Atlantis: Devil's Sea (31 page)

He glanced over his shoulder at Ahana and Shashenka. They were following quietly, absorbing all they saw. When Dane returned his gaze forward, he momentarily stopped when he saw the wall directly ahead in the haze, stretching up and to either side as far as visibility would allow. Dane hurried to follow the samurai. They turned the corner of the gully, and a wall was two hundred meters in front of them, disappearing upward into the haze. Etched into the black wall were shallow caves, and in those were people. Dozens and dozens of people.

Before Dane could take in the variety of men and women who were before him, a woman came striding forward. She was tall, with curly brown hair and striking features. Dane felt as if he had met her or at least seen her before. She held up a hand, indicating for the people who were pressing forward to see the newcomers to back off.

“Do you speak English?” she asked.

Dane nodded. “Yes.”

“You’re American?” the woman asked.

“Yes.” Dane turned as his partners came up. “I’m Eric Dane. This is Ahana, a scientist from Japan, and Colonel Felix Shashenka from the Russian Army.”
The woman extended her hand. “Pleased to make your acquaintance Mr. Dane. I’m Amelia Earhart.”

*****

Ariana looked at the large monitor that displayed the computer simulation Jordan’s people had developed to show Mount Erebus. It not only mapped out the exterior of the mountain but the crater and as much as they had been able to tell about the interior from their various monitors, sensors, and probes. They were inside one of the buildings that made up McMurdo Station. People were hustling about, grabbing essential material for the evacuation while Ariana, Miles, and Jordan were in the eye of the storm.

“The main force vector is here,” Jordan tapped the screen with a pencil. “There’s a lava tube that extends down at least four miles and is almost a quarter mile wide. It extends laterally also, underneath the sea below the Ross Ice Cap. According to the data you sent, the muonic activity from the Devil’s Sea gate is also centered in that tube.”

“How do you know about the tube?” Ariana asked.

“We’ve got two aces up our sleeves,” Jordan said. He flipped a photo on the desk. “That’s Dante III.” The image was that of a mechanical spider with eight metal legs. In the picture, Jordan was standing next to the robot, giving an idea of its size, about three meters high, two and a half meters wide, and three and a half long. The body was a metal frame with various electronic sensing devices loaded on board. A metal arch made up the majority of the height, with an antenna bolted on top.

“We use Dante to go down into the crater itself. We’ve made three trips in, the latest just two days ago to update our data. That’s what’s prompted the evacuation. Dante analyzes the high-temperature gases on the crater floor. We also can get video images, which are helpful?”

“Where’s Dante now?” Ariana asked.

“On the rim. It requires someone on site to operate it as it’s a tethered device.” He slid another photo onto the desktop. “This is our other ace and the one that found the main tube.”

It looked like a remotely operated submersible to Ariana, something she had used before.

“That’s called TROV—telepresence remotely operated vehicle. It was designed by NASA, and they let us use it to test it out. We sent it under the ice cap at the base of the volcano. It located a vent line off the tube, and we fired a probe in that relayed data back to us.”

“Is there any way to stop Erebus from erupting?” Arian asked. She had her own ideas that she’d been contemplating and researching on the flight down, but she wanted to get feedback from the on-site expert first.

“Stop a volcano from erupting?” Jordan shook his head. “No one’s really attempted that. Everything has always been in reaction
after
the volcano erupted and mostly to stop the lava flow. There are three major methods for that. One is detonating explosives to divert the flow, another is constructing barriers to also divert the flow, and lastly there has been some success using water to cool the lava at the leading edge, in effect using cooled lava as a barrier against the flow behind it.”

“Stopping the lava is the least of our concerns,” Ariana said. “We have to stop the detonation. It’s the initiator to everything the Shadow is doing on the Pacific Rim.”

“When I had Dante in the crater, it confirmed what we had long suspected,” Jordan said, “The lava lake in the crater has been acting like a large plug since the last eruption, containing the power. If that plug blows, it’ll take out most of the top of the mountain, which in turn will devastate everything within a five-hundred-mile radius. Most importantly, and dangerous, is the effect on the Ross Ice Shelf. My calculations estimate that eighty percent of the shelf will either be melted or broken off.

“Given the data you sent me, Erebus will start a chain reaction up the Ring of Fire,” Jordan continued. “It’ll make the destruction of Iceland seem minor by the time the Ring has been activated.”

“You haven’t answered my question,” Ariana said. “I know it has never been done, but do you have any theories on how we can stop it from erupting?”

Jordan sighed. He tapped the screen. “If we can stop or divert this main channel from being forced up against the lava lake plug in the crater, we might be able to minimize the effect.” He shrugged. “But I don’t see how we can do that.”

“I have an idea,” Ariana said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

T
HE
P
AST

79 A.D.

Falco had the Naga staff at the ready as he went through the portal. He stumbled slightly, then regained his balance. Kaia was right behind him, and they both paused to take stock of the new environment they were in. The ground was black and grainy. The air was still hazy, making visibility poor. To Falco’s relief, there was no sign of the Valkyries, just rolling black hills all around as far as he could see. Behind them, the black triangle hovered in the air.

“Where did they go?” Kaia asked.

Falco shrugged. “I don’t know. Is this where they live?” he asked in turn.

Kaia was slowly turning, looking about, but Falco knew she was doing more than simply looking; she was projecting her mind outward. Throughout the journey, he had picked up much from her, and he knew her powers were far greater than his, especially with regard to working over a distance.

“There are others here,” Kaia finally said. “Other people.”

“Where?” Falco could sense none of that. All he knew was that this place was dangerous.

Kaia pointed. “That way.”

Falco didn’t like the idea of leaving the portal. There was no way to tell direction in the strange place, and once it was out of their sight, it might be hard to find again.

“They are in great pain,” Kaia said. “We must help them.”

“That is not what we are here for,” Falco argued.

Kaia said nothing more but began heading in the direction she had pointed. Reluctantly, Falco followed.

*****

Cassius had fought from Britain to across the Rhine in Germany to Palestine. As a young tribune, he had even been on a campaign in Africa near Carthage. He had studied Julius Caesar’s accounts of the Gallic Wars and then served under many fine generals before receiving his own baton of command.

One of the many lessons he had learned was that the defense was the position taken by the weak, and it could rarely lead to victory. So even as the men of the XXV Legion dug into the ground with their spades at the edge of the swamp, their backs to the black wall, he gathered together every mounted man in the unit, all two hundred six.

Falco and the priestess had been gone the entire day and night was falling. Cassius was worried at the length of time that had passed, but there was nothing he could do about that except make sure he held this side of the gate. The death of Liberalius had cast a darkness over the entire camp, increasing the effect the dark wall already had.

As the sunset, he led the cavalry through the swamp. It was dark by the time they reached the other side and continued to the south.

The barbarian camp was easy to find, despite the lack of light. Hundreds of campfires gave off a glow that touched the sky and was visible from miles away. Cassius was at the head of the column, and he rode slowly, aware that it was possible for the force in front of him to have put out a skirmish line, although he doubted it. They were in their own land, and they outnumbered his forces at least four to one, judging by the number of fires he could make out as he got closer. Overconfidence. It was what had destroyed Varus in Germany when his three legions had been overwhelmed and the eagle standards taken by the barbarians. Cassius had learned as much, if not more, from studying the defeats of Rome’s generals as their victories.

When he was less than a quarter mile from the barbarian camp, Cassius halted the troop. He had already given his instructions, so the men spread out on line, lances at the ready. They moved forward at a walk, then a trot as they closed to within two hundred meters. At a hundred meters, Cassius spurred his horse to a full gallop, and the men with him did likewise.

There were no breastworks built up to protect the camp, no sentries on duty. Cassius and his men hit like a tidal wave, spitting barbarians on their spears, then drawing their swords and cutting down men as they jumped up from their sleep.

A clock was ticking inside Cassius’s brain, and when he had gone forward about a hundred meters into the camp, he yelled the order to fall back. The cavalry wheeled and galloped back the way they had come, fading into the darkness, only the bloody bodies’ evidence of their assault.

The sound of turmoil faded behind as Cassius led his men back north. He figured he’d gained another day with the assault, unless the barbarians were led by a particularly strong chief.

As he headed back to the rest of the legion, he prayed to the God Lupina had worshipped, asking that Falco and Kaia come back soon with a way to defeat the Shadow.

*****

Falco put his hand on Kaia’s shoulder and pushed her down to the ground just short of the crest of the ridge they were approaching. He could sense it now also; the agony of hundreds, maybe thousands, just ahead. It was worse than the most terrible games he had ever experienced, where thousands of Christians had been sent to be slaughtered by wild beasts. At least then, there had been hope, emanating from their faith as they died; but whatever was ahead, there was no hope. Only overwhelming pain and despair.

Falco crawled up to the top of the ridge and peered over. He swallowed hard as he saw hundreds of white vertical tables on which were strapped down men and women. On many, the skin had been flayed away, and the body inside was covered with some sort of clear, shiny material. Their suffering was almost overwhelming, a tidal wave of pain that hammered against his mind.

“We cannot save them,” Falco said.

“We need information,” Kaia said. She pointed. “Him. He knows.”

Falco followed the line of the finger. The man she indicated was huge, his body covered with scars as befitted a warrior. But his hands were gone, severed at the wrist.

“All right.” Falco got up and ran down the slope toward the tables, his body hunched over in a crouch. He arrived at the man and quickly cut the bonds using the Naga staff. The man’s eyes opened. With the stump of one arm, he indicated for Falco to slit his throat.

Falco shook his head, pointed back up the slope at Kaia. The man frowned, then nodded reluctantly. He began heading in the direction, Falco following. The gladiator paused when there was a noise to his left. The man on the table that was across from the one he had just been at was saying something, but Falco didn’t understand the language. Falco hesitated, tempted to put the man out of his misery as he had done many times in the arena, but he felt it was best to disturb things as little as possible for now.

He hurried up the slope. When he arrived, the warrior was standing next to Kaia, his head bent over, her hands on either side.

“He knows where there are others here,” she said. “He will lead us there.”

*****

General Cassius stood less than an arm’s distance from the black wall. A second day had gone by with no sign of Falco or Kaia. The barbarians were on the move again, closing on the legion’s position. He could pick up the unease among the men, the desire to leave this godforsaken place. But their discipline was holding, and there had been no outright signs of disrespect.

He’d tried entering the gate but had barely made it a few steps inside before the overwhelming pain in the head that Liberalius had described forced him to retreat.

Cassius blink, startled out of his thoughts. He could swear the wall was closer that it had been just a minute ago. He stared but could see nothing. He took a pebble and placed it right in front of the blackness and waited. After a minute, the black slid over the pebble. The wall
was
expanding.

Cassius looked over his shoulder. The earthen barrier his legion was arrayed behind was less than a quarter mile away. Beyond it was the swamp. And even as he watched, there were yells of alarm as the vanguard of the barbarian force appeared on the ridgeline three miles away.

It was difficult to judge, but he doubted they had a half-day before the expanding gate overtook the barrier, forcing them into the swamp and at the mercy of the barbarians.

Whatever decision he was going to make would have to be made soon.

*****

Pytor had watched the man in armor free Ragnarok and then disappear out of sight behind him. Less than two minutes after they were gone, a Valkyrie appeared. It paused in front of the empty white slab that had held the Viking. It hovered there for several seconds, and then more Valkyries began appearing from different directions until there were over twenty as Pytor tried to keep track. More and more white forms came until Pytor lost count and the rows of Valkyries stretched beyond what he could see.

From his military training, Pytor could guess the reason for this unusual display of numbers. The Valkyries were preparing an attack.