Erebus- Prologue

Prologue:

10 EE

“Die ghost scum,” Michael shouted as he raced after the ghosts that were currently fleeing from him.

It was difficult to get ghosts to flee from you, but it was a possibility, with the right tools. This particular tool was yellow and spherical. If you got your hands on it the ghosts could do nothing but run, because of the power of the YellowSphere.

“Ah, Pinky, you got me,” Michael said as he threw himself back in his office chair. Pac-man sounding out his last, as he dies the brave death worthy of a yellow pizza man.

It was game over. Michael shrugged as he picked up his late lunch. He had snuck out of work and gotten himself the best burrito he could find. It was filled with all of the things he liked: steak, re-fried beans and hot salsa sauce. Thankfully it was the middle of the night. The only other people in the building were in a meeting on an entirely different floor. Michael knew that if he were caught eating in here it would be the end of his career in space technology. Michael worked for an organisation called SPHERE - Safety and Protection of Home, Earth and REality. It was a stupid name but it was a good job. Not only did it pay well but it also meant that Michael got to spend most of his time sitting and staring up at the stars.

As a child it was all Michael wanted to do. He loved the stars and movies about space. He wanted to be an astronaut but didn’t have the physique for it. Then he learned about Space Camp and joined a few other kids, with similar interests to his own, learning about space and space technology. That was it; he was set for life from then on. Michael learned everything he could about technology; by the time he graduated high school he scoffed at the saying “it’s not ‘rocket science’”. Rocket science was much easier for him to understand than poetry, to take one example.

Shortly after college, a guy in a fancy Armani suit named George approached Michael and offered him a job with SPHERE. Michael believed he was working for NASA for the first number of months and small secrets were divulged to him, about NASA’s operations, not about SPHERE’s. When he was tested and found trustworthy he was brought into the fold and told about the true mission of SPHERE.

That was a number of years ago now. Some people, like SPHERE, worked on a new dating system: BE and EE. Michael began working for SPHERE in 5 BE; in layman’s terms 5 BE worked out as the year 2000. He wasn’t sure what the dating system stood for, and he didn’t need to know. In that time Michael had been promoted, meaning that he now had an office with a view. Some nights he enjoyed working the graveyard shift, when no one else was monitoring the stars but himself. It reminded him of why he first became involved in this work and allowed him to escape from the intense pressure of climbing, or even maintaining your position, on the corporate ladder.

The room Michael was eating his burrito in was a little like the mission control rooms seen in various space adventure movies; but more high tech. Holograms projected images presently visible to Hubble and a number of other satellites orbiting the earth. In front of Michael was a large hologram with all of the planets that had life on them that could be a potential threat to earth, or had threatened earth in the past. Mars was on it, not for any real threat, but it had been there traditionally and so was never taken off the list. SPHERE used advanced technology, including sending some operatives, to monitor these planets in case any of them would attempt to attack the earth. The equipment, each individual piece, besides Michael’s own MacBook Pro, cost in the hundreds of thousands of Dollars. That was why Michael shouldn’t be eating a burrito right now.

As usual the night shift was quiet and Michael spent most of his time playing stupid computer games on his Mac and enjoying the images being sent to him from Hubble. The universe, in all its vastness, was really beautiful.

A screen turning red suddenly interrupted Michael’s calm, Zen-like evening. For the first few seconds Michael was not even aware of it and the change from the normal green-blue to red. Then an alarm sounded. Sometimes, when asteroids and comets got close to earth the satellite which picks up on the object turns red. Normally, however, the comets would pass by the earth and just look like a shooting star to some group of teenagers lying on a trampoline in the middle of the night somewhere. What interrupted his burrito eating was the alarm that sounded from two satellites. Both were seeing the same thing. Michael swivelled his chair to look at the two red hologram screens. He had seen alarms before, normally for tiny comets that were about to enter the atmosphere. He moved from his desk, burrito still in hand, towards one of the screens. In order to see if this was a real threat he would have to zoom in. The alarm was sounding because of something moving in the lower left hand side of the screen. Michael pinched his fingers and that section grew. Whatever it was, it would probably be the size of a tennis ball by the time it reached the ground.

Michael raised an eyebrow and rubbed his eyes as he moved closer to the screen. A gasp escaped his lips, as he could not believe what he was seeing. This was no comet. A glint on the metal as it reflected the sun, revealed this ‘comet’ was made of some kind of metal. Michael dropped the burrito and the hologram he was looking at went dead.

“Ah poo,” he said as he attempted to clean the burrito off the control panel, but it was too late, this hologram was no longer working.

Michael ran to the other flashing hologram screen. This satellite was further away, but it was a SPHERE operated one; this meant that it could send out a scout drone. Michael released the drone, which set its course for the ship automatically.

Why did I think ship? Michael asked himself, God I hope it isn’t a ship. If it’s a ship, well, I don’t know how prepared we are for incoming ships at the moment.

The drone sent back an image. It contained a long, shining, grey object moving through the upper sky. On the top of the object there was an inscription, which Michael couldn’t read as it was some alien language. The drone also noticed lights. They were golden and one seemed to be guiding the ship while the other was pointing back in the direction the ship had come.

Michael had seen enough. It was time to get George and intercept this ship before it even reached land. The only problem was George was in a meeting, a meeting Michael had been told not to interrupt under any circumstances.

Michael looked for his shirt and jacket. He didn’t wear them on this particular shift so they were probably in his office. Time was of the essence, but he couldn’t interrupt Mr Johnston in a meeting that should have been uninterruptable with burrito running down his “Breed you should not,” Yoda t-shirt. Too right Yoda, too right.

Michael ran as fast as he could to his office, which was a floor up and around three corners. He got in and took off the Yoda shirt and put on his suit top and jacket. Then he left the office as hurriedly as he had entered it. The meeting was being held in the boardroom, which was three floors below him. Michael headed to the elevator, hoping that it would be on his floor. It was down one, so he didn’t have to wait long.

He got to the office, carrying a small touch screen with him in order that he could show George the incoming ship.

The door was locked. Michael rolled his eyes and knocked, politely. He already knew there would be no answer. Michael had to lose it, this was a real emergency and he needed to get the attention of the suits in the office. He tilted his head to see if he could peer in one of the windows at either side of the door, but he couldn’t see past the shut blinds. They were watching something, that much was clear, but what it was he couldn’t be sure. Michael threw himself at the door, causing a loud thumping sound. He banged on it, punched it and kicked it as much as he could in order to get the attention of everyone inside. There were noises from the other side of the door and Amanda, George’s secretary, emerged from the room.

“What are you doing?” she asked Michael in whispered anger.

“We have an emergency,” Michael said.

“It will have to wait,” Amanda replied.

“I think there is an alien ship heading towards earth,” Michael said, “it definitely cannot bloody wait.”

Amanda’s eyes widened, “that hasn’t happened in a while,” she commented and looked thoughtful. “Give me a minute, I’ll see what I can do,” she said and slipped back into the room.

Michael rolled his eyes again and waited, it was all he could do. After a couple of fruitless minutes Michael checked the screen again. The drone was following the ship, it had entered earth’s atmosphere. It appeared to be heading towards Australia. Michael could actually see Australia filling the screen in front of the ship, as the drone was behind it, following it.

Michael looked towards the locked boardroom door again. He rolled his eyes. If something wasn’t done soon the ship would land somewhere in the outback and they would lose the alien and only find him again when he decided to attack someone, or something, in the experience of SPHERE aliens were not friendly. Earth had no allies in deeper space, not even Mars.

As Michael rolled his eyes for the one-millionth time his eye rolling noticed something, a fire alarm. Michael broke the thin glass and set the alarm off. Soon the sprinklers would come on inside the boardroom and that would bring the meeting to an abrupt end.

Within a couple of seconds the door to the boardroom opened again and some people Michael didn’t recognise left the room.

Amanda came outside and grabbed Michael by the sleeve of his suit jacket; “get in here,” she shouted, no longer whispering, as the sprinklers turned off overhead.

“What the hell do you think you are doing?” George shouted at the top of his lungs from the other end of the room.

There were only four people in the room now, George, Amanda, another person Michael didn’t recognise and himself.

“There is an emergency,” Michael said back, holding up the tablet in his hand, “an emergency we should be taking seriously.”

“You must understand Michael that you cannot interrupt these meetings under any circumstances,” George replied.

“With all due respect, Mr Johnston,” Michael said, “there are circumstances under which meetings should be interrupted, even these particular meetings.”

“I don’t think you are understanding me,” George said, “nothing should interrupt this meeting.”

“I don’t think you are understanding me,” Michael replied, “there is a spaceship heading for Queensland, Australia and it is not one of ours.”

“You need to understand that these meetings are of paramount importance,” George said, still not listening, “there is top secret information being passed between us and the active field agents in these meetings. They are of vital importance and cannot be interrupted under any circumstances, unless, say, an alien space craft were to enter Earth’s atmosphere and is now landing somewhere, off the top of my head, Queensland, Australia.”

“That’s exactly what is happening,” Michael said.

“Now, now, Michael,” George smiled, “don’t use the one scenario I give you in order to pretend that whatever you think is an emergency is an actual emergency.”

“There is an alien craft headed towards Queensland, right now. I have watched it since before it entered the atmosphere,” Michael tried, one last time, this time as calmly as he could sound.

“I think we should hear him out,” the other guy said to George.

“Thank you,” Michael said and brought his tablet to the screen beside George.

He plugged it in and turned away from the screen.

“As you can see,” Michael began, “the drone from our southern satellite has been tracing this ship towards Australia for about twenty minutes now.”

“Michael, is it?” the other guy asked. “You should turn around.”

Michael did so and the screen showed mostly darkness, with a glimpse of the Moon in the left hand side of the screen.

“Oh,” Michael said, “you are going to need to come upstairs. That way I can show you on the big screen.”

“I think we have had quite enough of your tomfoolery for one day,” George said, “Amanda, you can show Michael out please?”

“Of course,” Amanda said and walked up to Michael.

“Wait,” the fourth room member interrupted, “I want to see whatever it is he has to show us.”

“Thomas?” George asked.

“It is my duty to protect earth,” Thomas said, “and if there is anything that even resembles a threat, I need to be dealing with it,” he explained.

“Have it your way,” George sighed as he waved towards Michael, “show him whatever it is you have to show him.”

“This way,” Michael said to Thomas as he shrugged out of the grip of Amanda.

Thomas dutifully followed Michael from the room towards the workstation where George was bound to notice the burrito damaged hologram screen.

Great, Michael thought to himself, in the one night I discover the first ship to land on earth in five years, and I get myself fired.

The satellite Michael had released the drone from was still flashing red. There was no alarm anymore; that had been replaced with a woman’s voice repeating the phrase “alien vessel has landed on earth.”

George woke up to this fact. He dropped the notes he was holding, which must have been for that uninterrupted meeting he had come from.

George ran to the flashing screen and pressed some buttons to reply the journey of the drone as it followed the craft into earth space.

“Where is that darned video?” he asked no one in particular as nothing worked for him.

George was not often on the ground of SPHERE, he was more the office type these days. Watching him now reminded Michael of why, exactly, he still took some of the graveyard shifts. Hologram technology had only come in over the past three years. George had definitely not attempted to use the tech since it changed from projection technology.

Michael cleared his throat as he stepped towards George, and the hologram screen. The boss moved out of his way, knowing that Michael was more skilled in this area than he was himself.

“You can actually use your hands with this technology,” he explained, “it’s like touch screen, except there are no screens anymore, instead we have holograms. If you need to do something such as reply a drone video you would spin the satellite image with your hand, like this…”

Michael explained as he reached out to the image of the satellite and spun it on the screen; this brought the drone compartment up on the screen.

“Then pinch that compartment,” Michael continued and did as he was instructing. The drone compartment opened and a couple of options appeared on the screen.

Deploy drone, play last expedition and scout were the three options.

“You can complete it now,” Michael said to George and he came back to the screen, “just touch the play button.”

“Like this?” George asked as he touched the word play and the drone began to leave the satellite on the big screen and follow a moving structure, heading towards earth’s atmosphere.

“No one has been daring enough to attempt to breach the Earth’s atmosphere in a long time,” it was Thomas that spoke, “unfortunately we are going to need to make an example of them. There are many planets, in this galaxy alone, that are hostile towards the Earth; if any of them got wind of an unidentified craft landing here they would surely attempt to get past our security.”

“I fear you may be correct,” George said as he watched the ship heading towards Queensland, “even if this alien has come in peace, and when a one person ship enters the atmosphere one has to wonder are they really here for battle. But, it is as you say, we don’t want more visitors.”

“Why wasn’t it shot out of the sky?” Michael asked. “Surely if we know that aliens could attack earth we should have some defences other than a drone to follow the ship?”

“In short,” Thomas said, “politics. We do have other defences but this ship seems to have been too small…”

“We don’t have time for this,” George said, waving his hand at the two of them, still staring at the screen as the drone pulled up.

“Can we pinpoint where the ship landed?” Thomas asked as he took a phone out of his pocket.

“I can get you to a general area,” Michael said, “but the drone won’t have followed the ship the entire way to the ground, as you can see it has stopped.”

“Get me as close as you can,” Thomas said.

“Somewhere in Western-north Queensland, near Forest Den National Park,” Michael said and clicked back on the screen. The hologram returned to an image of the satellite in space, the red flashing and voice had stopped now as well, “that’s as close as I can get you,” Michael apologised to Thomas.

“That’s okay,” Thomas said, “that’s close enough. What’s the nearest city to that location?”

“That would be Townsville I guess,” Michael said, flicking through a map of Australia on another hologram screen.

“Townsville,” Thomas said thoughtfully, “I don’t think we have people there, what about Brisbane, is that near?”

“It’s close enough,” Michael replied.

“We have people there,” Thomas said and pulled out his phone.

Thomas explained the situation to whoever was on the other end of the phone, he disconnected and turned back to the others.

“I best go and speak with the President,” he said, “although this did not land on American soil he will be interested, and perhaps I can use it as an excuse to finally get him to create the Earth Space Defence Programme we have been attempting to get approval for over the past eight years.”

“As long as they don’t call it ‘Star Wars’”, George said and both he and Thomas laughed.

Michael was feeling a little self-conscious about his Yoda t-shirt again, and pulled his jacket in tighter to his chest, hoping he was blocking any signs of it, even through his shirt.

“Please monitor the situation from here,” Thomas said, “and let me know if anything else happens, of importance would be another ship entering the atmosphere.”

“Of course,” Michael said and came to shake hands with the man.

“Good work tonight,” Thomas said to him, “let’s hope we can get this alien before it disappears.”

“How can it disappear?” Michael asked him. “We have such good surveillance tech. on earth now.”

“If we lose track of it the likelihood is that we will not find it again until it wants to be found,” Thomas said, “and that will be when it launches its attack, or tries to leave again.”

“Well,” Michael said, “I for one do not want it to get to that.”

“Nor do we,” George chimed in, “I hope your men get there on time,” he added.

“They are some of the best in the world,” Thomas replied, “I’m sure they will manage to get there on time.”

“Let’s hope so,” Michael said as Thomas left.

“Michael?” George roared from behind him.

Michael turned to see what the boss was shouting about and rolled his eyes as he noticed where George was standing right then.

“What happened to this hologram screen?” he shouted. “Is this your burrito? Do you even realise how much these things cost?”

“I’m sorry boss,” Michael said, “it was the shock of hearing an alarm while I was on my break. I thought, when a second alarm went off, that I should come check it out.”

“It’s okay,” George said, calming down, “but listen to me, if you were anyone else I would have fired you already.”

“I know sir,” Michael replied.

“Don’t let it happen again,” George said as he turned to leave the room, “Amanda, come with me please?” he ordered, more than asked.

Amanda nodded and scurried after him, like a mouse, as he left the room.

Michael sighed a sigh of relief as he watched Australia on the screen in front of him thoughtfully.