Invaders: The Chronowarp

by Vaughn Heppner

  Jenna glanced at me. “Relax,” she said. “You’ll be fine.”

  I must have grown pale. We bobbed, stabilized—

  “I have traction,” Tony said.

  That sounded like a weird way to say it.

  “Roger,” Jenna said. “Begin…” A green light appeared on her console. “Now,” she said.

  Tony must have done something. Power vibrated our tiny craft. I felt us moving. It was more like a sea snail crawling.

  Jenna leaned over to my console and pressed a few places on the screen. It activated, and I could see the Swordfish. Our tiny craft dropped out of the submarine and slowly moved along the bottom. Only after we cleared the submarine did the Swordfish begin to retreat.

  “He’s leaving us?” I asked.

  “We can’t risk the submarine,” Jenna said. “We’re expendable now.”

  I glanced at her and saw no hint of a smile. She meant it.

  I watched my console. We made painful headway, although soon enough we reached a rocky formation. Our searchlight showed bare rock. According to what Captain Bright had told me earlier, this was old rock.

  “We’re heading down,” Tony said.

  I hated this more than ever. I’d never realized I had a fear of small tight places in the bottom of the freezing Arctic Ocean. Who would have thought it?

  We moved to a shelf of rock. There appeared to be a shaft going down. We maneuvered over the watery hole and began descending into it.

  “Why build a complex down here in the Arctic Ocean?” I asked.

  “Exactly,” Jenna said.

  We kept going down. The bathyscaphe groaned, and the drips from above became more pronounced.

  “How old is this thing?”

  “Twenty-six years young,” Mouse said.

  I glanced at him.

  “That’s straight up, hero boy.”

  I managed a grin. It was a promise of things to come under sunnier times. Mouse nodded, accepting my threat of a coming fight.

  “Whoa,” Tony said. “Will you look at that?”

  I faced my console, but I didn’t see anything spectacular. So, I craned my neck to peer at Jenna’s console and couldn’t believe what I saw.

  -14-

  Jenna wasn’t breathing. She stared wide-eyed at her console as the color drained from her face.

  “Hey,” I said. “Take it easy.”

  That had no effect. She was getting paler by the second. She began moaning and swaying the tiniest bit side to side.

  I grabbed an arm. “Hey,” I said louder.

  Ever so slowly, she turned toward me, staring wide-eyed as if she’d seen an apparition.

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  She blinked. That was a good sign. At that point, she shuddered with small gasping breaths. That made her hiccup.

  “What’s wrong?” Mouse shouted.

  “Nothing much,” I said. “Sometimes seeing these things freaks someone out. Give her a few seconds to gather herself.”

  Jenna glanced at me with greater understanding.

  “It’s all real,” I said quietly. “Captain Bright was onto something a little while ago. All the things we’ve been taught about humanity’s early history—it’s all wrong. This.” I used my chin to indicate her console. “This is the ticket to learning what really happened.”

  “Aliens…” she whispered.

  “Early alien visitors,” I said. “The Chariots of the Gods guy had a point, if not all the facts.”

  “How can that be?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I just cruise around on sightseeing tours when I get the chance.”

  She didn’t smile. I was beginning to think she couldn’t. She was wound tight for reasons I didn’t know. Maybe she was still smarting because of the dead associates in the three chinooks. She was a super-agent for the CAU, but she was human, even if she had blunted emotions and no sense of humor.

  “Let go of me,” she said.

  “There you go,” I said. “That’s the woman we all know and love.”

  I released her arm and patted her on the shoulder. That made her stiffen, but she didn’t rebuke me. She went back to studying her console.

  I did, too.

  During that time, Tony brought us closer to the alien complex.

  This one was shaped like a giant Liberty Bell without the crack. It had a smooth outer surface, nothing like an old shipwreck with barnacles or other marine growths on it. The thing was huge, the size of two or three supercarriers. The bathyscaphe’s lamplight washed over it. By some process I couldn’t yet tell, the bell-shaped complex was attached to the ancient rock.

  We’d come through what must have been a drilled shaft into a wider area.

  “I’m turning us so we can look around,” Tony said.

  Jenna and I kept our eyes glued to her screen. The searchlight played on rock walls.

  Thirty seconds later, Tony said, “This is definitely a cavern.”

  Jenna looked at me, and I just nodded. We kept staring at her console afterward.

  The conclusion seemed obvious. Sometime in the prehistoric past—well, did it have to be that long ago? Probably, they could have built it at any time before the 20th century, built it without any Earth human witnessing them. This place didn’t necessarily have to be as old as the Greenland complex.

  I recalled that Argon had called Greenland Thule. According to him, it had been a sunny, green land back then.

  “We don’t really know how old this place is,” I said.

  “Why did…Kazz and Philemon come here then?” Jenna asked.

  That was a good point. If I was right about them, they knew old facts, not new ones. That would seem to imply this complex was old.

  “I’m taking us closer,” Tony said.

  Jenna nodded. I doubt Tony could have seen that from his position. Maybe it didn’t matter.

  The bathyscaphe approached the bell-shaped complex. I realized it was much bigger than I’d thought at first. It was vast, like a city block. We were like a small hybrid car circling the thing.

  “Stunning,” Jenna whispered.

  “I don’t see any airlocks,” I said.

  “No…” Jenna said.

  Tony took us lower. The bathyscaphe’s hull groaned with complaint. Water dripped faster. I reached up, catching one of the drips, tasting it.

  “Salty,” I said.

  Jenna bit her lower lip, looking up.

  I toed a puddle at my feet. “Seems like the CAU could have used a newer bathyscaphe.”

  “What do you think?” Tony asked. “Should I keep going?”

  Jenna frowned at her console.

  The hull groaning continued. It gave me the heebie-jeebies.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Keep going.”

  I wanted to say, “Wrong answer,” but kept my mouth shut.

  The groaning worsened, but the dripping slowed. Our ball of metal sank as we moved beside the vast bell-shaped complex. It looked like Tony was headed for the bottom.

  “That isn’t metal?” I asked.

  “Not according to my instruments,” Mouse said.

  “Why build such a thing way down here?” I asked.

  “Was the Arctic cold when this was built?” Jenna asked.

  “Argon said the Polarions built Thule Base when Greenland was warm.”

  “We don’t know who built this place yet,” she said.

  “I have a bad feeling that the Starcore might have had something to do with this,” I said. “How else would Kazz and Philemon have known to come here?”

  Outside, our bathyscaphe neared the bottom of the complex. I didn’t like the feeling of going any deeper. Soon enough, though, we passed the bottom lip.

  “Just a little more,” Tony told us. “Then we’ll check the underside.”

  I’d been afraid he was going to say that.

  Soon, the searchlight aimed upward at the bottom. I stared at Jenna’s console in surprise.

  “Is that right?” I
asked.

  She looked at me, and it seemed as if her blue eyes were on fire.

  “Tony,” she said. “Take us up there.”

  “Roger that,” Tony said.

  The bathyscaphe began to rise, heading for what looked like a surface pool inside the bottom of the alien complex.

  -15-

  We broke through the surface. On the console, the bathyscaphe was in a “pool” wide enough to hold a U.S. destroyer.

  “I’m scanning the ceiling,” Jenna said.

  She sounded in charge again, no longer awed or freaked-out by the weird situation.

  I still leaned over so I could see her console. The pool’s ceiling was dark except for the bathyscaphe’s searchlight. The ceiling proved to be slightly concave. Flashes of light appeared whenever the searchlight struck unlit bulbs. I’d say there was fifty feet of headroom above the surface of the pool.

  “Is there a dock of some kind?” Jenna asked.

  “Yes,” Tony replied.

  The bathyscaphe turned slowly. I stopped leaning over to look at Jenna’s console. Now, I peered out our sole window. I could see the searchlight. It showed what appeared to be a dry “dock” area.

  “What kind of atmosphere does this place have?” Jenna said to herself. She tapped her console and made a few adjustments. “I can’t believe this.”

  “Breathable air?” I asked.

  She turned to me before rechecking her findings.

  “We’re not going outside, are we?” Mouse asked.

  “We didn’t bring any portable breathing gear along,” Tony said.

  “According to this, the air in here is breathable,” Jenna said.

  “What happens if we step outside and the air changes to something poisonous?” Mouse asked.

  “What if your arm falls off?” I asked him.

  “What’s that mean?” he demanded.

  “Look,” I said. “The air has been like this for who knows—” I snapped my fingers. “Kazz or Philemon or maybe both must have been in here. If the air wasn’t breathable before they came, I bet it is now.”

  “The walls back there don’t appear wet,” Jenna said. “They don’t seem to have water damage, either.”

  “You think Kazz or Philemon increased the interior air pressure, forcing the sea water to drain out from the pool?” I asked.

  “That makes more sense than it being like this for twenty or more centuries,” she said.

  “You aren’t used to Polarion tech. It’s made to last, believe me.”

  “We don’t know this is a Polarion structure,” she countered.

  “True. We won’t know until we poke around in it.”

  “That’s crazy,” Mouse said. “This is a scouting expedition.”

  “So, let’s scout,” I said.

  “You’ve changed your mind about this,” Jenna declared.

  “Sure have,” I agreed. This was a thousand times better than picking up a hunk of fused metal in the uranium-burned Nevada scrub. Who knew what we would find in here? Maybe this place could help me get back aboard the Guard ship. I couldn’t let Kazz and Philemon hold Debby hostage forever. What if they were misusing her? That idea made me angry.

  “It’s your call, Jenna,” Tony said.

  “Captain Bright is going to be expecting us back,” Mouse said.

  “Bright also said we have a narrow window of opportunity,” I told him. “What if the Guard ship returns?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m thinking,” Mouse said. “If it comes back and we’re in here screwing around, that could jeopardize everyone aboard the Swordfish. I don’t want what happened to our friends on the chinooks to happen to Bright.”

  Jenna scrunched up her face.

  I had some good arguments for exploring this place, but I kept them to myself. Besides, I was starting to feel that there was no way Jenna was going to leave this place when we were right here. The pull of curiosity to explore the ancient alien site would be too strong.

  “Let’s keep scanning,” she said. Maybe that was her way to keep tempting herself until the pull to explore became irresistible.

  The bathyscaphe inched toward the dock. The searchlight roved around and Jenna hunched over her console, examining whatever she could find.

  I moved in front of the window, the portal into the unknown, remembering the Greenland complex where I’d found Rax. I’d seen strange sights. My life had been forever altered because of it. Would walking down here change the course of my life yet again? What had Kazz and Philemon wanted to find down here, anyway? Had they known about the place and what it held before they stole my Guard ship? If the Starcore had led them here…

  “Let’s do this,” Jenna said.

  “No!” Mouse said.

  “We have to,” Jenna said softly. “That’s why CAU exists.”

  “That’s not true,” Mouse said. “We exist to save Earth from alien invaders.”

  “And that’s why we have to explore,” Jenna told him. “We don’t have the tools to stop alien invaders. Two hominids are running circles around us because they have his pleasure boat. He was the most dangerous man on the planet a few days ago because he had that one ship. We have to find advanced technology to counter that superiority.”

  “I know all that,” Mouse said. “I even agree with you to a degree. But what if the Guard ship returns while we’re farting around in here?”

  “We’re the weaker side by far,” Jenna told him. “Ukrainian gangsters bested us because they’ve found some alien tech. The three chinooks going down means we don’t have a choice. We have to make their deaths worth something.”

  “I’m watching our prisoner like a hawk,” Mouse said sourly. “We never should have taken him along.”

  “You may be right,” Jenna said, glancing at me. “He’s a risk factor, no doubt. But like I said, Earth is too weak. We have to take risks. Are you two ready?”

  “Yes,” Tony said.

  “Reluctantly,” Mouse said.

  Jenna looked at me.

  “Oh boy,” I said, while rubbing my hands together. “This oughta be fun, an underwater outing with the three musketeers.”

  Jenna frowned before returning to her console.

  Meanwhile, Tony inched us closer to the landing area.

  -16-

  Tony and Mouse had guns. Jenna certainly had a gun.

  “How about giving me one?” I said.

  Jenna snorted softly.

  They’d armed up, put on jackets and belted on emergency medical fanny-packs. I just had my wits. I didn’t even have a jacket, as I’d left the parka behind, and my leather jacket had probably burned up in the destroyed Hummer.

  The bathyscaphe bumped against a dock, shaking us inside.

  “The bathyscaphe won’t stay in one place,” Tony said. “And I don’t see a way to tie it down. That means it’s going to drift. None of us is going to want to swim to it to get back. I suggest someone stay aboard.”

  “Mouse,” Jenna said.

  “Come on,” he said. “I’m going to be watching him.” He pointed at me.

  “You’re too trigger-happy,” Jenna said.

  “Since when?” Mouse asked.

  “Someone has to stay.”

  “Tony’s the driver. Let him stay.”

  “I’m the field agent in charge,” Jenna said. “I make the calls.”

  Mouse only hesitated a few seconds longer. “Roger that,” he said glumly. “I’ll stay.”

  “Tough luck,” I told him.

  He told me what I could do with myself.

  Jenna scowled at me. Then, she went to the portal. It didn’t have a switch, it had an old-fashioned lever. She grabbed it, yanked, and couldn’t move it. She tried several more times, tugging harder each try.

  I pretended to spit on my hands and then rubbed them together.

  “Do you always have to act like an ass?” she asked.

  “At least I’m strong,” I countered.

  She moved aside, looking aw
ay.

  I took a firm grip of the lever and tugged. It didn’t budge. Why was this thing so tight? Was there some kind of…?

  I happened to see a tiny switch at the bottom. As secretly as possible, I pressed it. I heard an audible click in the hatch.

  “Here we go,” I said loudly.

  “Don’t break it,” she said, turning to watch me.

  I lifted the lever. It moved easily.

  She looked up at me, seeming surprised.

  I held my breath and cracked open the metal portal. Air rushed in. It had a whiff of taint in it.

  “I don’t like this,” Mouse complained.

  “Be careful going out,” Tony said from the pilot’s seat. “I’ve brought us as close to the dock as possible. The water will be freezing, so don’t fall in. Also, make sure you don’t get between the bathyscaphe and the dock. It will crush whatever is in the way.”

  “Got it,” I said. “How about moving it a tad closer again?”

  He did. The metal bathyscaphe brushed up against the dock with a heavy sound.

  I scrambled through the opening, shoving myself forward. I’d taken Tony’s warning to heart. The dock was cold but it wasn’t freezing. It was slick, though. I felt my hands slipping.

  “Push me,” I shouted.

  Someone did. That was enough. I flopped onto the dock, slithering until I turned around in a crouch.

  Jenna’s head appeared at the open hatch. She almost seemed concerned for me. “You okay?”

  “Fit as a fiddle,” I said.

  “Good. Catch.”

  She pitched me tools, big flashlights being the critical ones. Soon, it was her turn to exit. Mouse moved up behind her, and I readied to drag her onto the dock. She moved smoothly, doing it without help from either of us.

  Tony had trouble and would have gone into the water. Mouse couldn’t control the bathyscaphe as well as Tony, and moved the ball of metal just far enough from the dock. I grabbed Tony’s left arm, hauling hard, flinging him onto the dock in a heap.

  He got his boots wet, but that was it.