Chapter 12

Since my compulsion was gone, I was not sure what our next move should be, so I asked Ann if there was anything that she had in mind. She shrugged her shoulders, so we continued into Ft. Worth. We checked into a hotel and were just finishing our shower prior to finding some supper when we got a call from Lars.

"Abe, I need you and Ann right away. Please drop whatever you are doing and return to headquarters."

"Shall we get dressed first?" Ann asked. Lars laughed and acknowledged that he could give us that much time.

We got dressed and were immediately transported to one of those high level conference rooms with the exterior windows. Lars was already sitting at the conference table and looking very concerned. I had never seen Lars look like this before, so I was immediately worried.

"Abe, Ann, I appreciate you showing up on such short notice. We have a situation developing, and I can't tell if it is an emergency or not. We have identified the people that your sector supervisor in Austin reports to, and I am scared! They come from an entirely different order of reality and their timelines do not overlap with ours. From what little our scientists and psychologists have been able to determine, those people are totally amoral and couldn't care less how much they hurt us!

"They are completely selfish and want nothing but to strip our timelines of anything they consider valuable. It appears that they are mostly after gold and silver. They were the major segment of the Spanish Conquistadors, and that explains why the Conquistadors went against the original orders of the Spanish church and king.

"What I want you to do is to go back to central Mexico of 1519 and wage a fight against Cortez to try to keep him from conquering the Aztecs. You cannot go to the Aztecs directly, because they would simply not believe that they could be conquered. You may be able to gain some local allies, or you may have to fight on your own. There is no way to know at this point.

"We'll put you on a timeline that is safely disconnected for our prime line and let you see what you can do. You may not be able to accomplish anything. I am still concerned about what happened with your Lincoln expedition. The difference here is that we want to eliminate Cortez and as many of the other Conquistadors as we can, not specifically save the life of Montezuma. This effort might work if attacked from this direction. Will you two give this assignment a try?"

Ann and I agreed to see what we could do, so we stopped off in the training school for a quick downloading of the local Indian languages. We jumped back to our hotel in Ft. Worth and packed up our stuff. When that was done, we were transported to the coast of Mexico in 1519.

We were wearing our ninja-suits with the camouflage setting, so that we were virtually invisible if there were any casual observers. However, considering what was going on just off shore, I doubt that anybody was looking at us, anyway. Three Spanish ships were anchored close in to the shore, and they were busy unloading men and horses from the ships.

We could have disrupted the landing with our LMGs, but they would just have moved to another spot, and we might not have found them. Therefore, I wanted to let them land so that they would be fixed to this place and not disappear on us.

It took them all day, but they finally managed to get everything ashore that they wanted. As I watched them set up camp, I had an inspiration, so I called Lars. "Hello, Abe. What can I do for you?"

"I just had a brainstorm. What are our chances of getting some RPGs? It just occurred to me that it would be a good idea to destroy their ships while we were at it."

"Sounds like an excellent idea to me. Let me hang up on you, and I'll see what I can do."

Just a moment later, two launchers and six RPG rockets appeared at my feet. During our training, Ann and I both learned to use an RPG, not that it was all that difficult. I said, "Ann, let's see if we can put an RPG into each of those ships. You take the one on the left, and I'll take the one on the far right; then, you take the one in the middle. I expect to need to cover us by then."

We fired and hit the ships on our first try, of course, it wasn't that difficult. Ann took out the third ship while I prepared to repel an attack which was already forming up. I waited until they had gotten ready and every man was standing. At that point, I began firing my LMG. Ann picked up her LMG and joined me in the fun. We tried to miss the horses as kind of a present to the local Indians. It looked to me like we killed or seriously wounded over 90% of the Spaniards. The few we had not killed or wounded had started running away as soon as they saw the tracers heading their way. Smart people!

We gathered up our stuff and left for a safer location. We figured to go back at daylight to see if we could get rid of the rest of the invaders. In any case, it looked like Cortez was no longer a threat to anybody.

The next morning, we returned to the beach to see what, if anything, had transpired during the night. As nearly as we could tell, the camp was exactly as it was when we stopped shooting last night. It seemed to me that we could return to our previous job, since the few men who escaped last night were not going to be able to do much but try to find some friendly Indians to live with; otherwise, they were dead men.

I called Lars and told him the situation. He agreed with me, so the next thing we knew, we were back in that conference room. "Abe, Ann, an excellent job. The scientists have checked into the future of that time line, and the Spanish never did establish a foothold in Mexico. I can't say that I think that the Indians were any better off, but their neighbors finally did manage to eliminate the curse of the Aztecs in about a hundred years.

"In South America, the Incas prospered and wound up with a profitable trade with the English and Dutch along the coast, but they did not let the Europeans settle in their territory. That kept all of those damned epidemics out, so the Indians were not killed off by the European diseases. Our sociologists are planning on analyzing the results of your exploit. You two did an excellent job. Thank you."

"It was our pleasure. Jobs like that are easy and fun. We sure don't mind killing those SOBs from the alien dimension."

We talked for a few more minutes, then we returned to our hotel room in Ft. Worth to get ready for breakfast. I suddenly had another of my compulsions, so I said to Ann, "How do you feel about going to California?"

"That sounds like fun. Is this one of your urges?"

"Yeah, I have no idea what brought it on, but I do feel a strong compulsion to go to California. I'll check with Lars."

It took a couple of rings this time before he answered. "Hello, Abe, can it wait, something big has just come in and the scientists are ready to start their briefing."

"OK, but does it have anything to do with California?"

"It sure does, why?"

"Just a couple of minutes ago, I got a strong compulsion to go to California. Do you think that Ann and I should attend that briefing?"

"Yes, in that case, it undoubtedly would be a good idea. I'll have you transported. Are you dressed?"

"Yeah, this time we are. Pull us in." A few moments later, we were standing beside Lars in a large auditorium. He waved us to be seated so that the presentation could begin.

No scientist can say something in only a few words, so it took nearly two hours for them to tell us that they had detected a major influx of the alien interlopers gathering in and around the gold fields northeast of Sacramento. Following that, it took nearly two hours for some sociologists to tell us that they were sure that there was going to be a big raid on the gold coming from two smelters in the region. When the presentation was over, Lars stood up and thanked them for the timely warning. As a result of their warning, he was in a position to do something about it. We all stood up, and Ann announced that she was hurting to go pee.

As we walked out, I said to Lars, "Remind me never to barge in on one of these presentations, again! All of that from both groups could have been said in 10 or 15 minutes. My ass is sore, even though those are comfortable seats. I think that I will emulate Ann and take a piss, myself. The short walk will help my legs to feel better, but my back may take hours to recover."