Forsaken: Searching for God’s Fingerprints

By Richard D. Bangs

For the dedicated scientists who man a remote listening post on one of Saturn’s moons, 2088 has been a pretty quiet year. After nearly 130 years of fruitless listening to the silence of the void, the men and women who represent mankind at the edge of the solar system are humanity’s best hope for first contact. None of the specialists on duty could have ever predicted what is racing toward them—or what it means for humanity’s future.

Jarrod McKinley and two others are stationed on a listening post orbiting the moon Titan, part of man’s latest effort to make contact with extraterrestrial intelligence. What the Titan base crew is about to experience will shake the foundations of the belief that mankind is alone in the universe. Without warning, a massive energy wave sweeps around Saturn and blasts the post. McKinley and his crew survive the initial blast, but the listening post is severely damaged.

As a rescue mission is launched, a strange signal is discovered within the energy wave. Just as things seem under control, an explosion rocks the station; one of the crew is killed, but McKinley and Liza Alvarez jettison in an escape pod. McKinley senses some evil has targeted him and the newly discovered signal.

As McKinley and Alvarez escape several attempts on their lives and race from Saturn to Earth, they survive repeated attempts to silence them, and they discover a plot that shakes the search for first contact.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 27, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462032310

Richard D. Bangs

Richard D. Bangs was born in Havre, Montana, raised on a farm fifteen miles from the Canadian border and graduated from Inverness High School. He attended Northern Montana College and earned a degree in Journalism from the University of Montana. He worked on newspapers for thirty years in Wyoming, Montana, Colorado and Australia. He is the author of Forsaken: Searching for God’s Fingerprints, Forgiven: Finding a Path Home and Forgotten: A Stepping Stone to the Stars. He lives in Littleton, Colorado, works for non-profits, writes and rides his bicycle.

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Epilogue

About the Author

Acknowledgements

There are many people whose encouragement throughout the years has lead to this effort, primarily my wife Susan and daughter Ashley, who always encouraged me to continue to write. Before that my mother was an inspiration with her avid reading habits and her encouragement to me to become more than I imagined. Along the way all my friends were enthusiastic in their support. Bill Owen had the courage to volunteer to be the first to give Forsaken a critical read. Finally, to all the science fiction writers I have read throughout my life, and continue to read, thanks for stretching my imagination with ever expanding ideas and theories.

A special recognition to David Grinspoon whose Lonely Planets was of particular inspiration and helped set the foundation for some of my ideas.

Chapter 1

Listening Post Sentinel orbiting Saturn moon Titan:

January 26, 2088:

16:25 Greenwich Mean Time:

Jarrod McKinley shivered as a tingle raced down his spine. He recognized it as a warning sign and looked over his shoulder out the window of the listening post he commanded.

The view still stunned him. The debris-strewn rings of Saturn spread out before him, the huge, colorful planet tilted 45 degrees, just floating there like the childhood model he used to have hanging from his bedroom ceiling in the farmhouse in Montana.

He shook off his sense of foreboding, turned back and grabbed his rehydrated tuna sandwich floating in the zero Gs of the listening post. Grabbing it, he took a bite and continued to calibrate the array of radio telescopes and antennae on top of the listening post. Eight smaller dishes on two booms stretching one hundred meters each and offset one hundred and eighty degrees from each other flanked one large radar dish. The large dish was only fifteen meters wide but more sensitive than anything man had yet used in its two-hundred-year search for life in the universe.

He had started his three-month listening post tour the day before and was happy, although he realized his mom and dad probably had something a little more exciting in mind for him. His crew of himself, Brad Johnson and Liza Alvarez was the third assigned to Listening Post Sentinel. They would spend three months at the post before being relieved. One year later, they would be back, if the program was still operating. There had been rumblings there might be cutbacks.

McKinley turned, again, and looked out the window. There was that feeling again – something was happening and it wasn’t good. McKinley couldn’t see anything so he readjusted his gravity chair and tapped on a control screen to bring up a shakedown schedule of tasks the crew had to complete to test the post’s components. Listening Post Sentinel was a retrofitted liquid fuel tank from the first generation American Space Shuttle program and there was a long checklist to keep it space worthy.

McKinley, with a well-muscled body developed by years of farm work, athletics and space training, brushed his neatly trimmed sandy brown hair away from his forehead, tapped on the touch screen control panel again, finished the shakedown schedule and moved to the baseline data of the post. As he checked off numbers, he again felt that shiver, a presence. It was as if someone was looking at him. It was a strong feeling and he looked out the window again, almost expecting to see something appear from behind Saturn.

There it was again, that feeling. It was different, though, than the gentle nudging of nature he had learned to recognize while living on the farm.

He swung his five-feet-eleven-inch frame fully around and looked out the observation window. The shiver he had been feeling tightened into a knot in his gut and chilled him to the core. In the distance, coming around Saturn, a bright yellow-orange line stretched across the emptiness of space. The line flickered and grew larger by the second. It was like a wave, still a long distance away but coming right at him, and fast.

A quiet tone began sounding, indicating the instruments were picking up something. McKinley hit the alarm button to scramble the crew. Now, everyone was now on duty.

McKinley’s personal log, McKinley said quietly to turn on his personal info disk. The receivers on the minidisk tucked in his uniform pocket would pick up and record everything he said and his conscious thoughts of the event. He stared out the window and began dictating. The instruments on the post would record electronic signals received and the data from the observation cameras around the perimeter, but his personal observations were important. Space exploration had quit relying solely on machines after the fiasco on Mars in 2052 when dozens of people died because they trusted instruments and didn’t bother to look outside just before a canyon wall under their outpost gave way. Machines might not lie intentionally, only by omission.

The disturbance he saw outside the listening post was like a wave and distorted the surrounding space–like a huge rolling ocean breaker, only tinged with fire. It had to be thousands of kilometers away, judging from the instruments, but McKinley could see it very plainly. It was spreading across space and filling the entire view out the observation window. Plumes of fires erupted as the wave gobbled up space debris as it bore down on the post. McKinley feared the small listening post wouldn’t withstand the hit–either roasting them alive or exploding.

He debated whether or not he should shut down the station and lose data or try to ride out the impact while watching and recording. His training gave him the guidelines: the signal was the most important thing. He mentally ran through the protocol; capture whatever signal there was, protect the listening post, protect the crew.

Brad Johnson, answering the crew alert, shot out of the hatch from below like a big canon ball.

What’s up? he blurted, followed by a quiet, Oh shit, as he looked out the observation window. He forgot to catch himself, hit the ceiling then lurched to grab a handhold.

Liza Alvarez floated through the hatch and asked calmly, Problem?

Might be, said McKinley as he pointed toward the window. Start reading those monitors, I need to know how fast that thing is coming and how much energy it’s carrying. We could be in trouble if we can’t get our shielding up in time.

Johnson, a blonde from California, was ready to raise shielding immediately.

No, said McKinley. I want to watch it as long as we can. Liza, get on the monitors. Tell me about that wave. How fast is it moving? How much energy? Brad, get the shields ready, but wait until I give you the word. We’re going to play this one tight.

Man, give me a break, said Johnson. Play it tight? Let’s just lock up right now.

On my command, Brad. Liza, how fast, how much energy?

It’s moving about four hundred kilometers a second. It’s still one hundred thousand kilometers away and the energy… well… it’s fluctuating. Ranges between four hundred and eight hundred megawatts, said Alvarez.

Good, we have some time, McKinley said. Brad, send a message to Titan. Make sure they see this thing. Maybe they can get a lock on it.

Oh shit, said Johnson. Did you see that? It just toasted another piece of space junk.

Make the call, Brad.

Roger.

We’ve got about four minutes, said Alvarez.

Make sure the backup computers are powered down. Go only with the primary. We want to have some brains left when this is over.

Done, said Alvarez. Jarrod, the energy levels are increasing from that wave, or whatever it is. I’m getting readings now of between eight hundred and one thousand megawatts.

Okay, McKinley said. Everyone, have an emergency air mask close enough so you can grab it.

He spent the next two minutes checking all the monitors and confirming his personal log was recording everything he was saying and thinking. An image of his mother, from when he was six years old, flashed through his mind. He was sure this is not what she meant when she told him quietly but with an absolute certainty, while looking at the Dig Dipper, that his future lay among the stars–to get roasted inside a listening post. The cigar-shaped Sentinel was a dull orange-brown and bristled with a radio telescope array on top, half a dozen other antennae protruding at all angles and a large solar panel on the bottom to collect the dim sunlight to help power the station.

Inside, the station was divided in three sections. On top was a command center with porthole windows in each quadrant. Just below were the living quarters and the bottom level housed the main power plant, a backup power plant, cargo hold, computers and atmospheric mechanics. That level also was the way out. A crew escape module was tucked neatly near the exit hatch.

Sentinel was a program SETISC started in the late 2070s as a bold attempt to finally establish contact with intelligent life outside the solar system. The effort had started more than one hundred years earlier when the original Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) began peering through telescopes, manning radio telescopes and launching Earth-orbiting devices of all kinds. But SETI had struck out. Early tantalizing signals turned out to be only static from other stars that had become distorted by atmospheric and solar interference.

A listening post on the outer reaches of the solar system eliminated the Earth’s atmospherics and isolated the solar interference enough to get a clear reading of extra-solar signals. Sentinel was in geosynchronous orbit over Saturn’s biggest moon Titan.

On Titan, a mining company had set up an extraction and exploratory colony a few years earlier and SETISC leased a building in the colony for its off-Earth base of operations.

The Titan SETISC base supported the Sentinel listening post by providing supplies, service and maintenance. Staff at the base compiled reports from the listening post, verified data and relayed it all to Earth.

Brad, McKinley said, standby at the shields, are they ready? Did you send Titan the message?

Ready, message sent.

Thirty seconds, said Alvarez

Raise the shields. Okay, everyone hang on. Keep one eye on your instruments and one hand on a fire extinguisher. Here it comes.

An ozone-like smell tinged the air in the small control room just before a fiery orange glow enveloped the listening post.

McKinley thought he heard the crack of lightning just before he lost consciousness.

Chapter 2

Titan SETISC Base:

January 26, 2088:

16:30, GMT:

Sentinel, come in. Can you hear me? Sentinel, this is Titan Base calling. Come in! said the radio operator.

Keep trying, said Laura Henning, It might just be interference from that energy wave.

Henning, 42, about 5 feet 8 inches, trim build, caramel-colored eyes, and blonde hair clipped short for efficiency, managed the Titan Control Center. She was reviewing reports when the first call came in from Brad Johnson about the fiery wave rolling across space toward the listening post.

Rushing to the control monitors, she was shocked at the immensity of what appeared to be a giant energy wave. Although they couldn’t see the wave from the control base, the instruments began dancing as they recorded the modulating energy signal and plotted its direction.

Henning knew immediately the wave was an anomaly. Most radio waves expand outward from a central generating point, traveling three hundred sixty degrees and wrapping around everything in the way. This wave seemed very directed. It was traveling in a perpendicular axis to the listening post. The wave was about five hundred meters high; about ten times the length of the listening post.

That configuration meant the signal had either been sent from nearby or someone, or some thing, out there had very good aim and more advanced technology than we’ve got, Henning thought. All the years she had spent with SETISC, and study of one hundred years of SETI history before the Special Command took over, taught her enough to know this was different. There had never been a report of an energy wave that would damage things in its path.

To interpret the signal would require more diagnostic equipment than what was on the Sentinel or the Titan Base. She would leave that to the scientists at Wilpena Pound back on Earth. Now she feared for the lives of those on the listening post.

Listening Post Sentinel, come in. Jarrod. Brad. Liza. Anybody. Please respond, the radio operator repeated.

There was only silence.

Where’s Charlie? Henning shouted to no one in particular. I need Charlie Snelling.

I think he’s out at the mine, the radio operator said. They had a robot they wanted him to look at.

Get him, Henning said. I need him here immediately.

Charlie Snelling was Henning’s rock–a seasoned astronaut from the old NASA, a mission specialist long before he became a flight commander. Snelling had completed dozens of space walks to build or repair space stations. His specialty was mechanical engineering. If there was anything to be fixed or put together, Snelling was called.

Later, his experience as a pilot and reputation for surviving near catastrophes got him the job as flight commander for the SETISC mission.

Now, Snelling would lead a rescue mission to the listening post. Henning didn’t know if anyone survived, but, if they had, Snelling could get them out and back to the base faster than anyone. If they hadn’t survived, Snelling would know how to pick up the pieces.

What’s up, Laura, Snelling said a few minutes later and a little out of breath.

"It’s the Sentinel. It was hit by a massive energy wave about ten minutes ago and the crew is not responding to our radio calls. We need to get up there fast. Can you go now?

Sure. I need about ten minutes to power up the shuttle.

The trip will take a couple of hours. Who do you want to go with us? Henning asked.

Just need two people. One to help with the rescue and one to stay on the shuttle, Snelling said. Jim would be good. He’s a good pilot.

Good, said Henning. I’ll go to help with the rescue.

Meet me in ten at the shuttle, said Snelling. Oh, and bring an extra spacesuit or two. We only have two on the shuttle and aren’t there three people in that tin can up there?

Yeah, three, Henning said. I hope three people alive.

As she left for the shuttle, she turned to her radio operator who still had no response from the Sentinel.

Keep trying, she said, And get Alan in here. I want him to start analyzing that energy wave. When I get back I want to know everything there is to know about that wave.

As she raced for the shuttle, Henning’s mind was whirling. Was this the message they had been searching for so long? Was this the first step toward first contact? Why was the energy beam focused so tightly? Was anyone else in danger? Did the beam’s tight pattern mean it was a weapon? Could it be used against colonies on the Moon or Mars? Did we get too far away from Earth, she wondered? Are we making someone, or something mad?

After all the compromises she had made to her principles and way of life, would all the years working for SETISC finally be justified? She hoped the SETISC team at Wilpena Pound in Australia would be able to help.

Boy, I wish I had some of that gear we had at Wilpena Pound, Henning said out loud. Wilpena Pound was where Henning developed her passion for the search for extraterrestrial life.

Wilpena Pound was a meteor impact crater about four hundred kilometers north of Adelaide in South Australia. For years the Pound, as it was known locally, looked to the local white settlers like just a nice valley surrounded by the low mountains of the Flinders Ranges. The mountains that ringed the valley rose about eight hundred meters from the surrounding land. Inside the Pound there was a cluster of creeks, ponds and luxuriant forests and grasslands. For others the Pound was more; the Aborigines believed Wilpena Pound had been visited by their gods and considered it a sacred place.

In the mid 21st Century, geologists revised their assessment and declared Wilpena Pound a meteor impact crater. Unlike most craters, which are almost a perfect circle, Wilpena Pond is a large oval, almost twice as long as it is wide with a big difference in the depth of the crater from one end to the other. It was easy for Henning to imagine, the first time she hiked into the area, a meteor skimming over the horizon, hitting the ground at an angle and pushing up a massive pile of debris on one end of the crater.

Henning had joined other protesters trying to stop SETI from using the Pound as a huge radio telescope. The plan was to turn the Pound into another Arecibo, the mountaintop in Puerto Rico that for so long had been the workhorse of the SETI program.

After getting arrested for trespassing and sentenced to a month’s community service at the Pound, Henning changed her mind about SETI. In the first place, Wilpena Pound would not be another Arecibo. Instead of a radio dish and massive gantries and cables holding the focusing mechanism for the radio telescope, there would be a series of small transceivers positioned about every fifty square meters around the rim of the Pound and across the valley floor. Sighting the huge telescope was all done with computers so that even though the device would be five times the size of Arecibo, there would be no permanent scarring of the Pound.

Tourists hiked through the Pound to view wildlife and waterfalls during the day and SETI used the telescope at night. With all the interest in finding extratresstrial intelligence, this seemed to Henning a good compromise.

By the time she served her trespassing sentence, she became a volunteer for SETI and, inspired, she went back to Melbourne University, got her radio astronomy degree and was working full time for SETI when the Special Command took over.

Henning wasn’t sure she liked the Special Command. It seemed a little too autonomous with no political oversight and too much in the hands of the bureaucrats instead of scientists. But, that was probably necessary because by the mid 21st Century there were serious rumblings about disbanding SETI. One hundred years of looking for extraterrestrial intelligence and no success was beginning to take its toll. The United States government had long ago quit supporting SETI and only private aid kept it going.

Just when the private entities were ready to announce SETI would be discontinued, the Special Command coalition appeared and said it would take over the funding and operation of the program.

Henning knew there were few scientists in leadership roles at the Special Command. It appeared it was mostly bureaucrats formerly with the European Space Command, NASA or SETI people who wanted to keep their jobs. And then there was the Rev. Christopher Larchmont, a TV evangelist first popular in America and Europe. Larchmont later spread his influence into the highly Catholic regions of Southern Europe and South America. The Rev. Larchmont was so popular because there was no apparent sign he used his power and wealth for anything besides spreading the word about God–one God, responsible for all humankind on Earth.

There were rumors that much of the financing behind the Special Command came from the Rev. Larchmont’s One Universal Church. After governments and private entities pulled their financing, the money for SETISC increased. But it sure didn’t mean more money from the bureaucrats for scientists working for SETI, Henning could attest. Her passion kept her working with SETI, not the money. When her tour of duty ended on Titan, she would go back to Wilpena Pound and her 12 foot by 12 foot room that held almost all of her worldly possessions.

Now, as she boarded the shuttle, her brow furrowed with concern over the crew of the Sentinel and what, or who, could have generated the energy wave that had just swept over the listening post.

As the shuttle rose through the gloomy orange-brown atmosphere of Titan, the crew of the listening post was struggling to survive.

Chapter 3

Listening Post Sentinel:

January 26, 2088:

16:32, GMT:

Jarrod, Jarrod. Wake up.

A low-hanging cloud moved slowly across the sky, blocking the view of the brilliant stars in the dark sky of northern Montana. McKinley was star gazing again. In that part of the state, about ten kilometers from the Canadian line and the nearest town thirty kilometers south, the sky was pitch black. McKinley loved to lie on his back on warm summer nights and watch the stars. But someone was trying to get his attention.

Jarrod, the station is leaking. We have smoke. We need to get moving or we’re going to die, Alvarez was shaking McKinley by the shoulders as she floated in the zero G.

As the haze lifted from McKinley’s mind, and Alvarez came into focus, he realized he wasn’t under the stars on a hot summer’s night in Montana; he was looking into the face of someone who knew they were in great danger.

Alvarez’s face was smeared with soot, and there was a gash on her forehead. Drops of blood were oozing from the wound and drifting away. Her eyes were wide with fear, and there was a touch of panic in her voice. McKinley shook his head and realized the cloud cover he imagined was a thin layer of smoke in the control center of the Sentinel, now dimly lit by emergency lights.

Jerrod, still strapped in his command chair, tried to move and a sharp pain stabbed his right arm. He had a small tear in his uniform near the elbow and there was a strange twist in his arm.

I think you hit the instrument panel, Alvarez said, nodding at the elbow. I think it’s dislocated, but I don’t think you have any other injuries except for a small bump on your head. I’m OK, I think. Brad has a twisted ankle but that’s all. The station, however, is not in such good condition. We have atmospheric leakage, and the primary electrical circuit is down.

Where’s Brad? McKinley asked.

He’s down below checking for damage and leaks. We think the main leak is down there somewhere, either in the living quarters or in the cargo hold.

Okay, said McKinley, moving more slowly this time and holding his right arm in place.

Here, let me put a sling on that arm, Alvarez said.

No. We’ve got to get it back in the joint, said McKinley. I’ve had this kind of thing before when I played football in high school. We have to pop it back in. Once we do that, I’ll be okay in a few minutes.

McKinley braced himself against a railing and grabbed Alvarez’s hand with the hand of his injured elbow.

When I say pull, you jerk as hard as you can.

McKinley cursed as Alvarez jerked his elbow back into place. He was still wincing in pain as she wrapped the elbow and fashioned a crude sling.

There, she said as she looked up with a smile, that should hold it in place until we get things back under control.

The station’s that bad? McKinley said.

I think so. Brad’s report should give us a better idea, but we took a real pounding from the wave, or whatever it was.

All right, McKinley said, let’s run down the list. Atmospherics?

That’s going to be hard with the electricity out. The backup batteries, even the shielded ones, are only running about half strength.

Come on, Liza, let’s run through it. Give me what you can. Atmospherics?

Okay. Let me see. It says we’re running about seventy-five percent; oxygen levels are normal for that range.

Electrical?

Battery backup only. The main electrical circuits are down. The back up generator hasn’t kicked in. I don’t know why. We may still have secondary electrical circuitry to our primary systems if we can find out why the backup didn’t kick in.

Computer system?

We took the backup systems off line before we got hit so they should be okay. If the main systems worked the way they were supposed to, we should have data up to the time the lights went out.

Communications?

"Dead. Brad tried it several times and got nothing. We were sending to Titan until the wave hit. We might