Devil's Sea

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“How long have you been here?” Dane asked. The shock of meeting the legendary lost explorer had been greater for Shashenka and Ahana than Dane, who and been aboard the lost Scorpion where the crew had not aged a day in over thirty years. He had also seen her plane in the graveyard.

It was apparent that Earhart was in charge of the community of lost souls, which numbered about eighty people. After the initial greetings and excitement, Earhart had led them to one of the narrow caves where they sat on old wooden boxes. A samurai stood guard at the entrance.

Earhart shrugged. “I don’t know. There’s no way of telling time here. Watches don’t work, in case you haven’t noticed. I would guess I’ve been here about a year, but it’s hard to say. They” — she nodded at the group of samurai who had escorted Dane, Shashenka, and Ahana—“think they’ve been here about five years. But they come from thirteenth-century Japan. There are others here” — she indicated the people occupying the caves along the wall—“who come from all different times. From as early as two hundred B.C. to my future, like you. Some people from times earlier than mine arrived here after I did, which I don’t understand, either.

“We think time is a variable here that doesn’t flow in a linear fashion as we are used to,” Ahana tried to explain.

“I do have to say that you’re the first people who ever came here on their own,” Earhart noted. “Can you get back out?”

“We’re working on that,” Dane said. “We have a submarine on the water, but we lost power when we entered the portal. We think we can get out to the portal, and then we hope our people are still keeping our hole in the portal open.”

Earhart nodded. “Nothing works here.” She pointed at Shashenka’s rifle. “Go ahead. Try it. It won’t fire.”

Shashenka frowned and aimed into the air. He pulled the trigger and, as predicted, nothing happened other than the click of the trigger and the firing pin clicking uselessly on the cartridge in the chamber.

“That’s why we use these,” Earhart had a sword in her hand. “The only good thing is that the Valkyries can only use blades also. Our weapons can’t penetrate their armor, but we’ve learned hitting them in the eyes disables them. They pretty much leave us alone as long as we aren’t a nuisance. They do have another weapon that can turn people into stone, but they rarely use it.”

“Where is here?” Ahana asked.

“I’ve been trying to figure that out since I got here,” Earhart said. She described what had happened on her last flight, and Dane realized her experience was similar to what had happened to the Reveille.

“After the large sphere engulfed my plane,” she continued, “I was in darkness. Then there was a blue glow and—”

“Blue?” Dane interrupted her. “Are you sure it was blue?”

“You don’t forget something like that,” Earhart said.

Dane remembered the two different color beams he had seen inside the Angkor gate. Gold seemed to be that used by the Shadow, but blue was that used by the Ones Before.

“I think the craft was automated,” Earhart continued, “because I saw no one. The blue light seemed to point a direction, and I left my plane and followed it. I walked along the inside of the sphere along a flat surface until I reached the outer wall. There was a hatch. I opened it and went inside. There was another hatch in front of me, and I shut the one behind and opened the other one. I didn’t’ know why I was doing this, but felt compelled to.

“When I opened the outer hatch, I was surrounded by the blue light, which was fortunate, because water poured in. The light kept me in a small circle of air, though, and pulled me out of the craft. And then I was here,” she finished simply. “On the beach, half dead. That’s when they found me.” She indicated the people on our side. They all had similar experiences. Entering a fog, being taken by the sphere, being rescued by the blue light.

“We’ve made the best we can of this place. We divert water here. And the soil was gathered before I arrived from smaller deposits into sections large enough for us to grow food. Sometimes an animal from our side comes through, sometimes it’s one of the strange creatures from the other side.”

“Wait a second,” Dane said. “You just said the other side. Isn’t this the other side?”

Earhart shook her head. “You asked me where this was, and I couldn’t tell you, but if you asked me what this place was, I would call it the space in the wall between our world and their world. We’re like rats trapped in the wall. We can see the sphere come through every so often. Sometimes the blue light brings us people. Sometimes the sphere drops people off at the Valkyrie camp, which is about four miles that way,” she pointed. “They work on the people they get there. Experiment on them.”

“How many people?” Shashenka asked.

“Hundreds, maybe thousands. We raided it not long ago and put some of them out of their misery, but the Valkyries droves us off.”

Dane could pick up the small flicker of hope in Shashenka that his brother might still be alive. From the agony he could sense in the direction that Earhart had pointed, he hoped that wasn’t the case.

“So there is another portal inside the water?” Ahana asked. “One that leads to the Shadow’s side?”

“I would assume so,” Earhart said. “There are several portals here. We’ve tried to explore as much as we can, but it’s huge and sometimes seems to even shift shape. I followed the wall that way” — she pointed in the opposite direction from the Valkyrie camp—“for a long time. Probably several days. It curves slightly, but I never completed the circle. I had to return the way I came, as I was running low on food. There might even be other free people over here.”

He thought of his teammate Flaherty and wondered where he was. “Do you have contact with the Ones Before? The ones who use the blue power light?”

Earhart shook her head. “No.”

“Have you tried any of the portals?” Dane asked.

“Some have, they either don’t come back, or they come back with a strange sickness that kills them quickly.”

Dane was tired. All this effort, and all they had done was to get halfway to where they wanted to go.

“This would be a good area to stage an assault,” Shashenka said.

“It is most fascinating,” Ahana said. “This area is most likely a buffer between the laws of physics and the environment on both sides.”

“Can you get us out of here?” Earhart asked Dane.

‘We can take about a dozen people,” he said. ”Then when the rest of our forces come through, they can take out the rest. But first, we have to figure out what good it would do to bring our people here. Since we can’t use modern weapons, and this really isn’t the other side like we had hoped…” He trailed off, confused.

“We’re one step closer to the Shadow’s home,” Ahana said, trying to put a positive spin on things.

“I don’t think—” Dane began, but there was a commotion among the samurai. One came running up to Earhart and rattled off something quickly.

She stood, slipping the sword in its sheath. “More visitors are coming. A man in armor and a woman in robes. They had Ragnarok with them.”

“Ragnarok?” The name sounded familiar to Dane.

“A Viking. He was captured by the Valkyries during our raid on their torture chambers. Come.” She strode toward the gully, Dane and the others right behind.

As they turned the corner into a cross-gully, three people appeared. As Earhart had described, a man and woman were accompanied by a hulking warrior whose hand had been amputated.

“Damn them,” Earhart hissed when she saw Ragnarok’s condition. “They must have probed him and learned it is the greatest insult a Viking can receive before death to not be able to defend himself in Valhalla.”

“How do they know that.” Ahana asked.

“They have ways to getting into people’s heads,” Earhart answered enigmatically.

Earhart greeted the Viking in his language, and he said something to her. Dane could see the other man’s armor dated and placed him to sometime in the middle of the Roman Empire. The woman was less easily placed, but he picked up the same aura from her as he had with Sin Fen. She was a priestess, of that he was certain. He noted the Naga staff in the soldier’s hand.

Earhart said something to the Roman in what Dane recognized as Latin. They conversed, the priestess joining in for several minutes. The Viking had slumped down and was being attended to by one of Earhart’s group.

“Centurion Falco of the XXV Legion and Priestess Kaia from Delphi,” Earhart introduced them. Then she gave their names to the others. “They came through a gate in what I think is southern Russia,” Earhart finally said to Dane, Shashenka, and Ahana.” It caused the eruption at Vesuvius and is threatening the Roman Empire.”

Dane frowned. “But we know our history. We know that gate couldn’t have—”

“No,” Ahana’s voice was sharp. “You cannot think like that. What we are facing may be an attack that spans time. Because we are here, and they are here” — she indicated Falco and Kaia — “there is a connection between their time and ours.”

Dane held his hands up, trying to think. “All right, all right. Hold on for a minute here. They came through a portal inside a gate, right?” he asked Earhart, indicating Falco and Kaia.”

“Yes.”

“And they can go back out that way?”

“They think so, but it will probably take them back to their time. And things are not so good there and then, apparently the legion they came with is surrounded by barbarian forces.”

“Can we stop the power that the Shadow is using to affect the Ring of Fire?” Dane asked Ahana.

“We have to find the portal the power from Chernobyl is being channeled through,” Ahana answered. “It’s the one that we have to destroy.”

‘How do you propose to do that?” Dane asked.

“I don’t know yet,” Ahana answered. “Perhaps Rachel can help you find it?”

Dane could still sense the dolphin’s presence, even though she was a distance away. He closed his eyes.

‘What is he doing?” Earhart asked. “Who is Rachel?”

Dane tuned out Ahana as she explained. Rachel was nervous, he could tell that immediately. She sensed danger closing in all around. The Crab with Loomis was still just offshore, she also had the location of their portal still firmly in mind, and to his relief, it appeared that Nagoya’s plug was still in place. He asked her to see if she could find the portal that was channeling the Shadow’s power.

Dane was completely unaware of the people around him as he immersed himself in Rachel. He had never felt such an experience. It was as if he were inside her head, swimming with her as she dashed through the water, sending out clicks to echo sound.

“She’s found it,” Dane said, slowly opening his eyes. “Not far from our portal.”

“Then we—” Ahana began but she stopped as another samurai came running up, rattling off something.

Earhart cursed. “An army of Valkyries is massing. They are moving to surround us.”

“We need time,” Ahana said. “We have to go back to Nagoya, figure out how to cut the power. Then come back through and do it.”

Falco understood nothing of what was being said except for what the brown-haired woman called Earhart had translated for him. That the people here were from different times he found confusing but not important. He could see the darkness in the man — Dane’s — soul: almost as black as his own. Their time was threatened by the same enemy as his: that was the important thing.

He turned to Kaia, who was also observing auras since she didn’t understand the languages either. “Can you get my men in here?”

Kaia frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You protected us at Thera. Can you protect General Cassius and the men long enough for them to come here?”

She slowly nodded. “Yes, I have seen it. The skull can protect them long enough.”

Falco knew what she meant by long enough. He turned to Earhart and got her attention, quickly explaining his plan to her in Latin. When he was done, she interrupted the others and spoke to them.

The B-1 Bomber did one pass low over the flat plain of snow and ice that served as the landing strip for McMurdo. It had made the flight from the United States at supersonic speed.

Ariana, Miles, and Professor Jordan stood off to the side and watched as the large plane did a long, curving turn and headed back toward them, losing altitude as it came.

“This will be interesting,” Jordan said.

“You must have some pull with the Pentagon,” Miles said as the plane came in long and sleek, it was the model of aerodynamic forms, from an age of warplane construction where speed was considered more important than stealth. Two massive engines were under the body of the plane, just behind the swept wings.

“The Pentagon finally appreciates the threat,” Ariana said.

The B-1 was just fifty feet above the ice, two miles away, and the landing gear had not been lowered. It crept downward toward the surface, and when it was a half-mile away, the bottom of the engines touched down, sending up spume of ice and snow. The plane bounced, was airborne, then was down again.

The sound of metal tearing echoes across the frozen space as the engine intakes scooped into the ice. The plane slowed, then the right engine gave way, and the nose of the bomber turned. Fortunately, the left engine ripped off a scant second later, and the belly of the plane grounded.

The bomber slowed and finally came to a halt a half-mile from their location. Jordan already had the tractor in gear, and they headed toward the aircraft. By the time they arrived, the crew was already outside, standing on the ice looking at their stricken plane.

Ariana jumped out of the tractor, yelling orders. “We need the bombs off-loaded immediately! Put them on the sled.”

The pilot of the B-1 turned toward her. “We had orders to do this, but I don’t understand why. Why couldn’t we have just dropped the damn things wherever you wanted?”

Ariana pointed over the inert metal of the bomber. “Because that’s going to blow any minute now, and where we need to put those bombs you can’t get to from the air. Now move!”

Falco ran behind Kaia, trusting that she could get them back where they came from. He could sense the cold presence of Valkyries all about, but Kaia was weaving a path through gullies that avoided the creatures.

Amelia Earhart signaled for Dane, Ahana and Shashenka to halt as two samurai slowly crept up a ridge to peer ahead. When they turned back and gave her a sign, she indicated for Dane and his companions to follow.

They crept forward, heading toward the inner sea.

“Muonic forces are peaking at Erebus.” Nagoya was looking at the feed being sent to him via satellite from the superkamiokande in Japan. “It’s almost at the level we registered when Iceland was destroyed.”

“The Shadow needed our nukes to destroy Iceland,” Foreman noted.

Nagoya shook his head. “The Shadow needed nuclear weapons to initiate the destruction. Here they will use the pent-up power already in Erebus.”

“Let’s hope Ariana is right,” Foreman said.

“Even if she stops Erebus, the Shadow can shift the power elsewhere,” Nagoya said.

“One thing at a time,” Foreman said. “How long before Erebus goes?”

“Any minute now.”

Ariana staggered as the ground shook and cracks appeared in the ice, accompanied by sharp sounds like cannons going off.

“Here!” Jordan shoved a black box in her hand that had a small video screen and several toggles. They were parked on the Ross Ice Shelf, right next to the base of Mount Erebus. There was a square hole cut in the ice, extending downward over forty feet. The TROC was attached to a crane, two of the B-1 crewmembers working quickly to attach one of the two nuclear bombs they had flown down to the craft.

“This is the remote for TROV. You’ll get video feedback, and the controls are easy. The map of the tube and surrounding area is already in the hard drive. I hope you’re correct about placement.

“Eight years of graduate school should have taught me something,” Ariana tried to joke, but Jordan didn’t crack a smile as he looked up at the slope of Erebus.

The second bomb rested on a small ice sled behind a powerful snowmobile Jordan had appropriated, which had been off-loaded from the tractor’s sled.

“Will you have enough time?” Ariana asked,

“We’ll know soon enough,” Jordan said as he sat on the snowmobile and revved the engine.

“Good luck!” Ariana yelled above the sound.

“You, too,” And then Jordan was off, racing up the slope of the mountain, the bomb right behind.

General Cassius was disgusted with himself. The black wall had moved forward half the distance between its former position and the beginning of the swamp. His flank fortifications had been overrun by the wall, and his men were running out of room.

The barbarians could see what was happening and were waiting on the ridge. The swamp, which was to have been the Romans’ killing ground, would soon be their dying ground.

There were shouts of alarm, and Cassius turned his attention from the barbarians to the wall. Falco and Kaia had appeared and were running toward him.

“It’s been two days!” Cassius exclaimed as they came to a halt right in front of him.

“Two days?” Falco seemed dazed and shook his head as if to clear it. “Sir, we must go into the gate.”

“Liberalius is dead from going into the gate,” Cassius said.

“We aren’t,” Kaia said. “I can protect you and the men. Long enough to do what must be done.”

“What must be done?” Cassius demanded. “What is in there?”

“The enemy” Falco said. “And allies who need time to help us.” He swept his arm, taking in the legion. “We must give them time against the Valkyries.”

Cassius stood silent for several seconds. Kaia began to say something, but Falco raised a hand, indicating for her to wait. Finally, the general nodded. “Centurion,” he said to Falco, “get the men into marching order.”

“Damn it,” Dane cursed. His eyes confirmed what he had sensed. There was a line of white forms stretched across the shoreline, and the black surface of the lake was empty. Loomis must have seen them coming and submerged by manually opening one of the tanks.

“What now?” Ahana asked. “We must get through.”

”I can provide a diversion,” Shashenka offered.

“One man?” Dane shook his head.

“We can go back and wait,” Earhart suggested.

“There’s no time,” Dane said. He could pick up Rachel’s projections. The dolphin was swimming around the power portal, sensing the growing level. The Shadow was making its push.

”I do not have the forces to fight that many Valkyries,” Earhart said. Her people were lined up in the gully behind them, their weapons in hand. “We would be overwhelmed quickly.”

“We have to—” Dane began but paused as the line of Valkyries began moving forward, approaching their position at a steady rate. “Time’s up,” he said.