The world was filled with disagreeable things. Not the least of which was the Iron Republic. But like many disagreeable things in this world the Iron Republic was merely disagreeable and not outright an abomination for one reason and one reason only.
Despite the dastardly dealings of the Iron Republic Board of Directors, the wage slavery, the constant unending spying, the currency manipulation, oppression and indoctrination, this government had succeeded in negotiating a peace with the Quall N’drone. In doing so they had prevented that foul dimension conquering species from taking our own dimension and wiping out humanity as we know it.
And the IR knew how important this one deal was to humanity’survival that they even produced elite clone soldiers and used their scientific knowledge of Time Travel to send back enforcers designed to keep their timeline constant. This unit was labelled in IR files under the code name: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
While it was the titular four horsemen, Death, War, Pestilence, and Famine who would target specific rogue Time travelers, it was crews of temporal assassins who served underneath them that did much of the leg work in the past.
This is the story of one of those teams.
The Year is 1942. The location is an airfield in China, hidden away from the prying eyes of the Japanese invaders. The crews that keep the airfield running are a proud and scrappy team of American and Chinese mechanics and ex-military. It’s a double lane hardpacked dirt airfield, with both airstrips camoflogued from above to look like temple ruins with a bar and rundown hotel nearby.
From ground level it was obvious that the bar was really the operations center, the hotel was doubling as a barracks, and the stones had been arrayed across the property to look like a temple only about five years ago. But for someone who didn’t know the region and was flying overhead it passed snuff.
There was a third building, but it was covered by trees with leafy branches woven together over it and camo netting. Hidden completely from aerial view below this canopy was the hangar. Inside its shadowy interior were parked a trio of P-40 Warhawks. One was bare bones, with its outer hull stripped away, lying bullet ridden in a corner. The other two were in excellent shape, one showing signs of recent repairs.
A fuel truck was parked out back behind the Bar, and a trio of small civilian trucks were parked behind the Hotel. At the front of the Hotel were seven fine looking bicycles of local design leaned against the wall.
There was one road large enough for a single truck to drive coming from the north. Like the runway it was hard packed dirt and obviously looked like it had just dried up from recent rainfall.
There were two bike trails that lead to the south. Except for the trails, the road, the runway and the buildings the rest of the area is covered by lush green trees. It is a hilly mountainous region, with the rural airfield set in the one flat valley between a hill and a mountain. The mountain side provided extreme protection to the airfield, the hill side only moderate visual cover.
In the forest to the north, in the shadows of the mountain, there was a barely visible flash of blue light. The Temporal Assassins found themselves surrounded by trees, on a dark moon-less night. In the distance they could see lights in the windows of the bar, and the sounds of dirty gasoline power generators.