Chapter 1

I was well and truly fucked and I knew it. I'd been sitting on my ass at home, watching a Space Opera movie, and it was just getting to the good part. I knew it was since I'd watched this movie before. Twice in fact. What the hell, it was nothing for me. I'd read The Hobbit a dozen times and The Lord of The Rings, all the books, three or four times. So watching a movie more than once was normal for me.

It wasn't what had me fucked though. I was fucked because I'd just taken a ride in a transporter. You know what I'm talking about. I'd been beamed up, Scotty, just like on a Star Trek episode.

I hadn't really expected Spock to be waiting for me when I arrived, but still, I felt a little let down when he wasn't. Oh well. The fairly cute and well-appointed Earth type female who was waiting for me called me by name and said, "Come with me." For some strange reason it made my dick hard, for a minute or so anyway. Her fast pace leading me down the hall worked the boner off me in no time though.

The trip was amazingly Star Trek looking too. Down a spotless corridor and through a door, which slid open as soon as we approached. She dropped me off in what appeared to be a waiting room and told me to wait there. Aside from the spotless appearance of the room it would have served well as a Doctor's waiting room.

Unlike a Doctor's waiting room, there were no other people waiting and I thought of it as a big plus that I was called in after only about a five minute wait.

I walked through the door that slid open when my name was called and into a small office with a desk and a man sitting behind it. He motioned me into a chair across from his desk and I'll swear to God his nameplate, sitting on the desk, said James Kirk. I was only a little let down that the man behind the nameplate didn't look a thing like William Shatner.

He introduced himself and quickly explained the name was just a coincidence.

"You'll have to admit it is one hell of one." I said.

"Yes, I'll admit it. Let's get on with this though. We have had you under observation for a few months. You were picked from thousands and we'd like to employ you for a mission," he said.

"Why? I don't know shit about space travel." I said.

"It isn't a mission in space. It is a mission in time. You don't really know anything about that either, but we have read some of your fiction and you have a close approximation of what it will be like, as in, it will be like you are living in a previous time period. In fact, you will be living in a previous time period.

"What about paradoxes?" I asked.

"There won't be any and you needn't worry about it," he said.

"How far back in time will I be going?" I asked.

"To 1865. Just after the Civil War is over. Only days after it is over in fact." he said.

"What do you want me to do?" I asked.

"Anything you'd like to do." he said.

"Actually, we'd like for you to join a wagon train heading for Oregon and taking the Oregon trail." he said.

"Will I ever be coming back?" I asked.

"That will cause complications, but it is possible. If, after you reach Oregon and live there a year or so, you want to return to the present, you can. What you won't be able to do is resume your current identity. When you leave it will seem as if you were killed in a terrorists plane-hijacking."

What the hell, it wasn't as if things were looking so rosy for me here and now.

"What does it pay? You said you wanted to employ me so what will my salary be?" I asked.

"Five thousand dollars per month. It will be held in trust until the mission is over." he said.

"Are there any benefits that go with the job?" I asked.

"The best health care plan you have ever heard of. It will be even better than any you can imagine now. If you are injured or shot on the job you will be retrieved and repaired post-haste. Just so there is no misunderstanding, you can be killed on the job, as you put it, and if you are killed there will be nothing we can do. So please, don't get killed."

"Will you be furnishing me anything in the way of equipment?" I asked.

"Yes. Period clothing will be tailor made for you, including boots. It will look like the clothes of the time but it will be much more durable and will fit much better. We will also furnish you with firearms and ammunition plus a Conestoga wagon, eight mules, two riding horses, and all necessary harness and tack. We will also furnish anything else you think of you may need, as long as it fits the period.

Some leeway can be taken for things which may not fall exactly within the period but which will not draw attention. For instance, several firearms we have in mind for you were not available at the time, but we judged them to be acceptable anyway." he said.

"May I have a list of your recommended firearms?" I asked.

"Certainly, but remember, we will be leaving a small ship in orbit to watch over you. If you find any of the firearms unsatisfactory or you think of one you'd like after you are in place we can furnish it as long as it will pass muster with the time period."

"Hell, you talked me into it. When do I leave?" I said.

"You'll leave almost at once, but you won't be put in place for a couple of months. We have to check you out medically first, make a few improvements, and do some training," he said.

I was put back down at home with a plane ticket to New York City and I had to rustle my leaves to DFW to catch my plane. I was actually looking forward to the flight since it was a first class ticket.

As I'd been told, a group of terrorists took over the plane in flight. I rushed to the entrance door and opened it with the big Emergency handle (as instructed by the aliens) and was immediately sucked out of the plane along with the terrorists. The aliens had also informed me I wouldn't be sucked out of the plane, but would actually be expelled by the plane's atmosphere as it rushed out into the lower pressure. No matter what they said it felt like I was sucked out. The plane later landed safely in Shreveport and I was hailed as a hero by the other first class passengers.

Of course I was actually picked up by the aliens as soon as I was outside the plane and transported back aboard their ship. Unfortunately for the terrorists, they were left to their own trajectory, mostly. The other passengers were held in place until the decompression was over.

The terrorists were maneuvered, just a little; during their freefall to make sure they landed on suitably unoccupied concrete. They also put a replacement body for me in freefall too and unfortunately it landed on the concrete also.

I even got to watch some of the news coverage of my demise and of my funeral. I was buried with honors and got a rather large tombstone. In fact I was impressed with myself, or at least with the celebrity corpse I'd become.

Not long after they had the replacement me in the ground my medical repair and improvement began. Of course the spacemen had very advanced ways of treating me. I was scanned from asshole to appetite and they fixed anything they found broken, from my diabetes to my retinopathy. I guess you'd say this was the start of the improvements too.

My eyesight wasn't only fixed, it was improved. It was improved to something no other person had. I now had a new function in my eyes. It was a sort of zoom effect and it worked automatically somehow. My reaction speed was also improved. They told me it was system wide, whatever that meant, but they assured me I could now run faster, move faster, and even feel faster.

Apparently I was now fast enough to catch arrows in flight if they were aimed at me though it was recommended I not try or rely on this ability. I could also think more rapidly now too, though it wasn't apparent to others.

Whatever they did it made me feel great. I was told I was now immune to practically any disease, which affected humans. Whatever. I felt great now and they told me it would last without boosters being needed.

I was released on a wagon trace in Tennessee on April 10 1865. Exactly one day after the official end of the Civil War. The Conestoga wagon they provided was great and it even had some type of metal armor inside the wood used to build it. There was a team of eight big Missouri mules and there were four extra mules on lead ropes and halters following behind the wagon. I'd also been allowed to pick horses earlier and they were on halters now and following along with the extra mules. I'd chosen a well trained cutting horse and a well trained roping horse, both of them of the Quarter horse persuasion.

We were put down in a little clearing off the side of the road and I was basically ready to go. I was wearing a dual-holster gun belt with a Ruger Super-Blackhawk in .44 magnum in each holster and the revolvers had been modified to be double action models by the spacemen, even though they appeared perfectly normal on visual inspection.

I also had a Colt Diamondback in a well-fitted shoulder holster and a Colt Python in a sort of Ad hoc crossdraw holster added to the other holsters of my double holster gun belt. I'll admit I might have been a little over done in the handgun department, but what the hell? My Wranglers were custom made and custom fitted and so was the gunbelt. It wasn't going to drag my pants down. I'd been through quite a bit of training on the spaceship learning how to do a proper fast draw and I was ready to get it on.

My Conestoga wagon was the ultimate in traveling comfort for this time and place. The seat was upholstered and padded with high-density foam and it fit my ass great. I had considered calling for the addition of a custom made bucket seat, but decided against it right at the last second.

Hell, I was loose now and so I moved the team out into the road and had them trot off. After about a mile I settled them out of the trot and into a walk. I wasn't in any hurry; I was just off on a wagon ride.

I was gaining on a wagon in front of me and was within two hundred feet of it when I got a message directly into my brain. Of course it was from the spacemen. It warned me the wagon in front of me was about to be attacked by roadside bandits and suggested I slow down so I wouldn't be involved.

I did no such thing and actually speeded up just a fraction. Soon enough a tree fell from the woods beside the road and it fell directly into the path of the wagon in front of me. I stopped my team then and picked up my Ruger #1 rifle in .45-70 the spacemen had provided and put it up to my shoulder. I shot the first attacker to come out of the woods right in his left ear and then had to fumble for more cartridges to reload.

I guess it would have been smarter to use one of the Henrys I'd been provided or one of the .35 Remington Marlin 336c lever actions. Anyway, I was a little late with my second shot and it allowed one of the other attackers to fire into the wagon. The Ruger did a perfect job of cashing in his chips later though and I was faster reloading for the next few shots.

Most of it turned out for the good though since it was easy to dispatch the next two attackers and I figured the all clear had been given so I stopped behind the wagon and rushed up to it to see if I could help.