Ocean of Storms by Christopher Mari & Jeremy K. Brown

Author:Christopher Mari & Jeremy K. Brown [Mari, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781503938779
Publisher: 47North
Published: 2016-12-01T05:00:00+00:00

Soong and Zell never received Donovan’s transmissions. In fact, they had no idea about what he had discovered until they too climbed into the basket and lowered themselves into the fissure via remote control. The massive object came as much as a surprise to them as it had been for Donovan. The main difference in their experience was the comfort derived from the arc lights Donovan had set up, which grew brighter as their basket descended.

When the basket reached the floor of the ravine, Donovan was there to greet them. He had been signaling them the entire time, each call growing more desperate as he spied the tiny basket above his position. Now on the ground, they still didn’t answer his hails. In fact, they hardly noticed his presence. Their eyes were fixed on the unearthly wall before them.

“In all my life,” Zell finally muttered, “I’ve never seen anything like it!”

“It’s almost beyond comprehension,” Soong continued, “as if it couldn’t possibly be real at all.”

Donovan took a step forward and ran his gloved hand down the surface. “Except for the opening at the top, it’s perfectly smooth. Flawless. I’ve looked and looked, but I can’t find any markings—not even a groove to indicate how it was assembled.”

Soong approached the wall and slowly placed her hand against it as well. “But it has to have some kind of seam, plating. This is obviously man-made.”

“Careful with your terminology, Dr. Soong,” Zell reproached her as he held his helmet lights on a specific area of the wall. “This object wasn’t made by man. No human being has ever made anything like this.”

Soong turned to face them. “But what is it? A weapon?”

“Can’t be. Not buried this deep,” Donovan mused. “It didn’t do anything but blast a very large hole in the Moon and cause a lot of electronic damage on Earth. If someone had wanted to destroy the Earth with this object, they would’ve put it on the surface, where it would do the most damage.”

“Perhaps they hid it on purpose, Alan,” Zell suggested. “Some form of sneak attack.”

“A sneak attack planned two and a half million years ago?” Donovan shook his head inside his helmet. “It doesn’t make sense. I think it was meant to go off at a specific moment in time. But how would anyone know when we were capable of going to the Moon?”

“A valid point,” Zell added. “So it wasn’t meant to hurt us, but just to get our attention?”

Soong thought of that horrible day in Hong Kong. “Tell that to all those who died.”

“I can’t believe that was intentional,” Donovan responded. “I can’t explain why I believe that, but it just doesn’t seem like they wanted to hurt others. This was put here to bring us to the Moon.”

“But why?” Zell demanded. “To see it? To see its power? Their power?”

“And why dig this cavern?” Soong asked as she flashed her helmet lights around the massive cave. “Look at it—smooth walls. I think those are some kind of braces down there keeping the roof up.

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