The Sword of Gabriel: Ten Days on Earth Read online

  The Sword of Gabriel

  Ten Days on Earth

  Tom Holloway

  Copyright © 2017 Tom Holloway

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 0692813683

  ISBN 13: 9780692813683

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2016919745

  Sword of Gabriel, Louisville, KY

  For my true partner, my loving wife; and, for my mother who always believed in me; and, for my fantastic family plus all my friends who encouraged me----with love and gratitude always.

  Contents

  Chapter 1 Arrival

  Chapter 2 Saber Reconnaissance Flight

  Chapter 3 Day One—Visit to New York City

  Chapter 4 Russian Overflight

  Chapter 5 Employment by Consortium

  Chapter 6 June 6, 2014 Henry Benjamin Johnson

  Chapter 7 Drones

  Chapter 8 Bookstore Visit

  Chapter 9 Day Two

  Chapter 10 Meeting a Starship

  Chapter 11 Cyclone’s Introduction to Anna

  Chapter 12 Chinese/Russian Army Deployment

  Chapter 13 The Chinese Premier and His General CIA's Section 58

  Chapter 14 Tour of the Cyclone and Solar System

  Chapter 15 Anna

  Chapter 16 Day Three

  Chapter 17 Ka*am, Henry’s Home Planet

  Chapter 18 Gabriel

  Chapter 19 Starships and Space Travel

  Chapter 20 Enemies of Henry

  Chapter 21 Earth Again—Day Four

  Chapter 22 Meeting Anna’s Family

  Chapter 23 Day Five

  Chapter 24 Jacobs—Section 58

  Chapter 25 Premier Wu-Tong and General Ling

  Chapter 26 London Visit—Anna's Movie Premiere Day Six

  Chapter 27 Day Seven

  Chapter 28 Repercussions

  Chapter 29 Anna’s Home and Life in LA—day Eight

  Chapter 30 Los Angeles—Adventures

  Chapter 31 Anna's Friends—A Night on the Town in LA with a Movie Star

  Chapter 32 A Serial Killer—Day Nine

  Chapter 33 The President of the United States—Iran—Nuclear Weapons

  Chapter 34 Day Ten

  Chapter 35 Taking Care of Business—Law Firm Meeting—Farewell to Anna in LA at Café

  Chapter 36 Anna Without Henry

  Chapter 37 Possible Move to New York City

  Chapter 38 Issues

  Chapter 39 The Conclusion

  Chapter 1

  Arrival

  The Cyclone is coming in fast, much faster than I want, as this limitless light-speed starship is not used to putting on the brakes in such a short distance. We’re heading into this solar system at exactly 10,828 million miles per hour, a lot faster than the speed of light, braking hard, and it’s not easy to slow down at this speed. Glad to be here finally. It’s been a long trip. After traveling trillions of miles across a universe of mostly cold black emptiness, blasting through several galaxies, I’m finally closing in on Earth, my destination target. Earth isn’t easy to get to, and it’s been ten years since I was here last. I’m thrilled to be here again; it’s hard to contain my anticipation. I have ten precious days to be a human again.

  I definitely need to slow my speed more, or this visit might end before it starts. We’re still too hot, way too fast to try to penetrate the atmosphere of Earth. Yes, it’s now urgent! I have no time to be stupid; I need to reduce speed quickly. I have to slow to 450,000 miles per hour right now.

  At this speed it normally takes several million miles to come to a stop, and I need to pull it off in less than a million, trying to hit Earth with some degree of accuracy. It’s also a moving target as it is traveling at orbit speed. I’ll hit the atmosphere hard and level, with a thunderous explosion, then skip off like a flat rock hitting a pond, trying to slingshot around its only moon using its gravity to slow me down. Coming in the second time will be better, slower, a reasonable seventy thousand miles an hour. I’ll use the top layers of Earth’s air coming in at a six-degree plane to slow down more—any steeper would cause a huge inferno—then orbit once, probably twice, slowing more each time. The air friction will result in lots of superheated air, maybe more like a blazing firestorm. It’ll be enough to light up an entire continent for several minutes. Then I’m not sure of the next step. Probably best to take the Saber down to do some reconnaissance on Earth’s surface. The Saber is an attack star-jet much smaller than an intergalactic starship like the Cyclone. It’s housed in Bay 5.

  I have many things to do and not much time to do them, thus the foolish haste. Unfortunately, coming in so fast with the massive air friction on the hull will alert the whole planet. It’s stupid to light up a dark sky. I have no illusions; surely all this will be noticed. Best to be cautious after this error, to park the Cyclone in a high orbit, let things calm down, stay hidden. Maybe use the Saber in stealth mode, check the planet out, and look around. I need to plan this, think about my visit, as every minute is valuable.

  I’m coming in solo, one starship and no backup. A confrontation with some military force wouldn’t be good for anyone, and that’s not my purpose. This is recreation only, time off, a chance to see my home planet after many years of being gone. It’s a wish granted because of my rank and a reward for my deeds. However, it comes with limitations, and the first is a big one: I have only ten days, and then I’m gone for another ten years. It’s never enough time and too long gone.

  I work for a Consortium of Civilizations with 14,651 members and one pending application. Unfortunately, Earth is not considered part of its membership nor a possible applicant, as it’s too far away and too small, really too primitive. Earth’s star, or sun, is one of three hundred billion stars in this galaxy, and there are maybe a hundred billion galaxies in the universe, more than I can count. Actually, hardly anyone knows about Earth except for me. This solar system is just a tiny part of an immense area I roam, which spans more than forty-five billion light-years across space in all directions. This is more than a quadrillion miles—and sometimes many times more, depending on what direction you go. I’ve covered more miles than a googol, the highest number known on Earth. I’ve seen thousands of solar systems. I keep busy.

  A light-year is the distance light travels in one year. It’s an actual distance of about six trillion miles; if calculated, the speed of light is about seven hundred million miles per hour. This is fast yet not fast enough to cover the distances I travel. You need the fastest starship in the universe. You need speed many times the speed of light, and with the starship Cyclone, I have the tremendous power to get the job done.

  I call it the Cyclone as I was allowed to rename it, after asking permission. The previous name was impossible for me to pronounce—too alien and way too weird. Cyclone was much more fitting, as it’s like riding a cyclone when you generate that much power and speed. Yet even more essential, after further discussion, it was determined it was critical that the starship agreed to the new name, as this ship was opinionated. At the time this was curious to me as it was explained the starship was a being of its own and actually much smarter than me. This process wasn’t easy, and we, meaning the starship and me, argued about it at first, but reason prevailed. The deciding factor was that it wasn’t practical to use the real name, for my sake a nickname was necessary. It will always be too long for me to say and will not help our working relationship. That was many years ago, and we now laugh about it after it accuses me of being really primitive in those early years. I have come a long way since then, and our relationship is close now.

  The Cyclone is an incredible starship, capable of amazing feats. For example, breaking t
hrough the speed-of-light barrier is not easy; it can be messy if not done right. The Cyclone must bend space and time, which requires huge amounts of energy, exact timing, and the manipulation of gravity, including negative gravity, or the physics of dark matter. Everything in the universe moves with the colossal power of the flow of gravity. If you can handle and control gravity, the universe is yours to take, as it’s God’s engine. And if you can’t, stay home, as starship travel is dangerous on many levels.

  No matter—Earth is home for me, my first home, where I was born. It’s impossible to express how good I feel, other than saying I’m more than overjoyed to be here. It’s night over North America, and you can see the millions of lights coming from the cities spread over the globe. Dawn’s not far off, and I’m looking forward to seeing the sunrise. I’m excited about my first day here—ready to go, eager to see everything.

  Probably smart to look around some, see what’s going on, and check to see if there are any military conflicts in the works. Earthlings have their issues sometimes. Something is always going on. Maybe there’s a war or hurricanes, maybe a typhoon. Bad weather is always possible; bad stuff is always possible. Need to be careful.

  Yes, it will be good to take a spin around the world. Maybe a quick surveillance will be interesting. No question, I’ll use the Saber, as the Cyclone is too massive for an unseen reconnaissance on Earth. Better to let it orbit in stealth mode, unseen by prying eyes. It’s also suitable to use the Saber for another reason. It’s one of my greatest joys. It has tremendous power and incredible acceleration; then there is the pleasure of the adrenaline rush. On Earth it could be compared to driving the ultimate sports car. It’s a light attack military starship capable of great speed, yet it has the flexibility of a smaller starship, thus it’s used for reconnaissance and simply a lot of fun to fly. Actually, I love flying it!

  The Saber’s look is stunning, too, the surface a polished, dazzling black silver, like a black mirror, blinding to the eye when shimmering in the sun’s reflection. It’s long and aerodynamically slender, curved with knife-edge wings off the stern, with a slanted tail fin on a tapered cylinder with an elongated extensive forward hull, finishing with a long frontal knifelike spear, the blade side down. On the whole it has a wicked and dangerous look to it.

  The Saber’s engineering makes it good for this mission. For one, it has a complete visual operations package, including video cameras with extreme magnification, and drones that are invisible for close-in surveillance, including sensitive sound collection. We can see and hear conversations of beings on the ground, even though we might be in orbit.

  The design of this sleek military starship includes an extended flat underside, which helps give it extra lift when there’s atmosphere. Overall its appearance is like a big sleek eagle with a long pointed beak. It has a hull length of 478 feet, with a hull width of 130 feet plus 86 feet of razor-sharp wings sweeping back at the rear, off both sides, for a width total of 302 feet. The total hull height is 70 feet, yet it reaches 138 feet with the tail fin centered on top, sweeping back severely, off the rear at 68 feet high, razor sharp. The wings are severely slanted off the port and starboard sides, going farther back, next to the aft thrusters.

  Generally, for a military starship, the craft is heavy, weighing 996,000 tons in Earth’s gravity. With a weapons package the weight increases dramatically, as it adds 950 tons. In comparison to most reconnaissance military starships in this class, it’s much heavier. Most of the extra weight is because it’s well armored. It can be used to ram other ships, as it’s almost impossible to penetrate its armored skin. Any craft the Saber hits will fragment on impact. The entire Saber is made of a metal alloy that’s almost supernatural; nothing damages it, including mega hot temperatures. The wings are also like titanium knives and will slice through anything, even asteroid rock. A starship may hit many things at high speed and must survive the impact.

  As good as it was when built, it’s even better now. I’ve improved many features of the Saber. For one, it now has six fusion rocket burners aft, powering it. I’m proud to say I rebuilt four of them and then added two more, which also made the starship heavier. I wanted the extra backup thrust. Plus I could use the backwash as a weapon. The fiery blast creates a hot tail for miles, burning up anything in its path. Just by swinging away from a target, the Saber’s fiery tail will do damage. The massive thrust will destroy anything in its way and achieve terrific speeds quickly. The forward air shockwave, at mega sonic speeds, is an issue to any structure in front of the concussion wave. I have to be really careful when at lower Earth altitudes to avoid damaging buildings with the massive wind hit.

  The far rear of the ship is mostly an elongated circle of massive dull-black rocket engines, then the fusion blast funnels, real serious looking, and each impressively protruding another 82 feet back from the hull.

  I’ve changed the front of the ship, too. It’s extraordinary. I enhanced the ultra sleek design with an additional length added to the slender nose spear, and making it more knifelike, a deeper cut downward, as it is now a twenty-foot blade protruding 102 feet out forward, proportionally sweeping gradually to a sharp point, starting from the front cabin nose. Like a razor-thin knife, it will slice through anything it hits, including enemy starships. It is a saber made from metal compounds that are forged at a heat equal to the sun, with metals harder than anything existing in the universe. With this forward razorblade spear and the aft rocket extensions, the ship’s hull stretches out to a total length of 662 feet. The starship itself is formidable, extremely fast, and deadly, even without firing a weapon.

  Because of the knife-blade nose tip, I call the ship the Saber, a fitting name for a warrior starship.

  As the captain, I sit at the base of the frontal spear structure, in the pilot’s cockpit or front cabin, which is raised up over the front fuselage. It’s thirty-six feet wide, shielded by a black diamond crystal “see-through” windshield, sitting on the top of the total hull width of 130 feet, thus the width without the wings. Plenty of room for two pilots high up front, with a lot of equipment panels, and behind them there is room for four crew members, part of the team needed for long-range operations. There are living quarters farther back and also space to carry ordnance, troops, or millions of drones. The dark-black windshield is also thirty-eight feet long, sweeping from the pilot’s cabin and slanting forward, narrowing onto the nose spear, aerodynamically perfect. It is stronger than metal.

  The Saber looks powerful standing still, ready to burst free, fierce, tightened to spring; dangerous, just like a crouching jaguar. They both are spectacular engineering miracles.

  This light starship’s six nuclear-fusion reactors at full heat will create a total horsepower of 968 million units at thirty thousand degrees Fahrenheit. At full power it will leave a blast tail behind it for hundreds of miles that will simply vaporize anything that tumbles into its firestorm.

  I have never powered up to full capacity or even taken it close to its top speed. However, I know I can take it up to 250,000 miles per hour real quick. This is very easy to do, depending on gravity and atmosphere. It’s helpful to be in thin air or no air, as in off-planet space. Also, the g-forces on a human body on Earth, or any similar heavy-gravity planet can kill you if you’re not careful. The human body is too fragile for much pressure. I have to control gravity, or adapt to it both ways; when it’s too much or too little. Both can be critical, leaving my survival in question. The ship will offset the g-force pressure on me as much as possible, with some counter-internal-gravity absorbers.

  No matter. I have arrived, made my Earth destination as planned, with no incident. The slowdown worked. The Cyclone has automatically piloted into a safe orbit and is now on course about two hundred miles above Earth. I figure I need to let it run at about eighteen thousand miles per hour to maintain this orbit, keeping the Cyclone from falling into Earth’s gravity. Currently the Saber is embedded in the Cyclone’s lowest cargo hold, with an escape door for fast ge
taways. Within a few minutes, I am belted in. The starship is ready. I open the outside bay doors, hear the locks disengage, and then I silently drop out, down toward Earth, waiting to completely clear the Cyclone’s airspace. The long free fall is pleasing, serene, and quiet, as in the calm before the storm. I drop down to about a hundred miles above Earth, looking out at the planet from outer space, seeing the horizon of Earth, a line separating the blackness of the universe. Not much atmosphere at this altitude and little air for wing lift pressure, nor much gravity.

  I fire the ignition, readying myself for the massive surge forward. I feel the initial thrust blasting, accelerating, the thunderous roar, then the impact of the enormous speed, my body pinned back, the Saber streaking up over Earth’s atmosphere, still in black outer space, the rockets smoking hot, the unlimited power. I love this part.

  The part I don’t like is being in Earth’s gravity field, as I am pressed back to the seat from the colossal surge forward. My entire body feels the terrific pressure. It takes my breath away, and I am gasping for air until I reduce power. I wonder if it could turn me into a pancake if I didn’t let up. Sure feels like it. I do imagine at times it’s pulling my toes backward, then it feels like my ears are stretching, and maybe my eyelids are being pasted to my forehead. Yet I always come away with no side effects. Apparently my body adapts. There is not much I can do about it.

  Quickly I’m hitting tremendous speed, running at fifty-five thousand miles per hour, gaining altitude fast, maybe 160 miles up from Earth’s surface. I’m in Earth’s exosphere, using the very thin air in the upper layer of the atmosphere, as it has less friction and little gravity. I’m looking out at the Earth, the beautiful blue world a stunning sight from this outer-space loft, and the ride is exhilarating. Moving this fast, this high, is thrilling and much smoother in comparison to when I plunge down into heavier air. Then it is thunderous, the air-shock waves exploding like a tsunami blasting forward, the concussion jerking me about. The sensation of the massive ground speed is dramatic; Earth’s surface flashing by below me is exhilarating. Then the heavier air is forcing me to let off the gas as I descend. The heated fireworks from the friction on the hull also slow me down, as I am dropping altitude.