e Serpentine battlefield. The log contained only two entries: a portal connection yesterday, and a data transmission approximately thirteen thousand years ago.
Interesting. What was significant about that date? Janus. He had been trapped around that time—during Ares’ attack on the scientists’ lander off the coast of Gibraltar. Had Janus sent a message to a potential ally? A call for help? It was possible.
Dorian queried the date. There had been three transmissions from this beacon on that date. Was Janus increasing his chances of reaching help?
Kate had come here, seen something that scared her, and then had the courage to step through the portal—to a beacon anywhere in the universe, which could be in any condition imaginable. The payoff on the other side had to be huge. And she had to be somewhat certain there wasn’t an immediate danger waiting there.
Janus’ breadcrumbs. Dorian realized what they were: memories. Kate was playing the same game he was: trying to unravel the past of the Atlanteans and learn the truth about their enemies and allies. Her team had gone to one of the three beacons. And they were likely still there. Dorian burned the beacon addresses into his mind. It was only a matter of time now.
“Slow down,” David said. He looked around the communications bay at everyone assembled. He was right: Kate was laying down the revelations too fast for everyone, except maybe for Mary, who looked almost hypnotized.
“It’s a transmission—coming from the battlefield,” Kate said.
“How?” David asked.
“It must be from the wreckage.” Kate activated the screen, scrolling the message quickly, as if anyone could actually read it. “It’s just like the one Mary received on Earth—a binary number sequence at the start and a body with four base codes.”
“Is it the same message?” Mary asked quickly.
“I don’t know,” Kate said. “It’s the same format though.”
“So at the very least, the sender could be the same,” Paul said.
Kate nodded.
“What do we know?” David asked. “I mean, you said information about this place is classified.”
“Yes,” Kate said, focusing on David. “And I checked: the scientist, Janus’ partner, never visited this place. In fact, she has no recollection of the Serpentine Army at all.”
“Yet Janus sent a transmission to someone in his final seconds, and then sends his partner’s memories here—to a battlefield she never visited, where a signal strangely like the response to his message has been transmitted on repeat for thousands of years.” David scratched his head. It didn’t add up to him. What was he missing? There was something wrong here. “They put these beacons in places they didn’t want anyone to find, right?”
“Right,” Kate confirmed. “Or to keep what’s inside from seeing out.”
Yes, that was it. David was sure of it.
A mechanical sound on the top floor, just above them broke the silence.
David’s eyes snapped to Kate. “The portal.”
“It’s not me,” she shot back.
“Keep this door locked,” David said, as he ran out of the communications bay, Sonja close on his heels.
A single stairwell led from the bottom floor to the top floor, which held the portal, large storage bays, and the residential pods. The bottom floor housed the communications bay and a series of small storage rooms.
David’s options were bad and worse: climb the stairwell and face Dorian and whatever men he had left on the second floor or wait here, hoping to ambush them when they descended.
He quickly decided on the ambush. He motioned for Sonja to take up position inside one small storage room; he moved quickly to another. They would fire on Dorian from those two positions, waiting until he reached the bottom of the stairway to open fire.
David heard a metallic clang coming down the stairway, like tin cans rolling. Surely Sloane wasn’t stupid enough to… Across the way, David saw Sonja peek out from her doorway. Three black round cylinders bounced from the stairs into the narrow corridor. Flash grenades.
David spun, hiding behind the door frame, covering his ears, closing his eyes tightly. A split second later, the flash and boom consumed his sight and hearing. Everything moved in slow motion. David pushed against the wall, opened his jaw, and blinked, trying to regain his senses.
He glanced out. Sonja. The blast had caught her full on. She staggered forward, into the corridor.
A figure barreled down the stairwell, taking the stairs three at a time. He began firing at Sonja before he reached the bottom.
David raised his rifle, firing on the man, but it was too late.
Sonja fell, blood pouring out of her. The man rolled on the floor across from her, convulsing, still pulling the trigger, spraying bullets in every direction, including back into the stair well.
A small object ricocheted off the stairwell wall, then another. They bounced and rolled. David’s eyes grew wide. Grenades.
He stepped back and tripped over a crate. He sat up just enough to see out of the narrow doorway, into the blood-filled corridor, where Sonja and Dorian’s soldier lay lifeless. For a moment, there was no sound. Then… an orange wall of light formed, crackling, glistening, containing the grenade blast. A forcefield.
The small door of the storage room closed, and the force of motion threw David against the back wall. The artificial gravity in the room released its grip, and he slowly floated upward, joining the silver boxes.
It was all like a bizarre dream with no sound. David rotated, staring out the window at the military beacon. The room wasn’t for storage. They had just used it for storage. It was an emergency escape pod. And it was floating into the vast debris field, joining the millions of other pieces of wreckage from battles fought and lost. He simply stared out the window, the view and silence feeling bizarre and unsettling. Sadness. Sloane would reach Kate and the others. He had failed. His final defeat. And he would never see Kate again.
CHAPTER 34
Kate waited in the communications bay with Milo, Paul, and Mary, listening as the gunfire gave way to explosions. The wall screen erupted, a red dialog covering it.
Decompression Imminent
Containment Protocols Initiated
A single word blinked.
Evacuate
Kate surveyed the state of the beacon. It had been ripped in half. Forcefields were holding the vacuum of space at bay, but the beacon couldn’t power them much longer. All the escape pods had been on the other side of the forcefield, and the beacon had deployed them.
She had no choice. She quickly keyed the portal to the next beacon location Janus had sent memories to. She downloaded the memories from the current beacon onto a portable memory core and moved to the door.
“Come on,” she said, trying to fake as much bravery as she could. “Stay behind me.”
The doors slid open. Sonja and another soldier lay dead on the black floor. Sorrow and joy filled Kate. David wasn’t there. Still a chance.
A glowing orange forcefield obscured the view of space and the debris field beyond.
Kate glanced around. One way out. The stairwell. She stepped through the blood, over the bodies, and onto the first stair. She hesitated, wondering if she should grab a gun. Paul’s eyes lingered on the fallen soldier’s rifle a second before he tore it free from the man, and then moved forward, taking position in front of Kate.
“You know how to use that?” she whispered.
He shrugged. “Not really. You?”
“Not really.”
They stood for a second. There was no sound above. At the back of her mind, Kate kept hoping David would round the corner, peek his head into the stairwell and say, “Coast is clear. Let’s go.”
But he never came. She crept up the metallic stairwell, the others following her, Paul at her side.
The blast of sound from the emergency evacuation message almost threw her off her feet and back down the stairway.
At the top of the steps, she could see the glowing portal, and through the reflection of the small glass window opposite it, a soldier lying in the corridor on the other side of the portal. It wasn’t David. She glanced out the window, at the now growing debris field. Pieces of the beacon slowly floated past.
She couldn’t move.
She felt Paul’s hand around her arm.
“We need to go, Kate,” he said.
Her mind was moving in slow motion now, but she forced herself to trudge through the portal.
The portal’s destination wasn’t a beacon. Kate knew it instantly. The place was expansive, huge, so unlike the cramped, utilitarian beacons.
She, Paul, Mary, and Milo stood in a massive room with a window that stretched at least a hundred feet wide and fifty feet tall.
The scene beyond left the entire group speechless, utterly spellbound. Horrified. For Kate, the view of Earth had been awe-inspiring. The