Free Atlantis: Devil's Sea by Robert Doherty

only thing he’d ever seen that big moving was an iceberg, but this thing was coming under its own power.
    “I’m going in,” Gann said as he edged forward on the controls.
    “Don’t forget we need to jettison the pod,” Gann said. “Do it.”
    *****
    On board the Reveille , the engines were maxed out as the ship made to the south. On the bridge, the captain was watching the approaching sphere on radar also. Unfortunately, the ship was built for research, not speed or combat, so even at full throttle they could only make eighteen knots. And they had no weapons on board, although the captain doubted that any weapons they might have would be effective against whatever was coming.
    *****
    Deepflight blinked out of existence on the status board, the image of the sphere completely filling the canyon deep inside the Challenger Deep, the video feed from the submersible going blank.
    Dane sat down at the conference table and shook his head. “How many on board?”
    “Two,” Foreman said. His attention still on the board. “Damn,” Foreman muttered.
    Dane looked up. The sphere was moving, ascending. “It’s going after the Reveille .”
    Foreman picked up the microphone. “ Reveille, this is Angel Six. Over.”
    “We’ve got it on radar, range five thousand meters horizontal, nine thousand meters vertical and closing. Any suggestion would be helpful. Over.”
    Foreman looked at Dane, who simply shook his head.
    “Five us a video feed,” Foreman ordered.
    A screen on the wall flickered, and then they could see the Pacific Ocean from the bridge of the Reveille . The water was perfectly calm, the sun shining. The only thing marring the tranquility of the scene were the increasingly anxious reports from the Reveill e’s radar man coming out of the speakers.
    “Range four thousand meters horizontal, seven thousand meters vertical, and closing at high speed.”
    “We’re still waiting on any suggestions,” the captain of the Reveille said. “Over.”
    “It might be bluffing,” Foreman suggested.
    “What the hell is it, anyway?” the captain demanded.
    “We don’t know,” Foreman admitted.
    “Great.”
    ‘Range three thousand meters horizontal, five thousand meters vertical, and closing at high speed.”
    *****
    Gann felt the air around him changing, the pressure increasing. His head pounded, and the video screen was dark.
    “What the hell is going on?” Murphy demanded.
    The nose of the submersible had hit the dark circle just moments ago, and then slowly they’d gone into it, as if being absorbed. Alarms began going off. Gann ran through emergency procedures but could find nothing seriously wrong until he glanced at the outside pressure-reading gauge.
    “That can’t be,” he murmured.
    “What?”
    “Outside pressure is one atmosphere.”
    “The gauge is broken,” was Murphy’s immediate assessment.
    Both men blinked as the light inside increased dramatically as the three screens showing the outside view suddenly brightened far beyond what the searchlights could do.
    “Where the hell are we?” Murphy whispered. His training took hold, and he checked his instruments. He didn’t believe what he was seeing, but he reported it anyway. “I’ve got a reading of the surface ten meters above us.”
    “That would explain the atmospheric reading,” Gann observed. He checked the radio, trying to reach the Reveille and Angel Six, but only static came back. “Let’s see where we are,” he finally said.
    *****
    The sphere was solid black and perfectly round. There was no external sign of a form of propulsion; nevertheless, it was pushing through the water at high speed, closing on the Reveille .
    It was also picking up anything in its path via a hole that had irises open on the very front, about fifty meters wide. It had swallowed the transmitting pod before halting in front of the large door, then reversing direction and heading for the surface.
    *****
    “Range zero meters horizontal, one thousand