Monday
March 25th, 2357
Jet Propulsion Laboratories and Los Alamos Laboratories
It was showtime.
Elias took position in his office at the JPL. Multiple monitors surrounded him, but only one was focused on a single moment on the timeline.
Delphi sat in her office, her main computer logged in to the same moment on the timeline.
Jillian was hundreds of miles away at Los Alamos, her monitor zeroed in on the timeline as well.
Despite the distance between them, the system network connected them as well as if they'd been in the same room. Not only did each have a monitor targeting the moment Jennifer Chase was at the hospital in Montana, each also had a monitor showing the other two co-workers at their desk. Communication would be very easy.
Three people in three different places, each watching a single moment in the past. There was a certain paradoxical twist to the moment. If they had the time to ponder it, they would have.
Elias considered switching on the recording device that could document everything he was doing for later research and decided against it. For what he had planned, he didn't want anything tracking back to him or Delphi or Jillian. Outsiders might not like or understand what he was about to do. In any case, the computer system would record that they did send a non-Cyclotron powered time wave back to 2148. They just wouldn't get the details. However, just because the actions they were about to take were profound, that didn't mean he wasn't going to make a joke. He spoke into the comm that connected the three offices. "Ladies and gentlemen, I am Elias Pitcairn, temporal adventurer and thrill seeker. Today's objective - move an innocent person through time after she's already been moved through time. It's a tricky proposition, boys and girls, since the temporal disruption hasn't settled down enough to ensure a total success. As you can see, we have - three temporal monitors. Three chairs in front of the three temporal monitors. Three scientists sit in the three chairs in front of the three temporal monitors -"
Delphi cleared her throat. "Want me to elbow you in the ribs? This is not The House That Jack Built."
"And you're stalling," Jillian added.
"Stalling big time," Elias confirmed. "I hate the Council's idea."
Delphi blew out a resigned sigh. "We all do. But we have to do what we have to do. Okay, let's get this started."
All three placed their hands on their computers and began to target a visual representation of the continuum.
Jillian was the first to speak. "Getting confirmation. Temporal and geophysical positioning of target has been attained."
Delphi focused on the temporal signals the rest of the Power Team introduced into the timeline. "We have a small window of time, perhaps four or five minutes, when Corporal Chase is alone. The rest of the team will be elsewhere in the hospital. Just down the corridor if the readings are correct."
Jillian watched the timelines waver on the monitor. "I know we told the Council that time doesn't sit still for scans, but do we know the percentages of accuracy on something like this? We weren't quite on the target with Stuart Power when we were looking for him."
Delphi shrugged and then leaned over to the mic to whisper, "That was because we were being played and interfered with." Since they didn't have to use the Cyclotron that time, this one was all theirs. Percentage of success should be higher.
Jillian agreed. In an answering whisper, she said, "Let's hope so." At least Custer would be in the dark about all of it until they sent in their reports.
Elias targeted the exact location the hologram they were sending back could converge and coalesce without getting anyone's attention. "Think we can hit near 100% on this one? Take a look at these numbers and these waves."
All three scientists looked at the data. "Got the exact location of Chase down to the last millimeter," Jillian announced.
"According to all scans, reports and sensor readings, we've got the exact time she'll be alone. And 7:16 a.m. on July 8th, 2148, is the target moment of removing her," Delphi added.
There as a pause, and both ladies looked at Elias. He shrugged. "We're better than I thought we were. Okay, I can put the hologram in a small supply room down the corridor at exactly 7:11 a.m. on July 8th, 2148. It'll just have to not get anyone's attention for those few minutes. Officially."
The three sat still for a moment, and then each looked at the other.
"Plan B?" Jillian asked.
"Plan B," Elias answered.
Delphi sat back. "Okay, Elias. It's your game now." No one would know what they were doing. Everyone would think they were following the Council's orders.
Once the hologram was in 2148, they only had the one shot. No one other than Delphi and Jillian would hear or see what Elias had planned, but no one would know that they did.
And none of them would tell.
~o~ This Domino Won't Fall ~o~
Monday
July 8th, 2148
Resistance Hospital
7:10 a.m.
(T minus 60 seconds)
Five men stood in the corridor waiting.
Again, waiting.
Only this time, the seconds weren't passing by slowly. They were waiting for Doctor Kirkland to come out of Jennifer's hospital room after examining her.
"She's fine, Captain," Scout said.
Jon had to agree. "She's better. She slept most of the night. She's not in the same kind of pain she was in yesterday. She's..."
"Knowing her, she's acting like it was nothing more than a mission gone bad?" Hawk finished.
"That's all it was for her," Jon explained.
Stuart laughed quietly. "I have to say I understand that feeling."
Jon cleared his voice, "Dad, about that, I'd like to talk to you-"
Doctor Kirkland walked out of the hospital with a smile on her face.
Jon was the first to speak. "How is she?"
"She's going to be fine," Kirkland said, immediately reassuring the team. "She slept off and on most of the night, all of it in a regenerator and her vitals are back up to normal," she yawned. "Sorry. Not much sleep last night. Had some waterlogged patients come in after midnight. Anyway, Jennifer is strong enough to walk a short distance on her own, and she just told me she was hungry."
(T minus 45 seconds)
Jon was still worried. "Will you be keeping her here?"
Kirkland shook his head. "Maybe only another day. She's a lot better than yesterday, and the four of you are probably the best medicine for her. I'm going to send her down to X-ray for some scans, make sure her ribs and the damage are healing up as well as I think they are. I need to do that before she eats though."
Hawk slapped his hands together. "So it'd be all right if we get some breakfast for us and her? Have it waiting on her when she gets back?"
(T minus 30 seconds)
"I've already got the order in," Kirkland said. "A tech will be bringing the food here in about half an hour. That is if all of you can wait that long. What I'd also like to do is run some medical tests on Doctor Power, if you don't mind."
"Me?" Stuart asked. "I'm fine."
"Sir, I realize you and I have just met, but you're supposed to be dead. But you're also alive which wasn't the case for over fifteen years," Kirkland explained. "Now this team's health is one of my priorities when they're here, so I'd like to see if you and Jennifer have any of the same physical markers. Maybe that information could help all of you figure out what's going on. Then you could tell me."
(T minus 15 seconds)
"Come on, Dad," Jon prodded him, "Mom used to say that a medical doctor is your friend."
"That's when she had to convince me to get immunization booster shots when I went overseas. I hate needles," Stuart complained. Then, to Kirkland. "You'd like to do those tests now?"
Kirkland checked her chronometer. "I have the time now."
(T minus 0 - 7:11 a.m.)
"Give us just a few moments, Doctor?" Jon asked.
Kirkland glanced at her chronometer again. "Two minutes," she warned as she walked off just a little way to speak to one of her medics.
"Scout, what's the status this morning?"
Scout pulled out his reader and found the latest Intel reports being circulated. "A lot of groups are still relocating, storms are reducing in strength but are still storming on schedule... absolutely nothing requiring our immediate attention - wait - I'm picking up a tachyon reading," Scout muttered.
Stuart took a quick look at the device in Scout's hands. "Tachyons? That might not be good. Where?"
Scout double-checked the coordinates. "Back down the corridor. Only it's getting stronger."
"Which way?" Jon asked.
Scout slapped the side of the device. He pointed his finger down the hallway. "That way."
~0~0~0~0~
Without another word, the team walked down the corridor, eyes darting back and forth to find the source of the tachyon signal but they had no idea what they were searching for. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Jon mentally cataloged the people walking by.
Female medic, average height, average weight, red hair, taking an IV out of a supply trolley.
Male medic, tall, blonde, coming out of the supply room.
Female med-tech, tall, dark hair, coming on duty.
Male custodian, balding, older, cleaning the corridor.
Scout stopped at the far end of the corridor and brought out a sensor. "Tachyon reading is heading... that way," he pointed behind them. "Back the way we came."
Back? Jon was thinking one thing - whatever it was in the tachyon stream that brought Jennifer to them might be there to take her back.
Scout followed the indicator and stopped directly outside the supply room. "The tachyon stream originated in here." He opened the door and scanned the area. "It's still there. But there are no storms..."
From the supply room?
Jon remembered. The tall, blonde male came out of the supply room!
He glanced back down the corridor and watched the man walk "through" Jennifer's hospital room doors.
"Jennifer," he ran back down to Jennifer's room, the rest of the team on his heels.
~0~0~0~0~
Jon slammed open the hospital doors and saw Jennifer standing shakily on her feet opposite the male medic, now dressed as a Dread Youth overunit. Jon immediately pulled his gun and stood in front of her, holding on to her with his other hand to keep her from falling.
The rest of the team followed. Stuart immediately took the opposite side of Jennifer so Jon could concentrate on the intruder.
"Who are you?" Jon asked, his voice like cold steel.
"You must be Captain Power," the intruder said. "You don't look like your pictures." He looked at each member of the team. "None of you do. Of course, you were older when the pictures were taken."
Tank and Hawk moved behind him, Scout to the side. All weapons were drawn.
"Who are you?" Hawk repeated the questions.
"An interested party?" the intruder tried to smile. Then the overunit began to shimmer, blink, become transparent, and then fold in on himself before restabilizing into a human form.
Scout waved his gun through the 'soldier.' "What the hell?"
The 'soldier' remained where he was but focused on Jon. "Okay, explanation time. Captain Power, My name is Doctor Elias Pitcairn, and I am speaking to you through a hologram sent back in time from the year 2357. I'm sorry; we had to program it to take on the appearance of a Dread Youth. Our bosses' orders."
Jon kept his gun pointed at the hologram, but he did lower it somewhat. "2357?"
"I'm a temporal physicist working out of, well, to you, it'd be a newly constructed Jet Propulsion Laboratories in California. We built the laboratories on the same sites as the old ones that Dread destroyed during the Badderdays."
"Badderdays?" Tank asked.
Elias nodded. "That's what we call the Metal Wars and the Dread Wars."
"Interesting word," Stuart muttered as he put the conversation back on track. "You're a temporal physicist. Can we assume that you're responsible for what's happened to myself and Corporal Chase?"
The hologram almost looked like he was ashamed. "Unintentionally, partly, Doctor Power. I am sorry about that, but something happened. It wasn't our fault. There was another party involved who took matters in his own hands and decided to dreck things up. In the original timeline, you escaped Dread and Volcania before the explosion. You didn't die. You helped lead the Resistance from the Power base. Well, the 'something' happened. The timeline was altered and you were killed in the explosion in 2132. We attempted to repair the temporal problem by removing you from Volcania the moment of the explosion and moving you forward through time by one day in 2132. It didn't quite work out that way."
"You were trying to save Dad's life?" Jon asked.
Pitcairn nodded. "We have evidence that someone sabotaged the experiment, made the machinery do something they weren't authorized to do and then do something we weren't expecting. We spent a lot of time trying to figure out what happened but not how it happened and we weren't looking in the right place. Now we know it was all a deception by someone trying to kill Stuart Power for his own reasons. When we tried to fix the alteration in the timeline, we inadvertently, uh, mistakenly, no, aw, scite it all, everything got drecked up. The time wave splittered into two parts. One found you, the other one took a little side trip to the explosion at the Power Base and brought Corporal Chase forward as well. She was supposed to die in the original timeline just as Stuart Power was supposed to have survived. We think the explosion at the Power Base gave the wave fractals the strength they needed to grab both and send them through the time wave. We don't know why it sat them on July 4th, 2148, or dumped them at our test sites. You know what happened from there."
"Wait, you're trying to re-establish the original timeline?" Hawk argued the point. "Stuart lives and Jennifer dies? And now you're here trying to take Jennifer from us again? You think we're gonna let you?"
Pitcairn glanced over at where Jon stood steadfastly in front of Jennifer, protecting her with his life if necessary. Stuart Power flanked her. No one was taking her, that was certain.
"Never thought I'd get to see the Power Team in this kind of action," Pitcairn muttered more to himself than anyone else. "The Temporal Administrative Council said we have to. Look, you have to understand how this scite-up has people terrified. Captain, we only exist in my time as we do because you lost Jennifer Chase, got angry and then got brutal in your tactics."
"Brutal?" Jennifer asked.
Jon nodded his head, his eyes never leaving the hologram. "What is it you think I did, Pitcairn?"
"You destroyed Dread. You completely wiped out Overmind. You destroyed everything they had. You smashed facilities and bases and wiped biomechs literally out of existence. You didn't let anything remotely Dreadly survive. It was all gone. Through it all, Stuart Power never tried to stop you. He agreed that destroying everything that Dread had was the only way to rebuild."
"He destroyed everything?" Jennifer asked, her voice indicating her confusion.
Jon looked back at Jennifer, her frown an indication that this part of the conversation was a topic they should have discussed earlier in private. He mentally kicked himself. He should have told her yet what he'd done all those months she was gone. "I got angry after what happened and took it out on Dread over the last few months," Jon explained quickly.
"By getting brutal?" she asked.
"And unforgiving and destructive," he finished.
"It's turned the war to our favor," Hawk added.
Jon turned back to Pitcairn. "But even if I did get angry, you're making it sound like I brought down an Armageddon on him." Jon was amazed at the hologram but he didn't let it show on his face. Such technology! And it looked so real! It seemed to take a breath before speaking again.
"You did," Pitcairn explained. "But once Stuart Power was thought killed and the timeline changed and became the timeline you're on now with him here - now - Dread was taken alive, partly at Stuart's insistence. That wasn't how you handled things originally. Overmind hid parts of himself in computers all over the planet and kept himself active. Society didn't really rebuild because we were fighting a perpetual war for decades. In the original timeline, after you lost Corporal Chase, you got vicious. Destroyed all of it. It's because of that fact that humans were able to build new types of computers that whatever was left of Overmind couldn't access. People who still followed Dread had no resources to rebuild their armies. You understand what I'm saying? You destroyed all of it. Then, when the time fractal brought Corporal Chase out of the base and she was alive, that changed everything. Our future wouldn't exist because humans didn't have to start over completely. Dread acolytes still existed and, according to the new timeline that was establishing, there have been wars ever since."
Tank stepped slightly to the side to get a better look at the hologram. "You're condemning us for things we haven't done?"
Pitcairn put up his hands in denial and shook his head. "No, I'm not condemning. None of you knows your future exactly, but it'll be your legacy if things aren't changed back to the original timeline where Stuart Power lived but Jennifer Chase didn't. At least, that's what the Council has dictated."
Jon and Stuart took a more protective stance around Jennifer, the team immediately took a more defensive stance around the hologram, but Jennifer stepped out from them and, leaning on Jon as support, approached the hologram. "You walked in the door. No one was in here but me. Why didn't you kill me then if my being alive is so dangerous to your time?"
Pitcairn frowned slightly as he formed his answer. "That was their last resort. No one wanted to kill you. Well, none of us wanted to kill you. Some of the members of the Council aren't that nice. The Temporal Administrative Council decided they needed to make it look like you were killed by a Dread soldier, which is why this hologram looks like an overunit. Power had to see the hologram seem to kill you. That would make him angry and correct the timeline back to its original parameters. But, believe me, their orders were that you weren't to be killed except as a last option. You were just supposed to be moved forward in time about sixty years. To England. That way, you'd survive but you'd be far enough away from any remaining members of the Power Team, both physically and temporally, to disrupt the now current time line."
"That won't happen," Stuart stated, his voice leaving no room for argument.
"That's why I'm here," Pitcairn explained as the hologram seemed to look at a chronometer. "Look, I've only got a small window of time to explain things and make everything look like it's copasetic. In a nutshell, my co-workers and I didn't agree with the Council. We wanted a happy ending to the story for once. I came up with a plan to warn you through the hologram. The person who orchestrated Stuart Power's death has no way of knowing what we're doing because we're pulling off this stunt under the sensors, and I'm talking to you through the hologram without telling anyone I work for I was going to do it. I didn't want anyone I know to get in trouble. But if you don't win and don't destroy Dread, trouble will be the last of our worries -"
"We will," Scout promised. "Every circuit, every piece of metal, every nut, bolt and washer that he's ever used will go into the scrap heap."
"No," Pitcairn corrected. "You still don't understand. No scrap heaps. Nothing, absolutely nothing can survive. It all has to be destroyed, blasted into bits, melted down, whatever you have to do to make it cease to be what it is or the world as we know it will not exist in my time. The alternate timelines are not good, let me tell you."
"So what's your plan?" Jennifer asked.
Pitcairn glanced around the room. "It's our Plan B. Scite it, how to explain this..." he paused for a moment. "Time, people, events - they're like a row of dominos. Each one falls against the other and they all fall down in a certain pattern. Let just one domino not fall, and everything changes. It's our job to make certain that all the dominos fall correctly. If they don't, we'll know pretty quick."
Stuart made a scientific inquiry. "Whatever happens in our time will be immediately observable and known in your time, right?"
The hologram smiled. "Sometimes! Yes! You get it. There are times when ripples take a little longer for us to know them though."
Hawk took a step forward. "Well, this domino won't fall, and you can't push it over."
The hologram nodded, understanding. "Look, we're being watched, sort of. The Council will want to make sure that we moved Chase. We'll send them a report showing something hit the timeline in about sixty years from where you're standing. I thought if I moved an equivalent mass through the timeline, it would buy us some time, pardon the pun, maybe a week that they don't know she wasn't sent away. But they'll know soon enough that we didn't. They'll know that she was left here and we didn't move her once the changes in the timeline calm down. I'll take responsibility for not letting the Council's plan follow through, but if all of you don't follow through with what you're supposed to do, the future is history and I won't have a job because I'll be in prison for manipulating timelines without authorization. Look, the reason they'll know if you don't succeed is because only the people at JPL and Los Alamos and the Cyclotron Labs will remember the timelines because we exist in a bit of a time bubble that doesn't get affected by temporal changes. That's the only thing that spares us from the Grandfather Paradox."
"The what?" Tank asked.
"Grandfather Paradox," Pitcairn answered quickly. "Basically, you go back in time and you kill your grandfather which means you're never born which means you never go back in time so you don't kill your grandfather which means you're born which means you can go back in time to kill your grandfather... it's enough to give you a headache."
Grandfather Paradox be damned. More important things were pressing. "Back to the problem at hand, does this mass you want to send forward in time have to be human?" Stuart asked.
Jon glanced at his father. What was he thinking? He was casually discussing time travel with someone from the future? No one would believe this story.
"No," Pitcairn explained. "Just equivalent mass will be fine."
"So what can you send forward in time?" he asked.
Pitcairn glanced around the room. "The hospital bed, I suppose. That should work."
They watched in utter awe as the hologram pulled a gun-shaped device out of a pocket and pointed it at the hospital bed. Kirkland saw Scout pull out a scanner and record the bed's sudden disappearance.
Then, they stood in a bedless room.
"No tachyons," Scout said. "Because it's the source and not the destination. But there are no storms."
"Storms?" the hologram asked.
Scout moved toward the hologram, scanning him as well. "A week before, we had massive storms raging from JPL to Los Alamos -"
"Wait, JPL to Los Alamos?" Pitcairn interrupted him. "The storms were that massive?"
Scout squinted. "Yes. Tornadoes, high winds, torrential rains."
Pitcairn looked at both Jennifer and Stuart. "Were they transferred to JPL and Los Alamos?"
Scout answered cautiously. "Yes. Why?"
"Scite it," Pitcairn muttered. "We knew they got sent to temporal test sites. We didn't even consider they'd both be sent to the original test sites. We found Stuart Power at Los Alamos, but we didn't track Corporal Chase until she came here and we found a journal where your team was mentioned." No one had a clue what Pitcairn was talking about.
Stuart stepped forward. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, we lost both of you," Pitcairn said dismissively. "Spent a couple of days tracking you down. What were you saying about the storms?"
Scout continued. "They came an hour, stopped an hour and started again with increased strength. Rain, sleet, snow, high winds, tornadoes, lightning, you name it for seven days. On the 4th, the storms united and that's when we registered tachyons. After that, the storms have been breaking up, storming on the same schedule and are decreasing in strength. But you came here, and then you just moved the bed... there are tachyons but no storms."
"You got massive storms like that? We thought it was just something simple like a slight temperature drop," Pitcairn answered. "Geological reports talked about a rainstorm in early July of 2148, and we were using that as one of our trackers, but this? We knew that there was a meteorological function to the whole thing, but this is unprecedented! I've got to tell the others."
"You don't know why the storms happen?" Scout asked him.
The hologram shrugged. "Not a clue. I guess since I'm here in this time, more or less, moving something from this time, there wouldn't be any storms. Wait, the storms stretched between the two sites?" the hologram seemed to think for a moment. "That's not right. The storms should be raging in a radius from the site itself. It shouldn't stretch between the two... aw, scite it! It was both explosions!"
"Both?" several voices repeated.
"We thought that the explosion at the Power Base translated back through the wave to give each time fractal the strength it needed to push both targets to 2148. We didn't even consider that the Volcania explosion would have done the same thing because our time wave was supposed to reach a moment just prior to the explosion altogether! We thought we'd missed that one." The hologram walked a few steps forward and back in frustration. "What were we thinking? Easy. We weren't. Didn't even take the obvious into consideration! Actually, both explosions could explain why the storms stretched between the two sites."
"How?" Scout asked.
"No idea," Pitcairn explained quickly. "I didn't even know storms like that were happening. That'll definitely be something to study up on."
Scout looked at everyone and shrugged. "It's their doing, they've got no clue, and we've been pulling our hair out over it trying to figure it out. They don't know much more than we do!"
Pitcairn looked at his chronometer again. "We only had a window of opportunity for a few minutes. It'll be over with at 7:16 a.m." He glanced back at Jon. "Look, Captain, getting your father back here was important for a lot of reasons. For a lot of us, getting Chase back was a happy accident and one we're glad to see happen. The Council didn't want to risk our future, so it's all on you. You can't fail."
"No pressure there, Jon," Hawk muttered.
Pitcairn didn't stop talking. "You've got to destroy everything about Dread whatever way you can. If you do that, then no one else from my time will try to, uh, influence your life. They see Stuart Power as the pivotal life to be rescued in all this. Not Chase. Some of us, we like to think we know better."
Jon got a steely glint to his eyes. He understood the veiled threat that was more of a warning. "Don't worry," Jon said. "We'll stop Dread."
"Destroy him," the hologram warned. "Let's just say it's part of an understood deal. You get to keep Corporal Chase here with you, and we get to have our future."
The hologram began to shimmer and become transparent, and then it dissolved in front of them.
Scout waved his hand through the space the hologram occupied and touched nothing. "That's something you don't see every day."
~0~0~0~0~
Destroy Dread utterly.
Every nut, bolt, screw, circuit, biomech, computer monitor, keyboard - all of it. It had to go. It had to disappear.
It all had to be destroyed or they'd take Jennifer from him. Move her forward through time, and now Jon knew they had the technology. Now he could put a name to the people behind the mystery. He had the explanation for why his dad and Jennifer were alive and well and with them.
They'd gone for Stuart, they got both, and of the two, they didn't consider Jennifer's life important, but her loss of life was.
Jon didn't quite know how to channel the anger over that revelation. He felt Jennifer begin to waver and he quickly pulled her to him, supporting her weight.
"I'll say one thing," Stuart said, "life is not going to be boring with all of you, is it?"
"We're entertaining," Scout mumbled.
Hawk moved across the now bedless room. "Now what do we do?" he asked Jon. "How in the world do we destroy Dread? We're just one little Resistance group."
"Not anymore," Jennifer said, holding close to Jon's side. "And not like the one Pitcairn was talking about."
Jon motioned for Scout to push the chair over to them and he helped Jennifer sit down. "What do you mean?"
"It's something Pitcairn said. In the original timeline, Stuart didn't die at Volcania in 2132. Then, the timeline altered, and he did die. They tried to fix that, but instead of saving just him, they saved both of us only they sent us to 2148. Stuart was supposed to be leading this group for the last sixteen years, and he didn't. There's no telling what our jobs were on the team in the original timeline or even what we were like or what we did. The team that exists now isn't the team that existed in the original timeline because of that fact alone. They changed history, which means the little Resistance group that we might have been originally isn't who we are now but we have to do the same things."
Scout smiled and inputted some data into his reader. "I've got to put that interpretation into our database. Jennifer, that's brilliant! By changing history, they changed history so none of this would change history!"
Stuart crossed his arms, looking remarkably like Mentor for a moment. "And tried to get it as close to the original by trying to make it all right for everyone by keeping Jennifer here."
"But sixteen years," Matt finished. "That means whatever happened when you were in charge of this group during that time either didn't happen or didn't happen the way it did originally."
"Wait," Tank interrupted. "Does that mean that whatever Stuart did during that time wasn't important? It doesn't matter that he's back now, years later, just as long as he's back?"
That was a good question. "We should have asked Pitcairn," Scout mumbled. "This really is enough to give you a headache."
"Headache or not, Pitcairn told us what we have to do. Now all we have to do is come through," Jon muttered. "We've been trying to stop Dread. How do we destroy an Empire?"
"One day at a time, son," Stuart told him. "From what Matt told me, you've already made a good start on it."
Jon looked up at his father. Suddenly, he had a thought. He had always missed his father's wisdom and advice. Maybe it was Stuart's inspiration that helped them not only win the war but wipe out Dread? Maybe it's his presence and his insight that gave them the push they needed at the end? Was that why his being in 2148 was acceptable and why the people from the future hadn't moved him back to 2132?
Scout was right. This was enough to give anyone a headache.
At that moment, Doctor Kirkland walked into the room. "Doctor Power, it's been over two minutes... where's the bed?"