knowledge Dorian didn’t. That was their advantage: David’s strength and Kate’s brains. But Dorian had the element of surprise. And something else—the willingness to do what had to be done to save his people. He was the march of human history, embodied in one man. A survivor, standing against impossible odds, doing the things others, like Kate and David, turned their backs on. He was the essence of human survival.
A part of him was nervous about the final confrontation with David. That would be the true test—whether Dorian could win.
If he could, he would turn his sights on Ares. The Atlantean was a snake, a manipulator. Dorian didn’t trust him. He would have to go next, after Dorian had learned the full truth, especially about this “enemy” Ares was so frightened of.
“Sir, we’re at the drop zone,” the pilot called into Dorian’s headset.
Dorian peered out the narrow window. Water stretched out as far as he could see.
Dorian marveled. What he saw used to be the coast of Morocco.
“Drop the probe,” he said.
He raised the tablet and watched the telemetry on the split screen, which showed a contour of the new sea floor on the right-hand side and a video feed on the left. Dorian recognized a mountain top, completely submerged. He tapped the tablet, directing the probe. A few seconds later, the Atlantean ship, the Alpha Lander, came into view. It was buried deep.
“Mark it,” Dorian said.
They would find the airlock entrance after the dive.
“Form up for jump!” Dorian called to the six soldiers.
On the next pass, they spilled out of the aircraft, falling to the pitch-black sea at terminal velocity, their bodies formed into a dart, their hands held at their sides, oxygen tanks on their backs. Just as they reached the surface, the most recent storm receded and sunlight broke through, showering their entrance to the watery unknown with light.
Dorian plunged into the water and instantly spun himself about, searching for his men. One of them had veered too low and collided with the rocks just below the surface. His now broken body floated in the lighted murkiness.
The other five figures spread out, the sunlight carving their outlines in the water.
“Form up on me,” Dorian called over his intercom.
As the soldiers swam toward him, Dorian surveyed the dark water between them. Something else floated in the space. Not debris.
The silence in the water shattered. An explosion, then an eruption of white bubbles and air engulfed him, throwing Dorian into the submerged mountainside. He rolled across the rock, trying to grasp a handhold. Finally, he came to rest. His hands instinctively reached for his oxygen tank. It was intact. He was safe. He turned, peering into the water. The chaos was clearing. Four of his men still floated in the abyss. They called over the radio, sounding off, then awaited his order.
“Don’t move,” he said. “I’ll guide you around the mines.”
One by one, Dorian directed his men down through the water, using his vantage point to spot suspected mines. He couldn’t afford to lose any more men. When they were safely at the ship below, he followed them, pushing through the water, careful to avoid anything that could be a mine.
The darkness slowly consumed every bit of light from above, and the dark shapes that could be mines grew harder to spot. Dorian had only his memory and the narrow beams of light from his helmet to guide him.
Ahead, he saw the four soldiers floating. Forty feet. Thirty. Twenty.
He was there. The airlock control was similar to the portal in Antarctica. It opened for him as he drew close, and he and his men rushed in, out of the darkness.
The airlock flushed the water out, and Dorian shed his suit and approached the control panel. The green cloud of familiar light emerged. Dorian worked his fingers inside it, and the display flashed.
General Ares
Access Granted
Dorian pulled up a schematic of the ship.
It had been badly damaged, either from the nuclear blast Patrick Pierce, Kate Warner’s father, had unleashed or by the mines. Entire sections were decompressed and flooded. The ship was on emergency power, and most importantly, there was only one route to the portal room.
Dorian pointed to the map. “Arc 1701-D. South entrance. That’s our destination.” Dorian chambered the first round in his automatic rifle. “Shoot to kill.”
CHAPTER 18
David was covered head to toe in dirt. His muscles had ached, and now they burned, but he kept digging, throwing shovel after shovel of dirt and rock down the tunnel where Milo, Mary, and Kate waited to haul it out, pail after pail.
He felt a hand on his shoulder, and he turned to find Sonja. “Take a break,” she said.
“I can go another—”
“And then you’ll be exhausted, and I’ll be exhausted, and Paul will be exhausted, and we’ll all have to wait.” She took the shovel from him and began digging into the hard-packed ground, maintaining the upward slant they hoped would lead to the surface—an opening into the arc.
Kate had been right: the contents of the arcology had shifted over the last thirteen thousand years and not in their favor. The door was underground now, the earth having slid to one side. How far under, they didn’t know. It could be ten feet or a hundred. David wondered how long their meal rations would last, and what they would do if they didn’t see the arc’s artificial daylight soon.
At his and Kate’s bedroom, he collapsed on the chair by the small metal table and dug into the MRE Kate had left out for him.
He was famished. He stopped eating only to breathe.
Kate entered and threw another MRE on the table.
“I’m not eating your ration,” he said.
“Me either.”
“You need your strength.”
“You need it more,” she said.
“I wouldn’t if you could get that quantum cube Janus gave to Milo to work.”
“We’ve been over this. Gaps in my knowledge. Big ones.”
David held the fork up defensively. “Just saying.” He finished the first MRE and eyed the second. “I feel like Patrick Pierce tunneling under the Sea of Gibraltar.”
“That’s a bit dramatic. I don’t see why you don’t use the explosives.”
“Don’t have enough. We used half to get in. Barely broke through. We’ll need the other half—assuming we ever make it across.”
Kate opened the second MRE. “Eat it, or it will go to waste.”
She left before David could say a word. He exhaled and continued eating. He would pull a double shift next go round, whether Sonja stopped him or not.
The door slid open, and Milo rushed in. “Mr. David!” The teenager smiled. “We’re through.”
“Water break!” David called, halting the line of six that snaked through the dense rainforest. All of them took out their canteens, some drinking more liberally than others. They were all exhausted from the three-hour march, which had been mostly uphill.
David handed the machete to Paul, who took the lead position, ready to continue cutting their path through the thick green, red, and purple plants and vines that webbed between the trees which stretched to the dense canopy, blocking out much of the artificial sun. Or two suns in this case.
David studied the shadows on the forest floor, trying to get an idea of how much daylight they had left. Night will be dangerous, Kate had said.
“What do we call the flying invisible reptiles?” David asked her.
“Exadons.”
“If we make camp here, will they attack us? In the thick forest?”
“I don’t know. Possibly.”
David sensed that Kate was holding back. “Tell me.”
“They are predisposed to attack any new species in their habitat. It’s an evolutionary response, a learning method for them. It’s one of the reasons the scientists were interested in them.”
“Wonderful.”
David took his pack off and slung his sniper rifle around his shoulder.
“Where are you going?”
“To climb a tree.”
The view from the top of the forest’s canopy was breathtaking. The arc was an arena unlike any David had ever witnessed. He sat there for a few minutes, simply taking it all in. The ceiling of the dome simulated a sky with clouds and radiated heat. In the center of the floor, the rainforest stopped, and a green plain spread out, maybe a mile wide and slightly longer, followed by a smaller forest, this one more rocky and on declining terrain that ended in the exit. David was relieved to see that it wasn’t blocked. The bottom layer of soil had completely shifted in their direction. In fact, they would need to build a ladder or stairway of some sort to even reach the door. And they’d have to blow it up, but there was another bright spot: they could use fewer explosives, which gave them a little extra to work with out here.
The green plain was surrounded on three sides by rainforest, but its righ