“Hurry!” Hrolf urged, his short fat legs making quick work of the stairs. Ragnarok sprinted after him.
THE PRESENT
1999 AD
The blue glow had completely surrounded Sin Fen’s body. Dane let go of the remote glove, releasing the pole. “Lift us up a little,” he ordered DeAngelo.
As the submersible floated up ten feet, Dane suddenly felt pain, like an ice cold spear slammed into the top of his head. He cried out, even as he did, realizing he was experiencing only a fraction of what Sin Fen was, an echo of her mind still reaching out to him.
“My God!” DeAngelo exclaimed.
Dane opened his eyes, seeing what had caused the pilot’s outburst. The skin on Sin Fen’s head was peeling away, as if melting off the skull. Her eyes changed from something solid into two dark blue orbs of light. Her hair was all gone, and in a few seconds the skin beneath followed suit. White bone, suffused with blue lines, the two blue orbs for eyes, were all that were left.
Then the bone itself changed, becoming clear, until it was pure crystal, totally suffused with the blue light. Suddenly a streak of blue shot out from the crystal skull toward the darkness of the approaching gate.
The submersible rocked from the shock wave.
“Get us out of here,” Dane whispered.
DeAngelo didn’t need to be told a second time. He throttled up and sped away.
Dane adjusted the camera, keeping it on Sin Fen- what had been Sin Fen- as more bolts of blue came out of the crystal skull, firing toward the gate.
As the image faded, Dane reached out and placed his hand on the screen, the last connection he had with her.
Chapter 30
THE PAST AND THE PRESENT
999/1999 AD
THE PAST
999 AD
Ragnarok staggered, almost falling. He gathered himself and jumped, clearing the side of his ship and tumbling into the bottom. He got to his feet. “Row!” He pointed at the black circle they had come out of. “There!”
More bolts of blue were shooting off the top of the pyramid toward the darkness, hitting with massive explosions, the sound hitting Ragnarok and his crew, causing ear-splitting pain.
Ragnarok grabbed the nearest oar and began pulling as Bjarni pushed the till over and pointed them at the black circle. They touched the edge and drawn in.
The sudden silence was blessed relief, but they were not off the shore of Iceland, Ragnarok knew that immediately from the warmth of the air. He stood, staring about in amazement. They were in a giant cave, a bright light like the sun shining over their heads, rock walls on all sides, a black beach circling the water they floated in.
There were ships, more ships than Ragnarok had ever seen, pulled up on the beach.
“What is this?” Hrolf slowly stopped pulling on his oar.
Tam Nok had given Ragnarok the vision of his future. He knew what his duty was.
“This is where I must stay, old friend,” Ragnarok grabbed the grizzled warrior’s forearm.
“We will stay-” Hrolf began, but Ragnarok cut him off with a shake of his head.
“No. You must go back. Go through the dark circle once more. It will take you back to Iceland. Then go back to Norway. To our village. Make peace with the king.”
Hrolf nodded. “And your mother?”
“Tell her all is well with me and give her my wishes for her happiness. Now go- take whatever ship you want- I will stay with mine.” Ragnarok watched as Hrolf had the survivors claimed another Viking ship, one even larger than his and pushed it off the strange shore. They passed him, oars hitting the water.
Ragnarok climbed up onto the gunwale of the longship. “Good sailing,” he yelled, ax in hand. Hrolf gave the order to row to the few surviving crewmembers. Slowly the slowly the other longship headed for the black circle, then as the dragon head touched the black, it was sucked in and disappeared, leaving Ragnarok alone in the graveyard of the ships aboard his own ship.
THE PRESENT
1999 AD
“Back through the black circle,” Dane ordered.
DeAngelo already had them headed in that direction. The inside of Deepflight was vibrating from the shock-waves racing through the water. They reached the black circle and suddenly all was still.
Dane stared at the screens showing the graveyard. He sensed a presence, not of someone alive and here, but of someone who had been here. A warrior who had painstakingly etched an important message into the metal of the Scorpion.
“Again through the black,” Dane ordered. “It will take us outside.”
Chapter 31
THE PRESENT
1999 AD
“Sir, look!” Ahana had lost her usual reserved manner and was literally jumping up and down in front of her work station.
Nagoya immediately saw what was causing her excitement. The level of muonic activity around the Bermuda Triangle gate had pegged out the monitor.
“It just started,” Ahana said. She turned to another monitor. “There. Just east of the edge of the gate- that’s the source.”
“Of what?” Nagoya asked, not expecting an answer as he knew they didn’t have that yet. “The muons are a by-product of something.” He slammed his hand down on the desktop. “We have to find the key!”
“Sir-” Ahana was back at the first monitor. “Look at the gate!”
* * *
“The gates are shrinking!”
“Are you sure?” Foreman held the earpiece tighter against his head to hear over the commotion in the War Room.
“The gates are shrinking,” Conners repeated. “I’ve got the latest imagery. Definitely growing smaller. There was some activity near the western edge of the Bermuda Triangle gate- what I’m not sure- but the damn thing is retreating. Fast.”
“They did it,” Foreman didn’t quite believe it. “They did it,” he repeated, as if by saying the words out loud, it made it true.
“The Glomar has been uncovered,” Conners said.
Foreman reached forward and picked up the SATPhone that linked him to the ship.
“Glomar, this is Foreman.” He waited a few seconds then repeated the call. There was a brief burst of static, then Ariana’s voice, very faint, came back over the link.
“I think they’re all dead on the ship.”
“What’s your status?” Foreman asked.
“I’m fine,” Ariana answered, “but the Glomar is drifting, so I’m drifting with it.”
““I’ll get someone to it ASAP. And Deepflight?”
“It’s just reappeared on my sonar, coming up out of the Milwaukee Depth. I’m going to try to ping it with sonar to bring it to me. What the hell is going on?”
“They did it,” Foreman said. “The gates are shrinking! They must have found the shield and used it.”
“Oh shit,” Conners’ voice in his earpiece immediately doused his growing optimism.
“What?”
“We’ve got a bogey on SOSUS. Just uncovered by the Bermuda Triangle gate shrinking. It’s the Wyoming!”
“Location?” Foreman demanded.
“South side of the gate. It’s moving west.”
Foreman looked up at the status board. The closest warship to that location was the Seawolf. He spun his seat toward his naval liaison. “Get me the Seawolf ASAP!”
* * *
“We’ve picked it up on the hydrophone,” Captain McCallum told Foreman. “It’s the only sensor we’ve got that’s working right now. Wait one-” his XO, Commander Barrington was signaling to him. “What is it?”
“Wyoming is going to launch depth. She’s flooding her missile tubes.”
“Jesus,” McCallum whispered. “Mister Foreman, Wyoming is preparing to launch. We are heading to engage.” He put the SATPhone down.
“Flank speed straight at the target,” McCallum ordered. “Range to target?”
Barrington shrugged. “Best guess is about two miles.”
With all their computers down, every active device the b
illion dollar submarine had to find and acquire targets was also down. Not only that, but they couldn’t then program in the necessary information into their torpedoes or cruise missiles. Not only was Seawolf sailing blind, she was unable to target her weapons. McCallum had already considered what to do if this situation arose and he immediately picked up a different microphone.
“AWACS Eagle this is Seawolf.”
“This is Eagle.”
“Do you have the Wyoming’s location?”
“I’m linking you to the NSA,” Eagle said. “Hold one.”
A new voice- a woman’s came over the radio. “Seawolf, this is Conners, NSA. According to SOSUS the Wyoming is one point six miles north of your location. Moving west at fifteen knots. I’m giving the coordinates to surface vessels to your west to target with cruise missiles.”
Barrington held a hand up, getting McCallum’s attention. “No more flooding noise. All launch tubes must be flooded.”
“You don’t have time for that!” McCallum yelled. “Her tubes are flooded. She’ll launch in less than a minute.”
He dropped the mike. McCallum stepped next to the firing platform. He pulled a key from around his neck. He flipped open a red cover and inserted it. “XO?”
Barrington’s face was white. He pulled a key from around his neck and inserted it in another hole.
“On three,” McCallum said. “One, two, three.” The two men turned their keys. Lights on the panel went from yellow to flashing red.
“We have weapons armed status,” Barrington announced.
McCallum let go of the key. “Weapons officer, fire tubes one through four! Spread pattern, range four thousand meters. Now!”
“Yes, sir. Firing one. Firing two. Firing three. Firing four.”
The Seawolf shuddered slightly as the four MK-48 torpedoes left the ship. A spool of wire trailed out from each, normally allowing the torpedoes to be directed to their target by the submarines sophisticated targeting systems. Right now, they simply churned through the water on a straight course, spreading apart from each the further they got from the Seawolf.
“One thousand meters,” the weapons officer announced, checking his stopwatch.
“Sir-” Barrington began to speak then stopped.
“Two thousand meters.”
“We’re doing what we have to,” McCallum said.
“Yes, sir,” Barrington acknowledged. Every eye in the control room was on the weapons officer and the ticking stopwatch in his hand.
“I can hear missile doors opening on the Wyoming,” the hydrophone man announced. “She’s going to launch.”
“Three thousand meters.”
“No, she isn’t,” McCallum said. He reached down and hit the firing command button linked to the four torpedoes.
Four nuclear warheads exploded, a thousand meters from each other, three thousand meters from the Seawolf. Everything, to include the Wyoming and the Seawolf within five miles was destroyed.
EPILOGUE
Dane stood on the platform that ringed the top of the derrick, looking out past the Glomar to the open sea. There was a slight breeze and the water was calm. The sun was coming up in the east, a glowing orange ball on the horizon, foretelling good weather for the day.
He heard someone coming up the metal stairs, but he didn’t turn. He had sensed Ariana’s presence coming up the stairs long before he heard her arrival. A new crew had been flown in by the navy the previous day and pulled up Deeplab and the docked Deepflight. There was no sign of the original crew of the Glomar except for numerous blood trails, mainly centered around the well-pool. More casualties to add to a list that was approaching a half-million, Dane thought. Iceland was now only a dozen or so active volcanoes poking above the surface of the North Atlantic. Puerto Rico was still trying to clean up the damage from the tsunamis. The sub pens at Groton were hot and a large evacuation had taken place for miles all around. The Seawolf was gone, with no trace of the wreckage although the navy was still looking for both it and the remains of the Wyoming.
“Foreman wants us back in Washington,” Ariana said. “He says Nagoya has some interesting hypotheses about the nature of the gates he wants us to look at.”
“Can he keep them closed forever?” Dane asked.
“I don’t know. From what Foreman said- and he was being very guarded- Nagoya has an idea how the gates work.”
Dane didn’t turn. “Where are all the people?”
“What people?”
“From the ships and planes we saw in the graveyard? From Deeplab?”
“On the other side,” Ariana said.
“And what does that mean?” Dane asked.
“We’ll have to go to Washington to see what Nagoya and Foreman have come up with,” Ariana said.
Dane shook his head. “The answer isn’t in Washington. And this isn’t over. All we did was repeat history. We shut the gates but they’ll open up again. Next time, maybe we need to open the gates and take the war to the other side.”
Ariana placed a hand on Dane’s shoulder. They stayed like that for a minute before she turned to go. “I’ll meet you at the helipad with Chelsea.”
Dane heard her go down the stairs. He stared out over the ocean, but what he was really seeing was the tall Viking warrior standing in the prow of his ship, a large ax in his hand. He remembered the message etched into the side of the Scorpion.
“You will be revenged,” Dane whispered, before following Ariana.
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Atlantis: Bermuda Triangle a-2 Page 26
