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March 15, 2515-June 1, 2515: T-SALT held in New York City Mensinger appears before the representatives at the sessions and petitions for an end to the Time Wars A ceasefire resolution is fra the er leaves the T-SALT a broken man

Noveer experiences total nervous collapse shortly after being awarded the Benford Prize

Deceer commits suicide Violent deue

January 1, 2517: Militant ether to forue, dedicated to the complete destruction of the war machine They announce their presence to the world by assassinating threethe Council of Nationsseveral heads of state and injuring many others

September 17, 2613: Formation of the First Division of the US Ar the successful co the first serious threat of a tined exclusively to deal with threats to tenated as "the Time Commandos"

October 10, 2615: Temporal physicist Dr Robert Darkness disappears without a trace shortly after turning over to the arrenade," a co a secret research installation somewhere off Earth, Darkness experiments with temporal translocation based on the transmutation principle He experi his own body into tachyons, but an error in his calculations causes an irreversible change in his sub-

ato it unstable Darkness becoht"

November 3, 2620: The chronoplate is superceded by the temporal transponder Dubbed the "warp disc," the teun by Dr Darkness and it drew on power tapped by Einstein-Rosen Generators (developed by Bell Laboratories in 2545) bridging to neutron stars

March 15, 2625: The Temporal Crisis: The discovery of an alternate universe following an unsuccessful invasion by troops of the Special Operations Group, counterparts of the Time Commandos Whether as a result of chronophysical instability caused by clocking trees or the cumulative effect of teruence with our own, causing an instability in the ti in a "confluence effect," wherein the time-streams of both universes ripple and occasionally intersect, creating "confluence points" where a crossover from one universe to another becomes possible

Massive aes has resulted in unintentional "warp bo untold destruction The Time Wars escalate into a temporal war between two universes

PROLOGUE

The creature slept standing up, its head lowered, the upper half of its co was deep and regular Technicians had attached sensors to various portions of its body and a robot scanner was co run of the creature's torso A civilian veterinarian had been called in to consult with the team of army doctors The atmosphere inside the lab was one of tense, barely restrained excitement It was the first time anyone had ever seen a real live centaur

From the waist up, it was an extre, thick, manelike white hair-pure, albino white The centaur's skin had an alabaster sheen and the pupils of its eyes were a deep red From the waist down, it was a snowy Arabian stallion, only with tufted hoofs, like a Percheron's Itsa sense of explosive power Its equine torso was over eighteen hands high, tall for a horse, but above its animal torso was the upper body of a man, a man arfed the people in the laboratory The are, the shoulders broad and powerful The sto looking creature, yet theabout it was its most human feature-its face It was the bearded face of an ancient, scored by ti flesh The features were lined, but fire that an old ht convey

Finn Delaney shook his head slowly in aues looked as if they had been slept in In fact, he had been asleep when the call came and his thick, dark red hair was still in a state of disarray, but his eyes, bleary with drink froht, had cleared instantly when he beheld the centaur

"It's grotesque, yet at the same time, beautiful," said Andre Cross Unlike Delaney, who had a cavalier disdain for such trifles as reveille, she needed little sleep and was an early riser By the time first call had blown at six a iron for two hours Her straw blonde hair was still damp from her shower She stared onder at the centaur "I can hardly believe it's real"

Moses Forrester grunted "My sentiments exactly What's your impression, Dr Anderson?"

The veterinarian could barely contain hi like it! This is an aanism! It has two hearts! One in the huans are incredibly strong The perforhbred's and its human heart is in better condition than a marathon runner's I estimate this creature is at least ninety years old, yet despite its age, there is no evidence of cardiovascular degeneration at all, no signs of atherosclerosis, no calcification whatsoever Its circulation is tremendous