by Lysa Daley
The captain turns to look at the man and introduces him to us. “This is Lieutenant Canby. He's the head of our SEAL team.”
“What she's suggesting is a plausible strategy. We should try to blend in. It also allows us to approach cautiously and potentially abandoned the breach on the alien base if it appears too dangerous. Gives us options and keeps our cover intact. Could be a win-win all around.”
It's clear that the captain respects Lieutenant Canby's opinion. He nods firmly then turns to me. “Do you know how to kayak?”
“Yes,” I immediately reply. “Of course I do.”
I have never been kayaking in my life.
Chapter 20
“The Tres Ojos sea caves are fed by water from an underground river, not just the ocean. They’re completely surrounded by stalactites and stalagmites.” Tyler, our very own former Navy SEAL, is doing a pretty decent job of pretending to be a kayaking tour guide.
“So is it salt water or fresh water?” one of the actual tourists asks.
“Excellent question,” Tyler gives her a big smile. I’m wondering if he knows. “The composition of the sea water varies depending on where you are. The concentration and temperature can vary quite a bit.”
I nod but wonder if he’s making this up or it’s actually true.
“Um… what stinks?” another tourist asks, and everyone laughs because a very foul smell is getting stronger and stronger.
“It’s sulfurous water.” Tyler glides to a stop at the mouth of the sea cave, and the eager tourists do the same. “It smells a little like rotten eggs.”
My uncle and I have been sent out with an actual tour group led by Eye in the Sky ex-Navy SEALs Tyler and Jake. It turns out kayaking isn’t that difficult. My uncle had a little trouble getting his 6’5” muscly frame into the kayak, but other than that, we’re already like old pros.
Once we’re inside the caves, the plan is for my uncle and me to drift towards the back of the group. When we get twenty yards inside the northern entrance of the biggest sea cave, we’re going to paddle our way farther into the caves.
Leaving the warm Mexican sun, Tyler pulls the group over in the cool shade of the cave. Out of the sunshine, the temperature has plummeted.
“While the large lake is composed of freshwater, the water temperature inside varies between 60° to 75°F, depending on the depth. But, make no mistake,” Tyler pauses, “that is cold. Hypothermia-inducing cold. The fauna is also extremely varied, including fish, bats and turtles.”
One of the tourists asks, “How deep are these caves? Like scary deep, right?”
Tyler answers like a pro. “The depth of the lake remains unknown. But some experts estimate that it’s a quarter of a mile deep in places. Maybe deeper.”
I’m finding this lecture totally fascinating, when my uncle says, “Come on. Let’s head inside.”
After Tyler leads his group along the edge of the massive rock shelf that marks the entrance to the sea caves, my uncle and I follow slowly ducking our heads.
We’re both wearing a tiny earpiece that allows us to stay in contact with the command center on the Navy cruiser.
My uncle activates the earpiece by gently touching it. “This is team 2. We’re headed inside. Over.”
An instant later, I hear Fitz’s voice float into my earpiece. “Roger that. Over.”
“Will report any sightings or contact,” he adds, then touches his earpiece to disengage it. I do the same.
During our briefing on the ship, we were told to limit the amount of communication in case it was being monitored and intercepted.
The cave’s ceiling looms mere inches above our heads. But it's remarkable how smooth the rock feels. That's what thousands of years of the tide constantly going in and out will do.
When we’re twenty yards inside, we’re thrown into pitch black darkness. We slip on our portable lighted headbands. The light beam doesn’t help much. We can barely see anything. The sound of our paddles dipping into the flat water echoes amazingly loudly.
My uncle glides to stop as I pull up next to him and ask, “Which way do we go?”
He squints into the darkness and replies, “The topography map indicates that we should move forward from where we entered. Honestly, even with these lights, I can't see a bloody thing.”
In the distance, a quiet rustling drifts toward us from deeper inside the caves, followed by a strange high-pitched squeak.
“What’s that sound?” I whisper.
“Uh oh.” He barely gets the words out before we’re assaulted. “Duck your head!”
“What?” I’m completely confused.
The high pitched squeak, now much louder, fully engulfs us. Then flapping. Lots and lots of flapping.
It's bats!
A thousand agitated big brown bats swirl just over our heads. Some so close, I swear I feel them touching my hair as they flutter past. Several brush my arm with a graze of warm fur. An uncontrollable fear causes me to let out a scream while swatting at myself.
“Keep your head down and your arms inside the kayak,” my uncle instructs me. “Don't swing at them. They'll bite.”
You don't have to tell me that twice.
I bend forward, covering my head, while squeezing my eyes shut. I'm really hoping this will be over soon.
And it is.
As quickly as they arrived, the swarm of bats is gone, and an eerie silence once again fills the cave.
“Did you get bitten?” my uncle asks.
I have to think about this for a moment. Taking a quick inventory of my arms and the back of my neck, I reply, “No. I'm good. Do you think there's more? Will that happen again?”
“No.” My uncle shakes his head. “I don’t think we were what disturbed them.”
“Then what did?”
Before he can answer, the soft hum of an engine and the faint glow of huge blue lights appears deeper inside the cave.
He points toward the mysterious lights now coming directly at us. “I’m pretty sure that's what disturbed them.”
Chapter 21
Gliding effortlessly across the surface of the water, the largest spaceship I have ever seen is coming straight toward us.
“We have to get out of the way!” my uncle hollers as he furiously paddles toward the rugged cave wall. “Before it’s on top of us.”
I can’t paddle as fast, but I follow as quickly as I can. We barely get out of the way before the massive alien craft is practically right on top of us.
Bobbing wildly along the wall because of the waves caused by the downdraft from the spaceship, he pulls off both his, and then my lighted headbands, flipping them off to extinguish the light.
In the darkness of the cave, we watch the craft seemingly float effortlessly past us, across the top of the water.
My uncle leans over and whispers, “That’s Draconian. A small cruiser.”
“Small?” I ask, gaping at the massive craft.
“A large Draconian ship is the size of a small city.” Even in the dim light of the cave, I can see the concern in his eyes. “And there’s never just one cruiser. There’s got to be a whole fleet of them nearby.”
The perfectly round space ship slowly comes to a stop just inside the mouth of the cave. It resembles a slowly turning frisbee with a diameter of perhaps 100 feet. A flying saucer.
“What’s it doing?” I whisper.
“Cloaking,” he replies.
Right before our eyes, the alien craft fades away like it just dissolved into thin air. I’d think that it teleported to another dimension if I didn’t hear the faint whine of the engines still right in front of us.
Then, like some invisible force acted upon the water, a long trail of waves recedes out into the ocean, and it’s gone.
“The good news is we know that we’re in the right place,” I say.
“Yep.” My uncle points slightly off to the left. “It came from that direction, so let’s head that way.”
“But… you said that ther
e are probably more like that one?”
“Oh, I’m sure there are more.” He fiddles with his waterproof watch, that’s also a very small, but super powerful computer. “Let’s just hope we can get inside before one spots us floating out here.”
“Have you found a heartbeat yet?” I ask as he continues to study the watch.
“I'm getting a very faint signal,” he says, showing me the screen. “Can't be sure that it’s Mr. Lee yet.”
A day after the bombshell that Ruby had given information to the Horlocks, Fitz brought her in for questioning. During their conversations, he discovered that her father, Dak Lee, recently had a pacemaker installed in his heart.
After some research, Tanaka figured out that they could track the pacemaker’s electronic signal. Once they had the exact frequency, they were able to use a geosynchronous signal to locate him.
As it turns out, just like Kraken suggested, the pacemaker’s signal was in Tres Ojos.
Unfortunately, the satellite information is only accurate within about a quarter of a mile. Not exactly specific enough for us to quickly track him down.
“That means we’re getting close,” I say.
However, Tanaka was able to develop a program that will allow us to find him within plus or minus 10 feet if we’re within 200 yards of him.
“He must be nearby.” My uncle nods.
We wait for a few minutes, but when it seems apparent that no other flying saucer will immediately be following the first one, we cautiously paddle closer to the spot where the alien cruiser appeared.
Unfortunately, we glide right up to a deadend. There's nothing in front of us except a cold, wet stone wall.
Have we made a mistake and headed in the wrong direction?
“Now what?” I ask, reaching out to touch the slick stone. “There's nowhere to go.”
Chapter 22
We both stare at the disappointing deadend in front of us.
“That can’t be true,” my uncle mumbles, shining a light across the perimeter of the area. “We saw the craft come from this direction. So either it came from above us, below us, or through the stone.”
“Is that even possible?” I squint at the heavy granite in front of us. “Could it actually have come through the stone?”
“Maybe. I’ve never heard of technology that goes through solid stone. But it’s theoretically possible. Still, using deductive reasoning, our most likely bet is that it came from under the water.”
Now I have a really bad feeling. We know the sea caves are incredibly deep. Freaky deep. Like a quarter of a mile. Maybe more.
My uncle rummages through his bag and pulls out two small aluminum canisters attached to a mouthpiece. This is basically a portable oxygen tank. He hands one to me. “Do you have your mask?”
“I do.” I reluctantly retrieve the diving mask from my pack.
Two nights ago, they closed the hotel swimming pool so I could get used to using this apparatus. It's five minutes of air in a can.
Five minutes isn’t a lot of time.
But it's not the breathing that has me worried. It's the cold and the dark and the sea creatures and the dangerous aliens lurking under the water that have me worried.
“How cold does water need to be for hypothermia to set in?” I ask.
“Below 70 degrees. But it’s not that cold.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. “At least we have that going for us.”
“Except the deeper we go, the colder it gets. That means we can only be in the water for a few minutes.”
“On second thought…” My uncle slides out of the kayak into the water. Holding onto the edge, he looks at me, “I think I'll go on my own. You stay up here and keep watch. Stay in touch via the comm system. I'll do a preliminary dive to see what’s down there.”
“But you're never supposed to dive alone,” I argue. “That's the number one rule of diving. You never go by yourself. You always dive with a buddy. You’re the one who told me that.”
“I know.”
“I’m your buddy.”
“I don't need a buddy.”
“You do need a buddy,” I argue, following him into the water.
“Look, we don't know what we’re going to find down there,” he counters. “Therefore, I don't think it's safe for you to come along at this point.”
“That's not your call to make. It's Fitz’s call. And he said I should stay with you.”
“It's not Fitz’s sworn duty to protect you with his life. It's mine. And I think you should stay up here.”
“You and I are the only ones who have above-normal human abilities. And if my sword is down there, then I'm going to get it back.”
“We don’t know that it’s down there.”
“Okay, fine,” I shift tactics. “What if those aliens return while I'm up here alone? Huh? Huh! Ever think of that?” I realize how immature I sound, but I can see that I’ve hit home with him.
“Fine.” He reluctantly gives in, bobbing his head curtly. “Here's what we'll do. Together we'll make a preliminary dive. I figure we can descend at least 150 feet before we have any issues with the pressure.”
I nod but don't say anything. I'm afraid that if I speak, he'll change his mind.
“If we find something, an entrance of some sort, that we can potentially breach, then I'll give you the okay sign. If it looks too risky or there's nothing there, I'll give you a thumbs up which means we're returning to the surface.”
“Got it.”
“But you do what I say with no arguments. Understand?”
“When do I ever argue?”
He rolls his eyes but otherwise ignores my comment.
We start our cautious but speedy descent swimming close to the wall, navigating only by the meager light of the waterproof tablet and our headsets.
We’re initially surrounded by colorful fish, but they quickly vanish as the water temperature drops along with any sprouts of vegetation. The cave walls begin to curve away from us, leading us under some sort of natural shelf.
The most disturbing thing is how quickly the water gets cold.
At the halfway point, emerging from the shelter of the rocky sea wall, a glowing golden light filters up through the murky water.
There is something down here. That’s for sure. And it’s something not made by man.
Chapter 23
Pressing ourselves into a shallow cove in the wall that provides some camouflage, we realize we're looking at what must've been the launch pad of the flying saucer.
It's incredible.
We’re looking at a massive underwater dock — half of it or more is underwater, while the rest of it appears to rise above the surface.
But where exactly is it? There have been no reports of any structures like this showing above the surface. And we didn’t see it when we arrive, nor is it on any of the satellite images.
I swim behind my uncle as he slowly ascends along the wall until our heads break the water. We both remove the air canisters. There’s not even 30 seconds of air left.
Barely enough to get us back to the top.
From where we are hiding, we spot a few familiar dark suits. They move along the large flat open surface that is the landing pad. We also see a few Draconians, who stand a head taller than the humans with their scaly skin and metal armor.
“How are we going to get past them?” I ask. When I turn my head toward my uncle, I see that he’s shivering, teeth chattering with cold. “Are you okay?”
“I just need a moment to warm up,” he replies, checking his watch. “The water temperature has fallen below 60 degrees.”
The water we're in should be freezing, but oddly I’m not really feeling it.
“What about you?” my uncle asks puzzled. “Aren’t you cold?”
“Not really,” I reply mildly, wondering why I'm not freezing too.
My uncle's eyes go wide for a moment as understanding flashes. “You're resistant to cold. If you aren't cold right now, like any go
od Lyrian would be, then you’re resistant to cold. I wonder if you're also resistant to heat?”
“Wait. So you’re saying my special ability is an immunity to temperature?”
He nods and smiles. “It would seem likely.”
“Wow. That’s a big bummer. I’m not super strong or super fast or have enhanced vision and hearing. I can’t time-shift or shape-shift. I just don’t need a sweater.”
My uncle continues, “Come to think of it, you were fine when we were in Egypt. It must have been 114 degrees outside, and you didn't even break a sweat.”
He sees my disappointment and adds, “Remember, all of the sisters were given a specific ability. You have to believe that whatever ability you were gifted with was given to you for a reason. It was chosen because you will one day need it.”
“Right.” I force a smile and try not to sound like an ungrateful brat even though it turns out I have the world’s lamest special ability.
“When we get back to D.C., we can run some targeted tests in the lab, but for right now we need to focus on getting inside this location.”
Almost as soon as he says this, a red light starts swirling on the platform and a cluster of the Horlock workers, in their black suits, stream out through a side door.
“Um… do you think that the red light has anything to do with us?” I ask. “Like an alarm?”
“Maybe,” he says still shivering but swimming stealthily towards the farside of the platform, shrouded in near darkness. “Let’s not wait around to find out.”
We slink up to a metal ladder attached to the wall. Standing on the platform and looking around I feel like we’ve surfaced in a Bond villain’s compound. It’s all clean and industrial. Everything has been hollowed out from the granite cave like someone took a giant rock polisher and made every surface smooth and glossy.
He touches his earpiece, “This is Team Two. We have arrived at an alien underwater facility. Come in.”
Nothing but static. He listens for a moment, then repeats. “Come in. Command Center, this is Team Two.” Just more static. “They’re jamming electronic signals.”