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Unidentified forest, Earth

The Captain finally called for a halt when they reached the road. It was a large highway, four lanes located at the top of an embankment…what drew the Captain's attention, however, was the broad cement culvert which ran beneath the road. He and his men had been running for the better part of an hour without rest, and it was beginning to take its toll. The Doctor was having an especially difficult time, wheezing uncontrollably as he sat down on the concrete floor of the drainage tunnel. The culvert did not offer much in the way of shelter but at least made for a decent hiding place; ordinarily, the Captain would have suggested starting a fire to ward off the cold, but they could not risk it. Helicopters still buzzed overhead with alarming frequency, and it was apparent that the five surviving crewmen of Deepstar were presently in very high demand. And now that they had a chance to stop and properly consider their situation, the questions started immediately.

"Something tells me we're not back home," IP-101 said sarcastically, his voice coming out in irregular gasps as he struggled to catch his breath.

"Gee, what tipped you off?" 77 replied.

SC-80 turned to RP-18. "Doctor…any ideas?"

"Well," RP-18 said, rubbing his aching chest with one hand, "to state the obvious, we are indeed not home. I'm confident that we've arrived at the right date…beyond that I don't know."

"Could it be like a parallel universe or something?" RA-48 asked. "Maybe we went into some alternate continuum?"

"Theoretically possible," the Doctor said, "but I doubt it. We had the same type of quantum waveform going both directions…if you think of the warp drive as a transmission, we were in the same 'gear,' as it were. I doubt that we would experience a spontaneous breach of the space-time continuum, not without some manner of catastrophic malfunction. And that assumes it's even possible at all. No, I think we're in the proper reality, just altered."

"How?" IP-77 said, his tone bordering on hostility. "How in hell do you explain this? Chadworth Industries…the same Chadworth Industries that we stamped out utterly, liquidated their assets and everything…is now building a lunar facility that makes ours look like a dollhouse? How does Chadworth exist at all? Where did they get spacecraft and energy weapons? Unless history spontaneously friggin' rewrote itself…"

"I don't think it did."

There was a moment of silence, and then the Captain spoke. "Doctor, you warned us yourself of the potential dangers of interacting with the past. We spoke to no one, touched almost nothing. And the only things that we removed were a newspaper that was destined for the garbage can and a few bars of candy." Not that we even have that now, the Captain suddenly realized…both the candy and the paper had been left in a storage locker on the ship.

"But you bought the candy, yes? With a ten-pound note that you found in the street?"

"Yes. Could picking the money up have changed something?"

"I don't know. I certainly didn't believe so at the time, or I would have stopped you. Truthfully, I don't know what it might have been, but the simple fact is that we must have changed something. As you said, 77, history doesn't spontaneously change. And the only alterations to the timeline that I know of…unless someone else has a time machine…were those minor changes that we incurred."

"Well, good luck fixing whatever we did," 77 growled. "We're done. We don't even have a ship."

"Stow that," the Captain said quietly. "We'll get her back. I don't know how, but we have to. In the meantime, there is a good chance that we may be stuck in this alternate timeline for some while. There's nothing I can say that will prepare you for that…all that matters is that we keep our heads. Now let's go over what little we know. Chadworth Industries exists and is clearly very powerful, but that doesn't mean we won't find allies. Hell, we may even be able to find the Fuhrer. The immediate concern, however, is basic necessities: food, shelter, and clothing. We also need weapons. The idea is to stay hidden, of course, but that may be easier said than done. I have my blaster pistol on me and one spare power cell…that's about a hundred shots total. 77 and 101 should both be armed…what about the Doctor and 48?"

Both civilians shook their heads, and 101 sadly held out his empty hands. "I'm sorry, Captain. When I pulled my spacesuit off, it caught my holster…that was the last I saw of my gun. I tried to find it, but…" he let the sentence trail off. "I still have this, though," he said, pulling a spare power cell off his belt, "give us a few more shots at least."

"77?"

"Yeah, I've got my blaster. Also brought my knife, as you know…I never leave the barracks without it."

"So we've got two compact blasters and a knife." Hardly what I might have wished for, the Captain thought, but, on the other hand, I should be grateful that we have anything at all. He nodded. "Well, it's something…just remember that we may not have any means to recharge those power cells once they're dead. It goes without saying anyway, but we have to conserve ammunition. Once we're empty, we may be empty for good. So we should also see about acquiring more firearms as soon as possible…I can only pray that some Oompa-Loompa size guns exist in whatever reality this is. Getting weapons is a more complicated issue, though. For starters, let's just stick to food, clothes, and lodging. We're underneath a highway…logic dictates that it goes somewhere. Speaking of which, does anyone know where we are? I wasn't entirely lucid during the descent."

"We're back in England, somewhere," IP-77 grunted. "I didn't exactly have time to program a new reentry path, so the computer just followed the most recent flight plan. We came down west of London…beyond that I don't know."

The Captain nodded. "Well, we'll find out soon enough. We'll remain here for a couple of hours, until first light. I know a drainage channel isn't exactly a luxury hotel, but see if you gentlemen can't get some sleep. I have first watch."