The sphere bit the portal, rocked, bounced and then Dane almost fell off the pedestal as the craft canted hard right.
“Whoa!” Earhart called out. “I’ve got it.” The floor leveled. “Deploying panels and releasing the ozone.”
On board the FLIP, Foreman, Dane’s CIA boss, was one of the first to get the reports of the massive sphere reappearing. A dozen military and research aircraft from various countries were within range of the craft and they immediately vectored in.
“What are we going to do about the radiation?” Dane asked.
“We’re heading north now,” Earhart reported. “You just keep the power coming. I’ll take care of it. We’ve discharged all the ozone we picked up. And keep that gate open.”
At McMurdo Station in Antarctica the surviving scientists couldn’t believe the data their instruments were recording. It wasn’t just a reprieve for them; it was a reversal of the damage to the ozone layer that had been done for decades previously. The Shadow’s attempt to destroy this Earth timeline by completely stripping the atmosphere of ozone had failed.
Moscow was a ghost town, millions having fled the inevitable wave of radiation from Chernobyl being born by the winds. The front edge had passed through the suburbs and now threatened the city itself. A handful of dedicated soldiers stayed at their stations, manning the nuclear launch control center, the air defense monitoring station, and other key facilities, which had NBC protection capability. They would stay there as long as they could remain buttoned up and survive.
The air defense monitoring station was the first to pick up the image of the sphere as it approached from the south. The size of the image was so overwhelming the general in charge had no idea what to do.
Earhart brought the sphere and its miles of deployed panels down to a level where they wouldn’t hit the highest object. “How’s the power?”
Dane looked at the nine skulls. Five had already gone blank, while four still glowed. “We’re under fifty percent.”
“Damn.” Earhart knew the controls of this ship. It was Something she hadn’t wanted to discuss with Dane because she didn’t know how she knew. Whether the Ones Before had planted the knowledge in her somehow or, more darkly, she had piloted this craft sometime in the past and didn’t remember, she had no idea.
She pushed a button to her extreme left.
The panels crackled with energy, drawing the radiation in the air toward them. the sphere and panels swept through the sky above Russia in long, fast S-turns, cleaning the air of death, heading toward Chernobyl, which the Shadow had completely destroyed after draining all the reactor cores of their power.
“We’re getting hot inside the cargo bay,” Earhart informed Dane.
“We don’t have much power left,” Dane replied. “How much longer?”
“I think we got it,” Earhart said, checking the displays. “Most of it at least. I’m heading back toward the portal and bringing in the panels so we can go faster.”
As the sphere accelerated, the panels began folding on themselves.
Eight of the skulls had been drained of the energy put into them at such cost. Only one still glowed. Dane was staring at it as if he could keep the power flowing from it with simply his will. Perhaps he could, he suddenly realized. He was one of the chosen. He realized he had the power if he was willing to make the sacrifice.
He had asked others to make sacrifices.
“Eric.”
He lifted one hand out of the portal map and extended it toward the line of blue power that flowed from the skull to the map.
“Damn it, Dane. We’re almost there. What are you doing?”
He put his hand into the flow. His head snapped back as if he’d been shot in the forehead. He was only kept from falling by his one hand still gripping the portal end of his Earth timeline.
The sphere hit the portal with a jar that knocked Dane to the other side, pulling his hand out of the power flow. Unconscious, he let go of the portal map and collapsed to the floor.
“We made it,” Earhart’s voice echoed inside the Valkyrie suit. “Dane? Eric, are you there?”
There was firing to the south, where Reno and Benteen’s troops were dug in on top of a knoll. They didn’t have access to water and Sitting Bull knew it would only be a matter of a couple of days before they became dehydrated and desperate.
They were not his immediate concern. He looked over the battlefield strewn with the dead blue-coats and crowded with his people. All had gathered round, staring up at him. The two ghosts had just disappeared into the black with the glowing skulls. Such a thing none here had ever seen, and all knew they had witnessed powerful medicine.
For the first time in his life, Sitting Bull was at a loss for words. He could see Crazy Horse and the strange half-breed who had brought the skulls whispering together.
“My people-” Sitting Bull began, but he still could not summon the words that had always flowed so easily. Thus he gave way when Crazy Horse surprisingly came forward. The one who never spoke in front of groups. Who let his actions speak.
Crazy Horse stood next to Sitting Bull looking around at the thousand faces looking back. Warriors, squaws, children. Many covered in white man’s blood. He too heard the shooting to the south where warriors kept the other blue-coats trapped. This was a great victory indeed, but — yes. Even Crazy Horse could finally accept the but — they had destroyed only half of the Seventh Cavalry. And there was another column of blue-coats coming from the north with even more men than Custer had. And there were more, an ocean of soldiers to the east ready to sweep west. For the first time in his life, Crazy Horse saw the truth, the reality.
“What happened today,” Crazy Horse said, his powerful voice easily carrying over the crowd, “the magic you have witnessed, must never be spoken of. Even among us. And you would be Wise not to speak of this battle at all to the whites. For they will come thirsting for vengeance for the Son of the Morning Star and the others who lie here.” He swallowed, looked at his “brother” who met his gaze steadily, then continued. “We must leave. Separate and go our own ways. And make peace with the whites when they offer it.”
There were no cries of dissent. The magic all had witnessed had been too powerful, too full of portent.
“If we continue to fight,” Crazy Horse continued, “we will all die. We will become as extinct as the great buffalo. We used to see the plains covered with them as far as the eye could reach. They would pass by our encampments for days on end. Now we must search long and hard for a small group. If we continue to fight we too will come to an end.”
He waved toward the west. “Go. Separate. Hide from the whites. And when they offer peace, take it. It is not a good thing. It is not what I or you would want. But it is what will happen.”
Crazy Horse walked down. Past the horse against which Custer lay dead, up to his “brother.” “Go in peace. Talk to the white chiefs. Tell them it is over.”
Earhart floated into the power chamber which was lit only?~ a dim gold glow from the portal map. She saw Dane lying at the base of the portal pedestal. “Eric?”
Dane slowly opened his eyes.
“Are you all right?”
Dane nodded, grimacing with pain. “We must take the fight to the Shadow.”
“How do we do that?”
“First, we find the Ones Before.” Before Earhart could ask the same question, Dane continued. “I sensed something in the portal. I think I can get us to them.”