The Battle
Authors: Jennifer Torres
Tags: #Fiction, #Mysteries & Detective Stories, #Action & Adventure, #Science Fiction
When Worlds Collide, Someone Gets Hurt
Tim and the rest of the stolen children of Briny Deep are on the journey of a lifetime. But Tim can't help but feel that he has left something, or someone, behind. And with the secret of Briny Deep exposed, its nefarious leader, Trident, attempts to reclaim what has been returned to its rightful place. If he succeeds, it will mean the almost-certain destruction of planet Earth.
The Battle: The Briny Deep Mysteries Book 3
, is the culmination of Jennifer Torres's paranormal mystery trilogy. Follow along with the many plot twists in this mind-bending journey.
Jennifer Torres
lives and writes in a little beach town on the coast of Florida. She loves to write about fantastical lands, secret passageways, and doorways to magical places. A journalist for over fifteen years, she has also written a series of celebrity biographies for children and numerous articles for magazines, newspapers, and non-profit organizations.
The Briny Deep Mysteries
series is her debut into mystery fiction.
Chapter 2: Do They Look Like Us?
Chapter 11: The Story Gets Twisted
Read each title in The Briny Deep Mysteries
Welcome Home
A catastrophic crash seemed unavoidable.
After such peaceful, quiet space travel, all of a sudden things had begun to change. The gentle hum of the engines that had lulled Tim to sleep when he first boarded the ship was now becoming a deep and increasing rumble.
Light from distant stars streaked across the blackness of space outside the small windows of the spacecraft. It was like they were falling into a dark, bottomless pit.
Tim lifted his head up as everything in the passenger cabin started shaking.
Uh oh, he thought, as he suddenly felt nauseous and dizzy.
He looked over at Max, Emily, and Luke. They each had a look of sheer terror on their face.
“Ugh, I feel like I might throw up,” Max said. “Does anyone have a pail?”
Canary ran back to him and handed him a large tube-like thing.
“Throw up in that,” he instructed.
Max didn't wait for him to ask twice.
Not a comforting sight.
Tim closed his eyes. After everything he and his friends had been through, entering Earth's atmosphere should be a piece of cake.
Ugh, cake.
The mere thought of it at this moment made him want to retch. His stomach was doing somersaults, and his head was spinning.
Just moments ago, Tim awoke from his well-deserved nap to find Rusty and Canary standing over him. He had slept right through their journey.
“Even though Indus and Earth are far away from each other, the trip itself actually isn't long at all,” Canary had explained. “If the conditions are right, we can travel very, very fast using the wormholes in space and before you know itâwe're there.”
“Wormholes?” Emily asked.
“Yesâthey are shortcuts in space,” Rusty explained. “Some call them an EinsteinâRosen Bridge.”
Rusty got up from his chair and took a piece of paper from a notebook. Then he marked two points with a pencil.
“Imagine that this is space with Indus at one end and Earth at the other,” he said pointing at two opposite ends of the paper where the points were made. “Now see what happens when I fold this paper in half?”
“The two points are on top of each other,” said Max.
“Exactly,” Rusty said. “The wormhole takes us though like thisâlike a bridge.”
“You mean we are actually hereâat Earthâalready?” Tim had asked in disbelief.
Canary had laughed out loud.
“Yes. Welcome home.”
But what he hadn't explained is how bumpy the ride through the atmosphere would be.
A sudden sharp dip in altitude jolted Tim back into his seat.
The big comfortable chairs where they sat were equipped with several safety straps for takeoff and landing.
Canary had instructed them to buckle up just moments before the ship got all herky-jerky.
An unrestrained bag of trash slid down the aisle between their seats toward the front of the spacecraft, spilling its contents along the way.
Rusty jumped out of his seat, gathered the garbage in a white bag, and secured it in a cabinet. Then he quickly returned to his seat.
“It's going to get pretty bumpy,” Canary called out. “Doing okay back there, Max?”
“Uh . . . define okay,” Max called out.
Throughout the whole trip, Max and Canary had definitely bonded. They joked around a lot together. They seemed almost like old friends. It was nice to see this other side of Canary. He was actually a pretty cool guy. What a surprise that was!
Tim turned to look out the window and was able to see the earthâthere was a large mass of land covering much of the sea. The bright blue water that seemed so abundant from space now appeared like a mere puddle next to all the solid ground he saw below. But more terrifying than that was the orange-red glow he noticed coming from the outside of the craftâwere they on fire?
“Rusty?” Tim called out. “I think there are flames outside the window.”
“What did you say?” yelled Max above the roar of the engines.
“It's normal, Max,” Canary called out. “We're going to be just fine.”
Tim's whole body was so stiff from sitting in the chair. He could barely lift his hand in order to shield his eyes from the terrifying descent.
The ship shook and rumbled. It began to feel as if the whole thing might break apart into a million pieces. He could just picture his chair ripping free, spinning him deep into space where he would float aimlessly away to his ultimate doom.
Tim closed his eyes and tried to get the image out of his head.
Things had changed so much in such a short time. He already missed his parentsâor more correctlyâhe missed the people who had raised him. He would be meeting his real parents soonâon Earth. What would they be like? Did he have brothers and sisters? What if they didn't like him? What if he didn't like them? Thoughts swirled randomly around his brain, a welcome distraction from the current situation.
Nina was so far away now, and even though he knew she had betrayed himâhad betrayed all of themâhe couldn't stop thinking of her.
Was she okay? What did she remember? Why had she lied to them?
The ship took another dip, and Tim began to think he might need that throw-up tube himself.
“Everything is fine,” Rusty shouted back at the kids. He tried to calm them by explaining that the wild ride caused by Earth's atmosphere is actually a good thing for them because it's caused by particles of air rubbing against their ship, causing it to slow down so they can approach Earth at a safer speed.
“It's called friction,” he continued. “It might not feel good right now, but you should certainly be thankful we're experiencing it.”
The words had barely been said when suddenly a shrill alarm sounded overhead.
“We are going in a bit hot,” Canary said to Rusty in a low voice.
Without another word, Rusty closed the door to the cockpit.
Tim looked over again at Max, Emily, and Luke.
“What did he mean . . . hot?” asked Emily.
“Probably referring to the fire outside the window,” said Luke, who appeared somewhat calmer than the others. Probably, Tim thought, because he had been through it before.
“Was it like this when you came to Earth the first time?” Tim asked.
“Well sort of,” Luke replied with some hesitation. “But . . .”
“But what?”
“Well, I don't remember seeing fireâand we didn't have an alarm go off.”
Tim closed his eyes again and held on tight.
Do They Look Like Us?
Are we dead?
When you actually have to ask the question and you really don't know the answer, you can bet you've been though something intense.
Impact was sudden.
The spacecraft appeared to nosedive toward the bright blue water of Earth before plunging deep under the glassy surface before coming to a full stop on the murky ocean floor.
“Are we dead?” Tim managed to ask again, certain that because no one answered the first time, he probably was.
Canary laughed.
“No, Tim,” he said as he put a hand on the young man's shoulder. “You are decidedly not dead.”
Canary and Rusty had opened the cockpit door moments after landing and were now helping everyone undo their safety belts.
“We're going to take the ship to the underwater docking station, but there's no need to be buckled in any longer,” Rusty said. “Is everyone feeling okay?”
They all nodded in response.
Tim stretched his arms up in the air and walked up to a window. Looking out, he could see an ocean that looked very similar to his on Indusâexcept for what appeared to be something alive out there.
Wait. What the . . . ?
“Look out here,” he called toward his friends.
They all huddled around the small window.
Emily jumped back when she saw it.
It was a squiggly, wiggly, squishy looking thingâalmost invisibleâand it was moving around right outside the window.
“That's called a jellyfish,” Luke said. “There are a lot of living things in the oceans here on Earth: fish, sharks, dolphins, and whalesâwait until you see one of thoseâyou will definitely freak out.”
“That's just weird,” Emily said with a frown. “Yuck.”
“Get used to it,” Canary called to her. “It's just one of many new and different things about this planetâwait until you see the bugs.”
“Yum, bugs,” Max said. “I can't wait to eat some real food again.”
Canary's stomach gurgled at the thought.
“Hey look, what's that?” Emily asked.
“What is what?” Rusty responded.
“It has eightâumâlegs and a big head.”
Rusty looked out and saw nothing like what she had described.
“It sounds like you might be talking about an octopus, Emily, but I don't see one.”