Two Moons
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
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
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 Space Between Worlds and Times
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.
Little Big Horn
“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?”
Little Bighorn
Sitting Bull
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.”
The Space Between
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.”
CHAPTER THREE
EARTH TIMELINE – THE PRESENT
The Devil’s Sea Gate
“How do we do that?” Foreman asked Dane. The elderly CIA agent was seated in a swivel chair in the control room of the FLIP, a research vessel two hundred meters long with the capability of submerging its bulbous bow, which contained a muonic probe. To keep track of gate activity. The ship was currently holding position two miles · from the Devil’s Sea Gate, out of which Dane had just brought the Shadow sphere, which now bobbed in the water just off the bow of the FLIP. The Devil’s Sea Gate Was a triangular area off the coast of Japan, which like the Bermuda Triangle, had been the scene of numerous unexplained disappearances over the centuries. Disappearances they now knew were the work of the Shadow. Dane had just repeated to Foreman what he had told Earhart in the sphere about finishing the war and the Shadow.
Foreman had been in the CIA over fifty years, from the very beginning of the organization. He had tanned, rough skin. With a sharp nose like an eagle’s beak. His hair was pure white, some of which Dane attributed to his experiences around the gates, His fascination—more obsession--with the gates had begun during World War II when his brother’s aircraft had disappeared into the Devil’s Sea Gate that lay nearby. Foreman had also watched on radar as Flight 19 disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle Gate in 1946, one of many famous disappearances over the centuries in that region.
Dane was seated across from Foreman, with Earhart to one side and Ahana, the Japanese scientist who was now in charge of the FLIP to the other. Once more Dane had managed to stave off disaster, but he knew the assaults would not end as long as the Shadow, the unknown · malevolent force that attacked through the gates, existed. Dane had first encountered the Shadow when he entered the gate at Angkor Kol Ker in Cambodia during a mission while assigned to Special Forces in the Vietnam War. He’d been sent by Foreman to recover the black box of a U-2 spy plane that Foreman had sent into the gate to gather data as he struggled to figure out what the gates were.
Who or what the Shadow was remained a mystery, although they now knew that the Shadow used human minds for fuel and the bodies inside the Valkyrie suits were maimed humans. The thing that preyed on Dane’s · mind ever since making the discovery of the humans inside the Valkyrie suits was whether the Shadow was a group of humans from another Ea
rth timeline, one that was pillaging and destroying other timelines. Dane had already traveled to several other Earth timelines, some where the human race had been wiped out by the Shadow in its quest for power, air, bodies, and water.
“I believe 1 can find a portal to the Shadow’s world using the map inside the sphere,” Dane said.
“And then?” Foreman pressed.
Dane, leaned back in the seat, exhausted from recent · events. “We have the sphere. We can travel through portals safely.”
“But you have no power for the sphere,” Earhart noted.
Dane bad no desire to use humans as power again, the way they had just used the crew of a doomed USS Nautilus from another dying timeline. The nine crystal skulls · were lined up in a cabinet in the control room, a macabre audience to this meeting. They were clear, drained of power. He nodded toward the cabinet. “We have the crystal skulls. They’re drained, but maybe there is a way we can power them back up. They were powered up when we recovered them from Little Bighorn.”
“So We need another massacre?” Earhart said.
Dane couldn’t judge her tone, whether there was disapproval in it or resignation. There had been so much death already.
“There are many massacres throughout history.” Dane said. “Little Bighorn was Just one of them. And not necessarily a massacre, either, but rather an intense battle where the minds of the men involved generate the power evoked by dire straits.”
“The skulls drained pretty quickly when we came back,” Earhart noted.
“Maybe they weren’t charged with as much power as they are capable of,” Dane said.
“Even if you had power,” Foreman said, “what would you do when you got to the Shadow’s world?”
Dane had been thinking about that while returning to the FLIP via the Devil’s Sea Gate. Given the ability of the Shadow to manipulate power at a level beyond that of scientists in Dane’s Earth timeline he doubted there was anything he could bring from his own timeline, even nuclear weapons, that would be able to defeat the Shadow. For all he knew any power source he brought to the Shadow as a weapon could be appropriated and used by it.
Battle For Atlantis Page 2
