2041 Sanctuary (Let There Be Light) (2 page)

South Africa, the once proud nation, was no more. Scarred and mortally wounded, the whole southern African continent became shrouded in the blossoming dust cloud that would encompass the whole planet in its choking, suffocating embrace; a cloud that still persisted to that day, a cloud that had brought humanity to its knees and shook the fragility of civilisation to its core.

NASA astronaut, Pilot Commander Tyler Magnusson, stared at the footage on-screen, his thoughts melancholy. While he’d seen these pictures many times before he often found himself watching them again, the force of nature frightening to behold, and yet, equally, mesmeric in its raw power. The potent image of the meteor strike recorded the year before from his own spacecraft, USSS Orbiter One, was a stark reminder of the momentous times he was living through: an epic age of humanity where the culmination of man’s endeavour pitted itself against the powers of the solar system and beyond.

It seemed strange to Tyler that only humans bore the full knowledge of what transpired in this era of terrible, apocalyptic transition, bearing witness as the dominant sentient race of the time to the upheaval brought from the stars. The weight of responsibility for the entire planet and every living thing on it was in Homo sapiens’ hands. The burden couldn’t be greater.

Despite the tumultuous nature of events, as day came after night and dawn reversed dusk, time marched ever onwards, waiting for no one and no thing. The inevitable decay of the world ticked on, animals breathing, breeding, dying; plants growing, multiplying, rotting. It is a curious paradox that all living things must die. What is the point, the purpose, the grand plan of existence? Knowledge gained, darkness fought and light sought, hard-earned wisdom lost to the abyss of death. The fact that we humans appear to be the only creatures on the planet that are fully aware of our own mortality – and not just our own, but that of those we hold dear, too – seems a cruel twist of fate. Or perhaps it is just an evolutionary curse gifted us by our forebears, a trade-off for a so-called superior intellect. Some view this machination of chance, intelligent design or divine provenance as an inevitability that fuels their motivation to live life to the full, fearing little in their quest to savour its sweetest pleasures and fully comprehending their tenuous hold on existence, seeing it as a gift on loan rather than a permanent possession. Others let this burden of knowledge smother and cripple them with dread, stifling their voice and actions beyond comprehension until their days, even their entire lives, are without meaning or direction, except as a dire warning to those who seek to do otherwise. And yet who is to judge what is meaningless and what is not? Everything has purpose, great or small; the sad and perhaps frightening thing is, in some cases, that purpose might not be our own.

Tyler heaved a sigh as the final vision of the great oceans’ deep blues, from horizon to curved horizon, succumbed to the veil of black ash and pulverised stone, hiding the blessed planet we all call home from view. Flicking a switch he turned off the display and returned his attention to his surroundings. The United States Space Station, USSS Archimedes, continued to drift through the silent vacuum of space, its orbit uninterrupted by the passage of time and the embattled Earth that continued its own journey through the heavens encased in its thick, undulating cloak of ejected matter from the 2040 meteorite impact.

‘Commander?’

Tyler looked to his colleague, Sandy Turner, the spacewalk specialist and station pilot.

‘Sir,’ she said, ‘the final Sabre space-aircraft has arrived from the surface. They’re requesting your presence on board the ISS.’

‘Are the GMRC’s ships still docked?’

Sandy tapped a button to produce a holographic image of the International Space Station, to which the Archimedes was attached. ‘They are.’

Tyler’s expression grew grim. The GMRC, the Global Meteor Response Council – just the name made him angry. When the first asteroid destined for Earth had been discovered in 2011, misinformation calmed the world’s populace about its destructive potential. But when six more asteroids were found to be following in AG5’s wake, any one of which had the capability to annihilate the planet’s fragile ecosystems, the cover up expanded and it was decided a unified response was needed if humanity was to live on. So, in 2017, instigated by the world’s leading nations to combat the unprecedented threat, the Global Meteor Response Council was born, and the GMRC, as it became known, was tasked with the most important of missions: to protect and preserve humanity, civilisation and all life on Earth. And with that remit it had embedded itself into the very governments that had created it. And year on year the GMRC’s influence had grown until it answered only to itself, a global organisation of unrivalled power and reach that bent all of the world’s nations to its will, regardless of their size or strength.

In 2022, the GMRC cemented its position of authority by advising the United Nations to verify the existence of the first asteroid to the masses, including the full disclosure of how its impact in 2040 would devastate the Earth. This single act allowed the GMRC to operate in public and to unify humanity’s purpose, while in secret it plotted to combat the larger threat to come in 2042 and 2045, when the final asteroids would arrive. With the majority of the planet’s populace believing only one asteroid was on a collision course with Earth, all but the paranoid could have guessed at the preparations being made behind the GMRC’s public façade. Chief amongst the GMRC’s plans was the Space Programme and its larger cousin, the Subterranean Programme, the latter of the two acting as a failsafe in the event the former was unable to prevent the predicted impacts.

And since its inception all those years ago, the GMRC was everywhere, sticking its nose in where it didn’t belong and interfering with each country’s efforts to save the planet like an overbearing parent that refused to take no for an answer. And where that influence was felt the most was amongst the civilian agencies who worked in space, with NASA shouldering the greatest burden of them all.

‘Shall I tell them you’re on your way?’ Sandy said, breaking Tyler’s reverie.

He took one last look around to make sure everything was in order. Satisfied, he nodded and left her alone on the control deck as he moved aft towards the umbilical passage that connected Archimedes to the enormous bulk of the International Space Station, which in turn was connected to the slightly smaller Chinese Space Station, Jiùshìzhǔ, and its sibling, the European Space Station, Guardian. In current climes the day for firsts had almost become a regular occurrence, but the fact that the four largest space vehicles in history had moored up to one another like a celestial gathering of metallic angels was indeed a momentous occasion. With their solar panels arching out like feathered wings the
Three Sisters
, as they were called, encircled the parental form of the aging International Space Station. A procession of cutting-edge technology tethered to one another in perpetuity until the powers-that-be deemed it fit for them to go their separate ways once more.

Tyler, with the aid of magnetic boots, strode through the partial gravity generated on Archimedes, the sound of metal ringing on metal echoing at his passing. Reaching the end of a corridor, he switched off his footwear’s mechanism and floated up through a hatch to re-emerge on the next level. With a deftness born of a career in space, Tyler pushed against a bulkhead to re-orientate to a new vertical and then re-engaged the mag-boots, which secured him to another walkway.

Spiralling outwards from Archimedes’ interior, Tyler found himself moving past the laboratory complex, which had been taken over by the GMRC’s nefarious R&D Division at the behest of the United States military and the all powerful GMRC Directorate, the Global Meteor Response Council’s controlling division. Unusually no guards were placed at the entrance to the lab modules and Tyler slowed and then stopped. The surrounding corridors, which stretched off in all directions, were eerily empty.

With the oppressive silence setting his senses alight, Tyler felt a compulsion to enter the highly restricted area, the same area which had caused so much trauma to the Archimedes crew ever since the GMRC’s R&D Division had brought on board a sinister experiment going by the name of Project Ares. With many of his colleagues still in quarantine on the surface due to exposure to this blackest of scientific projects, Tyler knew the risks involved. Following the recent disclosure by NASA’s Mission Command at Houston that many of those under medical supervision had taken a turn for the worse, with two in critical condition, and the sudden death of his captain, Bo Heidfield, who’d all but died in his arms only a handful of weeks before, the stakes were high; but Tyler also knew anything he could learn about Project Ares might aid his comrades, who now fought for their lives on the surface hundreds of miles below.

Steeling himself, he entered an override sequence in the nearby wall console. A six digit number appeared before a small square lit up in neon green to the side of the closed windowless doors. He pressed the button and the obstructions swished open with a gust of air that brought with it a faint whiff of chemicals. Surprised he’d been able to circumvent the security so easily, despite the lack of burly armed GMRC guards, Tyler edged forward, his eyes scouring anything and everything for signs of occupation, information and … danger.

He wasn’t sure what would happen to him if he was caught snooping around; probably a dressing down by his superiors at the GMRC’s instigation. Worst case, he’d be reassigned to a desk job back on the surface to await evacuation with his family to the United States Subterranean Base located beneath Colorado and New Mexico, also known as USSB Steadfast.
Although
, he thought,
if the Space Programme played its part they might not need the subterranean bases at all, or at least for a much shorter timeframe than envisaged
. Tyler wondered what life would be like in the underground complex he was to call home, maybe for the rest of his days, before he forced himself to concentrate on the task at hand. Opening another door, the odour of formaldehyde washed over him, stealing his breath away and making his eyes water. Under reflex he gasped for air, setting the back of his throat afire and his head to throbbing. Holding his breath, Tyler moved to another wall console and fired up the extractor fans. The fumes in the room dissipated and his breathing eased.

Remaining alert, he moved forward again and into a room containing an array of windows overlooking a section of the ISS and the Earth beyond.

A strange noise behind made Tyler spin round.

Eyes wide, his attention homed in on a plastic sheet which fluttered in the breeze generated by the fans that continued to whir away in the background. Sighing, he returned his scrutiny to the area before him, an area in which he’d witnessed the curiosity that the GMRC scientists had laboured over day and night. The image of the
object
popped unbidden into his mind’s eye and he shuddered in remembrance. The
monstrosity
had captivated both his and his captain’s unnerved focus, its plasma field continuously contorting into abstract forms and creating ghost-like faces abhorrent to behold. The thing moved as if alive, almost as if it were aware of those around it who sought its secrets. And it was the audio stream Tyler had accessed to accompany this oddest of visions that had ultimately killed Bo Heidfield, sending his commanding officer into a violent and irreconcilable fit. Medics had rushed to the scene but failed to resuscitate his friend. The GMRC had questioned him to the nth degree about the incident, although for reasons unknown to Tyler they had neglected to initiate any grievance against him for trying to spy on their activities. It had helped that he’d skirted over the fact that he’d actually seen the abomination they harboured in the laboratory complex, only admitting to hearing the sound it had produced. Which was just as well, or else his personal investigation into the matter would have ended before it had even begun.

Grieving for his dead captain, and after rigorous screening and short term quarantine by the GMRC, Tyler had taken some compulsory R&R on the surface under orders from NASA’s top brass. Why he’d been unaffected by Ares Tyler didn’t know, and neither, it seemed, did anyone else.

The only reason he found himself back at work so soon was the same reason all four of the world’s largest space stations were now rafted together, and why his presence had been requested on the ISS. Remembering why he’d been passing by the lab complex in the first place, Tyler prepared to leave, but a mark on the tiled flooring made him pause. Bending down, he ran his fingers over the outline of a five-sided shape that wasn’t dirt or any other surface mark, but an outline that had raised the surface of the floor itself. It was almost as if the ceramic composite had melted, or had been drawn upwards somehow.

‘Can I help you, Commander?’

Tyler snatched his hand away from its examination and glanced round. A woman dressed in grey GMRC coveralls and matching jacket stood in the doorway. Tyler knew her as one Ms Sylvia Lindegaard, the person responsible for the GMRC’s integration on Archimedes, and she looked less than impressed by his being there.

‘This area hasn’t been properly vetted for NASA personnel,’ she said, her expression as severe as her tone. ‘How did you get in here?’

Tyler, against his better nature, kept his face neutral. ‘As Archimedes’ ranking officer I wanted to make sure your scientists hadn’t compromised my crew’s safety. Considering the number who’ve already suffered at the hands of your beloved Project Ares I think that was a reasonable motivation to circumvent your security codes, don’t you?’

‘I’m sorry about the passing of your captain, Commander.’

Tyler could hear the lack of compassion behind the words and the anger he’d been hiding flitted across his face.

‘However,’ she continued, ‘this section of the ship is still off limits for
all
NASA personnel and you’d do well to remember it.’