."
"Captain, Commander, you two want to hash this out later?" Garibaldi interrupted. "Right now we've got a man down, a nearly roasted ranger and doctor over there - " he gestured to two shell-shocked figures making their way towards the gathering, "- and a live nuke sitting right behind us."
"Commander Riker, report," Riker's comm.-badge suddenly demanded.
Riker glanced around quickly, taking stock before answering. "We've got things under control here, sir. But we'll need a few people beamed to sickbay, and we've got prisoners." He moved off to one side, directing the security team he'd brought to mark and round up the fleeing Rivington men they'd stunned.
Worf, who'd joined the away team on his own insistence – the security team, Riker, and Ivanova having come directly from the Defiant – was cornered by Garibaldi, and forced to explain the workings of the tubular isomagnetic disintegrator he'd used to strike the Quonset hut, thereby removing the jamming field through the effective expedient of vaporizing it. The chief was somewhat disappointed to learn that the enormous explosion they'd witnessed had been largely the result of whatever was in the hut, and not of the weapon that set it off.
Pleasants ordered his own men to scout out the area, and round up any Rivington men they found, with orders to keep alert, and shoot if necessary. He was taking no chances with men who'd demonstrated in the past their capability to be lethal, however injured they were.
Marcus ambled up to Babylon 5's officers, while nonchalantly trying to maintain his dignity: singed, burned, soaked to the bone, and coated in mud, but still making the attempt. While Bashir limped off to help the security men locate all the wounded with his tricorder, Ivanova was left trying not to guffaw at Marcus' gently smoldering beard.
The transporter shimmered nearby, and twelve different conversations were suddenly interrupted by an elated shout. "Nate!"
First Sergeant Nate Caudell barely had time to look up before a small, ragged, gray-clad bundle plowed into him with enough force to knock him backwards to the ground. Not that that would have taken much, as weary as he was, but it still surprised him enough to take a moment before he realized what had just pounced on him. "Mollie?" Caudell hadn't really believed anything bad had happened to her, but the whole idea of breaking someone into tiny pieces and moving them somewhere else where they could be reassembled was so unnatural to his way of thinking that dark concerns had been niggling at his consciousness ever since she'd vanished in a column of sparkly light. And now here she was, clearly unhurt, and Caudell was so relieved that he didn't even consider his audience. "Mollie!"
When he finally disentangled himself from her embrace, he found himself looking up at a grinning Henry Pleasants – who he was quite sure, would never let him forget this – and the shocked expression of Sergeant Hawkins, who was gaping at his gruff first sergeant hugging and kissing a uniformed corporal.
Pleasants rubbed his forehead wearily. "I can tell this is going to require a very long explanation."
Sergeant Hawkins, shaking his head and muttering to himself, went off to help his men search the vicinity of the blast zone. The Starfleet security guards began rounding up the camouflaged men they'd stunned, hauling them into a clear spot not far from the rail car and its deadly payload until they received word on what Captain Picard intended to do about them. Only the most critically wounded of those were sent up to the ship, and that amounted to only two of them – the flack jackets they wore beneath their fatigues had saved most of them from more than bumps and bruises, if not phasers, and the rest of those who'd been either too close to either explosion, or stopped a bullet in the wrong place, were already dead.
Commander Data beamed down just long enough to secure and disarm the warhead before both of them were brought back to the ship via one of Enterprise's large cargo transporters. According to Riker, Data would return shortly to begin a thorough search the rubble for clues to whoever placed that unknown jamming device.
A sudden commotion amid the scorched remains of the Rivington men encampment caught their attention. The massive figure of Worf emerged from one, a struggling human clamped by the back of the neck in a vise-like grip. The Klingon was flanked on both sides by the two Confederates who'd found the prisoner, both of them watching Worf's every move with a mixture of fascination, terror, and pure curiosity.
"Commander, Captain Sheridan," the brawny Klingon announced deferentially, tossing his captive to the ground at their feet with a contemptuous motion. "Perhaps this one has information of value." He eyed the camouflaged captive speculatively. "Shall I interrogate him, sir?"
The prisoner, who'd been weakly fighting against the Klingon despite a collection of minor injuries, cringed, throwing up his hands to protect his head.
Riker looked down at the Rivington man, huddled on the ground, and shook his head, adding, with a deliberately ominous tone, "No, I don't think you'll need to disembowel this one. At least, as long as he tells us what we want to know."
Garibaldi stifled a laugh, feeling his respect for the bearded Starfleet officer jump a few notches. True, Worf could scare most humans pretty thoroughly, especially one who'd presumably never seen an alien before… but the speed with which Riker made use of that fear impressed him. It was a technique he was well familiar with himself. Ivanova, he noticed, had to turn away to hide her malicious grin.
Worf added to the effect by drawing a wicked-looking dagger from a sheath concealed behind his back. He slowly ran the edge of the blade along his thumb in full view of the prisoner, then flicked a hidden switch on the hilt, and with a sharp metallic click, the dak'tag sprouted two smaller blades that flanked the main one.
The captive abandoned any pretence of resistance. "All right, I'll talk! I'll talk!"
Sheridan knelt, removing his hat, and staring at the man lying in the mud in front of him with a piercing glare. "Let's start simple. Who are you?"
"Piet Schraeder," the prisoner muttered in a thick South African accent.
"Surely a Rivington man," Caudell pronounced. "You're with the AWB," he accused Schraeder directly.
Schraeder only glared at him.
Caudell grunted. "That's what they call their organization: America Will Break. They just don't seem to be much concerned with which one." With a (barely) calculated amount of force, Caudell's foot slammed into the prisoner's ribs. "Why're you back? Your kind hasn't got any business here any longer."
"A better question is where they came from," Pleasants noted, speaking slowly. "If I understand this insanity rightly, the future that produced his kind doesn't exist anymore."
All eyes turned to Schraeder, who flushed angrily.
Caudell kicked him again. "Speak up!"
Schraeder scowled, then finally shrugged with a horrible grin. "Why the hell not, eh? All right, it's simple enough, I guess. Rhoodie was a damned fool." He coughed, wiped his mouth, then glanced at the red sheen on his fingers incuriously, before turning his full attention back on Sheridan, Riker, and Worf, ignoring Caudell entirely. "He planned that whole thing himself, you know that? Ripped off a time machine from the Russians, came up with his brilliant plan, then spent every last bit of money we had on weapons for these bloody white-trash barbarians."
A seething Caudell made to kick him again, but Worf clamped a massive hand down on his shoulder, and he stopped, swallowing hard. He had the distinct impression that things would end badly if he tried to throw off the hand of the big black man with a turtle shell for a forehead and the very large dagger.
Schraeder ignored the small exchange, continuing his story. "Rhoodie got his throat cut by some damned kaffir, and it served him right. He thought the Confederates would do what he wanted, and he was wrong. But when we got back to our time, it was like none of it ever happened! History didn't change at all for us. I think the Americans knew that all along – so did the Russians I think. But they knew what we did, so the Americans hunted us like animals for years." He sagged, adding, "We managed to hide our time machine. Even got it working again. But we couldn't live there, they were always right behind us! So we planned our revenge, and came back here."
"Why're you telling us this?" Pleasants inquired, fingering the safety on his rifle.
"What do you think?" Schraeder shot back, glaring at Worf. "Besides," and now he grinned crookedly, "it's too late for you to stop it completely. This bomb was meant for Richmond – cut off the head, and the whole kaffir-loving body dies." He spat. "The other one will turn Washington into a ghost city. These superstitious barbarians have no way to explain the effects of a neutron bomb, so all they will know is that their entire government has just gone and died. The United States will be in chaos for decades. They may even blame the Confederates." He shrugged. "Either one serves our purposes."
"You have got to be kidding me," Garibaldi opined. "That sounds like a bad supervillain plot from a comic book!"
"It doesn't matter," Sheridan replied. "If he's telling the truth, there's another bomb out there somewhere."
Worf leaned down, and with a single hand, grasped Schraeder's collar, and hauled the man bodily into the air. "Where is this other device?" he asked calmly. Calm was a relative term for Klingons, and to any human who'd never met one, it still carried an unmistakable aura of threat. Schraeder tried squirming out of his own fatigue jacket, but yelped when the point of Worf's dak'tag cam to rest just below his breastbone. "I will not ask again."
"A carriage, that's all I know! It was supposed to arrive in Washington by tomorrow afternoon, at the same time as we got this one to Richmond on the train."
"It must be in Virginia," Pleasants said. "We've got to tell the President, so we can block the roads leading north. I just don't know how we're going to explain all of this," he added, glumly.
"Oh, we don't have to explain nuthin'," Mollie said. "Remember that book we gave Marse Robert, Nate? He already knows all about those Rivington men!"
"Book?" The question came from Pleasants, Sheridan, and Riker.
Caudell brightened. "That's right! Henry, 'bout a year after the war, Mollie got hold of a book from one of the Rivington men. It said it was published in 1999, and had these big color pictures, and talked all about the war, except it went differently. We didn't know just what to do with it, so we gave it to Marse Robert – before he was President, I mean."
"Are you saying that Robert E. Lee knows all about these time-travelers, and where they're from?" Sheridan said dubiously.
Mollie nodded vigorously. "Sure as I know ya'll ain't from around these parts." Then her shoulders fell, as she confessed, "Well, I think so, anyways. I didn't stay around to make sure he went and read it, but I think he must've if he found 'em out."
Henry Pleasants clucked his tongue decisively. "I have to report to General Forrest about this anyhow, so why not go right to the top?" Now he paused cautiously. "It'd take us another day at least to get to Richmond from here," he hazarded. "But we could do this a whole lot faster if you all could give us a hand."
"I don't think we have much of a choice," Riker said. "If that bomb gets to Washington, it'll kill everyone in the city, and could start another war. If the Enterprise hasn't detected that other bomb yet, it must be hidden by a jamming field as well. We'll need help finding it."
Garibaldi shook his head. "Hold up a minute. How do we know Chuckles over there is telling us the truth? We don't know if there really is another bomb."
"All right, say for the moment that you're right, and there is no other bomb," Sheridan countered. "What does he have to gain by lying to us? It's not like we don't have enough people down here to go on a wild goose chase."
"I don't know," Garibaldi admitted. "Yet." He glared at the captive, then turned and stalked off to help round up the other surviving Rivington men.
Riker made a 'have-it-your-way' face at the retreating back of Babylon 5's security chief, then turned to his own people. "Worf, take charge down here, and finish rounding up that one's other friends, then sweep the wreckage for any clues to the identity of whoever set up that jamming field."
The Klingon nodded. "What shall I do with the prisoners?"
"Sergeant Hawkins!" Nate Caudell beckoned the shaken Confederate soldier to his side. Hawkins looked ill, and kept shooting nervous glances at Worf. Caudell could hardly blame him – he felt light-headed from the whole experience himself, and he'd already known about the time travel. "Hawkins, I want you to take charge here. Once you get all the prisoners rounded up, take 'em up to your cabin, then truss 'em up good. Make sure you tie their arms and legs both; they're dangerous bastards, and they'll kill you lickety-split if they think they can get away with it. You keep them there until we can get some troops down here to take 'em off your hands. Just make sure that officer of yours doesn't do some damn-fool thing."
Grinning his shared disdain of "osifers" through the dirt that streaked his face, Hawkins nodded vigorously. "You betcha, First Sergeant. We'll hogtie 'em all jus' like is if they was pigs." Caudell's schoolteacher instincts winced at the hash the younger man made of the rules of grammar in his excitement, but he was used to that by now.
Worf leaned closer towards Riker, glowering fiercely at the subdued captives, and grumbled, "Sir, perhaps we should simply transport them to Defiant's brig. They possess knowledge of the future, and do not belong here."
Riker shook his head, having already made the decision. If Captain Picard decided to overrule him later, it wouldn't be a problem to beam them up then. "This timeline's already been affected by them, Worf, and we can't get them home. No, they've made their bed – let them lie in it."
Sheridan clapped his hands together, the immediate chaos having subsided into some form of order, and said, "Our next course of action seems obvious enough. We go to Richmond, and enlist some help in looking for that second bomb."
"In the morning," Pleasants said firmly, consulting a pocket-watch by the light of Riker's phaser-mounted flashlight. "I doubt you'll find anyone but the night clerks in the War Department at this time of day. Even Forrest would be asleep now."
"If he sleeps," Caudell muttered.
"As I was saying," Pleasants continued with a sour look at his friend, "the President won't be available now. It'll be light in about three hours though, and we can probably rouse him not long after dawn."
"Perfect," Crusher said, suddenly rejoining the gathering from the darkness, where she'd been checking on the wounded. Back once more in her duty uniform, her movements were much quieter without the half-dozen layers of wire-braced cloth that comprised her costume. "Most of us have been awake for almost 24 hours straight, and I'm recommending we all –" she glared around the group, sparing no one from her determined gaze "– get some sleep. Consider that an order," she amended when Sheridan and Worf looked openly rebellious.
Arrangements were made quickly, with an agreement to resume their chase later in the morning. Pleasants, the two Caudells, and the other Confederates hustled the dejected Rivington men – fourteen in total – back to their cabin, while their trans-dimensional allies were whisked back to their ships by colorful transporter energies once the Confederates were safely out of sight.