by M. Alan Marr
Stars Fell on Alabama
M. Alan Marr
Stars Fell on Alabama
Stars Fell on Alabama is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and situations in this work are products of the author’s imagination and should not be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by M. Alan Marr.
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Trademark Notices: Cover art, title, series title, and graphics are Trademarked material of Vector 270, LLC.
ISBN: 0990644421
ISBN 13: 9780990644422
Stars Fell on Alabama - Second Edition
Vector 270, LLC
2857 Paradise Road, Suite 1601
Las Vegas, NV 89109
[email protected]
Prologue
The horizon is broader than you think.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1 Startled
Part I Vernal Equinox
Chapter 2 Rising Star
Chapter 3 Falling Star
Chapter 4 Guest Star
Chapter 5 Gold Star
Chapter 6 Bright Star
Chapter 7 Starry-Eyed
Chapter 8 Star, Eclipsed
Chapter 9 Mex-Star One
Chapter 10 Superstar
Chapter 11 Star Chamber
Chapter 12 Stelle Di Venezia
Chapter 13 Lucky Stars
Chapter 14 Seeing Stars
Chapter 15 Binary Stars
Part II Autumnal Equinox
Chapter 16 Startled!
Chapter 17 Starring Camelopardalis
Chapter 18 Star Drive
Chapter 19 Stars of Lyra
Chapter 20 Stars of The Crown
Chapter 21 Six-Star Admiral
Chapter 22 Star Under the Microscope
Chapter 23 Stars and Moon
Chapter 24 Second Star To the Right
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Chapter 1
Startled
MIDTOWN ATLANTA
Gillespie Building Penthouse
September 23, 2015
1430 Hours
Dev anxiously checks the computer in his study for any changes in the news that dropped on him like a bomb late last night.
“I’m ready when you are,” Chaz says, carrying a wide armful of rattling camping gear past Dev’s study on the way to the private elevator foyer. “I’ll go down and load this stuff in the truck. We better get going if we’re gonna get there before dark.”
Dev answers somewhat vaguely. “I’ll be right down.”
Chaz Karl Ronaldi, off duty Triad Airlines 767 pilot, and former Naval Aviator, is no stranger to roughing it. Chaz always enjoyed camping, and despite the suddenness of this particular trip, he is happy to get out of the city for a while, even if it is last minute.
Dev Camelopardalis Caelestis, on the other hand, seems as far removed from the idea of camping as can be. Dev is the wealthy clotheshorse owner of the four thousand square foot penthouse at Midtown Atlanta’s most luxe address. The jet-setting, mildly eccentric, Trust Fund baby of ‘Canadian’ origin, whose idea of roughing it might be closer to a five-star hotel that is out of suites, than a trek into the woods.
But despite the cars and clothes, real estate, and almost compulsive habit of chartering large private jets, Dev Caelestis is not at all who he appears to be.
Dev anxiously paces in his study until he hears the elevator chime in the foyer. Now motionless, he listens as Chaz and clanking bundle of camping gear steps inside. As soon as the elevator doors close, Dev quickly snaps into action, opening the safe behind the bookcase. He quickly shoves a few items from the safe into his computer bag, then carefully pulls out a holstered weapon. Dev draws the gun and tosses the empty holster in his bag. Weapon in hand, he looks in the direction of the elevator foyer, narrows his eyes slightly, then pulls the slide back on the gun. This is it. No matter how the next few hours play out, one thing is absolutely certain: this will be the last day on Earth for at least one of them.
To fully understand what has driven Dev to this decision, it is necessary to go back to the night the Stars Fell on Alabama.
Part I
Vernal Equinox
March 20, 2015
Chapter 2
Rising Star
The darkened room is equipped with two long rows of computer work stations positioned either side of the center display table. The darkness of the room is only slightly mitigated by the soft glow of individual display screens and a line of indirect floor path lighting. Even the glass walls are black, offering only a shiny reflection of what little light there is. The workstations are configured for massive clandestine data gathering, recording information from civil sources, corporations, governmental agencies, and private citizens alike. No matter what level of encryption, no matter how strong the security or firewalls, virtually every piece of transmitted data throughout the world is circulating through the analytic systems in this room. A room occupied by one man: Dev Caelestis.
The tabletop display is tracking fifty million active telephone calls. Each call represented as a small data block containing a country code, phone number, time stamp, and tiny vocal equalizer, pulsing away as the system records the unsuspecting callers. The large display screen is divided into one hundred columns, filling eighty lines in an unending procession. The computer highlights an area of the display, causing dozens of overlapping live conversations to be heard over the speakers. The cacophony of voices, timbres, and accents used throughout the world are heard all at once as they pass through the highlighted sample area. Through this incoherent din, only bits of words and phrases make it through to the distinguishable.
OMG—he said what?—I’ll kill ya—large cheese pizza—moment of your time—9-1-1, what is your—moshi moshi—dude, she’s so hot—not here right now—what are you wearing—sorry to inform you—congratulations!—Bonjour—you’re firing me?—for English, press one—having a baby—avec moi?—I’m at your doorstep—
Dev touches a single control icon, deactivating the monitor window, muting all the noise. Quietly now, the computers continue recording, call by call, column by column, country by country, and no one knows it’s happening.
Moving to another work station, Dev looks over a different series of scrolling data under the screen heading Entertainment Media. He selects a random media block and listens as “Starships” by Nicki Minaj, begins playing over the speakers. Dev begins nodding his head in pace with the music and walks to the last workstation, where a screen displays the corporate logos for Banque Centrale du Zurich, Exchequer Bank of London, Bank of America, and American Express.
Dev initiates an invasive computer program just as the bass line of the song takes off. The program sequentially highlights each of the banking institutions and begins generating multiple dynamic lines linking each of the banks together, forming rapidly accelerating data strings, branches, bullet points, and numerical subsets. The adjacent display produces a vertical series of graphics for US Department of State, US Passport Authority, Internal Revenue Service, Social Security Administration, and Department of the Interior. A secondary screen below displays California Motor Vehicle Board and Progressive Auto Insurance. The lines of connectivity project and cross-connect one thing to another and another, spanning multiple screens and multiple subjects, generating reams of electronic data. All the while, the dollar figures in the associated bank accounts rapidly count upward at a dizzying speed. The next screen shows a bl
ank US Passport and then quickly populates with the Dev’s photo and vital statistics.
With a half-smile, Dev moves to a bank of 3D printers along the back wall, where he pulls a metal card out of one machine and examines the finished product: a most exclusive black American Express card bearing the name Dev C. Caelestis, member since 2001, and account numbers matching those generated on the workstation screen. The next machine produces a perfect replica of a California driver’s license bearing Dev’s photo and an address in San Francisco. He places both items inside an olive-green Velcro and ballistic nylon wallet, then casually walks back down the aisle, glancing at all the computers in passing. Energized by the music, Dev strides forward, past all the workstations and up a half spiral staircase, where he gazes out the large canopy at the stunning view of Earth . . . from orbit.
“Starships,” Dev says to himself, “definitely fly.”
The vessel settles into a stable westbound orbit of two hundred thirty miles. Dev stares outside, contemplating his mission at hand. The easternmost edge of Africa begins to pass steadily below from left to right, but he is too preoccupied to sightsee. The terminator between day and night lies well west of his current position, as does his intended destination: a secluded spot in the Southeastern United States, his new home for the next solar year.
Dev, wearing a tight dark blue cable-knit sweater and nondescript black pants over tall, polished black boots, takes a long, deep breath before returning to the control deck. He inputs a programming sequence into a keyboard, then looks at the glossy floor-to-ceiling black glass panels along the walls. The panels come to life, displaying a large graphic of the United States. The computer begins plotting military bases, large population centers, nuclear missile sites, and defensive batteries. The image shrinks down to a rotating world map plotting similar data. As that analysis sequence completes, the display blanks and begins plotting new information: Planetary Information Exchange. The continents of Earth display glowing hubs of electronic information and projects lines connecting cities and countries to one another. The blank spots of no connectivity are conspicuous. Numerical subject data fills the screen, indicating that of the 7.24 billion people on Earth, more than 2.93 billion of them are connected to a global information arena locally known as, the Internet. Dev inputs a few commands and pulls up the statistics on this information network and marvels at the figures: from its inception to present day, usage stats indicate a 23,304.39266 % increase (and rising) in Internet traffic over the last twenty-one years of available data.
The printers in the rear of the control deck signal completion of a series of items and documents. Dev gathers all the printed material and walks down another short spiral stair at the rear of the control deck. A dim corridor leads to the forward cargo bay, where sits a 1985 dark blue and tan trimmed Ford Bronco. Dev opens the passenger door and unzips a leather bag sitting on the seat. The bag contains banded stacks of hundred-dollar bills, a holstered weapon, and a bundle of old documents bearing a raised red wax seal embossed with the Banque Centrale du Zurich crest. Dev drops the paperwork, a newly minted US passport, birth certificate, social security card, and topographic map, into the bag, zips it back up, and returns to the control deck.
Dev’s next task is to prepare a communications relay buoy to drop into orbit. He enters a programming sequence into one of the control station panels, causing the media screens to blank and repopulate with buoy deployment information. The next series of commands tap into Earth’s network of orbital devices, both civilian and military, and begins the process of linking them to the shipboard systems. The decryption process will take the computers only a couple of minutes to accomplish, and will ultimately provide Dev with remote access to everything.
The two pilot stations forward of the tabletop display are set ninety degrees to the work stations on either side of the aisle, forming two opposing L shapes. Dev moves to the right-hand pilot station and looks forward. The front end of the ship has a curved seating area with low-backed couch, short table, and two small seating cubes. Curved black glass panels surrounding the forward area currently display the ship’s westbound orbital course, along with graphical representations of the Earth and moon. The pilot station instruments confirm the ship’s systems are stable and its stealth system is in passive camouflage mode, effectively hiding the ship from Earth-based surveillance. The forward-most display panels suddenly blank and switch to an expanded orbital view of Earth. The computer plots a large, shaded target rising fast from an opposing trajectory below the western horizon. Dev looks at the display and then touches a button on a keypad at the pilot station and reads the target identification aloud. “International Space Station, well, well, you have come a long way.”
The computer projects a white orbital arc from the rising target. The arc line turns yellow, then dashed red and, in very short order, solid red as it intersects with his own ship’s counter-orbital course. An urgent alert tone begins sounding, indicating imminent collision course.
“Oh no, no, no,” Dev says, quickly grabbing the flight controls—a multi-function flight control stick with his left hand and a set of double throttles with his right—and dives the ship downward. He advances power slightly to evade the space station, sending the ship plunging toward the dark night and the East Coast of North America, leaving a brief luminous contrail behind him.
Chapter 3
Falling Star
0400 Hours
Rural Alabama
To anyone awake and looking up, the lightning-quick fire in the eastern sky appearing for a fleeting second or two would seem no different than any other small meteorite and would be dismissed just the same. But this was not a piece of rock burning up in the atmospheric friction; this was the fire of reentry.
The sounds of the Alabama night are interrupted by a distant jet engine-like noise passing high overhead, just like any airliner. Only this airliner slows to a stop at thirty-five thousand feet.
Inside the ship, Dev dials the stealth system control from Passive to Active Cammo, causing the outer hull to turn black-blue, matching the current color of night sky. The ship is now low enough not to reflect orbital light, and high enough for its engines to be dismissed as jet traffic. Thirty-five thousand feet, however, is not a great place for a stealth vehicle to loiter, since commercial air traffic generally cruise at that altitude range.
Navigational computers quickly zero in on the landing site and plot a vertical descent course, appearing on both the forward screens and the tabletop display, now reconfigured for navigational holographics. Nestled within an unpopulated and densely wooded mountaintop is a large lake. Deep enough, isolated enough, and devoid of Human activity for miles around, yet close enough to a road for easy access to civilization. Dev briefly studies the holographic cutaway of the landing site and then returns to his pilot seat and buckles in.
High up in the quiet night sky, the ship initiates an unnatural and very rapid flat descent like an express elevator on steroids. Around the lake, the insects of the night fall silent as an invisible depression begins forming in the water. The ship hurtles toward the lake in a perilous descent and rapidly comes to a halt just below the tree line. The force of the maneuver impacts the lake’s surface, creating an enormous downward pressure into the water, sending a wave rippling outward like a tsunami. The ship’s engines wind down to a quiet idle, and the ship hovers gracefully ten feet or so above the waterline. The gravitational depression dissipates and the waters recede. Quietly, the ship approaches a flat area near the lake’s rocky shore.
Reaching the shoreline, a wide ramp lowers from the hull. Moments later, the Ford Bronco backs out of the ship with Dev in the driver’s seat. Clearing the ship, Dev parks the truck and gets out, holding a small computer device no bigger than a smartphone. A single command on the strange icons closes the ramp. A few more commands sends the ship gliding out toward the center of the lake. Dev watches the display on the handheld device until it indicates target coordinates have been rea
ched. A final programming sequence is initiated. The engines are shut down, and the ship slowly descends into the deepest part of the lake. Steam radiates like geysers as the water washes over the heated engine exhaust ports. Lower and lower the ship sinks. The surface of the lake washes around the top of the ship and canopy, and like the conning tower of a futuristic submarine, the vessel slips completely below the surface. The handheld device shows the ship continuing to descend until it reaches the bottom. The unit flashes the message Grav-Lock and then shuts down all primary systems. Minutes after it all began the lake looks as it did before, though the water is still stirred up and muddy from all the activity. By sunrise all the churned up silt and mud should be settled, aided partly by the gravity field anchoring the ship to the bottom. No one would ever know what’s down there.
Standing at the lake’s edge, Dev conducts a three hundred sixty-degree scan of the area to check for any people. Relieved at the results, he sees there is nothing within the search radius except three species identified as a DEER, a RED FOX, and closest of all, a large GRAY OWL watching comfortably from a thick tree limb at the edge of the clearing.
Dev looks around with slight trepidation. He’s now on a foreign planet in the middle of nowhere. For the first time in his career, he feels alone. Alone, cut off, and completely on his own. The idea is both daunting and exciting. Getting back in the Bronco, Dev takes one last look at the lake, then up at the sky through the windshield. Time now to begin his mandate: Observe and Evaluate the Residents and Overall Status and Condition of Planet Earth.
Driving on Earth . . . madness. Even at this hour.
The curving rural roads near the lake were no great trial, but the interstate highway system seems an exercise in chaos theory. The posted speed limit signs seem more advisory than anything else, but Dev knows the general rules and obeys them the best he can. Large transport trucks surge past him with thunderous force. Other vehicles swerve around the Bronco with the ferocity of a meteor shower.