Atlantis: Gate (7 page)

“Why do you say that?” Dane asked.

“I think the major purpose of what is going on is to get power, like the Shadow did from Chernobyl all those year,” Ahana said. “The destruction of our world is just a by-product of that.”

“And if we find it?” Dane asked. “What then?” When there was no immediate answer, he shifted in his seat so that he was facing Foreman. “I know you have a plan. Why not let me in on it beforehand this time?”

Foreman evaded a direct answer as was his wont. “We’re working on several things.”

“I assume you want me to go back in the Devil’s Sea gate with Rachel to search for this portal,” Dane didn’t make it a question. “I’m not going unless you tell me what options you’ve worked up and what their implementation priority is.”

Foreman steepled his fingers just below his chin. “I briefed the President via secure SATCOM link. The plan is simple. We find the Shadow portal. We send through a muonic transmitter. If we can lock in the portal to the other side—the Shadow’s world-- then our first option for attack is the first one readily available. We send through cruise missiles armed with nuclear weapons. Twenty four missiles and warheads are being modified as we speak to survive the trip through the gate.”

Dane saw a big problem with that plan. “So you’re hoping the missiles will function once they go to the other side even though nothing else electromagnetic has worked inside a gate?”

“We are hoping that electromagnetic devices can be shut down while traversing the gate and portals and then function on the other side. The Shadow has to have electromagnetic capability on their world.”

“That could be a fatal assumption,” Dane said. “And how will you get the cruise missiles through the portal when their rockets won’t work in the gates?”

Foreman’s answer was succinct. “By hand.”

It was the answer Dane had known was coming.

**************

The voice echoed in the small cabin, bouncing off the steel walls. “The mission of the United States Naval Academy is to develop midshipmen morally, mentally and physically and to imbue them with the highest ideals of duty, honor and loyalty in order to provide graduates who are dedicated to a career of naval service and have potential for future development in mind and character to assume the highest responsibilities of command, citizenship and government."

Captain Tom Stokes hit the mute button on the remote control and the TV went silent. The video was a recruiting pitch from the Naval Academy. On the screen, a panoramic view of the Naval Academy at Annapolis was displayed. Seeing the granite buildings, Stokes felt the familiar ache in the pit of his stomach. Part ingrained fear, part pride, part amazement even after all these years.

Stokes had been assigned as an instructor to the Academy up until six months ago when he’d received his new orders bringing him to this small room, the Captain’s quarters on board the Navy’s most modern submarine, the
USS Connecticut
. It wasn’t because of that recent assignment, though, that had caused him to pull the video out of his desk, but rather the report that lay open on his desk—the findings of a board that had been commissioned to examined the loss of the
USS Seawolf
, the
Connecticut’s
sister ship, and the first Seawolf class submarine commissioned.

The Seawolf class was the Navy’s most expensive and deadly submarine, the end result of over a billion dollars in research and development before the keel of the first boat was laid down. As an attack submarine, a Seawolf class ship had one primary mission: kill other submarines.

The
Seawolf
had indeed destroyed another submarine, but been destroyed in the process. It had been lost in the Bermuda Triangle gate stopping the captured
USS Wyoming
from launching the remainder of its missiles. The
Wyoming’s
first MIRV missile had destroyed Iceland and the
Seawolf
had barely stopped a second launching, which would have split the meeting of the tectonic plates in the center of the Atlantic and devastated America’s eastern seaboard and Europe’s western coast.

It appeared from the report, that the captain of the
Seawolf
had accomplished this mission in a most drastic way—by detonating one of his sub’s own nuclear weapons while it was less than three miles from the
Wyoming
, destroying both subs in the process.

The report noted that it had been a rather extreme command decision by the
Seawolf’s
captain, Joe McCallum, but surmised it had been his only choice given the lack of time and the strange effects of the gates on electro-magnetic systems, which had most likely negated using most of the
Seawolf’s
weapons in their normal mode against the
Wyoming
.

Costing over two billion dollars to build, a Seawolf attack submarine incorporated every advance in underwater warfare ever developed. It had Mark-48 torpedoes, along with Tomahawk cruise missiles. And it packed that punch in a surprisingly small size, bucking the recent trend of making submarines larger. At 353 feet long, the
Seawolf
was not much longer than the first US Navy sub given that name during World War II. However, its forty-foot beam was almost twice the diameter of those earlier vessels.

The rear two-thirds of the submarine were taken up with the nuclear power plant, engine room and environmental control systems. Stokes’ cabin and the rest of the living and working areas were in the forward third. Stokes commanded thirteen other officers and one hundred and twenty enlisted men.

At the present moment, the
Connecticut
was five miles due east of the Devil’s Sea gate, so the report on the
Seawolf
encounter near the Bermuda Triangle gate held great interest for Stokes. More importantly, on a personal note, though, was the fact that the commander of the
Seawolf
, Captain McCallum, had been a classmate of Stokes at the Academy. His eyes went back up to the view of the Academy. The camera was panning by the chapel and he could visualize McCallum’s wedding, two days after they had graduated twenty-one years ago. Stokes had been best man and McCallum had returned the favor on the next day.

Over the years that followed the two had crossed paths in their careers often, making their way up the ranks. McCallum getting command of the
Seawolf
had been considered a plum assignment and Stokes had to admit he’d been jealous until the board had chosen him to take command of the second Seawolf class to be commissioned.

And now McCallum—and his crew—were gone. Stokes looked down, noting that the fingers of his right hand were twisting the large gold ring on his left. The setting was black hematite, the exact same that McCallum had gotten. On one side was their class crest and year of graduation and on the other the Academy Crest, a shield, with a trident running behind it, two fasces on the side and the motto: Ex Scientia Tridens. Out of knowledge sea power. But the report on the death of his friend gave Stokes little knowledge and raised more questions than it answered.

What the Shadow was, how the gates were formed, most importantly
why
this strange force seemed bent on destroying the world, all were unknowns. Stokes orders were to monitor this side of the gate. He knew that the destroyer USS
Thorn
was with the FLIP on the south side. On the west side, a Los Angeles class attack submarine held post, while on the north, the destroyer USS
Fife.

They had the gate bracketed, but given what had happened to the
Wyoming
, the
Seawolf
, Stokes wondered what good it did. He was still pondering this when a sharp chime sounded, then a voice came out of the speaker bolted above his door.

“Captain to command and control. Captain to command and control.”

Stokes was out of the door, through the connecting corridor and in the operations center in less than five seconds. “Report?” he called out as he went to the center of the high tech C&C, which was at the base of the sail.

“We’ve got activity on the edge of the gate,” his executive officer (XO) informed him.

“Helm back us off, two-thirds,” Stokes immediately ordered. “Weapons, prepare targeting information.” He turned to his XO. “What kind of activity?”

“Noise.”

Stokes was irritated at the vague answer. “What kind of noise?”

The XO turned to the chief sonar-man. “Tell him Chief.”

“Captain—” the petty officer held out an extra set of headphones. “You’d better listen yourself. I’ve never heard anything like it.”

Stokes put the headset on, cutting off the sound of activity in the command & control center. He heard a faint, high-pitched, echoing sound that went up and down in volume. After a couple of moments, he pulled back one of the cups. “No idea, chief?”

The petty officer shook his head. “It’s coming from the gate.”

“Almost sounds like whales,” Stokes said.

“It’s not whales.” The petty officer sounded convinced.

“Porpoises?”

The chief considered that. “Maybe, but I’ve never heard that many mixed together. And there’s something else in there. Some other source.”

“Forward it to the FLIP. They’ve got that dolphin lady there. Maybe she can make sense of it. Stand down from battle stations.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

***************

Reizer closed Davon’s lifeless eyes and placed his jacket over his head. She had been raised a Catholic, but had no idea what faith the young man had held. Her knees hurt from kneeling but she remained at his side for several minutes, saying the few prayers she could remember from her childhood. When she could think of nothing further, she got to her feet and finally considered her predicament.

She could discern no diminishing in the walls of fire, indeed, if anything, they might even be higher. Decades of walking the plain and looking at aerial imagery had imprinted every single line in her mind’s eye. She knew she was in the middle of an intricate maze with walls of death surrounding her.

Was there a way out without crossing a line? It was something she had never considered.

She considered it now.

***************

Another half dozen five hundred pound bombs dropped out of the Chernobyl gate, clattering down on those that had already been deposited. The thirteenth one was indeed unlucky as it came out nose down, detonator armed.

It hit and exploded, setting off an instantaneous reaction that detonated the other twelve bombs. Kolkov’s calculations had been for six bombs, not thirteen. The concrete containment wall buckled, bulged and then collapsed. The vast majority of the explosion was used up in that effort, thus the immediate effects of the blast were minimal to the other three reactors and the nearby town.

It was fear of the other effect of the blast, the escape of contaminated air billowing out of the destroyed shield, that had alarms blasting and every living soul scrambling to get out of the area.

**************

Dane’s reaction to Foreman’s brilliant first assault option was forestalled as a crewman stuck his head through the open hatchway with a startling announcement.

“There’s a ship coming out of the gate.”

The words had just registered with those gathered around the table when one of the computers let out a soft chime.

“Muonic activity,” Ahana said as she spun her chair about and checked the screen. “Here. And Chernobyl.”

Foreman’s SATPhone buzzed and he snatched it off his belt. He listened for a few seconds, and then hung up. “That was Kolkov. Tower Four has been breached. The bombs went off.”

“I thought you said—“ Dane began, but Foreman cut him off.

“More bombs came through just before the explosion. The other reactors are being shut down and the area evacuated.”

Dane was already to the hatch and through, the others following. He went to the railing. He didn’t need binoculars to see the ship, which was now clear of the gate and heading directly toward them. A vintage Clipper Ship, sails snapping in the light breeze, picking up speed. A ghost ship as nothing was moving on the deck. The destroyer
Thorn
, which was the FLIP’s escort was already moving to intercept.

“I don’t like this,” Dane said.

“Maybe someone escaped,” Foreman had binoculars to his eyes, scanning the empty decks.

Dane knew that the CIA man held some hope his brother who had disappeared inside the Devil’s Sea gate in 1945 might still be alive, somewhere inside the space-between.

“I recommend—“ Dane began, but his words were cut off as the Clipper Ship disappeared in a massive explosion that engulfed the
Thorn,
which had drawn up less than two hundred meters from it.

Dane reacted, grabbing Ahana and pulling her down to the deck as wood splinters streaked toward them and hit the FLIP with sharp cracks. He heard someone cry out in pain. He held tight onto the slight Japanese woman as the warm breeze generated by the blast swept over them.

The silence that followed the explosion was unsettling. Dane let go of Ahana and got to his feet. There was no sign of the Clipper ship. The
Thorn
was devastated, the side that had been toward the old ship gutted with several fires blazing.

“That was meant for us,” Dane said as he turned. “I think—” he stopped as he saw Ahana kneeling over Professor Nagoya, her hands trying to staunch the flow of blood around a foot long splinter of wood that protruded from his stomach. Dane immediately knelt next to her.

“Exit wound,” he said.

“What?” Ahana was in shock, her only focus trying futilely to stem the blood. Dane reached behind the old man and felt wetness—blood—then the tip of the splinter that had punched all the way through. From the amount of blood he felt pulsing through his fingers, he knew there was nothing that could be done.

Nagoya’s face was pale and he was trying to say something. Dane leaned close, but the old man was speaking in Japanese. “Listen,” he snapped, grabbing Ahana by the arm and forcing her head close to Nagoya’s lips.