Jack glanced at Four Russ. She looked amazed. He supposed she had thought she had

dealt with ruthless people as part of her adopted country’s army, and none of them

were as ruthless as Josie Fox.

He understood that feeling.

“She killed all of them like that,” said Four. “How?”

“Magic,” said Jack. “Your country is causing problems. We want your country to stop

causing problems. How do we do that?”

“I have no idea,” said Russ. “My orders are to secure supplies and send them where

the army wants them. Some of these projects are out of my purview.”

“Who would know?,” said Jack.

“General Haslet,” said Russ. “I don’t know where he is stationed right now.”

“We can find him now that we have a name,” said Jack. “We promised your sister that

we wouldn’t harm you, but we can take you out of the picture. We don’t want to keep

coming back to Shemmaria to deal with whatever the next doomsday weapon the

army wants to use is. We would rather devote your time to science and improving

things in your kingdom.”

“Why should we do that?,” asked Russ.

“So Josie doesn’t show up in your central castle and do what she just did to those

guys,” said Jack. “Wake up a little bit. The more peaceful you are, the more you can

just buy up additional land. You don’t even have to invade anything.”

“Just buy the land?,” asked Russ.

Josie appeared on the Bridge. She let her persona go. There might have been

survivors left in the fort, but they didn’t work for the Montrose so they didn’t have

their heads popped from the inside by the firebirds.

“It’s called capitalism,” said Jack. “It’s using economics to use money to get what you

want.”

“I think we should look over any other special projects,” said Josie. “Then I have to

deal with the King over Caroline and the women I rescued.”

“I can’t allow you to sabotage our plans,” said Russ. She jumped to her feet and went

for the dagger at her belt.

Jack pressed the activation button on his watch. He changed into a scarecrow wearing

the flag with an eagle’s head for his head. He vaulted from his chair with a push off

with one hand. He had Russ pinned face down on the floor before she could complete

her move.

“What are you thinking?,” Jack asked. He took the dagger before letting the Captain

go. “You just kill us and take the Enterprise when it won’t answer to you? Smarten

up.”

“I got this, Jack,” said Josie. She checked her watch. “We want her to stop trying to

advance the army’s goals. I’ll just show her as soon as I’m charged up.”

“Are you sure?,” asked Jack.

“It will be a breeze,” said Josie. “She needs to know the consequences other than

what we are saying. I wouldn’t trust us either.”

“All right,” said Jack. He wondered what Josie had in mind.

Josie turned the dial on her watch and called on Chronos, a creature made of watches

and clocks. She grabbed Russ’s arm and they vanished. They were gone for two

seconds. When they reappeared, Russ was covered in blood and ash.

“Are you okay?,” asked Jack. He snapped his fingers to attract Russ’s attention. She

looked at him. She grimaced.

Josie let Chronos go. She stood placidly out of arm’s reach of their passenger.

“The kingdom was gone,” said Russ. “Some kind of giant snake had laid eggs and its

children were roaming the streets. Then we visited myself on the Enterprise, but I was

trapped up here. And I had been for a long time. Then we saw a giant flare from the

sun. Then we saw an evergrowing hoard of monsters expand from the capitol but they

had on army uniforms. People died all around us. I tried to help at one point. I

recognized some people. They all died.”

“You want to save your friends, you have to help change the future, Four,” said Josie.

“How likely were any of those futures?,” asked Jack. He thought maybe he had a time

traveler himself, or could build a time machine. He wanted to know what the rules

were so he could abuse them.

He grimaced at the prohibition against time travel and the threat to reality he had

picked up from the Society.

“The giant snake is more likely than any of the rest at this point,” said Josie.

“Apparently some of their people think that they can harness monsters to do their

bidding.”

“So what happens if it gets loose?,” asked Jack. He had an idea from a lot of monster

movies he had watched during his life.

“Nothing at first,” said Josie. “It hides underneath the capitol, and eats random

people. Then it lays eggs. When the eggs hatch, they start pushing out and eating

anything in their way.”

“That sounds like something I would expect to happen,” said Jack. “So we are going

to stop that too?”

“That and the flare,” said Josie. “Apparently they found a way to nuke themselves.”

“Of course they did,” said Jack. He rubbed the scar over his eye. “How did they do

that?”

“They found a ritual that worked,” said Josie. “They thought it would make the

weather pattern better for crops and seasonal work. Only it opened the door to the

sun, or something.”

“The rest of it?,” asked Jack.

“We can wait on quests if the high command don’t change their plans,” said Josie.

“The future is fluid from this point on. If we don’t intervene, the snake escapes, kills

people in the city, releases more snakes to overrun the nearby countryside and force

the Shemmarians to barricade their city and the surrounding land for years while they

engage in war with the monsters they set loose. If we do intervene, none of that

happens, and the country is spared to keep doing what it is doing.”

“The same thing with the gate flare cooking everything?,” asked Jack.

“Except the flare will wreck this part of the world all the way to Hawk Ridge,” said

Josie. “Maybe farther than that depending on the weather.”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“How big was the ritual drawing?,” asked Jack. He frowned at that. Josie was talking

about a heavy atmosphere burn with a major loss of the air on the planet surface. He

knew enough from how his own magician worked that a ritual would have to be

enormous to channel that much energy.

“I don’t know,” said Josie. “The city vanished.”

Jack closed his eyes in thought. He pictured the city below. Then he pictured a

column of flame big enough to wipe that city out. The drawing would have to be

bigger than the city by so many yards, maybe up to a mile away.

The initial spell cost would be as enormous as the spell.

It could be the same as the ring in Accordly.

“We can deal with this and keep Shemmaria on track,” said Jack. “Do we want to?”

“Yes,” said Four. “I think that would be good for the country.”

“Would it be good for the world?,” said Jack. “If Shemmaria ceased to exist, so would

a lot of the problems that it could cause. We wouldn’t have to fix those problems. It

would save us time and energy.”

“I think we should stop these two threats at the least,” said Josie. “Any beam of light

that can reach Hawk Ridge from here is a threat to the continent. Then we can worry

about anything else after we talk to whomever’s in charge.”

“I already have an idea about the flare,” said Jack. “I could be wrong, but if I’m right,

it’s a natural disaster that we can prevent.”

“What are you thinking?,” asked Josie.

“Remember how we had to stop that thing in Accordly,” said Jack. “This might be the

same thing. So it’s out there powering up as we speak. When the time is right, it will

explode.”

“So we just have to locate the circle,” said Josie. “I can do that with a bird.”

“I could be wrong and the government found a way to draw a ritual circle for miles

like the Nazca signs,” said Jack. “But that could be something that we are going to

get a quest for that we can stop before it happens.”

“The snake?,” asked Four.

“If the government has it already, we can do away with it before it escapes,” said

Josie. “If they don’t, we can do away with it before it gets captured.”

“What will you do to me?,” asked Four.

“Nothing,” said Jack. He glanced at Josie. Her frown could mean anything. “Except

for a select few people that we have to hunt down like dogs, we’re not actually here

to hurt people just because we want to. We’re here to do whatever we can to help

people along. I know you want to protect your country, but someone at the top is

trying to inflict damage on all the other countries to get a grip to expand the borders.

At some point, the Society is going to issue some kind of quest based on that which

might include a bit of collateral damage to the city. Do you really want us coming

back over and over to cut away whatever dumb idea your planning guys might come

up with to spark an invasion?”

“Some of the planning council is missing,” said Four. “They disappeared when you

first appeared with the Enterprise. The head of the group is still in the city. His name

is Morn Hax.”

“Some of the people working with the Goblin Trees were infected,” said Jack. “We’re

holding them until we can cure them and bring them back.”

“What do you mean?,” asked Four.

“The monster mushrooms your country were feeding to the women that were

kidnaped like Three’s friend cause growths in the spines of anyone working close to

them,” said Josie.

“Three’s friend?,” said Four.

“She was picked up by the Montrose, and carried across the country,” said Josie. “I

picked up the trail and got her back. Three knows that Shemmaria was buying women

to use as experimental subjects.”

“I suppose she is angry with me,” said Four.

“I don’t know,” said Josie.

“You want us to take you up to where she is?,” said Jack. “We can do that.”

“I think I need to think about what I want to do,” said Four.

“All right,” said Jack. “Let’s see about these future problems and fix them before they

become something horrible.”

“We do need someone to help us here, and to help June and Seven,” said Josie.

“Think about it.”

“Why would you want me to do that?,” asked Four.

“Because Shemmaria could be something more with the right person helping to guide

things,” said Josie. “You could be that hero.”

“I’m not,” said Four. “I can’t.”

“You could be with some help,” said Jack. “And we are that help.”

“I think you are mistaken,” said Four.

“Just think about it,” said Jack. “You can make a brighter future for Shemmaria with

the right decisions.”

“All right,” said Four. “What do we do now?”

“We put you back in the city,” said Jack. “Then we talk to your boss and see if we can

find out why he wants all these monster weapons, and shut down the oncoming

burning death of everyone. If the snake is still in the wild, we might just let it alone,

or we might have to kill it depending on where it is.”

“If your boss has the Makeover, he will have to go,” said Josie. “He can’t be allowed

to help an organization of human traffickers just because he is an officer in your

military.”

“There are a few candidates ready to take his place,” said Four. “I have no idea if they

will continue to try to accrue assets.”

“All right,” said Jack. “Let’s deal with the potential burning country thing first. We

can worry about the snake if it shows up. I still think we should talk to Four’s

commanding officer before we check on Mister Warner and June.”

“I still have to deal with the refugees I rescued,” said Josie. “I can’t just run off with

some excuse that I had to save the enemy of humanity from itself.”

“That could be awkward,” said Jack. He grinned at her.

“All right,” said Four. “How do we save the city?”

“I think we should try to find out if there is a ritual circle to power such a spell,” said

Josie. “If there is a routing, we can find a lynchpin and pull that. That will stop the

buildup.”

“All right,” said Jack. “Let’s do that before something else happens.”

Josie checked her watch to see how much power she had. Being on the Enterprise

slowed the charging down, but she had enough to create a bird to point them to the

right spot.

She changed just long enough to do that. The bird dropped through the ship and

sailed down to the ground. When it was low enough, it cast out a light that lit up an

array of lines that circled the city. A spot glowed in the center of the drawing.

“I am going to assume that is the trigger of this gun,” said Jack. He looked at the

array. “We can change this like we did Accordly. All we need to do is pull the control

panel out of the center.”

“We should wreck a couple of the lines so we don’t have a misfire,” said Josie.

“Why is this here?,” asked Four. She waved at the complicated diagram lit up by the

firebird.

“Don’t know,” said Jack. “Better question is it supposed to fire a giant piece of fire

from here and burn off part of the planet, or was it supposed to do something else but

does the other thing now because the lines moved.”

“A better question than that is how do we disable it?,” asked Josie.

“You got me there,” said Jack. “Four?”

“I have no idea,” said Russ.

“You two should be a comedy team like Oates and Garfunkel,” said Josie. “I will go

back down and disrupt it. You two find the giant snake and see if it is in the city

already.”

“I think the Enterprise can do that,” said Jack. “How big a snake are we talking

about?”

“That snake in Anaconda,” said Josie. She pulled on Zatanna. “You know. Big

enough to eat people.”

She wished herself down to the ground.

“Big enough to eat people,” said Jack. “What could you do with a snake big enough

to eat people? There’s nothing big enough to fly to carry it to a target. I suppose

you could put it in a wagon and transport it to a front. Then what?”

“You try to get it to enter the war and eat your enemies from within,” said Four. “I am

also having problems trying to reckon how you could do that.”

“All right,” said Jack. He put his grin on. “It might not be that big now, depending on

how far into the future you went. Enterprise, we need a wide scan of this part of the

planet for any large reptiles between ten and thirty feet long. If we can’t find it, then

it might be in route from some other part of the world.”

“Affirmative,” said the machine.

“There might be two,” said Four. “Snakes need males to breed their eggs. If it had

children, then how long is the breeding process?”

“Negative results of scan within perimeters,” said the machine.

“Take off the size restriction and see how many reptiles you can find in the area,” said

Jack.

Pings lit up the main screen and its view of the area beneath them. A quick view of

each one showed that the reptiles were too small, or the wrong kind.

“Maybe we averted that future,” said Jack. “I can see why the Society said I’m not

supposed to use time travel. I might be messing around all day trying to find the right

pin for a thing.”

“Officer Fox said you would destroy reality,” said the Enterprise helpfully.

Four frowned at the madman she was standing next to.

“She was exaggerating,” said Jack.

Josie appeared on the Bridge.

“I have the flare thing taken care of,” said Josie. “The snake?”

“The Enterprise couldn’t find anything big enough to match the description,”

said Jack. “Either it isn’t here yet, isn’t big enough, or we averted that future

somehow.”

“Let’s talk to Four’s commanding officer and see what we can do about the direction

of these special projects,” said Josie.

“Maybe you should get cleaned up first, Four,” said Jack. He waved at the Ready

Room door.