“Here they come!”
The cry echoed along the Union line as the first of the Confederate troops appeared cresting Seminary Ridge. It was magnificent spectacle as Pickett’s division appeared on line, flags flying, in perfect order.
A Union artillery officer, wounded in the stomach, used one hand to hold his intestines from spilling out, resited his guns. Men made sure their rifles were loaded. Solid shot was loaded into artillery pieces.
The Union artillery opened fire.
Pickett already had a problem. He had formed his lines on · the outward curved reverse slope of Seminary Ridge. Which meant there were gaps, and some of the units orientations were not on line with the objective.
Federal troops were shocked and impressed as the Confederate lines in places actually wheeled and aligned, slowing their advance, under the rain of shells corning · into them. As the long line of gray formed. There was no doubt in the mind of anyone in the Union lines that this was the final assault.
The commander of the right horn, Dabulamanzi, was not happy to see Shakan and the strange woman and the strange white being she pulled with her. He had lost many warriors to get to this point, and he knew he was going to lose more in the final assault to take down the last outpost that the British had been forced into. The redcoats had fought bravely. Still it was just a matter of more force and a little more time and he knew he would be victorious.
A small band of his men had captured the two women coming down the track from Isandlwana and brought them to him. He was just outside the outer wall of the mission that his men had already breached, issuing orders for another assault.
“I have the protection of Cetewayo,” Shakan said, standing tall between the two warriors holding her arms.
“Cetewayo is my brother,” Dabulamanzi said. “I was there when you first came to him. You may have bewitched him, but you will not do the same to me.”
“I do not bewitch,” Shakan said.
“Who is that?” Dabulamanzi pointed at Ahana. He reached out and touched her eyes. ‘1 have never seen the like.”
“She is one like me,” Shakan said. “From a place far from here.”
“And why is she here? Why are you here?”
“To serve the greater good.”
A warrior called out that all was ready. Dabulamanzi turned from the two women and issued his orders. With a great surge, a thousand warriors leapt up from the cover of the outer wall and charged the final outpost.
“Steady,” Chard called out, his voice cracking from both dryness and fear. He knew what Dabulamanzi knew. It was just a matter of time and numbers.
“Fire,” Chard ordered as the next assault wave appeared in the firelight Huge gaps were tom in the Zulu line as they vaulted the wall and came forward. “Independent fire,” Chard quickly yelled. He had abandoned his pistol for a rifle and he joined his men on the mealie bag rampart, firing as quickly as he could load.
The distance between the two walls was short and the ground was filled with Zulu bodies, so much so that the other warriors had literally to run on top of the bodies to get to the British lines. Such a dash in the face of the rifle fire resulted in frightening apparitions, covered with the blood of their comrades, reaching the mealie bag wall. Bayonets went against iKlwa. Black against white, united only in the redness of the blood that came from their veins and mixed together, soaking the bags and ground.
A handful of Zulu warriors made it into the final outpost, but they were quickly cut down and the wave receded. Left behind, the British were lower in numbers, close to the critical point where all the walls could be effectively manned.
“What do you want?” Dabulamanzi demanded as he watched his warriors come back. their numbers greatly depleted.
“A great victory has already been won,” Shakan said. “Cetewayo defeated the camp on the slopes of Isandlwana.” She did not add what had appeared on the top of Isandlwana. It was something she sensed was beyond words.
“And I will defeat them here,” Dabulamanzi said.
“There is no point to it” Shakan said.
“Do you want me to just walk away?” Dabulamanzi laughed. “We have paid in blood and we will take what we have earned in their blood.”
“I do not want you to just walk away,” Shakan said. “I want you to help me. Help her and her people” — Shakan indicated Ahana — “And many more people in many places and times.”
“You speak foolishness,” Dabulamanzi said.
Shakan indicated for Ahana to take out the muonic detector. Ahana pulled the device out of the pack. Dabulamanzi stared at the LED display and the blinking lights, but did not seem overly impressed.
“This,” Shakan indicated the detector, “says something great can happen here. We can make something good happen out of this terrible day and night.”
“And how do I do that?” Dabulamanzi asked, even as his warriors formed for another assault.
“The British are brave, are they not?” Shakan asked.
Dabulamanzi had to grant that. “Yes. They fight well.”
“And the Zulu, we fight with great bravery also.”
“Of course.”
“Then do something different,” Shakan begged.
“And that is?” Dabulamanzi asked.
“Combine the Zulu bravery with the British bravery to change the course of things.”
Chamberlain flew over what had once been Manhattan. The wings rotated up and the specially modified MH-90 came to a hover. That particular Nighthawk had a cargo bay full of sensors and imaging equipment. Both walls were crammed full of displays with seats in front of them manned by scientists.
Waiting was fine, but Chamberlain figured he’d been brought to this location for a reason, so he wanted to get an idea of the lay of the land, even if most of it was buried under hundreds of feet of water. He had a feeling the extreme Shadow reaction during the war to the tip of Manhattan had to have been for a reason. He wanted to know what that was. Oracles and prophecies were fine, but facts helped.
“What do you have?” Chamberlain asked the lead scientist.
The man looked up in Surprise. “We’re getting low level muonic activity. We haven’t seen this since the end of the war.”
“Is it the Shadow?” Chamberlain asked.
The scientist shrugged. “It’s just low level activity right now. Traces.” He pointed down. “Directly below us.” The scientist turned to the man on his left and checked his screen. “Sonar indicates we’ve got an opening in the earth itself. Geez, whatever the Shadow did to blast this place, sure went through. We’re reading a narrow tunnel all the way to the center of the planet.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
This was what Ahana and Nagoya had speculated might be the case, Dane realized as he took in the immensity of both the diamond crystal and the power it was receiving, transforming and then emitting. Even before the two Japanese scientists, the Russians had speculated that such a thing existed at the very center of the planet.
The Russians had labeled the places where the gates were occasionally active as Vile Vortices. They claimed these spots were external manifestations of power surges from inside the planet, part of a matrix of cosmic energy that had been built into the planet at the time of its formation.
Ahana had told him that if it existed, this crystal held its power from the birth of the planet, hard as it was for Dane to believe. Its initial power began when the loose · collection of rocks that was pre-earth, was bombarded by leased from these impacts melted everything, and the planet slowly began to cool from the outside in. The immense temperatures, gravitational pressure and sheer weight of what was on top formed this crystal, allowing it to absorb all that power being directed inward. Only one material could sustain such forces and that was diamond. And that was what the crystal was made of.