Revelation, page 1
REVELATION (ASCENDANCY: BOOK 1)
By
D. Ward Cornell
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019, 2020 by D. Ward Cornell
Sixth Edition
ISBN: 9781074845759
All rights reserved. In accordance with the United States Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the author constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from this book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the author at dw.cornell@kahakaicg.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Dedicated to my sweet wife who’s been very supportive through this adventure. Also to my son, Jonathan, who tells me that he can imagine me saying some of the lines in this book and it makes him laugh.
Thank you both for your support and encouragement.
Thanks to my early readers who had the courage to read the early manuscripts. Special thanks to Theresa Holmes whose feedback helped make this story come to life.
Table of Contents
PROLOG
THE EVENT
THE ANNOUNCEMENT
THE PAPARAZZI
THE RAID
THE INTERVIEW
THE MEETING
SECOND INTERVIEW
ISRAEL
CANADA
MEXICO
HEADS OF STATE
THE RECOVERY
CHINA
MORE ALLIES
SPOKESMAN
INDIA
MORE INTERVIEWS
EMERGENCY
NORTH KOREA
THE ARREST
THE ARRIVAL
THE EMBASSY
EPILOGUE
AVAILABLE NOW
AFTERWORD
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PROLOG
[01.28.2025, 1:00 PM] GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER, BALTIMORE
“Hey, Mark. Anything to report?” John asked as he walked into the room.
Mark Jenkins was on duty this shift, managing the repositioning of the Hubble Space Telescope. He’d been on duty for the last four hours. John Brooks was his manager, the Hubble Space Telescope’s Associate Program Manager. Hubble was in the process of a significant repositioning and recalibration, one that was scheduled to take five days. In the early days of the Hubble mission, this kind of recalibration hadn’t been necessary. But by 2014, the Hubble’s aging gyroscopes could no longer hold position for long periods without recalibration.
“An urgent request just came in from the Administrator,” John said.
“I hope it’s not too urgent. We’re tied up in recalibration for the next three days,” Mark replied.
“Well, that’s the thing. He wants us to redirect to these coordinates.”
“What do you mean by redirect? The gyros are out of alignment. Hubble doesn’t know where those coordinates are,” Mark complained.
“That’s OK. Just move to these coordinates. Record whatever is there with the coordinates displayed on the recording, then continue the recalibration.”
“John. If this is a joke, I’m not getting it.”
“No joke. The request came from the President himself,” John said.
“From the pres…” Mark broke out laughing. “The President.” More laughing. “Dude, you had me going there for a minute. The President doesn’t even know what coordinates are.”
John just stared at Mark, and the laughing slowly turned into a look of incredulity. “You’ve got to be kidding me. The President gives NASA some coordinates in the middle of a recalibration, and we just drop everything and make recordings of some arbitrary location in space?”
“The Administrator thought this would be a good way to win some goodwill with the new President. He was just sworn in a little over a week ago and is already showing interest in NASA. It would be crazy to say no. The coordinates are just a fraction of a degree off our current course, if we do it now. So, let’s get after it.”
As they settled in on the coordinates, at least according to the uncalibrated gyros, Mark realized that the implied distance at these coordinates was well beyond Hubble’s resolution. Just keeps getting better! Mark thought, at least until the images started coming in.
Mark could not believe his eyes. There were three stars in close proximity. One was a white dwarf, which had sucked huge mass from its binary companion, a red giant. It was clearly in the last stages before becoming a Class 1a supernova. Further away was a hydrogen-rich yellow dwarf, one much like the Sun. But the yellow dwarf had come close enough to the binary that mass had begun streaming away from it, heading toward the white dwarf.
“Dude. This is going to go super in a matter of days. Can we stay on station and watch it?” Mark asked his boss.
“No can do my friend.” John said. “The experts say this baby is going to blow in three days, which is four hours after it falls below the horizon.”
“What! What experts? Why were we asked to look at this if other ‘experts’ already knew what was here?”
“Above both our pay grades, my friend. Get the clearest, cleanest recordings you can, then let’s continue to do the job we’re paid for, recalibrating the gyros,” John said.
Mark shook his head in disbelief. They were scientists. They did their best to find new phenomena, and when they did, even if by accident, they didn’t just continue to recalibrate.
Mark groaned. “When did NASA get taken over by the DMV?”
THE EVENT
[01.31.2025 4:30 PM] BIG ISLAND OF HAWAI’I
This was the day! As the gate closed behind him, Michael turned left onto Kohala Mountain Road from his home near the summit of Kohala Mountain. Despite his excitement, Michael couldn’t help but smile as he drove along the narrow mountain road. There were cattle on a grassy knoll to the left; horses wandering in protected pastures to the right. As he came around a bend in the road, he pulled over and paused momentarily to take in the vista. The pass he’d just come through was at 3,500 ft. It offered a spectacular view of two of the Big Island’s volcanic peaks, Mauna Loa on the left and Hualalai straight ahead. And on the right… The beautiful blue Pacific Ocean. He paused a moment to take in the peace and center himself. The next couple weeks were going to be crazy.
Michael was on his way to the WM Keck Observatory in Waimea. The Keck Observatory operated two giant telescopes that sat atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii’s tallest mountain. Michael had been invited to participate in what promised to be one of the most groundbreaking observations in human history, a supernova in the Andromeda galaxy. This was groundbreaking because historically supernovae were only discovered by chance. Therefore, the vast majority were discovered by hobbyists, not by professional astronomers. The amateurs simply outnumbered the pros, with more eyes on the sky at any given time. Scientists were always quick to confirm observations and lead the investigations that followed. But no one had ever done a high-precision observation of the onset of a major supernova. At least not until recently.
Michael was a well-known inventor and entrepreneur. His innovations in natural gas recovery from exhausted oil wells were the basis of most of his wealth and notoriety. But he was also known as an amateur astronomer, philosopher and philanthropist.
Two years ago, Michael had made an uncharacteristically public announcement about a pending supernova in the Triangulum galaxy. In his announcement, he posted the time and location where hobbyists and major observatories could look to find it. Of course, he was mocked by the scientific community for the preposterousness of his claim. No one knew enough about the stars at those coordinates, or even about the composition of that area of the Triangulum galaxy, to make any statement whatsoever about what was going on there or what events might occur. The only known precursors to supernova observations were gravitational waves, which were not guaranteed to precede the light and were mostly useless for pinpointing the source.
Not a single major observatory had attempted the viewing, but numerous amateurs targeted the coordinates in the hours ahead of the announced time. And within a few hours, pictures started popping up all over the internet with claims of the discovery. Most of the pictures were grainy with questionable coordinate validation and inconsistent timestamps. Nonetheless, it didn’t take long for the major observatories to confirm Michael’s prediction.
Michael had made his second announcement about three months ago. It was for a smaller nova that would be difficult to observe. Despite the on-going academic cynicism, a scientist with one of the major observatories in Australia re-tasked their main telescope and started a high-resolution recording an hour before the predicted time. They were rewarded with the first publishable observation of its type in history.
Michael’s most recent prediction was for a major three-star collision and supernova that would be observable in the Andromeda galaxy. That prediction had been announced two weeks ago.
Where his previous predictions had been greeted with cynicism and downright hostility, the response to this announcement was quite warm. A re-tasking of the Hubble telescope three days ago gave results that were visually spectacular.
One of the stars was one that had been previously observed in Andromeda. Until about 10 years ago, it had a numeric designation. But it was now known as Lorexi, t
The giant telescopes on the summit of Mauna Kea, operated by the WM Keck Observatory, would have the best and longest viewing from any location on planet Earth. Michael had made that determination many years earlier. It was one of the reasons Michael had placed his most important research laboratory on the Big Island. His research initiatives required him to spend a fair amount of his time on the island. But he spent a lot more time here than was needed for research so that he could develop connections with the observatory staff and with the local government authorities. Those connections were necessary for the events that would be set in motion tonight.
Because Michael had made the predictions leading up to NASA’s recent discovery, the director of the Keck Observatory, a woman Michael had befriended shortly after moving to the Big Island, had invited Michael to what everyone now assumed would be one of the greatest astronomical events recorded by mankind.
As Michael approached the observatory headquarters, he saw that the police had put up a barricade preventing additional cars from entering the facility. Crowds had begun to form on the lawn in front of the facility where a projection screen had been set up for public viewing. Several news networks had also set up mobile broadcast sites along the Mamalahoa Highway to broadcast footage of the event.
As he pulled up to the barricade, Michael noted that his friend, Chief Henderson of Hawaii Civil Defense, was manning the barricade himself. On rolling down the window, Michael called out, “Chief!”
“Well, if it isn’t the man himself! Look at the mess you’ve created. Good on you, broddah. The director invited you, right? I see your name on the list.”
“Yep, Chief. I think I’m responsible for this. And, ah, the director did invite me. Are you going to be able to watch at all?”
“Hope so, but duty first. Enjoy, my friend. You’ve earned it.”
The Chief moved the barricade aside and waved Michael in. As he entered the parking lot, the director’s assistant, John, pointed out the spot they’d reserved for him.
“John, so good to see you. How’s the boss doing?” asked Michael.
“There are usually enough details on new observation nights to make her testy. But the crowds and publicity… Dude, she’s bouncing off the walls. How was the ride up?”
“In truth, I’d have started a little sooner if I’d realized what a spectacle this was going to be.” Michael paused as they walked toward the employee entrance. “Hey, I need to speak to the boss ASAP. I have a minor adjustment I need to make to the image enhancement software I installed earlier this week.”
“Oh. She’s going to love hearing that,” John said sarcastically. “Is it really necessary? Can’t we post-process the recordings?”
“Afraid not. If the enhancements aren’t part of the real-time recording, we’ll lose them. It’s a quantum thing.”
“A quantum thing? What the hell does that mean?”
Michael smiled at his friend and said, “You know. Like science-y stuff.”
“The boss isn’t going to be happy hearing about this…” John said as they rounded the corner, and nearly bumped into his boss.
Stephanie Davis looked up, startled. “Michael, there you are! Do you realize how much trouble you’ve rained down on me?” Then she reached out to give him a quick hug.
“Stephanie, good to see you. Having fun yet?” Michael returned the hug. “Hey, I need to make a minor adjustment to the enhancement software I installed for the observation tonight.”
“You what! The observation is scheduled to start in 15 minutes. The big 10-meter scope has already been positioned and thermally equalized. We can’t disrupt the data transmission tests that are running!” She seemed to take offense to the last-minute change.
“Stephanie, relax.” Michael pulled what looked like two thumb drives out of his pocket. “This will not disrupt anything. In fact, the software is expecting these two USB devices to be attached minutes before the recording begins. The computer that needs them is right over there…” he pointed at one of the signal processing computers in a nearby rack. “I’ll just go plug them in now. Um… probably should have mentioned that on Tuesday.”
“Michael, what am I going to do with you? Go! Be quick. And, if you crash that computer, I’m going to call security and have them throw you out!”
“Thanks Steph. You’re going to love the enhancements these will enable.”
…
Michael walked over to the rack and opened the door. A quiet alarm went off, attracting the attention of some of the scientists nearby. Despite the fact that Michael had single-handedly brought them this opportunity and had donated the best image enhancement software in the world, the scientists fundamentally did not like the fact that a hobbyist had been allowed into their presence tonight.
As he slid the USB devices in, he thought about the technology inside of them. None of these people would believe me if I told them what was actually in these two thumb drives.
They contained a pair of quantum-entangled receivers that would take in data from their partners in Michael’s research lab on Kohala Mountain. Among other things, his research lab had a pair of high-sensitivity gravitational-wave detectors that were spaced for maximum directional sensitivity. The output of the detectors would be synced with the optical images coming down from the 10-meter scope on Mauna Kea. Together they would provide a three-dimensional view of the observation that was about to begin.
Michael walked back over to where Stephanie stood as the lights in the room dimmed and the first images were displayed. The image was grainy, with only a few pixels of light near the center of the screen. Steve Brown, lead scientist and principal investigator for this observation, centered the image and expanded it to maximum resolution. The few pixels of light in the center expanded to a single blob of light in the middle. No stars could be resolved within the blob.
Steve looked up doubtfully and asked, “Michael, can we turn on your image enhancement software? Ours really can’t tell what we might be looking at.”
The tension in the room was now palpable. The Observatory had put their reputation at stake following up on the prediction of an amateur. From the principal investigator’s point-of-view, the administration had completely compromised the integrity of the investigation by allowing amateur software into the main data stream.
“The software is up and ready to be applied. Just issue the command sequence on the screen in front of you,” said Michael.
Steve typed in the command. To his astonishment, the image resolved to the point where all three stars were visible, as well as some cloudiness that would seem to indicate that an accretion disc had begun to form.
Everyone drew in their breath, astonished at what they were seeing. The room grew silent. Then Michael, pointing at the screen, smiled and said, “It begins.”
The smallest of the three stars suddenly began to expand. It quickly overwhelmed the other two stars and grew to fill the screen. Steve, temporarily stunned by what he was seeing, forgot to zoom the image out and the bright light expanded past the bounds of the screen. He quickly zoomed out, having trouble zooming out fast enough to keep the image on the screen. Suddenly, additional details started to emerge. The image shimmered in a way never seen before. And, spectral lines began to appear in the center, spreading throughout the cloud of gas.
One of the other investigators exclaimed, “I know what that is! Those lines are like the filaments in the Crab Nebula, left over hydrogen from the yellow star that was caught up in the explosion. And the shimmering waves going through the blue body of the cloud… Those must be gravitational eddies. All of our theories suggest that this should not happen for months, possibly years, after the initial explosion.”
