by W. R. Hobbs
Revolution of the Gods
The Battle for Sol
BOOK ONE
By W.R. Hobbs
C7 Publishing
Copyright 2014
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“All great truths begin as blasphemies”
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, Annajanska
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 01
CHAPTER 02
CHAPTER 03
CHAPTER 04
CHAPTER 05
CHAPTER 06
CHAPTER 07
CHAPTER 08
CHAPTER 09
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
PROLOGUE
Gobekli Tepe, Turkey - 22,031 BCE
Primordial Earth began nurturing life almost four billion years before reaching the point at which it was something of interest to life not of the Sol system. There were countless planets in countless galaxies where the same exact phenomenon occurred long before and long after; where sentient beings evolved, developed civilizations, pondered their existence and then ceased to exist. On Earth, so also was the case three times before the fourth version of the corporeal beings known as homo sapien.
Along a gently flowing river, two homo sapiens stalked a herd of gazelle through the rippling fields of wild barley and wheat. As the hunters maintained their stealth behind the fruit and nut trees, the herd suddenly became spooked and bolted away across the valley. A few seconds later the barley and wheat fields began stirring wildly as the wind whipped all around. Pressurized air exhaust from a disc-shaped craft flattened the grain fields as the ship passed overhead at low altitude. The perplexed hunters looked at each other and then back at the craft as it approached a smoothly rounded plateau rising a thousand feet from the valley floor. One of the hunters immediately set foot toward the plateau but the other one grunted in disagreement. After the more curious of the two offered his counterpart a gesture of dismissiveness, they both cautiously proceeded toward the craft.
The shadow atop the grassy plateau expanded as the vessel lowered its landing gear and touched down. Its metallic silver skin brightly reflected the sun from the top half of the 260 foot diameter disc. The ship's engines disengaged, ceasing the turbulent rearrangement of the grass under it. Finally, a translucent blue field of humming energy dissipated from around the entire hull and the plateau's peaceful silence returned.
“Commander, atmospheric readings indicate air composition of 78.09 percent nitrogen, 20.95 percent oxygen, 0.93 percent argon, and 0.039 percent carbon dioxide. Absolute pressure is at 14.7 psia and temperature is moderate. Surface conditions do not require enhanced life support,” one of the science officers reported.
“Have the long range sensors gathered anymore data on the wormhole?” the commander asked.
“Data indicates the phenomenon's duration lasted six hours and abruptly ceased. Our sensors have been unable to detect any more activity in the vacinity of the wormhole's coordinates. Trace tachyons are still present but are dissipating rapidly. Without enhanced sensors and a closer proximity to the coordinates, we cannot determine any potential reoccurence or frequency.”
“That's just great. We found exactly what we were looking for and now we can't tell anyone about it,” the commander vented.
“Sir, our subspace communications are still operative.”
“Sure they are. But with the nearest relay beacon forty-six light years away in a different galaxy, it will be a long time before command hears us calling. Unfortunately, as it stands, we must be prepared for an extended mission. I want you to maintain perpetual sensor readings on the wormhole coordinates. We may not know when it will reappear but we will be ready when it...”
Before the commander could finish his directive, an alert sounded across the bridge array.
“Sir, we have detected two humanoid life forms approaching our location.”
“Put them on the viewer.”
The two prehistoric hunters crested the plateau and slowly approached the craft in utter bewilderment. Both of the well toned men stood about 5 feet 6 inches and were clad only in animal skins that covered their genitals.
“Very interesting. Assemble a security detail and meet me at the air lock,” the commander ordered. “Let's go see if we can make some friends and have them show us around the neighborhood.”
Oakland, California - December 2031
Revolution was the most unlikely and unthinkable event in Ben’s world. Block after block, the narrow buildings were stacked tightly next to one another outnumbering the long ago closed businesses, former churches and dilapidated parks in this former city. On the dingy and dark streets there were no cars; just hundreds of barrel fires that blotted out the stars in the night sky as plumes of gray smoke rose from the street corners like colossal twisting snakes with fiery tails.
The unelectrified city blocks were densely packed with all walks of society, from professionals to delinquents and everyone in between. But now everyone had the same status, and they were all living in a new reality where nearly all hope had been lost.
Surrounding this pitiful existence was a seven mile perimeter that had been established using the old Interstates 580, 880 and 980. The elevated freeways completely encompassed the inner perimeter and served as the high ground for scores of tanks and other defensive batteries. Along the freeways were giant spotlights that dotted the entire perimeter; methodically scanning the interior of the camp.
All the surface roads leading out were barricaded with thick metal gates covered with bright red warning signs. A mixture of military and police personnel, some dressed in black and some in fatigues, guarded the gates and patrolled the interior.
A fleet of aerial drones maintained a perpetual overhead watch on the area. The small black, disk shaped sentries hovered over the streets and common areas, gathering surveillance 24 hours a day with an array of cameras providing live feedbacks to the central command center. But the surveillance was not everywhere all the time and where there was no oversight it only took the slightest misstep for any resident to end up dead.
Inside this center of detention were hundreds of thousands of ‘residents’ living life as if they were in a third world concentration camp. But this was no third world country. This was the former United States. This was Zone-09 Residential Occupation Center (ROC) and it was the new way of life in Oakland, California inside the new North American Union - a new reality that was an absolute and damning commentary on where the planet had arrived after a series of unimaginable events that coalesced into Earth’s radical global transformation.
The Second Great Depression in the United States marked the beginning of the most volatile period of human history on Earth. It served as the catalyst that initiated a series of devastating terrorists’ attacks around the world which in turn spawned a nuclear war in the Mideast. And, shortly thereafter, a global pandemic eventually claimed a total 4.7 billion human lives. The people of this planet had never faced such devastation, sorrow and despair. The culminations of these events lea
d to the creation of the New Earth Union, the NEU.
Benami Gurion had a front row seat to the meltdown in the Mideast. Before his escape from the region, he had been a construction worker in Petah Tikvah, Israel. Ben was 32 years old and average height. His receding coffee-colored hair was cut close to his scalp making him practically bald. Under his round obsidian eyes he maintained a clean shaven face that showcased his infectious smile. But these days, Ben had very little reason to smile.
He was the sole survivor of his family to make it to America. His story was not much different than the other tens of thousands of Middle Eastern refugees in the camps. Everything and everyone he had known was gone; including his parents, grandparents, wife and three children. He now spent his days reflecting on how everything had fallen apart.
It is all still so unbelievable, he reminded himself several times daily.
When Ben was processed into the Oakland ROC nearly three years ago he was designated as a ‘resident-detainee.’ And while his new classification was much less desirable than ‘resident-worker’ it was much preferred over being dead.
At least I’m still breathing he thought on many occasions.
Rumors of America’s preparations for martial law had been around for decades. But the everyday struggles of most people did not afford them the reflective time of such considerations. And the government’s preparations were rarely if ever front page news.
Very few citizens had ever heard of H.R. 645: National Emergency Centers Establishment Act and the subsequent establishment of FUSION Centers in every state. Among many other things it authorized the formation of over 1,200 FEMA camps of various sizes throughout the United States. The Rex 84 program had also been implemented, which was the US government’s preparation for a mass exodus of illegal aliens crossing from the Mexican/US border. But, Rex 84 also directed military bases to be converted into detention centers for any national emergency.
The FEMA camps in the former U.S. were initially triggered not by a mass exodus from Mexico but by the influx of refugees from the Mideast War that occurred two weeks after the world economic collapse in July, 2028. The camps were duplicitously named Residential Occupation Centers with specific zone prefixes.
The Syova Virus outbreak that began about two months later morphed the centers into unimaginable sizes, holding millions of residents countrywide. The Syova Virus originally started in Europe and received its name from the Finnish scientists that isolated its molecular behavior.
This virus was like nothing that man had encountered in his short history. Within the first seven months of the first documented case in Finland, over 4.7 billion people worldwide had perished in the worst phase of the pandemic.
America was still the place where the rest of the world sought refuge. A great portion of the surviving US population was initially thankful that the government had the forethought to prepare the emergency camps. If not when the Mideast refugees began emigrating, they were definitely thankful by the time the Syova Virus had dealt its initial blows to the world population. But as time wore on, the camps were not the refuge that these millions of people had imagined. These camps, in the point of view of most residents, were simply an effort of their government to keep the remaining population under control.
Ben did not accept the reality of the Oakland ROC very well, but it was much better than the calamity from which he had escaped. Still, being stripped of his freedom wore heavily on him as each day passed.
Choosing friends had become a risky proposition. Ben did not talk much at all and made friends even less. It was not an abnormal occurrence to hear screams and spurts of gunfire when guards arrested people in the middle of the night never to be seen again.
Fresh information was nearly non-existent. There were no radios, cell phones or televisions. Billboard sized monitors spread throughout the interior where the only links to the outside world, broadcasting the singular NAU channel.
Government control of all information had reached its pinnacle. Even so, bits of news made it around the ROC the old-fashioned way - through word of mouth. The basic source of new information was the influx of new detainees that were 'lucky' enough to make it through the gates; not everyone in line lived to see the inside of the center.
As time progressed, the internment lines had significantly reduced in number but trickles of new entries were still being processed. Ben remembered when he first stood in the same line.
After arriving in New York on a converted cruise liner from the Mediterranean, he was initially processed into the New York City ROC. But the population of that center had been maximized long before Ben set foot in America. After two weeks, he and thousands of others were herded on a train like cattle. It was a very difficult trip in a standing room only box car. Eventually his group reached the Oakland ROC and it had served as his home ever since.
In the middle of December, the days had become shorter but remained relatively warm in the Southern California climate. By then, only a few dozen people were being interned on a daily basis and Ben was able to observe each person in the lines with less obscurity. He had made a point of lingering at the old South Prescott Park.
The trains brought new detainees through the Oakland Naval Supply Center where they were shuffled to the main entrance at the corner of Peralta Street and 3rd Street. The former post office on the corner had been retrofitted as the temporary Oakland ROC Command. Every day the displaced Israeli hoped to see someone he knew. He realized it was a futile endeavor but he maintained hope nonetheless.
Early one morning around 2 a.m. Ben noticed a tall man standing in the line. Most of the people entering the center nowadays were usually sick, malnourished, or emotionally distraught. Many times it was a combination of all three. The man Ben intently analyzed possessed none of these attributes. He appeared in very good health.
How fascinating.
The guards were consistently broadcasting the same exact instructions that Ben had heard himself over the loudspeaker when he first arrived:
ATTENTION! ATTENTION! ATTENTION!
PLEASE REMAIN CALM.
WE WILL NOT TOLERATE CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE .
CHAPTER 01
Dugway Facility
Every time he woke up, everything around him was always the same; a cylindrical chamber filled full of liquid in which he floated upright and surrounded with holographic displays projecting diagnostic images of a human body. More often than not, a man in a white lab coat would be staring up at him when he came to consciousness. He had no memory of who he was, where he was or why he was there. Yet, there he was, completely submerged in a gelatinous greenish fluid that made him feel paralyzed.
During his increasing spurts of consciousness, he struggled to observe his surroundings while he was lucid. Although he was waking up more frequently, it was not until the last couple of days that he was able to actually see beyond the liquid and into the laboratory. He managed to make out what looked like a command array located about 40 feet away. It was a cluster of bio-medical displays that were monitored by technicians wearing some type of bio-suits.
On this particular morning, while he was in the middle of an effort to concentrate his focus, a group of eight military officers entered through the bulkhead door of the laboratory with one of them walking up closely to the chamber. Even though the subject was fully immersed inside this tube, he could clearly discern the conversation going on outside of it.
I can hear them!
“How is he progressing?” queried General Bracken, provisional commander of the facility.
Bracken was in his early 50s and stood 5 foot 9 inches, but he walked as if he were a giant. His slitted gray eyes were like two thin pieces of steel flanking his flattened nose and strong chin. The commander’s balding head was normally covered by his hat and his thick officer’s coat concealed a slightly overweight midsection. When he spoke, the general’s voice was deep, raspy and crackled as a result of loudly barking orders over the years.
“Th
e maturation cycle has been markedly improved with this subject,” Dr. Hauer calmly and confidently replied, walking through the bulkhead behind the military brass.
Although he seemed like an unassuming older man, Dr. Hauer was the lead researcher on this project and the foremost world authority on mutative genetic science. His wide blue eyes contrasted sharply against his pale white skin and silky straight alabaster hair. With a thin angular build, he was a few inches taller than the general and much older, but not even Bracken knew exactly how old.
“How long before we have definitive results?” Bracken asked, turning around to face Hauer.
“Within 48 hours,” the doctor assured, with a trace of annoyance.
The general walked over to the chamber and peered up at the latest product of the GEO Project. The Genetically Enhanced Operative Project had been initiated almost three years ago but utilized decades of prior research to accelerate a new cloning procedure for potential future combatants.
Bracken observed the very tall muscular specimen floating seemingly dormant with dozens of wires and tubes attached all over his body.
“Alert us immediately when you achieve emergence,” Bracken ordered, concluding his rare visit to the laboratory. With a glance at his entourage, Bracken’s men fell in behind him and marched out as quickly as they had entered.
Dr. Hauer immediately walked over to the chamber and began accessing the holographic controls. With the push of a few keys, several diagrams of the subject superimposed on the chamber casing with elongated strands of DNA data correlating to displays of his body. He looked at the man floating in the chamber and thought about the things that had happened so long ago.