Atlantis Gate

CHAPTER 25

“This is ridiculous,” Stoke’s executive officer muttered.

“You have a better idea?” Stokes asked as he leaned over the edge of Deepflght toward Rachel. In his hand was a snapshot of the Connecticut. The dolphin raised herself halfway out of the water, leaning toward the image. Then she went backward, hitting the water with a splash that soaked Stokes.

“Look,” he said.

Rachel raced off about a hundred meters, then paused, looking back as if waiting.

“Let’s go,” Stokes said as he slid inside the submersible, joining the rest of the survivors of his crew.

The scale of the Shadow sphere was overwhelming as Dane, Earhart, and Ariana got closer. Even though it was over half buried, the curving side loomed high over their heads and to the left and right. Ariana didn’t hesitate when she reached the craft but began floating upward, along the side. Dane and Amelia Earhart followed, the black surface just a couple of inches underneath their suits.

Ariana was angling to the right and came to a halt about fifty meters short of the top. There was a thin line in the surface that extended as far as she could see. About four inches to the left of the line was a strange-looking indentation.

Ariana pointed at that spot. “Use the Naga Staff.”

Dane had almost forgotten about the pole strapped to his pack. Earhart removed it for him, and he took it from her. He realized the indentation was the opposite of the Naga heads. Making sure to keep the blade away from his suit, he slowly pressed the Naga end into the hole. A golden glow suffused the hole and staff, and Dane felt a shock pass through his body.

He let go of the staff and was buffeted back several feet as a loud noise filled the air. The crack slowly opened several inches along the top half of the sphere. A quarter of the way around to the left and right, similar cracks had opened.

“More,” Ariana said.

Reluctantly, Dane took hold of the staff and pressed. He was ready when the shock hit him, and he kept his hold. The crack widened until it was five feet wide where they were narrowing to the joint at the bottom.

“Come on,” Ariana said.

“Just leave it?” Dane indicated the staff.

“I don’t think anyone is going to come along and do anything to it,” Ariana slipped into the opening. Dane followed with Earhart right behind him. He could see that the skin of the sphere was over three feet thick. The interior was lit by a dim golden glow coming, from numerous unseen sources. The inside was as magnificent as the outside. It was completely open, with a floor that bisected the diameter in the exact middle. The floor was canted slightly. Indicating the sphere wasn’t resting with the top straight up.

“This is what my plane was drawn into,” Earhart said.

Dane had seen the video from the USS Revelle when it was captured by a similar-or could it be the same? — sphere. Ariana was descending, floating downward. Dane wasn’t sure how to do that, but the suit seemed to sense the direction he wanted to go, and he followed. Ariana touched down in the exact center of the floor, Dane landing a second later, followed by Earhart.

“It still has power.” Dane noted.

“Some,” Ariana acknowledged.

“Have you been in here before?” Earhart asked.

“In the vision,” Ariana said. She bent over and placed her rumored hand on the floor. She quickly stood and backed up as a hatch iris opened. It was five feet in diameter, and she didn’t hesitate as she slipped down into it. Dane followed, and they went down a long tube for almost a minute before it opened into a circle, about fifty feet in diameter. Floating in the exact center was a golden sphere that took up about a fifth of the space. The surface shimmered, and Dane was certain the exterior wasn’t solid.

Dane felt drawn to it and innately knew this was the control center for the sphere. But Ariana was moving past it. Dane now saw at least a dozen opening tubes, leading out of the place he was in. Ariana disappeared down the lowest hole. Dane checked to make sure Earhart was with him, then followed.

They descended for several minutes, then entered another large opening. Dane’s ‘best’ guess was that they were at the very bottom of the massive vehicle. This chamber was about five hundred feet across and very dimly lit so that it was hard to see. Poking up from the center was a thick rod with a globe on the top. He could make out that the walls were lined with couches. Strapped into almost half the couches were bodies. Human bodies.

“The Shadows are human?” Earhart whispered.

Dane had seen something like this before. He approached the nearest couch. There was something strange about the body. Then Dane saw it. The head was half solidified — not quite crystal, more a dullish gray mixed with crystal. Turning slowly, he could see that all the couches were oriented toward the center — toward the globe on top of the rod.

“I don’t know if the Shadows are human,” Dane said, “but their fuel for this thing was.”

“Not the fuel,” Ariana said. “The channel for the power.”

Dane remembered the Theran priestess Kaia going into the portal and disrupting the power. “So we can use the skulls to disrupt the Nazca portal if we can get to it?”

“Yes.”