The Search. Charles Roberts

Just before his shift in Hawaii was due to end Judd looked back through the telescope at his favourite planet, Pluto, well it had been downgraded to a non- planet now, but it was still his favourite; out there in the stillness and quiet of space, and saw something that made him sit up, he rubbed his eyes and wiped the lens to make sure there wasn’t anything on it to give any illusion.  He put his eye to the lens once more and focused on a dark mass which was moving past Pluto and was in fact larger than Pluto.  Judd lifted the phone and dialled his friend and colleague in Spain who would be just starting his shift. ‘Pedro!’ he shouted into the mouthpiece, ‘look towards Pluto and tell me that I’m not seeing things will you my friend.’

‘But I am supposed to be looking at……’

‘I know that Pedro but please look at Pluto and confirm what I’ve just seen.’

‘What have you just seen my friend?’

‘There’s a dark mass larger than Pluto moving into the solar system.’

‘If I didn’t know that you don’t drink I would say that you’ve been drinking on duty.’

‘Please Pedro have a look at it for me and either tell me that I’m seeing things or I’m right.’

‘I will have a look for you my old friend but prepare to be disappointed.’  Pedro put the phone down and swung his seat round to face the powerful telescope, then he punched in the co-ordinates for Pluto.  He felt the electric motors start and the whole telescope moved slowly round until it faced the direction Pedro wanted.  He then put his eye to the eyepiece and looked, focusing on Pluto, then he saw it.  The dark mass larger than Pluto and as he watched he noticed that it was definitely moving inwards, towards the sun.  Pedro rang everyone he knew in the astronomical world and told them what had been seen.

Rumours were rife as the days went by and a close watch was kept on the dark mass as it slowly moved into our solar system.  The Hubble telescope was turned so that it could look at the mass more closely, what the astronomers saw astounded them.  The governments of the world were informed, they decided to try to keep it a secret, but the main stream media got to hear about it and the following morning it was headline news in every newspaper, on every radio and television channel around the world.  This brought about something the governments were trying to avoid, riots and panic buying.  France was the first country to enforce martial law, bringing the military onto the streets of their towns and cities, within an hour the rest of Europe followed suit.  The United States enforced it two hours later.

In the first few hours two thousand people were dead in France, either due to the rioting or because of the military action.  A thousand were killed in the United Kingdom and in the United States ten thousand lost their lives in the first day of martial law, including, after a six hour gun battle, five hundred ‘white supremacists’ who had gathered in a compound after looting a food warehouse.

An extra special meeting of the United Nations was called, photographs were produced and the whole experience discussed at length.  The Security Council met and discussed, all except China agreed to cooperate and find some way to protect the earth from all possible attack.  By the time the dark mass had reached Uranus it could be seen that the dark mass was indeed over a hundred thousand objects each about the size of London.  About this time UFO activity around the world grew at an alarming rate. It became obvious that these ships weren’t coming to exchange pleasantries.

Within weeks Ronald Ragan’s ‘Star wars’ plans were resurrected and ideas were being passed between America, Europe and Russia, new rockets were being built at an alarming rate, fresh ideas on rocket engines talked about and developed, some working, some not.  It was after the American’s tested a new form of rocket engine over the Pacific that North Korea took it as a threat and fired a nuclear missile towards the United States, it fell one hundred miles short into the ocean and the atomic warhead failed to detonate but it was a trigger.  Both Russia and China begged America not to retaliate and within hours of the Americans agreeing to that, three million Chinese and Russian troops crossed the border into North Korea, they didn’t stop until they reached the forty ninth parallel, the border with South Korea, it was this time when China came in with the rest of the world and showed what it had been working on.

The United Nations gave ISIS an ultimatum to stop the fighting in the Middle East and Northern Africa or face the consequences, they answered by publicly beheading one hundred aid workers in northern Syria and Iraq. Fifty more in northern Nigeria, Libya and Egypt. The UN were quick to respond along with forces from the African league of nations a force of over a million troops swept up through Nigeria, Chad and Libya stopping when they reached the Mediterranean sea.  Another force comprising of UN, Israeli and Egyptian troops swept through the Sinai Peninsula. A further force of Israeli, Arab and American forces swept Northwards through Syria and Iraq while European, Russian and Chinese forces swept South out of Turkey and the Iranian army swept in from the East.  ISIS was not only defeated but eliminated.  The Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan either put their weapons down or joined with the government forces.  For the first time in the history of the world, every nation was at peace with each other. 

Around the globe the armament factories geared up to making more and more conventional weapons, the United States introduced a law making the ownership of all weapons an offence and gave its populace two weeks to hand in any weapons they had in their possession.  The majority of the people complied and the death rate fell by ninety nine percent overnight.

Scientists estimated that the earth had about twenty years to ready itself when the armada, as it was now being called, reached Saturn, twenty years to develop new weapons and rocket engines.  Someone invented an energy shield but so far it could only cover a city the size of New York and needed all the power that city could produce to make it work but the ideas were coming and none were turned away, they were all tried, maybe not developed, but looked at in a considered and reasonable way.  Spectrographs were taken of the armada’s ships to see what metal they were made from but without success, they were built from something never seen on earth, how then could they be penetrated and the ships eliminated before they became a real threat to earth.  Countries government now gave way to the United Nations and it was renamed the Federation of Earth Nations, or FEN for short.  Every armed force from Australia to Canada, Japan to South Africa wore the Blue Beret of the United Nations, every policeman and woman wore a blue arm band with the letters FEN on.  All countries were responsible for policing their own country but all the armed forces came under the umbrella of FEN.  Any country who couldn’t help with the development of weapons was asked to grow food to help feed the rest of the world, a new money was introduced, a worldwide unit of currency where everyone was equal from what had been the richest of countries to the poorest, all were now on the same level, it didn’t go down too well to begin with and the police were quick, and harsh, to deal with anyone who practiced in profiteering, but when the food started to be brought in from the once poor countries all was forgotten and forgiven as vast tracts of once farm land was turned into munitions factories and housing for the workers.

A new powerful laser was developed which could hit and destroy something the size of a car on the moon, it was about this time when scientists working on the spectrograph of the alien spacecraft found that they weren’t made of metal at all, they were in fact made of some sort of plastic.  They went to work on what sort of a plastic would stand up to space flight and all the dangers that encompassed.  Computers and any electronic equipment was encased in metal shields to protect them from electro-magnetic weapons, new types of micro circuit board were developed which wouldn’t be prone to electro- magnetic blast waves.

The three remaining Concorde’s were taken out of the museums and given the newly developed pulse engines which meant that they could fly in excess of Mach four, these were put at the disposal of the heads of FEN so they could get around the world faster.  The flight time from London to Washington was now an hour instead of the normal eight and a half.

When the armada reached Saturn the FEN relocated its headquarters from the UN building in New York to Brasilia, the governments of all the major countries moved out of their capital cities and set themselves up in the old cold war bunkers, they didn’t know if these would stand the onslaught of the weapons these invaders would be bringing with them.  People were moved out of the large cities and into the special underground towns, which were being built, where the munition factories were.  All science in the schools was stopped, the scientists were needed to develop new and more powerful weapons.  It was then when someone realised that the enemy could use a gas of some sort so all the air intakes to the towns and factories had to have filters fitted for every known type of gas.

It was about this time that one of the enemies scout craft hit a power line and crashed near Birmingham, England.  When the scientists were let loose on it they found that it wasn’t metal but a type of plastic which could repair itself.  This is a time when the unsung heroes appear, and one such man did come forward, he had been playing about with an enzyme which would dissolve all the plastic packaging which was being thrown away.  All the fizzy drink bottles, egg boxes etc.  When the scientists heard about this enzyme they were sceptical but decided to try it out and to their amazement, when they sprayed the craft with the liquid containing the enzyme the plastic started to turn to water and in a short while all that was left was the propulsion unit.  This was taken away to be studied and copied then put into production.  It took two years to perfect the propulsion unit and the information was shared with every country and pretty soon the jets were being removed from military aircraft and the new engines fitted, then instead of guns and missiles some of the military aircraft were fitted with spays and sprayed any of the enemy scouts they came across. Every nation from China to Russia, Australia to the United States and Europe were converting to the new aircraft.

The chair of the FEN suggested that they take the fight to the enemy instead of waiting for him to come to earth but as was said in one meeting that space could be their normal battleground whereas earth was ours and we had the advantage of gravity on our side, even though they didn’t know whether or not the planet the invader came from had a gravity as strong as earths.  The muck hit the fan though when one of their scout ships suddenly appeared in front of a fully laden Boing seven, four, seven; they collided and one of the plane’s wings was ripped off, resulting in the death of all five hundred plus people on board.  The earth was put on immediate war footing, non-essential travel was banned, food was rationed to fifteen hundred calories per person and everyone who wasn’t otherwise occupied put into the armaments factories.  This was a case of life or death for the people of planet earth and everyone was expected to do their bit for the common good.

The watchers noticed that as the armada neared Jupiter it was slowing down.  The world’s media buzzed with the thoughts of, so called, experts, and the politicians did very little to correct, or stop, the rumours.  The number of scout ships increased to such an extent that any passenger aircraft had to fly at low level in order to avoid any collision.  Of course the air forces did their best to destroy the scouts, but they had become used to the tactics of the earth’s military and either flew at a very high altitude or faster than the jets.  One thing puzzled the military leaders and that was the scout ships had never fired at the air force jets, or were they just testing out the world’s defences in preparation for the invasion.

The earth’s forces were nowhere near ready when the armada reached the planet Mars, but they were taken by surprise when the armada stopped.  All eyes were fixed on the mass near Mars.  Suddenly one Sunday lunchtime at twelve o’clock GMT every computer, radio, television, and mobile phone was switched on.  Then a strange voice stated to speak to the world.

“We have been watching your planet for a long time. We are here, not to make war on your planet, but to help you.  You are out growing your planet.  You have now stopped your fighting and learnt to live, and work, in peace.  You have one more task to do, and that is to destroy all your weapons.  Do that little task and the forth planet, which you call Mars will be yours.”

The watchers on earth saw that, as the voice spoke, the armada was splitting up, smaller ships could be seen surrounding Mars.  Covering the entire planet.

“We are sorry that one of our scout ships collided with one of your primitive flying machines, it was not our intention to cause you harm.  You now have the technology to build ships which can take you to the forth planet and possibly beyond, we will help you colonise the forth planet if you so wish, the ships we are placing round it will form an outer atmosphere.  The inner atmosphere will grow as you colonise the planet.  Should you wish to move on from your solar system take care as there are species who are not as benevolent as we.