INTERVENTION

by Dennis Miller

  INTERVENTION

  By Dennis Miller

  1945 A.D.

  The bright, open sky held promise of another warm day to the Earth as it turned slowly beneath, bearing a few wisps of white cloud that floated lazily to relieve an otherwise monotone vista of seemingly endless blue.

  At an altitude of approximately forty thousand feet a small section of sky appeared to shimmer as it moved effortlessly forward; however, the only human eyes that could have witnessed this strange phenomenon were engaged in other pursuits; namely, observing what was ahead, behind and below.

  Whilst maintaining an altitude of thirty two thousand feet the crews of the three American B-29 superfortress bombers were totally unaware of the fact that they had been followed, for the last 50 miles, by a visual aberration eight thousand feet above them. On board the three aircraft, cameras were being activated: computations had been checked and re-checked: gunners were scanning the skies below for the inevitable fighters that could soon be upon them. The Officer in charge of the bomb bay of one of the aircraft had accomplished his task and the final run-in had begun and all on board were acutely aware that they were about to launch a gigantic moment in human history; how gigantic a moment would become apparent much later.

  The radar operator who had just recently been posted to the military base in Hiroshima reported to his superior that he had located what he believed to be three enemy heavy bombers approaching and that no other aircraft were in the vicinity. The Officer, immediately, passed on this information to his superiors at headquarters who decided that three bombers at such an altitude and without fighter protection were probably on a reconnaissance mission and, being alone, posed little or no threat; therefore, no fighter planes were scrambled and no warning sirens were implemented: life in the city was allowed to awaken as usual to the warm, bright morning.

  People went about their daily business as they always did, content as all humans were in their ignorance of the future. Soldiers busied themselves with their morning calisthenics as people commuted by foot and by bicycle to their daily tasks. There was nothing to suggest that the day would bring anything out of the ordinary: nothing to fill the mind with horror for many generations to come: nothing that would trigger mankind’s suicidal gold rush for the next generation of technological genocide. This was just another ordinary, warm and pleasant day in war - torn Japan.

  At eight-fifteen A.M. one of the B-29s released a single item which, now lacking the support of its cradle in the bomb bay of the primary airplane, began to lose forward momentum in exchange for gravitational velocity. Two words had been written on the side of this package...‘Little Boy’.

  Little boy weighed nine thousand seven hundred pounds and had been painted black - the better to be observed by the cameras of the escort aircraft while on its descent. Falling for 57 seconds, which seemed like an eternity to the observers in the aircraft, the item then detonated at an altitude of 2000 feet.

  To the people in the city beneath, the blinding white flash appeared to be that of the sun exploding in their faces; this sun, however, was to be the last thing they would ever see. The power that was unleashed by the explosion slammed down like a gigantic hammer, obliterating everything beneath. The first casualties were the birds that had earlier taken to the air, for these were turned instantly into small packages of flame that immediately disappeared within the envelope of chaos that had been visited upon the area.

  The ensuing shock wave that hit the ground raced out in all directions faster than the speed of sound, smashing all in its path. Gas pipes were ruptured: petrol and chemical instillations were destroyed, all adding to the many fires that had been started by the effects of the explosion. Each of these disasters combined to create a fire storm that would eventually suck in all of the available oxygen, thus denying breathable air to the few would–be survivors of the initial impact, causing many to die quickly of asphyxiation. The city’s main water hydrants and home water supplies were obliterated and the resulting deluge was forced up high into the sky by the sheer power of the intense heat, only to fall at a later time as acid rain; poisoning the land and destroying crops for many miles.

  Within one mile of the epicentre of the detonation, atoms of life that had once combined to make up animal, vegetable and mineral material were instantly vaporised and forced upwards into the atmosphere to form a mushroom cloud that sat high above a city which no longer existed.

  After a few minutes, within a half mile of ground zero, nine out of every ten of the population of Hiroshima were dead, with many more to follow in the ensuing years. The huge cloud that had developed above could be seen for one hundred miles.

  Hell had been invited to planet Earth and was here to stay.

  The aberration in the sky no longer followed the three aircraft, but remained static above the huge cloud that bore testament to the fact that mankind had discovered the god-like power of nuclear physics and its first inclination had been one of self destruction.

  Three days later the aberration reappeared forty thousand feet above the Japanese port of Nagasaki as two B-29 superfortresses approached.

  The time had come: a solution must now be determined and implemented.

  The pall that hung over the land seemed eerie, reminding the young woman of the stories that her grandfather had told when she was a child. She and her two brothers had soaked up these tales on cold winter nights: their imaginations fired by the adventures of heroes and dragons and the many devil–like creatures that dwelled beneath the earth. Her grandfather had been a good story teller and even the house had seemed to hold its breath as the old man related his tales of bygone days in a quiet and unassuming manner, but always with a mischievous glint in his eye. Even her mother and father were attentive and the household was a happy one. But then came the time of the war.

  The war had changed everything. Before that time, everyone had known their place in society and everyone knew that the Emperor, whose personal wellbeing bore testament to the wellbeing of the country and his loyal subjects, was revered as a living God by all. Life had been good with well-defined rules that maintained honour and respect and no one ever went without food in their bellies: unlike the American devils who chose to attack other countries and steal their resources in order to feed their crowding hordes. Her brothers, father and grandfather had gone to fight the barbarians to keep them from their shores, but none had returned. Her mother told her that they had all been summoned to the great house of their ancestors where they were arrayed in glory and were now as one. She had been fourteen when they went away, but now she was seventeen and understood better that they had all been killed by the enemy while heroically defending the emperor: they had all died as heroes.

  The sun should be shining by now but its rays could not reach the ground due to the strange mist that hung in the sky. She had seen mists before, here on the northern island of Hokkaido, but they quickly disappeared with the warm rays of the sun. This mist, however, was not disappearing and she wondered if it could have anything to do with the enemy, for rumours had begun to circulate that there had been an earthquake farther to the south, close to Tokyo two days before, but most people still believed it was the work of the American devils.

  They had been warned many times that the enemy were a savage and inferior race who would rape and kill and then eat the bodies of women: slaughter the children and destroy the land. She had determined long ago that she would sell her life dearly if their land was invaded by such barbarians, killing many enemies before they killed her, just like the heroes in grandfathers’ stories.

  As if in response to her thoughts she was suddenly bathed in light; a soft blue luminance that was not offensive to her eyes. She felt peaceful as the gentle warmth surrounded her and seemed to c
aress her skin. Smiling, she closed her eyes while tilting her face as though to the sun. It was so relaxing, like floating on a bed of warm air; surely this must be the work of her Father, Grandfather and Brothers who had come to comfort her and she yielded willingly to the soothingly warm and gentle caresses of the light.

  Awaking, the young woman found herself lying on the ground at the edge of the field. At first she was disoriented until, standing, she saw her house a hundred yards away. This confused her for she was sure that she ought to be closer to the house than this and that she had been nowhere near the field, but how could this be? Looking instinctively to the sky she saw a small but intense white light that quickly disappeared into the murky gloom. She felt that there was something familiar about the light but could not recall where or when she had seen it before. There appeared to be no logical explanation to these small mysteries, therefore, she would need to confide in her mother and let her wisdom solve this riddle.

  Her mother smiled when the daughter related her story and she assured the girl that she must have fallen asleep and walked to the field whilst in a dream–like state; it had happened to others and she was not to worry. Outwardly, the young woman accepted this wisdom, but in later years she would be visited by a recurring dream whereby she was lying naked on a white bench in a room which was filled with a strange blue light and with a number of grey devils looking down upon her. The phrase “The solution has not yet been found, but do not worry” always accompanied the dream but meant nothing to her. She supposed that this was an effect of her grandfathers’ stories of so long ago, but she did not say this to her mother: she did not say this to anyone.

  2181A.D.

  As the sleek white space liner entered the five hundred mile pre-docking zone its momentum was automatically reduced to approach speed. At fifty miles distance from S.L.S.2 the pilot gently eased the vessel around one hundred and eighty degrees to facilitate reversing procedure into the docking station, thus allowing the passengers on board their first view of the enormity of their destination. Some, who were visiting for the first time gazed in awe at this testament to human ingenuity; the mass of the structure seeming to go on forever. However, the woman with the cold black eyes who sat alone was not in awe; Andretta was not in awe of anything, whether it be man made or natural.

  This particular destination was number 2 of 6 Space Launch Stations that had been constructed in situ not only for the purpose of deep space exploration, but also as a deterrent to any would-be dictator with designs on possible World domination as had almost happened during the great North/South wars of eighty years before.

  There had been a series of four seemingly unrelated but serious attacks on the North American, European and Asian continents by factions operating from the African and South American continents; however, far from being unrelated these actions proved to be a concerted effort by powerful groups in an attempt to destroy the global stock markets and power bases with the intention of reducing the ability of the world-wide military forces and, with the element of surprise, they had almost succeeded. There then followed a program of sustained military actions upon the Northern alliance; the use of nuclear weapons counting for the deaths of more than thirty million people in the North and a further ten million people in the South.

  The wars were eventually resolved by the coordinated assassinations of the leaders and other powerful influences of the attacking armies; these being carried out by specially trained northern combined infiltration forces.

  These events had spurred the remaining leaders to create a new World order, together with a complete reconstruction of combined military strength: this new order was to be administered by four leadership controllers who were appointed on a three yearly staggered tenure. These four were known collectively as the World Political Directorate and it was they who controlled all political, military and civilian organisations - all except one; this was the Internal Administration Bureau and it was answerable to none but its own honourable and moral code in the policing and dispensation of justice of the World laws; this disassociation from political control was seen as necessary to protect itself from potentially corrupt and powerful leaders.

  The Directorate leadership tenure was a one-time only engagement; this to reduce the possibility of the corruption or cowardice that had existed within the leaderships of the individual countries at the emergence of the wars which had greatly hindered the effectiveness of the defence of the Northern alliance.

  Militarily run space stations had been agreed upon as a prudent measure against any further possible contravention and had proven to be the first successful venture of the new World order. Man made satellites now orbited Earth at a distance of five hundred thousand miles. Having taken four years to build, now that Earth was centrally controlled and so better suited to concerted effort, the combined space stations program had been one of the greatest successes of the era and for almost forty years had been the main source of data gathering for deep space flight.

  To human eyes, up so close to these colossal structures, the view was breath-taking; the black oblong form being fifty miles in length by five miles in height and ten miles in depth. At this distance the massive docking bays appeared as pinpricks on the outer fabric of the construction.

  These cities in space had been built, for the most part, by the use of nanorobotic technology, whereby vast amounts of small parts were assembled by micro robots to make larger programmed machines which were then left to get on with the task of the major build. Machines and tools were constructed or dismantled as necessary by the nanorobots, so keeping the need for raw materials to a minimum; these having to be ferried from Earth. Human participation had also been kept to a minimum, thus eliminating the risk of man-made error or potential sabotage.

  Along half the length of the space station were the docking bays; there being three on each face of the structure making twelve bays in all, nine of which had the capability to receive military and civilian craft which were both small and medium liners and war craft. The remaining three bays had been constructed specifically to accommodate only the deep space exploration vessels; the newly appointed and massive Subluminal class vehicles.

  In this man made city lived fifteen hundred people who were stationed here on a two yearly trickle draft system: all were military personnel and all were of departmental specialisation and once in every five months they were allowed one month’s leave, which had to be taken back on Earth.

  Here was self sufficiency, made possible by the use of bio-nanotechnology which supplied a continuous resource of food that subsidised the artificially grown vegetable material for the community, thus reducing the weekly umbilical of re-supply from Earth that had been so necessary in the early days. These molecular size machines had also been largely instrumental in eradicating almost all known diseases on Earth, thus making deep space exploration possible with little risk of spreading contamination to other species on other planets: to date this theory had been deemed successful although not yet proven, as no new species had yet been encountered.

  As the liner reversed towards the docking bay the pilot’s computer system announced “Station capture mode imminent.” This message was repeated again one minute later, after which, came the new announcement “Station capture mode in progress: vessel flight co-ordination facilities are now manually inoperable.” At this point the pilot released the liner’s drive pads. Now redundant, he sat back in his seat and relaxed; the station’s bay controller would dock the vessel from hereon in.

  Thirty minutes later the door to the station’s conference chamber slid silently open and Andretta stepped in through the doorway. Once inside the room she paused briefly as she casually scanned the faces of the people seated at the conference table. All wore civilian clothing, as she did, but these people had the air of military personnel. The door closed with a whisper behind her as six faces turned towards the newcomer: three women and three men watched as she made her way to the one vacant seat at the table. They w
ere immediately aware of a civilian joining them; therefore protocol demanded a postponement to introductions.

  The ensuing silence seemed a little strained, for these people had probably been speaking together before she entered, but she was accustomed to such behaviour whenever she found herself amongst military personnel. No further words were spoken and no eye contacts were made.

  After a few moments, the globe screen at the centre of the table flashed its softly-toned green glow and then the head and shoulders of a man appeared on the screen. The small circle of six red and white stars on the collar of his light blue uniform announced him as Commander of Missions.

  “Thank you all for your time,” he began. “This will be but a brief introduction, namely, the outline of the project and your possible participation being the only two items on today’s agenda. Please refrain from asking questions at this meeting as none shall be answered.

  Two months ago the last of three unmanned probes returned from a mission; this was an exploratory fact-finding exercise that had been a year in the making. The venture was successful in part, revealing new opportunities in space exploration and the plan now is to send a manned vehicle.” He paused while observing each of the people in the room, allowing the information given so far to be absorbed.

  After a few moments he went on. “Data recovered from the probes show that there is some uncertainty of the distance travelled: the time element of travel is approximately a six months round journey, Earth time. The mission shall be one of observation and data analysis only, therefore the vessel shall not be armed and there will be no personal weapons allowed on board. The risk to life analysis for this mission has been assessed as minimal to nil.”

  After another pause he added, “Each of you has been invited to participate in this venture by virtue of your past record and by your individual specialisation. Should you, however, decide not to accept this mission you may return to your respective units with the understanding that you have been on short term leave.