The Battle, page 1
About this Book
When Worlds Collide, Someone Gets Hurt
Tim and the rest of the stolen children of Briny Deep are on the journey of a lifetime. But Tim can’t help but feel that he has left something, or someone, behind. And with the secret of Briny Deep exposed, its nefarious leader, Trident, attempts to reclaim what has been returned to its rightful place. If he succeeds, it will mean the almost-certain destruction of planet Earth. The Battle: The Briny Deep Mysteries Book 3, is the culmination of Jennifer Torres’s paranormal mystery trilogy. Follow along with the many plot twists in this mind-bending journey.
About the Author
Jennifer Torres lives and writes in a little beach town on the coast of Florida. She loves to write about fantastical lands, secret passageways, and doorways to magical places. A journalist for over fifteen years, she has also written a series of celebrity biographies for children and numerous articles for magazines, newspapers, and non-profit organizations. The Briny Deep Mysteries series is her debut into mystery fiction.
Contents
Cover
About this Book
Title Page
* * *
Chapter 1: Welcome Home
Chapter 2: Do They Look Like Us?
Chapter 3: What a Weird Place
Chapter 4: Meet the Family
Chapter 5: New Beginnings
Chapter 6: Surprise Visit
Chapter 7: Going Back
Chapter 8: Trident’s War
Chapter 9: Run for Your Life
Chapter 10: Nina’s Choice
Chapter 11: The Story Gets Twisted
Chapter 12: War and Peace
* * *
Dedication
Note to Our Readers
Copyright
Read each title in The Briny Deep Mysteries
Chapter 1
Welcome Home
A catastrophic crash seemed unavoidable.
After such peaceful, quiet space travel, all of a sudden things had begun to change. The gentle hum of the engines that had lulled Tim to sleep when he first boarded the ship was now becoming a deep and increasing rumble.
Light from distant stars streaked across the blackness of space outside the small windows of the spacecraft. It was like they were falling into a dark, bottomless pit.
Tim lifted his head up as everything in the passenger cabin started shaking.
Uh oh, he thought, as he suddenly felt nauseous and dizzy.
He looked over at Max, Emily, and Luke. They each had a look of sheer terror on their face.
“Ugh, I feel like I might throw up,” Max said. “Does anyone have a pail?”
Canary ran back to him and handed him a large tube-like thing.
“Throw up in that,” he instructed.
Max didn’t wait for him to ask twice.
Not a comforting sight.
Tim closed his eyes. After everything he and his friends had been through, entering Earth’s atmosphere should be a piece of cake.
Ugh, cake.
The mere thought of it at this moment made him want to retch. His stomach was doing somersaults, and his head was spinning.
Just moments ago, Tim awoke from his well-deserved nap to find Rusty and Canary standing over him. He had slept right through their journey.
“Even though Indus and Earth are far away from each other, the trip itself actually isn’t long at all,” Canary had explained. “If the conditions are right, we can travel very, very fast using the wormholes in space and before you know it—we’re there.”
“Wormholes?” Emily asked.
“Yes—they are shortcuts in space,” Rusty explained. “Some call them an Einstein–Rosen Bridge.”
Rusty got up from his chair and took a piece of paper from a notebook. Then he marked two points with a pencil.
“Imagine that this is space with Indus at one end and Earth at the other,” he said pointing at two opposite ends of the paper where the points were made. “Now see what happens when I fold this paper in half?”
“The two points are on top of each other,” said Max.
“Exactly,” Rusty said. “The wormhole takes us though like this—like a bridge.”
“You mean we are actually here—at Earth—already?” Tim had asked in disbelief.
Canary had laughed out loud.
“Yes. Welcome home.”
But what he hadn’t explained is how bumpy the ride through the atmosphere would be.
A sudden sharp dip in altitude jolted Tim back into his seat.
The big comfortable chairs where they sat were equipped with several safety straps for takeoff and landing.
Canary had instructed them to buckle up just moments before the ship got all herky-jerky.
An unrestrained bag of trash slid down the aisle between their seats toward the front of the spacecraft, spilling its contents along the way.
Rusty jumped out of his seat, gathered the garbage in a white bag, and secured it in a cabinet. Then he quickly returned to his seat.
“It’s going to get pretty bumpy,” Canary called out. “Doing okay back there, Max?”
“Uh . . . define okay,” Max called out.
Throughout the whole trip, Max and Canary had definitely bonded. They joked around a lot together. They seemed almost like old friends. It was nice to see this other side of Canary. He was actually a pretty cool guy. What a surprise that was!
Tim turned to look out the window and was able to see the earth—there was a large mass of land covering much of the sea. The bright blue water that seemed so abundant from space now appeared like a mere puddle next to all the solid ground he saw below. But more terrifying than that was the orange-red glow he noticed coming from the outside of the craft—were they on fire?
“Rusty?” Tim called out. “I think there are flames outside the window.”
“What did you say?” yelled Max above the roar of the engines.
“It’s normal, Max,” Canary called out. “We’re going to be just fine.”
Tim’s whole body was so stiff from sitting in the chair. He could barely lift his hand in order to shield his eyes from the terrifying descent.
The ship shook and rumbled. It began to feel as if the whole thing might break apart into a million pieces. He could just picture his chair ripping free, spinning him deep into space where he would float aimlessly away to his ultimate doom.
Tim closed his eyes and tried to get the image out of his head.
Things had changed so much in such a short time. He already missed his parents—or more correctly—he missed the people who had raised him. He would be meeting his real parents soon—on Earth. What would they be like? Did he have brothers and sisters? What if they didn’t like him? What if he didn’t like them? Thoughts swirled randomly around his brain, a welcome distraction from the current situation.
Nina was so far away now, and even though he knew she had betrayed him—had betrayed all of them—he couldn’t stop thinking of her.
Was she okay? What did she remember? Why had she lied to them?
The ship took another dip, and Tim began to think he might need that throw-up tube himself.
“Everything is fine,” Rusty shouted back at the kids. He tried to calm them by explaining that the wild ride caused by Earth’s atmosphere is actually a good thing for them because it’s caused by particles of air rubbing against their ship, causing it to slow down so they can approach Earth at a safer speed.
“It’s called friction,” he continued. “It might not feel good right now, but you should certainly be thankful we’re experiencing it.”
The words had barely been said when suddenly a shrill alarm sounded overhead.
“We are going in a bit hot,” Canary said to Rusty in a low voice.
Without another word, Rusty closed the door to the cockpit.
Tim looked over again at Max, Emily, and Luke.
“What did he mean . . . hot?” asked Emily.
“Probably referring to the fire outside the window,” said Luke, who appeared somewhat calmer than the others. Probably, Tim thought, because he had been through it before.
“Was it like this when you came to Earth the first time?” Tim asked.
“Well sort of,” Luke replied with some hesitation. “But . . .”
“But what?”
“Well, I don’t remember seeing fire—and we didn’t have an alarm go off.”
Tim closed his eyes again and held on tight.
Chapter 2
Do They Look Like Us?
Are we dead?
When you actually have to ask the question and you really don’t know the answer, you can bet you’ve been though something intense.
Impact was sudden.
The spacecraft appeared to nosedive toward the bright blue water of Earth before plunging deep under the glassy surface before coming to a full stop on the murky ocean floor.
“Are we dead?” Tim managed to ask again, certain that because no one answered the first time, he probably was.
Canary laughed.
“No, Tim,” he said as he put a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “You are decidedly not dead.”
Canary and Rusty had opened the cockpit door moments after landing and were now helping everyone undo their safety belts.
They all nodded in response.
Tim stretched his arms up in the air and walked up to a window. Looking out, he could see an ocean that looked very similar to his on Indus—except for what appeared to be something alive out there.
Wait. What the . . . ?
“Look out here,” he called toward his friends.
They all huddled around the small window.
Emily jumped back when she saw it.
It was a squiggly, wiggly, squishy looking thing—almost invisible—and it was moving around right outside the window.
“That’s called a jellyfish,” Luke said. “There are a lot of living things in the oceans here on Earth: fish, sharks, dolphins, and whales—wait until you see one of those—you will definitely freak out.”
“That’s just weird,” Emily said with a frown. “Yuck.”
“Get used to it,” Canary called to her. “It’s just one of many new and different things about this planet—wait until you see the bugs.”
“Yum, bugs,” Max said. “I can’t wait to eat some real food again.”
Canary’s stomach gurgled at the thought.
“Hey look, what’s that?” Emily asked.
“What is what?” Rusty responded.
“It has eight—um—legs and a big head.”
Rusty looked out and saw nothing like what she had described.
“It sounds like you might be talking about an octopus, Emily, but I don’t see one.”
“But it’s right over there,” she said pointing straight ahead.
Rusty grabbed a pair of binoculars and held them up to his eyes.
“Wow,” he said with surprise. “There is an octopus out there—but I can barely make it out—even with the binoculars. How are you seeing that?”
“It looks really close to me,” she answered.
Rusty made his way back to the cockpit and guided the vessel into what looked like an enormous underwater cave. Once fully inside, he brought the ship to a halt.
“Now, we wait,” he said.
“Wait for what?” Max asked.
“Not for what, but for who,” Rusty replied with a wink.
Suddenly the ship lurched upwards, as if a giant hand had just grabbed it from underneath and was lifting it up, up, up.
Tim could see they were indeed rising, like being on a supersized elevator.
After a few moments, they came to a stop, and the water around the ship began to lower.
“They’re here,” Canary said as he turned to Rusty.
“Wait . . . Rusty,” Max whispered. “Do they . . . um . . . do they look different from us?”
“Well, Max, I do have to mention something very important,” he replied. “Whatever you do, don’t look at their third eye. It’s actually a laser beam that can turn you to mush.”
“What!” Max yelled out.
“He’s kidding with you,” Luke said with a laugh. “Man, you are so gullible.”
Canary turned to Max and gave him a playful push on the shoulder.
“They look just like you—ugly as sin.”
Rusty walked to the hatch and began to enter some sort of code.
They heard a loud banging coming from the outside.
“Come in,” Canary jokingly called.
Tim felt a wave of panic rising in him. After all, he didn’t know anything about these people. What if it had been a mistake to come here?
A few bells sounded, and the hatch began to rise slowly.
Luke stood in front, alongside his father and Canary.
Instinctively, Tim, Max, and Emily all reached for each other’s hand.
As the door rose higher, Tim could see there were at least ten people outside it.
They were all dressed in white, clinical-looking medical jumpsuits that covered their heads. The whole suit actually covered their entire body.
“They’re dressed that way for safety,” Luke said in a hushed voice as he turned to look back to his friends.
“Whose safety?” Tim whispered back. “Theirs—or ours?”
Before Luke could answer, one of the men boarded the ship.
“Welcome, everyone,” he said. “Welcome to Earth.”
This is going to be a huge shock for them.
“What is?” Tim asked as he looked at the man.
“I’m sorry young man, what did you say?”
“You said, ‘this is going to be a huge shock for them,’ I just wondered what you meant.”
The man just stared at Tim with a confused, sort of surprised, expression.
Another person came onboard—this one looked more like a woman.
She walked past the other man and stood in front of Tim, Max, and Emily.
Up close like this, they could all see her face clearly now. She took a moment to look at each of them warmly and then softly spoke.
“Welcome home.”
Chapter 3
What a Weird Place
Earth.
What a weird place.
One sun in the sky, green trees everywhere, and the bugs were so small, they actually gave Tim the creeps.
And everywhere he went, he kept thinking people were speaking to him. But when he would turn to look at them, they were not talking.
He was beginning to think he could read their thoughts. But that was crazy, right?
This planet was definitely going to take some getting used to.
Since their arrival a few days ago, Tim, Emily, and Max had been given a crash course about Earth. There were many similarities to Indus. But all Tim could see at the moment were the differences.
The group had been staying on a huge compound that consisted of one large glass building and other various structures that housed some of the planet’s military operations and offices.
The glass building was where he and his friends were staying. Every single wall was a window, but you couldn’t see in from the outside—Tim had tried. The building almost blended right into the sky.
They each had their own comfortable room there with a huge bed and a private bathroom.
Everyone was being super nice to them, treating them like they were extremely special. Tim was beginning to believe they were.
Just one thing bothered him: the place seemed to have an awful lot of security. There were guards everywhere, all across the compound, throughout the building, and outside every door—including his.
And if he had to find one other thing wrong with the whole set up, he would have to say the food. They ate strange things here on Earth. The things they called “hot dogs” bothered him the most. They were just gross. And peanut butter and jelly was beyond disgusting—the bread here was so sweet, like cake. Soda was strange, too. He imagined it was exactly what the acid tasted like in his school science experiments.
Each day they had been here they had attended some sort of class where they learned about their new planet. Max called it Earth School.
They had learned a lot already.
Tim couldn’t believe that the planet had around 195 different lands, called countries. And each country had its own individual territories. America alone had fifty separate places that they called states.
What a difference from Indus and its five regions.
Earth also had a lot less water than Indus.
Water covered about 70 percent of the surface here.
Today’s session was about the customs here.
One thing that Tim had already noticed was that everyone says hello like they are familiar with you—even when they don’t know you at all. They learned that this is a nationwide phenomenon in America. You could be greeted by dozens of strangers as you walk down an average city street here—all smiling and waving at you—and not know a single one of them.
The speaker, whose name was John, also explained to them that when someone you don’t know says, “Hey, how you doing?” it’s more of a greeting than a question wanting an answer.
Max had raised his hand on that one.
“So you mean as I’m answering this person’s question, letting him know how I’m doing, he’s already gone?”
