Free Atlantis: Devil's Sea by Robert Doherty Page A

meters vertical, and rising at high speed. Closing on us, sir,” the radar man added, a quaver in his voice.
    The captain of the Reveille nodded. He opened the door that led to the bridge wing on the right side and stepped out onto it, a crewman following him with a video camera that was connected by satellite to the War Room. The captain leaned over and looked down at the smooth ocean, waiting.
    *****
    On the top portion of the sphere, the opening grew as the metal irises moved back. As the sphere got closer to the surface and the Reveille , the opening grew larger until it encompassed a quarter of the surface.
    *****
    “Oh God,” those in the War Room heard the captain of the Reveille exclaim. Then they saw what had caused the reaction as the video camera was pointed downward.
    Rising out of the water all around the Reveille was the edge of the opening in the sphere, water pouring down the side of the massive object until the edge was a hundred meters above the mast of the ship. Then the opening began to iris shut, daylight disappearing rapidly as it closed.
    The screen went blank.
    *****
    Captain Gann threw the hatch open and blinked in the bright light, trying to get his bearings. The air was stale, with a texture to it that Gann couldn’t identify. He was in a huge, semicircular space. The submersible was floating in the center of a body of water that extended a mile and half in all directions. Above, a bright, glowing orb illuminated everything. Beyond the water, a black beach two miles in width ran up to the wall that curved around overhead to the light.
    What caught Gann’s attention, though, were the planes and boats that littered the black beach. Thousands of them. He saw an ancient Polynesian raft beached next to a modern oil tanker; a jet fighter with Russian markings next to a biplane. It was overwhelming, a veritable mechanical graveyard of the ages.
    *****
    “It’s moving again,” Dane noted. He watched the progress of the sphere on the screen for several seconds, then realized what he was seeing. “It’s heading back to the Deep.”
    There was no sign of the Reveille in the live spy satellite feed they had of the area. The ship had disappeared, swallowed up by the sphere.
    *****
    “Look at that!” Murphy exclaimed, pointing.
    Gann shifted the binoculars in that direction. A silver-skinned plane with two engines, one on each wing, was on the black beach. Among all the other craft here, he found nothing particularly spectacular about that particular plane.
    “A Lockheed Electra,” Murphy said. He twisted the knob on his binoculars. “A Lockheed Electra 10E!”
    “And?” Gann was trying to absorb the variety of ships and planes he was seeing. Some he didn’t’ recognize at all.
    “Do you know what the E in the 10E stands for?” Murphy didn’t wait for an answer. “Earhart. That’s Amelia Earhart’s plane!”
    Both men staggered as a large bubble of air broke the surface just in front of the submersible, rocking the craft. Gann felt a spike of pain in both ears and realized there had been a sudden change of pressure. He leaned over and looked down, just in time to see the top edge of the opening in the sphere break the surface all around the submersible.
    *****
    “The sphere is heading back for the gate,” Ahana reported, even though Nagoya could clearly see that on the screen.
    “What about the probe?” he asked.
    Ahana flipped a switch, and a red dot appeared inside the sphere. “Working.”
“Excellent.”
    They watched as the dot entered the black triangle marking the boundaries of the Devil’s Sea gate.”
    “Do you have a lock on that position?” Nagoya asked anxiously.
    “Locked and all data recorded,” Ahana confirmed.
    *****
    In the War Room, Dane saw the red dot appear. “What’s that?”
    “The sphere must have sucked in the pod,” Foreman said.
    “What about Deepflight ?” Ariana asked.
    “No sign,” Foreman said.
    “How does this probe open the gate?” Dane