The Arrival

By Terrence Aubrey

The planet that the aeonian race called Blue was in trouble, it was fast approaching a critical period within the planets painfully slow evolution.
Who were the Aeonian’s? The inhabitants of Aeon were an ancient race. They had enjoyed many, many millenniums of peaceful stability and more importantly, had found an environmentally balanced way to prosper and thrive upon their planet.
Over a period of thousands of years they discovered that they were unique within their known universe. For that reason they vowed to help other civilizations overcome what they had identified as the critical period within all the evolution that all civilizations seemed to pass through.
The planet they named blue was many millions of light years from Aeon and not known by that name by its inhabitants, no they called it planet earth. What were the dangers facing the planet Blue, they were in truth myriad. As the Aeonian’s had now seen on countless occasions. The inhabitants of planet blue had totally disregarded the wellbeing of the very planet upon which they existed and depended.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Terrence Aubrey
• Release date: Nov 4, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301042609

Terrence Aubrey

Terrence Aubrey was born in Bristol, England, the only son of a Ballet dancer mother and composer father. Rebellious of nature and from an early age, he abandoned his education at the earliest possible moment, fifteen. He showed no inclination of following in the artistic footsteps of his parents during his formative years. Preferring a self enlightening process, he set off upon an adventure that led him to experiment with understanding the mind and the development of self awareness. During that period he enjoyed extensive World travel across the countries of Europe, the America’s, north and south and the FSU. He found those travels, enriching, mind opening and educational and in equal measure. He discovered both a passion and love of writing by chance, while establishing a website. It was a website than required a lot of varied content. That ultimately led him to the writing of many articles upon diverse subjects. That in turn led to him creating a blog. The leap from blogging to writing full length novels was a gradual process. Many of his novels reflect his environmental concern for the way we, the human race have evolved and the consequences that path has led us towards. Whilst many of his novels are dramatic, even apocalyptic, they also show a way forward. Whether you believe that way to be better or worse than the current status quo is for you to decide. Terrence Aubrey currently lives on a farm in southern Spain and cultivates Avocados. He has four sons, three dogs and writes. He has now published several works of fiction and they can be found on Smashwords.

Book preview

About the Author

Terrence Aubrey was born in Bristol, England, the only son of a Ballet dancer mother and composer father. Rebellious of nature and from an early age, he abandoned his education at the earliest possible moment, fifteen. He showed no inclination of following in the artistic footsteps of his parents during his formative years.

Preferring a self enlightening process, he set off upon an adventure that led him to experiment with understanding the mind and the development of self awareness. During that period he enjoyed extensive World travel across the countries of Europe, the America’s, north and south and the FSU. He found those travels, enriching, mind opening and educational and in equal measure.

He discovered both a passion and love of writing by chance, while establishing a blog site. Through writing and publishing a host of blogs upon topical World issues his passion for writing grew. His primary passion was environmental and mankind’s seemingly total disregard for the very planet we each depend upon. The leap from blogging to writing full length novels was a gradual process.

The majority of his novels reflect his environmental concern for the way we, the human race have chosen to live and the consequences that path has led us towards. Whilst many of his novels are dramatic, even apocalyptic, they also show a way forward. Whether you believe that way to be better or worse than the current status quo is for you to decide. Terrence Aubrey currently lives on a farm in southern Spain and cultivates Avocados. He has four sons, three dogs, two ex wives and writes. He has now published several works of fiction and they can be found on all of the best online eBook publishers.

Prologue

Is mankind, the human race, capable of halting, or even slowing its ever increasing ruination of the very planet it inhabits? There is, at the moment, no indication that the required and dramatic changes of lifestyle needed, will come about, at least not in time.

What if a civilization had successfully overcome the very problems that the Human Race was currently facing? What if that super advanced race took it upon themselves to help civilizations such as the human race? This is a tale of just such an advanced race, as they try to prevent self inflicted Armageddon upon planet earth.

The planet that the aeonian race called Blue was in trouble, it was fast approaching a critical period within the planets painfully slow evolution.

Who were the Aeonian’s? The inhabitants of Aeon were an ancient race. They had enjoyed many, many millenniums of peaceful stability and more importantly, had found an environmentally balanced way to prosper and thrive upon their planet.

Over a period of thousands of years they discovered that they were unique within their known universe. For that reason they vowed to help other civilizations overcome what they had identified as the critical period within the evolution that all civilizations seemed to pass through.

The planet they named blue was many millions of light years from Aeon and not known by that name by its inhabitants, no they called it planet earth. What were the dangers facing the planet Blue, they were in truth myriad. As the Aeonian’s had now seen on countless occasions. The inhabitants of planet blue had totally disregarded the wellbeing of the very planet upon which they existed and depended.

The planet Blue was not unique in that respect and a large fleet was sent forth to offer advice, help and assistance. Commander Neon of the starship Hope 4 was tasked to the planet Blue. His ship was one of a taskforce of twenty. As with each of the Commanders of the fleet codenamed Hope, he was tasked to offer counsel and advice based upon their thousands of years of peaceful and environmentally balanced civilization.

Chapter one

In the beginning

Aeon was one of twenty planets orbiting their Sun. That Sun was some six million light years from planet earth. It would take many, many millenniums of evolution and technical advancement, before Aeon’s Sun would be seen from that planet.

At around the time that the dinosaurs were dying out as a species upon planet earth, the Aeonian’s were beginning to evolve as a race. They were slowly mastering farming and the growing of crops to augment hunting and fishing. Within a further thousand years they were living within sizable communities and within sturdy and well built homes and shelters. They were not alone, the inhabitants of their two sister planets, Eon and Nor were also making those same tentative steps.

The Aeonian’s were an ancient and unique civilisation in many respects, but their most singular and greatest achievement was to have survived their evolutionary process. They had through care and determination found a balance between their technological advances and safeguarding their World. In earth years they had now enjoyed various forms of civilization for thirty thousand years.

Whilst the Planet Aeon was one of cluster of twenty planets orbiting their Sun, it was the only one supporting any form of life. It had not always been that way. Billions of years earlier, life had begun its slow evolutionary journey on four of its neighboring planets. Of those five planets, two had suffered catastrophic and life exterminating natural disasters. Life upon the remaining three continued its slow crawl through the millenniums of evolution. The pace of evolution upon all three planets was, more or less equal, given a millennium or two either way. Aeon was not exceptional in its evolutionary process and followed much the same path as its neighbors. Aeon’s distinction lay, at that time, far into the future…

Chapter two

Aeon’s evolution

Aeon had been blessed, for no discernable reason the inhabitants of the planet, the Aeonian’s had developed in a balanced way, both spiritually and technologically. Their evolutionary development had not been without setbacks. The moment that reading and writing had become common place they retrospectively termed year zero. Towards the end of their second millennium of civilization a small, but powerful minority had discovered untold potential to increase their wellbeing and influence. They began to extract all manner of minerals and precious metals from beneath the planet’s surface.

At around the same time their sister planets, Nor, closer to their sun and Eon, further away, had evolved differently. They had evolved into winner takes all societies and harshly so. A small minority upon of both of these planets’s effectively controlled and determined the lives of their populations.

In order to protect their good fortune, the leaders of Nor began to develop their military strength. That fact soon became known to the leaders of both Aeon and Eon. How the leaders of the two planets reacted was quite different. A minority, but albeit powerful group upon Aeon wanted to begin a massive military upgrade. They were over ridden by a more passive majority. Instead they developed a planetary defensive shield. They would render offensive weapons aimed at them, harmless and saw no reason to develop offensive weapons of their own. Unknown to them at the time, it would enable them to flourish and evolve as a race.

There followed a bitter and devastating war between the peoples of Nor and Eon. It lasted three months, Aeon only spared because it was effectively impregnable. Nor, arguably won the war, but only hypothetically, both planets had been rendered virtually uninhabitable.

That war and the ultimate mutual destruction of their sister planets was to prove a turning point for the inhabitants of Aeon. Across the planet the main topic of conversation for years to come revolved around the ultimately pointless war that they had witnessed. How could they ensure that they did not suffer a similar fate at some point in their future? In many respects Aeon, was in fact blessed. At that crucial period within their evolution they had been fortunate in having a generation of wise, learned and selfless people. Slowly they began to come to prominence across the planet and they shared one common observation. That the forms of government currently practiced across Aeon were wrong and that their leaders were suspect in their motivation.

It was more from good fortune than good intentions, that Aeon was spared the fate of its sister planets. A groundswell began to evolve, could they truly trust in leaders motivated by the accumulation of wealth and power? The overwhelming consensus was no, there must be a better way. Whilst this groundswell of public opinion swept the planet their wise leaders of the day cautioned both calm and secrecy.

The various leaders of Aeon had no idea of their growing unpopularity, as they led their privileged lives effectively isolated from their people. A strategy was quietly coordinated across Aeon. In truth very few of the individuals coordinating the silent uprising either sought, nor wanted positions of leadership. For the people of Aeon, that only added to their appeal and attraction.

After several secret meetings between the several hundred leaders of this quiet revolution, they agreed that they would form a provisional planetary wide government. The provisional leaders of the silent uprising agreed to take positions of leadership of the uprising upon the condition; that they would serve only a term of three months. Once the three months had passed, new elections would be held, across the entire planet.

All across the planet of Aeon well organized and coordinated groups formed. A time and a date was agreed. Upon that day each of the current leaders would be visited, arrested and cast from power.

The process was an overwhelming success. Only 3 Aeonian’s were to lose their lives that day, that only due to the fact that two of the ousted leaders employed armed guards. The profiteers, the materially besotted, were cast from power, imprisoned and marginalized.

It was in their year of two thousand, two hundred and sixty; that the Aeonian’s found a way to safely evolve and advance safely. Yes the inhabitants of Aeon needed the capabilities and dynamic ambition of their ousted leaders, but not at any price.

A ruling counsel for the entire planet was established, it was made up of the reluctant leaders that had led the revolution.

They then devoted weeks and months to perfecting and devising the fairest and wisest form of government for their planet. The people would within each zone select their leaders, or guides, as they became known, but only for a period of thirty hours, the span of the aeonian day. Once that thirty hour period had passed the leaders could be either re-selected, or de-selected.

As their new system evolved and matured it was decided that the lack of a desire to vote would be taken as a sign of approval for a continuation for those in power. It was in part that aspect of their constitution that kept the leaders in check. The fact was that were the populace to become dissatisfied with their stewardship of Aeon, they would simply be kicked out of Office.

That was one of the key elements of Aeon’s constitution that kept its leaders in check. It could happen in ten days or ten years. It became Aeon’s savior; each step they took from that moment on was for the benefit and continuance of the inhabitants of Aeon as a whole.

Fifty years after the war between Nor and Eon, Aeon continued to help the pitifully few survivors to survive. It was in fact hopeless, both planets poisoned for a millennium or more. That battle, that ultimately pointless conflict became a turning point for the people of Aeon. It was to not only guarantee their survival, but shape their future. Their society evolved into a balanced, ecologically based system of equality. Yes, there were some a little more equal than others, but not excessively so.

The Aeonian’s continued to develop technologically and in accordance with their determination to protect and sustain their beautiful planet. There were effectively two large land masses upon Aeon separated by two interconnecting oceans that ringed their World. The Oceans were big, but not overly so, Aeon was a planet dominated by its two huge land masses. It was also a planet blessed with an ideal climate for vegetation and nature.

From Space the planet appeared predominately green, even its north and south poles. Due to Aeon’s lush nature it was also rich in wildlife and that too was respected and protected. Huge areas, sometimes tens of thousands of square miles, were fenced. The Aeonian’s, by common consent would not set foot within these areas of sanctuary.

Through this simple expediency the wildlife upon Aeonia not only survived, but flourished. Farming and agriculture was possible practically anywhere on the planet, but was concentrated in areas not blanketed in forest. They had learnt at an early age the importance of their forests and they too were protected. Whilst trees were felled for a variety of usages, replanting maintained the balance.

By the end of their third millennium the Aeonian’s had developed the means to explore space. Initially they explored only within their own solar system, but they continued to push at the frontiers of their capability.

The breakthrough came in their year five thousand, four hundred and ten; they discovered the means to travel at the speed of light. That discovery opened up the Universe, to the Aeonian’s, or at least a substantially greater part of it. With the entrenched history of their now dead sister planets deeply engraved upon their collective consciousness they began to look for life elsewhere.

Together with their rapidly developing means of travelling through space they also developed the means of looking into space. Many years earlier and upon one of their mountain ranges they had built telescopes, huge telescopes. The first had been constructed on mount Pondo shortly after the war between Nor and Eon and had been updated on a regular basis ever since. By the year six thousand the Aeonian’s had also developed several powerful space based telescopes, some of these they positioned in deep space.

The Aeonian’s never forgot the day that perhaps saved them; it was a day that they celebrated every year across the entire planet. With that momentous day, the day of Aeon’s turning point in mind, they began building up a library of life supporting planets. The list was not selective and was irrespective of the planets status within the evolutionary ladder of development, but it was formidable.

From afar the Aeonian’s monitored the evolutionary progress upon these life supporting planets studiously. As the Aeonian’s successfully entered their tenth millennium they were aware of a pattern emerging. Many of the life supporting planets under observation seemed to self destruct upon reaching a certain level of technological advancement. The reasons for the demise of these civilizations were myriad. Some of the planets became bogged down in internal and ultimately self destructive wars. Other planets, in their rush for advancement, effectively destroyed their own eco systems, rendering their planets uninhabitable. The populations upon other planets literally starved to death, in their reckless drive to improve their way of life, they changed their climates. For the Aeonian’s the latter was the most painful to watch, as the ever decreasing populations fought the odds to survive, inevitably without success.

During their twelfth millennium the Aeonian’s began to realize that they were seemingly unique, at least within the areas of the Universe they were able to track. It seemed that their formula for both their collective survival and the well being of their planet was rare, rare indeed. A debate began upon Aeonia, a debate that continued over centuries. By the year thirteen thousand two hundred and sixty, a consensus was reached, they would try to share their knowledge, with these evolving civilizations.

The aeonian’s were a cautious and methodical race and had created a file of each of the evolving civilizations they were monitoring. By their year fourteen thousand, two hundred and sixty they had catalogued five hundred and seventy six planets within varying stages of evolution within their known universe. As they advanced and were able to probe deeper into the Universe they expected that number to increase.

The aeonian’s had detected a common denominator amongst the civilizations that self destructed, a period of time which they highlighted in red. So far none of the planets under observation had successfully survived that period. The danger period for these civilizations, was on an evolutionary scale, tiny and the aeonian’s again realized their own good fortune to have survived that same period within their own history.

The evolutionary process was slow, very slow, it was a common factor throughout the Universe, they had come to realize. Another common factor they had observed was that each of these races, civilizations, would reach a point where suddenly the evolutionary process would speed up and dramatically so. This was the danger period and a period that to date, none of the civilizations that they had been monitoring had survived.

By the time that the aeonian race was enjoying their 26th Millennium, they had developed a fleet of massive space craft. Crucially these ships were totally self supporting and could exist in deep space indefinitely.

Twenty of these intergalactic space ships, manned by volunteers were prepared for indefinite voyages. They would be distributed across their known universe. The task of each of these inter Galactic ships was to carefully monitor the collection of known life supporting planets within their preordained area.

The Aeonian’s had effectively taken upon themselves the role of Universal Guardians, at least in their known corner of the Universe.

The Star ship named Hope four was monitoring a total of five widely dispersed planets. The five planets under the observation of the star ship, Hope 4 were at different stages of evolution. They had each been named, a name determined by its appearance from space. Hope four was monitoring Ocean, a planet of huge oceans and little landmass and Purple a planet dominated by purplish undergrowth and rock. Some distance from those planets was one they named Sand and the other Blue. Still further away was Grey, a planet dominated by mountains, but this planet was, as yet, the least evolved of the five planets. The other three planets were some hundreds of years from their period of danger, but Ocean was already in it. It was Ocean to which they devoted their initial attention.

The population of Ocean was relatively small, but given their limited land mass the Islands were densely populated and therein lay their problem. They had also developed weapons of nuclear capability and were on the cusp of war. Two of the Islands were substantially larger than the others and they were the source of the conflict. Of the twenty star ships Hope four had the unwelcome fortune to be the first to try to prevent Armageddon upon Ocean. They drew closer, but not too close and began bombarding the planet with messages, messages of warning and of peace. Only they succeeded in diverting the attention of the in-combatants. Two nuclear armed rockets were soon hurtling towards them from the two biggest Islands; they activated their shields and were in no danger.

To the horror of the crew of Hope four, almost immediately more rockets were seen rising beneath them. These rockets were not aimed at Hope four, but at each other. They watched helplessly as the two Islands effectively annihilated each other. The Officers and crew of Hope four were devastated, they had failed in their first mission. This information was shared amongst the other Star Ships and also beamed back to Aeon.

The failure of their first rescue effort caused a rethink on Aeon, together with the realization that to be effective, they would need to intercede sooner.

The decision was taken to help and counsel the Worlds they were monitoring sooner. The moment that nuclear weapon technology was within grasp would be the moment to approach these planets. The only reason that they would leave it that late was for reasons of practicality. They had already tried to influence less evolved civilizations and that too had failed the inhabitants not yet ready for visitors from outer space.

No, the balance was a fine one and the timing had to be just right. For Star ship Hope four, the planet blue would be next. They had calculated a wait of three hundred years, before this planet would be anywhere near the danger zone.

At the insistence of the head of their Diplomats, Neon, they programmed their sleeping pods to two hundred and eighty years, allowing themselves a safety net of twenty years. The ship was set on auto, programmed to take up an orbit two million miles from Blue. It was decided that crucial crew members would be awakened three days before their comrades and place Hope Four in a new orbit, but thousands of miles from the planet.

The entire crew returned to their sleep pods and once awakened, would have aged minutes at most.

Chapter three

The rescue missions begin

The planet that the Aeonian’s had named Blue had been given a different name by its inhabitants, they called it Earth. Towards the end of the planets twentieth century, Blue, or Earth was advancing ever more rapidly through its danger period. As the crew of Hope four orbited timelessly above them in sleep mode, they were blissfully unaware that time was fast running out for planet Blue.

What had the inhabitants of Blue done wrong, where had they taken the wrong turn? Arguably, hundreds of years earlier, unlike the inhabitants of Aeon the inhabitants of Blue had developed no respect or understanding for the delicate interdependency of life upon their planet. Blue was in fact a worst case scenario of a species that had evolved in an unbalanced way and dangerously so.

For hundreds of years they had been thoughtlessly ripping up their trees and by the million. They had used them to build primitive war ships. The widely dispersed countries of Blue were constantly at war with each other, why? Simply for material gain, the more advanced countries thinking nothing of attacking and stealing from their less developed neighbors. The stronger and more advanced countries had in fact assumed, through their military superiority, the right to take whatever they wanted. It could be argued that Blue had evolved into a planet of bullies, the strong taking whatever they wanted from the weakest.

These delusions would prove to be a disaster, a disaster that would only later be realized. The stronger countries were completely unmindful of the damage they were causing; blissfully unaware of the unbalanced way in which they had they evolved. Only matter mattered and the more the better and ironically Gold, an attractive, but not desperately useful metal, was valued above all else.

Entire civilizations, ancient civilizations that had evolved in a more balanced form, were destroyed and wiped out as inconsequential. The destruction and loss of these civilizations was often due to the relentless quest to steal and obtain more of this precious golden metal.

The Conquistadors, the strong and mighty did not see it that way at all. Their philosophy was simple, might was right and they were rich in might.

The inhabitants of Blue, or at least some of them, did awaken to the harm they were causing to their World, but only at the eleventh hour. It could be argued that even then it was only when the effects of their careless and thoughtless disregard for their planets wellbeing, became impossible to ignore.

One of Blue’s many great errors, was in effectively exterminating those tribes of people less materially evolved. Why should this have been such a great loss? It was simply because many of these tribes understood the delicate balance upon Blue and the inter-connectivity of its eco systems.

This was something that at the time the aggressive countries neither knew, nor cared about. Their loss would only be realized later, much, much later.

Towards the end of Blue’s twentieth century, the effects of the planets unbalanced evolution were becoming increasingly clear. The two strongest countries militarily, had developed and stockpiled absurd numbers of nuclear weapons, enough to destroy the planet many times over. Equally, the reckless rush towards material betterment had practically destroyed the planets eco systems.

The weather patterns began to change and dramatically so. Violent storms, droughts, hurricanes and tornadoes were becoming the norm. An ever and increasingly vocal minority was warning of the dangers and to some extent the planets leaders were listening, but Blue suffered a problem, a big problem. Materialism and the acquisition of more worldly goods remained the prime motivational force.

Chapter four

The year two thousand and thirty earth years, NASA Florida

John come and look at this, Elizabeth Saunders asked her colleague. Elizabeth Saunders was twenty eight and a rising star at NASA. Her job was to devote herself to gazing the heavens and had seen something that should not be there. John Wright joined her at her consol. John Wright was the head of her department and had been at NASA for eleven years. Both he and Elisabeth Saunders were single and rumors of a romance between them were rife. If it was in fact true, they were both incredibly discreet, at least during working hours. Elisabeth pointed to the screen and the object, then, flashed back to the same area of space four hours earlier, the object was not there! John scratched his head, he didn’t like mysteries. John called his superior, Michael Blake; he joined them five minutes later.

We’ll recalibrate the Hubble, see if we can track it, whatever it is, He told them. In truth it could be anything, a large asteroid that had been knocked into a new orbit, or any one of a number of things. The staff at NASA was paid to know what was happening beyond planet earth. The fact that a possible asteroid had suddenly appeared within nearby space was troubling, why had they not spotted it earlier? John Wright, together with Elizabeth Saunders, set to recalibrating the orbiting Hubble telescope, sharing a sense of puzzlement.

NASA had now enjoyed the capabilities of the Hubble satellite for a number of years. The Hubble had in fact opened up hitherto unknown areas of the Universe, areas until recently unknown and unseen. NASA now had a further two orbiting and technologically evolved satellites with even more powerful telescopes, but John Wright had a soft spot for the Hubble. The Hubble based telescopic capability, had, at a stroke magnified many times over, their ability to observe space.

Fancy a beer? John asked Elisabeth at the end of their shift. Liz was game, they did occasionally spend time together in Baton Rouge, where they both had apartments, hence the rumors of a budding romance. Elizabeth and John did in fact share a mutual attraction. While Elizabeth was aware of John’s interest, the reverse was not the case.

John, four years her senior was fit, good looking, in an academic kind of a way and wore his brown hair unfashionably long, it suited him. It was an attraction that they each hid, Elizabeth more successfully than her work colleague.

John had found Elizabeth Saunders attractive from the moment she joined his department, but three months later, was close to giving up on her.

She was quite tall at five foot ten but at Johns six foot that was just fine. She was slim, toned, fit and her dark brown hair, long and wavy, matched her eye color.

Elizabeth Saunders was one of America’s most accomplished academics within her chosen field. In fact all of those working at the NASA were amongst the best within their areas of expertise and paid accordingly. Elizabeth Saunders was also outgoing, at least away from her work station and quietly self confident. No John liked her a lot, but had been making tortuously slow progress in trying to get to know her better. Elizabeth Saunders more often than not refused his invitations, but seemed a little more open to him this day, John thought, as they made their way to his open top Wrangler jeep. Perhaps the sudden appearance of whatever had mysteriously and suddenly arrived was the reason? If so, that suited John just fine.

They chose a quiet corner table in Strikers, a bar John often frequented and she removed