2041 Sanctuary (Let There Be Light) Read online

  2041 SANCTUARY

  2: Let There Be Light

  (Book Two, Part Two of Ancient Origins)

  Robert Storey

  By Robert Storey

  2040: Revelations

  (Book One of Ancient Origins)

  2041: Sanctuary

  Part 1: Dark Descent

  (Book Two, Part One of Ancient Origins)

  2041: Sanctuary

  Part 2: Let There Be Light

  (Book Two, Part Two of Ancient Origins)

  2041: Sanctuary

  Part 3: Genesis

  (Book Two, Part Three of Ancient Origins)

  —————

  Forthcoming titles

  by Robert Storey

  2042: Apocalypse

  (Book Three of Ancient Origins)

  First published in Great Britain in 2015

  by SANCTURIAN PUBLISHING

  Copyright © Robert Storey 2015

  Robert Storey has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  1st Edition

  All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance

  to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  eBook design by Robert Storey

  Cover design by Robert Storey

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  Sancturian Publishing

  www.sancturian.com

  CHRONOLOGICAL MEMORANDUM

  The Ancient Origins series of books run sequentially in time, year on year. Within each volume, however, a multitude of characters, located in various parts of the world, may experience events simultaneously despite their narrative being separated by a significant number of chapters. In certain instances, some character timelines may be interrupted in order for other characters’ tales to be told, for them only to resume at a later stage in the book despite minimal time passing in their life. If the reader is prepared for such deferrals in narrative it will serve to let the book’s structure and chapters flow as intended.

  Dedication

  2041 Sanctuary: Let There Be Light is dedicated with love to the human race, of which we are all a part.

  May we find our way home.

  Acknowledgements

  A massive thank you as ever to my parents for helping me stay the course and for their invaluable editing and insight into what works and what doesn’t. Also, another big thank you to my copy editor, Julie Lewthwaite, who continues to keep me on the straight and narrow.

  Furthermore, thank you to everyone who has given me their support and encouragement, which includes anyone who’s been kind enough to contact me or leave a review for my books online or otherwise. It’s your kind words and feedback that has kept me motivated through difficult times, both professionally and personally.

  Table of Contents

  AUTHOR NOTE

  QUOTE

  FACT:

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY EIGHT

  CHAPTER FIFTY NINE

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  CHAPTER SIXTY ONE

  CHAPTER SIXTY TWO

  CHAPTER SIXTY THREE

  CHAPTER SIXTY FOUR

  CHAPTER SIXTY FIVE

  CHAPTER SIXTY SIX

  CHAPTER SIXTY SEVEN

  CHAPTER SIXTY EIGHT

  CHAPTER SIXTY NINE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  CHAPTER SEVENTY ONE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY TWO

  CHAPTER SEVENTY THREE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY FOUR

  CHAPTER SEVENTY FIVE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY SIX

  CHAPTER SEVENTY SEVEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTY EIGHT

  CHAPTER SEVENTY NINE

  CHAPTER EIGHTY

  CHAPTER EIGHTY ONE

  CHAPTER EIGHTY TWO

  CHAPTER EIGHTY THREE

  CHAPTER EIGHTY FOUR

  CHAPTER EIGHTY FIVE

  CHAPTER EIGHTY SIX

  CHAPTER EIGHTY SEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  APPENDIX A

  APPENDIX B

  APPENDIX C

  APPENDIX D

  APPENDIX E

  APPENDIX F

  APPENDIX G

  APPENDIX H

  APPENDIX I

  APPENDIX J

  APPENDIX K

  APPENDIX L

  APPENDIX M

  APPENDIX N

  APPENDIX O

  TERMINOLOGY / MAP

  POETRY … I SEE YOU

  ENTER THE LIGHT

  AUTHOR NOTE

  Please be aware Let There Be Light was never intended to end where it does, as I originally planned to conclude 2041 Sanctuary (which began in Dark Descent) with a single volume. However, as I wrote it became clear my characters had other ideas and the completed book, with appendices, was one thousand, three hundred and fifty pages long. Due to paperback constraints, and trying to keep weight and thickness down while preserving font size, it was decided, after much deliberation, to split the book in two.

  I was loath to go down this route for a number of reasons, most prevalent being I didn't want to interrupt the flow of the read and secondly, and perhaps more importantly, I didn't want it to appear like a money-making exercise. However, unlike the paperbacks, I was at least able to half the price of the e-books, due to the minimal production costs, when compared to their hard copy counterparts.

  Therefore the story that begins in Let There Be Light concludes in Genesis, and 2041 Sanctuary comprises three books (or parts) and they are as follows:

  2041 Sanctuary (1: Dark Descent)

  2041 Sanctuary (2: Let There Be Light)

  2041 Sa
nctuary (3: Genesis)

  For more detail on my deliberations behind this decision, please visit the website: www.Sancturian.com

  —

  In the blackest pits, or emptiest of voids, there is always a guiding light; it’s just up to us to find it.

  – Robert Storey

  FACT:

  On the 8th January 2011 an asteroid with the potential to impact Earth in 2040 was discovered by the Mount Lemmon Survey. This near-Earth object was given the designation, 2011 AG5.

  A year later, in 2012, the world’s international media warned this same asteroid might impact our planet in the year predicted. This warning was subsequently retracted soon after by the same sources, citing a false alarm.

  Whether these media channels were privy to the whole truth is open to conjecture, however, true or not, our planet is under constant threat of annihilation and we still have no tried and tested means by which to protect ourselves from this celestial threat.

  The governments of the world’s most powerful nations have secret contingencies for global disasters. These plans are kept from the public for a reason.

  Prologue

  Out of the earth came the fires of hell, the breath of death licking at the heels of all living creatures. Predator or prey, it mattered not; consumption of flesh and bone was sacrificed to the maw of white hot heat and flame. Rock melted and the air itself burned as the devastation that was the fallout from the arrival of the asteroid, 2011 AG5, streaked out from the impact epicentre faster than a supersonic jet. As predicted, trains of tsunamis sprang into being to arrow into the Indian Ocean, their titanic power obliterating everything and anything in their path.

  South Africa, the once proud nation, was no more. Scarred and mortally wounded, the whole southern African continent became shrouded in the blossoming dust cloud that would encompass the whole planet in its choking, suffocating embrace; a cloud that still persisted to that day, a cloud that had brought humanity to its knees and shook the fragility of civilisation to its core.

  NASA astronaut, Pilot Commander Tyler Magnusson, stared at the footage on-screen, his thoughts melancholy. While he’d seen these pictures many times before he often found himself watching them again, the force of nature frightening to behold, and yet, equally, mesmeric in its raw power. The potent image of the meteor strike recorded the year before from his own spacecraft, USSS Orbiter One, was a stark reminder of the momentous times he was living through: an epic age of humanity where the culmination of man’s endeavour pitted itself against the powers of the solar system and beyond.

  It seemed strange to Tyler that only humans bore the full knowledge of what transpired in this era of terrible, apocalyptic transition, bearing witness as the dominant sentient race of the time to the upheaval brought from the stars. The weight of responsibility for the entire planet and every living thing on it was in Homo sapiens’ hands. The burden couldn’t be greater.

  Despite the tumultuous nature of events, as day came after night and dawn reversed dusk, time marched ever onwards, waiting for no one and no thing. The inevitable decay of the world ticked on, animals breathing, breeding, dying; plants growing, multiplying, rotting. It is a curious paradox that all living things must die. What is the point, the purpose, the grand plan of existence? Knowledge gained, darkness fought and light sought, hard-earned wisdom lost to the abyss of death. The fact that we humans appear to be the only creatures on the planet that are fully aware of our own mortality – and not just our own, but that of those we hold dear, too – seems a cruel twist of fate. Or perhaps it is just an evolutionary curse gifted us by our forebears, a trade-off for a so-called superior intellect. Some view this machination of chance, intelligent design or divine provenance as an inevitability that fuels their motivation to live life to the full, fearing little in their quest to savour its sweetest pleasures and fully comprehending their tenuous hold on existence, seeing it as a gift on loan rather than a permanent possession. Others let this burden of knowledge smother and cripple them with dread, stifling their voice and actions beyond comprehension until their days, even their entire lives, are without meaning or direction, except as a dire warning to those who seek to do otherwise. And yet who is to judge what is meaningless and what is not? Everything has purpose, great or small; the sad and perhaps frightening thing is, in some cases, that purpose might not be our own.

  Tyler heaved a sigh as the final vision of the great oceans’ deep blues, from horizon to curved horizon, succumbed to the veil of black ash and pulverised stone, hiding the blessed planet we all call home from view. Flicking a switch he turned off the display and returned his attention to his surroundings. The United States Space Station, USSS Archimedes, continued to drift through the silent vacuum of space, its orbit uninterrupted by the passage of time and the embattled Earth that continued its own journey through the heavens encased in its thick, undulating cloak of ejected matter from the 2040 meteorite impact.

  ‘Commander?’

  Tyler looked to his colleague, Sandy Turner, the spacewalk specialist and station pilot.

  ‘Sir,’ she said, ‘the final Sabre space-aircraft has arrived from the surface. They’re requesting your presence on board the ISS.’

  ‘Are the GMRC’s ships still docked?’

  Sandy tapped a button to produce a holographic image of the International Space Station, to which the Archimedes was attached. ‘They are.’

  Tyler’s expression grew grim. The GMRC, the Global Meteor Response Council – just the name made him angry. When the first asteroid destined for Earth had been discovered in 2011, misinformation calmed the world’s populace about its destructive potential. But when six more asteroids were found to be following in AG5’s wake, any one of which had the capability to annihilate the planet’s fragile ecosystems, the cover up expanded and it was decided a unified response was needed if humanity was to live on. So, in 2017, instigated by the world’s leading nations to combat the unprecedented threat, the Global Meteor Response Council was born, and the GMRC, as it became known, was tasked with the most important of missions: to protect and preserve humanity, civilisation and all life on Earth. And with that remit it had embedded itself into the very governments that had created it. And year on year the GMRC’s influence had grown until it answered only to itself, a global organisation of unrivalled power and reach that bent all of the world’s nations to its will, regardless of their size or strength.

  In 2022, the GMRC cemented its position of authority by advising the United Nations to verify the existence of the first asteroid to the masses, including the full disclosure of how its impact in 2040 would devastate the Earth. This single act allowed the GMRC to operate in public and to unify humanity’s purpose, while in secret it plotted to combat the larger threat to come in 2042 and 2045, when the final asteroids would arrive. With the majority of the planet’s populace believing only one asteroid was on a collision course with Earth, all but the paranoid could have guessed at the preparations being made behind the GMRC’s public façade. Chief amongst the GMRC’s plans was the Space Programme and its larger cousin, the Subterranean Programme, the latter of the two acting as a failsafe in the event the former was unable to prevent the predicted impacts.

  And since its inception all those years ago, the GMRC was everywhere, sticking its nose in where it didn’t belong and interfering with each country’s efforts to save the planet like an overbearing parent that refused to take no for an answer. And where that influence was felt the most was amongst the civilian agencies who worked in space, with NASA shouldering the greatest burden of them all.

  ‘Shall I tell them you’re on your way?’ Sandy said, breaking Tyler’s reverie.

  He took one last look around to make sure everything was in order. Satisfied, he nodded and left her alone on the control deck as he moved aft towards the umbilical passage that connected Archimedes to the enormous bulk of the International Space Station, which in turn was connected to the slightly smaller Chinese Space Station, Jiùshìzhǔ,
and its sibling, the European Space Station, Guardian. In current climes the day for firsts had almost become a regular occurrence, but the fact that the four largest space vehicles in history had moored up to one another like a celestial gathering of metallic angels was indeed a momentous occasion. With their solar panels arching out like feathered wings the Three Sisters, as they were called, encircled the parental form of the aging International Space Station. A procession of cutting-edge technology tethered to one another in perpetuity until the powers-that-be deemed it fit for them to go their separate ways once more.

  Tyler, with the aid of magnetic boots, strode through the partial gravity generated on Archimedes, the sound of metal ringing on metal echoing at his passing. Reaching the end of a corridor, he switched off his footwear’s mechanism and floated up through a hatch to re-emerge on the next level. With a deftness born of a career in space, Tyler pushed against a bulkhead to re-orientate to a new vertical and then re-engaged the mag-boots, which secured him to another walkway.

  Spiralling outwards from Archimedes’ interior, Tyler found himself moving past the laboratory complex, which had been taken over by the GMRC’s nefarious R&D Division at the behest of the United States military and the all powerful GMRC Directorate, the Global Meteor Response Council’s controlling division. Unusually no guards were placed at the entrance to the lab modules and Tyler slowed and then stopped. The surrounding corridors, which stretched off in all directions, were eerily empty.

  With the oppressive silence setting his senses alight, Tyler felt a compulsion to enter the highly restricted area, the same area which had caused so much trauma to the Archimedes crew ever since the GMRC’s R&D Division had brought on board a sinister experiment going by the name of Project Ares. With many of his colleagues still in quarantine on the surface due to exposure to this blackest of scientific projects, Tyler knew the risks involved. Following the recent disclosure by NASA’s Mission Command at Houston that many of those under medical supervision had taken a turn for the worse, with two in critical condition, and the sudden death of his captain, Bo Heidfield, who’d all but died in his arms only a handful of weeks before, the stakes were high; but Tyler also knew anything he could learn about Project Ares might aid his comrades, who now fought for their lives on the surface hundreds of miles below.