Chapter 3

“This is it? What, is it the economy model?”

“No, smartass,” Nguyen answered with an eyeroll. “This is literally the highest tech that exists anywhere in the world. You and your boys will walk into it, and walk out the other side into 1881 West Texas. Specifically, you’ll walk out of the Sutler’s store at Fort Davis.”

Vic tilted his head and looked at the machine again. Nothing about it was impressive. The entire device filled only a half-size conex container, painted dull grey, with a complicated network of cables and wires running from the back end to dozens of computers and monitors spread throughout the darkened warehouse. Red lights provided a faint glow over the device and monitoring stations, and the dull hum of cooling units didn’t quite impede normal conversation.

“If this was the only one,” Vic asked, “how did the Chinese get it?”

“No idea,” Pena Rodriguez said. “It must have been a cyber breach. I mean, the only person here with access to all the plans and data is Elsie, our transsexual intelligence analyst. She’s a sweetheart though, she’d never steal the plans and give them to Wikileaks or anything like that.”

Vic looked toward one of the workstations. A skinny, bucktoothed, pink-haired guy in a dress lifted a disc from a computer drive. He saw Vic, froze, dropped the disc back into the drive, tapped his fingertips together and innocently whistled Born This Way.

“How many Soldiers will I have?” Vic asked.

“Ten. Including you.”

“That’s it?”

“What, are you scared?’ Nguyen asked. “Ten is plenty. How many do you expect the Chinese to send, a hundred? At best they’ll put five guys through their machine, then you and the 8^thCavalry troopers at Davis will whip their ass in minutes. You’ll have M4s, SAWs, an M-240, AT-4s, grenades, body armor, everything. If anything, it’ll be too easy.”

“I’ve heard that shit before,” Vic muttered. “What makes you so sure it’ll only be five Chinese?”

“Our intel is solid,” Nguyen said. “There’s no doubt. Has the CIA ever been wrong?”

“Well, yeah,” Vic replied. “Remember that whole ‘weapons of mass destruction in Iraq’ thing?”

“Nobody cares about Iraq!” Pena Rodriguez yelled. “That’s in the past! What matters is what’s happening today…and what happened in the past.”

“If what happened in the past matters, doesn’t that include Iraq?”

“No,” Nguyen said. “We’re only concerned with the 1880s. And I guarantee the CIA had no intelligence failures then.”

Vic looked away and shook his head. “Tell me the plan.”

“Nothing to it,” Pena Rodriguez said. “You ten vets go through, make contact with the camp commander, and give him the cover story. There’s one minor obstacle, we can’t send people and weapons through at the same time, so you’ll get the weapons half an hour later. Then you set the defense, kill the Chinese, repel the Apaches, shake hands and kiss babies, and ride off into the sunset back to today. We’ll time your return to the Saturday evening when we knocked on your door. You won’t even miss a day of work.”

“Huh,” Vic said, with obvious doubt. “And we’ll be able to fight right after going through? Time travel isn’t going to mess us up?”

“Not at all,” Nguyen said. “Well, not really. There might be a little digestive and urinary upset, but it won’t affect your ability to fight. Right after the passage you might have a slight stomach ache and need to pee a couple times, then it goes away.”

“Does the Chinese machine do the same thing?”

“Of course,” Pena Rodriguez said. “They stole our plans, so it has to.”

“Quit worrying about irrelevant crap!” Nguyen blurted. “Focus on the mission. All that matters is how you and your troops will defend Fort Davis.”

US Army troops at Fort Davis. Photo from TrueWestMagazine.com

Vic rubbed his forehead. “Speaking of that, what makes you people think the other vets will follow me anyway? I was just an E-4 team leader, nothing special.”

“Oh, they’ll follow you,” Nguyen said. “We told them about the heroic way you lost your leg in Afghanistan. They’ll go anywhere with you.”

“God dammit,” Vic said, biting back anger. “Do you people know how I actually lost my leg?”

“Nobody cares exactlyhow you lost your leg,” Pena Rodriguez hissed. “What matters is that you gave a piece of your protective gear to one of your Soldiers who didn’t have his, and it cost you your leg.”

“Well…yeah,” Vic stammered. “Sort of. But that’s not the whole-”

“It doesn’t matter!” Nguyen yelled. “They’ll follow you because you’re a hero. And besides that, they’re all descendants of Apache, just like you. We told them you’re Victorio’s great-great-great-great grandson. That’s all it took. You’re the man.”

“I’m not a freakin’ hero!” Vic shouted back. “And I was only in the damn Army for three years. I’m no tactical genius and was never even in command of nine people, I was just a fireteam leader in charge of three Joes. Now you dickheads think I can go back in time and lead a ten-man squad against Chinese cyberweirdos and an army of Apaches? Really?”

“Yes,” Pena Rodriguez said. “Really. Now if you’re done whining, let’s go to building 8 and meet your team.”

Chris Hernandez (pictured above at Fort Davis) is a 25-year police officer, former Marine and retired National Guard soldier with over 25 years of military service. He is a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan and also served 18 months as a United Nations police officer in Kosovo. He writes for BreachBangClear.com and has published three military fiction novels, Proof of Our Resolve, Line in the Valley and Safe From the War through Tactical16 Publishing. He can be reached at chris_hernandez_author@yahoo.com or on his Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/ProofofOurResolve).