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Following up on last episode's cliffhanger, the Dark Horse tries to return to its own time, and to avoid making anything go wrong that would need to be put right.

Okay! I can't claim that everything is necessarily going to make sense, because time travel is horrible and not good :P But hopefully this is silly enough to still be enjoyable. Thanks for coming along for the ride! There's some smutty payoff here, because... well, wolves: what else are ya gonna do?

Released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Share, modify, and redistribute -- as long as it's attributed and noncommercial, anything goes.

_Tales of the Dark Horse _by ** Rob Baird** S4E2, "Homecoming, Part 2" Stardate -550717

---

"What do you mean?"

"Don said I should call the cops--like that you're a red spy or something. Your square friend really West German? Or is he from the other side of the Wall?"

Eli flattened her ears and chose her words carefully. "Why would I be a spy?"

"I don't know! Don said you knew something you shouldn't have. Something top secret--he wouldn't even tell me! I don't know what he means by it. It was something you said last night."

"Something that makes you both think I blew my cover at a dinner party?"

That gave the bear pause, but not long enough for Eli to think she was out of trouble. "Maybe not. But I followed you when you left--you wound up here and vanished. Where'd you go? Why are you living on the pier?"

"I can explain, but you need to be patient. I'll be right back--okay?"

"Huh-uh, nope," Roger shook his head. "Don put the fear of God into me. You explain to me right the hell here and right the hell now--he's waiting around the corner in my cab. If I'm not back, I told him to call his superiors and have a national alert declared."

Eli recognized the tell-tale signs of nervousness, though--she'd been in that position enough in her life to call his bluff. "Your cab's in the shop until the day after tomorrow. You came by yourself, because you wanted to talk to me."

"Fine--I... look... you're a lot of fun, and I don't want there to be trouble or nothing, dig? But you gotta be straight with me. I don't know what's going on."

"I wish I could tell you."

"You can! I'm trying to help you! Don was serious about how much you worried him--I... he's not the worrying type, not normally. Not in his line of work. So if you said something that made him tell me he was gonna call in the FBI..."

Eli didn't need Ayenni's empathic skills to see the sincerity of Roger's concern for both Don and for herself. "Alright, alright. Here's the problem, Roger. I can explain, but you wouldn't believe me. I don't want to lie to you, and I don't think I'd be good at it. And if I convince you, we'll both be in trouble. Probably."

"Why?"

She took a deep breath. "I'm not Swedish. I'm from the future. Some kind of... time travel accident stranded us eight hundred years in the past."

"'Us'?"

Eli held up her paw, and gestured for him to follow her. She felt for the computer in her pocket, and tapped the control to extend the Tempest's gangplank. A faint, almost imperceptible mirage appeared above the pier. Had she not know what to look for, she would've missed it. As far as Roger was concerned, she was stepping--carefully--onto empty air. When she was certain she had his attention, she took another step forward.

"What the fuck..."

"Come on. You too."

Apprehension plain in every movement, he matched where she'd placed her feet and followed Eli to the hidden door of the Tempest. She opened it--a portal creating the awkward appearance of a corridor appearing in midair--and led him through.

Ensign Bader was on the other side, and Eli knew she had to preempt him. "Keep your weapon holstered. That's an order, ensign."

Technically, the lieutenant outranked him. Practically, Ensign Bader felt that she'd almost certainly lost her mind; he didn't quite know what to do under those circumstances. Only the fact that Roger was unarmed kept the shepherd's paw off his gun. "Lieutenant, I--"

Roger shot her a look, interrupting Leon's protest. "'Lieutenant'? Is that what he just called you? So you two are in some kind of government organization."

"I'm Lieutenant Elissa Parnell," she confirmed. "Ensign Bader is one of my crewmates. Lieutenant Ciara Munro here is another." Hearing the commotion, the vixen had come back from the cockpit to see what was going on.

Immediately, Ciara wished that she had not done so. Then, with the benefit of contemplation, she realized it was better to wish that Eli had not done... whatever it was she had done. "Eli, can we get an explanation?"

"Roger was going to report us to the police. Even if they didn't believe him, word would've gotten out. So instead, he's going to help us get to San Diego before Stowell Temple can do anything rash."

The bear was increasingly bewildered, an understandable reaction he shared with Bader and Munro even if he was not yet ready to bond with them over it. "Temple? The Portuguese lion?"

"A criminal," Eli tried to explain. "From our own time. He came back to provoke a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. That war never happened in our timeline. We need to make sure it stays that way."

"What kind of joke is this? What's--wait, what's that?"

He'd finally noticed Ayenni, who raised her paw in friendly greeting. "I'm Ayenni, the doctor. I would urge you to calm down, but I feel that might be a counterproductive request. Would you sit, at least?"

Roger sat. Leon broke the following silence. "What are we going to do with him?"

"We've probably already screwed up the timeline," Ciara groaned. "Did we check the records? Any chance he just... disappears or something? Maybe we get really lucky and he doesn't have any descendants."

"Excuse me?"

Leon turned to the nearest computer console. "I'm not sure we have the genealogical records going back that far saved locally, but it's worth a shot. Lieutenant Parnell, I have to say..."

"You don't have to say anything," the wolf retorted. "I'm making the best of a bad situation. Roger is a smart person, and--"

"You know I'm here, right? I can hear you."

"I know. Sorry." She held up her paws apologetically. "We just need to be careful."

Ayenni, watching the back-and-forth, spoke up quietly. "May I? Might I speak to our new guest, Lieutenant Parnell?"

"Uh... sure."

The Yara smiled, and drifted closer to Roger, until she felt his thoughts beginning to edge into her own. There wasn't anything especially surprising in them: shock and disbelief, mostly.

Also, though, no small amount of goodwill towards Elissa Parnell, courtesy of rather more private inclinations into which Ayenni felt that she didn't have to pry. At least, she wouldn't need to in order to convince the bear.

"I also found these people mysterious when I first met them. I'm not from their culture... I'm from a planet in a distant star system, and this is my first time on Earth. My species is telepathic. That means I can read your mind--I don't do so without permission, generally. In this exceptional case, you're trying to think of a good way to test the claim that I've just made--wondering if there's something I could tell about you that nobody else would know."

"That's just the logical thing to do," Roger stammered.

Ayenni nodded. "Yes. Perhaps, however, think of something less embarrassing. That's better. You have no intention of paying your electrical bill because you think someone named Jim is swindling you and you plan on going to Los Angeles soon, anyway."

"Well..."

She smiled disarmingly. "What is the most logical explanation? That the Soviet Union has inserted four spies, one of whom knows that your landlord is disreputable and untrustworthy enough to pretend she can read your thoughts... or that these eccentric but well-meaning individuals are, in fact, the crew of a starship from the future attempting to stop a catastrophic alteration to the natural evolution of the timeline on your planet?"

Roger blinked.

Leon cleared his throat. "That is not a sentence I would find persuasive."

"Me either, for what it's worth," Ciara said. "And I am one of those crewmen. At least, I think I am." The entire sequence of events was so absurd that the vixen couldn't completely dismiss the possibility it was some sort of hallucination. It occurred to her, indeed, that perhaps she wanted that possibility to be correct.

But Ayenni knew what she was doing--it helped to be able to cheat at knowing what Roger Garland would find persuasive. The trap having been set, she sprung it: "Good point. What would you rather be true, then? Bearing in mind that, if we are foreign agents? If my understanding of your culture is correct, we might as well just kill you right now."

***

Sabel Thorsen pondered whether or not he was, in fact, enjoying himself. The question had been posed by Commander Bradley, asking not out of concern but genuine and well-meaning curiosity.

"It is an interesting period in your history," Sabel said. As a lab-grown soldier who'd spent two centuries in suspended animation, he was out of place in his own time. "The culture is in many ways alien."

"I think we could all agree on that."

Petty Officer Smith rejoined the pair, fresh from trying to get the Vostok's main thrusters working. The painted dog shook her head at Bradley's expression. "Sorry, sir, it's still not cooperating."

"Are you any closer to knowing why?"

"I've disassembled the manifold and it looks to be in good condition. That means it's probably the drive constrictor... I'll have to take that apart and see if I can clean the coils."

"How will you recharge them?"

Smith shrugged. "Cross that bridge when we come to it."

Most of the 'bridges' in the desert of 'Nevada' spanned minor arroyos; Sabel knew that none of them presented an obstacle to navigation. Val Smith did not mean the phrase to be taken literally. He said so.

The painted dog blinked. "No, of course not."

"If you're referring to energizing the discharged constrictor coils, you could use the reactor on Temple's escape pod, couldn't you?"

"If we had a way of transmitting power that far, sure. But we don't."

"True, we'd have to bring the Vostok closer to the pod. But based on my analysis of this planet's technology levels, they'll have a machine capable of moving the shuttlecraft. We'd simply have to acquire one."

"Yeah? Do you really think it'll be that easy?"

"As they say, it's better to eat a meager breakfast than to shout at the birds hoping they'll become your supper. If think we'll find, Ms. Smith, that we'll be able to work with what we have."

"I'll call the Dark Horse and see what they think," the painted dog said; she was convinced neither by Sabel's optimism nor by his proverb.

The latter piqued Dave's own interest more strongly. "Do, uh... do 'they' say that, Sabel?"

"No. It just sounded like the kind of thing one of your people might've come up with. Do you like it?"

The retriever grinned. "Gotta work with what we have, right?"

***

Chief Engineer's log, 'July' 10, 1962. 0730 'Greenwich' time

It's taken working around the clock, but our tests are successful. I have the best engineering team I've ever worked with to thank for that--strange as this whole thing is, we should be able to get ourselves out of it without too much trouble.

...But I've been surprised before.

"Which one do I want first, Bell?"

In one paw, Kyle Eddie held a cup of coffee with an extra helping of caffeine dissolved into it. In the other paw, the bear had a computer with a log from one of the away teams on the surface. "Probably the coffee, I guess."

Petty Officer Eddie had met Hazelton ten years earlier, when he'd been designing probes to monitor one of the raccoon's notorious experiments. His speciality was robotics, particularly nanotechnology. Almost everyone, in his experience, remarked first on the disparity between this interest and the polar bear's hulking frame.

When he'd introduced himself to her, the raccoon had nodded. I read your review in HJAM last year, was all she'd said. Good to meet you.

Of course, she'd noticed that Kyle weighed nearly two hundred kilos and that she came up to his chest only if she made a real effort of it. She'd been under deadline, though; by the time she was playfully calling him 'Tinkerbell,' he understood it to be endearing.

Given the way the experiment ended, Eddie was surprised to learn that Hazelton still had a job in the Star Patrol. He was even more surprised to learn it was possible to volunteer to work with her. He was not surprised that there wasn't any competition for the posting.

And somewhere along that continuum of the unexpected lay the situation in which the Dark Horse and her crew now found themselves. Kyle Eddie, like Hazelton herself, treated it first and foremost as an intriguing problem to be solved. That problem came with smaller, associated problems.

Some of them baffled even the raccoon.

"What are they doing?"

_We need to move a Vostok-class shuttlepod using contemporary lifting technology. The distance is approximately 80 kilometers, and the means of transportation should arouse as little suspicion as possible. _

Shannon reread the note, and repeated her question. "'As little suspicion as possible'--nandesfer, passeka idiota," she muttered in interworld dialect. "Wha' tey faire, eh? What are they doing?"

Eddie didn't understand the spacer pidgin; he did understand her bemused irritation, which worsened along with her habit of slipping into her native tongue when she was tired. "It is possible. I mean, they made the pyramids by now, right?"

Lieutenant Hazelton slurped her coffee loudly, fixing the bear in a weary stare. "How suspicious do you suppose a press-gang of Egyptian laborers would look? 'Suspicion'--tey di-nous 'sous-_pizda,' _tel'mon, Bell. Passeka! I don't think they have AG sleds yet."

"I looked into the databanks... what's there, anyway. No AG sleds, but it would move on something they call a 'train' just fine... those even came with mobile cranes that could hoist a Vostok."

When they reviewed the encyclopedia entry together, though, the two discovered that such a contraption would be extremely expensive. It was also confined to fixed trackways, and not compatible with the asphalt-covered trails that criss-crossed the planet.

"They have free-roaming sleds," TJ Wallace interjected. The otter had come over to update Hazelton on his work reverse-engineering the Eldridge and her engines, but he knew a little of Earth's history through his friendship with Eli Parnell. "They're called 'cars'; you can look that one up."

Hazelton pointed to the computer. "The cars are just part of the train, TJ."

"Different kinda car."

She sighed and, finding the coffee mug already dry, turned the sound into a growl. "This goddamn time period is the worst. How's it going, spaceman? Do you have good news?"

"Jun and I did a low-power test. Matches our hypothesis pretty well, so he's, like... he wants to link the computer in and run some test sequences. Doin' okay, though, yeah."

His uniform was utterly disheveled; the sleeves had been rolled up and the fur beneath was stained with grease and flecked with the bits of electronics he'd needed to sacrifice. Shannon was blind to all of that. "Good. You and Sakata get some sleep first. Run the sequence when you're rested."

"Wilco, dude." His paw arced through a vague salute. "Thanks."

Shannon turned back to the computer, where 'Bell' Eddie had articles on mid-century 'automotive' equipment scrolling by. "Maybe this'll work. Still have to find a way to pay for it, though--this culture still uses money for almost everything. I bet it's more than a few pieces of eight."

TJ paused before leaving. "Their security is minimal as fuck, dude. You can steal one easy. No optical scan or genetic-code lock or anything."

"Consider that a backup. Mads won't like it."

The otter shrugged. "Yeah. Well--hey. Sabel's down there, right? Always wanted to try something I saw once..."

***

The computer augments in Sabel's head were still working fine. It was perfectly simple to extrapolate the path of the little ball, based on its initial velocity and the tiny imperfections in the surface.

Sabel was fairly certain the game had been rigged--this knowledge, too, could be factored into his own calculations. He understood that, from a tactical perspective, betraying his awareness might raise suspicions on behalf of whoever had altered the probabilities. Discretion would be the better part of valor.

Dave hung back and watched the spitz gradually turn three hundred 'dollars' into nearly four thousand. By that point, he was hardly the only one watching; a dozen others had drifted over to see Sabel's streak of luck.

"Maybe you should take a break," one of them said. Sabel's vocal processors decoded the subtle intonations in the man's suggestion. He looked from his winnings to the well-heeled, well-tailored wolf.

"Break?"

The wolf pressed a glass of an ethanol-bearing liquid into Sabel's paw. "Yeah, relax. Let somebody else win for a change."

Dave stepped forward. "Probably a good idea, Mr. Thorsen. Before you throw it all away."

"Exactly," the wolf said, nodding. "Listen to your friend, eh?"

Sabel acquiesced, following Dave away from the roulette table. At what he judged to be a safe distance, he took a careful sniff of the drink. "Slightly toxic, but not enough to kill me."

"It was a friendly gesture."

The spitz turned to look back. His augmented vision immediately located the wolf. He was talking to another well-dressed figure; their backs were to Sabel, and he couldn't make out their conversation. "You're being... sarcastic? It was intended as a warning... just enough to make me ill."

Dave laughed, taking the martini from Sabel before the spitz continued to draw the wrong conclusion. "Not quite. But you did do very well at the table--they want their money back."

The spitz had definitely noticed that much. "They're extremely focused on these tokens of their currency. Does it have... religious significance?"

"No, no..." Dave tried to explain, although the spitz was inclined to find that explanation less than satisfying. Even in the modern day, the Terran Confederation used a system of credits to normalize the value of different items.

Sabel wouldn't have known that, or about the basic income provided to all TC citizens, because he'd spent his entire conscious life aboard the Dark Horse. Things were different, Dave said, in the universe beyond.

And arguing against the value of money itself might put them in an awkward position, given that the country they were currently visiting was locked in an ideological struggle with the Soviet Union. Eight centuries later, the TC would have taken elements of both systems... but it wouldn't do to say that.

Sabel Thorsen listened, internalizing as much as he could, and finally nodded. "Well, we have enough to get what we came for. We should return to the Vostok and get it ready to launch."

"Good, that's--"

Someone playing--which was to say losing--at a slot machine turned, raising his voice. "What'dya say? The what?"

Dave stiffened. "Pardon me, sir?"

"You say Vostok?"

"Uh. 'Goshawk,'" Dave tried. Not a spaceship, can't say 'spaceship'--what else makes sense? "It's our... boat. Our fishing boat."

"Y'all are fishing in Las Vegas?"

"Passing through. We're passing through, yeah, heading for California."

"Sure y'ain't commies?"

Sabel cocked his head. The man, who appeared to have been poisoned with some of what the wolf had offered Sabel himself, was a little difficult to understand. "Aren't what?"

"He means the Soviet Union," Dave reminded him, sotto voce. "They're like the Pictor in this era."

"Right! Commies." The spitz snarled, his muzzle curling by reflex. "I hate commies."

The gambler watched the dramatic change that had overtaken Sabel, and then laughed. "Man, you're alright. Y'know that? You're alright. Thought you was a bit weird watchin' you play earlier, but... say, you should meet my friends. Wait here, I'll get my friends." He got to his wobbly feet, and headed off into the crowd.

"We should leave," Dave said. "Before you make an even better impression."

Sabel nodded. "This is a very peculiar place, commander."

"Yeah. But let's try not to make it worse."

***

There was a sharp knock at the door; Roger's head jerked up, alarmed. "Who is it?"

"It's Don."

"He was supposed to leave this morning," the bear said under his breath. "I don't like this. I don't like what's going on here." He raised his voice to call out, trying to act calm. "It's unlocked, man."

Don had a duffel bag slung over his shoulder and his Air Force uniform on. When he caught sight of Eli, the duffel fell to the floor. "Roger..."

"It's cool. It's cool, man. I can explain. What about with you?"

It was obvious that the dog was unsatisfied; he shook his head in exasperation and pushed the door closed again. "Does your 'explanation' have anything to do with that lion--Temple? Is this his doing?"

"How did you guess?"

"Because he stole my fucking car an hour ago--sorry for the language, ma'am. But he did."

Roger buried his head between his hands. "Ugh. Yes, it's Temple. He's some kind of thief... well, you know that, I guess. Eli is a lieutenant in the Swedish Air Force, and Ensign Bader is with the West German Army... Interpol sent them here to apprehend Temple before he could cause problems."

"What kind of problems?"

Eli cleared her throat. "It's classified, but it will involve an attempted hijacking of a secret military aircraft. He's an agent of the Soviet Union."

"How do I know you're not a spy, too?"

Roger closed his suitcase heavily and flipped the latches shut. "You don't. But based on what they showed me, I trust them. I'm driving them to Las Vegas."

"That's where he's headed." Don's brow wrinkled. "You'll try to cut him off? In your clunker, Rog?" Roger had promised them the use of his Volkswagen van, which had enough room to carry all of them.

"They're meeting another team that's already waiting there. How are you getting down to Dryden without a car? What are you going to do?"

Don had already contacted his superior officers to let them know about the delay. He had, he said, been planning on taking a bus. Eli, for her part, wasn't sure why Roger offered to let him come along.

Leon, given naturally to suspicion, understood at once: Roger was worried that Don would reveal what was going on to his headquarters. The German Shepherd hardly blamed him, under the circumstances.

Fortunately, they had enough history together that Don agreed to accompany them. Walking ahead of the pair, Bader leaned over to catch Eli Parnell's attention. "Should we come up with a cover story for Ayenni?"

"Probably," the wolf admitted. "She doesn't look like she's Swedish, that's for sure."

"A refugee escaping the strife in Viet Nam. There's conflict beginning to emerge there... she could be some kind of oppressed ethnicity. American sensitivities would still lie with them, for the moment. I've been reading up on this period," Leon continued.

"Hey, not bad."

And she meant it, which convinced Leon that he'd been on the right track. "You're not the only one who knows your history. Or how to blend in. My Terran ethnography game is on fleek."

The wolf coughed, and gave Leon's shoulder a pat. "I'll handle the explanation, though, if it's all the same to you."

***

First officer's log, July 11th, 1962

We have obtained suitable transportation that will allow us to move the Vostok closer to the escape pod crash site. 'Suitable' is the only way I can properly describe this bizarre conveyance.

Sabel Thorsen, however, looked like a natural in it. The tow truck came with a repair manual, and in memorizing it the spitz had gained an understanding of the entire machine. In its own way, the setup was quite elegant.

"What way is that?" Bradley asked. Two and a half meters below them, desert highway rumbled past at what seemed like breathtaking speed, though the retriever knew they weren't managing more than seventy kilometers an hour.

"The main reactor is a set of eight smaller pressure vessels, drawing power from regularly timed explosions. Considering the technology of the day, they've been able to achieve quite extraordinary precision."

He thumped one of the shifters into the truck's next gear, though, and Dave found the brute force of the movement rather at odds with the spitz's view of 'precision.' "What did you say the output was? Quarter of a megawatt?"

"It's less. The quality of the machining gives it strength for more than that, but I suppose the nature of the fuel is limiting."

"Detonating refined hydrocarbons, you mean?"

Sabel nodded. Unlike David, the spitz was also the product of engineering. He'd been bred to serve as a soldier, and various biomechanical and computerized implants enhanced everything from his sense of smell to the efficiency of his digestion.

Any one of those implants far outstripped the technological achievement of the Mack truck. But Sabel's designers had six hundred years of additional expertise, and it wasn't fair to judge the ancient vehicle by those standards. He appreciated the ingenuity involved.

He also appreciated how physical the whole process was. His foot was positioned over a valve that manually controlled the flow of fuel into the reactor. One paw held a circular tiller that manually worked the steering mechanism. The other grasped a lever that--manually, of course--adjusted the torque conversion of the truck's motivator in fixed increments. It was gloriously inefficient.

"I feel a bit sorry for Miss Smith," David said. She was riding in the Vostok, hidden beneath a tarp on the tow truck's bed, still working on getting the craft operational again. "Can you adjust the inertial dampeners?"

"No. The springs can't be controlled from here."

"And we're touching the ground."

"Indeed." The motivator drove rotary discs in direct contact with the asphalt below. The discs were coated in rubber to increase adhesion, but Sabel was positive the entire setup would fail when confronted with anything as simple as ice or even loose particulate matter.

"No anti-gravity. No maneuvering thrusters, either, you said--this is basically a repurposed train locomotive. One degree of freedom."

"Forward and backward," the spitz confirmed. "This tiller is only good for crudely adjusting the angle of the two front discs."

"It does seem very odd to do it that way. What if the discs become uncoupled from the road surface?"

"It's a compromise," he admitted. "But, as the saying goes: you can't put the cart before the horse."

"You mean, I shouldn't be expecting 29th-century technology before they've even reached the new millennium?"

That, Sabel thought, was completely obvious: Dave was simply describing the way time worked, which wasn't particularly insightful. Then again, apparently time didn't that way. Was that why he was confused? "No, I mean that putting the steering apparatus behind the source of power leads to substantially greater instability than other configurations."

"Naturally."

***

Elissa Parnell's personal log, July 11th, 1962

I'm not saying I would stay here, but I wish I could show someone what I get to see. It's polluted, and chaotic, and violent, and technologically primitive, and everything that Ciara and Leon say it is... but it's where we came from, too.

We stopped for the night... we're somewhere in the middle of nowhere, but I feel like I'm in my element... strange as it sounds. The company helps...

"So which one of those are you from?" Roger asked, waving his paw at the expanse of stars above them.

Eli shook her head. "None of them."

The bear nodded and reclined again, crossing his stout arms to rest his head upon them. "None of them? So what--you were born on... I dunno, a rocket freighter?"

"More or less. It was actually a heavy machinery transporter--basically a way of moving mining barges between systems. It's called the Sister Gabriella, registered on Sepin-Sirte. She doesn't look like a rocket ship at all."

"Forgive me," the bear said; when she looked at him, he grinned. "I'm new to all this."

Eli lay back, too, resting on Roger's side. He was warm, after all, and the night was beginning to cool off. "Does that mean you believe me?"

"Your doctor was pretty persuasive." He shifted so that he could get an arm around the wolf, having correctly intuited that she would accept the offer. "I don't know how else to explain everything you showed me."

"Ayenni is definitely pretty interesting." When she nodded, it was more or less a contented nuzzling into Roger's chest, disturbing the shaggy fur beneath his shirt. Something about the bear put her at ease: he was a good person, and she thought they'd be able to carry out their mission with his help.

Her certainty was deepened by Ayenni herself, who had told Eli why Roger had been willing to volunteer. The wolf had smiled slyly--although hiding things from a telepath was an exercise in futility, and she was sure Ayenni knew how she felt about the bear, too.

The convenient intersection between these two reasons was what had brought them to the middle of the desert, watching the stars. She drew her fingers through the fur of his neck, trying to gauge how far down the honey-tan color of his face went.

"I'm glad you weren't too... surprised?"

"Well..." He trailed off and chuckled quietly. "It is convenient that your 'alien' just looks like an Earthling, but with... different-colored fur. At least it'll make it easier to cast her, if I can sell this script."

"You'll change the details, I hope. Right? Don't mess up history for me."

"I'll change them enough," he promised. "And leave out some bits, when I have to. If I have to."

Eli raised her head, tilting it to examine his expression. Roger grinned. "Would you have to?" she asked, and his smile became substantially less innocent. "Maybe that's a good idea..."

"Maybe what's a good idea?"

***

Back in the van, Leon Bader caught sight of the pounce that followed: the lithe she-wolf was putting her pilot's reflexes to amply good use. He rolled his eyes and switched the scanner off.

"I don't think she'll break anything," Ayenni reassured him.

"About our timeline, or about Mr. Garland?"

Don stirred himself from where he'd been dozing on the bench. "Roger can handle himself. He wanted to be a boxer. I'm curious about the other thing." Claiming Ayenni was Vietnamese hadn't even held as a cover story until they were out of the parking garage.

"Sir?"

"It's okay, ensign, you don't need to call me that. But... let's say I believe you. What happens to me, anyway? Do you know what's supposed to happen to me?"

"Our records aren't that complete. Our ship is on a mission of deep-space exploration, far away from Earth and the Terran Archives. Even then, I imagine you don't know what happened to every person in your twelfth century, either. Unless you were planning on doing something dramatic, and you succeeded, we might not know about you."

The dog listened thoughtfully. "I don't know if that's reassuring."

"The main archives would know. But I'm sure, Major Russell, they describe a man with a distinguished service record."

"Besides," Ayenni said. "Would you want to know, if we really had all the secrets of your life history hidden away in our records? Wouldn't it be better to find out for yourself?"

"Easy for you to say," Don countered. "It isn't even an option for you."

***

The next day they continued south. According to Don, they were making 'decent' progress. Considering the state of the highway, he might've been right. But the van was moving too slowly for the away team's liking, and they had no idea where their quarry might have been.

In the early afternoon, Ayenni broke the silence: "he's here." The sensation had been unmistakable. Flickering echoes of Stowell Temple's presence, faint thought they were, tingled the edges of the Yara's mind.

"Can you tell us anything else?" Leon's paw had already gone to his weapon; his thumb rested on the safety. Given a good shot, the shepherd thought he could easily disable the interloper's conveyance.

"No. He must be within twenty or thirty kilometers, though. I can't tell if we're getting closer."

"He has to go through Barstow," Don said. "You know that much."

The dog held up a printed map for them to look at--as if it was likely to help any of the Star Patrol crew much. Eli frowned, shaking her head. "I'll take your word for it. Let's pull over and get the transmitter set up."

"I don't mean to be unhelpful. But I'm not certain, if we lose him, that I'll easily be able to find him again." Ayenni closed her eyes: she had to focus in order to clearly perceive Temple's presence, and if it threatened to recede she would lose it altogether. "Is it possible for you to approach more closely, Mr. Garland?"

"I guess." Roger twisted a control knob for a communications device on the dashboard of his van. They heard only hissing static. "Guess we just hope there aren't any cops... haven't heard anything so far..."

***

Lieutenant Munro's personal log, date not recorded

This entire thing is so fucking bizarre. Is this what I wanted when I enlisted? I guess it was. I feel like I'm about half as weird as I should be to really fit in on the Dark Horse_. But every time I think_ that_, I remember Commodore Mercure saying he thought it would work out nicely for my future plans._

Presumably he meant getting some experience, something that wasn't all routine and regulation. I'm not sure he meant traveling back the better part of a millennium to keep the entire future from being sabotaged? Well, at least it beats paperwork.

"This is--" An irritating hiss followed an oddly garbled voice. "--niner to Tempest. Come in Tempest, over."

Ciara cocked her head, and tried to filter the incoming transmission into something more intelligible. The word 'Tempest' had caught her attention, and the computer recognized the signal as being encoded using Star Patrol modulation... badly. Fortunately it didn't take much work to clean it up.

"This is Delta Golf Delta 1-2-9 calling Tempest, come in Tempest, over."

Was that Leon? Yes, Ciara decided, Ensign Bader was the most likely person to have begun speaking in that fashion. "This is the Tempest."

"Tempest, Delta Golf Delta 1-2-9, how do you copy?"

"Five by five, ensign. It's fine. I can hear you just fine. What's going on?"

"We have a possible contact. Unknown bearing, distance--what? 'Be more helpful'? Well, what would you prefer?"

Ciara's head tilted freshly. Before she could ask, a new voice came on the radio. "Tempest, this is Don Russell. We're just outside Tehachapi, moving east on the 466. Temple's probably... ten miles ahead of us. We're getting closer."

Lieutenant Munro had been spending her time trying to become more prepared; she'd gotten a satellite downlink from the Dark Horse and cross-referenced the resulting imagery to the transportation corridors the primitive Terrans had been using. "Got it."

"Ensign Bader's plan is to disable... my car... by shooting it. If you want to grab Temple, that'll be your chance. We'll be in pretty open territory. Limited traffic... so far, no sign of the five-oh."

Munro checked that the Tempest's cloaking device was still working and brought the impulse engines online. "Copy that. I'm starting up." She went through the checklist as quickly as possible while remaining sufficiently methodical.

This was one of the problems with having assumed responsibility for the wellbeing of a temperamental prototype starship: who knew when the prototype might decide to malfunction at the worst possible time? The vixen figured that 'eight hundred years in the past' definitely counted as 'the worst possible time.'

Fortunately the Tempest didn't give her any trouble. The stealth ship lifted smoothly from its erstwhile home on the cold waters of San Francisco Bay, and she banked it over the city's fog-shrouded skyline.

She wasn't the only one aloft: ten kilometers away, her sensors picked up the infrared signature of a metal passenger liner, quad thrusters burning brightly to carry it forward. Ciara boosted the magnification so that she could examine the ship, which--rather quaintly--the recognition computer accurately tagged as a "DC-8."

The DC-8's captain had charted a course that took them well away from the Tempest, and she didn't have to alter her own heading. Instead she mused on the faces she could glimpse through the liner's windows. They have no idea, she thought. No idea I'm here... no idea what's at stake...

And if she did her job right, it would stay that way. She called in to the Dark Horse and let them know what was about to happen.

***

Stowell Temple's Corvette--Leon thought of it that way despite Don's objections, anyhow, possession being nine-tenths of the law--was less than a kilometer away. The shepherd let his tactical scanner ingest all the information it could on the vehicle's construction, identifying any weak points.

It was, however, all weak points: the light materials would offer no resistance to his energy pistol. One good shot through the main reactor would do the trick.

"How am I gonna explain this to my insurance?" Don asked.

Eli Parnell held up a gold coin, stamped to resemble the local currency. "Will this be enough to pay for any repairs, I hope?" As soon as Russell nodded, the wolf gave him the coin to pacify him. "Great. If Leon disables the main drive, how far can Temple get on auxiliary power?"

"Huh?"

She snapped her fingers, putting a holographic summary of what Leon's scanner had gathered into the air between them. "There's a--"

"What the hell? How did you do that?"

"Uh." Too late, she realized an unfortunate corollary to 'the medium is the message.' This particular medium was out of place by a good half-century. "Computers. It's just a computer thing."

Roger looked over his shoulder, brow raising at the sight. "Impressive. Hey, Don, they know their stuff. Like..." He waved at the mess Leon and Eli had made of his radio, turning it into a chaotic jumble wrapped around a flashing bit of futuristic technology. "Like how they... 'reconfigured' my police scanner."

"Yeah, or how Ensign Bader wants to 'reconfigure' my Corvette," Don grumped. "It's a neat trick, I'll give 'em that."

"Thanks." Eli went back to business--they were closing on Temple, and running out of time. "The vehicle has an auxiliary electrical system. If that's connected to the torque drive, how far can he get?"

Don's muzzle opened; it stayed that way, without an answer. "What? You--do you mean the battery and the alternator? It doesn't work that way. You can't run the car off the battery."

"So we'll shut him down immediately?"

"Yeah."

Ayenni, who had been listening quietly, felt a flash of emotion stab into her thoughts. Stowell. "He knows we're here. Stowell Temple knows we're here."

"How?" Eli demanded.

"I'm not sure. He just..."

Leon Bader was watching the car. He saw the lion reach into the passenger's seat and retrieve a dangerous-looking object from it. Model 1921, chemical-propelled kinetic weapon with 12-gram heavy metal rounds. Accuracy at 200 meters... "Evasive maneuvers!"

Roger didn't know what that meant, but he saw the submachine gun and he stomped reflexively on the brakes. The rounds went wide. Fighting inertia, Eli grabbed the radio handset. "Munro, watch out! He's armed!"

"I can see that," Ciara said. "He's put his weapon down. It seems to be difficult to control his vehicle with only one hand. The autopilot must be malfunctioning."

"Get ready, Leon," Eli ordered. "Roger. You can do this." She squeezed his shoulder, and the van accelerated. Fortunately, Stowell Temple was obviously uncomfortable with the Corvette, and unwilling to put its advantage in speed to good use.

Unfortunately, that meant that as they closed the distance, he was steadier with his weapon. "He's... wait," Ciara cut herself off. "He's aiming at me."

He emptied the magazine, a dozen shots slamming into the stealth ship. Its shields flickered and sizzled under the impacts. The van's occupants could only stare at the strange form highlighted in tendrils of lightning...

And then...

And then, the abrupt appearance of the ship itself. Don Russell, who knew about what would come to be known as the SR-71, saw a kindred spirit in the craft's graceful, bell-shaped curves and shadowy form. That, ironically, made him more qualified than anyone in a hundred miles to know just how grievously out of place it was: the very obviousness of its ancestry laid bare the centuries of evolution that came afterwards.

The Tempest banked sharply and pulled away, vanishing completely a few seconds later. "My God," Don said. His voice was peculiarly loud.

Leon realized first among them why it sounded that way: they'd come to a stop, and the van's engine was dead. There was no wind noise, no rumbling of the tires, only their own nervous breathing. "Is the vehicle damaged?"

Roger jolted, and tore himself away from a window that now looked out only on clear blue sky. "N... no. Probably I just... I just stalled it..."

"Main power is inoperative, yes." Leon squeezed the radio handset to demonstrate. "Can you try reinitializing the reactor?"

"Sure. Sure..." Roger had to say it two more times before summoning up the nerve to turn the key. The van chugged back to life; he kept his foot on the brake. "There. Is that better?"

"Let's try. Delta Golf Delta 1-2-9 to Tempest. Come in, Tempest."

***

"Munro here. I think the cloaking device is bent. I'm landing while I try to figure out what else is wrong. I don't know what he hit us with, but..."

Fuck. Commander Bradley had been listening in to the conversation, and to Munro's separate report to the Dark Horse, which the other away team didn't seem able to pick up.

"Captain May will want options," he told the other two.

Val Smith was also inclined to think in terms of profanity. Clearly, the tactical situation had changed: Stowell Temple had been able to modify his weapon somehow, and if it was a threat to the Tempest it would certainly be a threat to the unshielded Vostok. "What do we focus on? The lion, right?"

"Yeah."

"We might not be able to take him alive, sir. Captain May should know that as soon as possible."

Dave nodded. "Although, at the moment, I'm concerned about being able to take him dead, for that matter. Do we have any idea what he's armed with? Sabel?"

The spitz was in the dark. His designers endowed him with some ability to improvise weaponry, but between his reflexes and his powered armor they felt that a simple punch would often do the trick. This, Sabel had taken as a truism.

It made a lot more sense than most Terran proverbs, at least. But, to be thorough, he considered what they knew. Stowell Temple had a contemporary Terran firearm; based on what Leon Bader said, it was still chemically propelled and the ballistics were mostly unchanged.

"Based on the damage to the Tempest's shields, it may be non-kinetic," the spitz decided. "Some kind of antimatter weapon, or a heliositic explosive."

"Timeline-destroying?"

"I can't even begin to guess, sir."

"Really."

The spitz cocked his head. "A figure of speech. It's true that I can begin to guess, but I didn't think it would be useful to you. If I'm wrong, I can begin speculating at whatever degree of absurdity you like."

It heartened Dave to think that, after so long, Sabel was becoming comfortable enough to understand sarcasm. Still, it was probably best that they find a way to complete their mission before his adaptations to the 20th-century were fully tested.

Over the radio, they heard that Eli Parnell's team had linked up with Ciara Munro--the cloaking device was working, for the moment--to plot their next move. As soon as that conversation ended, the 'incoming transmission' light flashed on.

"This is the Dark Horse. You there, Dave?"

"I'm here, captain."

"We need options."

"We've managed to get the Vostok working again at full capacity. We could pick up the escape pod now. But we all feel that the priority needs to be Temple. Maybe we can dump the pod in the Pacific Ocean later, or bury it in the desert. We can minimize the consequences--but not if Temple is still here messing things up."

"Agreed," May said. "But we're running out of time. You have sixteen hours until the temporal core on the Eldridge explodes. What can we get done by then?"

***

According to Leon Bader's analysis, Temple's "12-gram" rounds were packing the punch of a quarter-ton bomb. The shepherd, like Sabel Thorsen, had a few conjectures around how he might've accomplished this--but it would have to wait, because the rest of the away team was occupied.

Ciara Munro had diagnostics running on every display in the cockpit. The Tempest's cloaking device was working again, which the vixen desperately wanted to count as a small victory. Unfortunately, nobody knew what had gone wrong, or when it might fail again.

Munro wouldn't have admitted that being shot at had also unnerved her, and she didn't want to dwell on it. Leon, the sharp-fanged consequence of dozens of martial generations, had no such compunctions, but he'd obligingly shut up when asked in deference to the chain of command.

"There's nothing wrong with the hull." Eli Parnell sighed heavily and started re-running the scan at a higher resolution before Munro needed to ask. "The integrity generator logs are completely normal... I don't really think you actually took an impact."

Ciara flattened her ears and told herself she was simply irritated at the computer. "Sure felt like it. Anything in the fault list?"

Eli turned and let the vixen feel her glare: the 'fault list' was two thousand lines long. None of them were in systems directly called by the cloaking device, though. "No. Though..." Maybe they'd been going at it from the wrong direction? The cloak needed reliable sensor data, after all, and the Tempest had highly advanced, highly fickle scanning gear.

A2/3 bridge (parallel comm) backup fault code 024B Secondary Sensor Multilink Computer uncompensated undervolt in line 2 Inertial Deconflict Interface Controller code 0047 Data reallocator radiation check fail code 1540 L4 cache over 80% utilization Primary Sensor Multilink Computer A2/3 bridge (parallel comm) self-check fault code 0249

"The SSMC's been giving that fault since I took command. We just don't use it," Ciara mentally checked off the errors she recognized and called up the ones she didn't in the manual. "Code 024B is... the backup battery is past its use-by date, and 0249 is that we're out of warranty because we didn't change the backup battery."

"What about this one? The radiation failure?"

The diagnostic computer was warning that the system that shuffled requests to the various processing cores had been exposed to more radiation than it thought safe and wanted the processors to take its output with a grain of salt. "No. And 0047 is... well, hell."

Eli leaned over to read off the screen. "Complete and unrecoverable failure. What does it do?"

She managed to bite off a curt do I look like a systems engineer? before it escaped her tense muzzle. "It's a dumb coprocessor. Worth, like, a tenth of a credit. It does some preprocessing on the feedback response from the inertial compensators."

"Is that necessary? The data sheet says it smooths out acceleration anomalies to within... one centimeter per nanosecond squared? Why? Why would you need that kind of precision?"

"Well, you wouldn't. I'm not sure why it's even here, although..." Ciara's ears splayed and her shoulders dropped. "Right. Because taking any microanomalies into account doesn't matter for just flying, but it does matter if you're making a cloaking device."

Leon, eavesdropping and slightly bored, coughed to announce his presence. "Especially if you're being shot at and the shield couplers are absorbing the impact?"

"Especially," Ciara confirmed, and hailed the Dark Horse. "Engineering. I've identified a problem with the IDIC. What do I do?"

Spaceman Mitch Alexander was running point aboard the ship, aided by a familiarity with ancient technology and an aptitude for unorthodox solutions. "What kind of problem?"

"It's burned out. Full-on code 47. Is this a field repair?"

"Field-swappable," Mitch answered. "If you had a spare. Otherwise, just bypass the IDIC by rerouting the feedback modulator through the main integration loop. If you're not getting shot at..."

Roger waved his paw at Eli, beckoning her over; while Mitch and Ciara conversed, the wolf made her way back to where Roger and Don were sitting with Ayenni. "What's happening?" Roger asked.

"Fixing a problem... we hope."

"What's an eidic?"

"IDIC," she corrected; Ciara and Mitch hadn't been pronouncing the letters. "Part of the ship."

Forward, Mitch was reiterating that they'd be fine as long as there weren't any sudden impacts threatening them. Don Russell lifted an ear and chuckled. "Is this how engineering works in the future? You just... announce an acronym and then say you're gonna 'remodulate' it?"

"Well... it's not always an acronym."

"But that is the essence? That lion, didn't Ensign Bader say he'd 'reconfigured' his weapon to turn it into some kinda... bazooka? How do you do that to a tommy gun?"

He would not have been satisfied with the answer, and it was in everyone's best interests that the question remained rhetorical.

***

Captain's log, supplemental

We're running out of time. Which seems a little odd, since we won't start running out of time for another eight hundred years, but... let's see if we can't figure this out.

Captain May was looking at a map, with several distances conveniently highlighted. Lieutenant Parnell's away team had stopped for the night, thirty kilometers away from where Stowell Temple had done the same thing.

Forty kilometers in the other direction was Lieutenant Commander Bradley's team; according to Dave's last report, the Vostok was working again and they were ready to retrieve the escape pod, which would come back online right around daybreak.

"We have to assume that Stowell Temple knows where the escape pod is, right?" When May nodded, Jack Ford kept going. "So he has to get past Parnell and the others."

"Setting up a roadblock would tie them down in one place, though," the Akita mused. And because Temple had so consistently managed to be one step ahead of the Star Patrol, she didn't want to risk giving him the advantage of maneuverability.

"And he could just blow through it." Jack snapped his finger, tossing a virtual infocard onto the map. "Based on Hazelton's analysis, he's swapped the bullets in his submachine gun for enriched heliositic explosives of some kind. Two or three hits, and any personal shields will be overwhelmed."

"How did he do that? Those are normally torpedo-sized warheads."

The coyote could only shrug. "She doesn't know. When I pressed her, Shannon reminded me that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Take that how you will."

She didn't bother. The important thing was not where the explosives had come from, it was that Temple could easily annihilate both away teams in a firefight. He had to be kept from drawing his weapon.

The answer came from Sabel Thorsen, and his preference for physical solutions. Thorsen was in possession of a large vehicle, with a substantial quantity of kinetic energy. "He wants to punch the car with a larger, heavier car," Jack summarized. "Fair enough."

"No guarantee that Temple survives, though. I guess we don't have a choice. Hail the away team and tell them it's a go."

"Wilco. What if he gets away? If he reaches the escape pod... what could he do? Take control of it, right? He could head anywhere on the surface."

Madison followed the coyote's line of thinking. The Dark Horse was theoretically capable of shooting the escape pod down. But coming close enough to fire them would risk being detected, and both her tactical specialists were currently on the surface.

"Do you want me to get the Riverjacks up? Kamyshev and I can try to stay out of sensor range--engage the escape pod with a minimum of fuss."

"You'd run the risk of being caught away from the ship when we need to leave," the Akita countered. "I'm not comfortable asking you to make that sacrifice."

"We'd volunteer. You know that."

She did, but that didn't make the concept much more palatable. "Even if I buy that, having more ships aloft is just one more complication we don't need. We'll see what the surface teams think. Have Mitch get Eli and Dave on the line."

***

When asked, Mitch said that Eli was indisposed--it was nighttime, and Leon had assumed temporary command while the wolf got some rest. This was partly true. Mitch could also, however, see her friend's vital signs, and get a fairly good idea of what was going on.

Parnell assumed that, in an emergency, Leon would come to the van and get her. Until then, it was their last night on the surface, with a dubious next step in their mission, and she was getting the most out of a brief spell of freedom.

'The most,' for her, meant a proper, scientific investigation of their Terran companion. His coloring, for example: now she knew for certain that the golden-tan fur of Roger's face ran all the way down to his chest. Eli ran her claws through it approvingly, and her ears perked at the way his growl rumbled in answer.

Considering that his shirt was off, and so was hers, Roger retained what Eli considered an admirable sense of propriety about the whole situation. It was one that she intended to do something about--with his muzzle inches from hers, the most recent kiss having ended with them slightly breathless, she let her paws wander far enough to give him a thoughtful grope.

"Aren't you worried about... you know, changing the past..."

"No?"

He kissed her again, his breath warm on her whiskers. His tongue swiped at her lips--when he did it again she was ready: meeting him, tightening the grip of her fingers so he fell into her, and he slipped his slick tongue heedlessly into her muzzle. "Isn't this--a bad--idea?"

"Does it feel like it?"

Roger grunted, and shook his head. She slid her paws along his strong-muscled back to his waist. Immediately he pushed himself back up, stout paws tearing his belt open and pushing his jeans down, and away. She did the same with her skirt, and the less-than-contemporary underwear that, belated, she realized had accompanied it.

Not like I was planning this, she told herself. The bear's lips were pressed to hers again; the kiss was fierce and deep and while she tried to control herself Eli heard her quiet, helpless whine answer his ragged panting. Not like I was planning this, and not like it'll go in the log, and--

"Mmf?"

Her bra was anachronistic, too; Roger had found it, his dull claws testing the material. She fumbled around for the touch control and the fabric melted into itself, rolling all the way back into a tight capsule that fell with clatter to the floor of the van. "Sorry," she muttered.

He tried to laugh, out of breath. "You're sure the future will be safe?"

Saying that she was not, at the moment, of a mind to care would have been unbecoming. The wolfess grinned. "If I disappear halfway through, you'll know we messed up."

Putting it that way made the threat seem absurd. Roger held himself up on one paw. She felt the other as warm pressure on her belly, and even as it worked lower she was shifting her position, widening her legs for him, anticipating what came next.

Even still she sucked a sharp breath inward when he found her. Hot, harder and smoother than his fingers, his cock pushed against her, and nudged provocatively between her lips. She gripped his ear to pull him close enough for a kiss, hoping it would muffle her.

And to do his part Roger took her slowly. His solid, heavy, thick flesh pushed inside gently, working its inexorable presence deeper in. She whimpered into his mouth, quivering with the increasingly overwhelming sensation of being filled, spread out around the bear, claimed by him...

Stretched until it was almost aching. Almost. It stayed on the edge of being inescapable instead--undeniable; dominating. He slid the last inch in with an unsteady jolt and a groan that lingered in her keen ears. The kiss faltered. "Eli," he growled.

She let his ear go, stroking his neck wonderingly. Aware of every bit of him buried in her, the way she clung and contoured tightly around his shaft--and gripped it when he pulled back, her body begging for him to fill her again. She answered with one word, his own name. Oh my God_, take me_ was implied, obviously.

He understood.

The second thrust went a little faster. The third was faster still, steadier, a smooth plunge ending in a grind that had her squirming for a giddy second of shocked ecstasy. After that the wolfess lost her sense of time, of causality, of any kind of order.

Being taken, being fucked into the thin mattress was the only thing she was sure of. And that was a raw, carnal certainty. Every thrust was its own unassailable argument: the bear shoving hard into her, his cock ramming her gloriously, irresistibly full of rigid, living heat.

And every moan and quivering squeeze of her paws on his sides was a wanton, heedless agreement. Now and then she got the leverage to arch up and into his pumping hips, to drive herself against her ursine lover and the quick, pounding bucks he took between her spread thighs.

There was just so much of him... his heat pushing deep, the bulk of his cock forcing her folds to accept him--she could've guessed it from his build, of course, how her arms strained to circle the big man's chest. But this was different, so gratifyingly different to have him rutting into her, feral and snarling and needy.

Different and... overwhelming.

The van's suspension wasn't much more for it than Eli was. Squeaking springs joined Roger's deep, eager growls. For a detached second the wolf could picture the Volkswagen rocking--could hear how poorly the old windows would muffle the sound of their swift coupling, smell the blend scent of their inevitable, sated arousal--and she realized it was her own admission that keeping things hidden was completely futile.

A sharp thrust pinned her, the bear's length hilting wetly, and when their hips met she cried her pleasure out in a breathless yelp. A shudder ran from his massive shoulders down to his curved back. He growled, hammering forward again; again she called out.

Roger was starting to crack, she knew it. His tempo was changing--less sliding through the warm grip of her sex than shoving forward to bury himself demandingly, one shorter stroke after another. His shaft throbbed occasionally, stronger than his racing heartbeat; she felt the subtle wet splash that his thrusting smeared slickly against her walls to ease his nearing finish...

He was going to finish, obviously. Going to claim her--to really claim her--and it might've been different, his big muzzle found her ear and he panted her name like it should've been a question, but she wrapped her legs around him to keep him close. No words were needed: he sped up.

There was no knot, she realized, and was momentarily disappointed and then abruptly relieved. Nice as it would've been to have him tied, locked solidly, the soothing warmth spreading deeper as a proper canine bred her... nice as that would've been, there was no way it would've fit. And now she could enjoy his tempo reaching its peak as he sought his climax in her.

Yes, better that way. Eli could sense the moment he lost control: there was a deep, low grunt, and his chest lowered until its warmth was all-enveloping, holding her still. She groaned at his weight, her claws grabbing his coarse pelt... encouraging him...

Reveling in the desperate energy of Roger's surrender to her. Savoring his erratic thrusts, and how as they came closer together, and he humped himself deeper, his heavy orbs drew up tight. How his head butted into the mattress, how he called her name first as a groan, then a snarl--

Then nothing, a wordless roar when he froze, his big frame seizing up on her. Crushing her to the mattress. Fixing her hips around the hard spire buried in her cunt, not one bit of it free--every inch of the purposeful twitch that followed throbbing against her walls, every drop of that first warm gush splashing wonderfully deep.

He let her up only an inch, just long enough to drive back inside. "Eli!" He growled out this time, and the next, her name tearing free in a strained shout. In truth he kept it up as long as he had breath, but by the third claiming, hilting thrust that pumped a new spurt of his seed into her Eli was calling back in answer, and then she was howling.

Not especially subtle--he got his paw over her muzzle and that helped, but Eli didn't really perceive that consciously either. Her limbs trembled as waves of pleasure gripped the wolfess, deep and satisfying. He was still moving in her--sharp, constricted strokes that tugged against her contracting folds--but all she could do was gasp into his paw between exultant cries.

Eventually she became aware of her own body again, though not truly in control of it. With some effort she was able to relax her watery legs, and to loosen her tight grip on Roger's chest. His thick fur was all askew; she stroked it back into place as he panted into the sheets, the soothing weight of his body keeping her warm and safe.

"You sure we didn't, y'know... mess up history or anything?"

He'd certainly made a mess of something, the wolfess acknowledged--but since that had been her goal all along, it hardly seemed fair to make a big deal out of it. She kissed his nosepad tenderly. "Probably not," she reassured him. "But I suppose we'll just have to see."

***

"Stowell is on the move. Commander Bradley is headed towards you. You have about fifteen minutes."

Leon, who was no longer in the mood for subtlety, had swapped his pistol for one of the heavier carbines stashed aboard the Tempest. He left the others to find a position where he could look down the highway, and be ready to take aim if Temple emerged from the wreck looking to cause trouble.

Based on the kinetic energies involved, and the dramatically poor safety systems of 20th-century Terran vehicles, the shepherd didn't think that was likely, but he wanted to be ready.

"Good morning, Leon," Sabel's familiar voice drifted into his ear. "You'll be happy to know that I've precomputed the impact trajectory in a way to ensure the disabling of Mr. Temple's car."

"Yeah? And..."

"And to minimize the risk to myself."

"Good. See you soon." At least he's making the effort. Sabel's sense of 'risk' was not the same as that of someone with a better sense of their own mortality. Leon didn't want the spitz to come to harm.

The laws of physics, however, had other things in mind: two bodies rushing towards a headlong, and very dramatic, contact. Leon saw Sabel's precise hand in the skill that kept the tow truck on course...

And, naturally, the spitz's devotion to duty in the way he refused to flinch. As Leon held his breath, four kilometers of separation became three, then two, then all of a few hundred meters.

At the last second, Temple swerved--and the Corvette leapt forward, its speed crossing two hundred kilometers an hour in a matter of seconds. Leon snapped his rifle's sights on the car, but he only managed to get one shot off and the energy pulse went wide when Temple jerked the car through another evasive maneuver.

Sabel's truck had gone off the road, skidding to a halt in a dramatic cloud of dust that obscured Leon's sensors. Dave was on the radio, though; they must've been unharmed. "Report. What happened?"

"He's headed for the escape pod. I don't think you can catch him."

"Dark Horse here," Mitch chimed in. "You can't."

***

"Action stations," Captain May ordered.

Jack Ford figured that Temple was planning on launching the escape pod; he felt sure that the two Type 7 scout-interceptors on the Dark Horse would be able to destroy him before he got away. "You want the fighters launched?"

Both her weapons specialists were on the surface, as was Lieutenant Commander Bradley; she could use someone with combat experience. And the risk of leaving the Type 7s behind wasn't any lower when they were launched impulsively. May shook her head. "Take tactical and ready the point-defense grid. CCI, report."

"Temple's vehicle is approaching the escape pod crash site. I think the pod is powering up--must be some kind of proximity thing, captain."

"Watch and see what he does."

An energy pulse announced that the escape pod's engines had fired. Mitch Alexander dutifully announced that... then tilted her head. "He's heading straight up--taking the quickest path back to his ship, if I'm reading the projection right."

"What's he doing?" May wondered aloud. "He doesn't have the control ring for the Eldridge. If he leaves Earth, he misses his opportunity to change the timeline... Dr. Schatz, what happens if he gets back aboard his ship? Can he stop the core from detonating?"

"Not from what Lieutenant Hazelton has said, no. But he might be able to undo or change the modifications we made. He could send us--and him--back to a different time."

"Hail the away teams," the Akita growled. "Guys. We need you recovered right now. Whatever it takes to get back here, do it--I'm changing course to meet you there."

Ensign Srivastava, serving as helmsman, laid in the new plot and brought the engines up before actually being ordered to do so--the dhole had learned that it was useful to anticipate May's desires. Like the way she'd need to get the Dark Horse back into position to return to the aperture...

The dhole turned to find Mitch Alexander standing at the conn, bending over the console. The Abyssinian had come to the same conclusion, at the same time. "We can pull it off, don't worry." She kept her voice low. "Be ready to circle back and I'll have a new trajectory computed to hit the gateway."

Maddy wasn't keeping an eye on Rika and Mitch. Her trust was the implicit sort--the way she trusted Lieutenant Commander Bradley and Lieutenant Munro to get their ships aboard.

After all, they hadn't let each-other down before.

And she wasn't about to be the first.

***

"Thank you. For everything." More impulsively, she wrapped her arms around the bear, pulling herself against him to steal another kiss--heedless of the look that Leon and Ayenni were giving her. The doctor's, at least, came with a wry grin.

"I should be thanking you," Roger countered. "I'm looking forward to doing something with this. I just gotta get the script figured out. Don't worry, I'll change stuff up--nobody has to think I actually believe it."

Ayenni smiled. "I know. Good luck with it."

"Just wish there was something we could do to help."

"The ring. Find and destroy the ring."

"Not much of an epic quest, is it? Just an expensive one--the bartender has the thing, right?" Roger asked. "I'll... do what I can to buy it off him."

"When your story takes off," Eli Parnell suggested.

There was no guarantee of that, though--there was no guarantee of anything. And so, for insurance, she kissed him again. Ciara Munro leaned out the hatch--rather, her disembodied head appeared in mid-air, beyond the range of the cloaking device. "All aboard--let's go."

***

"Both ships have left the surface, captain. They'll be aboard in six minutes."

"And how long until the core detonates?"

Spaceman Alexander checked the clock. "Twenty-four minutes, ma'am."

"Practically an eternity, eh?"

Stowell Temple's escape pod had been designed with slower engines, which finally gave them something of a break. He'd arrive at the Eldridge slightly after the two shuttles had landed.

The Tempest had landed, and Sabel's Vostok was within seconds of making its final approach, when Mitch noticed Stowell Temple had decided to abandon his earlier plan. "The escape pod is changing course, ma'am. He's moving towards us."

"He wants to get back aboard?"

"If he's close enough, he doesn't have to," Schatz said. "He'll be able to ride the same shockwave we do, back to the present day."

"And then? We imprison him, and he breaks himself out again... or something like that. Fuck time travel." The Akita curled her fingers into a tight fist. "Bridge to main engineering. Do we have to wait for the core to explode on its own, Shannon, or could we help it along?"

"Long as it blows up, Mads. That's all that matters."

"Thanks." May closed the channel. "Helm, stand by to take us into the aperture at flank speed. Tactical, target the Eldridge with anti-ship torpedoes and fire when ready."

The Eldridge was motionless and unshielded; computing the firing solution didn't take any time at all. "My pleasure," Jack said. "Firing. Ten seconds to impact."

"Shields to maximum. Ensign Rika: engage."

The dhole pushed the throttles forward, and the Dark Horse jumped charged along with them obligingly. Their course was microscopically precise, as it had to be. She heard Jack counting down. Three. Two.

Nobody had to be told that the weapons had hit--the gateway flared a brilliant white, drawing the energy of the explosion inward right along with the star cruiser. The glare became all-consuming, then painful, and the afterimage lingered for a few seconds when darkness returned.

"Check the stars."

It was the first thing Barry had done. "We're back, captain."

"Did we break anything?"

"The universe appears to be as we left it. The ship, on the other hand..."

***

Captain's log, stardate 67951

The Dark Horse is mostly operational again. Our LRU has sustained heavy damage, although Lieutenant Hazelton has confidence that she will be able to improve its functionality based on new ideas gained during our experience.

There's no sign of the Eldridge or of Stowell Temple. Perhaps he was killed in the explosion of his starship, or perhaps he's survived in another time. It seems likely that he will remain an enigma. We're the only ones who know what happened, after all.

Hazelton and Dr. Schatz nearly came to blows in arguing whether or not this whole event changes our understanding of the laws of physics. Shannon points out that there's virtually no evidence that we had any impact whatsoever. This whole episode seems to have been completely self-contained, with no larger implications.

The science officer disagrees, and he seems to have ideas for a thousand new research papers... on second thought, that isn't much different than he was before, either.

"I have no idea how to write this up," May admitted. "Star Patrol records don't have a code for time-traveling into the ancient past."

"You'll be the first," Dave told her. He laughed, because--so far as they'd been able to discern--there were no lasting consequences from what had happened. Nothing appeared to be different. Nothing alarming appeared in the ship's records, or in the galaxy around them.

"Can we trust appearances?" Madison leaned back in her chair, her paws lifting in a shrug. "Maybe we wouldn't notice, because we live in the timeline we created. God, Dave, don't let this happen again. Once a millennium is enough."

The retriever chuckled. May had a bottle of scotch out, she'd poured two small glasses, and when he arrived at her quarters the first thing she'd done was offer a toast: 'to not making history.' "I don't think it'll happen again."

"But do you know? You don't."

"True." He slid his computer across the table, trading it for the glass of whiskey. "Analysis from the detonation. Dr. Schatz has conducted some modeling and he's convinced that the Eldridge and the escape pod were completely destroyed. But take a look at section two."

May shook her head. For the first time in days, she was off-duty; she didn't feel like trying to decipher the Border Collie's ramblings after putting up with the argument he'd had with Shannon in her ready room. "Summarize it."

"We came back at the wrong time. Just barely... but it's wrong. Barry thinks the escape pod interfered, absorbing some of the energy and pulling the Eldridge forward with us. Fractionally, all things considered... but noticeably."

"Is that why there was no record of it being destroyed?" May realized he'd been on the surface, and missed out on the fun of trying to figure out when, where, and how often the timeship had been lost. She tried to explain, with the help of the scotch.

Dave got the gist. "Yeah. Without the core here to study, we can't be sure, but it was probably displaced by fifteen or twenty years. We checked the records, and there's no sign of any rogue explosions in the 1970s, so nobody on Earth noticed. We got lucky."

"I hope."

"Leon tried something clever, for what it's worth."

"Clever, or Leon-clever?"

"Just the regular kind. He downloaded an entry from the Tempest's database and transmitted it through the aperture as we were jumping. The ship was able to recover the signal--it confirms that it came from the past."

"What did it say?"

"It's the personnel record for one of the people they met, Major Donald Russell. Leon says Major Russell asked what would happen to him, and Leon said they had no information like that. He was lying. We do, and--being Leon--he pulled it up as soon as he knew the guy's name. Russell transferred to astronaut training, but retired after a bad crash in 1965. None of his kids are named 'Leon' or 'Ciara' or 'Temporal Anomaly,' and... the record's an exact match for the one in our database. Leon figured that if we actually did change history, there might be a difference."

"Good sign."

"The other one, Roger Garland... he's not in any records. Lieutenant Parnell said that he was a writer... that he wanted to write about what had happened. Obviously that's probably not true--or it never went anywhere. Or he was using a pen name, or our records are fragmentary."

"In any case, it was insignificant?" May savored the next taste of her scotch. "Good. So we didn't change anything. That's a relief, huh?"

"The universe is safe from us."

"Still don't want to do it again," the Akita muttered. "We--"

She was interrupted by the call to action stations, and a page from the bridge. "Captain, a ship has emerged from hyperspace. It's an Ortalis battlecruiser, and they've requested permission to send a party aboard."

May looked at David, who cocked his head, puzzled. "We're quite far from Ortalisian space. What brings them out here?"

"Good question. What do they want, bridge?"

"To talk. They say it's something to do with 'prophecy.'"

***

That didn't help narrow it down; everything the Ortalis did had something to do with prophecy, in David's experience. Because he had interacted with the aliens before, May let him take the lead in welcoming the party aboard.

As the retriever expected, this too had been accounted for in the prophecy. "Indeed," Admiral Tulvek began, his wings flowing gracefully. "It was said that the great captain would order her most esteemed representative to receive the delegation."

Dave smiled, bowed, and did not bother holding his tongue. "Technically, Captain Ford outranks me," he pointed out. Despite their singleminded insistence that everything could be found in prophecy books, the Ortalis were never put out by having them questioned and tended to have a rationalization handy.

He wasn't disappointed; Admiral Tulvek's assistant curled her own wings and spoke up. "By the interpretation of Kess, the phrase is properly that she would grace us by sending her dearly trusted advisor."

"Close enough. And a prophecy brought you here?"

"It did. We discovered a derelict vessel, some years ago. In the wreckage, we found a mysterious artifact that defied our understanding. Our scribes told us that, one day, we would hear echoes of the wrecked starship--and that, on following them, we would rediscover a past ally."

It was a little vague. That being said, the Ortalis had fought alongside the Star Patrol to defeat the Hano. Dave was compelled to grant that they were, in the literal sense, 'past allies.' "Was anything else predicted?"

"It said that our ally would be able to decipher the language on the artifact, which had been contained in a suspension field. We do not know why--it is an unremarkable material."

Admiral Tulvek stepped aside, and another Ortalis glided to replace him, holding out a small metal ring. "Son of a bitch," Dave muttered, flatly. He took the ring and tapped it against the computer on his wrist, which immediately picked up on a tiny chip fixed to the platinum. Property of the Media Research Center, Los Angeles, Terra.

"You can decipher it," Tulvek marveled.

"Yes. It's an artifact of my people. It was stolen a few years ago. It says who it belongs to."

"This we know, yes. But what of the letters? Our prophecy says that you will be able to read them, and that when you do, you will grace us with a story of the grand interrelationship of past and future and present, the harmony that binds all things together, the origins of meaning, the..."

"Letters?"

Tulvek pointed to the ring, and Dave brought it up to eye level. The inscriptions--one on the outside, one within--had faded over the centuries, though not enough to affect their legibility. The first time he read them, he blinked. The second time, his ears flattened. Tulvek's head bobbed in agitation. "It is ill omens. He has read it, and seen ill omens..."

"Do you remember Pelina's interpretation?" Tulvek's assistant asked. "Pelina clearly argued that the prophecy meant that the Great Old Ally would..." They fell into conversation, while Dave went letter-by-letter to confirm he wasn't losing his mind.

He was not. The words, while faded, were plain.

To Elissa. May this find you, so our paths cross again where no one has gone before