Atlantis Gate

CHAPTER 13

Every human being on the planet, except for those on board aircraft in flight, felt it. It started almost five thousand kilometers inside the Earth, along the transition zone between the solid crystalline core and the molten inner core. The core turned, adjusting to the power coming down from the Nazca fault and in doing so sent P compression waves rippling through the inner core. The solid lower mantle dampened the effect somewhat, as did the upper mantle, but every person in contact with the surface of the planet felt the ground tremble under their feet.

The readings all over the planet were exactly the same, which told shocked scientists the source and foretold of much worse to come. Those same scientists were brought before heads of states and solutions were demanded.

The replies, to say the least, were unsatisfactory, especially given recent events over the Nazca Plain and Chernobyl.

“Do you still have the portal pinpointed?” Dane asked Ahana. He was bone-tired, having flown from the carrier, across Central America and a large part of the Pacific, back to the Devil’s Sea gate. He’d not felt the planet move, but he’d received the reports while in transit. The grim looks on Ahana’s, Marsten’s and Foreman’s faces confirmed what the numbers had reported.

Ahana nodded. “Yes. The probes we sent through are still transmitting.”

“I’m going in.”

“What are you going to do?” Foreman asked.

The Naga staff was leaning against the conference table and a large metal case holding the crystal skulls was on the floor. “I’m going to find Amelia Earhart first,” Dane said. “Then I’ll figure out the next step.”

“Not much of a plan,” Foreman complained.

“When you have a better one, let me know,” Dane said. He turned to Doctor Marsten, who had yet to speak. “Is Rachel ready?”

“Yes.”

“Have you translated any more of the dolphin cries that the Connecticut picked up?”

“As near as I can tell, it’s the same message, repeated over and over again. That’s all Rachel’s given back to me.”

Dane had been thinking about that. “What kind of map are they referring to?” he asked the room.

“It must be a map that shows the connections of the various portals,” Ahana said.

“But even if we get such a map,” Dane said, “how will that help us change the path of the power?”

There was no answer to that question, nor had Dane really expected one. He stood and picked up the Naga staff. “Give me a hand with that,” he asked Foreman, indicating the case with the skulls.

They walked onto the deck of the FLIP. A Deepflight submersible was waiting.

“You sure you want to go alone?” Foreman asked.

“I’m not going alone,” Dane said. He indicated a gray dorsal fin cutting through the water next to the submersible. He climbed down, onto the deck of the craft and stored the staff and skulls inside.

Deepflight was a radical departure from previous submersibles. It was designed more like an airplane than a submarine. It was forty feet long with a wingspan of fifteen feet. The compartment Dane would ride in was a titanium sphere in the very center. Wings with controllable flaps extended out from each side giving the craft excellent maneuverability. Forward of the sphere was a specially designed ‘beak’ that reduced drag when the submersible was moving forward. In the rear were two vertical fins right behind the dual propeller system that complemented the wings for three dimensional flight.

The crew sphere was solid with just two holes in it- one the hatch that screwed out and a second, smaller one that accessed control and command cables. To ‘see’ outside, Dane would use various cameras and radar. Powerful spotlights were bolted all around the craft. Dane paused in the hatch when Ahana spoke.

“There’s something interesting one of the navy people found when they ran a maintenance check on the submersible. It appears as if it passed through both high temperature and a strong radioactive field.”

Dane nodded. “We know some of the portals are hot.” It was one of the confusing aspects of the entire gate-portal system. Some were radioactive and had high temperatures, while others had neither characteristic.

“It had to have happened on the last trip in,” Ahana said.

“And?” Dane was anxious to be going.

“Then how did she get through unscathed?” Ahana was pointing at Rachel.

That gave Dane pause, but it was just one of many things he didn’t understand and didn’t particularly have time to ponder. “I don’t know. Let’s just be grateful that she does.”

He grabbed the hatch. “I will see you when I will see you.” He ducked down into the sphere and swung the hatch close, then began screwing it shut.

Earhart almost collapsed from exhaustion as she put down the man she had carried from the Valkyrie cave. Asper, a US Navy assistant surgeon who had been aboard the USS Cyclops when it ran into the Bermuda Triangle gate in 1918, knelt next to the man.

“How is he?” Earhart asked.

“Seems all right,” Asper said as he examined him. “Shock mostly.”

Earhart had seen it before. New arrivals to the nexus were often so stunned by their abduction that it took a day or two for them to regain their bearings. She noted the man’s clothing.

“US Navy?”

Asper nodded. “Looks like. But not from my time.” He touched the silver eagle on the man’s collar. “A captain.”

Earhart noted something on the man’s chest — an insignia shaped like a dolphin. “What’s that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Curious,” Earhart remembered the dolphin that had accompanied Dane. “I think—” she

paused and turned her head toward the inner sea. “He’s here.” She smiled. “And so is she.” “What?” Asper asked. “Who’s here?” She turned to Taki. “Come.”

The touch of the inner sea’s water on his skin sickened Dane. Everything was slightly wrong with the elements inside the space-between. The air smelled funny, the water felt and tasted strange, and the black soil was unlike anything Dane had ever seen on Earth.

The case containing the skulls was waterproof and he was able to half lay on it as he kicked for shore, Rachel at his side, the Naga Staff in his hand. He’d left Deepflight anchored just outside of the portal he’d come through.

Rachel cut across in front of him, rolling on her side, rubbing against his legs and Dane stopped kicking as a vision flashed into his brain: rows of men in armor, spears leveled, advancing across a plain. Then it was gone.

Dane wasn’t surprised to look up and see Amelia Earhart standing on the shoreline, her samurai guards around her, waiting for him. His feet touched bottom and he walked up to her, carrying staff and case.

“I knew you would come back,” Earhart said. “And we need that,” she added, pointing at

the Naga staff. “For what?” Dane asked, not surprised that she needed it. “To capture some Valkyries with.” “And what do we do with them?” “Take their armor suits.” “And then?” Earhart put her hands on her hips. “I thought you would tell me that.” Dane slowly nodded. “Let’s get the Valkyries first. One step at a time.” She paused. “There’s something else — actually a couple of things.” “Yes?” “My navigator arrived here not long ago.”

“Noonan? I thought you said you saw him die?”

“I did say it and I did see it,” Earhart said. “But he arrived here alive — seriously injured and sick — but alive. His message was that we had to get some Valkyrie armor. And that someone would come with—” she pointed—“a Naga staff to help us do that.”

“Are you sure he died?”

“A kraken punched a tentacle through his chest,” Earhart said. “There’s no evidence of a wound at all on the man here.”

“You don’t think its Noonan?”

“No, it’s him.”

“How can that be?”

“I thought you might tell me.”

Dane didn’t have a clue. “You said there were a couple of things?”

“We also just rescued a couple of castaways — they appear to be from the US Navy, from around your time probably.”

Dane nodded. “We just lost one of the submarines near the Devil’s Sea gate.” As Earhart led the way back toward her camp, Dane filled her in on everything else that had happened since he’d left her and returned to his own world and time. Behind them, Rachel slowly circled, then sprinted off toward the dozen portals visible.

Some places on the planet’s surface were less stable than others. When the core shifted a second, more powerful, time, several of these gave way. The most significant was in the Rift Valley in Africa, the longest continuous land crack on the surface of the planet. Along the six thousand, seven hundred kilometer length of the Great Rift was the lowest land point in the world — the Afar Depression at 510 feet below sea level- and along its flanks were some of the highest and largest volcanoes, including Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa.

From the north, the Rift starts in southern Turkey, running from there to Syria, then splitting Israel from Jordan with the Dead Sea, then along the full length of the Gulf of Aqaba and Red Sea, where it splits going both north and south. The northern branch runs along the Gulf of Aden to the Indian Ocean, separating the Arabian plate from the Indo-Australian plate.

Southwards, it cleaved the eastern half of Africa, forming the Galla Lakes of Ethiopia, into Kenya, where it cut through a place called Kino Sogo, a vast plain of lava sheets that the Rift was tearing apart. From there it continued producing Lake Turkana, then into land so barren no one lived there, which was fortunate given what was coming.

Given fossil discoveries such as that in the Olduvai Gorge, it was widely suspected that human-kind originated in the Rift. As the crystal moved for a second time, it appeared as if it would as be the beginning of the end of mankind.

As the inner Earth shifted below, the entire right side of the Rift Valley, which represented the western edge of the Somali African tectonic plate, dropped a quarter mile in less than fifteen seconds. The drop was destructive enough for those living in those countries from the eastern half of Mozambique to Ethiopia, killing almost a million people straight out as the Earth buckled and spasmed.

Worse followed. The drop put the majority of the land below sea level. The Indian Ocean poured in, creating a thousand mile long waterfall, the likes of which the planet hadn’t seen since the Mediterranean Basin opened to the Atlantic Ocean and began to fill.

Millions more died as the wall of water over eight hundred feet high roared forward, destroying and submerging everything in its path until it smashed up against the mountains forming the left side of the Rift Valley and were now the east coast of Africa.

A tidal wave, nothing compared to the incoming one, headed back out to sea after the collision. It devastated Madagascar, swept over the Seychelles, and deaths would be recorded as far away as India and Australia.

The face of the Earth had been changed in less than a few minutes time.