Birth of the Alliance Read Online Free PDF Page A

the brutal temperatures and sense his body start to shut down, gave witness to the sheer power nature had in this locale. He risked radiating a small bit of Energy around himself as he'd done during so many winters back in the North Village, and that tempered the cold enough that he could function. The landscape was barren, the winds violent, and snowfall constant. No person who valued his or her life would dare attempt passage here, not without sufficiently advanced technology capable of reducing the risk of death to something less than one hundred percent.
    It was exactly the type of environment he wanted for the Alliance home base. Mother Nature would protect them as well as any type of shield.
    Will teleported back inside the Nautilus, relishing the warmth inside, allowing his body and mind to return to a state of calm. He could hear the thrum of the engines, could taste the fruit juice he’d consumed a half hour ago still activating his taste buds. With his body functioning normally, Will took the submarine below the icy waters.
    He’d spent three years circling the continent, using a backup of his sonar equipment to rig up a tracking system that would be able to find openings in the rocky landmass hidden beneath the snow-covered surface. The signal was able to penetrate about a mile in from the waters of the ocean. Day in and day out, he'd scan inward from his vantage point, finding empty pockets, but never anything sizable enough to meet his needs. Thankfully, as a man who'd lived over seven centuries, patience was a quality he now came by naturally. He’d reasoned that if he found nothing of sufficient size, he could figure out a way to enlarge one of the smaller caverns he'd discovered. There was always a way to move forward if you were willing to work at it long enough.
    Finally, only a week earlier, he'd located what he needed.
    The air pocket deep under the surface level was truly massive, stretching in a circle nearly three miles in diameter, a natural dome close to two hundred yards in height. With proper planning, he believed they could fit several thousand future Alliance members inside, a permanent home and base of operations forever hidden from Arthur and his minions.
    He'd almost missed the tunnel with his scans as well.
    The tunnel was a critical aspect to the location. Though the cavern’s size and location were ideal, he’d abandon it if the only means of access was via teleportation. Teleportation would be a lightning rod to someone like Sebastian; the immense Energy expenditure required to travel even the mile or so from the surface or from below the surface of the sea would be something he couldn’t help but notice. Instead, they’d need to reach it through more mundane means: an underwater tunnel accessible only via submarine, or some type of elevator shaft or staircase available only from the Antarctic surface. An underwater tunnel was far less likely to be discovered, but would require him to carve a submarine-sized tunnel through a continent to reach the cavern.
    He spotted the imperfection in the readout as he contemplated the enormity of that task. The blip was subtle, a smaller opening in the rocky landmass than the huge cavern, but a natural gap nonetheless. He traced the tunnel down from the cavern for several hundred yards, watched it level off, rise again, and drop once more until it emerged into the sea. Will marked the spot and depth and set off for the location.
    The waters were murky at that depth, nearly two miles below the surface, and even his powerful exterior lights struggled to pierce the liquid fog surrounding him. Will kept his focus on the continental rocks before him, searching for the opening he knew was there. The swaying underwater grasses attached to the rocks distracted him, adding to the hazy appearance of the water, and it was the grasses that obscured the tunnel opening. Will did a double take at the unusual shadows generated by his exterior lights, shadows that