Jubilee Year

by Gerard O'Neill

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  Jubilee Year

  The Erelong Trilogy Book I

  Gerard O’Neill

  Gerard O’Neill Books

  To

  Mom and Dad

  Contents

  I. Action

  1. Hot Rock

  2. Red Sun

  3. Orphan Kids

  4. Dropouts

  5. Early Morning Run

  6. Waiting in the Rain

  7. Parents

  8. Showing Off

  9. No Coincidences in Astronomy

  10. Killer Riders

  11. About Time

  12. The Recruiters

  13. Mom, I’m Enlisting!

  14. Another Setting Sun

  II. Reaction

  15. Road Trip

  16. Taut

  17. Meeting the Masses

  18. Sanctuary in the Mall

  19. Arrested

  20. Lockup

  21. Keeping Secrets

  22. Changes

  23. A Good Memory

  24. Marsfield

  25. Burning Hill

  26. Tasmanian Devil

  27. Platinum Blonde

  28. Above the Sheep Dogs

  29. Jubilee Year

  30. Running Home

  31. Canberra Rescue

  32. Children

  33. People Power

  34. Things You Should Know

  35. The Sky is a Lie

  III. Synthesis

  36. Mobilizing the Troops

  37. Star Wind

  38. Fighting Doubt

  39. Anyone Home?

  40. Gasoline and a Dog

  41. Sky Pressure

  42. The Reclusive Orderly

  43. Bird Clouds

  44. On the Edge of the Woods

  45. Facing Nemesis

  46. The Shimmering

  47. Road to Wingari

  48. Graves and Caverns

  49. Toady Under Fire

  50. The Long Night

  51. The Squeeze Space

  52. Survivors

  53. Going Home

  54. Finders Keepers

  55. Nothing but Memories

  56. Short and Sharp

  Epilogue

  Thank You For Reading

  About the Author

  Part I

  Action

  1

  Hot Rock

  Australia, 2020

  It was another late afternoon with dense cloud cover and still plenty of heat about. The girl of twelve years tossed aside a lock of dusty red hair and kicked the soccer ball hard across the street.

  The tall, lean man with his thinning gray hair fluffed up in unkempt tufts, trapped the ball using a spritely foot plant that belied his aged appearance.

  “Keep it low, Summer,” he told his daughter. “Don't you break any more windows.”

  She flicked the sweat from her eyes. “I was testing how fast you are, Daddy.”

  “How did I do?” Pete Elliot asked.

  “All right, for an old feller,” she said, and she gave a shrug.

  “Hey, that’s a bit cheeky,” he exclaimed. He passed the ball to the tall youth standing on the centerline of the street.

  Storm was lost in a daydream. But he snapped out of it as the ball passed by to strike the neighbor’s fence. He scooped it up when it came rolling back and caught too the startled face of the old woman watering her garden. “Hello, Mrs. Sedgewick,” he said, giving her a cheerful smile.

  The owner of the fence scowled at him before she turned back to her flower beds.

  “Hey! You're not supposed to pick it up,” Summer said to Storm in a tone of aggrieved righteousness. “That's a rule, isn't it Daddy?”

  “Wait...” Pete said, holding up his hand.

  He spat a glob of phlegm in the gutter and turned back to her only to begin coughing once again.

  “Are you all right?” Summer asked as she walked up to him. “We can go inside for a break if you want,” she said, smiling to hide her concern. “Anyway, when Storm starts messing up the rules, it isn't fun anymore.”

  “I need to catch my breath,” he told her, and he turned away once more to spit.

  Summer glanced over her shoulder at her brother. She bounced the ball like a basketball player working an opponent as she considered her options. The corners of her mouth curled as she thought about the ways she could retaliate.

  “Smartass,” Storm said. He knew exactly what the look on Summer’s face meant. His sister never gave back twice as much as she received. She could be a formidable opponent at the best of times. And at the worst? Well, it was just a good thing he had a couple of years on her.

  Pete took a few measured breaths until the urge to cough eased off. He marveled at how his two kids were growing up so quickly. Tall for her age, Summer was leaving behind the freckled, chubby little girl of yesterday. He gazed at her with considerable affection. Then, he realized she was standing frozen to the spot, and staring up at the sky.

  “Hey, what's up, Sum?” Storm said when he saw the shock in his sister’s face. “I wasn't being mean...”

  Then he realized her eyes were not on him and he turned to look up.

  Something bright was moving quickly behind the cloud cover.

  A loud boom resonated overhead, rattling the windows of the houses in the street.

  Pete passed the palm of his hand over his sticky brow. It was about time the damned clouds emptied on the town. They needed the rain. He squinted up at the clouds, looking for a flash of lightning. Then he saw it too.

  Could it be a plane going down? One of those terrorist incidences the newspapers were always fancying might happen over Australia. No one was safe on a plane anymore. Never mind the terrorists. This year it had seemed like a couple of planes crashed somewhere around the world each week. And they were only the ones being reported. He'd heard that now it was military planes falling out of the sky, and there was a rumor that most of the incidences were not reported. Anyway, this couldn't be a plane. Apart from helicopters, the only air traffic he ever saw over Coona was the flying doctor.

  They stared up at the bright light, and when it burst through the cloud, they saw a teardrop of brilliant green. The fireball traveled over their heads with a low rumble, skimming the underside of the cloud ceiling. Taking its time. Impossibly slow.

  The soccer ball dropped from Summer's hands to roll into the gutter as she ran to her father.

  “That plane is going down, isn't it?”

  “Nah, that's moving too slow to be a plane,” Pete said, shaking his head. “And it's too big. Just look at the size of that thing!”

  They watched the bolloid disappear into the distance. The thick, brown trail uncoiling over the grove of eucalyptus that surrounded the local Boy Scout Hall. The smoke trail was hanging over them like an old-time contrail used to do back in the day.

  Colin Ashcroft's Rottweiler several houses down the block bayed mournfully. Every evening, come nightfall, Ashcroft and his guard dog would do the rounds of the town on security duty. Tonight would be no exception. From the tone of Ashcroft's shouts at the oversized mutt, he was mighty upset at having his afternoon sleep disturbed.

  The old lady leaned over her fence, still clutching the garden hose in her hand, oblivious to the water spraying the footpath. Her eyes were wide and her jaw worked like she might be chewing food, only she wasn’t. Finally, she found her voice. “Sweet Jesus, did ya see that UFO?”

  “No, Mrs. Sedgewick,” Storm called out. “That was a meteor.”

  “A what?” She cried out squintin
g at him from under a deeply furrowed brow. There was something about the boy that made her uncertain. He seemed to her to be a wild kid. Not that being a little wild was necessarily a bad thing in a child. No, it was something else. Anyway, one could never be too careful at her age.

  “A big hot rock!” Storm replied.

  The old lady peered up at the gray vault of sky stretching over the outback. “Aren't they s'posed to burn up?”

  Storm looked at the rope of smoke that was already beginning to disperse. Penny's dad would know the answer to Mrs. Sedgewick's question. He gave the old woman a reassuring smile. “It probably hit the ground somewhere in the outback.”

  “Dunno,” Mrs. Sedgewick replied, shaking her head. “It looked just like it kept going to me. I'm sure they're not s'posed to do that.” She aimed the spray at her garden and watched the torrent of water flood the dry earth.

  Pete reached through the open window of Stella's car to clap Storm on the shoulder. “Jeez, just look at you,” he said to Storm. “All that farm work is building you some respectable muscle.”

  “That's good to know,” Storm replied. “Because it's not making me rich. That's for sure.”

  Pete chuckled. “Give my regards to Stella.”

  Summer looked up at her father. “Awl, Dad! Give her your regards? That is just so worth passing on.”

  Pete fidgeted with the sill of the door. “I'm sure you can think of a better way to say it for me.”

  “You still love Mum, don't you, Daddy?” Summer asked him.

  “Course I do,” Pete replied. “You tell her so for me.” Storm started the engine.

  “Hey, Dad, remember that I'm bringing Penny over on Thursday night. You have to play nice. We are going steady—and all that.”

  “Tell me one thing, will ya?” Pete asked. “Why would anyone name their daughter after an old coin? It makes me think of all those sayings, like a penny for your thoughts, and penny wise and pound foolish. Or doesn’t anyone say those things anymore?”

  Summer gave a snort of derision. “Whoever says any of that, Daddy?”

  “Maybe no one does say that stuff anymore, but it's still a dumb choice of name if you ask me.”

  As Pete stepped back Storm began to edge the car away from the curb. “Yeah,” he replied. “I've never heard anyone come out with any of those sayings either, apart from you. So don't tease her about her name. Cause it won't be funny.”

  Pete gave him a wave. “Don't worry, son. I'll play nice. I'm looking forward to seeing Penny again.”

  He mussed up his daughter's hair. “You're developing a powerful kick,” he said to her. “You should be a striker in your soccer team this year.”

  She laughed in response. “Love you, Daddy,” Summer called through her open window.

  “Love ya too, Sum,” Pete said as he stepped back from the car.

  Pete stood on the curb and watched the car turn the corner. He pushed the twisted gate open and walked up the path to the house. He was suddenly struck by the thought that he had become a lonely old bastard. He paused at the front door to whistle for the dog, but Champ was nowhere to be seen.

  2

  Red Sun

  Ever since Pete had moved out of the family house, Storm found time spent with his dad was now all about fixing things. If it was not time spent handing things up the ladder to Pete as he tried to repair the hopelessly rusty corrugated-iron roof of the old homestead, it was passing a spanner to him under the hood of a car that would probably never run under its own power again.

  To stand a chance of success, a visit with Penny would have to focus on fun, and Storm knew Pete could always be distracted by a ball game.

  They had been playing in the street for almost an hour, hitting the tennis ball with Pete's cricket bat and the old man was feeling his age and beginning to get a little cranky. But, true to his word, he had not cracked one joke at Penny's expense. He took a wild swing and clipped the ball, sending it straight up.

  Penny dove forward and caught it cleanly.

  “No one coulda hit that,” Pete said unable to disguise his surprise that Penny had caught him out.

  “You may as well throw an underarm,” he said, glaring at Storm. “What kind of spin did you put on it?”

  “It's getting dark,” Storm replied. “You would've slammed it if you'd been wearing your glasses.”

  “You're right,” Pete said with a look of resignation. “Time to call it quits,” he said and walked down the drive beside his house, the bat swinging loosely from his hand. “Let me put this in the garage. Come around the back. There's something I want to show you both.”

  Penny sidled up against Storm. “He's been drinking, hasn't he? I can smell it on his breath.”

  Storm felt a wave of embarrassment. “Well, it's the end of the day, isn't it?” He muttered, suddenly feeling defensive.

  “Don't get mad, poppet. It explains why he kept missing the ball. That's all I meant.”

  Pete took a can of beer from the refrigerator for himself. He sipped from it while he made a pot of tea for Storm and Penny. The three of them settled on the front porch. Pete in his broken cane chair. Storm and Penny beside him on the bare boards.

  Pete patted the head of the black and white dog lying beside him. Champ was a mongrel, but Pete preferred to use the word Pooch to describe its multi-breed heritage. Champ was a cattle dog, and always prone to running off. When his son and daughter weren’t visiting him, Champ was Pete’s only companion.

  “Do you ever wonder why there's so much red light at this time of the day?” He hollered to them from inside the kitchen.

  “That would be the setting Sun,” Storm replied, gazing at his dad's vegetable garden.

  “Don't be a smartass,” Pete snapped, setting down on the deck a tray with the two cups of tea he had made and his half-finished can of beer. He consulted his watch. “Sunset isn't happening for more than a half an hour, yet we already have that intense red glow. And all that cloud lying across the horizon doesn't look right.”

  “What's wrong with the clouds?” Storm asked.

  “They are almost always there. Don't you notice?”

  “A red sky at night is the shepherd's delight, but a red sky in the morning is the shepherd's warning,” Penny chanted. She sipped the thick brew and screwed up her nose at the bitter taste.

  Storm gave her a slow clap, but Pete turned to her and nodded his head.

  “That old rhyme is handed down wisdom. It's a thumb guide. So the average bloke knows what weather to expect the next day. If all we ever got was a red sky every morning and every evening those words would never have made any damned sense.”

  “Guess not,” Storm muttered with a shrug.

  “You remember when we used to go to the beach in our old Holden Kingswood?” He asked Storm. “We did a trip to the coast for two summers in a row.”

  “Yeah, we did too,” Storm grinned at Pete. “They were good times.”

  “They were, weren't they?” Pete said, smiling with pleasure at the memory. “Do you remember how I used to tell you to watch the Sun melt into the sea? It looked that way back then. Now you are lucky to see the Sun so much as touch the horizon, what with all that chemtrail shit they spray over us.”

  Storm raised his eyebrows and leaned across Penny to gaze at Pete's watch.

  “Sheesh, Pen. Look at the time. We should be heading off.”

  Penny ignored the cue and didn't move an inch.

  “You're right Mr. Elliot. I remember going on camping trips with school friends. We would watch the sunset.”

  She turned to gaze at Storm. “Didn't you ever do that with your mates?”

  Storm shrugged as he got to his feet.

  “Are you still getting up at five-thirty for your runs?” Pete asked him.

  “I'm averaging two miles, three days a week. It's hard getting out of bed since I started fencing for old man Harris. He's working me like I'm one of his dogs.”

  “Well, next time you go for a ru
n, look to the West around forty minutes before sunrise.”

  “How long do I have to do that?”

  “For as long as it takes,” Pete replied.

  “And I'm looking for what exactly?”

  “Both east and west directions are interesting,” Pete replied, ignoring the specifics of the question. “You're looking for something you never saw before,” he said.

  “Like stars?” Storm asked.

  “Like lights,” Pete said. “After the Southern Cross has passed below the horizon.”

  “Jeez, Dad, find yourself a new hobby,” Storm grinned. “Anything, but staring up at the sky.”

  He turned the car around, looking back to wave farewell. There was no one standing at the gate. Pete had already gone inside the house.

  “I shouldn't have given him such a hard time,” he said.

  She gave his arm a rub and sighed. “Hey, don't whip yourself over it.”

  He shrugged her hand away. He was still a little annoyed that she brought up the subject of Pete's drinking. He had never talked to Penny about that before. It must have been her mother. Talking about stuff she ought to have been keeping to herself. She was Pete's doctor after all. He glanced at her and his irritation faded when he saw confusion written large on her face.