Lesson One: Time Machines don't necessarily run in a chronological order, so, MsMarti, don't yell at me for the jumps and starts. In the 21st Century, we got into these 20th Century machines and arrived in a land of the 15th Century.
We'd been on the frontier of time for a while. Those that had greeted us had departed for greener lands of the distant future in the land of plenty we had left what seemed like an eternity before and their replacements had arrived, first in pairs and later en masse.
The outgoing guys had earned their keep. They had lived the life, fought the good fight, and 'embraced the suck.' With no one knowing how long such visits to 1423 would last, they hadn't put down many roots. They hadn't built permanence where they were unsure of how quick their departure might be.
One of the first of the replacements to arrive was a Warrant and he reached out to an old-timer for a tour of the lay of the land. Yep, with only days on the ground and the experience of several rocket attacks, I was the old-timer. Well, he had a more important purpose and seeing the sights, while important, was a great excuse to accomplish it. That mission was to
size me up, and get a feel for the rest of those that had arrived with me.
While we'd be working side by side for the next several months, facing the same dangers, the same threats, and regularly hearing the news that the enemy had killed us the night before, at this point we had no idea what the other was all about. We met not in the 21st Century in a land of green grass and trees, but in the dust hazed air of the 15th Century each hoping the other would exceed expectations.
There are many traditions and methods involved in the Warrior Culture of introductions, assessments, and establishment of bona fides, most of which polite society would disdain. Well, polite society ain't so polite and have the benefit of time which a combat zone doesn't often allow. I'll play polite when I'm back in your world and y'all can stay out of our ways.
At any rate, once the procedures were complete, we jumped on some 4 wheelers and I began showing him the valley in which we'd live. We'd trained mostly for woodland and more often jungle environments and this certaily wasn't either.
A preconception of the desert was soon put to rest. Jungle Warriors embrace the cover and concealment of dense vegetation and a great deal of apprehension of desert warfare is the lack thereof. It is in fact quite amazing how easy some deserts afford concealment.
On the tour, I showed him our base blindspot. The enemy could literally march a brigade right up to our back door unseen. Looking out from the firebase, this huge wide depression was invisible, the rock filled dust of one ridge blending in perfectly with the ridge of the next and appearing to be a continous plateau of vegetation free rock farms, beaten by strong winds.
It was a weak point in our defenses that must be protected with more than the local fighters loyal to us for sake of the wages and clothing given them.
The ease of invisibility in the desert would be best learnt weeks later when one of our less trusted locals was under observation from the base on a return trip from the market. In all liklihood, he was lining his own pockets with money he charged us for those trips. The question in our minds was, "Is he playing both sides for his own financial gain? Is he selling information about us to the enemy?"
Coming Soon: Time Machine-7: The invisible conspirator?
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