The ELI Event B007R5LTNS

have already used the relocator once today. With the Federals almost certainly tracking our location by its temporal disruption frequencies, we probably should not use it again at all, and we absolutely cannot risk using it twice in rapid succession. I believe a simultaneous relocation is our only hope of retrieving our weary travelers.”
    Lucinda considered this. “The calculations will be extraordinarily complex. Not only must we target their individual callback units and relocate both subjects on the same carrier signal, we must relocate them to slightly different spatial positions in the transmission chamber, exactly and precisely. It will be crowded, to say the least.”
    “Correct. And,” Pan-Li added somberly, “we must do so without conflating the transmission streams. If that happens, I… I dare not contemplate the result.”
    Lucinda’s hand involuntarily flew to her mouth, horrific, gruesome visions forcing themselves upon her mind’s eye. “Oh dear,” she whispered. “Oh dear, no, that mustn’t happen.”
    “Let us ensure that it does not.” Pan-Li took his seat at the control console and motioned for Lucinda to do the same. “Shall we begin?”

    * * *

    “Nothing, sir,” Jalin reported. “No new temporal displacement signatures anywhere in the region. I can still see residual interference from the ones we detected at HQ, but now it’s hardly more than background radiation.”
    “Damn. Continue scanning.”
    “Sir.”
    They had flown about for over four hours now, methodically traversing section by section the general area from which the previous temporal disruption waves had originated, sending their scanning beacon deep into the earth where, they were certain, the rogue laboratory was hidden. Four hours of staring at the console screen, tweaking, adjusting, fine-tuning the beacon’s parameters to pick up any signal, however faint and at whatever wavelength, from the dissidents’ relocator.
    Nothing.
    Jalin was losing her confidence. She was about to admit defeat, at least to herself, when all her meters went red.
    “Whoa! Spike!” she shouted. “Displacement signature at three forty-seven mark two by two eighty-one mark eight.”
    Sazar leapt to the console. “Hold that signal!” he ordered. “How’s the strength?”
    “Off the scale, sir. It’s deep, perhaps fifty meters, but steady and solid. We must be within a few clicks of their relocator.”
    “Shall I ready the pulse cannons, Squad Leader?” Kuvak asked, his fingers poised over the weapons controls.
    “No. No, I think not,” Sazar replied confidently. “I have a better idea. We have the element of surprise, and there’s no benefit in terminating the fugitives and destroying the facility. From such an action we learn nothing. Instead, we need only find the entrance, breach it, and capture both the scientists and their equipment in one sweep. Then we can interrogate the criminals and confiscate the illegal temporal locator.” He turned to Jalin. “Can you locate the laboratory’s entrance?”
    “I think so, sir. I can narrow the scanner beacon’s field to focus on the displacement sig’s wavelength and then scan for surface leakage. That should pinpoint the main entrance to the facility. But it will take a few minutes. Do we have time?”
    “They’ve already powered up,” Sazar reasoned aloud, “and a normal displacement, from location to locking to initiation to retrieval, should take four, perhaps five minutes. More if they’re relocating multiple subjects in sequence, more still if they have to reset the location coordinates between jumps.” He looked at Jalin. “You tell me.”
    Jalin’s bravado was back. She grinned and immediately turned to her console and started punching in the new parameters. “Their asses are ours. Leave it to me, sir.”
    “Troopers!” Sazar barked to the rest of the squad. “Gear up! Ready to deploy immediately upon landing!”
    “Yes, sir!” they replied in unison as they donned their protective equipment and checked their pulse rifles.
    Sazar reached for his own combat gear, pulled on the heavy vest and helmet as he watched Jalin work furiously to refine the scan. He looked out the front viewport at the barren, rolling landscape and grinned beneath his visor. “Come to Papa, you bastards.”

    * * *

    “I believe I have a lock, Pan-Li. Two arm units and subjects acquired, approximately one-half meter apart, not far from their original drop