by Bob Mayer
Roland extracted his arm, and blade .
“Let’s go,” Jager rasped, half on the body of the dead kraken just a few feet away. “While they are confused.”
The two pulled themselves out of the water, onto the kraken’s body, ran along it, and hopped onto the deck of the U-Boat. They were at the after end of the boat, all the confusion in the bow as the front of the Reuben James , lifted out of the water, looming above the U-Boat. The Aglaeca on the conning tower was bellowing something.
Jager had his dagger. “I will kill the Aglaeca. You kill the Legion.”
An audacious and optimistic plan. Adding in the thick spider web of kraken tentacles wrapped around the conning tower, Roland didn’t see the odds as being in their favor.
He grabbed Jager’s shoulder, turning him around. “This way.”
They hopped over a kraken tentacle, heading aft.
The U-Boat rocked in the water as the sinking destroyer brushed against the bow as it went under.
The Reuben James had gone down on the day history recorded, just not in the manner history recorded.
In the east, the first light of dawn was tinting the horizon.
Roland found the rear torpedo loading hatch.
A tentacle lashed by, blindly searching, barely missing Roland’s head as he knelt down.
Roland turned the small wheel on the hatch as quickly as he could while Jager stood above him, dagger at the ready.
With a click, the hatch was unsealed revealing a pitch black, narrow, sloping tube.
Jager slashed as a tentacle came at him, neatly severing snapping mouth tip from the rest. It retreated but a half dozen more came out of the darkness.
Roland slid into the narrow, forty-five degree opening. “Come on!”
Hitting the end of the chute, Roland looked up. He could barely make out Jager’s feet as he slid in. Then the Jager abruptly stopped. Roland reached up, grabbing his ankles and pulled. For a moment Jager was going in the wrong direction, out of the tube, then he abruptly came down on top of Roland, the hatch clanging shut above him.
“Seal it,” Roland said, as he went to work on the inside hatch, using his feet to turn the wheel, a difficult process .
Jager didn’t respond, but Roland heard him grunting with effort, trying to close the hatch.
The hatch at Roland’s feet fell open and he allowed gravity to take him down. He fell to the floor of the aft torpedo room. It was dimly lit with flickering red, emergency lights. Roland rolled away, and got to his knees, dagger ready. Jager fell to the metal grate deck with a solid thud.
“Who are you?” Someone demanded in German.
A sailor faced Roland, large wrench raised.
“A friend,” Roland said, pleased the German from the download came so easily.
He looked over at Jager and realized that the hunter’s left arm was gone from just above the elbow. Jager was futilely trying to stop the blood pumping out of the severed brachial artery.
Roland dropped the dagger and wrapped both hands around Jager’s wounded limb, squeezing tight, pushing his thumbs on the artery.
“Help,” Roland snapped at the German.
The German whipped his belt off and looped it around, just above Roland’s hands, the wrench handle underneath. He turned the wrench, tightening the belt down. Then he tied the heavy wrench in place, along the axis of the arm.
Roland let go, wiping his blood stained hands on his oilskin jacket with little effect.
“I was a bit too slow,” Jager said.
The German turned to Roland. “Who are you?”
“Americans,” Roland answered. “From the destroyer that just sank.”
The man snorted in disgust. “The killer who leads the beasts didn’t realize I was steering toward your ship until it was almost too late. Almost. I had hoped we’d be depth-charged and sunk. I heard charges go off, not far away, but not near enough. He went after me and I escaped here.” He nodded toward the forward hatch. “I managed to seal ourselves in. But they still have my exec and a few others they spared. So.” He extended a bloody hand. “Captain Erich Topp.”
“Roland. And that is my friend, Jager.”
“A hunter?” Topp frowned. “What is he speaking? Norwegian? Danish? He is not American. ”
“He’s a friend,” Roland said. “One who fights these beasts.”
The deck shuddered.
“We are under way,” Topp said. “My executive officer is doing their bidding. He has to or they will kill the rest of the crew. They already have killed most. Now, I don’t care. They can kill us all.”
“What is he saying?” Jager asked.
Roland held up his hand, his brain trying to sort out the different languages. A download could only do so much.
“What happened?” Roland asked Captain Topp. “How did they get on board?”
“Ah,” Topp was disgusted. “Two nights ago. We rendezvoused with our supply ship, not knowing it had been infested with these things. And the sea around it was full of their krake . We were quickly overwhelmed although my men fought bravely.”
“Where do they want to go?” Roland asked.
“Greenland,” Topp said. “Do you know what these things are? And the man who commands them? He is crazy. He talks to the largest of the beasts in some tongue I have never heard. An animal.”
“They’re Grendels,” Roland summarized. “The man is what we call a Legion. They are evil. They want to breed more Grendels and infest the world.”
Topp was silent for several seconds. “It makes as much sense as anything else. Since none of this makes any sense. Beasts from legend attacking. The world has gone insane.”
Roland didn’t want to get into the entire time travel, Shadow, yada yada, rest of it. “Can we sink your submarine? Perhaps detonate your torpedoes?”
Topp indicated the racks on either side. They were all empty. “We had fired our full complement from the rear tubes. There are four left forward. That is why we were re-supplying. And the beast-man had us load those things that look like eggs. Hundreds of them. They are eggs, aren’t they?”
Roland nodded. He looked over at Jager, whose face was taut with pain and pale from loss of blood. “The captain of the submarine,” he said to Jager.
Jager nodded. “Can he help us sink it?”
“Working on it,” Roland said. He turned back to Topp. “Can we disable the engines? ”
“Engine room is the compartment ahead of us,” Topp said. “There are Grendels there. The drive shaft is below us.” He indicated the wrench holding the tourniquet. “I was trying to get to it even though I knew it is not possible outside of being in dry dock.”
A distant, crumpling sound echoed through the hull of the U-Boat.
“What is that?” Roland asked.
“Your ship going to the depths,” Topp said. “Its hull is collapsing whatever compartments still have air in them. It will sink faster and faster until it is in the darkness at the bottom of the ocean.”
The sound diminished and there was only the sound of the U-Boats engines. But even that shifted.
“They are switching to batteries,” Topp said. “We will be submerging.”
The deck tilted, then steadied out.
“We are at cruising depth,” Topp said.
“How deep is that?” Roland asked, uneasily eyeing the surrounding hull.
“We did not descend long,” Topp said. “We are just below the surface. What ship were you on? I saw it briefly through the periscope. A Clemson class four-stacker. We were not supposed to sink an American vessel, but you gave many to the British. This is where the British should be escorting, not Americans. Your ship was in the wrong place.”
“The Reuben James ,” Roland said, his mind on how to destroy the U-boat, ignoring the fact he was on board. It was one of his strengths in linear thinking.
Topp looked at Jager then Roland. “You are not sailors.”
“We are not,” Roland agreed without thinking.
>
“Who are you?” Topp asked. He spread his hands indicating all about them. “This is not, I don’t even know what the word would be. You called those monsters Grendels. From the epic. And the krake are also mythical, legends to scare sailors. But these are very real. I have had some time to absorb it. Accept the reality of the unreal.”
“This is an invasion,” Roland said. He indicated Jager. “He is a hunter of these beasts. He goes where they go. I am—“ he paused. “I am a traveler whose mission it is to make what is supposed to happen, does happen.”
Topp considered that. “So what is supposed to happen? ”
“These creatures, these eggs, must die,” Roland said. He looked about the cramped compartment and accepted fate. “This war? This World War? It will kill many. But in the end, Germany will be defeated. Hitler will attack Russia. The United States will be attacked by Japan at Pearl Harbor and declare war not just on the Japanese but also Germany. Tens of millions will die in the next five years.”
Topp’s face showed no reaction. “Why should I believe you?”
“Do you know about the camps? The death camps?” The download was trying to intrude with dates and facts, but Roland blocked that.
Finally a flicker of emotion from Topp and for the first time he avoided Roland’s eyes. “There are only stories.”
“These monsters are also only stories,” Roland said. “Over six million will be killed in Hitler’s camps by your countrymen.” He pointed down, allowing some facts to intrude. “U-Boats? You will suffer the worst casualties, percentage-wise, of the German forces. Seventy-five percent. Seven hundred and ninety-three boats will be sunk. Almost thirty thousand of your comrades will die.”
“We don’t have that many . . .” Topp began, but he fell silent. He sat back against an empty torpedo rack, his shoulders slumped.
Jager spoke. “What are you telling him?”
“The future,” Roland said.
“Ah,” Jager said. “He does not look pleased.”
“He shouldn’t be,” Roland said.
“We have to sink this,” Jager said. He shifted position, but it did nothing for the pain coming from the severed nerves in his arm. Blood was dripping from the limb, the clock of life winding down for him.
“I know,” Roland agreed.
“We are dead,” Topp finally said. “Perhaps we deserve it if what you say is true. At least for me.”
Roland indicated the torpedo room. “What if we flood this compartment? Open the outside hatch on our way out?”
Topp considered that. “Not large enough. The boat will surface. They will blow out this compartment and continue on their way.”
Jager lifted his arm and pointed forward. “What if we also open that hatch?”
Topp nodded. “Torpedo and engine room flooded? Yes, she will go down. But.”
“But what?” Roland asked .
“We can’t open that hatch until pressure in here has equalized,” Topp said.
“What does that mean?” Roland asked.
“It means we can only open that hatch after we flood this compartment,” Topp said. “We will be swept into the engine room. There will be no way out for us.”
The Multiverse
“Look,” Lachesis said.
At first Scout was uncertain what she was viewing. A large tree, many branches spreading out, and hanging from the branches—people.
At least two-dozen bodies dangled from ropes, their clothes torn from their bodies. They were dead. Their skin was marked from beatings, many limbs askew from being broken. Faces were bloody and shattered.
“What is this?” Scout asked.
“Les Grandes Miseries de la guerre ,” Lachesis said. “The Great Miseries of War. There were drawings made of this. And other events of the Thirty Years War. The war begins a hundred years after Luther posts his theses. The action you were sent to insure occurs. The war starts between Catholics and Protestants, but like many wars, becomes much more complicated. Many countries and armies switched sides several times, which puts a lie to their theological justifications. Atropos would know the exact number, but around eight million died as a direct result of this war.”
The tree faded as the view shifted, the ground dwindling below, until Scout could see the outline of Central Europe.
“It is odd that religion causes so many deaths,” Lachesis said, “when the core principal is love.”
“You got a point to showing me this?”
“Would you go back and change what Luther did in order to prevent this war?” Lachesis asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Our mission is to keep our timeline intact,” Scout said .
“Even though you could prevent all these deaths?”
“The Shadow sent that Legion to kill Luther,” Scout said. “And the Shadow wants to destroy our timeline. So the Shadow knows our timeline will be worse off if Luther dies.”
“Logical, I suppose.” Lachesis said.
Europe was gone and there was only gray.
“The beginning,” Lachesis said as the grey faded and Scout saw a city set in the center of concentric islands far below.
A city unlike anything Scout had ever seen. A golden palace in the center, crowned by a magnificent golden tower rising almost a mile into the sky. There were other golden buildings around the tower on the center island. Then a ring of water, crossed in the cardinal directions by bridges. On the first ring were white buildings of various sizes. Another ring of water, another circular island. The buildings were not as nice, more industrial. On the next ring there were numerous fields and farm buildings.
Seven rings of land around the center island. Ships, similar to Atlantean one Scout had seen in the Space Between, were coming to and fro on the surrounding ocean.
“Atlantis,” Scout said.
“Indeed,” Lachesis said. “Well over ten thousand years in your past.”
“This is my timeline?” Scout asked.
“This is every timeline,” Lachesis said. “The origin. They are advanced, but not advanced. They are tapping into the power of the planet itself. But to try to control that which you do not understand is fraught with danger.” She glanced at Scout. “Much like your present fools with powers that aren’t completely understood.” She reached out and placed her hand lightly on Scout’s head. “They focused on developing their minds, which is ironic. They had the Sight. But they couldn’t see.” She pulled her hand back and pointed down. “They will soon tap into that which they cannot control. And there will be disaster. And out of that disaster will come the multiverse. Or, perhaps, the multiverse is already here?”
“You don’t know?” Scout asked.
“I don’t.”
“I don’t believe you,” Scout said. “If you can show me this, you have great power. Clotho brought a boy back to life. It’s said even the Gods bow to the Fates. ”
“Do you believe in Gods?” Lachesis asked.
“I don’t even believe this,” Scout said. “Why are you messing with me?”
“I’m sorry.” Lachesis even sounded apologetic. “You wanted answers. I am trying to give you some.” She indicated the tower. “That still exists in the Shadow’s timeline. They destroy it in every timeline they get to. Because they know any timeline where Atlantis still exists is a threat to them.”
“But you said they tapped into power they couldn’t control,” Scout said.
“The core of the planet,” Lachesis said. “They tried to tap into it via a bore into the Nazca Plain, where the crust is thin. South America was devastated. Their mistake initiated the Ring of Fire, destroying the Pacific Rim. The mid-Atlantic Ridge gave way, but they were able to shield this center of their civilization. The climate changed.”
“They destroyed Atlantis in my timeline?” Scout asked.
“Yes,” Lachesis said. “Except it was harder for the Shadow to do in your timeline than normal. It took seven attacks.”
“Same day
, each year,” Scout said. “What day?”
Lachesis shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is those seven years gave the priestesses and warriors of Atlantis in your timeline something very valuable.”
“That was?”
“Time. The most valuable asset of all. Time to learn. Time to plan. Time to disperse the bloodlines of the priestesses and warriors.”
“My bloodline.”
“Yes,” Lachesis said.
“So how do we get to the Shadow and stop it?” Scout asked.
“Remember what I said about the development of intelligence?” Lachesis asked as Atlantis faded to grey.
“Yeah.”
“The Shadow isn’t any different. They’ve sown the seeds of their own destruction.”
“They destroyed their world,” Scout said, “but they—“
“I am talking about the present,” Lachesis said.
“What did they do?” Scout asked. “What will destroy them?”
“You asked the correct question earlier,” Lachesis said. “Why is the Shadow trying to destroy your timeline, rather than reaping it? ”
“Answering a question with a question isn’t an answer,” Scout said. “You got that in common with Pandora. You speak in circles.”
“There are some things that you can’t tell someone,” Lachesis said. “They must learn it on their own.”
“Then why take me on this little tour?” Scout demanded.
“You said you would not change Martin Luther’s posting,” Lachesis said. “Would you change any of this?”
Images flashed by:
Ivar zip-tied to a chair inside a van, a body lying on the floor next to him.
Eagle, appearing dazed and confused, on his knees in the midst of a battle between Grendels and Zulus.
Lara facing a Legion, looking rather uncertain.
Neeley surrounded by men with guns.
Roland in the water, surrounded by kraken tentacles.
“Would you change anything?” Lachesis pressed.
“Are all those things happening now?” Scout demanded.
“Some are happening, some have happened. Some will happen.”
“You’re no fraking help,” Scout said. “Will you send me to them?”
Lachesis held up one finger. “You can choose one.”
