Battle for Atlantis

CHAPTER TWO

Colonel George Armstrong Custer stared at the blood on his hands in disbelief. There was no pain. He just felt very, very tired. He was aware that someone was walking next to his horse, holding him in the saddle. He looked down and saw his nephew Autie Reed guiding him. There were troopers all about, most mounted, some on foot, all heading up the draw toward higher ground.

That was good, Custer thought. Higher ground was always best.

He could hear firing and screams, but they seemed far away. Where was the village? Were the Indians running? He saw his brother Tom Custer off to his right and slightly ahead. He tried to callout but no words would come. They rode out of the draw and a knoll was ahead. Tom was deploying troopers in a defensive line, facing downslope.

Defensive? Custer thought. That was wrong. They should be attacking. Always attacking. Autie was helping Custer off his horse. Custer tried to stand but his legs were so weak, he sank to the ground. He was surprised when Autie pulled a pistol and shot his horse — his favorite steed. Why did he do that? Custer wondered as the horse collapsed next to him. Autie helped Custer to a seated position, with his back against the dead animal. He drew Custer’s pistol and placed it in his hand. Custer could barely hold on to it. He tried to ask Autie what was going on, why were they on the defensive, but no words would come and his nephew turned his attention outward, pistol at the ready. There was blood on Autie’s face. How had that happened?

Then Custer saw beyond the perimeter. Hundreds of Indians coming forward, up the draw like wolves to a downed buffalo calf. They were firing rifles and bows. A trooper trying to escape was swarmed by the wave of hostiles, disappearing. This couldn’t be, Custer thought. It just simply couldn’t be happening. Not to his regiment. Not to the Seventh.

Mitch Bouyer and Lieutenant Weir, with D Company behind them, reached a high point where they could see to the north.

“Oh my God,” Weir whispered.

A small knot of soldiers were holding a perimeter about a mile away on a hill. And all around were Indians. At least a thousand, Bouyer estimated. And the Indians weren’t charging, but holding back, pouring lead and arrow at the soldiers.

“We can’t … “ Weir didn’t finish the obvious.

Bouyer understood, but he also knew he didn’t have the luxury of choice. He had three skulls. He’d had to pad the satchels with his blanket to keep them from burning his horse. They’d been growing hotter with each passing minute mirroring the intensity of the battle.

Bouyer kicked his spurs into his horse’s side and headed forward.

Weir wheeled his horse and pointed back the way they had come. His troop needed no urging. D Company raced back to the bluff that held the survivors of Reno’s command.

Crazy Horse rode around to the left, two hundred of his mounted warriors following, putting the firing to his right. He knew the terrain and knew where the battle was taking place. He also knew that the other tribes would attack head on.

This was the great battle that his mother had foretold.

He and his warriors galloped along a draw, out of sight. Crazy Horse could sense the anxiety among his men, their desire to ride straight toward the shooting and join in the battle. But they followed his lead.

Gall strode back and forth along the front edge of the Indian line, holding them back from charging directly into the white men’s guns. It was difficult, but his size and stature brought grudging obedience. They lay down in the waist high grass, along the edge of the coulees that flanked the hill on which the white men had set up their perimeter.

Gall had warriors with rifles move forward so they could see. He directed those with bows back; out of direct sight, and had them fire up into the air, their arrows arching.over and down into the whites. Gall had his hatchet in one hand, the satchel from the Sun Dance in the other. Inside of it was a crystal skull.

Autie placed something in Custer’s lap. A leather satchel. With something hot inside. That woke Custer from his blood-drained stupor. He blinked, looking about. Arrows were coming down, almost as heavily as a summer squall. Some men had pulled saddles over their backs as they lay prone, firing. The ground was littered with arrow shafts like stalks of prairie grass.

Custer saw that the damned Springfield rifles were jamming as cartridges expanded in the heat of the chamber. One trooper, fifteen yards in front of the main line of the perimeter was on his knees, knife in hand trying to extract a round. Several braves saw this and charged forward. The man grabbed the barrel of his Springfield and jumped to his feet, swinging it like a madman. He knocked two of the braves to the ground before he was overwhelmed by the others.

Custer tried to lift his hand holding the revolver but he couldn’t do it. Where was Tom? And Autie? And Boston? And Calhoun? His family1 Someone came rushing up on the left and Custer twisted his neck. Tom. Bleeding from a wound in his chest.

“George — ” Whatever he’d been about to say was cut off as an arrow punched in one side of his neck and out the other with a gush of blood. Tom’s hands grabbed for the shaft as arterial blood spurted for several seconds. A bullet cut short that attempt, hitting Tom Custer in the side of his head, splattering his brother with his brains.

Custer could only stare in horror.

A soldier came galloping madly toward Bouyer, leaning as far forward on his horse as possible. It took Bouyer a second to realize why the man was in this uncomfortable and unusual position — he was trying to minimize his back as a target for the dozen braves on ponies chasing him.

Bouyer pulled back on the reins, halting. As the man raced past a bullet caught him in the shoulder, tumbling him from the horse. The man scrambled to his feet, looking about wildly. He saw Bouyer and raised his hands in supplication.

Bouyer forced himself to be still as the braves raced up, two jumping off their ponies. One of them smashed the back of the soldier’s skull in with a stone-headed club. The other braves circled Bouyer, weapons held menacingly. Bouyer pulled one of the crystal skulls out of its wrapping. It glowed bright blue and was so hot, he could feel it sear his flesh, but he held it high.

The warriors pulled back, even the two who had been · in the process of scalping the soldier. Then they were startled as a second glowing skull held high appeared over a rise to the west. And the hand holding it belonged to Sitting Bull.

“Powerful magic!” Sitting Bull cried out in Lakota.

“Yes,” Bouyer agreed.

Sitting Bull turned to the left. Just over the next rise lay the battlefield. They could hear the firing falling off from the crescendo it had been. Bouyer knew the end was close.

“We go?” Sitting Bull inclined his head toward the rise.

Bouyer nodded and put the stirrups to his horse. Skulls in hand the two rode toward the rise.

An arrow slammed into Custer’s left thigh, piercing through flesh and muscle into the ground beneath. He didn’t feel any pain. He didn’t feel the burning heat from the satchel Autie had placed in his lap. All he felt was in his mind, disbelief and shock about what was going on all around him.

Gall saw Sitting Bull and the strange half-breed from the Sun Dance appear to the south, both holding up glowing skulls. He signaled, indicating for the warriors not to attack the half-breed. Then he reached into his satchel and grabbed hold of the hot skull. He almost laughed at the pain. The Sun Dance had prepared him for this. He held the glowing skull aloft and moved forward.

Buffalo Calf Woman slammed an awl into a dead soldier’s left ear. Pulled it out, and then jammed it into the right, piercing the eardrum. He should not hear in the afterworld. Because he had not heard clearly in this world. Not heard the Great Spirit warning the whites to leave the People in peace.

She looked up and saw mighty Gall striding forward, glowing blue object in his hand. She opened the satchel she’d taken from the blue-coat. She blinked at the bright blue glow, and then reached in. She grabbed bold with both hands and held it aloft. Then she headed in the direction Gall was going.

The boy who had shot Custer as he tried to cross Little Bighorn, Walks Alone, saw Gall and Buffalo Calf Woman. Where was Crazy Horse? He wondered, as he pulled out the skull the great warrior had given him. He stood up, ignoring the warnings from the braves around to stay down. There were still soldiers alive on the bill, firing.

None would hit him, Walks Alone knew. He headed up the hill.

Two Moons notched an arrow and fired it high into the sky. firing a second before the first impacted. He paused as he noted the people moving forward with the skulls. He put down his bow and opened the satchel he’d taken from Bloody Knife. He removed the skull, gasping as it burned his flesh, and moved forward.

Crazy Horse turned to the south. Toward the firing. His warriors spread out on either side. He could hold them back no longer. Their vengeance against those who had invaded their land, killed their families, brought disease and death, was unstoppable now.

Crazy Horse reached into the satchel tied to his pony and pulled out the talisman given by his “brother.” He kicked his pony in the side and raced forward.

Sitting Bull halted, fifty yards short of the last stand being mounted by the whites. He could see the Son of the Morning Star, still alive but wounded in several places, leaning back against the saddle of a dead horse.

Bouyer saw Custer also. He stopped next to Sitting Bull as Buffalo Calf Woman and Walks Alone joined them. The skulls seemed to sense each other’s presence, their glow becoming brighter, unbearable to gaze on directly.

And then Crazy Horse and three hundred warriors crested the hill behind the last stand and swept down.

The dolphin Rachel leapt out of the dark water and landed with a splash directly in front of Eric Dane and Amelia Earhart. The Space Between was the name Earhart had given to this strange place — a transit point for the portals between parallel Earth timelines and time itself, consisting of a circle of black land surrounding the Inner Sea which they were on, enclosed inside what appeared to be a massive semicircular cavern.

“Let’s go,” Dane said. He didn’t wait for a reply as he moved forward in the Valkyrie suit, floating ten feet above · the water, following Rachel’s dorsal fin. The dolphin paused, arched her back so she could see that they were following, and then continued ahead. They were both ensconced in the hard, white suits that they’d stolen from the Shadow’s emissaries.

Dane saw their destination. A narrow portal column, streaked with red, flickering to solid black, then gray with red, then black, still filled with the red lines.

“That’s not a locked-in portal,” Earhart said.

Dane didn’t respond. He moved forward, hit the portal and disappeared.

Earhart followed.

“Angels,” Custer whispered. “Come to rescue” me.” He dropped the pistol he couldn’t fire and reached up with · both hands toward the white figures that had just appeared in front of him. All around the dying colonel were the dying remnants of half of the Seventh Cavalry.

Dane saw the massacre all around as a wave of several hundred warriors washed over the vestiges of Custer’s command. But all veered away from the strange vision of · he and Amelia Earhart in the Valkyrie suits and Custer nearby with a glowing skull in his lap.

Dane slowly turned and saw a handful of people approaching, glowing blue skulls held in their hands. He raised his white arms wide, welcoming them, spreading · out the metal net he had taken from the sphere.

The screams of the last dying soldiers echoed in his ears. He didn’t want to believe he’d become jaded to death; he wanted to believe that this battle had been inevitable anyway and he was here to cull something good out of a futile massacre.

Sitting Bull walked up and dropped the glowing skull into the net. Then Buffalo Calf Woman. Walks Alone. Crazy Horse. Gall. Two Moons. And then Mitch Bouyer with two skulls.

Eight.

“Eric.”

Dane had almost forgotten Earhart was with him. He turned.

George Armstrong Custer was looking at him. His face Was pale, his body wounded in several places.

“The ninth,” Earhart said. Custer was the only one of · his command left alive. And on his lap was the ninth skull.

Dane felt Custer’s shock and confusion. ‘’Take it,” he ordered Earhart.

With a clawed hand she reached down and lifted the skull from Custer’s lap. Dane wanted to say something to those around, but he knew the portal might not last. He turned to it, hit the blackness and disappeared.

Behind him Amelia Earhart hesitated. Her thoughts and feelings were jumbled. She saw her lines in Bouyer’s face. Her son, but not her son. Standing on a hillside littered with bodies. He was half of one people, half of the other. What would happen to him, she wondered? He didn’t even know who she was.

The portal flickered and she entered it.

Dane Went directly to the sphere’s power room carrying the skulls.

Earhart took her place in the control room, entering the command Pod. There was no need for them to talk, to discuss what came next.

Staying in the Valkyrie snit, Dane removed the nine glowing skulls and placed them in the alcoves that were on the same level as the portal map. When he was done, he went to the center and exited the suit; The power flowing in from the skulls was intense, much stronger than What he had just experienced from the crew of the doomed submarine Nautilus from another Earth timeline who had given their lives to get him this far. He let his hands flow among the portal strands, letting his own timeline attract them with its draw.

His hands wrapped around a strand that felt familiar in a way he couldn’t explain. Then he realized he’d touched this one before, when he’d cut off the portal the Shadow had been using to drain power from his world, this sphere had come through.

“I’ve got power,” Earhart said. “I see the portal. It’s big enough. You’re sure it’s the one back to your timeline?”

“I’m not sure of anything,” Dane said. “But, yes, this is the one.”

The sphere bit the portal, rocked, bounced and then Dane almost fell off the pedestal as the craft canted hard right.

“Whoa!” Earhart called out. “I’ve got it.” The floor leveled. “Deploying panels and releasing the ozone.”

On board the FLIP, Foreman, Dane’s CIA boss, was one of the first to get the reports of the massive sphere reappearing. A dozen military and research aircraft from various countries were within range of the craft and they immediately vectored in.

“What are we going to do about the radiation?” Dane asked.

“We’re heading north now,” Earhart reported. “You just keep the power coming. I’ll take care of it. We’ve discharged all the ozone we picked up. And keep that gate open.”

At McMurdo Station in Antarctica the surviving scientists couldn’t believe the data their instruments were recording. It wasn’t just a reprieve for them; it was a reversal of the damage to the ozone layer that had been done for decades previously. The Shadow’s attempt to destroy this Earth timeline by completely stripping the atmosphere of ozone had failed.

Moscow was a ghost town, millions having fled the inevitable wave of radiation from Chernobyl being born by the winds. The front edge had passed through the suburbs and now threatened the city itself. A handful of dedicated soldiers stayed at their stations, manning the nuclear launch control center, the air defense monitoring station, and other key facilities, which had NBC protection capability. They would stay there as long as they could remain buttoned up and survive.

The air defense monitoring station was the first to pick up the image of the sphere as it approached from the south. The size of the image was so overwhelming the general in charge had no idea what to do.

Earhart brought the sphere and its miles of deployed panels down to a level where they wouldn’t hit the highest object. “How’s the power?”

Dane looked at the nine skulls. Five had already gone blank, while four still glowed. “We’re under fifty percent.”

“Damn.” Earhart knew the controls of this ship. It was Something she hadn’t wanted to discuss with Dane because she didn’t know how she knew. Whether the Ones Before had planted the knowledge in her somehow or, more darkly, she had piloted this craft sometime in the past and didn’t remember, she had no idea.

She pushed a button to her extreme left.

The panels crackled with energy, drawing the radiation in the air toward them. the sphere and panels swept through the sky above Russia in long, fast S-turns, cleaning the air of death, heading toward Chernobyl, which the Shadow had completely destroyed after draining all the reactor cores of their power.

“We’re getting hot inside the cargo bay,” Earhart informed Dane.

“We don’t have much power left,” Dane replied. “How much longer?”

“I think we got it,” Earhart said, checking the displays. “Most of it at least. I’m heading back toward the portal and bringing in the panels so we can go faster.”

As the sphere accelerated, the panels began folding on themselves.

Eight of the skulls had been drained of the energy put into them at such cost. Only one still glowed. Dane was staring at it as if he could keep the power flowing from it with simply his will. Perhaps he could, he suddenly realized. He was one of the chosen. He realized he had the power if he was willing to make the sacrifice.

He had asked others to make sacrifices.

“Eric.”

He lifted one hand out of the portal map and extended it toward the line of blue power that flowed from the skull to the map.

“Damn it, Dane. We’re almost there. What are you doing?”

He put his hand into the flow. His head snapped back as if he’d been shot in the forehead. He was only kept from falling by his one hand still gripping the portal end of his Earth timeline.

The sphere hit the portal with a jar that knocked Dane to the other side, pulling his hand out of the power flow. Unconscious, he let go of the portal map and collapsed to the floor.

“We made it,” Earhart’s voice echoed inside the Valkyrie suit. “Dane? Eric, are you there?”

There was firing to the south, where Reno and Benteen’s troops were dug in on top of a knoll. They didn’t have access to water and Sitting Bull knew it would only be a matter of a couple of days before they became dehydrated and desperate.

They were not his immediate concern. He looked over the battlefield strewn with the dead blue-coats and crowded with his people. All had gathered round, staring up at him. The two ghosts had just disappeared into the black with the glowing skulls. Such a thing none here had ever seen, and all knew they had witnessed powerful medicine.

For the first time in his life, Sitting Bull was at a loss for words. He could see Crazy Horse and the strange half-breed who had brought the skulls whispering together.

“My people-” Sitting Bull began, but he still could not summon the words that had always flowed so easily. Thus he gave way when Crazy Horse surprisingly came forward. The one who never spoke in front of groups. Who let his actions speak.

Crazy Horse stood next to Sitting Bull looking around at the thousand faces looking back. Warriors, squaws, children. Many covered in white man’s blood. He too heard the shooting to the south where warriors kept the other blue-coats trapped. This was a great victory indeed, but — yes. Even Crazy Horse could finally accept the but — they had destroyed only half of the Seventh Cavalry. And there was another column of blue-coats coming from the north with even more men than Custer had. And there were more, an ocean of soldiers to the east ready to sweep west. For the first time in his life, Crazy Horse saw the truth, the reality.

“What happened today,” Crazy Horse said, his powerful voice easily carrying over the crowd, “the magic you have witnessed, must never be spoken of. Even among us. And you would be Wise not to speak of this battle at all to the whites. For they will come thirsting for vengeance for the Son of the Morning Star and the others who lie here.” He swallowed, looked at his “brother” who met his gaze steadily, then continued. “We must leave. Separate and go our own ways. And make peace with the whites when they offer it.”

There were no cries of dissent. The magic all had witnessed had been too powerful, too full of portent.

“If we continue to fight,” Crazy Horse continued, “we will all die. We will become as extinct as the great buffalo. We used to see the plains covered with them as far as the eye could reach. They would pass by our encampments for days on end. Now we must search long and hard for a small group. If we continue to fight we too will come to an end.”

He waved toward the west. “Go. Separate. Hide from the whites. And when they offer peace, take it. It is not a good thing. It is not what I or you would want. But it is what will happen.”

Crazy Horse walked down. Past the horse against which Custer lay dead, up to his “brother.” “Go in peace. Talk to the white chiefs. Tell them it is over.”

Earhart floated into the power chamber which was lit only?~ a dim gold glow from the portal map. She saw Dane lying at the base of the portal pedestal. “Eric?”

Dane slowly opened his eyes.

“Are you all right?”

Dane nodded, grimacing with pain. “We must take the fight to the Shadow.”

“How do we do that?”

“First, we find the Ones Before.” Before Earhart could ask the same question, Dane continued. “I sensed something in the portal. I think I can get us to them.”

“And then?”

“We find out the truth about this war and who the Shadow is. And we end the war and the Shadow.”