The Fallen Angel

By K Reinoehl-Parton

An archeologist who wants to solve the mystery of the origins of humans, a geneticist who uncovers a hidden DNA code, and a former Air Force Special Ops pilot who jumps at the chance for another dangerous adventure, come together and discover the answer to the question: Where did we come from?

• Language: English
• Publisher: K Reinoehl-Parton
• Release date: Jun 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463918845

Book preview

THE FALLEN ANGEL

Kathleen Reinoehl-Parton

The Fallen Angel

Written by:

Kathleen Reinoehl-Parton

Copyright 2018 Kathleen Reinoehl-Parton

All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition

CHAPTER ONE

The long slender fingers of the pilot moved quickly over the control panel checking the spacecraft’s functions for the 6,399th time. It was made of the same substance as the spacecraft, a pale gold material, light and flexible, but so dense it could withstand all the known hazards of space travel. On the upper right portion of its torso was a circle with two intersecting lines inside and below, three symbols, ∆IO, its identity.

It had large pale blue eyes through which it could see across the spectrum of light from ultra violet to infrared. Its head was covered with silky filaments which could send and receive signals at all wavelengths and frequencies. It had continuously scanned transmissions from the home world. After 200 scans there was silence. They were gone.

When it departed, the home world was about to be annihilated. A star in a part of the cluster had exploded and electromagnetic pulse waves were headed toward the solar system. The orbit of its two moons would become unstable and the impending tidal forces would tear the planet apart. The collision of the moons and massive explosions would affect the entire solar system. The planet and all life would be extinguished and nothing could be done to avert this catastrophe.

The Universe offered no guarantee of long term survival for solar systems and their planets. Planetary malfunctions, solar super novae, cosmic collisions were but a few that would bring a premature end. Such was the nature of the Universe, but if enough time was granted, a civilization could achieve cosmic maturity and rise to the greatest levels of knowledge of the known Universe.

The Sera were highly intelligent with an advanced technological civilization. They developed forms of propulsion that enabled them to conduct remote space exploration with greater and greater speed. They had thus acquired vast amounts of data and knowledge of their galaxy and found solar systems with planets that might support life forms such as their own. This knowledge had now become critically important.

Their astronomical observations, data from exploratory missions and assessments put the estimated number of inhabitable solar systems at 0.001% of the approximately 200 billion stars in the home world’s galaxy. Of that number there were five within reach that evidenced a high degree of long term stability.

They sent this craft and its intelligent machine first to the closest of those chosen for a new and urgent purpose. It would carry the seeds of their species, its history and knowledge, to a planet capable of sustaining them. Within the machine, in a sealed chamber, were frozen male and female cells that would be the first of their kind to populate the new world.

If the first planet was not habitable, it would go on to the next. If just one of the five was successful it would insure that they would not perish forever from the Universe. At best it was a gamble but one they had to take.

CHAPTER TWO

Alexander Shepherd sat at his table going over the now unclassified government documents regarding UFO’s, something he would never have imagined doing a year ago. He had been an avid rock hound in his youth and the accidental discovery of ancient pottery and animal bones and Indian spear points, along with the Indiana Jones movies, had fueled his desire to study archeology. He wanted to know where it all began, the origins of the human species, and thought that he might, like Indiana Jones, find the hidden treasure that would unravel the mystery. He had spent many hours tracing the genealogy of his parents. His mother was Apache Indian, her ancestors had walked this land a thousand years ago and he traced his father’s family back to the Mayflower. Alex had inherited his mother’s black hair and dark eyes and his father’s fair complexion. At almost six feet, he inherited his height from both of them. The often rugged work of archeology left him tanned and fit.

Alex graduated cum laude from the University of New Mexico five years earlier and then did a year of postgraduate work for a research team at the University of Santa Fe that combined Archeology and Anthropology. He was invited to continue with the team and work at the University to study early human civilizations and readily accepted. His reasons were numerous, some practical and some personal; the work was interesting and paid him a decent salary, he had a great love of the New Mexico landscape, and it was home.

During his college studies and for three years with the University research team, Alex had vigorously adhered to the foundations of archeology, studying the fragments of civilizations past, the bones of humans and animals, scratching in the dirt to uncover some tantalizing treasure of knowledge.

As part of his research job, he had the opportunity to travel and examine newly discovered archeological finds. Alex had gone to Seattle, Washington to study the remains of Kennewick Man, the skeletal remains of a prehistoric man found on the bank of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington. He was a modern human, a Caucasoid male, about six feet tall. Through radiocarbon dating, the age of the skeleton was fixed at 9,300 years, placing modern humans on this continent far earlier than it had previously been thought.

After Kennewick Man and the realization that modern humans were more advanced at an earlier date and more widely traveled than had been known before, whatever archeological evidence that might exist of their origins had to be placed farther back in time, more remote and difficult to find than ever.

He had gone to the Natural History Museum in Oslo to study the newly found 47 million year old