The Time Thieves

  TIME TROOPERS AND MASTER MISSIONS

  In the dangerous world of Time and Energy capture, Professor Perdu’s Battle Agents hold a crucial place. Wearing high-tech skin-coloured body armour, they enter the professor’s Battle Books – super-strong metal caskets containing the compressed energy of past battles – and travel through the Mists of Time to great conflicts. On these missions they collect data for the professor’s top secret research program, Operation Battle Book, as well as DNA for her Warrior Data Bank.

  But Operation Battle Book is now being targeted by clandestine forces who seek to turn its work to evil ends. Who is behind these attacks? Who are these clandestine forces? And what do they want? To answer these questions, a series of special operations – known as Master Missions – have been launched. These are immensely dangerous, the most perilous Battle Book missions of all. They are carried out by a select core of the very best Battle Agents, called Time Troopers.

  Time Troopers operate in teams of three or four agents. One such team is Omega Squad.

  This is their story.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  About Omega Squad: Time Thieves

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Also by Charlie Carter

  Copyright page

  To Tiggy and Ture

  ONE

  KABOOM!

  The massive explosion threw both Battle Agents high into the air, tossing them nearly a hundred metres across the battle-scarred city square like rag dolls, arms and legs flailing. They landed with bone-crunching thuds, bounced across the unforgiving cobblestones and slammed into the crumpled carcass of a KV-2 Russian tank.

  Battle Agent 009 rolled over slowly, ears ringing, body pulsing with pain; she’d taken the main force of the blast. She looked around for BA004. He was slumped over the buckled tracks of the tank, his face ghostly pale. He lifted his head a little and squinted at 009.

  ‘Welcome to the Battle of Stalingrad,’ he spluttered, and passed out.

  ‘Four!’ BA009 screamed, dragging herself through the rubble to his side.

  * * *

  ‘Omega Squad!’

  Professor Perdu was hunched over her Control Panel at Operation HQ, punching buttons furiously.

  ‘Come in, Omega Squad,’ she shouted, breaking into a cold sweat.

  She ran a quick check of her Geo-Chron

  co-ordinates and re-adjusted variables for Time Slip error. But nothing made any difference.

  This was a disaster. Her new Time Trooper squad – gone. Three young Battle Agents and one super soldier. And all on a simple training operation, not a Master Mission where anything could go wrong. Or a MetaBook. This was a basic Battle Book operation, supposed to be straightforward.

  She’d been in contact with them only minutes ago when what seemed like a Static Storm hit out of NoWhen and quickly grew to a deadly climax. All those billions of Past Particles compressed in the time vacuum of NoWhen – a massive implosion leading to a massive explosion. In less than a second Omega Squad had vanished, blown right off the Standard Timeline.

  ‘Omega Squad. Where are you?’

  * * *

  The other two members of Omega Squad were also in trouble in the Battle of Stalingrad.

  Battle Agent 005 dropped to the ground as a sniper’s bullet sang past his ear. He belly-scrambled across the rubble-strewn floor and lodged himself next to TEX. They hunkered down beneath the low, blown-out window of a grey concrete Soviet apartment block.

  ‘We chose a bad time to visit Stalingrad,’ the super soldier said.

  A mortar slammed into the wall metres away, blasting out chunks of masonry and leaving a jagged hole.

  ‘I’m trying to work out where this chaos came from,’ BA005 replied. ‘It doesn’t feel normal. It’s a mix of real and unreal.’

  ‘These bullets are real enough to me, BA005,’ said TEX.

  ‘Yeah, but that big explosion a few minutes ago wasn’t a World War Two bomb. I’m sure it wasn’t. It was something else.’

  ‘We’re lucky these concrete walls protected us from the blast,’ said TEX.

  ‘You’re right,’ said BA005. I only hope that Four and Nine are —’

  Before BA005 could finish, a hand grenade came hurtling through the window. TEX barrel-rolled across the floor, grabbed the death egg and sent it back. A second later it exploded outside.

  At the same time, BA005’s Simulation Skin gave a warning beep.

  ‘Enemy soldiers, 005. Two, with weapons. They will appear in the doorway in five seconds … four … three … ’

  ‘Look out!’ Five hissed at TEX, pointing at the door.

  Two Russian soldiers with sub-machine guns filled the doorway. But they didn’t have time to fire; TEX spun around, ripped their guns away and mangled them against the wall. They gaped at the 2.2 metre giant and ran like rabbits.

  ‘They left in a hurry,’ said TEX, looking puzzled. ‘Do I have bad breath?’

  BA005 smiled. He’d worked with TEX ever since Professor Perdu created the super soldier. TEX was the ultimate hybrid – he had the vision of a hawk, the muscle fibres of a tiger in his legs and those of an ox in his arms. His heart was a fail-proof electronic pump, his blood contained a self-healing factor derived from plant sap, while his skull was a virtually indestructible Kevlar composite. He even had gills.

  BA005 almost missed another warning from Skin, this one sent as an Info-Stream. It flashed through his mind faster than a thought.

  MORTAR!

  ‘Drop!’ 005 screamed.

  TEX hit the ground as a mortar obliterated the wall behind him.

  ‘That was close,’ he said as he crawled across the floor, keeping low, and crouched next to BA005. ‘We seem to be having more trouble than usual on this mission.’

  We sure do, thought BA005. But why? He went over everything in his mind, trying to figure out what had tipped the mission off the rails so quickly. He’d done all the right things. Like the other members of the squad he’d been doing Battle Book missions for years. It was second nature to him.

  They had opened Battle Book 17 in the Tome Tower, as usual, leapt into the Entry Beam, travelled back through the Mists of Time, and landed in the war-torn city of Stalingrad on 30 January 1943.

  On landing they had manually locked the Battle Book into Forced Epsilon Phase to stop all action for about half an hour – like a movie that’s been paused – giving the agents time to set up for data and image collection.

  Battle Agent 004 had then gone off on his own for some reason, even though the professor had told them to stay together. So Five sent BA009 out to bring him back. He wasn’t too worried about them at the time; there was still plenty of Epsilon Phase left. Or so he thought.

  But then the Epsilon pause had suddenly ended. Kappa Phase had kicked in without warning and before Nine and Four could make it back, the Battle of Stalingrad – one of the fiercest battles of World War Two – was raging around them.

  Shortly after that came the explosion, and Five lost all contact with the other two Battle Agents.

  ‘I hope they are safe,’ TEX said.

  ‘Me too,’ Agent 005 replied.

  He lifted his hand to the window sill and poked his VisiFinger over the edge, slowly scanning the city square.

  ‘Where are they?’ he whispered, wincing at all the destruction and ugliness of war. ‘I should’ve stopped him.
The prof told us to stay together.’

  ‘There was no stopping him, 005,’ said TEX. ‘Four was highly excited. He’s never a good listener in that mood.’

  TEX was right, of course. Four was impossible when he was worked up. Action and excitement was all he cared about at such times. He never thought about the consequences of his actions. He never thought about the people with him.

  Sometimes BA005 wondered how Four ever got to be a Time Trooper. But then as Professor Perdu pointed out, BA004 did have a big brain. He certainly seemed to be brilliant at complex mental calculations, Five had to admit, but then Four was also brilliant at landing himself and everyone around him in trouble.

  ‘I should’ve let him go on his own,’ BA005 said, continuing to scan the battle scene. ‘That was another mistake; sending 009 after him. She didn’t want to go.’

  He thought over their conversation.

  ‘He’s an accident waiting to happen,’ Nine had said. ‘Why do I have to go after him?’

  ‘Because he likes you, and he just might listen for a change.’

  ‘Don’t make me laugh, 005. We’ll just both end up in trouble. I know it.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Nine. I’ve locked the Battle Book into Epsilon. You’ll be safe for ages.’

  ‘Me and my big mouth,’ 005 cursed under his breath as he swept his VisiFinger back and forth. All he could see was mayhem and destruction.

  TWO

  In a bomb crater on the other side of the city square, Battle Agent 009 was also cursing.

  I am an IDIOT. I should never have let Five talk me into this. Four should be left to learn from his own mistakes. Why do we always have to save him from himself?

  She glanced across at BA004. There was practically nothing wrong with him. She had thought he’d been seriously hurt by the blast and so dragged him to the safety of the bomb crater, away from snipers. There she’d begun frantically trying to resuscitate him. But she’d hardly started when he suddenly sat up.

  ‘Eureka,’ he’d said, looking pleased with himself. ‘I’ve got it.’

  ‘Got what?’ Nine had asked.

  ‘The answer.’

  ‘What answer? What are you talking about?’

  ‘The force necessary to hurl us across the city square, in newtons of course. I’ve worked it out. You see if you factor in —’

  ‘I don’t want to know.’

  ‘But the kinetic energy —’

  ‘Shut it, Four! I thought you were badly hurt.’

  ‘Well, I was. I am. My ankle is in agony. Ouch!’

  Nine couldn’t believe it. A sprained ankle, that’s all he had, and she’d dragged him through bullets and bombs at great personal risk. For in fact she was the one in real danger.

  Real danger!

  Nine checked her Simulation Skin again. Dead! Every Battle Agent knew that their Simulation Skin was the main thing standing between them and death. With its mix of organic Kevlar and cloned spider web, the skin-coloured outfit gave them maximum protection from shocks, explosions and bullets. Embedded with micro-chips and nano-computers, it was also a high-tech data-collecting and surveillance unit.

  But BA009’s SimulSkin had been wrecked by the massive explosion. It had saved her life, but its circuits were now burnt out and its protective structure shattered. That left her in battle-battered Stalingrad with zero protection. She could be killed at any moment.

  Nine lay back and closed her eyes, trying to keep calm, trying to force down her fears, shut out the sounds of battle. Not the real battle raging around her now, but the one she would always remember – the Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805. The one in which Admiral Lord Nelson died. The one in which she, herself, almost died, as well.

  The howls of Trafalgar lurked in the muddy parts of her mind like baying hounds. And as she lay in the bomb crater those hounds crawled into her consciousness. Closer. Clearer. Louder.

  Trafalgar had been her last solo operation as Battle Girl 001. Mission Objective: collect the DNA of Admiral Horatio Nelson and record his final words. She had accomplished the mission but her Simulation Skin had malfunctioned at the last minute, just as she had been racing for the Exit Beam.

  As she had run across the quarterdeck of HMS Victory – the Exit Beam only metres away, confusion rampant, men shouting, timbers splitting, sails burning – a cannonball had come hurtling out of the smoke.

  It had thrown her sideways. She had stumbled, fallen, scrambled to her feet again and would’ve kept going. But a twinge in her arm had made her look down. She had stared, stunned, not grasping what her eyes saw.

  Right arm. Half of it gone. Blown away. No hand. No wrist.

  Flesh ripped and shredded. Bone shattered, pieces lying on the deck. Blood spurting, so much blood. And all of it hers. Hers.

  And then the pain; it screamed the loudest of all. Until she had passed out.

  She would have died that day if Professor Perdu hadn’t manually steered the Exit Beam across and sucked her to safety.

  BA009’s eyes sprang open. She stared around at the horrors of Stalingrad. But anything was better than the horrors in her head. She took a deep breath, and another, gulping in the air, reminding herself that she was still alive. She had survived a nightmare at Trafalgar, even if parts of it still stalked her.

  Nine looked at her arm. She’d been given a high-tech prosthetic wrist and hand, expertly designed by Professor Perdu to be indistinguishable from the real thing. After that, everything was hushed up and locked in the professor’s special top secret files. In theory at least, only she and BA009 knew about the matter. It was their little secret.

  All girls should have secrets, 009 mused as she stared down at her special hand. Strangely enough, she’d actually become fond of the thing. It was amazingly strong, with incredible crushing power, and yet it looked real and felt like her own hand. The professor had done a beautiful job.

  ‘What’s up with Five and TEX?’ Four’s voice suddenly shook Nine from her thoughts.

  She glanced across at him and sniggered at the pain on his face. Sprained ankle, ha. Poor little thing.

  ‘They should’ve replied by now,’ he continued, massaging his ankle.

  ‘Maybe they’re in more trouble than we are. They might be hurt really badly.’

  ‘No way. Five’s indestructible.’

  ‘Five is human, just like you and me. All Battle Agents are human. Try not to forget that.’

  ‘Sure, but some are luckier than others.’

  ‘Yeah, and some don’t go charging off without their brains.’

  ‘Is that anger I detect?’

  ‘You bet it is. And I can get a lot angrier.’

  ‘Not good, Nine. Not good at all. A Battle Agent always needs to control their anger. If I were you —’

  ‘If you were me I wouldn’t be in this ditch, jumping at every blast, every bullet.’

  ‘Hey, I’m the wounded one.’

  ‘You’ve sprained your ankle, that’s all. My SimulSkin has crashed. Hear me? Crashed! That puts me on Death Row. I could die in this rotten Battle Book, and all because I was stupid enough to hold your hand while you wandered off into fairy land.’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose you’ve got a point.’

  ‘You suppose I’ve got a point.’ Nine’s fury was about to explode. But she pulled herself back at the last minute. ‘What would you know?’ she said, swallowing her anger.

  She took a few deep breaths, crawled to the edge of the bomb crater and peeped out. ‘It’s quieter over there now. Try Five again.’

  Four tapped on his Battle Watch.

  * * *

  ‘I’ve got them, TEX.’

  BA005 had at last spotted his comrades on the Eyescreen. He zoomed in for a closer inspection.

  ‘They don’t look good.’

  Seconds later, Five’s Battle Watch beeped and 004’s voice crackled faintly from it. The reception was broken by constant static but Five managed to pick up the bad news about Four’s ankle, and then the worse
news about Nine’s SimulSkin.

  ‘What? No body armour,’ he shouted into his Battle Watch. ‘One bullet could finish her off, a stray scrap of shrapnel. Stay where you are. Don’t move. We’ll get you out. I repeat: Do not move.’

  ‘We have to do something,’ he told TEX as soon as Four logged out. ‘But what?’

  His Battle Watch beeped again, and this time Professor Perdu’s face flickered on the screen.

  ‘At last,’ she shouted. ‘I thought I’d lost you all for good.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Five yelled. ‘It’s insane out here.’

  ‘I honestly don’t know, 005. Some sort of interference. I thought it was a Static Storm at first. But now I’m not so certain.’

  ‘Interference? From where?’

  ‘I wish I knew. Anyway, that doesn’t matter right now. I’m pulling you out. It’s far too dangerous. Are the others ready?’

  ‘Um, er, they will be.’

  ‘What do you mean: they will be?’

  ‘Well, they’re not all here right now. Just me and —’

  ‘What? I told you to —’

  ‘I know, but … Four and Nine kind of got separated from me and TEX when the Battle Book blew.’

  Prof groaned. ‘So where are they now?’

  Five gave Professor Perdu the grid references. She entered them and soon had the other Battle Agents up on her screen.

  ‘And there’s one other thing, Prof.’ Five told her about Nine’s SimulSkin.

  Professor Perdu was silent in response, but Five thought he could hear her breathing harder.

  ‘Are you still there, Prof?’ he shouted at his watch.

  ‘Right. This is the plan,’ she replied. ‘Listen carefully. I’m going to position the Exit Beam as close to them as possible. That’ll leave you and TEX with about four hundred metres to cover under fire. Use the ShieldField, of course, don’t waste a second, and be ready to give the others all the cover they need, especially Nine. Understood?’

  ‘Understood,’ BA005 replied.

  ‘Then get on with it.’

  As soon as the professor had faded from Five’s Battle Watch, he turned to TEX. ‘What are you like at the four hundred metres?’