Hydra

By Alan Long

War has contaminated Earth's water supply. 2 Men embark on a daring mission. Humanities first ever interstellar voyage to a far away planet, to bring back clean water. Along the way Aliens are discovered, and the men are inadvertently dragged into a civil war. They later discover their only means of escape from the planet has been decimated, and they become dependent on these same aliens for their very survival. Meanwhile Earth, which is in chaos is embarking on a daring plan of its own, draining a Great lake in preparation for refilling it with clean water that hopefully is brought back. This is a story of Human ingenuity, resourcefulness and the never ending quest for knowledge.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alan Long
• Release date: Jan 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9781727122428

Book preview

HYDRA

ALAN LONG

1

IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL cloudless sunlit morning in early May. Heading down Interstate 95, going no place in particular, Ken Anderson was singing along with one of his favorite classic rock bands. All the while, he was pushing the speedometer of his Candy Apple Red, 1966 Shelby GT 350 Mustang Convertible past 70 miles per hour. This rare 4 on the floor beauty had been purchased by his parents, and presented to him as an early college graduation gift. Doing 0-60 in 7 seconds, he wanted to experience that kind of power for himself. In his mind, his prized possession, he had been sitting idle for too long. This baby is meant to cruise the roads, not sit in a garage gathering dust, he said to himself. Taking most of Ken's savings and over a decade to make this car roadworthy again, it was all worth it as he continued to push the accelerator to the floor as he sped over the Piscataqua River Bridge at almost 80 miles an hour!

Ken went over in his mind the story his dad told him of how he came in possession of the car. How it had been left abandoned in an old barn in Vermont, had been forgotten about. The owner stumbled across it while walking his property. Mom and Dad were running back roads looking for evidence of the old family homestead, when dad stopped to ask for directions from this old-timer who was walking to his driveway. Pulling into the driveway, he introduced himself to the grizzled old man named Herm. After a few minutes, he learned Herm had found the old car in his barn and didn't know what to do with it. Dad was told the car had formally been owned by Herm's brother George. George was told it came from some singing celebrity, who sold it cheap to him. When his brother joined the military, Herm said he would store it until he returned. His brother never came back.

Ultimately, Herm Willson and his wife decided to leave and live closer to their children. Selling the house, he used the payoff towards a small place for them in the same town their two children settled in. The car remained behind in the barn forgotten about. Herm decided to walk his property one last time, he knew he would never return and was positive he wouldn't find anything, but something was nagging at his mind. Walking his lot one last time, he was hoping it would purge his mind of this itch he couldn't shake.  As he made his way to the back corner of the property, he came across a small old barn that had partially collapsed. Over time it had become so overgrown with grass and shrubs, that it was just about invisible to passersby. When he peered inside, he let out a gasp. Prying open the door, he stepped inside.

Scratching his head he said Damn! I forgot about George's car. The car was covered with several old sheets that were covered with inches of dust. The finish was in pretty good shape as far as he could tell. The tires were flat, and the convertible top clearly ruined. Grass and weeds had grown up from the ground into the engine housing, and around most of the car's underside. From a distance, the car was barely visible. Several roof beams from the barn had rotted and fallen around the car. One beam fell squarely onto the windshield, shattering it.

The beam was still laying on top of the shattered window. Beside himself with exasperation, he was positive he wouldn't find anything he wanted. When he and his wife sold the property, they had cleaned out the house and garage. Herm had plum forgot about the barn and George's car, and had no idea what to do now. After several minutes he decided to just leave it there. The new owners can figure out what to do with it, he said. He had just turned to leave the old barn when he heard a vehicle coming up the road. Looking up, he and saw a car coming up his old driveway.

Who in the HELL?! Said Herm as he hurried to see who it was.

After a few minutes of talking and Herm telling him about the car, Dad asked if he could buy it. If you can haul it out of here today it's yours. Herm stated. Dad said he would be back in a couple of hours with a trailer and winch to get it. Bringing it back, he presented it to me as a graduation gift that fall.

As Ken picked up speed, he started belting out the words that were blaring through the speakers. Pulling his old cap with the word MAINE stitched on the front, down on his head so it wouldn't blow off, he pushed his mirror sunglasses against his face, then watched as the wind blew some old papers off the passenger seat that he had set there as he continued speeding along.

Born and raised in New England, father of two and husband to wife Amy, Ken was a graduate of MIT with a Master's in Nuclear Engineering, and a second minor in Biology. Tinkering in electronics, he managed to land a degree in that as well. After more than 10 years of refurbishing his baby, Ken was at long last enjoying some downtime. He was doing what he had longed to do, putting his prize possession to a road test, as he wanted to experience the power of 306 hp as the radio blared out the words he had known since childhood. Ken's mind, like his car, was racing, he was remembering two years prior when he had applied for, and been accepted into NASA. A lifelong dream had been realized. As a payload specialist on the second team, he had been training for the past 10 months for NASA's accelerated Mars mission. Mankind's first human venture to that planet!

The five-person team would be responsible for building a habitable platform. This would be used to launch future deep-space missions, as well as keep a permanent Human presence on the planet. Ken scored high enough on his mental and physical tests to merit being on the first team. But because he was married and had a family, NASA relegated him to the second team, significantly lessening his chances of actually leaving. He knew he still might have to leave his family in the end, and that was the elephant in the room. Both he and his wife knew what this opportunity meant not only for Ken and NASA, but for humanity. The family knew that as long as the first team stayed intact, he wouldn't be going anywhere. But they needed to keep the possibility of his leaving in their thoughts.

Amy knew she would keep herself busy running Junior High school and High School aged kids from activity to activity, as well as keeping the home running smooth. Ken had zero doubt she would do that. After all, in his mind, his wife ran the household now like a well-oiled machine! 30 months, Ken kept telling himself. That is how long the mission was projected to last if he had to leave. It will go by quick he thought!

Ken reported to NASA that fall. A few hours after arriving and going through endless piles of paperwork, he was introduced to the rest of the members of his team.  

The second team members consisted of Mission Commander Ben Eldorado, a NASA veteran and the oldest in the group. He would oversee the operation of the mission, building of the Mars HabiDome and fly the Mars I probe to the Red planet. His second in charge, Ashley Rogers, a petite brunette, was considered one of the U.S. Air Force's best pilots. She would be in charge of flight operations, and co-pilot the ship. Then came Mathew Matusha, a payload specialist like myself, and from what I read a whiz kid and a genius when it came to robotics and computers! Eric Suddles, Suds for short, payload specialist, astrochemist and would act as the team's doctor.

The Primary team consisted of Jackson Price, the last person NASA selected for this team and, like Ben, a Mission Commander. Danny Gomez, Naval pilot, would be the flight operations chief as well as co-pilot. Robert O'Reilly, astrogeologist, and team doctor. Abigail Washburn, payload specialist. Finally, Jeremy Rodriquez, Communications specialist, and astrochemist.

After greetings and pictures, we were assigned to our rooms where we would spend our off-duty time and live for the next 13 months. Two people would share a room, one from each team. Ashley and Abigail were in one room, Ben and Jackson were in another, Suds and Robert shared one, Mat and I were in another, and lastly Jeremy and Danny. Ben and I were the only two who had families, so within a couple of months, we had them brought to Houston to be with us during our training. They were put up in a hotel nearby as they had to stay off the Flight Center grounds, but we got to spend time with them every few days. Ben’s children were grown and on their own, but he had rooms reserved for them along with one for his ex-wife, should they wish to visit.

Within a couple of months into our training, we were starting to get information on the blossoming problems developing in the Middle East. Our training kept us very busy, so we didn't have much time to digest what was going on or to comprehend the coming disasters. NASA was one of the few agencies where life remained more or less, normal. Even when everything else seemed to be in turmoil, we couldn't be distracted by outside issues as we were on a tight time constraint. Houston kept us updated on events and tried to spin things in a not so gloomy style. Watching the news we knew things were far worse than we were being told. Amy would fill me in when I saw her and the kids. Contingency plans were underway to move them onto the center grounds should the situation warrant, she further mentioned.

As Ken continued along I-95, another of his favorite artists from long ago started belting out the words to another old favorite, and he promptly started singing along. Continuing to push the accelerator towards the floor as the car purred along, he did not notice the highway starting to get rough as he was lost in thought and song. With the car starting to jump and lose traction, he, at last, focused on the road. Slowing down, he pulled into an abandoned rest area. Feeling his heart in his throat, he turned the radio down so it was barely audible, and reflected on the events of the past few years.

Mathew (Mat) Matusha is a Japanese American. His great-great-grandfather immigrated to Hawaii with his family. Mat and his sister moved with his parents to Ohio when Mat was a young boy. Mat's father, who was American, met his mother in Hawaii when he was stationed there while in the Air Force.

His sister Coral, had been killed in a terrible accident when he was 12, and her death still haunted him as he blamed himself for her death! Mat and Coral were outside their house kicking a soccer ball when the ball got away from Coral, and rolled into the street. Coral, who was 3 years younger than Mat, raced into the street after the ball. At the same time Coral was racing after the ball, the city bus was coming down the street, stopping at each stop to pick up and drop off passengers. Coral was looking at the ball and not paying attention. Mat yelled at her to stop. Coral, hearing Mat, stopped and turned to face him. Mat yelled for her to look out as there was a bus coming. Coral turned around and froze as the bus barreled towards her. Mat pleaded with her to get out of the way, but Coral was frozen in terror. Mat started running towards her but was too far away to help, screaming as he watched the right front bumper of the Bus crash into Coral. She let out a blood-curdling scream right before impact. Mat watched as she was launched into the air and thrown 16 feet.

Crashing to the ground, she rolled to a stop at Mat's feet. Her face looking at up him, mouth froze in a silent scream, and eyes wide open! Mat horrified, couldn't move as he looked down at his dead sister. Hearing all the noise, his mother ran outside toward Mat. Upon seeing Coral, she collapsed at his feet, held her daughter in her arms, and loudly sobbed. Later, witnesses would say it was not the bus drivers' fault, he had tried to stop. Evidenced by the 8-foot skid mark on the street, it was in time ruled a horrible accident. Mat blamed himself, he told his mother if he hadn't yelled at her to stop, she would have kept running and avoided the bus. His mother would have none of that, she told him it was an accident, and nothing you did or didn't do would have changed the outcome. Mat attended therapy over the accident. Even though his few months of counseling satisfied the doctor that he had come to terms with her death, Mat never did and continued to blame himself. He would never play or watch soccer again, a sport he had grown to love!

Mat had always shown a passion for electronics and computers. Becoming a whiz at tearing them down, rebuilding them, and making them better than the original model. His goal after graduating from High School was to earn his college degree and work in the robotics field, which had quickly become a growing industry. Never telling his mother, his drive was to create a robot that could interact with people and even hold a conversation. In his mind, it was his way of making up for Coral's life being cut short. He applied for and was accepted, into Carnegie Mellon University, obtaining a Master's degree in Computer Sciences and a second degree in Robotics Technology. Intending to get his PhD. in Robotics as well, he had completed several semesters when he received an unexpected letter in the mail.

Having heard about NASA's plan to build a settlement on Mars, he quickly applied. Excited about the prospect of being on that team, to be one of the first to go to Mars, to be on the cutting edge and get to work in robotics was a dream chance he couldn't pass up. Mat would be able to start over again and leave all the guilt of Coral's death behind. Opening the letter, he only had to read the first couple of words to know he had been selected. Reading further down, he realized he needed to be at the Houston Space Center in the fall to start training. Pumping his fists into the air, he put the letter in his back pocket, and seemingly floated on air to his next class. Later he would tell the dean later about his pending departure, right now he was too excited!

2

DROUGHT, OIL SHORTAGES, religious intolerance, and continued global terrorism combined to throw the world into chaos. These events would engulf the world into another global conflict. I guess when you have 102 of the world's countries committing troops to the same military cause, I suppose you could call it a world war! Events started innocently enough, several rogue nations had taken control of Middle Eastern oil fields. These nations were demanding the immediate pullout of all western allies, and any nation that aligned themselves with those allies. Proclaiming NO ONE who is of a different religion than what is practiced there WILL be allowed access to the country, ALL Imports and Exports were stopped in an instant. When the timetable for the withdrawal was breached, the leaders of these rogue nations did the unthinkable and set their oil fields ablaze. The resulting fires could be seen for many miles, the heat those fires put out made it almost impossible for anyone to get near to combat them. The fires raged out of control for weeks. Then, on the 19th of November, three 6,000-pound low yield atomic bombs were dropped from unmarked aircraft right in the middle of the oil fields in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iran.

At the same time the bombs were dropping, pirates took possession of offshore oil rigs in Saudi Arabia and the UAE rigged them with explosives, then blew the rigs to pieces. Huge flaming flumes shot almost 3,000 feet into the air. In almost an instant, practically 3/4 of the worlds' oil and gas supply lines had been destroyed. The United States and her allies immediately cut off all aid, closed their embassies, withdrew all personnel from the region, and put the military on full-scale alert. The U.S. Navy was sending five carrier strike groups, the U.S. Air Force was responding with four full fighter groups. The Army and Marines were deploying several battalions as well. The allies of the United States were making their plans for the immediate deployment of their military forces as well. It ended up being the largest deployment of military assets in one part of the world, in the history of warfare. The roughly 100 million people that inhabited the Persian Gulf nations would be vaporized in an instant, if the military assets either in place or en route came to bear.

Syria, Russia, and China, allies of the Persian Gulf nations, were deploying their forces to the gulf as well. These forces were sent as a deterrent from perceived military action on part of the U.S and her allies. No one believed any party would push a button or take the first shot, it was hoped this was bravado by both sides.

Leaders from these Middle East allies made it known that ANY provocation from any party towards the Middle East, would result in immediate retaliation. NATO, seeing the ballooning crisis, called an emergency meeting and sought to find a peaceful solution. However, the overwhelming sentiment was to use all military force available to obliterate these regimes. While day and night consultations were going on to broker a deal, and force these nations to stand down, factions within these same regimes were against any peaceful solution and refused to compromise. Solidifying their hold on power, they were pleading for restraint while at the same time, they were making plans to put their evil intents in motion. Through a secret network of sophisticated communications, these pirates set in motion the events of November 19th, their warped ideas and intent were to level the playing field for the entire world. Being tired of other countries perceived dictating governess of their respective countries, they banded together to take the world back. These pirates wanted ALL the world to be on the same technology level they were.

The resulting action was swift and calculated. Every nation that could send additional troops, supplies, planes, and advisors, did so. The actual military campaign lasted 22 days, but the results to the planet were devastating. 350 million people lost their lives as a direct result of the war. What the bombs didn't destroy when they were initially dropped, was taken care of by military ground campaigns. The entire Middle East was obliterated. That entire desert area turned into huge, deep, ugly smoldering craters. Where once were huge oil fields, was now burning rivers of oil running haphazardly over the desert floor. Thick black smoke could be seen billowing from the remains hundreds of miles away, as the fires raged out of control. On March 3rd of the following year, NATO and the leaders of the newly created Third World Countries for Unity (TWCU), signed a peace treaty officially ending the war. Over the next 18 months however, 100 million more people would die due to famine, disease, and radiation contamination.

Two weeks after the end of hostilities, leaders from around the world descended on Geneva, Switzerland to discuss what to do next, and how to get the world back on its feet again. One of the biggest disasters of the war, of which there were many, was the swift contamination of three-quarters of all the water on the planet, and almost half the vegetation. Most of the world's power grids had been destroyed as well, through high altitude nuclear detonations. Even though the bombs and the actions taken by rebels was directed at ground targets, the air was affected as well. Radiation was detected in air samples taken, not at lethal levels but high enough to make people sick.

At the same time the Middle East was set ablaze, rebel saboteurs in North America, placed small dirty bombs throughout the Mississippi river system. A short while later, they detonated them. The effect contaminated the entire Mississippi watershed. This watershed runs through 3/4 of the U.S., as well as parts of Canada. 7,000 rivers and more than 50 million people are affected by this huge watershed. These saboteurs knew that in a short amount of time, the radiation dispensed by the bombs would contaminate the entire watershed. In time, the contamination would spread to the Colorado River and the Sierra-Nevada watersheds as well, contaminating the entire country. The resulting contamination would be deadly to any living organism. It would take a little longer, but in due course, the plants and animals would become contaminated as well. A massive harvesting of all edibles was embarked upon by all able-bodied people to gather and store all food, and collect as much drinkable water as possible.

Another byproduct of the war was the destruction of most of the communication systems. Syrian and Chinese forces destroyed several communication satellites. The belief being, that by destroying them, worldwide communications would be crippled, leveling the playing field for all forces. The destruction of the satellites crippled communications worldwide and resulted in chaos.

Data, that before these events reached people almost instantaneously, now took days and even weeks. This resulted in people having very little communication with other cities. Everyone was on their own, we would all now have to resort to shortwave, Morse code and runners to relay messages back and forth. Scientists determined that if people were going to survive, they would have to live underground at least temporarily, where the effects of the radiation wouldn't affect the population like it would for any that stayed above ground. Plans were being made to create underground compounds, that engineers hoped would hold a couple hundred thousand people. Not near enough for the general population, but hopefully enough to sustain our species. We could protect the people somewhat from the effects of radiation, but not the animals and plant life. Once the storage facilities ran out of food, everyone would be dependent on contaminated food and water, no matter where it came from.

In addition to the high-altitude nuclear detonations that destroyed the power grids, was the use of Low Yield Super-EMP weapon attacks. These attacks destroyed the majority of electronic devices, used throughout the world. In almost an instant, the world had been set back a hundred years. A major result of the NATO meetings, was the creation of an organization charged with developing measures to reverse, as much as possible, the effects of contamination on the environment caused by the war. The P.A.W (Protectors of Air and Water) committee was created.

This six-person handpicked committee was charged with devising programs and solutions to reversing, and neutralizing the effects on the environment caused by the war. Holding their first meeting in Geneva, they elected John Alexander as its head. John was a graduate of Northland College, with a degree in Natural Resources and a minor in Environmental Geo sciences. He also collected an AS degree from Colorado Mountain College, in Environmental Sciences. Considered one of the few remaining living experts in these fields, he was considered the logical choice to lead this team. At 6 feet 9, 290 lbs., he was an imposing figure who commanded your attention just by being in the room.

3

SEVERAL YEARS BEFORE the war, NASA came across a discovery that would change everything. In the mid-1970s, a little known and secret deep space probe, Seeker II, was launched from Cape Canaveral. At the time of its launch, it was the most sophisticated space vehicle ever launched. Its primary mission was to look for life on planets outside our galaxy.

Seeker II's main bus, the rectangular-shaped box that holds all the instruments, was 24 feet tall by 12 feet wide. The High gain antenna stood another 5 feet above the bus and flared out to 18 feet, when fully deployed. In addition to the antenna, it was equipped with a reflector telescope with a 57-inch mirror. Along with two infrared telescopes, and an X-ray camera. Seeker was also equipped with various spectrometers for analyzing any material it might come in contact with. Additionally, it was equipped with an experimental telemetry system. All information gathered was continuously sent to Earth's deep-space antenna network with a pulsating emitter. Every three seconds, the emitter would push a data stream back towards Earth with a two-second 12-kilowatt pulse. This pulse was meant to push the data stream at a high rate of speed. Lessening the time it would take to receive messages while so far from Earth.

Seeker II mysteriously stopped sending signals and was presumed lost. This loss was considered one of NASA's greatest and