Battle For Atlantis Read online

“We call these invisible fields’ hyperfields. Quantum physics, with its quarks and wave theory, is a hyperfield. But there are others. They are around you all the time. In fact, there is a concurrent hyperfield to the quantum physical one. A psychometric field. Existing side by side at times with the real plane, at other times existing very separately from the other. It is the boundary between these two planes that is the entire focus of our efforts at Dream Land. Where We can project into the psychometric and see into the real plane. Without getting into the philosophy of it, a mental field--what you perceive in your brain--is a virtual field. If you perceive something to be with your mind, then it exists in the psychometric field.”

  Ahana finally spoke up. “But not in reality.”

  “Most physicists would say no, not in reality as it is currently defined,” Talbot agreed. “But if our thoughts are not reality, what are they? Everything humans have ever invented or done has come out of our thoughts. So they are real in some way. Or become real at some point. So there is definitely a link between the psychometric world and the real world. The line between the two is constantly being breached. And that line, with the proper equipment and training, we are able to breach at Dream Land.”

  If only they could have linked up Ahana and Talbot at the beginning, Dane thought to himself. He had a feeling this is what the Shadow had managed to do--combine physics with mental power in some fundamental way. As Talbot had said, Dane had seen the results of the two fields meeting when Sin Fen shut the Bermuda Triangle Gate using the abandoned Atlantean pyramid and the power of her mind.

  Dane could still see Sin Fen’s skull changing from flesh and bone into crystal and channeling the power coming out of the pyramid against the darkness of the expanding gate. Between that experience and what happened on the Nazca Plain, Dane believed there was a connection between a powerful force deep inside the planet and the ability of the mind to tap into and use that force.

  Talbot brought up a new slide. On one side was the label “Real Plane” and on the other was Psychometric Plane.” There was a line linking the two.

  ‘These two planes exist inside each of us. We have our minds, which operate on the psychometric plane, and then we have our bodies, which operate in the real plane. And they are connected through the nervous system. We can take ideas from the psychometric plane of our imagination and make them real in the physical world, say in a painting or a computer program or a book. And we can process things from the physical world into our brains, remember them, even change them with our thoughts. You have to consider the fact that a memory is not really what happened in real terms, but how we processed what happens. No two people remember things exactly alike.

  “That’s not true,” Ahana said. “Everyone in this room would agree that two plus two is four.”

  “That’s not a memory,” Talbot said. “That’s a concept that exists on the psychometric plane and resides in our minds. We can share the same concepts but no two memories are alike, much like snowflakes are all different.”

  Ahana frowned, but didn’t say anything as she digested this.

  Talbot continued. “What we are doing here is trying to shut down-as much as possible-the physical part so we can focus on the mental. Then we link our man with the power of the dolphin’s natural transmitter.”

  “What have you achieved?” Dane asked.

  “We’ve been able to remote view anywhere on the planet with a high degree of accuracy.”

  “Does your man go where he wants to or where the dolphin wants to?” Dane asked.

  “That’s an interesting question,” Talbot said. “Most of the time, the dolphin doesn’t seem to”--he searched for a word, then shrugged--“care. Our RVer can tap into its power and project toward a target area. But once in a while, the dolphin seems to be doing, thinking, something else, and the RVer has no control.”

  “Where do they go then?” Dane pressed.

  Talbot shrugged once more. “We don’t know. That’s what we call a blackout situation. The RVer sees nothing. We usually shut those down pretty quickly as there’s no point in continuing.”

  “Can you hook me up?” Dane asked. “To a dolphin?”

  “I have trained people who can RV,” Talbot said. “Tell me what you want my men to do, and we’ll get it done.”

  “I don’t think they can go where I want to go,” Dane said.

  “And where is that?”

  “To the Ones Before. And they’re not on this timeline or on this planet.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  EARTH TIME LINE--VIII

  Pennsylvania, Summer 1863

  The bridge across the Susquehanna had been burned by the locals, which halted the Confederate advance toward Harrisburg. General Lee received this news without comment. His concern was no longer advancing, it was consolidating. His forces were stretched out over a seventy-mile swath of Pennsylvania, and while there had been minimal resistance o far from the local militia, he knew that Hooker had to be moving toward him. He felt he still had several days to prepare, but then came further bad news: Hooker was no longer in command of the Army of the Potomac.

  Lee sat on his horse on the side of a dirt road, watching a column of infantry go by as he pondered this latest development. Another general to face. Lee knew Meade, who was to be next in command, the latest in the line that had taken command of the opposing army. Lee absentmindedly returned the enthusiastic greetings of the soldiers as they filed past He did note that it was Pickett’s division, a relatively new unit overall, most of the men untested in battle. They were Virginians, every single man, and they straightened their backs and lengthened their steps when they saw Lee on the side of the road.

  “General.”

  Lee turned, surprised to see Longstreet sitting solidly on his horse, like a sack of potatoes. Longstreet had never been an imposing figure in the saddle and out of deference, Lee dismounted. Longstreet did the same.

  “How goes the march?” Lee asked Longstreet.

  The corps commander tugged on his long beard. “The men are well fed. This is good country for commandeering provisions. They have not seen war here.”

  Lee nodded. He’d issued strict orders for his men regarding appropriating supplies. Civilians were to be paid for everything taken-the fact that the pay was in the AA form of Confederate script, practically worthless even in the South, was not a concern to him.

  Longstreet let out a long sigh from deep in his barrel chest, and Lee waited. He knew Longstreet was working himself up to discussing something unpleasant, and Lee had found waiting to be the only way to allow the other man to do it. Prodding Longstreet only made him more reluctant to speak.

  “Meade’s taken over the Army of the Potomac,” Longstreet finally said.

  “I know.”

  “Meade’s a solid man. I served with him before.” There was no need for Longstreet to say before what, as they both knew. The days of wearing blue in the regular army of the United States seemed forever ago to Lee. “He’ll move,” Longstreet said. “And Lincoln will be on him to move.”

  “Yes.”

  Longstreet straightened and looked his commanding officer in the eyes. “Do we know where the Anny of the Potomac is at the moment?”

  So that was it. Lee was not surprised. He empathized with Longstreet’s concern because it was his own. “No. general, we do not.”

  “And Stuart? Our cavalry?”

  “I fear that General Stuart is off on one of his long rides,” Lee said. “I have sent couriers to find him, but none has returned with news. So I must assume he has ranged a bit farther afield than I had wanted.” Or ordered, lee thought, but refrained from saying.

  Both remembered the last time Stuart had gone off with the cavalry on a long ride, completely encircling the Union Army. It was spectacular and daring but also militarily unsound as the cavalry was Lee’s eyes. Without Stuart’s men pulling reconnaissance for the army, the Confederates were operating almost blindly.

  “If Meade is moving q
uickly--” Longstreet left the rest of the sentence unsaid.

  “The Army of the Potomac has never moved quickly,” Lee said, realizing even as they came out the danger in such words. “But,” he added quickly, before Longstreet could also point out the same realization, “I am tightening the column. I’ve ordered Ewell’s corps to pull back from York.”

  “To where?” Longstreet asked, somewhat relieved to hear the advance was halting, even if only for a day or so.

  “A small town called Gettysburg. I’ve received a report that there is a warehouse of shoes there.”

  “The men need shoes,” Longstreet said approvingly.

  Both men turned as a dashing figure galloped up to them. General Pickett was mounted on a sleek black horse and wore a small blue cap, buff gauntlets, and matching blue cuffs on the sleeves of his uniform jacket. He held an elegant riding crop in one band. Oddest of all, he wore his hair in long ringlets that dangled about his shoulders, and he perfumed his hair each morning before taking to the field, something Lee found distasteful but had refrained from commenting on, especially as, for some strange reason, Longstreet was very fond of his youngest division commander.

  Pickett brought his horse to a halt and dismounted with a flourish. “Generals.” Pickett bowed at the waist, which brought a slight smile to lee’s face and a frown to Longstreet’s.

  “Magnificent, aren’t they,” Pickett said, indicating his men marching by. “They are ready, sir, most ready to join the fray.”

  “The fray will come,” Lee said. He found Pickett too eager to throw his men into the fray. Pickett had seen combat in the War with Mexico where he had been the first American to scale the walls of Chapultepec, a feat for which he had been widely praised. Pickett had graduated West Point with an undistinguished record in the same class as McClellan, the first commander of the Army of the Potomac, and as Stonewall Jackson. Pickett had been wounded in the shoulder at Gaines Mill, which kept him out of the war for a considerable period of time--too long some whispered. Lee had held Pickett’s division in reserve at Fredericksburg as it was filling out with new soldiers after earlier losses when Pickett had not been in command. Both those latter two issues had gotten under Pickett’s skin and he was determined that in the next fray his division would be in the forefront. Lee knew such a thing was more determined by fate than decision, but he refrained from telling Pickett that.

  Pickett lifted a gauntleted hand and idly stroked one of his locks, apparently unaware that he had interrupted the two senior officers. “Do you think the Yankees will fight?”

  “Those people”-a ten Lee often used to describe the Union Army--“will have to fight now that we are on their soil.”

  “Good,” Pickett said.

  A sudden feeling of weariness passed through Lee, draining him. He still had a touch of the soldier’s curse and this was not the place to be so afflicted. He threw a boot into a stirrup and pulled himself onto his horse, taking Longstreet by surprise. The corps commander obviously still had something on his mind, perhaps a more vocal complaint about Jeb Stuart and the cavalry being missing, but Lee had not the energy for it nor did he wish to discuss such with Pickett present.

  “Good day, gentlemen,” Lee said, as he pressed spur to horse flank and rode off.

  **********

  Meade inherited an army that had known only defeat, not the most comfortable situation. Indeed, so startled had he been to be awoken at three in the morning with the orders putting him in command, that at first he though the courier had come to arrest him and he had racked his brain-trying o remember what infraction he might have been guilty of. There were other corps commanders senior to him, so he was uncertain why this task had fallen to him.

  Regardless, he knew two things: one was that he had to stay between Lee’s army and the Washington/Baltimore area, and then, second, he had to fix and fight the Army of Northern Virginia. To accomplish the first, he immediately issued orders pulling in the bulk of his army North out of Virginia. Hooker might not have been the most aggressive commander, but he had trained the staff and the army well, and he was cooperating fully with Meade. To work on the second, Meade decided to ignore the Confederate cavalry force to his rear and send the bulk of his own cavalry to the northwest to see if they could pinpoint Lee’s exact deployment. He knew it exposed his supply line, but he felt his men had enough provisions and ammunition to fight at least one major engagement. Besides, they would be in Pennsylvania, on Union soil, where he could count on some local replenishment of his supplies.

  As he rode North with his staff among the long columns of blue troops, a courier rode up to him with a letter. Meade stiffened when he saw the wax seal--it was from the president and the handwritten scrawl on the envelope also indicated it was for his eyes only.

  Meade pulled off to the side of the road, getting out of the cloud of dust that traveled with every marching army. With trembling fingers, he broke the seal and opened the letter inside. It was short and to the point:

  General Meade,

  The army is yours. Your goal is Lee and his army. In Virginia, we attacked and were always thrown back. In Pennsylvania, turn the tables. Let him attack. Throw him back.

  1. Lincoln.

  **********

  Lincoln could see the rows and rows of tents of newly arrived troops camped within view in Washington. A far cry from the city he had been forced to sneak into three years previously.

  Lincoln knew he had earned the White House almost by default. He’d been nominated by the Illinois Republican state convention as their choice for president in 1860. During the national convention in Chicago, he earned the nomination by maintaining a very careful position between proslavery and antislavery platforms, which doomed his major competitors. The platform he adopted was one that tried to please both North and South, saying that slavery should not be expanded but should not be abolished where it already existed.

  Like most compromises, it pleased none of the extremists on either side.

  Fortunately for Lincoln, and the Republicans. The Democrats made the mistake of holding their convention in Charleston, South Carolina. The Northern and Southern · delegations were at odds from the very beginning. Stephen Douglas was eventually nominated, which so incensed the Southern delegates that they stormed out and decided to hold their Own convention, at which they nominated their own candidate, effectively crippling the party’s effectiveness.

  Lincoln easily won the electoral votes, but had only 40 percent of the popular vote, not exactly the strongest mandate for a leader. He also failed to win a single electoral vote from any Southern state.

  The victory was bittersweet for Lincoln and the country, as the Southern militants had been threatening to secede from the Union if Lincoln was elected. In December 1860, even before he could take office, South Carolina seceded. It was followed shortly afterward by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. These rogue states formed the Confederate States of America. The lame-duck president, Buchanan, did nothing to stop the secessionist movement, and Lincoln remained silent on the issue, seeing no point in saying anything until he had the power to back it up. He also hoped. Against what Mary predicted. That Union sentiment might reassert itself in the South and the lost states would come back into the fold voluntarily.

  When he headed to Washington to assume office, there Were threats of assassination, so he was spirited into the city under the cover of darkness, something the opposition ridiculed once it was found out.

  He’d tried. Lincoln thought as he looked out at the soldiers camped in the capital. His inaugural address had been aimed specifically at the South, to try to allay their fears and reconcile. He’d flat out said he felt the federal tears and reconcile. He’d that out said he felt the federal government had no right to interfere with the institution of slavery where it already existed. However, he’d also thrown down the gauntlet, saying he also believed a state did not have the right to secede from the Union. However, he’d ended the speech
by saying that the government would not assail the South. He hoped with this speech to at least keep the wavering states of Virginia. North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas in the Union.

  The South, of course, took matters into its own hands in the place where the Democratic Party had failed to bring forth a strong enough candidate to challenge Lincoln.

  Fort Sumter was fired on, the war was begun, and the Fort Sumter was fired on, the war was begun, and the Confederacy.

  Pundits in 1861 had said the war would last no more · than ninety days and end with Union victory. Mary had disagreed, and Lincoln had privately had his own doubts. Over two years later, Mary’s prediction and his doubts had been confirmed. The war had gone more horribly than anyone on either side could have predicted.

  And if Mary were to be believed again. it was going to get worse before it got better. How many of those boys out there. Lincoln wondered. Would not see the end of the year?

  It was a dark thought, something he was prone to, and he went to the couch and lay down on it, his long legs sticking past the edge, and descended into a pitch black pit of depression.

  EARTH TIMELINE--XIV

  Southern Africa, .January 1879

  “The Zulus are more dangerous than you think. You must deploy spies far from your front and flanks.”

  General Lord Chelmsford looked up from the splendid meal laid out on the Twenty-fourth Regimental china with irritation. The man who had just uttered this warning was splattered with mud and wore an amalgamation of uniforms-a British cavalryman’s riding pants, a leather coat similar to what the militia wore, and a black hat with a single feather tucked in the brim. There was no indication of rank or even unit. A damn militiaman, one of the local Boers, Chelmsford guessed. He found the locals boring and unsophisticated.

  The army was still less than five miles from the Buffalo River despite having crossed it several days earlier. The track was in bad shape, and Chelmsford had sent his engineers forward to improve it to a state where the artillery could traverse it. The forward elements had already fought a brief engagement with the Zulus, routing them out of a kraal that overlooked the track. The position had been taken easily, and a large quantity of sheep and cattle had been captured, several of which had been slaughtered to provide the meal Chelmsford was about to partake of. The feeble resistance put up by the Zulus at the kraal had not done much to impress Chelmsford with their martial capabilities.