Disaster and Redemption

Commander Jared Prescott was flying the orbiter at hovering velocity and very low altitude. This mission was envisioned for years and was now a reality. Its role was to assess if earth could be restored. The global catastrophe had been a life-extinction event. It was not caused by a rogue asteroid or external attack but by human folly and ignorance. Its mind-bending scope was to restore human, animal, marine and plant life. It could take thousands of years. Considering earth’s life base was gone, this was an optimistic project.

He steered the orbiter into a small valley surrounded by low mountainous terrain. He saw a lunar landscape. His crew were part of teams building a GPS and resource map of earth. They were engineers, scientists and specialist staff. Home base was a giant space station orbiting Ganymede, their resource base and Jupiter’s largest moon. They were human extra-terrestrials. The twelve stations orbited Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn and some of the larger moons.

They were all part of Humanscape Enterprises (HsE). Language, cultural and other divisions existed, but they saw themselves as citizens surviving and thriving. This was a mission-critical survival requirement. Jared was an engineer/astronaut. His passion was history and especially of earth before the disaster. The collapse of the biosphere triggered global anarchy. Jared knew that humans descended into blind folly as that occurred. The planet remained but humans, plants and animals had gone. The global nuclear war of 2150 exterminated life on earth.

The war was a holocaust and the darkest day in human history. After six months everyone and everything was bombed, irradiated, or starved. In the end, nothing was left. It had been a long while coming but the effects of pollution, deforestation, species annihilation, global warming, overcrowding and insane ambition impacted hard. Global competition for territory, energy, food and water had become savage. The end result was the ‘final solution’. All perished.

Decades before, a visionary group created Humanscape Enterprises (HsE) held a secret conference to see what could be done in the face of inevitable biosphere destruction. They had been working for years to influence events in the then politically toxic climate. Humans had become totally distrustful. It was too late to save the earth. It was time to save the human race. The solution was to set up space stations off the earth for a survival population to escape to. Earth already had a few of these giant space stations in orbit. Now they had to be re-purposed and expanded. They had utilized some alien technology when it was finally made known to the world, so the task was to get more stations built. The end timing was unclear yet looked inevitable.

It was calculated they could save about fifty thousand people. It would take enormous effort and if it became common knowledge, the project would fail. This Noah’s Ark process was now on an extra-terrestrial scale. It took twenty years to achieve with wave after wave of people, plants, animals, seed stores, resources and equipment launched off into space keeping the true purpose hidden. In the end, millions were involved to make it work. It was daunting, but to the credit of human altruism, those people knew they would not be going yet gave their all to it.

The enormous tragedy was that fifteen billion would have nowhere to go but oblivion. Jared knew his predecessors were the lucky ones. This was brutal for those chosen as well as those left behind. No one realized that the final solution would rapidly exterminate all remaining life on the planet. Jared shuddered at that result. The secretiveness was essential but necessary and it accelerated the end as anarchy erupted once it was revealed. That history was now compulsory learning for school children. It was these lessons that could never be forgotten that made Jared into a history aficionado. It was such an ugly truth. His extra-terrestrial society no longer recognized national boundaries or old racist, divisive thinking. There was only one human race and was very nearly extinguished.

Jared knew this region had been a highly valued food bowl. He saw a site to set down for sampling. He landed the orbiter near a large rocky escarpment that would give protection from any biting easterly storms that might spring up. Today was the last day of this surface cycle and then a week back in orbit. They shared a temporary orbiting ‘home’ with eleven other teams.

Surface work was hazardous and they utilized sealed environmental suits. What was remarkable was that the atmosphere was recovering after three centuries of zero human presence. The scientists theorized that the oceans might be responsible. They landed, quickly deployed the all-terrain vehicle and drove it a short distance from the ship and set to work. The slogan on their suits simply said, “Earth does not need humans – humans need the Earth”. Humans had all but forgotten that earlier.

There was activity within the earth as expected with eruptions, tremors and landslides observed since they had arrived in orbit. They had detected strange digital transmissions though that appeared to be coming from somewhere close, but so far were unidentifiable. Jared and co-pilot Andre were surprised there were any signs at all. They had discovered below the scarified surface, there was some microbial life. These were good signs, but he thought it might take thousands of years for life to emerge fully again.

Jared heard a shout from Trevor, his team’s geologist. The team were digging under the edges of a large rock formation as the soil there might have been better shielded from irradiation. They had found a rubble-filled opening and Trevor was on hands and knees now studying a smooth rock chamber that they had dug out. It was actually a short passageway. It was of walkable height and well made. It was about three meters long and finished in a smooth rockface. This was unexpected and Trevor thought it may have been an old mine entrance. Jared thought it looked fairly recent. None of their data showed anything like underground works here. They were fascinated.

On the side wall at waist height, they spied a circular carved area about ten centimeters diameter. It showed complex swirl shapes and a heart shaped area with writing below. In the very center was a constellation image that Jared recognized as the Pleiades Constellation (The Seven Sisters), known by many groups since ancient times. This was most intriguing.

As Trevor opened his mouth to speak, Jared said almost simultaneously,

“Doesn’t that look like digital lock, one of the really old types we used to have…?”

“Sure is”, said Trevor. “There are letters here too…yes, HsE!”

The letters were small but clearly engraved. The surface looked rock-like in texture but was metallic alloy of some sort.

“It couldn’t be that easy, could it?”, said Jared. He pulled out a communicator. It was already pre-coded for an array of lock systems.

This region was known as Australia and HsE had set up secret sites all over as they worked through the planetary survival plan back then. Each location was kept secret. They were never revealed, so references were rare and not detailed. Australia had some of the most stable geographical structures on earth, so it would have been a great choice.

“Well…”, said Jared. “Let’s see if something will open here…nothing to lose”.

Trevor touched his screen and to his surprise, the inscription emitted a series of strong pings.

“Wow”, said Jared. “Three hundred years and the thing still works!”

“Amazing…didn’t expect that at all”, said Trevor.

The pinging stopped and a low frequency hum followed for a few seconds. To their astonishment, the end face of the passageway quietly opened out into a large spherical door. A man and a woman stepped out with hands palm outwards and smiles on their faces. Jared and Trevor had not in a million years ever expected to see humans and were totally unprepared. His team carried weapons, but never expected to use them. These people were simply clad in military-looking jump suits. Added to that immense shock, they bore old HsE insignias on the front.

The man then said, in clear English, “Well hello there, we were wondering when you might figure us out. We have been watching you for a while now…but just being cautious”.

Jared then blurted out, “Who in god’s name are you people? I mean, how did you get here?”

The woman answered this time calmly, “We were born here, but where are you from?”

Jared said, “We are humans too, from earth originally. We are here to see what is left of the earth”. All their smiles absolutely beamed.

This was stupendous news. Humans still lived on earth! Although a bit late, health protocols were started by Jared to ensure neither group would harm the other bacteriologically or virally. The introductions and explanations began. That long separation would take some catching up on. Apparently, HsE had prepared for the biosphere collapse and had sealed their subterranean areas as the first bombs started exploding. They had been underground for the better part of the last three centuries. They had begun foraging onto the surface a few years ago and the doorway opened to Jared and his team was a rarely used back door. They were expected. Their scanners had not detected anything like what greeted them other than the mysterious signals.

What was staggering was that HsE’s network still operated. Surface travel had not really been started, yet their communications were global. Apparently HsE had envisioned indefinite survivability. They had prepared to become subterranean dwellers just as Jared’s people became extraterrestrials. Both groups had visionary plans to re-habilitate earth.

Jared and his crew were introduced underground to their subterranean counterparts. Word spread like wildfire across all their home stations. It was the most astounding news. Three thousand people lived underground at this location alone! Jared’s team were set up with ID pendants to wear that looked very much like the face of the electronic lock they opened. It held the heart shaped figure and the Pleiadian symbols. These devices acted as global citizen passports that contained one’s entire identity and personal history. A very human touch amongst all that disaster.

The other shock was to find that their hosts had long established formal communication with the Pleiadean constellation. This was hundreds of light years away. The Pleiadians were on their way to earth - again. They knew what had happened and were coming to help. Their arrival was still some months away. Many years earlier, people claimed to have telepathic communication with Pleiadians. They were dismissed as cranks. Pleiades had been important to ancient peoples on the earth and short-sighted humans dismissed all that as myth and legend only. This news was astonishing.

That early visit was before science and machines. The Pleiadians decided not to return to allow humans time to develop. We were too primitive to work with. With telepathic communication set up, the Pleiadeans sent workable designs for all sorts of devices, machines, power generators and advanced communications. It was this technology that was sending out those signals. They were too advanced for Jared’s people to fathom. This technology transfer had enabled earth-bound humans to fully adapt and survive in a subterranean world.

Pleiadian travelling was done at hundreds of times the speed of light. True interstellar travel was possible! Jared’s people had not gotten that far. This fantastic capability leap would revolutionize all technology and space travel. The most compelling realization was that humans might soon be trusted to protect what they encountered. Reliance on politics and divisive ideologies was long eliminated. All it had taken for this evolutionary leap forward was a global biosphere collapse and a nuclear holocaust that exterminated all life. Jared winced wryly at this idea but was still inspired at what now lay ahead.