This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

ALL QUIET ON THE TEMPORAL FRONT

Copyright © 2013 by Bennett R. Coles

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

Promontory Press

www.promontorypress.com

ISBN: 978-1-927559-09-3

First Edition: February 2013

At first I was falling. Then I was smacked by hundreds of wet gloves and beaten with sticks. Then a jarring pain stabbed up my heels to my skull as I hit the soft earth and collapsed in a heap.

I instinctively reached for my assault rifle and rolled painfully onto my back. Above me was a dark canopy of trees, their fat leaves splayed out from lofty branches. Some of my soldiers were still hanging amongst them. Others lay sprawled on the ground. I guessed that we had all fallen at least thirty feet through the branches.

“Stand to!”

The boys instinctively struggled to their feet and formed a defensive perimeter in the near-darkness. The Warrant was one of the first up, directing the sentries and checking the wounded. Confident he had the situation in hand, I focused on my other immediate responsibility.

The time machine – or temporal displacement device (TDD), as the scientists had called it – lay on its side next to me. It reminded me of a steel Ming vase with lights. A small display board was embedded in the top, and I examined the series of numbers shining up at me.

From the pocket of my combat pants I pulled out a piece of paper. The numbers scribbled there were identical to those programmed into the TDD. This gave me small comfort, as I didn’t relish the idea of having to reprogram this machine if it suddenly decided to zeroize itself. I was a soldier, and ready to die for my country, but I always expected death to come from an enemy bullet, not from having my quarks reverse-spun and scattered to the temporal winds.

The Warrant knelt beside me. “Anything broken, sir?”

I wiggled my fingers and toes, trying to interpret the various pain signals screaming from my body. “I don’t think so. How are the men?”

He glanced around in his usual, curt manner. “A few broken bones. Plenty of cuts.”

I offered him my arm and he pulled me to my feet. “We move out as soon as the doc gets the casualties stabilized.”

“Yes, sir.”