Warntha Sain was sitting by the campfire drinking the piss-water the Ros-Zarthani called beer and discussing close-order tactics with an under officer of the 4th Maniple when he felt the vibration from his locater alert. He quickly excused himself from the conversation, using the time-tested excuse of going to the latrine. Instead of going straight to the trenches, Warntha swung around to the northwest where his locater indicated, through increasing vibrations, the homing signal was originating.
Warntha spotted the silver mesh of the twenty-foot transtemporal conveyer in a small glade. He had been wondering when Hadron Tharn was going to send someone to pick him up. After their defeat of the Grefftscharrer army, the Ros-Zarthani army had followed the trail to Dorg where water transport was being arranged to ferry the army down river south of Wulfula to Tarr-Ceros, where they would winter. The Dorgi had refused transit right to Zarphu down the river until the defeat of the Grefftscharrer army. Now the Dorgers couldn't get the Ros-Zarthani on their way fast enough.
Warntha wouldn't have minded staying with the Ros-Zarthani; the company was good-mostly fellow soldiers who had accepted him as one of their own despite his disguise as one of Styphon's highpriests. The possibilities for future fighting seemed endless, so he was content. He was especially looking forward to fighting against Kalvan and his Army of Hos-Hostigos.
On the other hand, things were never dull when Hadron Tharn was around. Warntha was surprised to find he actually missed his crazy boss.
The conveyer door opened to show Tharn with a welcoming smile, flanked by two guards in black uniforms. "How was your exercise?"
Warntha took a seat inside the conveyer across from his boss and said, "It was a nice vacation. The Ros-Zarthani soldiers are good troops, even without gunpowder weapons. They'll give Kalvan fits, but not enough to be decisive."
Tharn's face blanked. "None of my plans are working. I'm hemmed in on every side by morons and incompetents! The Opposition Party has refused my latest donation! They claim that Chief Verkan's new policy of phased harvesting of the Europo-American Sector is workable and acceptable by all parties. So Verkan wins once again!"
Warntha was used to his bosses sudden mood shifts, but this one took him by surprise. He wasn't exactly sure why his boss hated Paratime Chief Verkan Vall, but he suspected it had something to do with his sister Dalla. "So what's the next move, boss?"
"We're on our way to Fifth Level Base One."
Warntha, as an ex-military specialist, had originally been recruited by Tharn's Organization to help train troops at the Base, mostly proles being trained for military action groups. This had been going on for a decade and Tharn had created quite the private little army. The proles he was using as his shock troops thought Hadron Tharn was a supporter of the Prole Liberation Movement. Warntha, knowing Tharn's prejudices, seriously doubted that! Warntha still didn't know Tharn's plan, but he knew that Tharn had no good purpose in mind for any proles, whom he looked upon as little better than beasts of burden.
He had just finished cleaning his kit when the overhead flickering ceased and the silver mesh began to solidify overhead signifying they had arrived at Fifth Level Base One. The conveyer came to rest in a small room; from there they went aboard a rocket transport and traveled to a large island, at the base of the largest southern continental mass, that usually served the First Level population as a recreation spot-meaning there was little possibility of a Paratime Police conveyer dropping in unexpectedly.
Warntha, who was dressed warmly for a higher latitude, felt himself begin to sweat as the airboat arrived at the large military compound. It took a great deal of Tharn's assets to keep this place running, but he had six airstrike teams and fifteen divisions of infantry for his own personal army. To the best of Warntha's knowledge, it was a bigger force than Home Time-Line's own military, which primarily existed to put down Prole Insurrections. The two guards remained in the conveyer.
He followed Tharn into a large conference room with a large visiscreen dominating one wall. A dozen proles in military uniforms decorated with gold braid sat around a table. They all stood up as Tharn approached.
"Citizen Tharn, when can we mount our attack?"
"General, the time has not yet arrived. There is still work that needs to be done on Home Time-Line. I advise patience."
Warntha choked back a laugh. Hearing Tharn advise patience was like hearing someone advise a friend to take a vacation on Second Level Arzl Dykx, a subsector where the survivors of an ancient nuclear holocaust killed each other for table scraps.
One of the other generals, an older man with a gray beard, said, "With your long life, Citizen, you can afford to wait. I was a young man when I joined the PLM. Look at me now!"
The other proles nodded their agreement.
"If all goes as planned, you will all get the longevity treatments and you and your children will live a long life indeed."
This promise appeared to settle them down and the generals went back to the business of plotting the overthrow of Fifth Level Force Headquarters.
As a veteran of the Home Force, Warntha knew that the Fifth Level HQ would have to be taken by surprise for this band of half-trained and inexperienced resistance fighters to take them out. What kind of surprise attack does Tharn have planned? he wondered. By definition, as a Hadron Tharn plan, it would be irregular, dangerous and with total disregard to casualties. He almost felt sorry for the proles.