CHAPTER 28: CAPTAIN LANCE
Salem in 1637 smelled of woodsmoke and paranoia—the witch trials hadn't started yet, but the fear was already here.
The village huddled against the Massachusetts wilderness like a child hiding from shadows. Wooden houses stood in tight rows, their windows dark, their occupants watching everything and everyone. The Puritans had brought their suspicions across the Atlantic and planted them deep in colonial soil.
"Eyes on the ground," Sara murmured through the comm. "We're servants, remember. Invisible."
She'd dressed us in period-appropriate clothing—rough wool, simple cuts, the uniform of people who didn't matter. Sara herself had taken the most elaborate cover: a traveling merchant's wife, respectable enough to ask questions without raising suspicion.
Her first captain's briefing had been different from Rip's theatrical presentations. No historical lectures, no dramatic pauses, no sense that she was performing for an audience. Just facts, plans, and assignments.
The anomaly: someone is accelerating witch trial hysteria fifty-five years early. Method: anachronistic psychology techniques. Objective: identify and neutralize.
Clean. Direct. Competent.
I'd watched her take command and remembered the woman I'd seen on screen in my previous life—the assassin learning to lead, the survivor becoming something more. Watching it happen in person was different. She carried the weight of command like she'd been born to it, even when it was clearly crushing her.
Ray walked beside me as we canvassed the eastern section of the village. His cover was a traveling tradesman's assistant—a role that let him smile at everyone and ask innocent questions without arousing suspicion. Mine was simpler: the servant who carried things and said nothing.
"The fear here is palpable," Ray said quietly. "These people are terrified of each other."
"Puritan theology." I kept my voice low, my posture deferential. "Total depravity doctrine—everyone is inherently sinful. Your neighbor might be damned. Your wife might be a witch. Your children might be vessels for Satan."
"That's... horrifying."
"It's social control through mutual surveillance." My enhanced processing sorted through the psychological dynamics automatically. "Everyone watches everyone else for signs of deviance. No one trusts anyone. Perfect conditions for mass hysteria."
Ray shot me a look—the same concerned expression he'd worn when he'd called out my coldness in that German camp. You're analyzing suffering again instead of feeling it.
He wasn't wrong. But right now, analysis was what we needed.
"There." I nodded toward a house at the edge of the village—larger than the others, with actual glass windows instead of oiled paper. "Someone with resources beyond what 1637 Massachusetts should support."
"Could just be a wealthy family."
"Could be. Let's find out."
We approached the house under pretense of offering services. A woman answered—middle-aged, severe, dressed in the plain style of Puritan respectability but with something wrong about her posture. Too relaxed. Too confident.
Time traveler, my system flagged. The temporal resonance sense I'd developed since Level 3 hummed with recognition. She carried the same out-of-place energy I did.
Ray went into his tradesman routine. I stood back, apparently invisible, and let my interface scan.
[TEMPORAL SIGNATURE DETECTED]
[CLASSIFICATION: 23RD CENTURY HUMAN]
[EQUIPMENT: MINIMAL — CONCEALED TECH UNDER PERIOD CLOTHING]
[THREAT ASSESSMENT: LOW — RESEARCHER, NOT COMBATANT]
A sociologist. Studying mass hysteria by creating it.
I updated Sara through the comm: target identified, location confirmed, threat level minimal.
Her response came back in seconds: "Regroup at the treeline. We approach together."
The confrontation was surgical.
Sara didn't storm in with weapons drawn. She knocked on the door, introduced herself as a fellow traveler who'd noticed the woman's anachronistic posture, and suggested they have a conversation before things got complicated.
The sociologist—Dr. Elena Voss, according to her reluctant introduction—tried to run. Mick blocked the back door. She tried to activate an emergency beacon. Ray disabled it with a precisely calibrated pulse from his suit. She tried to bluff her way out. Sara just waited, patient and immovable, until the woman's options narrowed to cooperation.
"I'm not hurting anyone," Voss insisted. "I'm studying the development of mass psychosis in isolated communities. Pure research."
"By introducing psychological manipulation techniques to accelerate witch trial hysteria?" Sara's voice was calm, but her eyes were hard. "Those techniques were developed by studying the actual Salem trials. You're creating a feedback loop—using knowledge from the future to cause the events that generated that knowledge."
"Temporal recursion. Fascinating, isn't it?"
"It's going to get people killed." Sara leaned forward. "In the original timeline, the Salem trials killed twenty people. If you accelerate the hysteria by decades, in a smaller community with fewer legal safeguards, how many die? Fifty? A hundred? The entire village?"
Voss's academic excitement flickered. "I... the models suggested—"
"Models." Sara cut her off. "You treated history like a lab experiment. These are people, Dr. Voss. Real people who are going to hang their neighbors because you wanted to write a paper."
The confrontation ended without violence. Sara negotiated a deal: Voss would return to her own time, destroy her research on temporal manipulation, and never touch the timeline again. In exchange, the Legends wouldn't report her to whatever 23rd-century authority regulated time travel.
It was more mercy than Voss deserved. Sara gave it anyway.
Leadership, I thought, watching her work. Not just command—actual leadership.
The anomaly resolved cleanly. Timeline stability confirmed. I positioned myself near Voss's abandoned equipment while the team handled logistics.
[TEMPORAL RESIDUE DETECTED]
[ABSORPTION AVAILABLE: 23RD CENTURY RESEARCH TECHNOLOGY]
[ESTIMATED YIELD: +18 ✧, +45 XP]
I placed my hand on the equipment case, felt the familiar pull of absorption, and let the temporal energy flow into my system.
[ABSORPTION COMPLETE: +18 ✧, +45 XP]
[CURRENT XP: 4,520/5,000 TO LEVEL 5]
[CURRENT ✧: 76]
Close. So close I could taste it.
The galley celebration was subdued but genuine.
Mick raised a glass of something that definitely wasn't period-appropriate. Stein offered a toast to "our new captain's first successful command." Jax added something about Sara being "scary competent." Ray smiled and nodded and looked genuinely proud of the team.
Sara sat slightly apart, nursing her own drink, processing the weight of what she'd just done. Not the mission itself—that had been straightforward. But the responsibility. The fact that her decisions now determined whether people lived or died, whether history survived or collapsed.
I understand that weight, I thought. Different scale, different stakes, but the same fundamental pressure.
I approached her with a fresh glass—water, not alcohol. She needed clarity more than numbness right now.
"Good work, Captain."
She accepted the glass without looking up. "You identified the target. Ray disabled the beacon. Mick blocked the exit. Stein provided the historical context that made her realize what she was risking."
"And you led the confrontation. Made the deal. Resolved the situation without violence when violence would have been easier."
"Rip would have arrested her. Turned her over to the Time Masters—" She stopped. "Right. No more Time Masters."
"Which means you get to define what justice looks like for temporal crimes." I sat beside her, keeping my posture casual. "That's a heavier responsibility than just following established protocols."
Sara finally looked at me. Her eyes were tired, but there was something else there—determination, maybe. Or acceptance.
"You're different," she said.
"Different how?"
"Since Rip left. Since the Vanishing Point." She studied my face. "You're more... present. Like you're actually here instead of running calculations in your head."
Careful, my enhanced processing warned. She's probing.
"Near-death experiences change people." Not a lie, technically. I'd had several. "Maybe I'm finally settling into who I'm supposed to be."
"And who's that?"
"Someone who supports the team. Who helps you succeed." I let a small smile show. "Who's genuinely impressed by competent leadership when he sees it."
Sara's eyes narrowed slightly—the assassin's instinct, evaluating sincerity. After a moment, she nodded.
"Alright, Bennett. I'll take the compliment." She raised her glass. "To not getting people killed."
"To not getting people killed."
We drank. Somewhere in my interface, the XP counter ticked steadily toward Level 5.
Forty-eight XP to go. Two missions, maybe less.
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