King's Cross Anomaly - Part Two
Title: The King's Cross Anomaly - Part Two
Author: morrigans_eve & whuffle
Rating: PG
Character(s): Team Fic
Wordcount: 2885
Summary: It all begins again.
Author's Note: Contains Spoilers for Season 4 and 5 Part one can be found here
This was one of the things he missed about working with regular personnel. The lieutenant had shaken his head and then shaken his team down into a loose formation, flanking the ARC group.
Abby had been holding a quiet conversation on a private loop while Becker and McTavish squared off.
“Jess says the last definite sighting of the HS train was Crew’s Hill Station. If we follow the line for another 150m, we should hit the point where the system says the electrification was interrupted. Best guess the anomaly is intermittent and shifting.”
An uncanny, inhuman shriek echoed through the cutting.
“Jess, can we confirm this entire section of the line has been de-powered? I think we’ve got an incursion.”
“Gentlemen, on my command only, please,” was Becker’s warning to the team accompanying them.
There was a second shriek and Abby’s head snapped round at the accompanying crack of a tree being felled.
“Whatever’s come through, it’s big enough. On your guard everyone.”
Matt kept pushing forward, and Becker strung together a list of entertaining expletives as they crested a hill and saw the tree lying on it’s side.
“Zero, can you ask our resident expert for a short list of potential suspects that could take down a three meter tall tree?”
“Will do, Bravo. Good news is that narrows this down a bit to things less likely to eat you.”
“Eat us?” One of McTavish’s troopers, Christof Worcester, muttered. “What the hell have we been roped into?”
Before anyone could offer up an answer, Emily whirled round and fired the EMD at it’s highest setting. The electric pulse connected squarely with something’s head, but whatever it hit didn’t drop.
“Not again,” Abby cursed.
She ran forward before Becker could stop her, took up a kneeling position and fired off several bursts from her EMD.
“Sir?!”
Head lowered and arms tucked in close to it’s body, the creature continued to charge. Abby’s fourth shot connected with its chest. It dropped and she sighed in relief. Grimacing at her, Becker turned back to the men with McTavish.
“You lot pair up with Matt and Emily and go looking for more. Abby and I will take care of this one.”
Abby snapped a picture of the dinosaur and messaged it back to Connor. Becker sank carefully to a crouching position and jabbed a loaded tranq into the creature’s neck.
“Abs, that was somewhere between stupid and suicidal. Do I need to send you back to Connor and Jess at the ARC?”
“Don’t give me that crap, captain. There’s been enough dying already. Every creature that comes through an anomaly could be a link in the evolutionary chain. The more of them we can return home, the safer our own future will be.”
He lashed the dinosaur’s legs together, as a final safeguard. “My duty is to keep the members of this team alive, Abby. At any cost. And actions like that one just make my job more difficult.”
Her back stiffened. And her mobile bleeped.
“Connor says it’s a Pachycephalosaurus. Head-butters. Explains why the EMD bursts weren’t very effective. We should be fine if we aim for their flanks instead.”
She stood gracefully. “Lead on, captain.”
The pale echo of an anomaly flared just off to one side of the tracks. The wrong side to have stolen the train. Something stuck an ankylosaurid shaped head through.
Abby was enraged when the creature stumbled back through the anomaly, obviously hit by a burst of small-arms fire. She broke into a sprint but one of the two troopers tackled her as another, distinctly more dangerous looking dinosaur came barrelling out of a second pale anomaly that had formed just within the edge of the woods.
“Romeo One, hold your fire until the team member with you tells you to shoot.”
“Zero. We have multiple anomalies on site. We need a technician with any spare anomaly-lockers dispatched, ASAP.”
“On it Becker. For what it’s worth, ARCnet is now secured.”
“Thanks, Jess. And by the way, where the hell is Selkirk? Shouldn’t he have been here by now?”
Becker could hear Jess’ easy laugh bright and crisp through the comm lines.
“Sorry, they’re still ten minutes out. You’ll have to hold down the fort till they arrive.”
“Becker,” the lilt of Matt’s accent broken into the conversation, “I think we’ve found the main anomaly. We’re about a quarter mile north of where the car’s parked. Line’s warped and there’s a section of the overhead missing.”
“Any sign of the anomaly itself?” Abby asked.
“None.”
“Stay there and keep a sharp eye out.” Becker suggested. “We’ve got multiple anomalies. Who knows where that one leads.”
“Agreed. Work your way towards us, Becker.”
“Copy that,” he confirmed. “McTavish, head for the railway lines and work your way north.”
Bending down, Matt grabbed a bit of paper that had been swirling around near his feet. Looking at it he was puzzled. The leaflet looked new but the propaganda on it was straight out of the early forties.
“Jess, tell me you’ve got the ADD online. I need you to run an image against the old war ministry archives. Give me an idea of when we’re looking at.”
Matt flattened the leaflet out on the ground, pinned it with the toe of one boot, and snapped a picture with his mobile before folding the paper back up to stuff in his pocket. As he straightened up again, Emily came trudging up the line with McTavish’s sergeant in tow.
“I’ve seen another pale anomaly flare, Matt.”
“Sir, there’s no sign of the missing train in that direction.”
Matt nodded, considering the warped section of north-bound tracks and missing electrical line.
“Unfortunately, I think this is where the train disappeared.”
“With all due respect, sir, trains don’t just disappear.”
“Then I invite you to keep walking the tracks, sergeant,” Matt spat out. “In the meantime, we’ll be over here doing something useful.”
Looking contrite, the sergeant closed his mouth once again and awaited further orders at parade rest.
Matt’s skin prickled. And he stepped back as the anomaly flared open and spun bright lazy diamonds in the air over the railway line. The sergeant beside him swore quietly in a language Matt didn’t recognize as he raised his weapon to point at the unexplainable.
“What the hell is that thing,” he whispered.
“Our remit, Sergeant Meecham.”
Two battered looking civilians stumbled back through. Snapping out of his daze, Meecham moved forward cautiously to assist them in putting distance between themselves and the inexplicable lights hanging in the air. Matt was pleased to note that the man carefully kept the civilians’ backs to the anomaly as he led them away. He might not understand it, but he seemed to recognize that this most certainly wasn’t a matter to be discussed openly.
Three more stumbled through before the anomaly vanished again.
“Jess. Have you got a date on that leaflet?”
“We’re still working on it, Matt. I’ve got Connor debugging the last of the ADD code right now. Burton left a real mess for us.”
“Soonest you can, an answer would be helpful.”
Emily slung one arm under that of the last woman through and gently guided her up the hill to rejoin the others.
“What the hell was that?”
Emily laughed. “Seems to be a common question today.”
Eyes narrowed, Lieutenant McTavish looked at Matt.
“Burton, eh? Any of this connected to that power plant of his that blew up, Mister Anderson?”
“I’m not at liberty to say, lieutenant.”
“And I’m the next king of Morocco...” McTavish shot back.
Before he could ask any more difficult questions, the comm line came back to life, clipped precision identifying the speaker as Lieutenant Selkirk.
“Bravo, this is Sierra. We are at the Crew’s Hill Station. Can you confirm your position?”
“We’re a mile north of you, Lieutenant. And the net is now secured. Work your way up the line. We’ve got civilians that need an escort out.”
Half way up the line, Meecham dropped to his knee and tracked a movement that had caught his eye through the scope of his rifle.
“Sir. Three o’clock. Movement in the tree line. Looks like … a raptor?”
“Meecham, this is Becker. Fire at will. If those are raptors, do not allow them to get into range of your civilians. Repeat. Do not let them within range.”
“Understood, sir.” he replied with crisp precision.
Looking over his shoulder quickly, he saw Trooper Worcester herding the civilians back up the line towards the safety of the station. Dismissing them from his thoughts, he turned back toward that flicker of movement he’d spotted, and he waited.
What came out of the trees wasn’t quite what he’d expected. And as he squinted through the scope, he saw it take a large mouthful of grass as it ambled forward.
“Sir, I’m not so sure these actually are raptors. This one’s eating grass. Doesn’t seem much interested in me at all. Any definitive way to tell the difference from here?”
Abby laughed. “The eating grass makes it a pretty safe guess, Sergeant. Hold your fire.”
Listening in on the chatter, Connor piped up in their ears.
“Any chance you can get a picture of whatever you’re seeing, Sergeant Meecham?”
Looking puzzled, Meecham cocked his head toward Emily in clear deferment to her judgement.
“Go ahead and indulge our resident research expert, Sergeant. Assuming nothing new comes through that particular spot, I can escort these people for a couple meters while you get a bit closer. Do make certain to stay down wind though, and for heaven’s sake no closer than a hundred yards or you’ll spook the thing.”
Breaking off to head toward the flickering anomaly among the trees, Meecham moved slowly, skirting wide to angle himself in on the creature’s downwind side. It looked up at him for a few moments, but otherwise seemed more interested in the abundance of fresh grass.
As he got close enough to take a good look, Jamil Meecham couldn’t help but stare at the thing in front of him with wide-eyed wonder. Rubbing one hand across his shaved head, he pulled out his phone and snapped off a couple of photos, grinning all the while.
“Hey research, you said this is what you people do for a living? Talk about childhood fantasies made real.”
“Too right, Sergeant. And the name’s Connor by the way, not research.”
“Well where do you want me to send these snapshots, Connor?”
Connor quickly spouted off an email address which Jamil typed into his phone before hitting send.
“I assume protocol states that any and all evidence of these creatures is highly classified? Let me know when you’ve received those so I can delete the ones on my phone.”
“They’re coming through now, Sergeant. Thanks for asking about deleting the originals.”
“Not a problem, Connor. Let me know when you figure out what the hell this thing is. Command, would you like me to rejoin you or remain here where the creature is?”
McTavish moved to answer, but Becker shook his head. “Keep an eye on the creature and the glittering lights.”
McTavish looked at the officer he’d been instructed to report to.
“Why?”
“Because he recognises what is going on with the anomalies, don’t you Captain?” Matt answered before Becker could.
“You mean you hadn’t, Matthew?”
“It’s the prison anomalies, again. Hopefully without Ethan. We’ve got another two overlapping. Cretaceous and something much more recent. Jess, got a date on that leaflet for me yet?”
“1942,” she replied, the firm conviction in her voice telling him she’d found a near enough match to be certain.
“Bugger,” Becker swore. “If we’re lucky the train is in the Cretaceous. But I don’t think we are.”
“Connor, can we hold an anomaly open with the kit we’ve got here?”
“Not a chance.” Abby replied for him. “You need two locking devices to pull the trick Connor and I used last time round.”
McTavish raised an eyebrow at that.
“Well that’s something at least,” he smirked. “So you know how to deal with whatever this is?”
“I don’t want to split the anomalies,” Matt elaborated. “I’m just trying to buy time to get the civvies back to the right side of the one they’ve gone through.”
Before they could discuss the matter further, the anomaly flared back open and a group of a dozen people, some supported by their fellows, came through the anomaly at the tracks. Looking them over critically, Matt immediately homed in on one, a man in uniform whom he immediately recognized.
“Captain Norwich? Were you travelling with the General?”
The man bearing the captain’s pips stopped beside Matt and Lieutenant McTavish. As he did so, the rest of the group halted as well, floundering and dazed without the leadership he’d been providing.
“I was, sir.” The captain was young, wearing staff tabs on his khaki uniform and an intelligence corps capbadge on his forage cap.
“Is the Chief of the General Staff still on the train, captain?” Matt asked again, more forceful in his urgency.
“He’s over there,” the man waved in the direction of the anomaly through which they’d come. “He was out of the train assisting some of the injured passengers in getting out of the carriages.”
“Trooper Scobar, give me your spare pistol then escort these people back up the line to Lieutenant Selkirk’s team. Meecham’s about half way up and Emily is on her way back so you should have safe passage.”
“Yes, sir,” the man’s curly hair bobbed gently as he sketched a salute to the two officers and then handed the Intelligence officer his pistol.
Turning back to look at the bewildered captain beside him, Matt gave the man a wry grin.
“I need you to stay here, captain, while we handle retrieving the general and the rest of the civilians.”
“I don’t understand, sir. We were here, and then we weren’t. The train is off the tracks on the other side of whatever that was. There’s a few injured.” The officer looked up at the sky and squinted.
Thinking quickly Matt tapped his comm.
“Jess, I need you to call in whomever is on EOD standby and have them sent to the anomaly site with as much explosive ordinance as they have access to. There’s no way in hell we can get the train back through and leaving that much future tech in one piece is a bad idea.”
Becker tapped his own earpiece, switching to the main comm channel.
“Selkirk, Have you got a medic in tow? There’s going to be casualties if that train derailed at speed.”
Persistent and starting to think on his feet once again, Captain Norwich spoke up.
“There’s something not quite right about all this. I know I didn’t black out, but wherever there is, its the middle of the night. How long has it been since we went through that thing?”
“An hour and a half, roughly, captain.”
“By my watch, we’ve only been gone for twenty minutes. How in hell is that possible?”
Saving Matt from having to answer uncomfortable questions yet again, Emily came on the comm net.
“Matt, we’ve got another anomalies here. It appears to be stable. Advise?”
Aware of his audience, Matt bit back a quiet curse.
“Lieutenant Selkirk, I need you and the majority of your men down here ASAP. We’ve got our hands full.”
“Acknowledged, Command. We’re on our way.”
“Leave two of your unit with the train passengers, if you please. Zero should be arranging dispatch of the emergency services to handle them.”
“At your command, sir.”
“Emily, Abby, I need you both to come down to this end of the line. Jess, tell Lester we’re going through to retrieve civilians.”
“He’s going to blow a gasket,” Jess quipped back. “You owe me a bar of chocolate for this, Matt.”
“And he really wants to be the one that explains to the PM why CGS and a train full of civilians disappeared, Jess?”
“No need to get snotty about it,” she huffed back.
Matt could already hear the faint mutter that was Lester fuming in the background. Realizing that Jess must have patched the comms through to the speakers in the hub, Matt responded under the assumption that Lester would be able to hear him.
“We don’t have a choice, James. In this case, the rules must be broken. Think of what the damage to the timelines could be if we left all those people and the train intact in 1940s era England?”
“I won’t bother repeating his reply, Matt. Suffice to say that while he’s not pleased, Lester does understand the need to violate protocol in this particular instance.”
Matt laughed, a warm soft chuckle. He could almost see the exchange of looks between Jess and Lester in his mind’s eye. Their field coordinator made an excellent buffer for the harsh abrasive that was James Lester’s wit.
“But he can’t let it pass without complain, even when entirely valid, eh Jess?”
“Got it in one,” she chirped back, cheerful as ever despite the sound of Lester’s ever escalating tirade in the background.
Author: morrigans_eve & whuffle
Rating: PG
Character(s): Team Fic
Wordcount: 2885
Summary: It all begins again.
Author's Note: Contains Spoilers for Season 4 and 5 Part one can be found here
This was one of the things he missed about working with regular personnel. The lieutenant had shaken his head and then shaken his team down into a loose formation, flanking the ARC group.
Abby had been holding a quiet conversation on a private loop while Becker and McTavish squared off.
“Jess says the last definite sighting of the HS train was Crew’s Hill Station. If we follow the line for another 150m, we should hit the point where the system says the electrification was interrupted. Best guess the anomaly is intermittent and shifting.”
An uncanny, inhuman shriek echoed through the cutting.
“Jess, can we confirm this entire section of the line has been de-powered? I think we’ve got an incursion.”
“Gentlemen, on my command only, please,” was Becker’s warning to the team accompanying them.
There was a second shriek and Abby’s head snapped round at the accompanying crack of a tree being felled.
“Whatever’s come through, it’s big enough. On your guard everyone.”
Matt kept pushing forward, and Becker strung together a list of entertaining expletives as they crested a hill and saw the tree lying on it’s side.
“Zero, can you ask our resident expert for a short list of potential suspects that could take down a three meter tall tree?”
“Will do, Bravo. Good news is that narrows this down a bit to things less likely to eat you.”
“Eat us?” One of McTavish’s troopers, Christof Worcester, muttered. “What the hell have we been roped into?”
Before anyone could offer up an answer, Emily whirled round and fired the EMD at it’s highest setting. The electric pulse connected squarely with something’s head, but whatever it hit didn’t drop.
“Not again,” Abby cursed.
She ran forward before Becker could stop her, took up a kneeling position and fired off several bursts from her EMD.
“Sir?!”
Head lowered and arms tucked in close to it’s body, the creature continued to charge. Abby’s fourth shot connected with its chest. It dropped and she sighed in relief. Grimacing at her, Becker turned back to the men with McTavish.
“You lot pair up with Matt and Emily and go looking for more. Abby and I will take care of this one.”
Abby snapped a picture of the dinosaur and messaged it back to Connor. Becker sank carefully to a crouching position and jabbed a loaded tranq into the creature’s neck.
“Abs, that was somewhere between stupid and suicidal. Do I need to send you back to Connor and Jess at the ARC?”
“Don’t give me that crap, captain. There’s been enough dying already. Every creature that comes through an anomaly could be a link in the evolutionary chain. The more of them we can return home, the safer our own future will be.”
He lashed the dinosaur’s legs together, as a final safeguard. “My duty is to keep the members of this team alive, Abby. At any cost. And actions like that one just make my job more difficult.”
Her back stiffened. And her mobile bleeped.
“Connor says it’s a Pachycephalosaurus. Head-butters. Explains why the EMD bursts weren’t very effective. We should be fine if we aim for their flanks instead.”
She stood gracefully. “Lead on, captain.”
The pale echo of an anomaly flared just off to one side of the tracks. The wrong side to have stolen the train. Something stuck an ankylosaurid shaped head through.
Abby was enraged when the creature stumbled back through the anomaly, obviously hit by a burst of small-arms fire. She broke into a sprint but one of the two troopers tackled her as another, distinctly more dangerous looking dinosaur came barrelling out of a second pale anomaly that had formed just within the edge of the woods.
“Romeo One, hold your fire until the team member with you tells you to shoot.”
“Zero. We have multiple anomalies on site. We need a technician with any spare anomaly-lockers dispatched, ASAP.”
“On it Becker. For what it’s worth, ARCnet is now secured.”
“Thanks, Jess. And by the way, where the hell is Selkirk? Shouldn’t he have been here by now?”
Becker could hear Jess’ easy laugh bright and crisp through the comm lines.
“Sorry, they’re still ten minutes out. You’ll have to hold down the fort till they arrive.”
“Becker,” the lilt of Matt’s accent broken into the conversation, “I think we’ve found the main anomaly. We’re about a quarter mile north of where the car’s parked. Line’s warped and there’s a section of the overhead missing.”
“Any sign of the anomaly itself?” Abby asked.
“None.”
“Stay there and keep a sharp eye out.” Becker suggested. “We’ve got multiple anomalies. Who knows where that one leads.”
“Agreed. Work your way towards us, Becker.”
“Copy that,” he confirmed. “McTavish, head for the railway lines and work your way north.”
Bending down, Matt grabbed a bit of paper that had been swirling around near his feet. Looking at it he was puzzled. The leaflet looked new but the propaganda on it was straight out of the early forties.
“Jess, tell me you’ve got the ADD online. I need you to run an image against the old war ministry archives. Give me an idea of when we’re looking at.”
Matt flattened the leaflet out on the ground, pinned it with the toe of one boot, and snapped a picture with his mobile before folding the paper back up to stuff in his pocket. As he straightened up again, Emily came trudging up the line with McTavish’s sergeant in tow.
“I’ve seen another pale anomaly flare, Matt.”
“Sir, there’s no sign of the missing train in that direction.”
Matt nodded, considering the warped section of north-bound tracks and missing electrical line.
“Unfortunately, I think this is where the train disappeared.”
“With all due respect, sir, trains don’t just disappear.”
“Then I invite you to keep walking the tracks, sergeant,” Matt spat out. “In the meantime, we’ll be over here doing something useful.”
Looking contrite, the sergeant closed his mouth once again and awaited further orders at parade rest.
Matt’s skin prickled. And he stepped back as the anomaly flared open and spun bright lazy diamonds in the air over the railway line. The sergeant beside him swore quietly in a language Matt didn’t recognize as he raised his weapon to point at the unexplainable.
“What the hell is that thing,” he whispered.
“Our remit, Sergeant Meecham.”
Two battered looking civilians stumbled back through. Snapping out of his daze, Meecham moved forward cautiously to assist them in putting distance between themselves and the inexplicable lights hanging in the air. Matt was pleased to note that the man carefully kept the civilians’ backs to the anomaly as he led them away. He might not understand it, but he seemed to recognize that this most certainly wasn’t a matter to be discussed openly.
Three more stumbled through before the anomaly vanished again.
“Jess. Have you got a date on that leaflet?”
“We’re still working on it, Matt. I’ve got Connor debugging the last of the ADD code right now. Burton left a real mess for us.”
“Soonest you can, an answer would be helpful.”
Emily slung one arm under that of the last woman through and gently guided her up the hill to rejoin the others.
“What the hell was that?”
Emily laughed. “Seems to be a common question today.”
Eyes narrowed, Lieutenant McTavish looked at Matt.
“Burton, eh? Any of this connected to that power plant of his that blew up, Mister Anderson?”
“I’m not at liberty to say, lieutenant.”
“And I’m the next king of Morocco...” McTavish shot back.
Before he could ask any more difficult questions, the comm line came back to life, clipped precision identifying the speaker as Lieutenant Selkirk.
“Bravo, this is Sierra. We are at the Crew’s Hill Station. Can you confirm your position?”
“We’re a mile north of you, Lieutenant. And the net is now secured. Work your way up the line. We’ve got civilians that need an escort out.”
Half way up the line, Meecham dropped to his knee and tracked a movement that had caught his eye through the scope of his rifle.
“Sir. Three o’clock. Movement in the tree line. Looks like … a raptor?”
“Meecham, this is Becker. Fire at will. If those are raptors, do not allow them to get into range of your civilians. Repeat. Do not let them within range.”
“Understood, sir.” he replied with crisp precision.
Looking over his shoulder quickly, he saw Trooper Worcester herding the civilians back up the line towards the safety of the station. Dismissing them from his thoughts, he turned back toward that flicker of movement he’d spotted, and he waited.
What came out of the trees wasn’t quite what he’d expected. And as he squinted through the scope, he saw it take a large mouthful of grass as it ambled forward.
“Sir, I’m not so sure these actually are raptors. This one’s eating grass. Doesn’t seem much interested in me at all. Any definitive way to tell the difference from here?”
Abby laughed. “The eating grass makes it a pretty safe guess, Sergeant. Hold your fire.”
Listening in on the chatter, Connor piped up in their ears.
“Any chance you can get a picture of whatever you’re seeing, Sergeant Meecham?”
Looking puzzled, Meecham cocked his head toward Emily in clear deferment to her judgement.
“Go ahead and indulge our resident research expert, Sergeant. Assuming nothing new comes through that particular spot, I can escort these people for a couple meters while you get a bit closer. Do make certain to stay down wind though, and for heaven’s sake no closer than a hundred yards or you’ll spook the thing.”
Breaking off to head toward the flickering anomaly among the trees, Meecham moved slowly, skirting wide to angle himself in on the creature’s downwind side. It looked up at him for a few moments, but otherwise seemed more interested in the abundance of fresh grass.
As he got close enough to take a good look, Jamil Meecham couldn’t help but stare at the thing in front of him with wide-eyed wonder. Rubbing one hand across his shaved head, he pulled out his phone and snapped off a couple of photos, grinning all the while.
“Hey research, you said this is what you people do for a living? Talk about childhood fantasies made real.”
“Too right, Sergeant. And the name’s Connor by the way, not research.”
“Well where do you want me to send these snapshots, Connor?”
Connor quickly spouted off an email address which Jamil typed into his phone before hitting send.
“I assume protocol states that any and all evidence of these creatures is highly classified? Let me know when you’ve received those so I can delete the ones on my phone.”
“They’re coming through now, Sergeant. Thanks for asking about deleting the originals.”
“Not a problem, Connor. Let me know when you figure out what the hell this thing is. Command, would you like me to rejoin you or remain here where the creature is?”
McTavish moved to answer, but Becker shook his head. “Keep an eye on the creature and the glittering lights.”
McTavish looked at the officer he’d been instructed to report to.
“Why?”
“Because he recognises what is going on with the anomalies, don’t you Captain?” Matt answered before Becker could.
“You mean you hadn’t, Matthew?”
“It’s the prison anomalies, again. Hopefully without Ethan. We’ve got another two overlapping. Cretaceous and something much more recent. Jess, got a date on that leaflet for me yet?”
“1942,” she replied, the firm conviction in her voice telling him she’d found a near enough match to be certain.
“Bugger,” Becker swore. “If we’re lucky the train is in the Cretaceous. But I don’t think we are.”
“Connor, can we hold an anomaly open with the kit we’ve got here?”
“Not a chance.” Abby replied for him. “You need two locking devices to pull the trick Connor and I used last time round.”
McTavish raised an eyebrow at that.
“Well that’s something at least,” he smirked. “So you know how to deal with whatever this is?”
“I don’t want to split the anomalies,” Matt elaborated. “I’m just trying to buy time to get the civvies back to the right side of the one they’ve gone through.”
Before they could discuss the matter further, the anomaly flared back open and a group of a dozen people, some supported by their fellows, came through the anomaly at the tracks. Looking them over critically, Matt immediately homed in on one, a man in uniform whom he immediately recognized.
“Captain Norwich? Were you travelling with the General?”
The man bearing the captain’s pips stopped beside Matt and Lieutenant McTavish. As he did so, the rest of the group halted as well, floundering and dazed without the leadership he’d been providing.
“I was, sir.” The captain was young, wearing staff tabs on his khaki uniform and an intelligence corps capbadge on his forage cap.
“Is the Chief of the General Staff still on the train, captain?” Matt asked again, more forceful in his urgency.
“He’s over there,” the man waved in the direction of the anomaly through which they’d come. “He was out of the train assisting some of the injured passengers in getting out of the carriages.”
“Trooper Scobar, give me your spare pistol then escort these people back up the line to Lieutenant Selkirk’s team. Meecham’s about half way up and Emily is on her way back so you should have safe passage.”
“Yes, sir,” the man’s curly hair bobbed gently as he sketched a salute to the two officers and then handed the Intelligence officer his pistol.
Turning back to look at the bewildered captain beside him, Matt gave the man a wry grin.
“I need you to stay here, captain, while we handle retrieving the general and the rest of the civilians.”
“I don’t understand, sir. We were here, and then we weren’t. The train is off the tracks on the other side of whatever that was. There’s a few injured.” The officer looked up at the sky and squinted.
Thinking quickly Matt tapped his comm.
“Jess, I need you to call in whomever is on EOD standby and have them sent to the anomaly site with as much explosive ordinance as they have access to. There’s no way in hell we can get the train back through and leaving that much future tech in one piece is a bad idea.”
Becker tapped his own earpiece, switching to the main comm channel.
“Selkirk, Have you got a medic in tow? There’s going to be casualties if that train derailed at speed.”
Persistent and starting to think on his feet once again, Captain Norwich spoke up.
“There’s something not quite right about all this. I know I didn’t black out, but wherever there is, its the middle of the night. How long has it been since we went through that thing?”
“An hour and a half, roughly, captain.”
“By my watch, we’ve only been gone for twenty minutes. How in hell is that possible?”
Saving Matt from having to answer uncomfortable questions yet again, Emily came on the comm net.
“Matt, we’ve got another anomalies here. It appears to be stable. Advise?”
Aware of his audience, Matt bit back a quiet curse.
“Lieutenant Selkirk, I need you and the majority of your men down here ASAP. We’ve got our hands full.”
“Acknowledged, Command. We’re on our way.”
“Leave two of your unit with the train passengers, if you please. Zero should be arranging dispatch of the emergency services to handle them.”
“At your command, sir.”
“Emily, Abby, I need you both to come down to this end of the line. Jess, tell Lester we’re going through to retrieve civilians.”
“He’s going to blow a gasket,” Jess quipped back. “You owe me a bar of chocolate for this, Matt.”
“And he really wants to be the one that explains to the PM why CGS and a train full of civilians disappeared, Jess?”
“No need to get snotty about it,” she huffed back.
Matt could already hear the faint mutter that was Lester fuming in the background. Realizing that Jess must have patched the comms through to the speakers in the hub, Matt responded under the assumption that Lester would be able to hear him.
“We don’t have a choice, James. In this case, the rules must be broken. Think of what the damage to the timelines could be if we left all those people and the train intact in 1940s era England?”
“I won’t bother repeating his reply, Matt. Suffice to say that while he’s not pleased, Lester does understand the need to violate protocol in this particular instance.”
Matt laughed, a warm soft chuckle. He could almost see the exchange of looks between Jess and Lester in his mind’s eye. Their field coordinator made an excellent buffer for the harsh abrasive that was James Lester’s wit.
“But he can’t let it pass without complain, even when entirely valid, eh Jess?”
“Got it in one,” she chirped back, cheerful as ever despite the sound of Lester’s ever escalating tirade in the background.