The palm trees were the predominant species of plant in and around the beach area. The more the drone flew into the island’s interior, the more varied the species. Plants of every size and shape engulfed the green island.
“Look at that,” Everett said as the drone passed over a large village.
From an altitude of eight hundred feet, the Raytheon propeller-driven drone displayed an amazing sight. The village was huge. Grass huts, some large, some small. Community buildings and boats. A large, violet stream-fed lagoon at its center. But most amazing of all were the hundreds upon hundreds of men, women, and children going about their late-afternoon chores. Fish cleaning, boat repair, children playing, and wives cooking. The camera zoomed in, and they saw these people closely for the first time. They were heavily tanned, and there were indeed several varying races of humans. All small, but some were tanned heavily, or Caucasian as far as they could see, while others were black.
“Mixed raced. That in and of itself means we are in a very special place.”
Jack looked at Charlie, who studied the scene far below the drone with a rapturous eye.
“How do you mean, Doc?”
“I mean, in our own shared history, differing races rarely mixed before the advent of trade and travel. This … this is amazing.”
“There could be another explanation, Doc,” Everett said aloud.
Charlie again pushed his glasses up on his nose and then turned and faced the captain.
“What is that?”
“Mutual defense against a common enemy,” Salkukoff said.
The men around the remote control console became quiet as the drone moved over the large village. Only Salkukoff looked annoyed at the direction of the summarization by Ellenshaw.
Ryan entered the CIC and joined the group.
“Colonel, according to Charlie’s data,” he leaned in and whispered, “we have four hours until sunset. Maybe we should take a Zodiac over and introduce ourselves. As the security liaison on this mission, I find it vital to see if this asshole is right about a common enemy. Because if these peaceful-looking fishermen have bad guys they’re afraid of, I have a feeling we won’t like them very much ourselves.”
Before Jack could comment on Ryan’s suggestion, the remote operator brought the drone to a higher altitude, and then all conversation stopped.
On the large monitor, a long line of natives was returning from the large mountain that rose high at the center of the island. The trail they traveled was wide and worn. The travelers upon this road had large baskets strapped to their foreheads, and those baskets were large enough that they ended only at the smalls of their backs.
“Well, it looks like they have more than just fishermen. Is that villagers gathering food from the mountainside?” Jack asked aloud.
“No, I don’t think so,” Charlie said as he squinted toward the screen. “Lieutenant, could you get a better shot at a lower altitude?”
The naval officer complied, and the picture from the drone’s camera system shifted as the operator sent the sixteen-foot-long aircraft into a shallow dive and then brought the zoom lens in tight on the long line of women, children, and men.
“Not gatherers.” Charlie looked away from the picture and then faced Jack. “Mining, perhaps.” He pushed his glasses back upon the upper portion of his nose.
“Well, we suspect fishing, and now they may be mining something. Ryan is right; maybe we’d better get in a boat and make a courtesy call on our hosts. They didn’t seem hostile up close, at least the fishermen didn’t,” Jack said as he faced his team as the remote drone rose back up into the sky and then circled the large village.
“Uh-oh,” the remote control officer said as they all looked at the screen. “I think our little spy mission has been found out.”
On the screen, all the faces of the villagers were turned skyward as the miners made their way into the camp. All eyes were turned upward as the noise of the propellers cutting the air gave them away.
“Sorry, Captain. Flew a little too low.”
Women scrambled to get their children inside. Men and others pointed toward the drone and gestured animatedly.
“Bring her back to the barn. We’re scaring these people,” Johnson said, slapping the young lieutenant JG on the back.
“I think we should not concern ourselves with these island people nor fear scaring them. They have nothing to do with our predicament.”
Jack looked from the retreating drone on the screen to Salkukoff. He thought about not saying anything but decided that he really despised this man.
“Colonel, we like to learn things. Aren’t you Russians always saying knowledge is power?”
“Yes, we are, Colonel Collins. But we also have a limit to cooperating with people who don’t make it a priority to return to our own world. I suggest we concentrate on getting the phase shift equipment operational and leave this place.”
The colonel got up and abruptly left the CIC. After a moment, Kreshenko and Dishlakov stood to follow. The captain paused and faced Jack.
“Colonel, I would very much like to accompany your landing party if you’ll have me.”
Jack only nodded his assent. The Russian captain returned the gesture and then made for the hatch.
“Captain?”
Kreshenko faced Collins once more.
“Make sure your boss comes along also.”
The Russian raised a brow and then placed his saucer cap on his head and left with Dishlakov right behind him.
Once outside, the Russian XO turned to his captain.
“Why does he want Salkukoff with you?”
The captain smiled. “Because Colonel Collins feels the same as ourselves. He knows Salkukoff cannot be trusted. And that the man is possibly insane.”
Dishlakov watched the captain leave to prepare to accompany Collins and his shore party.
“Stand by to launch Zodiac. Marine force X-ray report to departure ramp.”
The USS Shiloh prepared for their first friendly invasion of a country not of their own world.
* * *
The large Zodiac held twenty-five men: Jack, Ryan, Everett, Henri, Jenks, Farbeaux, Charlie Ellenshaw, Second Captain Dishlakov, Captain Kreshenko, and Colonel Salkukoff, accompanied by seven US Marines, four British Royal Marines, one navy motorman, and three Russian commandos. They sped toward the island. Jack had ordered the officers to only carry small arms. The US Marines carried their sidearms and M4 assault rifles, the British their ever-present Heckler & Koch automatic assault rifles. The Russians had the standard-issue stockless AK-47. Jack had specifically ordered the M60 machine gun removed from the mount at the head of the rubber boat.
The Zodiac made little noise as the 150-horsepower motor allowed the Zodiac to slide along the top of the violet seas efficiently. Jack watched the shoreline as it grew ever larger. There was no one on the beach throwing spears at them. At least not yet, he thought. Still this new world seemed so preternaturally silent. Collins turned and faced the security element of their landing party.
“The NATO marine and Russian security detail will stand by the boat and keep radio contact. The officers will approach the village alone. We don’t need the natives getting jumpy. Remember, we still do not know if this is the first time they will have encountered people from our world.” He shot Salkukoff a look, and the Russian just smirked knowingly as always. “So, your element will secure the boat and listen for signs of trouble.”
The Zodiac actually picked up speed the closer to the brown sands they got. The bow struck the softness of the beach, and then the rubber craft slid easily and noiselessly onto the shore. Jenks was the first one out. He quickly tied the boat off on a tree trunk that had floated onto the silent shores and then looked at the screening palm trees that guarded the interior like a wall of browns and greens.
“What a sight,” Jenks said as Charlie joined him. “Ginny would have loved this.”
Ellenshaw smiled when the master chief mentioned Virgin
ia. Charlie had yet to express to the assistant director how pleased he was for her and the gruff lifelong navy man.
“Of course, she would be complaining that these folks have it bad because they don’t have lights and a running toilet, but other than that, I think she would love this joint. Hell, Doc”—he slapped Charlie on the back, nearly dislodging his glasses—“this is better than old Subic Bay on a Saturday night!”
Ellenshaw really didn’t understand the reference about the wild naval base in the Philippines of yesteryear. He just smiled for the master chief and his impending happiness.
“Great place for a Marriott,” Jason Ryan said as he took in the beauty of the scene before him.
“Oh, come on. Only a navy man like you would put a damn tourist trap in a place like this,” Jack said as he placed his hands on his hips and studied the terrain. “Gunny, place two men just inside the tree line and wait for our return.” He turned and faced all the security element. “There are to be no outward hostile acts. We’re visitors here and come uninvited, so act accordingly.” Jack noticed only the British Royal Marines and their American counterparts nodded. The Russian commandos looked to Salkukoff for confirmation.
Kreshenko interpreted Jack’s orders for the benefit of the Russian commandos.
“Rules of engagement, Colonel?” the gunnery sergeant asked.
Collins looked around at the tranquillity of the island. “Yes, your ROE is this: run if fired upon or confronted in any way. We’ll hook up by radio if things go south. These people are not to be harmed for any reason.”
“No shooting,” the large marine said, loud enough that everyone heard, even the black-clad Russian element.
Jack waved the officers forward, and the visiting team stepped into a world that had not existed on their own planet in over one hundred thousand years.
12
Collins, Everett, Ryan, and the other professional military personnel felt the eyes on them from the moment they stepped into the trees lining the brown shores. They moved steadily through the exotic landscape, with Charlie Ellenshaw the only member of the landing team to actually stop and appreciate the vast array of botany and fauna that no longer existed on their own plane of existence.
“Colonel, some of this vegetation and many species of flower have not existed in our world for many thousands of years,” he said as he gently held a flower up that none of them had ever seen before. “This is a far more familiar landscape of Antarctica two hundred thousand years ago than is indicative of today’s fauna.”
Jack turned and faced Ellenshaw and placed a finger to his lips in a shushing gesture. He glanced at the Russians. The three men acted as though they failed to hear the professor’s observation, but he wasn’t so sure. For all he knew, Salkukoff knew all about their little time travel journey into the past. Nonetheless, Charlie got the hint.
“Tell me, Doc, why do you think this fauna survived here and not on our world?” Ryan asked. Jack knew he did it to get the conversation off Antarctica.
“My main suspect would be, of course, pollution and oxygen content. They haven’t had to deal with greenhouse gases and contaminants the way our world has.”
As Jack moved through the bush, he suspected that Charlie’s observations were right on.
There was movement ahead, and Everett held up a fist, bringing the small safari to a stop. Carl went down to one knee and waited. It wasn’t long before the crashing of bush and leaf became louder, and then they all heard the sound of laughing. They all knew the sound of children.
Jack looked back at the three Russians. Salkukoff was the only one who had drawn his gun. Collins caught his attention and shook his head and held his gaze until the colonel replaced the weapon into his shoulder holster. The look lasted a moment longer as Salkukoff continued to stare at Jack.
Before Everett could react, a child burst through a stand of small trees and right into his thick arms. The young boy was followed by two giggling girls of about the same age. After Carl caught the boy, he fell backward until the child was on top of him. The girls crashed into the scene, and that was when the startled screaming started.
“Damn!” Collins hissed. For the first time in years, he was caught off guard and was slow to react. How do you stop little girls from screaming without scaring them even further? As he watched, frozen to his spot, he saw that Carl was doing the only thing he knew to do. He held his hands up in the air, allowing the boy child to stand up and scramble backward. The two girls took their partner by the hand and then quickly disappeared into the underbrush of junglelike trees and undergrowth. Carl fought to his feet with his eyes wide.
“I think you scared her, Captain,” Salkukoff said as he stood from where he had been kneeling.
“Well, I—”
Everett caught Jack’s look, and it wasn’t because he was staring at him. It was the fifteen long, pointed spears that poked through the small palms and bushes. Collins pointed, and Everett turned right into the sharpest spear tip he had ever seen. Again, and for the second time in as many seconds, he raised his hands into the air and took a step back.
The Russians backed away, as did Charlie and Ryan. Jenks, Carl, and Jack held their ground but stood stock-still and didn’t flinch, and they all had their open hands in the air. After only a few steps, Captain Kreshenko felt the jab of a sharp object in his back, and he slowly turned, raising his own hands into the air.
Jack turned in time to see a small man with blond hair and brown skin step from the bush. He held no spear. He wore breeches made of some sort of fish-type skin and nothing from the waist up. He had a very lethal knife in a scabbard on his hip, and his necklace was made from small seashells. The brightly colored bird feathers were placed at varying intervals into his blond hair. Charlie started to lower his hands when he saw the inhabitants up close without their protective coating of mud. He thought they were a magnificent mixed race of people. He started to smile as his hands came down until five more of the native men stepped from the line of trees. Their ten-foot-long harpoon-like spears were held at the ready. Charlie placed his hands back into the air.
“Gentlemen, don’t move an inch. I think they’re more concerned about their children than they are us.” Collins smiled as best he could under the circumstances and nodded.
The blond-haired leader, whose hair was done in braids, looked from the Russians to Jack and then moved forward, unafraid of the strangers. As he did, fifteen more of the fishermen stepped onto the trail.
“Oh, crap,” Charlie said, watching history come alive for him once more. His field assignments had been of the most startling kind of late.
“Hang in there, Doc,” Jenks said as he eyed the weaponry aimed at them. He saw a bow and arrow aimed their way and spears longer than most American Indian lances he had ever seen in museums. “These aren’t weapons the way we think of them. They’re tools to these people.”
“Well, I don’t see them as a hammer or nails,” Ryan said as he took a step back from an advancing fishing spear. “That spear tip looks sharp.”
The leader of this advanced scout team stepped forward. His tilted head and his curious expression fixed on Collins. The man, who stood about five feet eight inches tall and was muscled beyond reason, advanced on Jack rather quickly, and the colonel thought he was going to feel the business end of the man’s short, strong knife. The man motioned for his hunters to lower their weapons. Then he reached out and quickly pulled Jack’s nine millimeter free of his shoulder holster. He looked it over with curiosity and then looked back at his men, and the newcomers were taken by surprise when the small man laughed. He jabbered something in strange, halting words, and then the other hunters started laughing along with him.
Jack met Carl’s eyes, and the confusion was evident on both of their uncomfortable faces. The laughing continued and then stopped when the leader of the group simply tossed Jack’s semiautomatic into the air toward him, where the colonel was forced to catch it. The man walked up to Charlie, who still ha
d his hands in the air. The scientist had lost the welcoming smile and was nervous when the brown-skinned man reached up and pulled Ellenshaw’s glasses from his face. He placed them on his own small nose and then looked around. He quickly reached up and pulled the glasses off and threw them onto the ground.
“I guess they didn’t match his prescription,” Jenks said with a chuckle and the cold cigar in his mouth.
The leader rubbed his eyes, thinking that the glasses must have robbed him of his clear vision. Quickly his attention turned on the chuckling Jenks, and the headman’s eyes went from being rubbed to them looking at the master chief with interest. His eyes narrowed as he looked at Jenks, and he crouched low as he took the man in.
Jenks quickly stopped chuckling at Ellenshaw’s discomfort. The man cautiously approached him, and then his hand slowly rose to his face. The small man’s movement was so quick that Jack and the others thought the man had sliced the master chief’s throat. The leader of the small band of fishermen and miners had Jenks’s cigar in his hand, and he examined it. He then smelled it, and then his tongue reached out and tasted it. His face was a mask of horror as he quickly crushed the smelly cigar and then threw it away.
“Hey, those are a little hard to come by out here,” Jenks said in protest.
“I guess it wasn’t his brand, huh?” Charlie quipped, eliciting a dirty look from the master chief.
The man looked at the other visitors, and with a couple of clicks of his tongue, the others lowered their spears. Then they just simply walked away back to the underbrush. Jack and the others slowly lowered their hands and watched the fishermen and the far filthier miners leave. Collins smiled and then looked at his group. Without answering their unasked questions, the colonel just turned and started to follow the residents of this bizarre world down the trail.
Beyond the Sea--An Event Group Thriller Page 19