An Atlantean Triumvirate

by C. Craig R. McNeil

  “Twelve crystals of various sizes in here,” he said as he slung the glowing shapes into a rectangular box and secured it on Black's shoulders with some clips.

  As if sensing that part of their domain was being stolen, the creatures redoubled their efforts to break down the protective door, wild clangs and scrapings echoing around the room.

  Power crystals secured, Riley and his remaining unit members scoured the room for escape routes. At the north of the room directly opposite the buckling door, a pair of double doors encrusted in rust and green deposits sat beneath the giant window but Riley was searching for a route back to their submarine mothership. He was having little luck. A further set of double doors led to a comprehensive cave in with no way past.

  “Rafferty! Black! Get those doors down. We’re going to have to go north.”

  The two soldiers tramped heavily over to the rusty doors, vapour steaming into the damp air from their suits.

  “Johnston, contact the Renown. We need another route out of here.”

  The sound of metal on metal reverberated around the room like a bell tolling a doom as Rafferty and Black battered the doors down.

  The silver door was holding against the relentless assault of the unknown creatures, bending as it was but it wouldn’t hold for much longer. Time was running out and they would die soon if they didn’t get out.

  “What did the Renown say?” asked Riley as he moved to follow Rafferty and Black through the open doors.

  “Couldn’t contact them, sir. We must be too deep in the complex.”

  “Damn. Johnston, how deep down are we in here?”

  “I reckon about two hundred fathoms sir.”

  “And the North Atlantic Fleet is close isn’t it?”

  “Last I heard it was operating on exercises about twenty miles away. Are you thinking about going for the surface, sir?”

  “Got any better ideas?” growled Riley. Things were bad. This was turning into a suicide mission. And what the hell were those things out there? Miller had carried enough firepower to level an army and that hadn’t done him any good.

  Going for the surface wasn’t the best plan but it was the only one. Escape back to the Renown was cut off and they were lost with a horde of hell beasts baying for their blood. They couldn't break the vast window in the circular room as the resultant flood would crush them. They needed to find... No it wouldn't work. They'd die from the pressure and cold long before they reached the surface. Fear crept down Riley’s spine as he heard echoes of screams all around him in the dark corridors. The darkness was oppressive, a living creature pressing on the men trying to devour them. The only light now was from the soldiers’ torches set into their armour and the shadows seemed darker, the light less strong, weakening as they strode ever deeper into the warren of corridors.

  They were taking a well deserved break, eating chocolate from foil wrappers and sipping water from canteens, helmets by their sides. The huge low ceilinged room was sparse, coated in dust as was normal in this place. Broken pieces of stone littered the floor and the walls were lined with rusted cracked tubes of metal. Great shards of clear crystal lay in heaps under holes in the ceiling. Nothing remained to give a clue as to what the purpose of the room had been.

  “Johnston, anything from the Renown?” asked Riley.

  “Negative, sir. Not even a directional signal.”

  Still nothing. The building must be linked to others within the Atlantean city complex and they’d managed to find those tunnel links. Fantastic. So much for coming out on the other side of the building they’d originally entered.

  There was a blur at the edge of Riley’s vision and Rafferty screamed in fear and surprise as a long black creature leapt at him, sparks flashing as its claws scraped his armour, fangs glistening in the torchlight.

  Johnston was nearest to the Irishman and, armour clattering, he grabbed the beast’s arm and yanked. Power armour motors whined as the man’s strength was enhanced ten times. Bones snapped, blue ichor spurted and Johnston staggered back as he wrenched the right arm off the nightmare animal. It barely seemed to notice, continuing its relentless attack, its head shaking back and forth as its jaws gripped flesh. Rafferty’s screams of pain rang on as he desperately tried to fight his attacker, staggering back into a wall. He slumped to his knees but as he did so he managed to gain purchase on the animal and throw it away from him. Black and Riley who were running over to help, fired their guns, the automatic shotgun shells blasting into the black body, spraying fountains of blood into the air as it jerked back under the impact of the large calibre bullets.

  The threat disposed of, Johnston scrambled over to Rafferty. He took one look at the injured man and promptly vomited. Unable to break through the armour, the attacker had gone for the only prominent weak spot. His face. Only a bloody ruin of muscle, tendons and smashed bone remained.

  Rafferty’s left hand spasmed, his clattering armour breaking the unnatural silence and spurring the shocked men into action.

  “Johnston, get a grip man. Keep an eye out for more of those animals.”

  Johnston moved away wiping vomit from his mouth leaving Black and Riley kneeling next to the badly injured man.

  “There’s nothing we can do for him,” Riley said to Black as he struggled to remove the forearm sections of Rafferty’s armour. Succeeding, he felt for a pulse. It was weak which wasn’t surprising. The man was probably in acute shock and pain. His breathing was ragged, coming in bubbling gasps of pain.

  “Will you do it or will I?” asked Black.

  “I’ll do it,” said Riley injecting a syringe of morphine into Rafferty’s bloodstream. It would help dull the pain and give him some peace.

  Black got up and walked away. He was a seasoned veteran yet he had no stomach for what Riley had to do.

  Riley pulled out his service revolver, the dark metal weapon cold and heavy in his hand. Holding it to remains of Rafferty’s temple, he paused as Rafferty reached out and gripped his free hand. He knew what had to be done. They couldn’t take him with them and to leave him alive would be an abomination. Mercy had to prevail.

  Riley pulled the trigger.

  Johnston leaned against the doorway leading out of that room of death. He was pale and obviously in shock. He was young compared to the rest of the veterans and, while an excellent battle hardened soldier, he wasn’t necessary able to cope with extreme situations such as that he had faced. Rafferty was… had been… a good friend of his. This should only have been a recon mission, scout the area out, grab the goods and get out. They were being picked off one by one as easily as they themselves could take out a normal civilian. They were being played with, mere toy things to be picked up and discarded after being broken, beaten, shredded, pulped, destroyed. Johnston began to think they weren’t going to get out of here. Taking deep breaths of damp air he tried to compose himself, tried to suppress the mounting panic he could feel pushing its way up from his stomach to his chest clutching for his heart.

  “Are you OK, boy?” asked Black as he scanned the wide corridor for movement.

  “Could be better,” replied Johnston, cursing himself for the tremor in his voice.

  “We’ll get out, don’t you worry. We’ll find a way out soon. These corridors can’t go on for ever.”

  “Do you think?”

  Black smiled grimly before attaching his skull-like helmet into place as Riley approached.

  “Let’s go. No point hanging around…” Riley paused, head cocked to the left. “Did you hear that?”

  The three men stood silently, ears pricked for the slightest sound.

  A rumble could be felt vibrating through the stone floors making dust dance in the torchlight.

  Johnston’s radio crackled into life making all three soldiers jump in their armour causing the interlocking plates to jangle loudly.

  “…shade, can you hear us? Please respond. Renown calling Nightshade, are you receiving? Please respond.”

  Grabbing the radio receiv
er hanging from Johnston’s back, Riley almost yelled with relief at the sound of the Renown’s radio operator.

  “Renown, this is Nightshade. Repeat, this is Nightshade.”

  “Captain Riley! Good to hear from you! What’s happened down there?”

  “Will tell you when we get on board. We are two men down and require instant evacuation.”

  “Riley, we’ve triangulated your position. The Renown has been able to dock with a doorway two hundred yards north-north east from your current position. Proceed with all possible speed for evacuation.”

  “Roger that Renown. See you in five minutes. Get the tea on. Over and out.”

  Replacing the receiver Riley looked at Johnston and Black.

  “Well, you heard the man! Let’s get moving.”

  The evacuation point was probably at the far end of the corridor they were in. The roof of this wide corridor was tens of feet high, the ceiling barely visible in the darkness. Fluted pillars and buttresses soared gracefully meeting overhead supporting the frescoed ceiling. Once this had been a place of beauty despite its ancient use. Now…

  Moving three abreast, the soldiers hurried as fast as their heavy armour would allow. They were nearly out of this nightmare world, nearly back to the warm and bright submarine, nearly home. The thought of this spurred them on, sweat trickling down their faces, ragged breathing catching in their throats. Nearly home.

  A sharp hiss split the air curling and lashing its sibilant caress against the ears of the men. Ahead of them, what had once been a dark night was now ablaze with stars which supernovaed into long, white and deadly fangs. Ahead of them lay a seemingly insurmountable obstacle beyond which lay their only escape. Uncountable numbers of filthy, glistening night coloured creatures swarmed over each other, scaling the walls and pillars like living oil. Harsh hisses and screeches sprang from their foul mouths as they waited for a silent command from their parent, the command that would finally destroy these interlopers.

  Nightshade saw their escape route blocked. Hope had blossomed briefly, fluttered and died in an instant, blown out like a candle in a hurricane. They would be caught before they had run five yards. The three men knew there was only one thing to do and that was to fight their way through to the escape beyond. Weapons clanked as they were hastily checked and firing bolts pulled back into place. Three large calibre weapons swung up at once. This was it.

  Victory or death.

  “Straight through them men,” ordered Riley. “Don’t stop until we’re clear. Let’s move.”

  With those final words the three men charged, automatic shotguns pumping out round after round. Small splashes of blue appeared in the living wall which seemed to contract for an instant before surging forward, the creatures moving as one, a single entity of rage and loathing.

  The deadly wave crashed into the three soldiers knocking Black off balance despite the weight of his armour. He continued firing as he fell, blue fountains of ichor splashing out over the swarm.

  Despite his own orders Riley turned to the mass of shapes that had smothered Black when he fell. He could feel claws and teeth scraping over his armour setting his own teeth on edge. He reached back with his left hand and grabbed something which squirmed in his iron clad grip. He felt pressure around his wrist as a barbed mouth gripped it. Black was down. Riley could see flashes of gunfire from within swarming mass that covered Black. Where was Johnston? Riley pulled with all his strength and threw the creature in his grasp down to the ground with one smooth movement. He crushed its skull with his foot feeling bone crack and splinter as he pushed down. Riley felt bodies thudding into him. Black. He pulled the trigger of his gun and night skin parted as he fought his way to where Black was. Left and right, up and down he swung his gun, hitting out at any creature that got in his way. Riley could feel himself being weighed down by the sheer number of bodies that clung to him scrabbling for a way into his armour. He stumbled, tripping over the gutted remains of a creature and then suddenly he was lying face down on the ground. Screams of triumph pierced his head making him dizzy. Desperately Riley fought to push himself up, fought to free himself from the slavering jaws and curving white claws that squealed over his armour. A sharp pain stabbed through his right knee and Riley felt a claw dig its way into the cartilage.

  Staccato gunfire. Small calibre bullets. Lots of them.

  Riley couldn’t get up. The weight pressing on him was far too much. He was exhausted. He’d failed. Victory or Death. Death called, holding out a bony hand for him to take. Riley growled, deep down in his throat and pushed up hard, getting one foot on the ground while ignoring the pain from his right knee. His gun was out of ammunition so he used it like a club battering the blunt weapon to his left and right, bodies giving way to his onslaught, teeth and bone shattering into shards under the force of Riley’s blows.

  Riley turned his head, puzzled. He could hear more gunfire, totally unlike the boom of the large calibre weapons Nightshade carried. And then he saw them.

  The Royal Marines were pouring out the opening in the wall beyond where the Renown had docked, firing as they came. The CO had several Bren guns providing covering fire to his squads as they engaged the creatures. Caught by surprise the creatures were falling back under the withering rain of fire the Marines were exposing them to.

  Riley despatched two more creatures who snapped at him and then they were all gone, vanishing as fast as they had appeared called away by an unknown force.

  Ignoring the urgent calls of the Royal Marines, Riley limped over to the shattered body of what was once Sergeant Black. He was definitely dead. His limbs stuck out at unnatural angles, his amour scratched and clawed, prised off in places where the creatures had slipped their long claws through the gaps in the armour plates. A pool of dark red blood was forming under the body.

  “Sir, I think we better go now before those creatures come back with reinforcements.”

  It was Johnston. Battered but in far better shape than his commander.

  “I’ll take Black onboard the Renown, sir. There’s a medic waiting for you.”

  Riley was too exhausted, mentally and physically, to argue with Johnston who was breaching every rule on the chain of command by telling Riley what to do.

  As he limped back to the Renown, Riley was glad for his all enclosing helmet. He didn’t want anyone to see him crying at the savage loss of his men.

  3 The Launch of the Queen Victoria

  The crowds had been gathering since the day had dawned bright and sharp over the sooty grey industrial city of Glasgow, still Second City of the Empire in these halcyon days in 1936. A chill February wind whistled and whined through the cobbled streets and avenues, blowing in the salty smell of the Atlantic from the west, whipping colourful banners back and forth and snapping the blue, white and red bunting strung between lampposts.

  The River Clyde waterfront, opposite the Govan shipyards, resounded to the calls of street hawkers selling everything from souvenirs of the momentous occasion to meat pies and roasted chestnuts, their voices soaring above the roar and tempered pandemonium of the swirling masses, competing loudly with each other, trading lively and sometimes sharp banter. Balloon sellers with masses of bright balloons in a rainbow of colours did a roaring trade; Nearly every child had a balloon on a string with the string wrapped around their wrists to stop it blowing away. Union Jack flags were tightly gripped in mitten clad hands, fluttering in the wind.

  On the dull melancholy Clyde itself an armada of small rowing boats hovered in place against the slow meandering current, carrying everything from individuals to large families all regaling in the occasion of the launch of the mighty new dreadnaught, a new pride of the British Royal Navy, a further protector of the British Empire and all who lived in its boundaries.

  Six years in the making, the mighty battleship stood in the dry dock of the Govan shipyards of the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company. Constructed of the finest steel and iron available in the Empire by the best ship buil
ders, the six hundred yard long behemoth filled the horizon, a sheer cliff of steel soaring high above the ground to the huge decks on which bristled the barrels of the finest weapons to come out of the armament factories of Birmingham and Sheffield. And looming above these minor weapons, dwarfing them all, were the five primary batteries. Each battery sported four 32 inch cannon, each cannon more than capable of destroying an enemy battleship with a single hit, their long, deceptively slim, barrels giving the dreadnaught the ability to pound a target into oblivion from over forty miles away. The dreadnaught was Britain’s mailed fist on the seas, a potent and visible symbol of the power wielded by the Empire and a warning to all its enemies; Britannia rules the waves.

  Down the many decks leading to the engine room, deep in the bowels of the ship, hung a spherical red crystal magically suspended in mid air surrounded by copper pipes and great brass flanges. The crystal pulsed constantly, casting a strange alien light around the unlit room. In a way this was the heart of the dreadnaught, the source of its mighty power, the reason that a six hundred yard long, half a million ton vessel could rove the seas at will. The ancient power of Atlantis. Few crystals recovered from Atlantis were as pure and large as this one that powered the dreadnaught. Often spherical in shape these power crystals were frequently in excess of seven feet in diameter, multi faceted spheres of swirling colour and mesmerising light. The energy stored within them was phenomenal, seemingly without limit and they were the only thing that could power the gigantic screws lined along the rear and the sides of the dreadnaught. This red crystal was one of the last few to come from the Rochester find, so called because it had been uncovered by Sir Nicholas Rochester himself, the original discoverer of Atlantis. On one of his initial exploratory expeditions he had spotted a mystifying light show blazing out into the sunless waters from a shattered building ahead of his submarine. Small power crystals had been discovered previously but none matched this incredible find. British scientists already knew how to extract the energy from power crystals so once they had this find in their hands it was a short matter of time before the realisation dawned that these giant crystals could be used to create vehicles far beyond the scale engineers were limited to at the time.