Assault on Atlantis

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

When they reached the camp site, Earhart quickly introduced Dane and Kolkov to the other refugees, then the three huddled together near the wall to formulate the next step. Dane quickly updated her on what was happening in his time line.

“I picked up some of that from Rachel,” Earhart said when he was done. “She let me know you were coming so Asper and I could be ready to get you. I didn’t know how many of you there would be and we only had the two suits. We did the best we could. I am sorry about your comrade,” she said to Kolkov.

“Is the sphere still out there?” Dane asked, indicating the Inner Sea.

Earhart nodded. “On the far side of the portal you were headed toward. Just floating there dead in the water. Only about ten feet of it is above the surface. I assume the crew is dead. The Shadow doesn’t seem to miss it. I’ve been out to it but didn’t go inside.”

“What else has happened?”

“Taki took the crystal skulls into a portal,” Earhart said.

“He what?” Dane felt a moment of panic. “We need the skulls to power the sphere.”

“You need the skulls to be energized first,” Earhart said. “I’d already taken one back.”

“Back to when? Who did you give it to?”

“To Crazy Horse’s brother-well, not actually his brother.”

“’Crazy Horse’s brother’? You’d better start at the beginning,” Dane said. “For me it’s only been a day since I was here. I assume it’s been longer than that for you.”

Earhart shrugged. “I don’t know how long it’s been, but, yes definitely longer than a day. After you left to go back to your time, things quieted down for a little bit. Then I heard the voices of the Ones Before. They wanted me to go to the Valkyrie chamber.”

Dane suppressed a wave of dread as he remembered the cavern filled with thousands of operating tables on which the Valkyries were working on human captives-skinning them, removing limbs and organs, performing experiments. It was torture on a grand scale.

“Taki and I went there in the suits,” she said, indicating the two empty white suits floating nearby. “I had ‘seen’ what I was to get and exactly where it was.” She turned and pulled.n object out of a pack. It looked like a strange gun with a short barrel about three inches long but very wide, almost two inches in diameter. The chamber was a red bulb about four inches in diameter. There was a red and green button on top of the bulb.

“What is it?” Dane asked.

Earhart laid it across her lap. “It’s a way of implanting a child-a fetus-inside a woman. When I found it, the red button was glowing. It was on a table next to a woman. A woman I recognized.”

“Who?” Dane asked.

“Me.”

“Leave me alone!” Robert Frost screamed the words at the metal walls of the cabin as he pressed both palms tight against his temples, trying to drive away the voice inside his head. “Haven’t I paid enough?”

Frost banged his forehead against the edge of the bunk bolted to the wall. He didn’t even notice as he cut his skin and blood trickled down his face. Someone knocked on the hatch, and a muffled voice asked if he was all right.

“Yes. Yes. YES!” Frost yelled. He just wanted to be left alone. He pulled his hands away from his head and looked about, as if uncertain where he was. He slumped down onto the thin mattress. He felt something wet on his face and wiped a shaking hand across his forehead. He stared at the blood smeared on his fingers with a frown.

He reached with bloody fingers for a slim, leather-bound volume on the little shelf that served as a desk in the cramped cabin. He slid his finger to a page that was easily found, flipping the book open. The writing was in long hand, a flowing script. The poem was titled “In a Disused Graveyard.” He’d written it after a terrible night of visions of mankind’s doom.

If it was God’s voice I heard. Then it was a very cruel God. Frost thought. The litany of pain and misfortune he had experienced over the years would have broken a lesser man. He’d lost his son Elliot at age three; he himself had almost died in the world flu pandemic of 1918; he’d had to commit a sister and daughter to sanatoriums-yes. He knew they heard the voices, but it overwhelmed their minds and both died there; another of his sons had also heard the voices and Frost had tried to talk to him about it, but the boy had killed himself with a hunting rifle in 1940.

God? What kind of God brought such pain and misery? Frost wondered. And now death to all on the planet? The voices and visions had directed him here onboard this metal can, but he didn’t know exactly why. What could be saved?

Frost reached under the bunk and pulled out a wooden box. He lifted the lid. A crystal skull was inside. It had a faint blue glow. The time was still not here, but it was getting closer.

He closed the cover and lay back on the bed, pulling a pillow over his head, vainly hoping it would stop any message sent his way by the “gods.”

“I do not understand,” Kolkov said, breaking the long silence.

“It was me from another time line,” Earhart said. “One who was taken by the Shadow and not helped by the Ones Before. She was strapped to one of the vertical tables. They’d opened up her skull and put implants into her brain.” She turned to Dane. “You’ve seen what I’m talking about.”

Dane nodded. He wondered how he would feel seeing himself-a parallel self-in such a situation. He’d been in the Valkyrie cavern and seen the people strapped down. Some bad their brains exposed with wired leads placed in them, connected to monitoring machines.

“They’d taken a baby from her with the machine. I knew it-” here she glanced at Dane once more, and he understood how she knew it. “I also had been shown what I needed to do with it.

“I brought it back with me. Then I went into a portal. I went to Earth, but back in time, I’m not sure exactly when, probably around the middle of the nineteenth century as I probably around the middle of the nineteenth century as I used the machine on an Indian woman in a lodge. I then went back later. When she gave birth. To two children. One hers, one mine. I told her what I’d been told to tell her-that these would meet again in battle and in the course of doing that help save a world.”

“My world?” Dane asked.

Earhart shrugged. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

‘’The question is, was the world you traveled to my world’s past or another parallel world’s past?” Dane asked.

“Does it matter?” Earhart asked in turn.

“What great battle would these two meet in?” Kolkov asked. “And how would a battle help?”

“Her son’s name was Crazy Horse.”

“Little Big Horn,” Dane said.

Earhart nodded. “That’s my guess.”

“And your son’s name?” Dane asked.

“He’s not really my son. He’s my parallel son. Sort of.” Earhart said, “I don’t know what the hell to call him. His lame is Mitch Bouyer. I gave him one of the crystal skulls. I’m assuming Taki took the others to him.”

Dane let out a deep breath as he considered the information he had. “So we’ve got the Battle of Little Big Horn and two men — one’s Crazy Horse, the other Bouyer. Connected via birth, although not genetically. And at least one crystal skull-and hopefully all of them-which means there’s going to be power involved. And we’re going to need power for the sphere, because it seems dead in the water. And we’ve got Robert Frost and the Nautilus waiting at the North Pole in a dying time line. For what?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I think there’s a portal at the North Pole.”

Kolkov leaned forward. “So perhaps you will have both power for the sphere and a portal to send it through?”

“It’s not that easy,” Dane said: ·’We still have to get ozone from some time line to bring back.”

“Maybe the Frost portal is the one to do that?”

“Then how do we get back?” Dane asked. He shook his head. “We’re being used by the Ones Before. They send us these messages telling us the next step to take, but not much beyond that.”

“It’s worked so far,” Earhart pointed out.

“Has it?” Dane asked in turn. “Earth is dying. My Earth. Which,” he added, looking at Earhart, “might not even be your Earth time line. We just assumed that the first time we met. The Earhart in the Valkyrie cavern could be the Earhart from my time line. God knows how many time lines-how many of each of us — there are.”

Earhart shook her head. “You’re giving me a headache. What choice do we have? Do nothing? And then what will happen? Your time line is dying, right? It looks like we have a chance to help it. We could sit here all day and argue about the motives of the Ones Before, but maybe they’re just doing the best they can, too.”

Dane knew she was right, but he still had his misgivings about everything. Just a month ago{) he’d been living a simple life, working search-and-rescue with Chelsea. Now he was here, in a place he couldn’t have dreamed existed, talking about parallel worlds and parallel people. His old reality was gone, and he didn’t have much grasp on this new reality.

Earhart drew him out of his reverie as she addressed Kolkov. “You’re a scientist?”

Kolkov nodded. “Yes. I’ve been studying the portals for all of my adult life.”

“These crystal skulls. We know where they come from — priestesses who fight the Shadow. But how do they work?”

Kolkov rubbed his chin. “I think they do two things. One is redirect energy. Massive amounts of energy. I also think, though, that they can store energy.” Kolkov turned to Dane. “On the way here you explained to me what Sin Fen told you about the power of your mind. I think the skulls are a higher level of that. They connect in some way with the crystalline Structure of the planet. I studied the ones we had in Russia.

Quartz is posed primarily of silicon dioxide. It can also form huge crystals that weigh several tons. It is extremely rare in nature to find pure quartz like that in the skulls, which is colorless. Even the slightest influence of other material can greatly color quartz. Do you know there are those who try to manufacture quartz?”

“Why?” Dane asked.

“Because of what we are talking about-the power potential. Theoretical work up to now, but apparently a good theory. The problem is that quartz is very difficult to manufacture and work with. If one goes against the grain the crystal shatters. Do you know what is used to carve quartz? Diamond, which has a rating of ten out of ten on the hardness scale. Quartz is rated at seven. This was the dilemma when people found some of these buried at ancient sites. Those who studied them wondered how ancient people could have carved such perfect specimens given they didn’t have diamond tools.”

“Because they weren’t carved,” Dane said.

“Yes. We know that now. Also, the grain cut on the skulls I saw in Russia goes against the natural axis of the stone, which is impossible to achieve even with diamond tools. Quartz in crystal form has a rhombohedra structure. One of the reasons scientists have tried to manufacture pure quartz structures is because of the piezoelectric effect.”

“What’s that?” Earhart asked.

Kolkov put his hands on either side of his head and pressed inward. “When quartz is subjected to pressure along certain lines of axis it will produce electric voltage, which in turn can help control the frequency of radio waves. It also rotates the plane of Polarized light.”

“Aren’t radio waves a form of power?” Dane asked.

Kolkov nodded. “Yes. Do you want to know my theory on what the skulls are part of?”

“Any information would help,” Dane said.

“I believe the skulls not only can store energy, but they are also part of a directed energy weapon.”

Dane remembered watching Sin Fen on top of the pyramid in the Bermuda Triangle as she transformed, channeling the power of the pyramid below her, pulsing out beams of blue into the blackness of the approaching portal. “How does it work?”

“There are three principal forms of directed-energy weapons: the directed microwave-energy weapon, the high-energy laser and the particle-beam. I believe what we might be dealing with is the last one. Although your government and mine have done a lot of publicized work on lasers and microwave-energy weapons, the particle beam research has always been shrouded in the utmost secrecy.”

“Why?” Dane asked.

“Because it has the most potential for lethality.”

“That figures,” Dane said.

“My government’s interest in the portals hasn’t been for purely scientific reasons,” Kolkov said. “We always believed there was a great threat from the Shadow, given what is suspected to have happened to Atlantis and the losses in various gates. Over the years we lost several submarines, ships and planes trying to investigate the gates.

“The initial event at Chernobyl validated that fear when the gate opened inside of tower three. Beyond the Shadow threat, there was, of course, also the Cold War. While both our countries signed the ABM treaty, neither country stopped doing research for weapons to destroy ICBMs, and particle-beam weapons held the most potential for targeting, speed, and effect.

“The characteristic that distinguishes the particle-beam weapon from other directed-energy weapons is the form of energy it propagates. While we have several operating concepts for particle-beam weapons, all devices generate their destructive power by accelerating sufficient quantities of subatomic particles or atoms to velocities near the speed of light and focusing these particles into a very high-energy beam. The total energy within the beam is the aggregate energy of the rapidly moving particles, each particle having kinetic energy due to its own mass and motion,”

Dane followed· only part of what Kolkov was saying. There was a part of him that felt the scientists were trying hard to understand the bits and pieces of the current situation but in doing so were missing the big picture. He had a feeling that they had many of the pieces that would allow them to understand both the Shadow and the Ones Before before them, but they just weren’t putting them together the right way.

Kolkov continued. “Currently, the particles we are using to form the beam are electrons, protons or hydrogen atoms. However, as Doctor Nagoya had been researching, it appears that muons might be the particle used by the skulls.

“The best way to visualize a particle-beam weapon is to think of a lightning bolt. The analogy is so close that particle-beam pulses are referred to as ‘bolts.’ The particles in a lightning bolt flow from a negatively charged cloud to a positively charged cloud or section of the planet. Although the electric field in lightning that accelerates the electrons is typically around five hundred thousand volts per meter, these electron velocities are still less than that in a particle-beam weapon. But the number of electrons in the lightning bolt is usually much greater. In any case, the phenomenon and its destructive results are very much the same.”

Dane stirred. “What I saw in the Bermuda Triangle gate when Sin Fen destroyed the mist was very much like lightning bolts. But they were blue.”

“The blue coloring might be a result of muons being used,” Kolkov said. “Because it is neutrally charged, the muon is a good particle to be used in a beam weapon. Neutral muons would not be susceptible to bending by the Earth’s magnetic field as would a charged-particle beam. Neither would the beam tend to spread due to the mutually repulsive force between particles of like-charge, such as electrons or protons, in the beam. In the atmosphere, a charged-particle beam will neutralize itself by colliding with air molecules, effectively creating enough ions of the opposite charge to neutralize the beam. And as you say, the beam used through the skulls doesn’t appear to be neutralized in the atmosphere.”

“So it just hits a target with a lot of power?” Dane asked.

“The way a particle beam destroys a target is by depositing energy into the material of the target. As the particles of the beam collide with the atoms, protons and electrons of the material composing the target, the energy of the particles in the beam is passed on to the atoms of the target much like a cue ball breaks apart a racked group of billiard balls. The result is that the target is heated rapidly to very high temperatures-which is exactly the effect that one observes in an explosion; although most people aren’t aware of this. Thus, a particle beam of sufficient energy can destroy a target by exploding it, although that is not the only means of destruction.

“The power of a particle-beam is the rate at which it transports its energy, which is also an indication of the rate at which it can deposit energy into a target. The technological problems associated with particle-beam weapons have been considerable. The greatest challenge is in the area of directing the beam: The weapon must be able to focus its energy to strike a target that might be many kilometers away. There are two aspects to this challenge. First, the weapon must create a high-intensity, neutral beam with negligible divergence as it leaves the accelerator. Second, the weapon must have a system for aiming its beam at the target. I believe the skulls accomplish both of these things in some way.

“Wait a second,” Dane said. “If they’re a weapon, how can they also store energy?”

“What’s the difference between a nuclear bomb and a nuclear power plant?” Kolkov didn’t wait for an answer. “Rate of action. It seems the skulls can vary the rate of action of the energy that they either store or redirect.

“Back to the beam-the subatomic particles that constitute a beam have great penetrating power. Thus, interaction with the target is not restricted to surface effects, as it is with a laser. When impinging upon a target, a laser creates a blow off of target material that tends to enshroud the target and, in effect, shield it from the laser beam. Such beam/target interaction problems would not exist for the particle beam with its penetrating nature. Particle beams would be quite effective in damaging internal components or might even explode a target by transferring a massive amount of energy into it-called the catastrophic kill mechanism. Furthermore, there would be no realistic means of defending a target against the beam; target hardening through shielding or materials selection would be Impractical or ineffective.”

“So this beam can penetrate the gate or a sphere?”

“It should. From what I’ve read of the report Foreman forwarded to me about what happened to Sin Fen and the Bermuda Triangle gate, I think the power from the pyramid was redirected by her mind and penetrated into the portal and to the other side. It is a most effective weapon against the Shadow, as it attacks it at the source, not the propagation end.

“In addition to the direct kill mechanism of the beam, ancillary kill mechanisms would be available. Within the atmosphere, a secondary cone of radiation symmetrical about the beam would be created by the beam particles as they collided with the atoms of the air. This cone would be composed of practically every type of ionizing radiation known, such as X rays, neutrons, alpha and beta particles, and so on. A tertiary effect from the beam would be the generation of an electromagnetic pulse by the electric current pulse of the beam. This EMP would be very disruptive to any electronic components of a target. Thus, even if the main beam missed, the radiation cone and accompanying EMP could kill a target or at least affect electronic components inside the target.”

Dane remembered what happened in Cambodia as they approached the Angkor Gate. “Would such a beam be attracted to a radio source?”

Kolkov nodded. “Yes. The successful development of a PBW depends on the ability of the beam to propagate directly and accurately to the target. Think about a lightning bolt. It does not travel in a straight line, but rather a jagged, irregular path as it darts unpredictably through the sky. Such indeterminacy would never do for the particle beam of a weapon, which must have an extremely precise path of propagation as it traverses the distance to the target.

“Since muons don’t repel each other, divergence would come strictly from any imparted by the accelerator.

“It has been theoretically calculated that specific threshold values of the beam parameters — beam current, particle energy, beam pulse length-are required for a beam to propagate through air with reliability. ·Although, the values of these parameters have been classified by both our governments, no particle-beam accelerator made by 1l1an is currently capable of creating a beam with the required parameters.

“Currently,” Dane emphasized.

“True, but the theory has been around for a while,” Kolkov said. “The first subatomic particle accelerators were constructed in the 1930s for scientific investigations in the field of elementary-particle physics. The accelerators used for the first-generation PBW system are variations of the present-day, linear accelerators such ‘as the two-mile-long Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, a state-of-the-art-device capable of producing electrons with an energy of 30 GeV Seeing the blank looks, Kolkov added — “Suffice it to say, a lot of power.”

Getting back to the line between being a battery and a weapon. Possibly the most difficult technical problem in developing a particle-beam weapon is the development of its electrical power supply. To operate a PBW requires that a tremendous amount of electrical energy be supplied over very short periods of time. Because power is energy divided by time, large amounts of energy over short spans of time translate into extremely high power levels. Building a power supply to produce high power in short bursts involves a very advanced field of technology know as pulsed-powered technology.

“Basically, a pulsed-power device can be divided into three component areas: the primary power source that pros electrical energy over the full operating time of the weapon, the intermediate storage of the electrical energy as it is generated, and the ‘conditioning’ of the electrical power bursts or pulses of suitable intensity and duration to fire the weapon. Each of these three areas has represented a technological challenge for our best scientists, but I think the skulls accomplish all three.

“Any electricity-producing device, such as a battery or generator, is a primary power source. The requirement of the particle-beam weapon, however, is for a prime power source that can produce millions to billions of watts of electrical power, yet be as lightweight and compact as possible.”

“Sounds like a crystal skull fits those criteria.”

“Yes, but there’s one thing that I don’t understand,” Kolkov said.

“What’s that?”

“Where does the power come from in the first place?”

Dane had been thinking about that. “ think it can come from a variety of sources. First, I believe the mind itself generates much more energy than we realize, particularly special minds. So in effect, a person transforming from a normal human mind into a crystal skull is punching out a lot of energy.

“Also,” Dane said, “I think a crystal skull can draw power from other minds, but only when they are generating at peek-” he searched for the correct word-“capacity. Particularly during a peak emotional event.”

“Such as a massacre,” Earhart said.

“Yes,” Dane confirmed. ‘’Third, I think the pyramid Sin Fen used to destroy the Bermuda Triangle gate drew power up from the core of the planet somehow. So ultimately what we’re saying is that these skulls are both a source of power and a transmitter for other power sources, specifically the core of the planet.”

Kolkov nodded. “It appears so.”

“This is all very nice and well, but what do we do next?” Earhart asked.

“Because we don’t have the technology to tap the planet’s core like the Shadow has,” Dane said, “we have to find something else to charge the skulls.”

“And that is?” Kolkov asked.

“Desperation.”

“I don’t quite understand,” Kolkov said.

“From what l understand from the Ones Before,” Dane said. “there is tremendous power generated by humans when they are facing annihilation. Maybe it’s the time when the brain works at peak efficiency; maybe it’s a reversion to our earlier telepathic minds generating emotion that flows from person to person; I don’t really know.”

Earhart was nodding. “It makes sense. And Little Big Horn certainly was a desperate battle. I’d already given one of the skulls to Bouyer. I’m hoping Tab went through and got the rest to him.”

“He went through a portal without a suit?” Dane asked.

Earhart nodded. “Yes. But remember, he was a samurai. If anyone could have gotten the skulls through unprotected, it was Taki.”

Dane stood. “Then we have to trust he did. And we have to do our part now.”

The scientists had stayed inside, living off of stockpiled supplies, which was nothing really different for them. They only went outside when absolutely necessary and then completely suited to protect from the sun’s radiation that bathed the area.

The dogs had no such protection and had not been brought inside due to cramped living conditions. A normally mild viral infection that one of the dogs had was bathed in radiation, Ill1lt3red within six hours, coughed by the dog out into the air and caught in the intake for one of the heating plants for a building. Within six hours everyone inside that building was dead. Just a side effect.

The others quickly rigged filters as best they could over · their air intakes and huddled even farther inside their buildings. A callout for recovery was ignored. They had sealed their fate with their previous noble decision to stay. Besides, this, and more, would be happening everywhere shortly, and there was no point in using the resources to rescue those who were already doomed.

Air raid sirens echoed down the empty streets of Moscow, letting any who had not already fled know that danger was coming, borne on the winds. Some of the soldiers who had been “volunteered” to stay and man critical defense systems simply went AWOL, smashing shop windows, breaking into bars. and carousing the empty streets drunk around the clock. The last time Moscow had been threatened like this had been in the dark years of World War n when German tanks had come within sight of the outskirts of the city. Then it had been Russian willpower and blood along with the brutal winter that had beaten back the invaders, just as had been done to Napoleon the previous century.

In this new century, though, blood, willpower and winter would matter little to the radiation coming from Chernobyl. So while soldiers drank themselves into a stupor, those who still remained on duty impotently stared at their displays and watching the inevitable approach.