by Gordon Ryan
As the boy and his grandfather worked together, the man would relate the history of their pioneer forebears—tales of struggle in the early days, of victory and failure over the elements, of life and death. And the voices became real to the young lad. Those voices were muted now, put to rest with the completion of Voices in My Blood and the immortalization of those whom he had come to love vicariously. The remaining voice, now seemingly heard again as Dan continued to look down at the tidy orchard, was that of the old man as he spoke to the boy.
Have I told you the story about my father and the time he came face-to-face with a cougar up on the east bench? Well, it was getting on toward dark, and …
Now that singular voice had been stilled—mingled, Dan surmised, with that of Grandma Ellen’s as she had called for the old man to join her. Dan’s view of the orchard, so small and insignificant on a worldly scale, was obscured by the very real tears that now filled his eyes and filled his heart, empty for so long, until …
Nicole slipped her arm gently through Dan’s as they stood, viewing the California valley, which now remained part of the whole—part of the heritage his forebears had forged with their blood. Blinking the tears away, Dan covered Nicole’s hand on his arm and looked softly into her eyes, unspoken words passing between them as they surveyed the landscape, newly discovered by the woman, but part of the soul of the man.
“Have I told you the story of Jack’s house?” Dan asked, nodding toward the old, weathered farmhouse. “It’s the fourth house in a series.”
Nicole smiled at Dan, listening to his life and family history and absorbing it into her character.
“In 1866, when he came out after the Civil War, Howard Rumsey drove his Conestoga up this valley and staked out his tent, not far from where the house now stands. In four months, he’d built their first home—a two-room log cabin. Three years later, after a mill had opened down the valley, he made the round trip each week to bring freshly milled lumber to build his wife a proper home. That home stood for nearly thirty-five years, and then, shortly after the turn of the century, Jack’s father built his home, a few yards from the first.
“Then, in 1945, after Jack came home from his generation’s war, and after his father died in ’48, Jack tore down both houses and built the house you see down there now. He took care of his mother there until she died—that house is over sixty years old and has seen its day.”
Dan turned to look at Nicole, taking her face in his hands, stroking her hair, and bending to kiss her softly. He thought how she had stood by his side, risking her life to save his, and he felt his love for this woman welling up inside him.
Nicole’s recovery from the gunshot wound had taken longer than anticipated, and her medical retirement from the FBI, required because of a collapsed lung that had not healed completely, had been a hard blow from which she had not yet fully recovered—a lifelong career dream shattered.
“Jack had only one child,” Dan said, “my mother. In his will, Jack left all this to me. It’s time, I think, for a fifth house, but …” Dan stopped.
“But what?” Nicole asked.
“But it’d be empty, Nicole, unless you would share it with me. I know I’ve been hard-pressed to let go of the past, and you’ve been very patient with me. But I also know that you know I love you.”
Nicole returned Dan’s kiss, then laid her head against his chest for awhile, the two of them content to stand and watch the sunset gather over the western end of the valley. She’d noticed, the first time he came to the hospital after returning from Washington, that he had removed his wedding band. She had taken it as an admission that he had let go of the past and that he loved her.
“What will you do, Dan?” she said, not lifting her head from his chest.
“Well, for one thing, I’ll continue to write. There are a lot of stories left untold.”
“And?” she said.
“And Governor Dewhirst is not going to run again,” he said, a grin on his face.
At that, Nicole raised her head and looked into his eyes. “So you thought you’d remain in politics?”
“I’ve thought that perhaps I could contribute to the effort. I’m still a bit young to fun for governor, but I might try to keep my legislative seat for a few years.” He smiled. “We still have this secession issue to deal with. It’s not really a done deal yet. In fact I’ve received an invitation to meet with several state and national elected officials from Oregon, Arizona, and even Nevada. They want to discuss some options. That will be in January. I don’t have a handle on what they want, but I intend to listen. Nicole, since being elected, I’ve learned a lot. In many respects, the secession mania has been a diversion, helpful to the current crop of elected officials actually. California is financially destitute. As a state, we have so many resources, so much to offer, but we also have the largest welfare rolls, the most claim on meager resources, the largest share of illegal immigrants. We could do better, but maybe we simply can’t turn the direction of the federal government.”
“Do I hear the beginning of a shift in your thoughts about secession? A positive look at becoming separate?”
Dan hesitated, continuing to look over the western slopes. “I don’t know yet, Nicole. Some of our Founding Fathers came reluctantly to their rebellious position. They were loyalists initially. I need to be more inquisitive, more open. California could work independently. Despite our current financial crisis, we do actually have the total package—far better than many existing countries. I’m not speaking of treason. I’m thinking about political alliance, shifting priorities.”
“And you want to do something about that, right?” Nicole said, softly pressing the issue.
“Only if you’d share it with me, Nicole. That’s the only way it would matter. John Adams could not have accomplished what he did without Abigail. And we helped to build it together, didn’t we? Just like my ancestors. We rightfully earned our place in this valley.”
“I suppose we did,” she responded, raising her eyes across the valley to the far west mountainside where their lives had been in jeopardy. “I suppose we did.”
“Well, then,” Dan said, bracing her shoulders straight so he could face her head on. “Will you help me start one more generation of voices—voices to keep this valley alive?”
Nicole looked slowly around the valley and then returned her gaze to Dan, who stood patiently waiting for her to respond.
“Mr. Rawlings, have I ever told you the story of my first American ancestor, James Bentley, and his trip from London to the colonies?” She smiled.
Dan looked at her for a moment, his smile broadening as her response took root in his heart, her family stories about to be mingled with his ancestors’ stories, her answer to his question couched in family tradition.
“No, you haven’t,” he said, “but I think I’m due.”
Her words came slowly at first as she described her own heritage, anticipating in the telling how these two streams from separate sources would be joined together.
Dan only half heard the words, lost again in the vision of the old man in the orchard with his eyes lifted toward the couple on the hill, smiling and waving at the two of them. They sat there together on the hillside, overlooking the expanse of Rumsey Valley as the sun dropped beneath the western ridge. Stretched before them was a destiny—an old valley in a new state—a home forged in courage by the voices that yet reverberated through the canyons and in their hearts.
––––––––––––––––––––––––
Author’s Note: After many years of traditional publishing, with both hardback and softbound books in print, I have released each of my out of print books and several new stories through the medium of e-books. As a new “Indie” author, I would appreciate your word of mouth support and if time allows, a narrative review on Amazon. Good or bad, one star or five, your comments would be most appreciated.
Gordon Ryan
Christchurch, New Zealand
&nb
sp; www.gordonryan.com
Acknowledgements
The Pug Connor series has required technical input from a variety of sources, but none more important than that received from my military colleagues and associates who provide the security for our nation and those of our allies. I am indebted to these people, some of whom are not individually listed below. They know who they are.
William A. Tolbert, Major, USAF (Ret.) a life-long friend with whom I have spent many hours discussing the concept of American governance, states’ rights, and public turmoil.
Kate Ryan, Lieutenant Commander, Royal Australian Navy. Kate’s contribution to scenes in upcoming volumes were indispensable, and her critique of RAN naval terminology is essential to the accuracy of the story. We share the same name, but there is no family connection..
Pete Bartos, Lieutenant Colonel, USAF, (Ret.) As a former “Eagle Driver,” an F-15 pilot, and a veteran of Operation Noble Eagle, the domestic air cover operation designed after 9/11, Pete provided first-hand knowledge of the prospective air battle over American cities as we continue to prepare for the next assault.
Tristi Pinkston, who edited the manuscript and provided much needed variation and insight into the story. I express my sincere appreciation for her contribution.
Discover Other Novels By Gordon Ryan
www.gordonryan.com
Triple Diamond
Threads of Honor
Love, Honor & Consequence
Upon the Isles of the Sea
Leashes of Dogwood Hollow
Gordon Ryan Sampler
The Callahans Series
The Callahans: The Complete Series
Destiny: The Callahans Book One
Conflict: The Callahans Book Two
Reunion: The Callahans Book Three
Prelude: The Callahans Book Four
Reprisal: The Callahans Book Five
Pug Connor Novels
Rebellion Trilogy
State of Rebellion
Uncivil Liberties
To Faithfully Execute
Blood & Treasure – (Summer 2012)
A Triple Thriller Fest
State of Rebellion
Falling Star
State of Siege
FALLING STAR
FALLING STAR
by
Philip Chen
Copyrighted © 2010 Philip M. Chen
2011 Revision
This book is based in small part on real events; any descriptions of such events are fictional. All characters in this work are fictitious and not based on any one person or persons. Any resemblance to real people, living or not, is absolutely coincidental.
Copyrighted © 2010 by Philip Chen
All Rights Reserved
(Including all reproduction rights
in any form whatsoever and in
all media that exists today or
may exist in the future,
in part or in whole.)
Published by
Eight East Lawn Strategic Consulting, LLC.
Contact
[email protected]
Cover Image © Tomo.Yun
(www.yunphoto.net/en/)
Foreword
“What if all of us in the world discovered that we were threatened by an outer — power from outer space — from another planet.”
The Honorable Ronald Reagan
President
United States of America
(Chicago, May 5, 1988)
Nature abhors a vacuum; particularly a political vacuum. The collapse of the Soviet empire has provoked such a vacuum.
The Russian nuclear missile threat has diminished. Sunken Soviet submarines lie on the ocean floor, slowly bleeding their radioactivity into the sea. The hastily contrived tomb of what was once Chernobyl crumbles away, creating homes for vermin and winged predators.
With the demise of the Russian nuclear missile force, the attention of American defense scientists and engineers suddenly turned away from Earth to the stars. We’re now told that asteroids and comets crashing through the heavens will wreak havoc on Earth, ending life as we know it.
Nemesis. Is the impending terrestrial collision with a five-mile wide asteroid flung into the Earth’s orbit by a dwarf star called Nemesis real, imagined, or a handy means of disguising something else? Something so horrific that even the ones standing watch would rather not comprehend. Why else would the defense establishment continue to pump the nation’s increasingly scarce financial resources into Star Wars technology ostensibly meant to counter a Soviet missile onslaught, now believed to be have been forever abated.
The juxtaposition of the death star Nemesis and the demise of the Soviet empire must be placed in its proper context. Certain disparate events from the last several decades need to be analyzed.
The United States Navy suddenly intensified its series of geomagnetic profiling flights in the late sixties. Using specially equipped Lockheed P-3B Orions, these flights paid special attention to the Caribbean Sea and the persistent rumors of magnetic anomalies in this region. Aviators reported that their compasses could not be depended upon when flying routes through this area. Some actually became disoriented, crashing into the sea.
About the same time, the United States government launched an extraordinary effort to probe the hydrosphere, the Earth’s vast and unforgiving oceans. It was called the “last frontier.” These studies were also concentrated in an area located off the coast of the United States in the Caribbean, just south of Bermuda.
Research funds poured forth as though someone had opened King Midas’ vaults. Then, just as quickly, the funding dried to a meager trickle. There continued to be rumors from time to time of secret projects. Occasionally, a scientific paper would disclose an event that suggested massive oceanographic research was still underway.
In the early seventies the public was surprised by the accidental unveiling of the Glomar Explorer. The Glomar Explorer was a mysterious ship, ostensibly designed to conduct deep ocean drilling. Its cover as a deep sea drilling platform was blown when newspapers published accounts of non-drilling equipment on its decks. When confronted, the American government retorted that the Glomar Explorer had a simple mission: retrieve sunken Russian submarines.
It seemed that the borders of the last frontier had shut for all time, but not without the news of the so-called “Morrow Affair,” news that was quickly disavowed. Even today the official word is that there was no Morrow Affair, that no anomalous magnetic signature was ever recorded in the Caribbean or anywhere else, for that matter, and that the Glomar Explorer was built only to salvage sunken Soviet submarines.
About the same time, NASA began several ambitious programs to explore deep space. Radio telescopes probed the heavens for errant radio signals. Called SETI, the program searched for intelligent life. Plans for Hubble were started and deep space probes were accelerated. It seemed the nation urgently needed to prove that life was unique to this planet. The event called Roswell continues to dominate national debate, despite the government’s best efforts to cover it up — it was after all “just a weather balloon.”
Attention has been given to the heavens not for just scientific reasons, but for military ones as well. The need for a manned space station became a critical component of the military mission — the need for “high ground.” The United States military concerned itself with attacks from putative Russian missiles fired from orbiting launch stations — an event leading to the development of Star Wars technology.
With the advent of the nineties the Russian military system collapsed, suddenly the Russian bear wasn’t so fearsome anymore. The demise of the ursine threat did not abate the need for this missile-intercepting technology. Despite the urgent need for deficit reduction and the fundamental redirection of all the world’s major economies, neither Star Wars nor Space Station Freedom has suffered deep cut-backs.
Nemesis now sits where Khrushchev once banged his shoe on the lectern wood.
1967: Firs
t Encounter
0900 Hours: Monday, March 20, 1967: Somewhere Over the Atlantic Ocean, West of Bermuda
Buffeted by surprisingly gusty winds for a brilliantly clear day, the propeller-driven Lockheed P-3B Orion bumped along just one hundred feet above the turbulent ocean surface. Creaking squeals of metal rubbing against metal bared the struggle of the aluminum machine; fighting to stay airborne against the unrelenting pounding and shifting forces of nature.
As if the low-pitched groans and twisted squeaks of the anguished metal structure weren’t enough, the harnessed men on the Orion were violently tossed about by the constantly changing winds of March.
Everyone, that is, except the airplane’s young pilot who, while struggling to maintain the Orion on a steady course, anticipated each bump of the Orion as though he were riding a bicycle along a rocky mountain path. The pilot wore a dress hat, crushed by headphones, in clear violation of rules. This look was just how Thomas “Buck” Morrow saw himself. Flight helmets were for sissies and fighter pilots, but then only because of the tight confines of a jet cockpit.
The controls of the airplane jerked and kicked in Lieutenant Commander Morrow’s hands as he constantly monitored his many-gauged instrumentation panel. The white numbers and pointers on flat black backgrounds jumbled together in a profusion of data points. He knew he had to fly by the instruments at this altitude since relying on his senses could be fatal, so he checked the gauges relentlessly, particularly the altimeter and the artificial horizon. All the while he kept a practiced eye on the endless expanse of white-capped, grayish blue water rushing headlong toward him. Observing him, one could easily be lulled into believing that the pilot was out for a Sunday drive. His practiced hand kept the course true, even as his gaze swept languorously over the instrument panel.