We're Back!
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Another long and sleepless night. Straker had called for extra operatives to help with surveillance of both the ‘clean-up site’ at the Irig farm and the Kent farm. Madison and Lupinski had reported back that the two men watching Lane and Kent at the carnival had followed the reporters to the Kent farm. One had stayed to watch the farm while the other went on to the Irig place. There was still no sign of Irig, but the equipment storage areas and temporary crew quarters were under armed guard. Only, officially, there shouldn’t be anything there that needed guarding.
Madison was supposed to look for the Element 126 at the Kent farm after everyone there had gone to bed, but with Trask’s man watching, Straker deemed it too great a risk. Freeman hoped that Straker, and his own dreams and memories, were right and Trask wouldn’t make his move against Clark Kent until the afternoon and that they’d be in a position to rescue Kent if they needed to.
“Why didn’t Wells just tell us we needed to be here now to stop Trask?” Freeman asked. “Why all the complication of grabbing us ten years ago?”
“If that’s your only question, you’re lucky,” Straker commented. “I asked one of the Rokan-Shou scientists about it. His best guess was that at that time I was still ‘temporally disjointed’ enough from my exposure to a time storm and people from the future, that I would have been partially immune to any temporal changes in the event of a problem. Also being a new husband and father, I might be a little more open to his suggestions. But I still don’t see how I could be immune to temporal effects that hadn’t happened yet.”
“Maybe it was that other part that Wells was counting on,” Freeman suggested.
“Or maybe he wanted to make sure you were immune then and now, sir,” Westcott suggested.
Freeman hadn’t even heard her approach. In nightgown and robe and with her hair down, she looked even more like a little kid than she did normally. However, the earpiece half-hiding in her hair belied the impression – a little.
She didn’t seem to be aware of Freeman’s visual inspection as she continued. “We know the Rokanni were experimenting with time manipulation, sir, and even though they haven’t managed actual time travel…”
“As far as we know,” Straker interjected.
“As far as we know,” Westcott conceded, “but we do know that others have managed it, including your Mister Wells. Doctor Jackson believes…”
“Ah, Doctor Jackson…” Straker said with a bemused tone. “He sent you along as back up? All I asked for was a couple of FBI types and a sharpshooter.”
“Well, SHADO’s two most senior officers taking off half-way across the country to track down a renegade military unit didn’t exactly thrill the security types. Not to mention the General’s wife.”
“My beautiful, charming and talented wife is ticked off because I didn’t tell her that I knew that the pivotal point in time was so close,” Straker said. “She and Ginny Lake are working on plan B. With any luck at all they’ll come up with something.”
“I thought we didn’t have technology that could stop an extinction level event object,” Freeman said.
“We don’t,” Straker agreed. “But we may be able to save something.”
“Less than a month,” Freeman commented. “Not much time, even with a superman on our side.”
Westcott frowned and raised one hand in warning. “Perimeter breach,” she murmured.
“Local?” Freeman asked.
Westcott shook her head. “Not unless the locals are in the habit of wearing military issue camouflage fatigues and carrying shotgun mikes.”
“Do we know how much he heard?” Straker asked.
“Hard to say, sir,” Westcott admitted. “Our perimeter barrier distorts sound waves, so he probably didn’t get much until he was close enough to be detected. But what he did pick up was transmitted back to his base.”
“The Irig farm?” Straker asked.
“From what we can tell, yes, sir.”
“I’d wondered how Trask knew about the asteroid,” Straker said with a sigh.
“And now we know,” Freeman said.
“And now we know,” Straker agreed.
-o-o-o-
It took a long time for Freeman to fall asleep. He knew the perimeter was secure but part of him started with every strange sound. He could hear Straker tossing and turning in his own narrow bed, but Straker had always been a light sleeper. Maybe it was fear of the nightmares he was sure to have that was keeping him from drifting off.
He was with young Ed Straker again and Wells was with them. Freeman wasn’t sure of the location – maybe Smallville, maybe not. They standing near a barn.
“And what makes you think I’ll go along with your demands that I kill Trask so I can save the world?” Straker was saying.
“I’ve already shown you what will happen if you don’t,” Wells said.
“And I’m supposed to simply believe you? How do I know you’re not working with the aliens?”
“You know what Trask is capable of,” Wells said. “Do you doubt that he will do exactly as I’ve told you?”
Straker sighed. “I’m simply a soldier, Mister Wells. Not a policeman, lawyer, judge or executioner.”
“Pardon me if I don’t believe that you are simply a soldier, Commander,” Wells said with a sad little smile. “History says you are much more than that.”
“And I’m just supposed to take your word for it?”
Wells sighed heavily. “Commander, I had hoped I wouldn’t have to…” He stopped to listen. Then Freeman heard it – voices coming closer. Wells beckoned them to get out of site.
“And you believe everything that panty-waist collaborator says?” Trask was saying.
“I called someone I know over at the NIA,” the younger man with him said. “They confirm there is one, maybe two, ELE size objects headed this way. They couldn’t confirm that either of them would hit, but their estimates are that we don’t have the ability to divert even one of them. But they also said General Zeitlin was planning to contact Superman if the scientists didn’t come up with something.”
“Superman!” Trask sputtered. “Zeitlin’s a damned fool if he thinks Superman’s going to do anything but use this as a chance to subjugate us, make us grateful for his beneficence then make himself a king, inviting all his alien compatriots here to lord it over us. And I would rather the damned asteroid kill the whole planet than have a single human being bow down to some freak!”
“But sir…”
“You know what happened to Thompson when he questioned the mission, don’t you?” Trask demanded.
“Yes, sir.”
Trask and his man disappeared behind the building.
“Thompson?” Straker said, keeping his voice low.
“The civilian assigned to demobilize Bureau 39. His body was found in Hob’s Bay.”
Freeman could see the indecision in Straker’s face. It was obvious to Freeman that Trask was insane – no reasonable person would condemn the entire world to a horrible death to ‘save’ it. Straker was dedicated almost to the point of obsession – at least he sometimes seemed so – but even on his worst days, he would never put the entire planet at risk to eliminate one lone alien.
“Trask refused a legal order to demobilize his unit?” Straker asked.
Wells nodded.
Resolve settled on Straker’s finely honed features. “I’ll do it.”
“There is a complicating factor,” Wells added.
Straker glared at him but the Englishman didn’t seem to notice as he continued. “Trask has in his possession crystals of Element 126. Those crystals must be not allowed to fall in the hands of Superman’s enemies, or enemies of Earth.”
“And how do you propose we get those crystals away from Trask before he manages to kill your Superman?” Freeman asked.
Wells gave him an enigmatic smile that reminded Freeman of Jackson when he was up to something.
“I’m a time traveler, Colonel Freeman. We’ll use time.”
