Chapter 2

V.L.A. (Very Large Array) New Mexico

May, 16 2016, 5:43am

A Blip on a screen

Max sat in his chair, bored out of his mind. Another night trundling through the long and uneventful night shift. He had two more weeks left alone. Most nights the place would be bustling with any number of astronomers working on various projects. Not for the next two weeks though. For the next 14 days the entire facility was going through a complete overhaul in the maintenance department. This required the normal staff to take a vacation from their work for that time period. All except Max. Oh well, such is life as the low man on the totem pole.

Maxwell Bartholemue Lowe was a recently graduated astronomer from the University of Colorado, Boulder, Summa cum Laude. He was 25 years old, of medium height with brown hair and brown eyes, with the typical non athletic body found on any academic. Some of his close friends described him as resembling Jake Gyllenhaal, except not as handsome. After his hard won summa cum laude graduation he found that he had his choice of places to work. He had rejected the more prestigious assignments, deciding instead to go way down the list, choosing to work at the V.L.A. (The Very Large Array on the plains of San Agustin near Socorro, New Mexico)

This particular choice appealed to him for a couple reasons. Firstly, it offered him a chance to work on his own projects. A rare opportunity for new astronomers, summa cum laude or not. The Astronomy community had a well established pecking order, with its most ancient members of academia firmly entrenched within their own personal fiefdoms where only their ideas were brought forward for consideration. In this type of organizational chart people were only moved out when they died. But that wasn’t the only reason he had chosen the VLA though. Working at the VLA gave him access to one of astronomy's most important voices, Dr. Samuel.

Dr. Samuel was a maverick of sorts in the world of astronomy. He was young for the position he held, in fact he was the youngest of his academic peers. And more strangely he had held his position for some twenty years now. However, the most interesting thing about the doctor was that when he said something should be done, it got done, no matter what. Having someone like Dr. Samuel in his corner would actually afford Max more access to the more cutting edge aspects of modern day astronomical study. It had always been a matter of curiosity to Max’s way of thinking as to why the doctor worked at the VLA at all. His reputation was impeccable, his work held out as a standard in the field of astronomy.

Individually, Dr. Samuel had been responsible for over a dozen patents on telescope technology alone. There were over a half dozen more prestigious positions that were his for the choosing. He needed only to hold his hand out and immediately a dozen lucrative offers of employment in the private sector would appear. But he stayed at the array regardless of those things. So Max committed what his peers thought of as the first blunder of his career and went to work at the array. In his opinion, if he was going to get anywhere he needed to be in close proximity to the guy who might help him get there. There was always room here, Dr. Samuel had a habit of changing staff completely over a four year timeline with very few exceptions. Max planned to be another exception. The doctor was even supportive of his first proposed pet project, which was a good sign in Max’s mind.

In fact it was his personal project Max was just starting work on, on this very long and very tedious evening. With the regular housekeeping duties out of the way he was free to pursue his own initiatives. The objective of his project was simple but would have some complications in its possible execution. The overall goal was to perfect the technology used for red shift phase detection in stars. Ultimately Max was hoping to find a way to improve how planets were detected around distant suns.

Max had a theory that better telescopes, positioned near the poles, would greatly improve the amount of data collected by studying a star's “shift”. Eventually, when perfected, it might even be able to give them enough information to determine the exact number and composition of the planets surrounding the star. As always though, the major barrier was funding, followed closely by the complete non urgency of the project. A lot of funding for the VLA came from the D.A.R.P.A.(Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) budget. There was a vaste tree of projects under the D.A.R.P.A. umbrella. That decision tree influenced who and what projects got the green light and thus the funding to do so. And right now finding other planets many light years away wasn’t high on the list. So he made the determination to get as much of the basic ground work done in his spare time as possible. Max wanted to present a nearly completed task, requiring very little budget to see to fruition. Maybe if the ask wasn’t too large he could get it.

None of that however meant anything to a hill of beans when you worked the night shift solo. For most of the shift he was required to take breaks from his work to monitor the network, do minor maintenance tasks and check on a few scans that had been ordered during the previous shift. There were log entries he was required to make every three hours too. It was basically housekeeping for other astronomers working on various projects. Which is why he didn’t hear the warning beep.

Most of the VLA’s radio telescope network was tasked for the night on this or that project, in clusters of ten or fifteen telescopes per task. The scans varied according to the time of year, and what portion of the Sky was visible at the time. There were always more tasks than telescopes or hours in the night. However there was one particular exception within the VLA’s radio telescope network, one particular dish was always tasked to look towards the sun. It was also synchronized with a deep orbit satellite that most people didn’t know about. This satellite was equipped with a special imaging system built specifically for looking at the sun. The radio telescope data was then combined with the video data from the satellite. This allowed for multiple views through different spectrums.

This particular dish had just begun its day as the sun began peeking through over the far hills to the east. This single member of the array had been specially outfitted for its unique job with an added capacity to track solar flare activity.

The basic goal was to generate enough data on solar activity to build proper forecasting maps for solar flares. Solar flares were going to be more of a problem on earth than most people thought. Most mass coronal ejections were harmless, they were either not large enough, or directionally irrelevant, posing no threat at all. There was always the chance however that it could go the wrong direction, towards earth for instance. Large solar flares targeting earth could do major damage.

There were still places on earth where there was evidence of previous cataclysms involving intense heat caused by mass solar flare ups in the past. A flare of a large enough size could pose a number of problems to modern day earth. Along with the expected huge loss of life, anything electronic would be either completely incompasitated or so heavily damaged to the point of uselessness. So it was important to have some sort of idea about how coronal ejections worked. Were there any precipitating signs or predictable cycles? Finding out was accomplished by accumulating massive amounts of observational data. Along with three other sites at other installations across the planet, the VLA was coordinating the collection of that information. Using Cray supercomputers they were building forecasting models for testing. As well as perfecting the tracking of radiation swells.

As important as these tasks were, there was yet one other function of this telescope. With the help of data feeds from twelve other stations the telescope was also tracking any objects that become influenced by the sun's immense gravity system. Most times, objects that approach too close to the sun are eventually pulled into it. Sometimes though the object is far enough away that it is captured by the sun's gravity in such a way that it ejects away from the sun. Those instances were of particular danger to earth. Given the right circumstances such an object might end up being inadvertently directed towards earth. The planet had been struck millions of times over its life by these types of objects.

None of this was in Max’s mind when he heard the alert beep. The alert the scan activated wasn’t a loud klaxon hammering away suddenly blowing your ears out, it was a simple blinking digital image on Max’s computer screen in the lower right corner accompanied by a muted beep. Easy to miss due to the fact that this was the very first time that an object had been successfully tracked by the program. As it was, Max didn’t notice it until he’d already been looking at something else on the screen for about ten minutes.

“Hello?.....what’s this?” Max asked himself as he clicked on the strange blinking icon he had never seen before with his mouse to open the application.

Immediately a new window popped up showing telemetry readings along with tracking vectors for four unidentified objects just now emerging from behind the sun. This program seemed to be pre-set to track objects like this...how? All this caused Max to sit up suddenly and take a good look at the screen. Once he fully realized what he was looking at his amazement turned immediately to concern. Max started reading the data readouts for all four object's velocity and trajectory estimates. The first detail made his eyes pop out of his head.

“Trajectory shows terminus with earth in four weeks? That can’t be right.” Max scanned through to the bottom to see the velocity ratings and got his second surprise of the night.

“Slowing down!?...what the hell.” Furiously typing he made the system recheck then check again.

The checks came back the same both times. Just what the hell were these things? He started looking through the shift log from the previous night to see if the objects had been tracked by one of his colleagues. There were no entries. Then he checked the actual data log himself, not trusting that last night's tech wasn’t distracted enough to have missed them. And there they were. It was faint, which was why the program had initially missed them. He accessed the stills from the previous night's satellite feed. Looking at one particular image, right at the edge of the sun's glow he could see the four objects in a sort of diamond formation. This didn’t make sense. Then something else popped up on his screen. A message with a number saying to contact the director personally on his cell phone no matter the hour. At this time in the morning? He hadn’t been aware that the director had a cell phone. The doctor usually didn’t come into his office any earlier than 9am, most times later than that. Blinking a couple times he picked up the phone and dialed Dr. Samuel’s number. It rang twice before he picked up.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“Yes...who is it?” He sounded groggy and half asleep.

“Ahh Dr. Samuel? It’s Max, at the array. Listen, I’ve got a bit of a situation here. A program I don’t recognize just popped up on the screen and informed me that it was tracking four extrasolar objects on a trajectory to enter earth's orbit in less than four weeks. Am I being pranked here?” Max expected anger, for waking up the director of the VLA at nearly six in the morning. He definitely expected a chewing out for falling for such a juvenile prank. Instead Dr Samuel was silent for a moment, then he spoke, his voice suddenly very clear and very focused.

“Are there only four??” It was such a strange question compared to all the possible questions he could have asked that Max paused before answering. Are there only four!?? If there had been only one it still would be one of the single most important celestial events ever captured by humanity. Objects coming from behind the sun don’t typically decelerate, they accelerate. Picking up extra momentum from the sun's gravity push. The Dr.’s question was just bizarre.

“Yes that’s correct, I have four, confirmed, separate targets on an orbital trajectory path that will bring them sliding across the moon from the west side and taking up a polar orbit over the North Pole if their course remains true. One other thing doctor, they seem to be sl….”

“Slowing down?” The Doctor interrupted Max before he could finish his sentence. Max took the phone from his ear and gave it a perplexed look like it was possessed. How would he know that? Placing the receiver back to his ear he answered slowly.

“Uhhhh yeah, they’re slowing down. You mean I’m not being punked?” At this point Max would have loved for it to be a prank, and prayed for it. But his prayer went unanswered.

“No Max I’m afraid you’re not, continue tracking. Get as much data as you can on these things. I’ll be in forty minutes. And max....”.

“Yes sir?”

“Keep it to yourself for now, talk to no one about this. I’ll take care of the morning crew, just wait for me and I’ll explain everything”. He paused for Max to give his response.

“Sure thing sir”. Dr. Samuel hung up immediately after hearing it without saying goodbye.

“Will do”. Max said to the empty air hanging up the phone.

He sat looking at the phone for a few seconds wondering how his boss could possibly have known what he seemed to know. Finally he just shrugged his shoulders and started reading through the data being regurgitated on the screen on a loop. They were all still too close to the sun to get any type of accurate readings on size and shape yet. The radiation the sun emitted messed with anything attempting to look through it. He would have to wait a few days to get a better look at them once they passed beyond the initial layer of the sun’s corona…….

THE RESIDENCE OF DR. SAMUEL, PROJECT LEADER AT THE VLA

May 16, 2016 5:55am

Dr. Samuel hung up his cell phone then swung his legs from his bed and onto the plush carpet that covered his bedroom floor in his hundred year old antebellum house. He had expected this call to come anytime these last ten years or so. Ten years of waiting for a thing he was sure would happen, but all the while unsure of the exact timeline. Even so his system still registered shock. Shock and surprise that he should live to see this day, that hadn’t always been a guarantee. Max didn’t have to fill in any more details, the Dr.’s knowledge was more extensive on this subject than his. He’d first known this day was coming over thirty years ago. Known since that night in a Costa Rican jungle that had been one of his most desperate times. Thanks to a chance turn of fate it had brought him to this moment safely.

He would have to contact the Brethren. After all, their wait for this moment had been much, much longer. This news would bring them some amount of pure ecstasy, at least as far as they felt that sort of thing. That level of ingrained discipline had an unwanted side effect of making them very austere people. Thirteen thousand plus years waiting for revenge was a long time to wait.

But thinking about it a little he began to consider that maybe he should hold off on that for now until he had all the information. After all, he had expected more than four ships. The fact that only four ships appeared was an anomaly that needed further study. The previous scans, and the knowledge gained thirty years ago, had shown that it should have been a cluster of twenty ships of varying sizes.

Where were the other sixteen craft? Shaking his head while considering this he slipped on his pants quickly, then crossed to the wardrobe selecting a dress shirt and tie. Dr. Samuel presented himself as an academic. To that end he cultivated a look to support that opinion of himself in others. He was a barely handsome man, with light brown skin and a clear complexion. He always appeared freshly shaven no matter where or when he went. He wore a pair of horn rimmed glasses with a black frame that were non-prescription. He carried a standard leather attaché case which showed much wear from travel and use. His hair was black but beginning to grey, it was short and closely cropped, clinging to his scalp tightly. Everything about his look was to throw off anyone who might be watching. Picking up his cell phone from the night stand where he had discarded it after Max’s call he dialed a number from memory. Waiting through four rings before someone picked up

“Yes”. Was all the person said on the other end.

“It’s time Trevor… get the other committee members ready and have them meet me at the office in an hour”. He didn’t have to say who, or give the other person any more information, they knew their job. The doctor hung up without waiting for a confirmation of his orders. He quickly finished dressing and ran downstairs to the porch to find his shoes and car keys. Leaving his house he looked around as was his custom. Making sure there were no new cars or strange lights on in the neighbourhood for this hour.

He took pains to make sure he wasn’t followed or detected in any way in his travels. The members of the committee all operated this way. Their knowledge required that they stay in the shadows until it was their time to act. All of them had regular jobs, but not so regular as to be useless to the cause. The jobs they worked were only a cover really.

Their real purpose was to stop the return. That was the single focus each member of the committee worked towards. Dr. Samuel had been one of those present those long years ago when the ark had been discovered. He had taken up the secret with the other that was there that day, as well as those who helped them take advantage. At the time finding something undiscovered was in short supply, and the discovery of the ark was the discovery of a lifetime. Representing both something very valuable but also something highly disturbing. The knowledge that earth was once called by a different name by a different people, humans, but still wholly different, had been a shock to them all. Alta….such a strange name. Not only that, but the knowledge that one day they would return to claim what was once theirs.

Unfortunately for them, Earth was no longer theirs, and the new tenants weren’t interested in relocating in any way. The committee was convened thirty years ago to control and direct the information regarding the return of the previous occupants. Committee members used their position to side track any inquiry into the return. They were even responsible for sabotaging the Hubel telescope.

Their primary goal was the capture of the slightly better technology the Altans possessed. What they had found in that cave was only a sliver in comparison to what the survivors of Alta had aboard the return vessels. Along with a cave filled with future tech inventory came a precise list of the cargo taken into space with the sleepers. What was in the ark was a collection of items not valuable enough to take aboard with them, but valuable enough to make some effort at preserving them. The committee suspected that there were more arks located elsewhere on earth. But their searches to date had found no more. Whatever method of hiding they had used for them was varied and effective.

The ships that carried the survivors were another matter. In the cave there had been a display screen, playing a video file over and over. It had activated automatically when they first entered the cave. The clip was short, only about five minutes, but in it the group saw the greatships on the ground before launch. Saw the carrier vehicles flying through the air effortlessly under power of a foreign type they’d never seen before. They saw brief images of people working on the greatships at various times during their construction. Even the tools being used looked advanced. There was a wand type object in one video that seemed to float large, heavy objects with ease, operated by a single person using some type of unknown technological force. Some of the objects being moved weighed many hundreds of tons. It was this technology the committee was after.

The members operated in secret, behind the scenes, always masking their actions. Nothing about the existence of the return was shared with any significant member of government. Some of those on the committee, like the doctor, held jobs that would allow for a certain amount of direct control over areas they needed to keep an eye on.

The doctor’s post at the VLA allowed him to stay on top of any accidental discovery of the return fleet. In the past he’d deleted, improperly filed, and sometimes personally tampered with images in order to keep their secret intact. They only include outside officials for their own purposes, and those officials were always kept ignorant of the true facts.

Dr. Samuel exerted a certain amount of influence in various levels of the government. Over the years he had been responsible for sharing some of the interesting gadgets they had found. Always claiming responsibility for “inventing” them. The result was a few upper government flunkies harbouring a belief that they “owed” him one. They were just pawns on the board to the doctor. Standing in line with the other useful idiots until it was time for Dr. Samuel to use them. Each one was secure in their belief that they were integral to the cause. He was even beginning to consider the other members a problem. As time went on, each member had inevitably collected power of their own.

The member from Texas was of particular annoyance. His job was to interfere with NASA in Houston and Florida. He did this by over inflating budgets with imaginary costs. This had the effect of curtailing space exploration to just the necessities. Lack of funding had already scrapped three different Mars exploration missions.

That wasn’t the problem however, the money he disappeared into the black hole that is NASA’s budget didn't just evaporate. The member from Texas simply funneled it elsewhere. Over time he had accumulated a rather large amount of money, which he controlled. This gave him a certain degree of pull with the other members, his secret billions were the source of the committee's funding. The idiot from Texas controlled this resource exclusively.

Personally he was an aggravation, with his loud voice and ridiculously oversized belt buckle and stupid bright white Stetson. Dr. Samuel thought that it might be soon time to deal with him, but not yet. That southern gentleman might control the money …the doctor controlled the knife and nothing would ever change that.

Right now he needed all the members to continue their work. They had to keep everything under wraps until they could manufacture an incident. Then using that as an excuse they would involve the US government and military in subduing or even eliminating completely, the return…….

Down the street, a worn out, black Crown Victoria

It never used to be odd for Anthony to be on stake out. Up until a few years ago he had been Special Detective Anthony Scalla of the NY State Major Crimes Division. That had all changed though. There were no more long nights in cars on the job. Thirteen years on the force gone over one incident. It didn't matter that he was right. Someone had died so someone had to go. He was the most convenient scapegoat available. That wasn’t why he was parked four houses down the street watching a stranger's house though.

He was there at five in the morning because he knew a lot about the stranger at 419 Gwilliam. He knew he was a man of strict habits. He engaged in no type of social life whatsoever. He seemed to move between this residence and the VLA exclusively. He never took vacations, and ate a mostly vegan diet. He was not married nor dating. In fact he knew most anything he wanted to find out about the occupant of the house. Except for one important thing…his real name …. because the man who lived there wasn’t Dr. Samuel. The real Dr. Lin Alfonse Samuel had most likely been buried in a shallow grave somewhere in the jungle in Guatemala thirty years ago……

Chapter 3