Enormous natural and manmade energies are instantaneously fused to generate an unnatural incident that propel half of a reconnaissance platoon of the 82nd Airborne Division to the year 1835, just before Santa Ana attacks the Alamo. These time soldiers might, if pushed too far, be forced to pit their twentieth-century technology and tactics against the mass brutality of nineteenth-century warfare. Sergeant Reno Bender must evade or fight Los Tigres, a regiment of mounted lancers, to save his and his men's lives-with only twelve inexperienced men and three M151 jeeps against almost six hundred Tigres of the best-trained and fiercest lancers in the Western Hemisphere led by the narcissistic and very ambitious Colonel Ortega.