Atlantis: Gate (26 page)

Inside his quarters, Xerxes slept deeply.

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

“The first day,” Leonidas said as the sun hung low in the eastern sky.

Cyra was next to him, wrapped in her red cloak, but she said nothing.

“Why four days?” Leonidas turned to her. “Why couldn’t it be two days? Or today?” He laughed. “That would make things easier. But four days—” he shook his head—“my scouts tell me there are almost a quarter million troops facing us.”

“We cannot control the timing,” Cyra said. “We can only control our actions.”

“We can’t control our actions if we are dead,” Leonidas noted.

A skiritai came running in from the north, across the open space in front of the Middle Gate.

“Yes?” Leonidas asked as the ranger came to a halt in front of him and gave a half bow.

“My lord, the Persians are moving. An advance guard has just begun to enter the trail at the base of the pass.”

Leonidas slid his helmet on, putting his face into a dark shadow. “It is time.”

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

A contingent of Egyptian troops, over four thousand strong, began their way into the pass. Xerxes scouts did not lead the way—after all he had the report from the scout the previous evening and Pandora’s map. Instead they had been deployed on the crucial mission of finding a vantage point from which the King might view the coming action. They had located such a place on the mountainside to the northwest, where the angle was just sufficient to see into the pass and the Middle Gate. As the Egyptians had assembled, the scouts had laboriously carried the heavy throne up into position.

While the advance guard of the Egyptians entered the beginning of the pass, Xerxes, surrounded by his guard and most of his generals, slowly rode up a steep track to the small level notch where his throne was set. Pandora walked behind him and to the right. They reached the throne and Xerxes settled in, then got his first view of the pending battlefield.

He jerked to his feet, a vein throbbing in his forehead. “What is this?” he screamed.

“My Lord?” the head of the scouts cowered in front of him.

“The pass,” Xerxes was pointing to the southeast, the hand shaking with anger. “Is that it?”

“Yes, my Lord.”

“But—”he turned to Pandora. “Explain.”

She was slowly shaking her head. “I cannot my Lord.”

“Your map shows the pass to be over a mile wide,” Xerxes shouted. “That is less than a hundred meters wide at the top.”

They could all see the narrowness and also, the lead Egyptians less than a half mile from a slightly wider spot and the stone wall in the center. There was only one man present on the wall, a Greek in full armor who stood tall, looking straight at the King.

Xerxes spun to the head of his scouts, signaling as he did so to his master-at-arms. “Seize him.” Once the man was in chains, Xerxes drew his dagger and walked up to him. “Why did you not tell us how narrow the pass was?”

The head scout swallowed hard. “My Lord. You did not ask.”

Xerxes slid the razor sharp blade across the man’s throat and stepped back, out of the way, as blood gushed out. Then he walked over to Pandora. “Your map is wrong.”

“My Lord—” Pandora took a step back. “I did not make the map. I was given it.”

“By who?”

“By those who seek to aid you. They might not have known the map was—” she paused as if something occurred to her. “My Lord, the map is of a different time. When the pass is wider. We could not have known.”

“A different time?” Xerxes placed the blade against her throat. “I am—“

“King.” One of the generals was pointing to the pass. Xerxes turned, keeping the metal in place. A woman had joined the Greek warrior on top of the wall. They were about two miles away, but it was obvious they were looking at him.

Pandora spoke quickly. “They wish me dead, Lord.”

“I wish you dead, right now,” Xerxes said through gritted teeth.

“There are only three hundred Spartans in the pass,” Pandora continued. “Your army can make short work of them.”

“You were the one who told me how dangerous the Spartans were,” Xerxes noted.

“They are. But there are only three hundred. You have four thousand marching toward them right now. And many thousands more behind.”

“The problem,” Xerxes enunciated each word slowly and clearly, “is that in that narrow place, their front and our front, will be the same width and depth. You made light of my military knowledge, but I do know that much.” He pressed the blade, drawing a trickle of blood.

The Greek warrior held up a staff, as if in salute to Xerxes. The King’s eyes narrowed as he peered at the weapon—a Naga Staff. “Interesting,” he muttered.

“That is Leonidas, sire,” Jamsheed reported.

Xerxes removed the dagger from her throat and turned to his master at arms. “Bring me the staff.” When it was in his hands, Xerxes lifted it, returning the gesture.

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

“That is Pandora?” Leonidas asked Cyra as he lowered the Staff.

“Yes.”

“Xerxes does not seem pleased with her.”

“She is just a pawn, as is he. When such pieces are allowed to think, sometimes they make the wrong move.”

“And am I just a pawn?” Leonidas asked.

“I hope not,” Cyra said as another skiritai ran up and reported the Egyptians moving up the path.

Leonidas looked down on the Spartan troops assembled in front of him. “I want fifty men. Each squad leader give me one man. We are going to meet the enemy.”

Leonidas leapt off the wall as the chosen men quickly lined up. He led the way, across the open space in front of the wall and then into the trail that descended to the north. He went about two hundred meters, then halted. The trail was only twelve feet wide, with a precipitous drop to the right and a cliff wall to the left. It went down about twenty meters in a straight line before curving out of sight to the left.

“Three deep,” Leonidas ordered.

Without further instructions, the Spartans formed three ranks, completely blocking the trail with a wall of metal, leather, wood and flesh. The three rows of spears bristled, point’s level. Leonidas stood in the exact center of the front line, the Naga Staff blade shining more brightly than the spears to the left and right, but held up straight into the sky, not level like the others.

The first rank of Egyptians appeared around the bend in the trail and came to an abrupt halt at the sight of the Spartans. There was confusion for several moments before an officer made his way to the front and surveyed the situation. Leonidas could clearly see the man, less than fifteen meters away. His cheeks were rouged and he wore silk over his finely wrought armor. But the man’s eyes were sharp as they swept across the Spartan line and took in the tight terrain. He yelled orders in his tongue and his soldiers began to awkwardly fill the space.

Leonidas had expected this and had prepared his men. He snapped the Naga Staff down to the horizontal and the front two Spartan lines, without an order yelled or any other sound, charged forward, reaching full speed in less than five strides. Even as they moved, the left side of the Spartan line edged ahead of the right, so that when they smashed into the as yet unformed Egyptians, the left hit five paces ahead of the right. It was like a housewife sweeping her porch of dust mites.

Those not immediately slain were pressured back against those behind. The angle of the attack pushed them back toward the drop-off and Egyptians began to tumble off, many screaming on their way down the rocky face before being silenced when crashing into the thin shoreline below.

Leonidas met the Egyptian commander. With a swing of the Naga Staff he sliced through the man’s shield and into his chest. The man fell to the ground dead and Leonidas pressed forward. Within twenty seconds the pass to the bend was empty of live Egyptians.

Leonidas went to the bend and peered around. He could see the rest of the trail—over a mile—to the plain below. It was crammed with more Egyptians. “Follow me,” Leonidas yelled over his shoulder as he spotted the closest Egyptian with the Naga Staff.

The Spartans charged down the path eight across, killing everyone in their way or knocking them off the cliff. Some of the enemy fought, but many were killed from behind as they turned and tried to run, but found their way blocked by their own forces.

Leonidas kept the advance under control, rotating out the lead eight men every twenty meters or so, insuring fresh arms in the front rank to thrust spears and swing swords. They made their way almost three hundred meters down the path and had killed uncounted Egyptians when the entire remaining column panicked.

“Hold,” Leonidas ordered, seeing the mayhem as the Egyptians advanced had turned into a disorganized rout. He leaned on the Naga Staff, watching. The battle had taken perhaps an hour, but he knew that the Persians would have to spend the rest of the day getting the Egyptians off the path and trying to re-organize another assault.

Leonidas turned and slowly began walking up the path toward the pass, his feet almost slipping at times from the slick blood that coated the trail. Cyra was waiting for him as the trail opened up at the top.

“Day one is ours,” Leonidas said. “Day two will be different.”

CHAPTER 19 BEYOND THE SPACE BETWEEN

Dane had no idea how long he and Amelia Earhart had been motionless, floating above the Reflecting Pool, looking at the ruins of Washington DC. The extent of the devastation was beyond overwhelming. Without a word they floated forward toward the remains of the Washington Monument.

They passed the monument, continuing toward Capitol Hill when they both stopped and turned to the left. The White House was gone. Scorched earth was all that remained.

“Oh no. Oh no.” Earhart was repeating the phrase as if by doing so she could keep the horror of what they were seeing at bay.

Dane paused, slowly turning inside the Valkyrie suit to look at something less than ten feet away. A car. The metal twisted and scorched but the make still recognizable. He blinked. But the screen showed the same thing. His heart accelerated.

He could be wrong.

He twisted slightly. Another car. Then another. He studied each one.

“Amelia.”

She was still muttering her mantra.

“Amelia!” Dane’s voice was sharp. “Listen to me.”

She was silent for a few moments. “What?” she finally asked.

“This is—” Dane was at a loss for words. “The cars,” he finally got out.

“What about them?” Earhart turned toward him.

“They’re old,” Dane finally said.

“Old? I don’t recognize them.”

“They’re after your time,” Dane allowed, “but they’re not my time. Thirty years before my time. Late fifties. Early sixties.” It clicked then for Dane. “This was the vision. The one I saw with Frost. The Cuban missile crisis. The Russians launched. The bomb went off.” Dane spun about. Where the Lincoln Memorial had been there was a crater. There was a cab.

Dane moved forward. And there was a cab, the yellow burnt off it, but in the exact spot outside the White House where he had seen Frost stop it. Floating in the air a few feet above the ground; seeing Washington destroyed; having traveled through the space-between; all that had happened to him recently from the Angkor Gate through the Bermuda Triangle Gate to the Devil’s Sea Gate; Dane’s brain was beyond overwhelmed.

He began hyperventilating and the suit’s air processor couldn’t keep up with the demand, given that someone inside had no real physical exertion. Darkness swept over him like a tidal wave and he passed out.

THE SPACE BETWEEN

Captain Stokes blinked several times, trying to get oriented. A man was leaning over him silhouetted by a light that wasn’t the sun.

“Are you all right, sir?”

“What? Who are you?” Stokes tried to sit up and the man put a hand behind his shoulders, helping him.

“Assistant surgeon Asper,
USS Cyclops
.”

“
Cyclops
?” Stokes frowned, trying to place the ship. The Navy was down to less than three hundred ships in the post Cold War era and Stokes had served for over twenty years, but he couldn’t fix the name with a ship he knew.

“Fleet?” Stokes asked.

“Naval Auxiliary Force, Caribbean.”

“What?”

“Sir, the
Cyclops
was collier, a—“

“A what?”

“A coal ship.”

“Coal?”

“Sir, the
Cyclops
was lost in March, 1918, while returning from Brazil. We were northwest of Puerto Rico when a cloud appeared off our port bow. The captain—” Asper paused and Stokes could hear the disgust in the man’s voice—“he decided to stay on course and we went into the fog.”

“The Bermuda Triangle?”

“Aye, I hear that’s what you people call it.”

“And here?”

“The Space Between, sir.”

Stokes’ head felt clearer. He slowly got to his feet. He noted the other members of his crew who were still unconscious. His executive officer. His chief dive chief petty officer. His engineering officer. His chief sonar man.

Why those? Of all his crew.

Then he realized. If he had to run his ship with an absolute minimum of personnel, they were the five he would choose.

THE PRESENT

Foreman had a stack of reports in front of him, ranging from damage reports concerning the ‘disaster on the Mississippi’ as the press was calling it, to classified Pentagon updates on the modification of cruise missiles to go through the gates/portals.

He was startled out of his reading by Ahana sliding a single piece of paper on top of the document.

“What is this?” Foreman asked as he picked it up.

“An update on the timeline.”

The numbers were bleak. “Forty hours?”

“Yes, sir. And there will be other activity before then.”

“What exactly happens ‘then’?” Foreman asked.

“The core will explode.”

BEYOND THE SPACE BETWEEN

“God-damnit, wake up.”

The voice was insistent. Dane tried to block it out, but it was bringing him back to consciousness.

“We can’t hang around here forever,” Earhart was right next to him, hovering six inches above the street. Dully, Dane noted that the asphalt had melted and then reformed.