Battle For Atlantis Read online

  Dane paused and was greeted with silence. Earhart, Talbot and Ahana were just staring at him, waiting for him to continue. Even Foreman was silent.

  “They tapped into the core of the planet itself for power. But they did it before they were ready to harness it one hundred percent. They made mistakes. They damaged their ecosystem terribly. So badly that they need to constantly replenish their water, air, and other basic elements.”

  The first question finally came. Foreman’s voice came out of the speaker. “Why don’t they just go to another timeline? Ask for help?”

  “Because, initially, there were no other timelines,” Dane said. “Only a handful of humans survived this disaster in Timeline I. They had access to tremendous power and had a much deeper understanding of physics than we do. Someone. One of their best scientists. Realized the possibility of parallel worlds.” Dane shrugged. “Remember. I got all this from the Ones Before. Even they don’t completely understand what the Shadow did. Which came first--the chicken or the egg? In trying to access parallel earths, did the Shadow in essence give birth to the other timelines? Or were the timelines there already and they · were able to reach across to them? The Ones Before don’t think the Shadow even knows what happened when they pushed the power they had into the Space Between and beyond.

  “But they were able to reach other timelines via the portals and connecting gates. Timelines that, if left alone, might not make the mistakes the Shadow bad made. Despite their advances, the Shadow were human. They were scared. Afraid that they would be denied what they needed. Afraid of a timeline more powerful than theirs. So they acted like scared humans.

  “They attacked first. And they’ve been doing it ever since.”

  “The Ones Before?” Earhart asked.

  Dane smiled. He looked at Talbot. ‘’This program. The Atlanteans of Timeline I did it too. One man. One true · human. Maybe it was you. Another you. They went beyond the International Space Station. They established a base on the moon. They sent dolphins there. For instant communication back to Earth via what you do here.

  “When the disaster struck--apparently, something similar to what they almost did here when they tried to tap · the core of our planet via the Nazca Plain. They unleashed too much power, power they couldn’t control.” Dane closed his eyes for a few seconds. “South America was gone. Which then spread to the Ring of Fire. The entire Pacific Rim was gone. All coastal areas were hit with massive tsunamis. Then the Mid-Atlantic Ridge gave way. Iceland, Greenland, gone. The climate changed.” He opened his eyes. “They totally screwed their planet up. But they had an unbelievable amount of power. And with it, they developed the ability to travel to other timelines.

  “But the moon was cut off. The dolphins did it. With the help of the few humans there. They closed themselves off, totally against what the Shadow began to do. And · they’ve tried to help the other timelines.”

  “The Ones Before are dolphins?” Foreman didn’t sound as if he believed it.

  “Yes,” Dane said. “They send the messages to other timelines through small portals, ones too small for the Shadow to use. And on a mental wavelength that the Shadow can’t intercept or block. And the messages go to other dolphins in those timelines who resend them to humans. Humans like me, the descendants of the original Atlanteans.”

  “So in a way,’ Earhart said, “you really are fighting yourself.”

  “Yes.”

  Foreman’s voice cut into the short silence that followed this. “Okay: So how do we go to Timeline I and defeat them?”

  “We don’t,” Dane said. ‘That’s for others. We have to help them get there.”

  “Who?” Foreman demanded. “What others?”

  “There’s a force in another timeline. A dying timeline that the Shadow has cut off from all the portals and abandoned. They fought the Shadow and lost. But they learned a lot fighting them. They’ve got a unit that can fight the Valkyries.”

  “But if they don’t have portals--” Ahana left the rest of the statement unsaid.

  “That’s where we come in,” Dane said. “And others.” He held up a single finger. “First. The Ones Before don’t know exactly where on Timeline I Earth the Shadow is holed up. They think there are only a few thousand of them left. So--”

  “A few thousand?” Foreman cursed. “They’re destroying entire timelines? Killing billions to keep just a few thousand alive?”

  Dane knew Foreman had lost his brother in a gate. He himself had lost his Special Forces team in Cambodia through the Angkor Kol Ker Gate more than thirty years ago. Millions more had died since then in the war against the Shadow in this timeline alone. He sympathized with Foreman but he knew they had to accept the reality of the situation.

  “The Ones Before have helped Atlanteans in our timeline in their battle against the Shadow. I’ve seen how the minds of special people, people like me, can redirect power, although the cost is high, resulting in transformation into a pure crystalline skull.

  “Our timeline Atlanteans fought a war that spread around the globe until the very existence of life was threatened. And in the climactic battle, the Atlantean priestesses and warriors with the aid of the Ones Before stopped the Shadow, but the price was high. Their home of Atlantis was destroyed. The resulting tsunamis touched every shore on the planet with such devastation that the legend of the Great Flood was written both in the Tibetan Book of the Dead and in the scriptures of the Jewish people on the other side of the world.

  “There were survivors in a handful of ships, which scattered and planted the seeds for future civilizations to arise thousands years later. What we call the modem world. The Atlanteans stopped the Shadow but lost their civilization and their home in the process.

  “We know that since the destruction of Atlantis, the Shadow has kept a presence on our planet via the gates. Sometimes these gates expand, such as when the capital city of the Khmer Empire in Cambodia was swallowed up by such a gate-the one at Kol Ker which you”--he glanced at Foreman--“sent me into. Sometimes the gates grew larger.”

  Dane turned to Ahana. “You said something once about the multiverse?”

  Ahana nodded. “There are scientists who theorize that there are an infinite number of parallel universes, existing side by side, so to speak. What is called the multiverse. The problem with trying to understand the universe is that we don’t really know how it started. If you view time as a line, and we are currently at the right-hand end of it, the universe began at the left hand end and that formation may rely on cosmological evolution that is outside the scope of even the deepest theory we can come up with.”

  “We have to recon the Shadow timeline,” Dane said. “and pinpoint where their base is. Second, we need to power up the sphere. Which means powering up the crystal skulls. Third, we need to get the sphere to the timeline where this force is. Fourth, we then need to get the sphere to the Shadow’s world. And, five, at the same time, we need to cut the current power source that the Shadow is tapping.”

  “Is that it?” Earhart asked. “Just five things?”

  Dane had to laugh at the tone of her voice. “Yeah. And even those aren’t straightforward. The Shadow guards the portal to their world very closely. So we have to get there in a way they won’t expect. That’s the bad news. The good news is we’ve got help out there”--Dane gestured vaguely--“in other timelines.”

  Dane pointed at Earhart: “You’re in charge of getting the skulls powered up.” At Ahana: “You’re in charge of the power flowing to the Shadow’s world.” Then at himself: “I’m going to do the recon.”

  “And how are you going to do that?” Earhart asked.

  “I’m going to the Shadow world the same way I went to the Ones Before. Via Dream Land.”

  “And how am I going to charge the skulls?” Earhart pressed.

  “At a place called Gettysburg,” Dane said.

  CHAPTER FOURTENN

  EARTH TIME LINE--VIII

  Pennsylvania, 1 July 1863

&n
bsp; The Confederates came up Chambersburg Pike and the surrounding fields just as General Buford had predicted: at first light and in force. The first shot of the battle that would be named after the town was fired from a Sharp breech-loading rifle by a Union horse soldier. The incoming Confederate division deployed, sending a line of skirmishers in, while one brigade wheeled to the left and one to the right of the pike.

  Outnumbered, Buford’s men fought fiercely for over an hour, holding their ground, until finally the sheer weight of the oncoming Confederates forced them to withdraw back toward the town. At the same time, General Reynolds. the commander of the Union corps came up and immediately saw what Buford had realized the previous day-this was a good place to defend. And. like Buford, he sent word back for all units to come as quickly as possible.

  On the other side, the unexpected stiff defense by the · Union cavalry turned a raiding party looking for shoes into a full-fledged attack, and caused the Confederate division commander to send a request for more troops to his own rear.

  As Napoleon had said earlier in the century, armies should march to the sound of the guns and as the sun rose on the morning of July 1, every division from both sides within bearing distance of Gettysburg turned toward the town.

  Neither side was able to coordinate the events that transpired throughout the morning, as reinforcements rushed in from both North and South and were thrown penmen into the battle. The Union suffered the first setbacks as General Reynolds was shot out of the saddle, and the Confederates were able to drive the temporarily disorganized Federal troops out of the town to the heights to the south and east.

  Union forces counterattacked and smashed the Confederates back, only to be attacked in turn by fresh Southern divisions. Through midday, the battle swung back and forth.

  Then Lee arrived at 2:30 P.M. With Ewell’s corps already embroiled in the first, Lee rolled the dice and immediately threw then next corps in line, A. P. Hill’s into the fight. The Union forces fell back to Seminary Ridge in disarray.

  The Union’s Iron Brigade from Wisconsin saved the day from becoming a rout by holding their positions, but with an appalling casualty rate of almost 70 percent. Despite their efforts, the Union forces were thrown off of Seminary Ridge, back through the town once more, onto Cemetery Ridge. Here, luck and good leadership played into Union hands as a division had been left on the Ridge since early morning to act as a reserve. The commander had put his men to work building breastworks, although the men, who saw the battle being waged to the north and west, complained.

  Those breastworks came in handy, as fleeing Union troops hid behind them and slowly reconsolidated.

  From his position on Seminary Ridge, Lee could see the Union position on Cemetery Ridge, and his forces in between. He had been in this sort of position before, with Union forces on the retreat to his front, and he knew what was needed. He sent orders to A. P. Hill to press the assault Just as Longstreet came riding up at the head of his corps. He ended the short note with the polite words “if practicable.”

  “How goes it, General?” Longstreet inquired as he surveyed the terrain ahead through his binoculars.

  Lee told Longstreet of the orders he had sent to Hill.

  They were still discussing the situation when a rider came galloping back from Hill’s headquarters with the corps commander’s response to Lee’s order. Lee read the note and handed it to Longstreet without comment.

  “He’s been in the fight all day,” Longstreet said, trying to explain Hill’s response that his men were exhausted and about out of ammunition, and he would not be able to press the assault as ordered--with greatest regrets.

  Lee was already scribbling on another piece of paper, which he gave to a rider--the same order, with the same polite ending, this time to Ewell. “We must take that height,” he said to Longstreet, indicating Cemetery Ridge and the hasty stonewall that snaked across its crest.

  “Sir.”

  Lee slowly turned to his Third Corps commander. “Yes?”

  “They have always come to us,” Longstreet said. “Now you’ve just twice ordered us to go to them.”

  “Your recommendation?” Lee asked brusquely.

  “My corps is ready to keep marching out on the roads west of town,” Longstreet said. He knelt in the dirt at Lee’s feet and sketched his plan as he spoke. “Let me march hard south and then east. Swing around the Union army. Take up a position between them and Washington. I’ll find good terrain for the defense. Meade will have to come to us. This will give you time to disengage Ewell and Hill and bring them around to hit the Union on the flank.”

  Lee was watching the battle, barely bothering to glance down at Longstreet’s dirt drawing. “We still do not know how much of the Union we have engaged here,” Lee said. “IT Meade is coming at us piecemeal, as I believe he is, we should take the fight to him now. Here. Before he can gather his forces.”

  Longstreet got to his feet. He glanced up at the sun. “It’s late.”

  “Ewell can take that ridge,” Lee whispered fiercely.

  **********

  On Cemetery Ridge, General Hancock was slowly sorting out the confused Union situation, repositioning the forces that had been routed from Seminary Ridge and thrown back through Gettysburg in headlong retreat.

  “Sir.”

  One of his division commanders had just ridden up, blood dripping from a wound on his scalp.

  “Yes?” Hancock asked, scribbling one order after another and handing them to couriers, all basically saying the same thing. Hold. At all costs.

  “There’s two Confederate corps down there in the town and around it. And my flankers tell me that Longstreet’s corps is to the west. We have to pull back.”

  Hancock had been at the base of Marye’s Heights in Fredericksburg. He’d spent a night with a corpse covering his body from the Confederate snipers who shot anything that moved. He reached up and physically pulled the division commander off the horse and dragged him stumbling forward to the stonewall.

  “Do you see that? Do you see the field of fire we have here? Those Rebels are going to have to come to us across that.” Hancock gave an evil grin. “They’ll learn what it feels like before this is over. They’ll learn it hard. Get back to your division and hold. I don’t care if you lose every man. You’ll hold with your dead bodies, damn it. Move.”

  **********

  The sun was lower and Lee could no longer wait. He finally got on his horse and rode to Ewell’s headquarters. He was shocked to find Ewell standing with his staff, no orders for an advance given, no preparation made.

  · “General.” Lee bit the word off. “Did you receive my order?” Lee knew that Ewell was new to corps command. Always before, it had been Stonewall who he had sent his orders to. Stonewall Jackson would already be pressing home the assault Lee knew.

  “Yes, sir I did,” Ewell said. “But I sent a courier to Hill and he said he could not support my attack. And your order said assault only if it were practicable. And sir, my men have been hard tasked today.”

  “So have the Federal’s,” Lee snapped. He pulled up his field glasses and peered up at Cemetery Ridge in the dying light. He could see new unit flags there. Two more Union corps at least.

  Lee put a hand on Ewell’s shoulder. “The day is about done any way. Take defensive positions for the night. I’ll send you orders later for the morning. We’ll take it up again tomorrow.”

  Lee went to his horse and mounted. He paused in the saddle, looking up at the Ridge one last time and the ground in between. His stomach lurched. At first, he thought it was the soldier’s curse again, but then he knew the truth. The moment--that one moment that comes in every battle and bad to be seized--bad been lost. The initiative that he had told Longstreet was so important was now gone.

  **********

  Lincoln threw the newspaper down on the desk. “They dare call me a dictator.”

  Early in the war, Lincoln had suspended the rite of habeus corpus, the constitutional guarant
ee by which a person could not be imprisoned indefinitely without being charged with a specific crime. He’d done it so he could silence many of the most vocal opponents to his policies.

  “You do what is necessary,” Mary said.

  The ever-present map was underneath the newspaper. Even with the war going on. the country was expanding. Kansas. Nevada, and West Virginia were now states. Hundreds of thousands were migrating west. There were real plans now for a transcontinental railroad.

  There was a knock on the door, and a courier from the War Department walked in and handed Lincoln a telegram, leaving as quietly and as quickly as he’d entered. Lincoln opened it.

  ‘’The battle has been joined.”

  EARTH TIMELINE--XIV

  Southern Africa, 20 January 1879

  The center column once more took up the march, moving ten miles forward to Isandlwana. The road back to Rorke’s Drift was just to the south of the outcrop, passing over a rise between it and Stony Hill. To the north, Isandlwana was attached to the Nqutu Plateau by a narrow spur. To the east was a wide-open plain, cut by a donga beyond which there was a conical hill.

  Chelmsford deployed his column on the front slope of Isandlwana. He was very pleased with the position as he had excellent observation and fields of fire to the east. The direction from which any Zulu attack might reasonably be expected to come from Ulundi, Cetewayo’s capital.

  However, once more he did not order the column to take the rudimentary defensive preparations. The wagons were not circled up, breastworks were not built and no pickets were placed on the top of Isandlwana. Cavalry pickets were sent out by the militia commander, but one of Chelmsford’s staff officers recalled them, saying that they were too far away and of no use up there.