Legend
Chapter 02
Charles W Bird
[email protected]
Astronomers have discovered that the incredible gravitational strength of supermassive black holes can tear planets away from their star systems and hurl them through space at incredible speeds—as fast as 30 million mph.
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The story is protected by copyright and may not be reproduced by any means without the express, written permission of the author.
From Book 1; The winds of change were already headed in their direction, the Leaders of The People called for assembly, they had awful news to tell their folk. By local reckoning, it was July 15, 2012 and they had only a few months to prepare for disaster.
THE NEWS
All the folk living in The Valley, The People and Allied Humans were both nervously congregating in the auditorium of the school, even the children from The Refuge were there, older teens carrying the younger ones, all of them were frightened. They had finally reached a place of safety in their young lives and now they felt threatened again.
There was standing room only, the 2600 children filled every space between the adults, their cries and frightened whimpers were echoed by even the adults.
Ship Captain Hay stepped to the microphone, “My people, all of you, we are faced with an awful tragedy, but, if we work together, we will all survive. Our long range detectors have detected a cosmic energy wave from the collapse of a giant Black Hole near the Galactic Center. This wave is travelling at a speed not thought possible, many times the speed of light. We have calculated that this wave will strike our Earth in the early morning hours of December 21of this year, 2012. We cannot outrun the wave in our ship so we must try to ride it out. We believe there will be widespread destruction, the continents will shift and the seas will rise from their beds. We are now in the process of warning our cousins, the Humans and we must do all in our power to save ourselves and our people. If we do that, then we can help others on this planet. We have organized everyone into groups, please find your group on the lists posted on the wall. If we all work together, we will come out on the other side of this disaster, whole and alive. MAY THE GREAT GALACTIC DIETY HAVE MERCY UPON US AND OUR COUSINS.”
The first to recover were the teens living in The Refuge, they had been through so much, suffered so much, they could “compartmentalize” their feelings and help others. Dennis Reid, already a leader among the Human teens of The Refuge, jumped up on a table and shouted, “We must not panic, let us find our group and get to work!”
His words seemed to stabilize everyone in the room and people began to organize into their groups, each had a task to perform as part of the overall effort to save them all.
Soon, trucks began hauling seeds, canned and dried foods into the hollowed out mountain that housed their space ship. Dennis found himself the group leader for the storage of food supplies that would be needed immediately after the “EVENT”.
He had two dozen teen boys and forty junior boys assigned to him.
A giant cave had been hollowed out of the mountain for use as a storehouse and trucks were already lined up, waiting for him to direct the unloading. Since it was going to be an around the clock operation, he appointed Gari, a friend from The People and Bill, Gari’s Human friend from The Refuge to assist him.
The teens quickly learned how to drive forklifts and the storeroom began to fill with dried and preserved foodstuffs and the seeds needed to begin again. The junior teens directed the trucks and assisted in stacking the food items into the smallest space possible.
Dennis asked for some bookkeeping help and a group of girls were sent, headed by Jal, a girl from The People and several more girls, both Human and The People. They set up an accounting scheme that showed quantity and location of everything Dennis and his crew were storing in the cavern.
There was a steady stream of trucks delivering goods to be stored; they were arriving around the clock. Dennis’ two assistants, Gari and Bill were working as hard as he was, in the weeks that followed; the huge cavern began to fill.
The local people noticed the stream of trucks and they began to ask questions. When they learned of the coming disaster, all the people of Globe and surrounding communities flocked to the valley, offering assistance. Since they had already been promised refuge in the caverns, they had no hesitation to assist.
The People were busy hollowing out spaces where they and the Humans could take refuge, the area was geologically stable and there were no known faults anywhere near. Their disrupters dug down thousands of feet into the granite that underlay the land. The disrupted stone released large amounts of energy that they stored in the ship’s accumulators. The matter was completely converted to energy, so not even dust was left behind.
Nobody had any idea how long they were going to have to survive beneath the surface, so they created space and chambers far in excess of what they believed they needed. The energy byproduct would charge the ship’s accumulators completely, giving them all the energy they would need to ride out the Cosmic Wave and would sustain them after the “event”.
As time marched on, they began to feel minor tremors in the land and their detectors told them it was the front leading waves of the surge headed towards them. Their detectors told them more and greater intensity energy waves were coming soon.
By September, the first caverns were ready for occupancy and they started to move the children into their new home. The children thought it great fun, until night came, then teen mentors and the adults who cared for the children spent that first night holding frightened children and soothing their fears as their beds danced across the floor from the tremors.
That first night was the worst, by week’s end the children had become accustomed to the dormitory-like caverns with walking bunks and school had resumed, so they were kept busy.
As time went on, the tremors became more serious and homes in the surrounding area were damaged, some so badly that nobody could live in them. Finally, in early November, the last of the refugee caverns were completed, the accumulators on the ship were fully charged and would supply all their power needs for many years.
It was a sad procession of The People and their Human friends as they left their homes on the surface to enter the caverns. When everyone had entered the caverns, massive doors of hardened titanium alloy closed and were sealed. The ventilators came on as well as additional lighting. The interior of the caverns were now totally self-contained and there would be no exchange with the outside air until it had been completely tested after the Cosmic Wave had passed completely.
Every effort had been made to make their refuge as homelike as possible, the family quarters had small kitchens in each cubical, and for those not married or without their families, there were a number of “theme” cafeterias from which to choose.
The final tally showed that 8,560 people were living in the caverns, they had food and power to support them for at least 25 years and the ability to create more, if it was needed. The countdown towards the estimated date of the arrival of the Cosmic Wave continued, they had 8 days before it would hit them full blast.
Already, the mountain was shaking and children were awakened in the middle of the night as their beds jumped and lurched across the dormitory floors.
IMPACT!
The morning of December 21st arrived with a lull in the tremors, some hoped that perhaps the wave had passed them by. Everyone was at breakfast when the mountain lurched and people were thrown to the floors. The shaking and pounding brought sand and small stones down upon those taking refuge, the circuit breakers opened, leaving everyone in darkness and the ventilation system went silent. The emergency lighting came on in the eerie silence.
Captain Hay had stationed the ship’s engineers in the ship’s propulsion power room. They quickly reenergized the lighting and ventilation circuits and the teen mentors sitting with the children, hugged them and quieted their fears. The blasts seemed to come in waves, just when they thought it was over, another series hit them, cracks opened up in the floors of the caverns and there were several minor rock falls. The engineers quickly sealed the larger cracks to prevent contamination of the air inside the caverns.
Everyone finally chose to sit on the floors rather than be thrown from their seats.
The Ship’s Crew had rigged view screens to show what was happening outside, their village was gone and the landscape had become torn and jumbled. Off in the distance, they could see smoke, they were uncertain whether it was a fire or a volcano.
The shaking went on for days, finally on the 6th day, the tremors eased and began to come less frequently. Many of the outside cameras feeding the view screens had failed, but what they could see was jumbled rock and smoke, they were sure they were volcanoes when they saw molten lava pouring down a new mountain that had not been there before.
Their instruments told them that they had dropped in elevation several thousand feet and the outside air was contaminated with toxic gases. They had no choice but to wait and hope things cleared up. By February, the tremors had almost ceased and the outside air was beginning to clear.
They remained in the caverns until June, there had been no tremors in 30 days and the atmosphere probes showed that the outside air was clearing and was safe, if a bit “smelling of sulfur”, to breathe. The Ship’s Security Warden led a small party of volunteers, of both The People and Humans, they reported back that there were nearby volcanoes and the air was smoky with lots of dust and the smell of sulfur.
They traveled as far as to where Globe had been, they reported back that the town was gone and there was a shallow lake where it had once been. They found no people, but a couple of frantic dogs attached themselves to the party and they were brought inside when the search party returned as no one had the heart to abandon the terrified animals.
They reported seeing no life, other than the two dogs. There were no trees, grasses, bushes of any kind, just the sere, burned land. The surface party brought back soil samples that were tested in the lab, the technicians reported that the samples had been baked that there was no life in them. The samples were completely sterile. Microscopic life was completely gone from the samples.
They experimented with the samples, and found they would support life however if moisture was added.
A group of teens and young men asked to go outside and look for survivors, Captain Hay was reluctant, however he was convinced to let them try and placed Dennis in charge of the group. He insisted they carry radiation monitors with them and that they were to check them every morning, if the dosage read over 50%, they were to return immediately.
As the search party walked the land, they could feel brief, cool gusts of wind on their faces, it seemed to be coming from the south and, since the new landscape went downhill in that direction, they followed the ridges, making their way slowly to the south as the elevation decreased.
There was too much wild static for them to use their radios, so those who had sufficient mind-speak to reach those still in the caverns, were pressed into service as communicators.
The party clambered over rocks and broken earth as they passed to lower elevations, finding no living thing along their path. They began to become concerned that the world of their origin was now totally devoid of the native life that had spawned them all.
The cooling breeze continued to grow in intensity until, on the third day of their exploration; they came upon a large body of water. They tasted the water, it was seawater! The ocean had been nearly a thousand miles to the west before the calamity. The sea continued as far as they could see along a line that ran northwest-southeast.
The only life forms they saw were a few birds and small reptiles and they were hopeful that other forms of life had also managed to survive. They saw few insects but no mammals were seen during the first part of trip. It was a dismal and forlorn land, no trees or any plant life could be found, other than a few pieces of dead weeds washed up from the new sea. They began to fear that their once beautiful planet had died.
They walked along the coastline for several days when they smelled wood smoke. Searching for its source, they entered a narrow canyon, where they discovered an elderly couple, who were obviously Indians, and a dozen children of various Human races, ranging from toddlers to near adult.
The refugees ran to the search party, all were in tears. The old man said, “We have gathered those we found still alive and have been trying to keep them safe. We are down to the last bits of our food, have you anything the babies can eat?” At that, the old woman showed them four tiny babies that she was caring for under a tattered blanket, saying, “We have no milk nor have we food the babies can eat.”
Gila, a teen girl of The People, was their most powerful mindspeaker, let out a blast of energy so powerful that even those who had little or no ability heard her call for help. A reply came immediately, “We are sending a flyer!”
The old Indian man looked at Gila, “Are you the folk of our people’s legends? Are you of the Before People?” Gila explained to the old man who and what they were, the old man was so overcome, all he could do is sit on the dirt and repeat, “LEGEND, LEGEND, LEGEND. THEY HAVE COME BACK AT LAST!”
The flyer arrived with a doctor and several caregivers to assist the group. Flyer Pilot Toma asked the survivors if they wished to be taken to the Caverns of Refuge, where there was food and care for all of them. The elderly couple agreed to go with them as did the teens and children. They all felt they had enough of trying to live off the land. The elderly Indian couple wished to make sure these new folk would care for the children they had gathered.
The search party elected to continue, Flyer Pilot Toma checked their radiation counters and verified they were still well below the 50% limit set by Captain Hay.
After the flyer left, the search party had a light meal and continued on their way. They came to a fair sized stream emptying into the sea and decided to follow it inland for a while. They made camp for the night at a bend in the stream, where it was protected from the harsh wind and blowing sand.
The next morning they gathered up their belongings and had a light meal before they continued their trek. As they neared the crest of the ridge, they heard voices and went to investigate. They discovered a group of teen boys and girls huddled around a small fire made of twigs and broken tree branches that had caught in a small side canyon.
After the teens had recovered from the shock of finding others still alive, Dennis offered them some of their rations and asked them if they wanted to travel with them before going to the Caverns. They were all for staying with the search party and help search for other survivors, although they were extremely curious about the caverns this new group spoke about.
They spent the remainder of the day climbing over jagged boulders and narrow ravines. The group found a sheltered spot to camp for the night just below the ridge where it was protected from the wind and they could see far out into the valley below.
As the sun went down, the wind stopped and everything became still and quiet. There were no animal sounds, no insects or night birds to break the eerie silence. Gila reported in and they all turned in for the night. They noticed some pinpricks of flickering light in the valley below them and they all agreed to check them out the next day.
Despite their fatigue, none of them slept well that night, they were all used to quiet night sounds made by others around them and now the landscape held none but themselves. Even the ever present wind was silent that night!
The next morning, the party descended into the valley, looking for the locations where they had seen points of light the night before.
As they made their way down the mountainside, they noticed something strange, the humans who had little or no mind-speak abilities were hearing those who did have that ability. As the day progressed, so also did their mind-speak abilities until, by nightfall, all members of the search party could communicate by mind-speech!
Gila was still the most powerful mindspeaker among them, so she reported back to the caverns and was told the same phenomenon was also taking place among those who had remained in the safety of the caverns.
Their path took them to a small spring fed pool of fresh water that began as a rivulet cascading down a narrow canyon. Camped beside the spring were a man and his three sons, John, James and Bart.
The small group was, at first frightened and wary of the newcomers who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. The family had been a cattle ranching family before the wave and they were now trying to find a place of safety, they also elected to accompany the search group.
As they traveled lower into the valley, the little rivulet of water became a small brook of fresh, clean water. The explorers shared their meal rations with the man and his sons and, as they sat around the small fire, Dennis asked them if they would like to join in their survey of the surrounding area. The family was longtime residents of the area and they agreed to help in the survey.
They were anxious about their neighbors. They knew where the springs had been and they hoped to be able to locate their friends and neighbors. Peter, the boys’ father was holding John, “Maybe we will find Joe for you.”
The next morning, they got an early start and headed for the center of the valley, where there had been a crossroads and a small community. When they arrived, there was nothing there to indicate there been anything ever there, no wreckage, no ruins and no sign of people.
John, the rancher’s older son became very upset and sat on a rock in tears. His Father tried to comfort him, “If Joe is still alive, I promise we will find him.”
They camped there for the night and Gila wanted to try an experiment, she sat quietly with a couple of the other strong mind-speakers and let their minds expand as far as they could. After a while, they could sense other minds around them, their friends and then….. at the far reaches of their ability came a whisper, “Who are you, can you help us?”
The group went on immediate alert, they replied, “We are searchers looking for those lost in the Great Upheaval. Where are you?”
The reply came back, “We have many children and young people with us. We are near where the town of Dolan used to be. We have no food, please hurry!”
Gila asked the rancher, “Where was the town of Dolan?”
The man replied, “I think if we follow this stream it will take us near there.”
They were up early the next morning and they ate a brief breakfast, anxious to be off in search of those who were in trouble. As they hurried along the stream, the best mind-speakers among them ranged their minds out ahead of them and they were able make contact. They told of their coming and that they had food with them.
The reply they got made them hurry even faster, there were children suffering from lack of food! The mindspeaker told them to look for a spire of black stone, they were camped at the foot of the spire.
About midmorning, they saw a tall black rock off in the distance and they increased their pace to reach the refugees as soon as possible.
By now, they all could hear the minds of the group at the black rock, the fearful cries of hungry children blocked nearly everything out.
In the early afternoon they reached the rock and found a group of refugees huddled in the shade of the rock. There were four adults and a half dozen older teens trying to comfort twenty young children. They said they had come from the village of Dolan and were the only survivors. Among the survivors was a young man, Joseph Donaldson.
The instant John spotted Joseph, the two were hugging each other.
The searchers did not have enough supplies to feed everyone more than one meal, so they again had to call on their people back at the caverns to help them. This time, Flyer Pilot Toma brought Captain Hay with him, along with the caregivers.
They fed and treated the refugees and offered to transport them to the safety of the caverns, they all agreed.
Captain Hay then looked at the dosimeters the search party was carrying and decided they needed to come home for a while. The search party objected, but the Captain was adamant, their radiation dosimeters read 75%!
As they were loading everyone in the flyers, the two young men, Joe and John started to walk away. Dennis stopped them and asked, “Why do you not want to go to the caverns, where it is safe and food is plentiful?”
John answered, “We are gay, you do not want our kind with you.”
Captain Hay overhead them and grabbed both young men, “That is only what you are, not who you are. You are welcome among us, we do not care who you love, we only care that you are safe and have a place to call your own. Come with us and be part of our community.”
As they were loading the flyers, Dennis whispered to the two young men, “My younger brother, Todd, is gay, but he has not discovered his partner yet. You will not be the only gay men in the caverns, all are welcome!”
SEARCH AND RESCUE
When they returned to the caverns and took decontaminating showers, the searchers descended upon Captain Hay. He listened to them and then told them they could direct the rescue efforts, but they had to stay in the caverns until their bodies had eliminated the radiation they had absorbed.
So it was that Gila and Dennis were appointed directors of the Search and Rescue Operations and given room to set up a coordination center.
By now, Dennis was almost as strong a mindspeaker as Gila and they both gathered others of like ability to help them.
Captain Hay assigned twelve flyers and their crews to the Search and Rescue Operation and he had a small satellite launched that could project an image of their surrounding area.
Dennis and Gila recruited teens to man the Search Center around the clock and they began to lay out grids to be searched. Dennis asked particularly that John and Joe be allowed to come to work in the center. His brother, Todd, was also working in the center and he saw the two gay men working alongside others and behaving perfectly normal. He hugged his older brother Dennis and just whispered one phrase, “Thank you, Brother!”
Their very first day of operation, the flyers brought in almost 200 refugees! The flyer crews had to be changed out regularly, the emotional strain on them was awful. Sick and hurt people, children and young teens starving was more than their emotions could handle.
The disrupter crews were sent back to work creating space to house the refugees and the off-duty flyer crews would spend their time with those they had rescued, just to watch young bodies fill out and respond to food and care was payment for their efforts.
It seemed that the young had survived better than older adults and many children told horror stories of finding their parents dead.
After several weeks, the area surrounding the caverns had been cleared of survivors and the doctor had cleared the original search crew to again go outside. As anxious as they were, Dennis and Gila could find no way to drop their search coordination to go back in the field. They now had thirty teens running search coordinates and each had a flyer and crew they were controlling.
The hospital was filling rapidly and a call went out asking those who could keep a child, would they please come and help. Dennis and Gila had become very close and it was obvious to all who saw them that they were destined to be a couple. Finally, Dennis got up his courage and asked Gila to marry him.
The reaction from those around them was, “Well, it’s about time!”
Captain Hay performed the ceremony and the wedding party was made up of the four children they had asked to adopt. The happy couple spent their “honeymoon” in a flyer searching for refugees.
Joe and John shyly asked if they could foster some children and they were given four “chits” from which they could chose two children to care for. They were unable to make up their minds and they ended up with all four, two boys and two girls!
The Search and Rescue teams were reaching out long distances in their rescue efforts, one team, headed by an Earth Human teen, Paul, ranged far into the north, judging by the mileages of the old maps, he guessed they were somewhere near central Montana when they heard a call for help in their minds.
They circled the flyer around and could not locate anyone, so Paul sent, “Where are you, can you tell me a landmark that we both can see?” A response came from someone obviously a very young boy, “There is a broken tower, I think it was part of an airport maybe.”
They finally decided it was Ross Airport at Sweetgrass, Montana and as they dropped in altitude, they spotted a group of people standing near a broken control tower wildly waving their arms.
A young teen boy broke from the group and ran towards the landing flyer, he screamed, “Come quick, I have two guys with broken legs!”
Paul and the team’s caregiver leaped from the cabin of the flyer and ran after the boy. Sheltered from the wind behind a broken wall, were two teen boys wrapped in the scraps of some blankets.
The teen insisted on helping carry the two injured boys to the flyer before he would join the others in a quick meal. He was not the oldest of the group, but it was obvious he was their leader, he told them his name was Kevin and that he had been collecting kids for the last two weeks.
He had not seen any adults still alive.
They had been scavenging from ruined houses, but the last several days they had not found anything still edible. He asked many questions as they made the trip back to the caverns and was surprised to learn that many refugees had been rescued before them.
When they were disembarking from the flyer, Kevin asked Paul if he could join in the search for survivors. Paul took him to interview with Captain Hays and then Dennis, they both agreed that Kevin was a good candidate and Dennis assigned him to work with Paul for the next several months.
THE ROGUES
Two search teams were working in the area where Denver once stood, it seemed strange, they found no survivors. There were a lot of places that looked like people had camped after the Wave hit, just there was nobody living there now.
The two flyers circled the area in ever wider circles. When they reached an area south east of Centennial, they heard mind-screams of people being hurt, one in particular was loud and easy to detect, even Kevin heard it, he screamed. “That is my older brother, Terry!”
Paul sent out a call for help and three flyers came racing across the sky in response. The flyers set down in a sandy area behind the building; they had twenty teens from the flyers ready to respond to the mind-screams they were hearing. They had broken the seals and opened the weapon lockers in the flyers. They were all armed with stunners and they all knew how to use them!
They burst in an old warehouse to find a group of adult bikers tormenting a group of teens and small children. One older teen was shielding the younger ones from the bikers by swinging a length of iron pipe with all the strength he could muster.
There were several bikers lying on the concrete floor, blood pouring from their heads. It was evident, however, that their protector was tiring and could not last much longer. Kevin whispered to Paul, “That guy swinging the pipe is my brother, Terry. Please help him, he cannot last much longer”
That was all Paul needed to know, he sent to the newly arrived help, “Mow the bikers down!”, and he began spraying the bikers with his stunner set on continuous fire. He was whipping his stunner around like a fire hose!
The bikers went down like flies and the flyer crews raced in to comfort the children. Kevin ran to his brother, Terry, and hugged him fiercely. Terry said with a grin, “Ya’ saved my bacon, little Bro.”
While the bikers were down, they collected all the children the bikers had been tormenting and loaded them in the flyers. The bikers were paralyzed, but they were still conscious, Paul walked up to the one who looked like their leader, he leaned over so they were eyeball to eyeball, “You scum, run while you can, because if I ever see you again, our weapons will not be set on stun, they will be set to kill!”
The stunners could not be set to kill anything, but the bikers had no way of knowing that.
As soon as everyone had been loaded into the flyers, they took off, leaving the stunned bikers to recover over the next several hours. When they finally recovered and were able to move about, they found that “someone” had knifed the tires on their bikes and had holed their gas tanks, not one bike was usable!
Kevin and Terry had a grand reunion catching each other up on what had happened since they became separated.
The children were a little apprehensive about what was to become of them, but Paul described to them the warm, safe caverns they were going to live in and how much food was put on their trays each meal.
By the time they reached the caverns, the children were all drooling in anticipation of a hot meal of all they could eat. One could hear their stomachs growling at twenty paces! As soon as they had eaten, they were headed for warm showers, clean beds, above all, a place where they were safe.
For the first time since the Galactic Wave had hit, they could sleep warm, clean, and not hungry! A place where they did not need worry about being attacked in the night, while they slept nor were they required to perform sex acts for those who called themselves their masters!
After they had recovered, both Kevin and Terry asked to join the searchers and help find those who had become lost.
They all knew it was going to be a long struggle to recover from this disaster, but they already discovered that they had wonderful support from The People and the Earth Humans who had come to live with them.
Whether it was association with The People or an effect of the Cosmic Wave, the Earth Humans were gaining the powers of their cousins, The People. They knew they were related, but none ever suspected that Earth Humans could acquire such powers so quickly.
They truly were becoming ONE FOLK.
******************************************************
TBC
The search will continue as the Earth Humans are collected and cared for. It remains to be seen if one of the characteristics that mark The People will transfer to the Earth Humans, that of long life. They will have more troubles and trials as they, together, piece the land and themselves back together again.
[email protected]
Astronomers have discovered that the incredible gravitational strength of supermassive black holes can tear planets away from their star systems and hurl them through space at incredible speeds—as fast as 30 million mph.
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The story is protected by copyright and may not be reproduced by any means without the express, written permission of the author.
From Book 1; The winds of change were already headed in their direction, the Leaders of The People called for assembly, they had awful news to tell their folk. By local reckoning, it was July 15, 2012 and they had only a few months to prepare for disaster.
THE NEWS
All the folk living in The Valley, The People and Allied Humans were both nervously congregating in the auditorium of the school, even the children from The Refuge were there, older teens carrying the younger ones, all of them were frightened. They had finally reached a place of safety in their young lives and now they felt threatened again.
There was standing room only, the 2600 children filled every space between the adults, their cries and frightened whimpers were echoed by even the adults.
Ship Captain Hay stepped to the microphone, “My people, all of you, we are faced with an awful tragedy, but, if we work together, we will all survive. Our long range detectors have detected a cosmic energy wave from the collapse of a giant Black Hole near the Galactic Center. This wave is travelling at a speed not thought possible, many times the speed of light. We have calculated that this wave will strike our Earth in the early morning hours of December 21of this year, 2012. We cannot outrun the wave in our ship so we must try to ride it out. We believe there will be widespread destruction, the continents will shift and the seas will rise from their beds. We are now in the process of warning our cousins, the Humans and we must do all in our power to save ourselves and our people. If we do that, then we can help others on this planet. We have organized everyone into groups, please find your group on the lists posted on the wall. If we all work together, we will come out on the other side of this disaster, whole and alive. MAY THE GREAT GALACTIC DIETY HAVE MERCY UPON US AND OUR COUSINS.”
The first to recover were the teens living in The Refuge, they had been through so much, suffered so much, they could “compartmentalize” their feelings and help others. Dennis Reid, already a leader among the Human teens of The Refuge, jumped up on a table and shouted, “We must not panic, let us find our group and get to work!”
His words seemed to stabilize everyone in the room and people began to organize into their groups, each had a task to perform as part of the overall effort to save them all.
Soon, trucks began hauling seeds, canned and dried foods into the hollowed out mountain that housed their space ship. Dennis found himself the group leader for the storage of food supplies that would be needed immediately after the “EVENT”.
He had two dozen teen boys and forty junior boys assigned to him.
A giant cave had been hollowed out of the mountain for use as a storehouse and trucks were already lined up, waiting for him to direct the unloading. Since it was going to be an around the clock operation, he appointed Gari, a friend from The People and Bill, Gari’s Human friend from The Refuge to assist him.
The teens quickly learned how to drive forklifts and the storeroom began to fill with dried and preserved foodstuffs and the seeds needed to begin again. The junior teens directed the trucks and assisted in stacking the food items into the smallest space possible.
Dennis asked for some bookkeeping help and a group of girls were sent, headed by Jal, a girl from The People and several more girls, both Human and The People. They set up an accounting scheme that showed quantity and location of everything Dennis and his crew were storing in the cavern.
There was a steady stream of trucks delivering goods to be stored; they were arriving around the clock. Dennis’ two assistants, Gari and Bill were working as hard as he was, in the weeks that followed; the huge cavern began to fill.
The local people noticed the stream of trucks and they began to ask questions. When they learned of the coming disaster, all the people of Globe and surrounding communities flocked to the valley, offering assistance. Since they had already been promised refuge in the caverns, they had no hesitation to assist.
The People were busy hollowing out spaces where they and the Humans could take refuge, the area was geologically stable and there were no known faults anywhere near. Their disrupters dug down thousands of feet into the granite that underlay the land. The disrupted stone released large amounts of energy that they stored in the ship’s accumulators. The matter was completely converted to energy, so not even dust was left behind.
Nobody had any idea how long they were going to have to survive beneath the surface, so they created space and chambers far in excess of what they believed they needed. The energy byproduct would charge the ship’s accumulators completely, giving them all the energy they would need to ride out the Cosmic Wave and would sustain them after the “event”.
As time marched on, they began to feel minor tremors in the land and their detectors told them it was the front leading waves of the surge headed towards them. Their detectors told them more and greater intensity energy waves were coming soon.
By September, the first caverns were ready for occupancy and they started to move the children into their new home. The children thought it great fun, until night came, then teen mentors and the adults who cared for the children spent that first night holding frightened children and soothing their fears as their beds danced across the floor from the tremors.
That first night was the worst, by week’s end the children had become accustomed to the dormitory-like caverns with walking bunks and school had resumed, so they were kept busy.
As time went on, the tremors became more serious and homes in the surrounding area were damaged, some so badly that nobody could live in them. Finally, in early November, the last of the refugee caverns were completed, the accumulators on the ship were fully charged and would supply all their power needs for many years.
It was a sad procession of The People and their Human friends as they left their homes on the surface to enter the caverns. When everyone had entered the caverns, massive doors of hardened titanium alloy closed and were sealed. The ventilators came on as well as additional lighting. The interior of the caverns were now totally self-contained and there would be no exchange with the outside air until it had been completely tested after the Cosmic Wave had passed completely.
Every effort had been made to make their refuge as homelike as possible, the family quarters had small kitchens in each cubical, and for those not married or without their families, there were a number of “theme” cafeterias from which to choose.
The final tally showed that 8,560 people were living in the caverns, they had food and power to support them for at least 25 years and the ability to create more, if it was needed. The countdown towards the estimated date of the arrival of the Cosmic Wave continued, they had 8 days before it would hit them full blast.
Already, the mountain was shaking and children were awakened in the middle of the night as their beds jumped and lurched across the dormitory floors.
IMPACT!
The morning of December 21st arrived with a lull in the tremors, some hoped that perhaps the wave had passed them by. Everyone was at breakfast when the mountain lurched and people were thrown to the floors. The shaking and pounding brought sand and small stones down upon those taking refuge, the circuit breakers opened, leaving everyone in darkness and the ventilation system went silent. The emergency lighting came on in the eerie silence.
Captain Hay had stationed the ship’s engineers in the ship’s propulsion power room. They quickly reenergized the lighting and ventilation circuits and the teen mentors sitting with the children, hugged them and quieted their fears. The blasts seemed to come in waves, just when they thought it was over, another series hit them, cracks opened up in the floors of the caverns and there were several minor rock falls. The engineers quickly sealed the larger cracks to prevent contamination of the air inside the caverns.
Everyone finally chose to sit on the floors rather than be thrown from their seats.
The Ship’s Crew had rigged view screens to show what was happening outside, their village was gone and the landscape had become torn and jumbled. Off in the distance, they could see smoke, they were uncertain whether it was a fire or a volcano.
The shaking went on for days, finally on the 6th day, the tremors eased and began to come less frequently. Many of the outside cameras feeding the view screens had failed, but what they could see was jumbled rock and smoke, they were sure they were volcanoes when they saw molten lava pouring down a new mountain that had not been there before.
Their instruments told them that they had dropped in elevation several thousand feet and the outside air was contaminated with toxic gases. They had no choice but to wait and hope things cleared up. By February, the tremors had almost ceased and the outside air was beginning to clear.
They remained in the caverns until June, there had been no tremors in 30 days and the atmosphere probes showed that the outside air was clearing and was safe, if a bit “smelling of sulfur”, to breathe. The Ship’s Security Warden led a small party of volunteers, of both The People and Humans, they reported back that there were nearby volcanoes and the air was smoky with lots of dust and the smell of sulfur.
They traveled as far as to where Globe had been, they reported back that the town was gone and there was a shallow lake where it had once been. They found no people, but a couple of frantic dogs attached themselves to the party and they were brought inside when the search party returned as no one had the heart to abandon the terrified animals.
They reported seeing no life, other than the two dogs. There were no trees, grasses, bushes of any kind, just the sere, burned land. The surface party brought back soil samples that were tested in the lab, the technicians reported that the samples had been baked that there was no life in them. The samples were completely sterile. Microscopic life was completely gone from the samples.
They experimented with the samples, and found they would support life however if moisture was added.
A group of teens and young men asked to go outside and look for survivors, Captain Hay was reluctant, however he was convinced to let them try and placed Dennis in charge of the group. He insisted they carry radiation monitors with them and that they were to check them every morning, if the dosage read over 50%, they were to return immediately.
As the search party walked the land, they could feel brief, cool gusts of wind on their faces, it seemed to be coming from the south and, since the new landscape went downhill in that direction, they followed the ridges, making their way slowly to the south as the elevation decreased.
There was too much wild static for them to use their radios, so those who had sufficient mind-speak to reach those still in the caverns, were pressed into service as communicators.
The party clambered over rocks and broken earth as they passed to lower elevations, finding no living thing along their path. They began to become concerned that the world of their origin was now totally devoid of the native life that had spawned them all.
The cooling breeze continued to grow in intensity until, on the third day of their exploration; they came upon a large body of water. They tasted the water, it was seawater! The ocean had been nearly a thousand miles to the west before the calamity. The sea continued as far as they could see along a line that ran northwest-southeast.
The only life forms they saw were a few birds and small reptiles and they were hopeful that other forms of life had also managed to survive. They saw few insects but no mammals were seen during the first part of trip. It was a dismal and forlorn land, no trees or any plant life could be found, other than a few pieces of dead weeds washed up from the new sea. They began to fear that their once beautiful planet had died.
They walked along the coastline for several days when they smelled wood smoke. Searching for its source, they entered a narrow canyon, where they discovered an elderly couple, who were obviously Indians, and a dozen children of various Human races, ranging from toddlers to near adult.
The refugees ran to the search party, all were in tears. The old man said, “We have gathered those we found still alive and have been trying to keep them safe. We are down to the last bits of our food, have you anything the babies can eat?” At that, the old woman showed them four tiny babies that she was caring for under a tattered blanket, saying, “We have no milk nor have we food the babies can eat.”
Gila, a teen girl of The People, was their most powerful mindspeaker, let out a blast of energy so powerful that even those who had little or no ability heard her call for help. A reply came immediately, “We are sending a flyer!”
The old Indian man looked at Gila, “Are you the folk of our people’s legends? Are you of the Before People?” Gila explained to the old man who and what they were, the old man was so overcome, all he could do is sit on the dirt and repeat, “LEGEND, LEGEND, LEGEND. THEY HAVE COME BACK AT LAST!”
The flyer arrived with a doctor and several caregivers to assist the group. Flyer Pilot Toma asked the survivors if they wished to be taken to the Caverns of Refuge, where there was food and care for all of them. The elderly couple agreed to go with them as did the teens and children. They all felt they had enough of trying to live off the land. The elderly Indian couple wished to make sure these new folk would care for the children they had gathered.
The search party elected to continue, Flyer Pilot Toma checked their radiation counters and verified they were still well below the 50% limit set by Captain Hay.
After the flyer left, the search party had a light meal and continued on their way. They came to a fair sized stream emptying into the sea and decided to follow it inland for a while. They made camp for the night at a bend in the stream, where it was protected from the harsh wind and blowing sand.
The next morning they gathered up their belongings and had a light meal before they continued their trek. As they neared the crest of the ridge, they heard voices and went to investigate. They discovered a group of teen boys and girls huddled around a small fire made of twigs and broken tree branches that had caught in a small side canyon.
After the teens had recovered from the shock of finding others still alive, Dennis offered them some of their rations and asked them if they wanted to travel with them before going to the Caverns. They were all for staying with the search party and help search for other survivors, although they were extremely curious about the caverns this new group spoke about.
They spent the remainder of the day climbing over jagged boulders and narrow ravines. The group found a sheltered spot to camp for the night just below the ridge where it was protected from the wind and they could see far out into the valley below.
As the sun went down, the wind stopped and everything became still and quiet. There were no animal sounds, no insects or night birds to break the eerie silence. Gila reported in and they all turned in for the night. They noticed some pinpricks of flickering light in the valley below them and they all agreed to check them out the next day.
Despite their fatigue, none of them slept well that night, they were all used to quiet night sounds made by others around them and now the landscape held none but themselves. Even the ever present wind was silent that night!
The next morning, the party descended into the valley, looking for the locations where they had seen points of light the night before.
As they made their way down the mountainside, they noticed something strange, the humans who had little or no mind-speak abilities were hearing those who did have that ability. As the day progressed, so also did their mind-speak abilities until, by nightfall, all members of the search party could communicate by mind-speech!
Gila was still the most powerful mindspeaker among them, so she reported back to the caverns and was told the same phenomenon was also taking place among those who had remained in the safety of the caverns.
Their path took them to a small spring fed pool of fresh water that began as a rivulet cascading down a narrow canyon. Camped beside the spring were a man and his three sons, John, James and Bart.
The small group was, at first frightened and wary of the newcomers who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. The family had been a cattle ranching family before the wave and they were now trying to find a place of safety, they also elected to accompany the search group.
As they traveled lower into the valley, the little rivulet of water became a small brook of fresh, clean water. The explorers shared their meal rations with the man and his sons and, as they sat around the small fire, Dennis asked them if they would like to join in their survey of the surrounding area. The family was longtime residents of the area and they agreed to help in the survey.
They were anxious about their neighbors. They knew where the springs had been and they hoped to be able to locate their friends and neighbors. Peter, the boys’ father was holding John, “Maybe we will find Joe for you.”
The next morning, they got an early start and headed for the center of the valley, where there had been a crossroads and a small community. When they arrived, there was nothing there to indicate there been anything ever there, no wreckage, no ruins and no sign of people.
John, the rancher’s older son became very upset and sat on a rock in tears. His Father tried to comfort him, “If Joe is still alive, I promise we will find him.”
They camped there for the night and Gila wanted to try an experiment, she sat quietly with a couple of the other strong mind-speakers and let their minds expand as far as they could. After a while, they could sense other minds around them, their friends and then….. at the far reaches of their ability came a whisper, “Who are you, can you help us?”
The group went on immediate alert, they replied, “We are searchers looking for those lost in the Great Upheaval. Where are you?”
The reply came back, “We have many children and young people with us. We are near where the town of Dolan used to be. We have no food, please hurry!”
Gila asked the rancher, “Where was the town of Dolan?”
The man replied, “I think if we follow this stream it will take us near there.”
They were up early the next morning and they ate a brief breakfast, anxious to be off in search of those who were in trouble. As they hurried along the stream, the best mind-speakers among them ranged their minds out ahead of them and they were able make contact. They told of their coming and that they had food with them.
The reply they got made them hurry even faster, there were children suffering from lack of food! The mindspeaker told them to look for a spire of black stone, they were camped at the foot of the spire.
About midmorning, they saw a tall black rock off in the distance and they increased their pace to reach the refugees as soon as possible.
By now, they all could hear the minds of the group at the black rock, the fearful cries of hungry children blocked nearly everything out.
In the early afternoon they reached the rock and found a group of refugees huddled in the shade of the rock. There were four adults and a half dozen older teens trying to comfort twenty young children. They said they had come from the village of Dolan and were the only survivors. Among the survivors was a young man, Joseph Donaldson.
The instant John spotted Joseph, the two were hugging each other.
The searchers did not have enough supplies to feed everyone more than one meal, so they again had to call on their people back at the caverns to help them. This time, Flyer Pilot Toma brought Captain Hay with him, along with the caregivers.
They fed and treated the refugees and offered to transport them to the safety of the caverns, they all agreed.
Captain Hay then looked at the dosimeters the search party was carrying and decided they needed to come home for a while. The search party objected, but the Captain was adamant, their radiation dosimeters read 75%!
As they were loading everyone in the flyers, the two young men, Joe and John started to walk away. Dennis stopped them and asked, “Why do you not want to go to the caverns, where it is safe and food is plentiful?”
John answered, “We are gay, you do not want our kind with you.”
Captain Hay overhead them and grabbed both young men, “That is only what you are, not who you are. You are welcome among us, we do not care who you love, we only care that you are safe and have a place to call your own. Come with us and be part of our community.”
As they were loading the flyers, Dennis whispered to the two young men, “My younger brother, Todd, is gay, but he has not discovered his partner yet. You will not be the only gay men in the caverns, all are welcome!”
SEARCH AND RESCUE
When they returned to the caverns and took decontaminating showers, the searchers descended upon Captain Hay. He listened to them and then told them they could direct the rescue efforts, but they had to stay in the caverns until their bodies had eliminated the radiation they had absorbed.
So it was that Gila and Dennis were appointed directors of the Search and Rescue Operations and given room to set up a coordination center.
By now, Dennis was almost as strong a mindspeaker as Gila and they both gathered others of like ability to help them.
Captain Hay assigned twelve flyers and their crews to the Search and Rescue Operation and he had a small satellite launched that could project an image of their surrounding area.
Dennis and Gila recruited teens to man the Search Center around the clock and they began to lay out grids to be searched. Dennis asked particularly that John and Joe be allowed to come to work in the center. His brother, Todd, was also working in the center and he saw the two gay men working alongside others and behaving perfectly normal. He hugged his older brother Dennis and just whispered one phrase, “Thank you, Brother!”
Their very first day of operation, the flyers brought in almost 200 refugees! The flyer crews had to be changed out regularly, the emotional strain on them was awful. Sick and hurt people, children and young teens starving was more than their emotions could handle.
The disrupter crews were sent back to work creating space to house the refugees and the off-duty flyer crews would spend their time with those they had rescued, just to watch young bodies fill out and respond to food and care was payment for their efforts.
It seemed that the young had survived better than older adults and many children told horror stories of finding their parents dead.
After several weeks, the area surrounding the caverns had been cleared of survivors and the doctor had cleared the original search crew to again go outside. As anxious as they were, Dennis and Gila could find no way to drop their search coordination to go back in the field. They now had thirty teens running search coordinates and each had a flyer and crew they were controlling.
The hospital was filling rapidly and a call went out asking those who could keep a child, would they please come and help. Dennis and Gila had become very close and it was obvious to all who saw them that they were destined to be a couple. Finally, Dennis got up his courage and asked Gila to marry him.
The reaction from those around them was, “Well, it’s about time!”
Captain Hay performed the ceremony and the wedding party was made up of the four children they had asked to adopt. The happy couple spent their “honeymoon” in a flyer searching for refugees.
Joe and John shyly asked if they could foster some children and they were given four “chits” from which they could chose two children to care for. They were unable to make up their minds and they ended up with all four, two boys and two girls!
The Search and Rescue teams were reaching out long distances in their rescue efforts, one team, headed by an Earth Human teen, Paul, ranged far into the north, judging by the mileages of the old maps, he guessed they were somewhere near central Montana when they heard a call for help in their minds.
They circled the flyer around and could not locate anyone, so Paul sent, “Where are you, can you tell me a landmark that we both can see?” A response came from someone obviously a very young boy, “There is a broken tower, I think it was part of an airport maybe.”
They finally decided it was Ross Airport at Sweetgrass, Montana and as they dropped in altitude, they spotted a group of people standing near a broken control tower wildly waving their arms.
A young teen boy broke from the group and ran towards the landing flyer, he screamed, “Come quick, I have two guys with broken legs!”
Paul and the team’s caregiver leaped from the cabin of the flyer and ran after the boy. Sheltered from the wind behind a broken wall, were two teen boys wrapped in the scraps of some blankets.
The teen insisted on helping carry the two injured boys to the flyer before he would join the others in a quick meal. He was not the oldest of the group, but it was obvious he was their leader, he told them his name was Kevin and that he had been collecting kids for the last two weeks.
He had not seen any adults still alive.
They had been scavenging from ruined houses, but the last several days they had not found anything still edible. He asked many questions as they made the trip back to the caverns and was surprised to learn that many refugees had been rescued before them.
When they were disembarking from the flyer, Kevin asked Paul if he could join in the search for survivors. Paul took him to interview with Captain Hays and then Dennis, they both agreed that Kevin was a good candidate and Dennis assigned him to work with Paul for the next several months.
THE ROGUES
Two search teams were working in the area where Denver once stood, it seemed strange, they found no survivors. There were a lot of places that looked like people had camped after the Wave hit, just there was nobody living there now.
The two flyers circled the area in ever wider circles. When they reached an area south east of Centennial, they heard mind-screams of people being hurt, one in particular was loud and easy to detect, even Kevin heard it, he screamed. “That is my older brother, Terry!”
Paul sent out a call for help and three flyers came racing across the sky in response. The flyers set down in a sandy area behind the building; they had twenty teens from the flyers ready to respond to the mind-screams they were hearing. They had broken the seals and opened the weapon lockers in the flyers. They were all armed with stunners and they all knew how to use them!
They burst in an old warehouse to find a group of adult bikers tormenting a group of teens and small children. One older teen was shielding the younger ones from the bikers by swinging a length of iron pipe with all the strength he could muster.
There were several bikers lying on the concrete floor, blood pouring from their heads. It was evident, however, that their protector was tiring and could not last much longer. Kevin whispered to Paul, “That guy swinging the pipe is my brother, Terry. Please help him, he cannot last much longer”
That was all Paul needed to know, he sent to the newly arrived help, “Mow the bikers down!”, and he began spraying the bikers with his stunner set on continuous fire. He was whipping his stunner around like a fire hose!
The bikers went down like flies and the flyer crews raced in to comfort the children. Kevin ran to his brother, Terry, and hugged him fiercely. Terry said with a grin, “Ya’ saved my bacon, little Bro.”
While the bikers were down, they collected all the children the bikers had been tormenting and loaded them in the flyers. The bikers were paralyzed, but they were still conscious, Paul walked up to the one who looked like their leader, he leaned over so they were eyeball to eyeball, “You scum, run while you can, because if I ever see you again, our weapons will not be set on stun, they will be set to kill!”
The stunners could not be set to kill anything, but the bikers had no way of knowing that.
As soon as everyone had been loaded into the flyers, they took off, leaving the stunned bikers to recover over the next several hours. When they finally recovered and were able to move about, they found that “someone” had knifed the tires on their bikes and had holed their gas tanks, not one bike was usable!
Kevin and Terry had a grand reunion catching each other up on what had happened since they became separated.
The children were a little apprehensive about what was to become of them, but Paul described to them the warm, safe caverns they were going to live in and how much food was put on their trays each meal.
By the time they reached the caverns, the children were all drooling in anticipation of a hot meal of all they could eat. One could hear their stomachs growling at twenty paces! As soon as they had eaten, they were headed for warm showers, clean beds, above all, a place where they were safe.
For the first time since the Galactic Wave had hit, they could sleep warm, clean, and not hungry! A place where they did not need worry about being attacked in the night, while they slept nor were they required to perform sex acts for those who called themselves their masters!
After they had recovered, both Kevin and Terry asked to join the searchers and help find those who had become lost.
They all knew it was going to be a long struggle to recover from this disaster, but they already discovered that they had wonderful support from The People and the Earth Humans who had come to live with them.
Whether it was association with The People or an effect of the Cosmic Wave, the Earth Humans were gaining the powers of their cousins, The People. They knew they were related, but none ever suspected that Earth Humans could acquire such powers so quickly.
They truly were becoming ONE FOLK.
******************************************************
TBC
The search will continue as the Earth Humans are collected and cared for. It remains to be seen if one of the characteristics that mark The People will transfer to the Earth Humans, that of long life. They will have more troubles and trials as they, together, piece the land and themselves back together again.