Remnants and Fallout

[arvg]

19 years later

Doctor XiaoBei was the first one out of cryo-sleep, on his knees retching up the vile liquid that had kept him in suspended animation for over eight hundred years. They were alive, they had made it back intact, of that, at least, there was some small measure of adulation.

The problem was, what irreparable damage their attempt to change history had wrought upon Sirius and the Coalition.

Their timeline was gone, and things would have been tainted, even subtly from what they had left. That was the very nature of paradoxical time-line shifts, like what they had undergone.

He straightened up, looking at the smiling face of Coalition Commissars.

They never smiled... that was it, he'd accidentally-ed the Coalition.

"Doctor, welcome home," the Commissar said with a smile. "Commandante Ling is waiting for your debriefing..."

"Commandante who?" XiaoBei asked in surprise. "Last I heard it was Commandante Orlov... look things might have... become a little muddled up... Who is the Premier?"

The Commissar chuckled, "Premier Alvin Katz. Do not worry, Comrade-Doctor. we have a hospital standing by and some psychologists who are more than willing to correct some of the changes in our two time-lines. You are still the pre-eminant scientist of the Coalition. And a hero for successfully recovering the DNA-Ark..."

"That's nice," XiaoBei muttered, fishing a cigarette out of his locker and lighting it up, even before he put on pants. "So what else changed?"

"Ever heard of Gallia?" the Commissar offered.

"Where?" XiaoBei inquired.

"Bad tempered Frenchmen... don't worry just one of the changes tampering with the timeline created..."

"I am messing with you," XiaoBei responded, "I know all about Gallia. What I need to know is, what about the Hispania..."

"That piece of history, mi hermano," General Alvarez replied, leaning on the door frame. "Seems utterly unchanged..."

"How can you be sure?" XiaoBei demanded.

"Because you weren't the first to reach us. Comrade Ling's Sol Coalition Cruiser arrived first, and we have had nearly twenty years to dissect the information pretaining to your mission. You, yourself, decreed certain safety measures to ensure that the contamination to the timeline was kept to a minimum after the other ship arrived. And, well, for the most part we kept the crew segregated... however Ling proved most useful in defeating a few of our recurrent enemies... and his close support during the end of the MacIntosh era ensured that the good Premier was able to take power. I will let him explain to you what happened over the past nineteen years... it has been an interesting story..."

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