Interra (Awakened Series Book 5)

by Harley Austin

  * * * * *

  Kari found Lisa already waiting in the aqua bay, dressed in a sleek shining white dry suit when Kari arrived. Kari was dressed in her black Dominion version.

  “You’re here, already?” Kari asked, looking at Lisa’s sleek lines. Her curves were practically mesmerizing in the thin shiny white neoprene. Kari was unquestionably attracted to Lisa—who wasn’t? The woman could attract small metal objects with the way she looked. But there was something oddly mystical about the new goddess. She couldn’t put her finger on it. Lisa all but emanated with authority. Maybe that was part of the reason why the two of them didn’t actually get along very well. Kari didn’t deal well with that kind of presence. Whatever she had, it was easily captured by the cameras of Lisa’s modeling hobby.

  “I didn’t know these suits came in white.” Kari mounted one of the submersible bikes next to the one Lisa was already straddling.

  “They don’t. But I like white better.” Lisa sat and started the hydrogen thrust engine.

  Kari shrugged, donning her helmet along with Lisa. Then both sank into the water and headed for the undersea exit to the Great Lake.

  * * * * *

  The peace of the rich snow-covered farmland surrounding Dominion County shuddered with multiple sonic booms as a squadron of powerful ion planes ripped over the quiet country side heading straight for Bethlehem. From somewhere beneath the fertile frozen soil, a series of smooth silver silos, no larger than the width of an oil drum, pushed quietly up out of the frozen ground and then opened to reveal the heavy Phalanx-5 weaponry hidden within them. With visual, laser and active radar guidance, the chemically accelerated uranium depleted supersonic rounds, targeted, locked and rained unholy hell from below on the unsuspecting enemy pilots, riddling the underbellies of their advanced aircraft with armor-piercing deadly accuracy.

  As the last pieces of the ill-fated squadron crashed and exploded into the farmland snow, the scores of gun silos grew suddenly quiet, folded closed and sank back into the cold ground and silently waited.

  Carson was already focused on another squadron approaching from the East.

  “These Wraith are serious.” Julia watched their screens filling with more planes.

  “Not entirely. Actually, I was hoping for this.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “They are not well trained in battle tactics. They’re relying on a hoard strategy. Overcoming their enemy with heavy weapons and overwhelming numbers.”

  “We’ve lost Blue Dragon Leader, Director.”

  Carson frowned, nodding his acknowledgement of the Lieutenant.

  “And you were hoping for this?” Julia asked.

  “I was. In the Battle of Wilderness, Grant did the exact same thing. He wasn’t a tactician. Lee was outnumbered three to one, sometimes five to one. Every inch Grant took was paid for at a heavy cost.”

  “Grant won the Overland Campaign, Carson,” Julia reminded him.

  “Did he?” Carson looked wryly at Julia. “He lost over fifty-thousand men. It nearly cost Grant his commission and Lincoln his re-election.”

  “The operative word here is ‘nearly’, Carson.”

  “Lee made a few mistakes as well, Julia. I won’t be repeating them.” Carson looked over the tactical map as his forces changed in their engagements in real time.

  “Director Carson,” a Lieutenant began, “One of their carriers—it’s going down!”

  Carson met eyes with Julia. A fine grin began crossing his face.

  * * * * *

  The non-metallic submersibles slipped undetected beneath the swarm of huge carriers and heavy destroyers now floating in the air above them, just over the choppy surface of northern Lake Michigan. Both Kari and Lisa bobbed to the surface of the frigid waters that still bore massive chunks of ice in the swells. Kari watched Lisa kill the engine of her wet bike and remove her helmet. Lisa’s auburn hair began blowing slightly in the wind created by the enemy’s heavy armor aloft not fifty feet above them.

  “I’m still not sure why the hell we’re out here,” Kari removed her helmet. “What are we supposed to do? Spit on them?” She looked up at the massive hulls moving slowly overhead.

  Lisa dismounted her bike and walked out onto the water. Kari followed a ways behind, feeling Lisa’s empathy building. Tiny scintillating lights appeared all around her, drawing up from the water, as if connecting her to the waves that now avoided her for some reason. Kari was a having a time just standing on the choppy waters. Lisa’s hair lifted with the tiny lights that surrounded her now. Her eyes had lit with a hot blue fire.

  Suddenly Kari’s danger sense rocketed off the chart. She dodged just a searing blast of ionic gunfire sent hot steaming lake water rising from where she stood just a moment ago. Kari rolled over the waves, drawing her own sidearm. She targeted the vessel’s underbelly turret and opened fire, knocking the small weapons assembly out of commission, but the retributive act garnered the attention of five more of the turrets that now began shooting at her.

  “Hey! I’m not the only one down here!” Kari yelled at no one in particular, returning fire as a dozen of the turrets now targeted the Goddess of War for extinction. Why the turrets weren’t firing on Lisa was still a mystery. Fortunately, the anti-troop weapons had been made to target Humans, not goddesses. Between her danger senses, agility, and her aim, she was slowly whittling the weapons arrays to nothing as the vessel passed overhead.

  Then Kari saw it. Like a finger of death shooting out of the frigid waters, the spire-like iceberg shot skyward, piercing the hull of the huge destroyer like it was toy. The huge vessel veered to one side and stopped advancing, pierced literally with the top of the massive iceberg spike protruding a hundred feet out of the top of it.

  Not far off, another massive berg, and then another, began jetting up out of the water, piercing the huge hulls from beneath. A new cold wind blew across the waters as more and more of the gigantic shards erupted quickly from beneath the waves. Her danger sense tingling once again, Kari jumped and ran as fast as she could from her place on the water, narrowly avoiding a massive pillar of ice that sprang from beneath the surface and headed right for a supercarrier a hundred feet above them.

  “JESUS!” Kari called out, leaping from the fast-moving ice as it lifted her out of the water. “Crazy bitch! I’m out here too!”

  But Lisa didn’t appear to hear her.

  The wind began howling; blowing furiously all around them. Kari telekinetically clawed her way over to where Lisa was as the wind whirled around them both. But as Kari drew herself closer to the mystical goddess, all was becoming calm. The tempest that raged not ten feet from the two of them didn’t touch either of them. The waters all around them now lifted, as if in a heavy water spout that rose higher and higher into the air. Vessels moved into each other, unable to pilot themselves in the heavy hurricane-force winds. Massive shards of thick javelin-like bergs shot like missiles out of the waves and swirling-fast winds, striking anything and every thing that moved above them.

  Heavy ships broke apart in blazing explosions, then spiraled into the frigid depths.

  “What the hell?” Julia watched satellite imagery in real-time as a dozens of icebergs began taking shape over the water, crashing together. “Carson?”

  He moved to where she was viewing the strange weather patterns and ice formations. “Kari and Lisa must have located the fleet coming around our flank.”

  The images zoomed to show the huge ships now wrecked and locked in small mountains of sharp ice and snow.

  “Lee wasn’t able to stop Grant’s flank assault,” Carson spread his hands along the edge of the table, leaning down while gazing over the wreckage images now coming in via numerous satellites.

  “Maybe Lee needed to be employing an enchantress?” Julia gave him a steely-eyed look.

  Carson raised an eyebrow, returning her glare. “You have a problem with that?”

  “I have a problem with their history.”

&nbs
p; “Lisa’s not like Amy, Julia.”

  “You’re playing with fire, Carson.” Julia warned.

  “I’m being expedient.”

  “And when the witch demands payment? Whose souls are you going to give her?”

  Carson locked eyes with Julia again, a frown crossing his face. He looked away with a subtle nod.

  After long minutes neither Kari or Lisa were standing on the water any longer, but were ensconced in frigid icy terrain. A cold wind blew in gusts leaving the whole area now a kind of graveyard of downed small aircraft, wrecked carrier vessels, and other ships of unknown design. All of them had frozen into the peaks of the new rugged spired landscape. Snow now blew on calming winds. Both goddesses looked and felt around for anymore signs of a threat. Only, there was none to be seen or sensed.

  “Remind me not to piss you off,” Kari muttered, rethinking her former derision of the goddess standing next to her.

  Lisa shook her head, letting her hair blow into the simmering cold wind.

  Kari folded her arms, eying Lisa wryly. “So—what the hell was that?”

  “Nature.” Lisa offered.

  “Nature my ass. More like a freak of Nature—what the hell are you?”

  “A goddess, Kari, just like you.”

  “No. No, this is waaay beyond goddess. This isn’t even Invictus.” Kari suddenly had an epiphany. She took a step back.

  “It’s not what you’re thinking, Kari.”

  “No. No, I know what you are.”

  “Do you? Because I don’t.”

  “How—how can you not know?”

  “I just—I just am who I am. Okay?”

  “You really don’t know.”

  “I know everyone suspects. That’s why they never want to be around me, or Kent.”

  “They’ve always been evil people, Lisa. Not one of them good. Ever.”

  “I know. I’ve read about them.” She scowled. “I guess I am one.” Lisa looked away, feeling indescribably alone.

  Kari felt her sadness, like one of the school girls who’d never be allowed into the ‘in’ crowd. Kari walked up to her. “Hey.”

  Lisa met Kari’s eyes. Her own beginning to mist.

  “I’m sorry. What you did here,” Kari began. “Pretty impressive. People are going to be even more nervous around you when they find out.”

  Lisa nodded.

  Kari looked all around at the frozen lake and wreckage again. Then she looked back at Lisa who seemed still troubled by what she’d just wrought.

  “Listen, Lisa. I’m not known for being all warm and tucky, but, call me up if you need someone to talk to. I mean it.”

  Lisa nodded and both drew a warm hug from the other, their arms still around each other as both walked in search of whatever happened to their wet bikes.

  “You know I’m going to kick Carson’s butt when we get back to Jericho.”

  “Why?”

  “For holding out and hiring secret weapons without telling me.”

  “I’m not a weapon, Kari.”

  “I know. Figure of speech. Speaking of figures, you look drop-dead in white.”

  “I think you look better in red.”

  “Yea?”

  “Yea.

  Both walked off still side-by-side into the blowing ice, warm in their shiny red and white dry suits.

  46

  S till looking like shipwrecked castaways, half-dressed in what remained of their singed and shredded fatigues, all of them descended the steep cliff-like lava tube that now plunged almost straight down into blackness. Tiny rocks fell past them and they could feel subtle rumbles, like soft thunder from somewhere above them.

  “I wonder what’s happening above us?” Serena held the crystalline light as she also gripped the smooth rock with a telekinetic hold she didn’t know she could do until an hour ago. The group descended the shaft’s almost smooth vertical walls like human spiders.

  “War, most likely.” Elle held to the cliff beside her. “I feel sorry for those people in the U.N. fleets. They probably won’t last long against the Wraith.”

  “Hopefully some will survive,” Aramis tried to soften the tone of their conversation. Deep down he knew the Wraith almost as well as Amethyst had. They didn’t take prisoners or allow survivors unless you had a use. Once your usefulness was over …

  The tunnel plateaued again into yet another bubble-like room hundreds of feet across and a kind of naturally domed ceiling only about ten feet above them. On the other side of the room where the tunnel should continue, a massive smooth vault-like door barred the way.

  “Okay. That looks natural,” Jerrod quipped, finally glad to see something other than bare rock in the ancient lava tube.

  Beau rapped his knuckle on the heavy steel. “You think someone’s already been down here?” He gave Jerrod a half smirk.

  “Hardly, people,” Elle looked around the moorings of the heavy door embedded into the solid rock. “Don’t you that Steel doors are part of every volcanic vent system?”

  “We must be getting close to the city,” Ian added.

  “More likely were getting closer to the Seven, Ian.” Elle’s empathy didn’t feeling anyone on the other side of it.

  “It looks like a vault, but there’s no place for a key or even a dial to turn.” Serena moved the light all around.

  Aramis’ telekinetics were already feeling the internals of the complex lock buried deep with the door. His mind began spinning the numerous locking tumblers of the wheel pack within the vault door’s mechanism until all fourteen of them were aligned perfectly with the lock’s catch that suddenly fell into place with the alignment of the last tumbler. Aramis now easily spun the massive bolt release drawing the door’s locking pins away from the jamb. He pushed the heavy door open into something that looked like a trapezoid-shaped concrete corridor. At the top of the corridor above them the lights were out. Charred blast marks on the walls and the telltale smell of ionized residue hung thickly in the air.

  “What happened here?” Elle looked directly at Jerrod.

  Serena could see Jerrod’s eyes lit with soft fire, his face distant, like he was in a daze.

  Suddenly all of them could see and feel what Jerrod was sensing. A battle. Wraith solders in SWAT-like combat armor had stormed the guard outpost. The firefight was heavy as the Human soldiers of the Seven were quickly out numbered and overwhelmed by their halfblood assailants who moved many times faster than they could target and shoot. In the end, several squads of retreating Humans took their last stand here against only a handful of demigods. It was no contest.

  “Where are the bodies?” Ian asked.

  Jerrod’s eyes ceased shimmering.

  “They must have taken them,” Elle began. “Which means, they’re cleaning up, taking over whatever installation the Seven have built here.”

  “RION!” Serena blurted out.

  “Shhh!” several of them scolded.

  Serena reeled in her voice; she felt suddenly embarrassed by the outburst. But there was now no doubt. All of them could feel him.

  “He feels really weak.” She also felt how cold he was.

  “They must have him in a freezer cell somewhere.” Aramis began telekinetically closing the massive vault door. The door’s wheel then spun by itself securing the door.

  “They’ve been hurting him!” Serena exclaimed again, feeling pained body.

  “Serena—dammit.” Jerrod moved his imposing size in front of her. “Stop it. Take your feelings away from Rion. Now. You’re jeopardizing the mission.”

  “Huh?” Serena withdrew her feelings from him.

  “They have empaths as well. If they sense that Rion has felt us, you not only put Rion but ourselves in danger.”

  “I’m sorry. I—didn’t know.”

  “The fact is, you shouldn’t even be here. The only reason you’re here is because we need you to get into Interra, if that’s even possible.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Serena,” B
eau momentarily glared at Jerrod. “What Mr. Sensitivity here means is that we don’t take untrained people on dangerous missions. But we had no choice with you. Just try to keep yourself hidden, like we showed you.”

  Serena nodded.

  “I’m sorry, Serena. I guess I got a little angry.” Jerrod apologized. “You’re not trained yet, like the rest of us.”

  “I’m a black belt.”

  He nodded. “That’s nice. Let’s hope you don’t have to use it.”

  Heavy battle scarring continued to mar the corridors of the complex as they moved within the unlit and unpowered tunnels. The layered concrete walls seemed old; very old, millennia old.

  “Who do you think built this place?” It reminded Ian of some old WWII bunker, only older looking.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if the Seven have been down here for a few thousand years, Ian.” Aramis offered.

  “Thousand? These walls are concrete.”

  “People have had concrete for millennia, Ian, the Egyptians had concrete.” Aramis remarked. He had a passion for history and especially, old buildings.

  “Really?”

  “I’m sure this place is much older than Egypt. The legends were that the gods abandoned their capital, and when the final one of their kind left, the city sank into the mountain, never to be seen again.”

  “That’s really sad,” Ian lamented.

  “It is.” Elle agreed. “There’s no telling what the Seven have built down here. And they’ve had thousands of years to do it.”

  “Hey?” Jerrod stopped them at an intersection within the corridors. “Do you guys feel that? Is that a breeze?”

  “It does feel like a breeze,” Beau agreed. It was faint; very faint, but the still air was no longer still at the crossroads of the intersecting passages.

  “This way,” Jerrod pointed, heading down the corridor where the breeze seemed to be emanating from.