The Vostok Revelation

CHAPTER FIVE

Vostok Station, Antarctica. February 24, 2014. 2030 Hours.

Despite a strong push from its port side, Valentina was kept within claws reach of the suspected Nazi antenna as the drone slipped deeper into the dark abyss. Three kilometers above, twenty-nine scientists and engineers clustered around a laptop to witness history being made.

“A weld spot!” a male voice pointed out as an arm shot over her right shoulder.

“The post is widening at .02 centimeters every second the drone descends,” said another male voice, also from over her right shoulder.

The space grew quiet as the drone continued its descent. After twenty seconds the girth of the antenna stabilized at thirty centimeters and a bold white line began to appear across the bottom of the laptop display. Curious, Elena angled the drone’s nose downward five degrees. Fifteen meters away a circular expanse of white sat atop a broader field of white.

“A raised platform? The object stands on a raised platform that is sitting on what appears to be a manufactured base of some sort,” Commander Lebedev stated. “Engineer Babanin, as much as I hate to have to say this, despite what the Russian Academy of Science has instructed, the storm is almost upon us, we cannot stay much longer. I suggest that you circle the drone around the base of the platform. Perhaps we can find some marking to better identify what we are looking at before we must go.”

“Commander, It is obviously a Nazi an-”

“Technician Solovyov! Please try to conduct yourself with less enthusiasm and some degree of scientific objectivity.”

Elena ignored the outburst and did as the Commander requested. She had no desire to spend one more moment on the bottom of the world than she needed to. Using the current, she skillfully avoided looping the drone’s tether around the antenna while examining the platform. One hundred and eighty degrees from where it began, approximately three meters distant from the structure, the drone’s cameras revealed a column of seven capsule-like horizontal indentations flanked by thin elongated U-shaped rails.

“It is a ladder,” Commander Lebedev said in astonishment. “This is man-made. Do you realize what this means?”

“It means we found the Nazi bunker,” Artur said firmly.

“It means we’ve found something man-made, nothing more,” Commander Ledebev’s eyes never left the screen. “Engineer Babanin, we should acquire some wide images of as much of the structure as possible before we depart.”

“I was thinking the same, Commander,” Elena had already leaned her joystick forward, dipping the drone’s nose downward, pressed the back arrow on her keyboard and accelerated. The image on the screen slowly began to pan-out to reveal the entire circular raised platform, several meters of the antenna, and the continually expanding white foundation that the platform rested on. Elena halted the drone progress once the shape of the foundation came into view, a wide convex circle.

“Its flying saucer!” A man shouted from the back of the group and several others vocalized their agreement.

“Meh,” Another male voice chastised. “You and your U.F.O.’s and little green men, Timur. Anyone can see that it is a building. Look at the top of the antenna. That object, the thing that looks like a flower, is a broadcast dish.”

“Yes, it does look like a broadcast dish,” Anton chimed in. “But why would anyone put a radio outpost below three kilo’s of ice? A signal cannot be sent or received from under three kilo’s of ice and water.”

“It is alien technology,” someone blurt out.

“Look, an opening.” Losif pointed to a rectangular black spot on face of the white dome.

“That was not there a moment ago,” Elena told Losif.

“Are you certain?” Commander Lebedev asked.

“No, I am not certain,” Elena admitted. “Perhaps the current turned Valentina and the opening was just off camera. With all of our eyes on the screen it would be hard for all of us to miss a hole in the surface of whatever that is.”

“I tell you it is the base that the Nazis made at the end of World War Two. U-boats were said to have constructed a base beneath Antarctica to store crates of Nazi secrets and to preserve the bodies of Hitler and Ava Braun to revive the Reich in the future.” Artur waited for someone to say something derogatory and grinned when no one did.

“Engineer Babanin, I share in your excitement. This is a truly amazing historical discovery. But we need to leave before the storm grows worse. We must go now.”

“I understand Commander.” Elena began typing in the commands to automate her drone.

“Holy shit!” Anton’s arm shot over her shoulder, his finger demanding attention on the monitor. “It lit-up. I saw it. I saw the light come on. It just came on.”

A numbing exhilaration shot through Elena as she looked on the radiant bluish light spilling out of the opening. A second later, without a word of dissent from anyone in the drill chamber, Elena angled the drone toward the opening and accelerated.

“Four meters to opening,” Losif broke the silence. “Forward sensors show a one degree increase in temperature. Rear sensors are registering a half-degree centigrade increase. The ambient temperature readings from all sensors are steadily climbing as we near the opening.”

“Extending the arm. Powering the claw cameras,” Elena said absently, her entire focus given to maneuvering her drone into the blinding blue light. To prepare for the possibility of discovering the geyser theorized to have created Lake Vostok, she and Losif practiced this blind entry maneuver many times. The drone’s arm would be used to carefully approach the geyser while the small hollowed chambers in the claw would capture sediment to be analyzed and discarded in the micro-laboratory in the drone’s body. In this instance, the blindness inflicted on the cameras from the light should become more manageable, with some compensatory filtering, once the claw carrying the cameras passed into the aureole.

“Less than two meters to opening,” Losif stated dutifully. “The forward sensors are now reading nine degrees Celsius. The claw has just entered the corona. Beginning software filtering.”

Slowly the rectangular shape of the opening returned to the screen. Elena further adjusted the filtering to compensate for the chamber’s resplendent atmosphere. To the astonishment of everyone in the drill chamber, several meters below the drone, on a dais in the center of an expansive room, stood the shimmering effigy of a man.

A cacophony of exclamations filled the drill chamber.

Oblivious to the clamor all about her, Elena tapped a series of keys. The prongs of the claw expanded to their maximum capability and then slowly began to rotate clockwise. Twenty seconds later a half-screen window opened across her display, presenting a virtual representation of the chamber miles below her feet.

“I have a virtual image of the room,” Elena told Commander Lebedev. “I will withdraw Valentina from the opening and begin the cartography so we can depart.”

“Ms. Babanin, this is perhaps the most exciting thing I have ever been part of in my life. To leave at this moment without at least examining that statue would haunt me.”

“But, the storm…”

“…reached the station ten minutes ago,” The Commander blurted out, then raised his voice to add, “At this point there is a level of risk no matter when we leave. If it comes to it, we have more than enough supplies to last two weeks or more without impacting the winter crew.” The Commander turned to face his crew, “Does anyone not want to see what that room is?”

“I want to see Hitler’s statue!” Artur’s words instantly quieted the room, and then added in a calmer tone, “What is a few more days riding out a storm when you can be part of history?”

Taking a breath and holding it, with her heart racing Elena slipped her drone into the chamber.

The vIrAsana, sensing movement outside of the control room for the first time in many millions of years, moved the stations systems out of hibernation and extended its senses to analyze the object.

The Sentinel of Communication Station 108, standing perfectly still on its control platform as it had for two-dozen aeon, commanded the access door closest to the inorganic object to open. The object turned toward the access door but did not approach. The Sentinel commanded the lights on. A moment later the cylindrical object approached the access door, inserted its arm into the control room and began to rotate its solitary claw.

The Sentinel looked on as the inorganic object flitted about the control center. It paused every few meters, moved into the recesses between the exposed support bars to study the console panels and then lingered to examine the light emanating from each of the bars. Lastly, the inorganic object moved directly in front of the Sentinel.

The Sentinel stepped forward, thrust out its left hand and grasped the object by its arm. The object was still for a moment and then began to struggle fiercely, as-if frightened. Sensing that object would damage itself before it could be properly secured, the Sentinel grabbed its body with its right hand, sinking its fingers into the delicate material.

Stunned, Elena Babanin watched as the statue came to life and man-handled her drone. She frantically wiggled the joystick on her keyboard until it snapped off in her hand. She, like everyone else in the room, stared in disbelief as the statue carried Valentina across the chamber and into one of the empty recessed spaces they’d only just explored — only this time the cavity was a solid block of undulating silvery-black material. The statue held the drone forward at arm’s length and pressed it into the silvery-black material. Complete darkness consumed the laptop display.

Three seconds later all readings from the drone ceased. Ten seconds after the readings ceased a massive power surge blew out the lights and all the electronics in the drill chamber. Thirty seconds after the lights went out, while everyone was scrambling blindly to gather portable lighting to evacuate the narrow and cluttered chamber, there was an explosion above them followed by an earthshaking crash.