Both were startled when the brave let out a yell and dashed forward, hatchet raised. Bouyer was so shocked he even paused in his loading, but not Bridger. The old man was Priming his weapon quickly but carefully. The white figure, .till moving, had raised both arms, claws extended, accelerating toward the charging brave, moving out of the forward edge of the fog. The two were fewer than five feet apart when Bridger fired. The ball passed just over the brave’s left shoulder and hit the creature’s right eye, smashing through.
The brave skidded to a halt. Swinging his hatchet at the other eye. It bounced off harmlessly. The fog enveloped both the brave and the creature.
“Crazy Horse!” The woman’s voice echoed into the darkness.
The brave stood still for a moment, his figure slowly fading from view in the fog, then Crazy Horse slowly backed up, hatchet at the ready. The fog stopped and Crazy Horse came out of it as Bouyer brought his musket to his shoulder, at the ready. He couldn’t see the first two creatures, as the fog had swallowed them. The third wasn’t moving, black smoke seeping from the hole in its right “eye.”
Bouyer fired as another creature swooped in from the right toward the damaged one. His bullet hit the left side of its “head” and ricocheted off, causing no apparent damage. This latest creature swept up the damaged one with one taloned hand and disappeared into the haze.
Slowly the fog began to dissipate, but that didn’t stop Bouyer from quickly reloading. Bridger had taught him never to have an empty rifle in his hands.
“It’s been a long time,” the woman said to Bridger.
The mountain man was watching the fog disappear, weapon at the ready. “I’m here like you wanted. With the boy.” As the fog disappeared completely, he turned to her. “And I see you brought his brother.”
Bouyer could feel both the connection to the warrior and the hate that rode over it.
“Very courageous charge,” Bridger commented in Lakota, “but not very smart.”
“A coward stands at a distance and fights his enemies,” Crazy Horse said.
Bridger chuckled. “A smart warrior uses the best weapons available.”
Crazy Horse spit at the ground to indicate what he thought of that.
The woman stepped between the three men. ‘’My name is Amelia Earhart.”
Bridger made the sign for peace to Crazy Horse, who ignored him. Bouyer did the same, but again, the sign had no effect on the warrior. Bouyer studied Crazy Horse. The war· nor was physically impressive, with broad shoulders and a noble face, marred only by the anger that consumed it. His skin was surprisingly light for a Sioux. A very dangerous man, Bouyer realized, and one full of rage.
“And your name?” the woman asked, startling Bouyer out of his examination. She was staring at him intently, which made him shift his feet m discomfort, unused to such attention.
“Mitch Bouyer.”
Bridger put the stock of his Hawkins rifle on the ground and leaned on the long rifle. He looked from one young man to the other. “Not much resemblance.”
Crazy Horse spoke for the first time. “’That is because we are not brothers.”
Earhart reached out and placed a hand over the one Bridger had on his rifle. “I must speak to the young ones alone. I must talk to them of their destiny.” She removed her hand.
Bridger picked up the rifle and moved off. upslope to an over watch position. The woman slowly sat down on a log, then indicated for Bouyer and Crazy Horse to sit in front of her. They did so, Crazy Horse angling himself so that both Earhart and Bouyer were in front of him.
“You were born out of the same mother,” Earhart said. “You were connected at birth, and you will be connected in death.”
“He is not my brother.” Crazy Horse said it flatly, slapping his open palm onto the flat side of his hatchet blade to emphasize the point “He is not of the Lakota. He is white.”
“So you can see with your eyes if you wish,” Earhart said as she leaned forward and pointed one hand toward Crazy Horse’s face. “Do you see that he has two hands? Two feet? Two eyes? That he is a man just like you?”
“He is not like me,” Crazy Horse argued. “He has blue eyes and pale skin, and his heart is not like mine.”
“That is where you are most wrong.” Earhart said. “Your hearts are more alike than you can imagine.”
“Why have you summoned him,” Crazy Horse demanded, “and brought me here?”
“I have been shown things and heard the voices,” Earhart said.
Crazy Horse interrupted her. “What were those things in white?”
“Servants of the Shadow.” Earhart said. She held up her hand as Crazy Horse opened his mouth to speak again. “You must listen. You and your brother will meet in a great battle and a victory.”
It made no sense to Bouyer. But he said nothing, listening as Bridger had taught him.
“That is the prophecy my mother gave me,” Crazy Horse said. “Which she received from. You. But I do not accept it as my fate. I do not accept the end of our way of life for my people.”
“It doesn’t matter whether you accept it or not,” Earhart said. “It is what will happen.”
“Not if I don’t allow it to,” Crazy Horse argued, which brought a slight smile to Earhart’s lips.
“Do not laugh at me, woman,” Crazy Horse spit out. “I do not have to lead anyone into battle. I can ride away.”
“And be called a coward?” Earhart asked.
Crazy Horse leapt to his feet, hatchet raised. Bouyer was up as quickly, his Hawkins rifle half aimed toward the warrior.
“Sit down!” Earhart snapped.
Surprisingly, both young men reclaimed their position on the ground.
“I have only been shown so much,” Earhart said. “I have been told by the voices that when enough men come together in a desperate situation they can achieve that which cannot be achieved any other way.”
Seeing the looks on both men’s faces, Earhart tried to explain as much as she knew. ‘’There are pathways, gates, that lead from one place to another. Paths you cannot see, and gates that only open at certain times.” She looked at Crazy Horse. “You just traveled through one of the gates. Will you deny that?”
Reluctantly, Crazy Horse shook his head.
“Will you deny there were strange creatures in the darkness?” She pressed. “Creatures you have never seen before?”
I have not been everywhere,” Crazy Horse argued without much conviction.
“The two of you have some power,” Earhart continued. “Combining that power with that of others in a battle. You can do that which needs to be done. Along with this.” Earhart reached into her bag and brought out a crystal skull. She extended it toward Bouyer. Who carefully took it. He was surprised how heavy it was.
“What is this?” Bouyer asked.
“It will channel the power. Use it carefully at the right time.”
“And how will I know when that is?” Bouyer asked.
“You will know it when it happens.”
Bouyer caught Crazy Horse’s look, and he felt a flickering kinship with his ‘’brother.’’ That feeling was gone in a second as Crazy Horse stood.
“Your words are those medicine men use when they do not know the truth and seek to confuse the stupid with many words.”
“But you are not stupid, are you?” Earhart asked.
Crazy Horse stared down at her for a few moments before gesturing at Bouyer. “If he will know it when it happens, then I will know it, too. But do not count on it to be what you want, woman. Until then I will go my own way.” Crazy Horse walked off into the darkness and disappeared.
Earhart stood. She looked down on Bouyer, who was turning the crystal skull to and fro in his hands. She switched to English. ‘There will be more.”
“More?”
‘’More visits, more signs, more parts. I hope you can keep your mind open, unlike your brother.” Then she turned to walk away.
“Where are you going?” Bouyer aske
d.
“Back where I came from,” Earhart said.
“Will I see you again?”
“I don’t know.”
CHAPTER FIVE
THE PRESENT
Dane walked out on the narrow gangway along the side of the Flip toward the rear, Chelsea at his side. The ship was long and narrow, more than two hundred meters in length by only average of ten in width. The bow was wider, expanding in a bulb shape. The rear was also wider, as was where the control section was located. It was also the only part of the craft that remained above water when the ship was “activated.” The other end would fill with water and submerge until the craft was vertical in the water, the bottom end bulb extending into the ocean almost two hundred meters. That end contained a probe that could both detect and emit muons, currently the only way they could track Shadow activity around the planet.
Dane paused as a gray fin cut through the water fewer than five meters away. A dolphin’s head popped up, dark eyes staring at him. Dane returned its gaze as Chelsea sat next to him, waiting.
“Rachel,” Dane whispered. The dolphin’s powerful tail thrust back and forth, lifting its body another half meter out of the water. Dane felt drawn into Rachel’s eyes. For a moment he was no longer onboard the Flip, but underwater, swimming, free of responsibility and worry. He “saw” what Rachel saw. Then it went further as the dolphin projected a vision to him.
Inside the Devil’s Sea gate. Near the black column of a portal, the actual cross-world/cross-time entrance inside the ate. A feeling of intense dread came over Dane. Danger. Great danger awaited. Ambush.
The moment was gone as quickly as it had come as an alarm bell stridently rang out for several seconds. It was the warning that the Flip was going into operation. Dane tried to shake off the negative emotion he had picked up from Rachel, but it clung to him. The dolphin emitted several clicks then disappeared under the waves. Dane envied the creature its freedom.
“Come on,” Dane said to Chelsea, heading toward the control section as he felt the deck under his feet shudder. He opened the hatch to the control room and walked in. The room as dimly lit, allowing the display screens to more clearly portray their data. The first thing Dane noted was the large dark red circle over Antarctica and South America--the hole in the ozone layer. Another red circle encompassed an area in Russia--Chemobyl’s deadly legacy.
A short, dark-haired Japanese woman was sitting in the center of the room surrounded by several computers. Dane went over to her position, Chelsea padding lightly next to him. “Any activity?” he asked.
Ahana, who was now the senior scientist, given the death of her mentor Doctor Nagoya, reached down and rubbed Chelsea’s ears. “Nothing. The gates are stable.”
“Are y sure the Devil’s Sea gate is stable?” he asked, still feeling the dread that had been brought to him by Rachel’s vision. The Flip had been attacked before by the Shadow sending a ship loaded with explosives out of the gate. Was another attack coming?
‘Some slight muonic fluctuations,” Ahana said, “but nothing major.”
They had managed to save the world from the Shadow’s attempt to tap energy from the planet’s core, a victory that now appeared to be in vain given the growing hole in the ozone layer and the spreading cloud of radiation. Dane briefly wondered if the time line he had seen in his vision this morning had also had such a victory or if the Shadow had gone first for that Earth’s ozone before trying to tap the core. They had learned little about the Shadow, but enough to now know it was an intelligent race that was able to use portals inside the gates to travel between parallel worlds, and that there was a group beyond the Space Between, known only as the Ones Before, that were trying to aid mankind, although that assistance always seemed obliquely given.
Dane felt the deck under his feet shift slightly and the walls appeared to move. It was actually the deck rotating in response to the ship’s movement, as the probe was slowly submerging.
“How many gates are open?” Dane asked.
“Here,” Ahana said. “And the one in Lake Baikal is still “Here,” Ahana said. “ And the one in Lake Baikal is still survey, which is why we’re rotating.”
“How about the radioactivity from Chernobyl?” Dane ked her. The Shadow had been tapping the Russian nuclear plant for a long time and finally destroyed it, releasing a toxic cloud of radioactive gas that was being borne by winds across Russia.
“The gate is still closed-after all, they’ve taken everything they can from the reactors. The cloud will reach Moscow in about a week. It’s strong enough that it will continue over most of Russia and Northern Europe.”
“Have you ever found a gate near the North Pole?” Dane asked.
“No.”
“Can you check to see if there is any activity there when you do your scan?”
“Certainly.”
Dane rubbed the stubble on his chin as he looked about. “Do you have the imagery taken by the Aurora spy plane of the sphere that took the ozone?”
Ahana pointed at the seat next to hers and indicated the computer screen. “I’ll bring it up there for you.”
Dane took the seat and waited. The screen flickered, then came alive with a view of an empty sky. He could hear the sound of an engine in the background, then a voice on an intercom:
“Let’s take this slow.”
“Range?”
“Two hundred klicks. ETA in two minutes.”
“Paint me something.”
“Extending imaging pod.”
The view shifted as the display went from the nose camera to the pod imager extending out of the belly of the SR-75. Dane could now see ocean far below the plane, but still clear sky ahead.
“One minute, thirty seconds.”
The image went black for a second, then a new scene appeared as the lens adjusted.
“What the hell?”
Dane didn’t blame whoever had just excited. A black rectangle filled the screen, almost filling it from top to bottom and extending beyond the left and right limits.
“Wide angle,” someone ordered.
“Geez! How big is that?”
“Radar indicates more than two hundred miles wide by twenty high.”
“What is it?”
“Thirty seconds.”
Dane could tell the SR-75 was slowing as it got closer to the object. The plane was also turning, but the imager-rotated o compensate. Stretching across the entire screen was a latticework of black struts supporting panels of gray material. In the very center was a black sphere—one of the Shadow’s. Dane had seen one crashed on another time line and had an idea how big it was-at least a half-mile in diameter—, which gave him an idea how large the latticework was. Even as the camera recorded, more panels were unfolding at the ends, extending it farther and farther.
The view shifted once more. About a mile behind the black sphere was a black circular portal, and a stream of ionized matter was flowing from the panels into the portal. Lightning crackled around the panels.
“What the bell is that thing doing?”
Dane had been told as soon as he arrived back at the Flip that it had drawn a large amount of ozone out of the atmosphere, but although he knew this was a bad thing. He wasn’t quite sure why.
Dane continued to watch as the end panels began folding in on themselves. The flow of ozone through the trailing portal was slowing. Dane checked the location data at the bottom of the screen. The sphere had entered over the bottom end of South America. It was now over the Gulf of Mexico.
Finally the panels bad all folded in and been tucked inside e sphere. Dane watched as the large black sphere slipped back into the portal and disappeared, the portal snapping out of existence.
Dane turned to Ahana. “I know ozone is important. But I don’t know why. Exactly what is it? What form is it in and how could we get some?”
Ahana paused, assimilating the questions, and then answered … Ozone consists of three oxygen molecules bonded together. It actually makes up a s
urprisingly small percentage of the atmosphere--or did. If compressed into one layer, ozone would be a very thin band in the stratosphere less than a tenth of inch thick. However. This small amount is spread in a band about twenty kilometers wide in the stratosphere.”
Dane held up a hand interrupting her. “Where exactly is the stratosphere?”
Ahana pointed up. “From here to an altitude of fifteen kilometers is the troposphere. 1be five kilometers above that is a transition zone, then you hit the stratosphere, which extends mother twenty to fifty kilometers.”
Assault on Atlantis Page 6
