Assault on Atlantis a-5 Read online

The bad omens hadn’t ended there, as Custer pushed the column hard to follow the trail. The other night Custer’s personal flag, two crossed sabers on a red and blue field, had been blown over by the wind. It had been picked up and stuck in the ground again, only to blow over once more. A bad wind. Bloody Knife knew. A wind of ill spirits was blowing across the entire command. The white men pretended to worship a god, a god the priest at the post had tried to get him to believe in, but Bloody Knife thought they lied. If they couldn’t appreciate the power of an evil spirit blowing down their flag, how could they worship a good spirit?

  The Son of the Morning Star had dismounted and begun talking back and forth, when suddenly he stopped. “Let’s move forward and get to this Crow’s Nest I’ll see for my· self.” Bloody Knife fell in behind the commander.

  Bloody Knife caught the glances several of the staff officers gave him. For all they knew. There were Sioux all around, perhaps even waiting in ambush. Never bad any of me scouts seen so many signs. Bloody Knife kept his face impassive. There was no safety riding with the regiment or riding ahead.

  Bloody Knife remembered the time Custer had left the command by himself to hunt buffalo. The general, chasing down a bull, had shot his own horse in the head accidentally d been on foot, all alone, out in the middle of the plains. Fortunately, the regiment’s course of march had come upon the dismounted general. From that point on, Bloody Knife had ceased to respect a man who could be so foolish.

  Bloody Knife looked at the regimental camp as they left it. The noise made Bloody Knife grimace. Many of the bluecoat soldiers were inexperienced. Some could hardly ride their horses, and the blistering pace Custer had set the last several days since parting from General Terry’s column on the twenty-second had made matters worse. Horses and men were tired. That made for poor thinking and poorer action, Bloody Knife knew.

  The Sioux up ahead would not be tired, that he also knew. He could clearly picture the camp in his mind. Bloody Knife’s father had been a Sioux; his mother an Arikara. He’d spent his childhood among the Sioux, living as one of them, but it was not a happy childhood, as the Sioux despised the Arikara.

  Bloody Knife was a handsome man, standing five feet, seven inches tall with black hair and brown eyes. His features were finely formed with a broad forehead and sharp cheekbones and nose. His complexion was that of dull copper. A surly twist to his mouth marred his good looks. Bloody Knife Was not above talking down to white men, a custom that Custer treated with amusement at times in a camp full of sycophants.

  Given the childhood he’d had, Bloody Knife had sworn to himself to never again look up to another man. He had earned his place here in the Seventh Cavalry, much more so than most of the soldiers now blundering their way around in the dark. If no one else would tell Custer the truth, he would.

  Bloody Knife leaned back on his horse and stretched his neck. He looked to the northwest, into the growing light. Out there were many Sioux, among them people he had known as a child. If the Sioux were preparing for war, Bloody Knife was sure Gall was out there. Gall had killed Bloody Knife’s two brothers’ years before and dismembered their bodies, leaving them for the animals to feed on. Bloody Knife’s hand slipped down to the razor-sharp blade strapped to his belt. If nothing else, he hoped he ran into Gall. There was blood to be paid.

  BOUYER

  “I don’t see it,” Custer said. Mitch Bouyer could see relief flood Lieutenant Varnum’s face. The fool would rather be right about not seeing anything than bothered that his scouts were telling him there was something out there and he see it.

  “Well, they’re there, general,” Bouyer said. “At least you can see the smoke,” he added.

  “I can see that,” Custer said testily.

  Bouyer knew that even Lieutenant Varnum could now see the smoky haze that hung above the dark line that was the Little Big Horn. But whatever was below that smoke they couldn’t make out.

  “Obviously there are some Indians there,” Custer said. his voice less harsh.

  ‘’There aren’t just some Indians there, general.” Bouyer felt like he had one time in the mountains when his horse had slipped on a steep slope covered with snow and both of them had been carried down, not able to stop until they got to the valley floor. Whatever was going to happen was already set in motion, and nothing anyone said was going to make a difference today. He could feel the powers in the air.

  Bouyer knew this terrain well from his time with Bridger. Besides the obvious trail, he had spotted numerous campsites bordering the trail. In one he had counted the spaces where more than four hundred lodges had been set up. That alone indicated eight hundred warriors. And that was only one of five abandoned campsites he’d scouted.

  “There are more Indians out there than 1 have ever seen in one place,” Bouyer said.

  Custer’s face flushed red. The general’s famous long locks had been cut short prior to leaving Fort Lincoln. And he was wearing a fringed buckskin jacket and trousers. Under the jacket was a broad-collared blue shirt, and around his: k was a scarlet cravat. He wore a wide-brimmed white hat that Bouyer thought., along with cravat, made him an easy target.

  When Custer didn’t respond Bloody Knife spoke. “Turn around, general. Ride away as fast as the tired horses will carry you. If I am not speaking the truth, you can hang me.”

  That brought a slight smile to Custer’s wind and sun-beaten face. “I don’t think I’ll be hanging you.” He had field glasses and was looking to the northeast. “I still don’t see it.” he muttered. Custer stood. ‘’Lieutenant Varnum, remain on watch here until you see the regiment enter the valley, then join the command.”

  Bouyer followed as Custer walked back down to the horses and remounted. They rode down in silence, each man lost in his thoughts. A horseman was coming up slope toward them and Bouyer recognized him: Tom Custer.

  As Tom drew near, Custer spurred forward, Bouyer following. “We got them, Tom!” Custer called out.

  “Bad news.” Tom doused his brother’s enthusiasm. “Last night some breadboxes fell off a mule and we sent back a detail to police it up. They came across some Indians at the boxes. Fired a couple shots and drove them off, but we’ve been detected.”

  Custer drove one fist into the other. ‘’They could be breaking camp right now if they know we’re here.”

  “I do not think-” Bouyer began, but Custer had put the spurs to his horse and was heading to the camp, leaving Bouyer and Tom Custer to follow as well as they could.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  EARTH IV TIME LINE

  “I have been one acquainted with the night.” The words were barely a whisper, spoken from memory. Frost tried to remember which book of his poetry that line had been published in, · but the recollection failed him. Nor could he remember the title of the poem. There was too much else pressing in on his consciousness. He rose, picked up the box containing the crystal skull and with one step was across the small wardroom and in the corridor.

  The ship was never silent. There was always the sound of air moving through ventilators and the noise associated with the nuclear power plant. One of the crew, on the trip north, had told Frost that the only time this ship would go silent is if it went down in deep water. Other than the mechanical noises though, there was scarcely another sound.

  Frost reluctantly left his stateroom and went down the corridor toward the cramped control room of the Nautilus. He paused as he noted a framed picture wired to the wall: the Cover of a first edition book of Jules Verne: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. The giant squid was attacking the submarine, and one of the men on the cover was fighting back with a harpoon. Frost stared at it for several moments, feeling the tug of association, but again not able to pinpoint it.

  Frost passed through the attack center. Barely manned by two crewmen. Most men seemed to spend their time in their bunks. Even Frost had heard that Someone in the torpedo room crew had put together a still and illicit spirits were readily available. Captain Anderson did nothing to
stop this-why should he? What else was there to do aboard this ship of war? Prepare for battles that would never come?

  Frost spotted Anderson in the control room, seated in one of the three chairs that were occupied-when underway-by e petty officers who “drove” the boat. The captain was staring ahead at the gauges as if expecting to see their readings change, something that had not happened in the twenty-six lays they’d been in this spot.

  “Sir.” Frost waited, then repeated himself “Sir.”

  Anderson slowly turned. His eyes focusing. “Yes?”

  “Your engine produces power all the time, doesn’t it’?”

  Anderson blinked. “We get all our power from the reactor. Lights, water pressure, heat, air. All of it. It always runs.”

  “But we aren’t moving,” Frost said. “So it could produce more power than we use, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  Frost opened the box and pulled out the crystal skull. “Good. I will be needing some of that power.”

  THE SPACE BETWEEN

  Just before Dane stepped into the Valkyrie suit. He turned to Earhart. “What did you do with her?”

  “With who?”

  “The parallel you,” Dane said.

  “I put her out of her misery,” Earhart said. She turned her back to Dane and stepped into the suit. Dane stared at her disappearing into the suit for a few seconds and then did the same. As soon as he pressed his back against the rear half, the front swung shut.

  Moving the suit was strange, as it required the wearer to make the effort, with the suit following through with the actual movement. Dane pressed his left leg forward and the entire suit moved ahead. He twisted the waist and the suit rotated in place so he was facing Earhart.

  “I’m ready,” he announced.

  “All right.” Earhart’s voice echoed inside his suit.

  Dane followed as Earhart moved out, heading away from the camp and toward the Inner Sea. She had a Naga staff in her right hand, white fingers wrapped around it, claws retracted. They floated six inches above the black sand. When they reached the water, Earhart didn’t hesitate, heading out over the flat surface. Dane followed without hesitation. He had no sense of immediate danger, an instinct that had kept him alive in Vietnam, and he hoped it meant there were no kraken nearby.

  They passed around a forty-meter-wide portal and Dane had his first sight of the sphere. As Earhart had said, just the very top of the massive sphere was above the water, a curving surface about five meters high, disappearing under the water in all directions.

  As they reached the black metal, the suit adjusted, lifting them up. There was a thin line on the surface, and Earhart followed it until they were at the top.

  “The keyhole is there.” Earhart pointed with the sharp tip of the Naga staff. The indentation she pointed to was the opposite of the seven snake heads on the other end of the Naga staff. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes.”

  Earhart pressed the Naga end into the hole. A golden glow suffused the hole and staff and finally covered Earhart. The crack began widening.

  “It’s going to flood,” Dane said as the crack spread down the surface of the sphere toward the water.

  “Nothing we can do about that right now,” Earhart replied.

  The crack in front of them widened to two meters, narrowing in both directions. Water began to pour in where the crack met the surface of the Inner Sea.

  “Go,” Earhart ordered.

  Dane moved the suit over the opening and then descended to the sphere. Earhart removed the Naga staff and followed. The moment she removed the staff, the crack began to close. The skin of the sphere was more than three feet thick, and as both cleared it, they found themselves over a massive area, dimly lit from numerous unseen sources and full of massive panels folded together-what the sphere had used to strain the ozone out of Earth’s atmosphere.

  The top half of the interior had a floor that bisected the diameter in the exact middle of the sphere. Two waterfalls Sprayed water from either side of the open crack. They continued to slowly descend as the crack shut, cutting off the water.

  “Are you sure we can get out?” Dane said.

  “Did you ever see a one-way door,” Earhart asked in turn. She pointed with the staff above her. “There appears to be a keyhole right there, on the opposite side of the outer one.”

  That didn’t give Dane the greatest confidence. They began: o float down next to the panels. It was a long way to the floor. As he descended, Dane reached out with his mind. Trying to get a feel for the place, an ability he’d always had. All that he could pick up was a sense of sterile coldness.

  Dane and Earhart landed gently in the exact center of the floor,

  “If it has light, it still has some power,” Dane said.

  “The other one we saw had the same light,” Earhart said.

  “Where’s the crew?” Dane asked.

  “In the control room, I would assume.” Earhart leaned and placed her armored hand on the floor. She backed up as a hatch irised open. It was five feet in diameter. A long tube beckoned. They went into it. moving for almost a minute before they entered an open space, fifty feet in diameter. More than a dozen holes indicated other tubes leading out of the space. In the center was a golden pod ten feet in diameter, its surface shimmering.

  “That’s the control center for this thing,” Earhart said.

  In reply Earhart moved forward. Dane followed. As she reached the golden surface, Earhart didn’t pause. The gold enveloped her suit and she disappeared. Dane did pause just before the pod. He waited a few seconds, half-hoping Earhart would come back out but when she didn’t, he pressed forward.

  He felt a shock course over his skin as the gold wrapped around his suit and drew him in. He bumped into Earhart’s back, slid to the side and came to a halt. There were two other Valkyrie suits in the small space, back to back in the center. A circular console went around both at waist height, with no apparent means of support.

  Earhart poked at one of them with the Naga staff, getting no response. Dane moved forward and reached for the right arm of the one she poked. He pressed the code in the small indentations and the suit swung open, revealing a human body, the front half bouncing against the console. The body was missing the skin from the bottom half of its body, a clear material wrapped around from toe to waist covering muscles and sinew. There were no genitalia, but the person was flat-chested so Dane assumed it was a man. His left arm was withered and almost bone thin. A trickle of dried blood was on both sides of his mouth and below his nose.

  “They aren’t exactly the healthiest people,” he noted.

  “Tile question is,” Earhart said, “whether these are the Shadow or just people being used by the Shadow.”

  “I hope they aren’t the Shadow,” Dane said.

  “Why is that?”

  “Because it means humans are destroying other humans.”

  Earhart gave a bitter laugh. “Humans have been doing that ever since we walked upright.”

  “Yes, but-” Dane didn’t finish.

  “But what?” Earhart asked.

  “We don’t have this technology,” Dane said. “So if the Shadow is a parallel Earth, it’s one from the future, where people look like this and they’re willing to destroy other · worlds to keep their own going. It means mankind isn’t getting better-it’s getting worse.”

  “Worse in that time line,” Earhart corrected.

  Dane didn’t want to argue the point. He looked at the console. It was completely dark. “This isn’t much help. It must need power to be used.”

  “If they could fly this thing, we can,” Earhart said.

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “I’m a pilot.”

  “This isn’t an airplane,” Dane said.

  “Is there a reason you’re being so negative?”

  Dane reached forward and poked the dead body. “If an Earth time line developed into the Shadow, then people like us must have been wiped
out.”

  “Has it occurred to you that people like us might be the Ones Before?” Earhart asked.

  That gave Dane pause, because he hadn’t considered it. ‘Then why aren’t they more direct with their messages?”

  “Maybe they’re doing the best they can, just like we’re doing the best we can.” Earhart turned away from the bodies and console. “Let’s take a look at the engine room.” She pressed forward against the outer surface and popped out of sight. Dane followed and almost ran into the back of her, as he had stopped on the outside of the control pod.

  “What’s wrong?” He could feel the raw emotion of trouble and danger coming off of her.

  “Don’t you feel it?”

  Dane sent his mind out once more, probing. “It feels like a storm is coming.”

  “A very powerful one,” Earhart said.

  Dane didn’t say anything further, and they went to the bottom of the chamber where a shaft went straight down. They descended it for several minutes before emerging into another circular open area. This one was a hundred feet across and very dimly lit. From the route they had taken, Dane knew they were at the very bottom of the huge sphere.

  In the center was a thick black rod with a golden globe on top. The walls were lined with couches into which bodies were strapped. Dane floated over to one side and checked one of the bodies. It was human with the head half solidified into dullish gray material with small specks of crystal mixed in-exactly like the crashed sphere he and Earhart had gone in on a parallel world.

  Dane remembered what Kolkov had said about the crystal skulls. “Maybe these people aren’t pure.”

  “What do you mean?” Earhart asked as she joined him.

  Dane reached out and touched the nearest skull. The gray material crumbled under his fingers. ‘These people. Their brains were used for energy, but they didn’t turn into pure crystal.” He was thinking, trying to connect the disparate pieces of this quest they were on. “You said that the crystal skulls can pick up power from being around people in desperate situations. That means normal people, people without our gift-or curse-have some power that can be tapped.”