5,123 years before Treecy's breakup...

Donny gave the mirror a little smile and then snapped off a crisp Federation salute. His right hand balled into a fist and then tapped his heart twice before he extended his hand out at a forty-five-degree angle. From the next room, a woman's voice sounded, "Donny, should I just end my relationship with Ian?"

"Who am I to decide on your life?" Donny glanced back at her over his shoulder. He took a breath and then continued, "If you are asking for some kind of commitment from me, well, it's like I said. I fuck other women. I don't love any of you."

"Then why me and not Kristen?" She frowned.

"Is she the busty one that works with you at HQ?" Donny spoke in an oddly serious mood.

"Yes, that's her." She tilted her head from left to right.

"I asked her out once and she was rude to me, so I put her in my black book." Donny nodded without a smile.

"Is that a book on who not to date?" She looked startled.

He balled up his fist and then looked up blinking his eyes, "No, it's a book of women I intend to have bear my children."

She rolled her eyes and started to put her clothes back on, "I should have listened to what the other girls said. You really are trash."

He raced over with a grin on his face and gave her a kiss, "Tell me you didn't have a good time?"

She tried to keep a frown on her face and fought against his hug and kisses until she eventually fell into his pacing and laughed and said, "Ok, I had a good time, jerk."

Donny straightened out his uniform once again and then smiled at her and said, "We're going on a six-month-long deployment this time, you'd be sad waiting all that time for me to come back here."

She snorted and shook her head, "You spacers never get this through your heads, that six months is for you, which is as long as two years for us."

Donny shrugged and then with a smile on his face he headed out the door pausing a moment after reaching her doorway to add his peak cap to his head. It didn't take long for him to reach the field where his squadron was lined up ready to take off. As the people under his command saw him the entire group of four thousand came to attention and snapped off a salute.

Donny walked up to a podium that was near the front of the assembled spacers and he cleared his throat before saying, "You know the drill, this is a long haul we are equipped for a year but we are only expecting a six-month tour. We're going to be testing the stargate again, this time we are testing its theoretical limits for speed and distance. I have been reminded to remind all of you that the six months are only for us and that our friends and family will probably not be seeing us for quite a bit longer. In other words, if you are leaving anyone behind, make sure you let them know you'll be away for a while." He grinned and then snapped off a salute to the assembly for saying, "Dismissed, all crews to your duty stations."

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It took less than half an hour for the personnel to reach their assigned stations and for the entire squadron to lift off. In high orbit, the station that sat next to the huge stargate watched as the squadron moved into position the commanding officer walked up to his station and said, "I'll input the coordinates myself."

One of the specialists who would normally handle that job looked concerned, "Sir, that's not the procedure..."

"It is today." The commanding officer had a strange look on his face as he entered the string of numbers into the computer and then hit enter causing alarm bells to sound which he quickly overrode.

Another officer looked at his screen and then called out, "Sir... Ian, you can't do this there are four thousand people in that squadron!"

The commanding officer shouted out as the squadron went through the gate, "It's done!" He started laughing hysterically.

The other officer pulled out his sidearm and started moving toward the laughing man. The commanding officer pulled his own sidearm and put the pistol against the temple of his head and shouted out, "I know you were fucking him, Mandie, well you can see him again in another ten thousand years!" He laughed until he cried and then pulled the trigger ending his own life.

The present aboard the Destroyer Nemo...

"This is the 673rd Bombardment Squadron part of the 311th Bombardment group under General Yu Tian Ting, Colonel Donald G John commanding." He smiled at Treecy and then asked, "May I ask then, who are you and how do you have presidential authority over my network?"

"I'm Treecy... Uh, Treecy de Santos. I'm a Sophomore at ULVA. Um, are you Federation soldiers? Like, THE Federation? The one that fought in the great war?" Treecy looked around at the different avatars.

The tall well-built man gave her a long look up and down and then asked, "I have never heard of this ULVA, from the way you spoke of The Federation... I can assume that some time has passed since the end of the great war. Did we win? No, wait, a better question is... What year is this?"

Treecy's eyes grew huge, "It's 5022 PB... Err that's Post Bellum I think that means After War? Um, it's been more than five thousand years since the war ended. All war ended."

She looked around the room at the various faces some showing disbelief and others closed their eyes as if accepting something they already thought might be true before the tall well-built man spoke up, "Ok, it looks like the engineers were on to something and unless the Federation decided to make this Supermodel the new president we should probably get on the horn to the other members of the squadron."

He turned to one of the people next to him and said, "Patch us into the main com channel, bring the squadron network online."

A few minutes later the room grew exponentially larger and instead of a few hundred people there were four thousand people all standing at attention in neat rows. The tall well-built man stood next to Treecy and said, "Ok, so we now have some independent confirmation that the engineers were right, we were sent off-course through the gate." A loud murmur went through the assembled soldiers before he continued, "I'm not going to sugarcoat it, we can't go back home. Our homes are so far gone at this point that our mission is no longer to return to HQ but find a way to survive. Colonel John out." He made a throat-cutting gesture and then turned to Treecy, "Miss de Santos, I hope you don't mind, but we're going to need to ask you some more questions."

A few minutes later a group of soldiers met Treecy at her car. They waited until she chose to leave the vehicle before rapidly descending on it to take it apart. Colonel John and a few hand-picked officers led her to a small conference room as she looked back at her car being disassembled into a heap of parts. She asked softly, "Will they be able to put my car back together again?"

"Those guys are top engineers, don't worry. Miss de Santos, could you tell me about the end of the war?" He smiled at her as they walked into the small room, "Would you like a drink? We have water, soda, orange juice, tea, coffee... Uh, Tang."

"Um... Well, water is fine thank you, as for the war? Uh... Well, no one won the war, it just ended once we figured out how to talk to each other." Treecy took a cup of water and sipped it before going on, "Keep in mind, I am not an expert or anything, I just have the basic knowledge everyone learns about that time. It was over five thousand years ago. Um, like I don't really know any of the names from back then or anything."

"How did you get the password for our internal network?" One of the officers asked.

Treecy looked down with a very guilty expression, "Um, well we learned about it in my last History class... I only remembered it because it was kind of funny. 5318008. The person who choose the password was kind of a perv... I guess? If you look at it backward it spells..."

Colonel John rubbed the bridge of his nose and said, "Boobies, yes, we get it. I can't believe they let that fly." He sighed and then looked at his officers.

Another one asked, "Miss de Santos, you said there is no more war, but surely there is still a military of some sort, right?"

"Um, we have the police, if that's what you mean? They just stop fights and things like that mainly. There hasn't been any military for thousands of years. Since resources are so abundant and people don't use money anymore there just isn't a need for the military. Uh, I guess? I am not an expert or anything."