Reunion Read online

  CONTENTS:

  About the book

  About the author

  Thanks and dedication

  PART ONE – THE BLACK BOX AND THE GIRL WITH BLACK EYES

  Prologue

  Chapter One – Tristan da Cunha

  Chapter Two – Angel Fire

  Chapter Three – An Unwanted Visitor

  Chapter Four – The Launch

  PART TWO – THE GREAT CHANGE

  Chapter Five – 30 Years Later

  Chapter Six – Chu Moon Base

  Chapter Seven – The Great Change

  Chapter Eight – Mars Landing!

  Chapter Nine – Niesha’s Rescue – The Beginnings of a Plan

  Chapter Ten – Journey to the Caves of Mars

  Chapter Eleven – Niesha’s Rescue

  Chapter twelve – The Reunion

  Chapter thirteen – A New Beginning

  PART THREE - RECLAMATION

  Chapter Fourteen – Mr Chu Finds God

  Chapter Fifteen – The Truth Game

  Chapter Sixteen - Highball

  Chapter Seventeen – The Troubles Begin

  Chapter Eighteen – The Caretaker’s Tale

  Chapter Nineteen – Message in a Bottle

  Chapter Twenty – You mean You’re God?!

  Chapter Twenty-one – The Big Plan

  Chapter twenty-two – You’re Kidding, Right?

  Chapter Twenty-Three – How Bad Can it Get?

  Chapter Twenty-Four – The Plan Comes Together

  Chapter Twenty-Five – A New Beginning

  About the Book

  This is the first book in the Hand of Destiny Science Fiction series which takes the threads from the end of the A George Melville Mystery, six book series, and takes it into the 21st century and beyond. Designed to be read without knowledge of the previous series, the book predicts the dystopian future facing humankind with global warming and our general disregard for the planet and each other. It also addresses some of the fundamental questions that face us like who we actually are, is there a god, and what is the purpose of life? This exciting first instalment sees our heroes forced off planet Earth, which they were trying to save, meaning their journey into the cosmos begins on the dark side of the moon. They then find a new home on Mars, but discover a secret link with Earth’s pre-history and Mars, meaning there are shocking implications for humankind.

  This first book launches a series which explores not only our universes, but countless other multiverses, and offers ideas to the very purpose of life in a thought-provoking and exhilarating adventure which takes us to the edge of our perception of reality, and beyond the parameters of our imagination, where we search for new technologies and thought processes which take us out of this construct into what actually exists outside. It begins a saga which sees fleets of ships battling it out in the silence of space, and introduces us to a concept of true evil which has the power to destroy life everywhere. Will the Hand of Destiny truly achieve the reunion that they crave, and what is the rebirth? Is there hope for the Earth? Is there hope for humankind? The journey begins…

  About the Author

  Martin Jones started writing his first book in January 2018. At the time of writing it is August 2019, and so far he has written a six book series, and this first Science Fiction book which begins the Hand of Destiny Series. He performs regularly as a musician and has a full-time job as head of music for a college in Hull, England. His first book The Mask of Perpetuity is about to be published by international publishers Austin Macaulay.

  I would like to thank Paul Sharpless, Matthew Smith, Rob Law and Mike Bird for helping me in the tireless task of reading and offering feedback. It is very much appreciated.

  As ever I dedicate this book to my wife and best friend, Pauline, who struggles with ill health so bravely. I will always love you Sweepea.

  BOOK 1 - THE HAND OF DESTINY SERIES

  REUNION - FROM THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

  (Taken from the Mars Second Tome of Melville, 2451 – digitally remastered – fifth edition)

  By Martin Jones © 2019

  Ripping Yarns UK Publishing

  www.rippingyarns.uk.com

  BOOKS AVAILABLE IN THE GEORGE MELVILLE BOOK SERIES:

  BOOK ONE – THE MASK OF PERPETUITY

  BOOK TWO – THE HAND OF DESTINY

  BOOK THREE – THE EMERALD TABLET (AND THE SEVEN SERMONS OF THE DEAD)

  BOOK FOUR – THE KEYSTONE TO ENLIGHTENMENT

  BOOK FIVE – THE MUMMIFIED HAND AND THE PRESIDENT

  BOOK SIX – ARMAGEDDON

  PART ONE

  THE BLACK BOX AND THE GIRL WITH BLACK EYES

  Prologue

  No one was there to witness the arrival of the black box in an unimpressive part of the Black Eye Galaxy, approximately seventeen million light years from Earth. Surreally it hadn’t come from anywhere, it had just popped into being. One might surmise that it had materialised out of another dimension; that is to say if anyone had been there to witness this, which was sadly not the case. If there had been someone there, in the cold wastes of space, they would have had a job looking at it, because it really didn’t obey the laws of Euclidean physics. It just did not belong there. Looking at it, you would swear it had multiple sides, but as you would look around it, although it appeared to be a cube, there were no sides to it at all, and one would become quite queasy if one navigated around it. It looked like a cube, but one could not imagine how it came across as such.

  There would have been an intelligence to it discernible if someone had been looking at it, because three seconds after it arrived, it sped off towards a tiny dot in a distant galaxy, known to its inhabitants as Earth.

  ∆∆∆

  The Hand of Destiny were celebrating Susan’s sixty-sixth birthday at their base in Tibet, which was a little odd, as she still appeared to be a seven-year-old girl; although if you looked her in the eye, there was an ancient wisdom noticeable, which was a little unnerving. The reader may be wondering how this was possible, but what it is important to state at the earliest point is that Susan was no normal girl; in fact none of her family or friends was anything like normal. For instance, me, Melville (her father), Susan, Emily (her mother), Merriweather and Dodds (friends), who represented the Hand of Destiny along with Mr Chu, our master, and Mr Neme, who was a Sufi master, were all now immortal. By this I mean that Mr Chu and Mr Neme were already immortal (because of who they were), and the rest of the Hand became immortal when we returned from Limbo. This is no doubt a lot to take in, so let me explain.

  We had all started out innocently enough back in 1935. I had been an investigative officer working for my employers, law firm Sugarman and Hartnell. I’d first met Dodds in an earlier case of multiple murder as he worked for Scotland Yard as a detective inspector, but I had met Mad Dog and Yvonne (Merriweather) a year later when we were involved with a case that saw us rather shambolically working for His Majesty’s Secret Service (The Mask of Perpetuity, Book 1 in A George Melville Mystery). It was the year later when we discovered a bizarre fact that changed our lives completely and set them on the course of where we were now (The Hand of Destiny, Book 2 in A George Melville Mystery). The fact was that we were all linked to ancient Buddhist statues, and every time we died, our souls were attached to the statues and reincarnated when there was a need for us again; meaning we were friends destined to return in different guises through history, but brought together to fight whichever battle was required of us by our master, who remained immortal to engineer our reunion again in each lifetime to protect humanity in its pathway to enlightenment.

  We didn’t ask for this to happen, it just did, and it all seems like a long time ago now. To be honest, although it did take some time to come to terms with this fact, we became acclimatised t
o it. Mad Dog and I had been trapped in Limbo. We were rescued by the other Hand members. Once we returned we realised that we had become immortal ourselves. After a while, we just accepted it. It meant we were there for humanity forever now, instead of living normal lives, dying, and then being reincarnated back into being, and having to find each other again with the help of Mr Chu.

  Two more extraordinary facts are important here to help us catch up with events. Firstly, Susan didn’t mind appearing like a little girl, because she was in fact the Pathfinder, an ancient spirit reborn as our child, sent to guide humanity out of the dark years. Of course my wife and I had no idea of this until much later.

  Her helper in this cause, the presence that generally existed inside of the Pathfinder, was a certain SeeMore, a spherical object that had come from the dystopian future of an alternative reality, sent to help the Pathfinder here, and give humanity a fresh chance to save the planet in this reality.

  We had dedicated ourselves to saving the planet, and ensuring the future that SeeMore had travelled from would not be our fate in this existence. Saving the planet, though, was a lot harder than we had imagined. It seemed humanity was dead set on a course of destruction, dancing to the dance of capitalism gone mad. Profit was everything, and if they had to rape and pillage the rainforests and the oceans to do that, then they would do.

  Firstly, in order to make a difference, the goal was simply to accrue money. We needed to make huge amounts of money, because to make any difference at all, it would take enormous sums to realise anything like our aims. To achieve this, SeeMore had used its knowledge about the future, albeit just its own, to invest very wisely and expeditiously in all the right areas: plastics, computers, mobile applications, land and Latin American shares and investments. The sums now showed a huge $7 trillion amount now secreted in bank accounts around the world, in spite of what we had already spent so far to begin the process of making a difference.

  Over the years the money had been used to grab land at first in areas completely out of the way, and help humanity in terms of turning back the damage it was inflicting on the Earth. This was achieved by creating rainforest plant projects, biosphere colonies, ecosystems, experimental stations and genetic banks, each protected from aerial observation and government interference by SeeMore and the technology it installed.

  We were now facing our most daring plan of all. Our strategy had been to develop our own technological drive using the knowledge we had from SeeMore, meaning the technology available to us was far in advance of the current knowledge humanity had developed. We had terraformed an acquisition from twelve years ago, a remote group of volcanic islands in the South Atlantic Ocean, to house a base, an airstrip and a spaceport, able to launch anything within reason to any one of the planets in the solar system.

  Sadly, SeeMore had not been able to fathom yet faster than light speed, so the solar system was the limit at the moment.

  On this October 14th, 2018, then, the launch of three biospheres to the dark side of the Moon was planned, which would provide a sustainable ecosystem for any future visitors, but it was time to collect on promises made a long time ago. Back in 1972, once the Hand developed an overall plan and had some funds behind it, we had made visits to all the major countries of the world. We introduced ourselves and the powers that we had, which were basically the ability to heal and be healed, the power to rematerialise to other places and the ability to destroy or move anything using the power of the Thousand. After the initial shock, and some considerable pressure from us all, it was agreed that each country would agree to save two per cent of its GDP towards a fund which, when it was required of the Hand, would provide money for any project deemed important enough for this venture.

  Having terraformed Tristan da Cunha into a spaceport and airport, once the ecospheres were in place, a much larger project was planned to completely terraform Mars, with plans to create a magnetic field around the planet and defrost the residual water table that was completely frozen, and use thermal atomisers to restore a climate to Mars that could support and sustain life. This would take a huge amount of money, yet it was estimated that $20 trillion or the equivalent should by now be available from the countries visited in 1972, which would be sufficient along with the Hand’s funds to achieve our aims.

  Although SeeMore couldn’t see any money set up for this, we had no idea what clandestine funds had been arranged to meet our needs. We presumed amongst the myriad of government schemes set up, our money would be found. So, after decades of planning and lying low, except for our initial visits across the world in 1972, we were now actually in a position to put our plans in place, and become more a of a force to be reckoned with, happy in the knowledge that if we weren’t saving planet Earth, then at least we were making it possible to move to Mars and start again. This would not only be in terms of a fresh and sustainable ecosystem, but also hopefully with a new socio-political system that placed at its centre the protection of the planet.

  Chapter One - Tristan da Cunha

  Dodds looked out across the bay towards the southern Atlantic. It was early September, but even though their summer was approaching, there was still a chill in the air and the Antarctic terns were jousting in the wind as they hovered over the white caps of a churning Atlantic Ocean. Their flight antics were magnificently framed by a gunmetal sky that dramatically highlighted their pale grey and white underbellies. The wind blew salt in the face, and he was glad of the thick jumper he had brought with him from their home in Tibet. He turned around slowly and took in the amazing sight that presented itself to him. On top of a huge, grassy hill, dwarfed by the black volcanic cone towering above them, was an airstrip, and just further out, a large metal gantry and a huge spacecraft gleaming white under the weak sun, with strange little wings at either side. It looked small from here, but he knew once you got up close, the thing was enormous. With the smell of ozone from the sea in their nostrils, hand in hand they moved slowly along the path that they had created on the clifftop towards the complex. The salty wind blew cobwebs of tiredness away as they made their way down with the wind-blown Atlantic on their left creating a sense of belonging and contentment in them.

  Dodds and his wife Yvonne had been there on and off more than seven years, and had been the ones to not only recruit all the staff looking after the base under SeeMore’s guidance – subject to strict secrecy rules, of course – but also the six members of the Moon mission who would be helping to install the biospheres over the next five years on the dark side of the Moon. The biospheres were designed to respond to any surface underneath them and transform the material into moist soil. A grid was ready to implant the soil with seeds, and the tests in the laboratory had already shown how quickly the plants had grown in zero G in the protected environments of the biospheres. The base had grown from just an airport strip and a hotel and administrative block at the beginning, to a thriving town with everything that comes with that including a school and a college, a cinema, a nursery and a library. The buildings were all white in colour and were situated on the grassy hillside that was the foothill to the big volcano.

  The most difficult thing had been keeping the base secret. Enormous measures were taken to employ the right people, and they all knew that the more people they employed, and the longer they carried on in this secret recruitment, eventually they would be discovered; it was just a matter of time. Dodds and Yvonne knew this, but they both felt they just needed to continue until the successful Mars mission in ten years’ time, and then there’d be no need for secrecy.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” Yvonne said, moving behind him and placing her hand around him and putting it in his pocket, which was an endearing habit of hers.

  “Hard to imagine that thing getting off the ground,” he said, looking at the enormity of it. It looked like a big white fat duck on the concourse, and it was difficult to see how that would take off in three days’ time. He more or less was aware of the science. The recent breakthrough in their labs
to develop Impulse Magnetoplasma rockets would mean a truly different experience of take-off than dramatically blasting from the Earth’s surface as per the last sixty years of space flight. The new propulsion system made mincemeat of propelling the spacecraft into space and inter-solar system flight, even when full of three fully deployable biospheres that would self-terraform over a period of time once the sensors detected that they had landed on the Moon.

  They wandered back to the complex, and shivered slightly, not only at the chilly day, but at the enormity of what they were doing. They had come an awful long way from their humble beginnings as police officers in London, a long, long time ago.

  ∆∆∆

  Mad Dog and I sat in the soundproof offices deep within the White House planning wing. Besides the ubiquitous Stars and Stripes in the corner of the room, there was none of the grandeur of the other parts of the White House, just five plain chairs set around a screen, which was blank currently. There was an office desk with a computer on it, but that was it. The office was drab, decorated in pale grey, with a deep-pile grey carpet to complete the drabness. The Under Secretary of Defense Policy walked in without announcement, sat, and eventually introduced himself to us as Jacob Cobb. He was probably in his late thirties or early forties in appearance, he wore the standard grey suit and tie that all White House staff seemed to wear, with a straw-coloured mop of hair, a suntanned face and a look of corporate correctness about him.

  “I’m sorry to keep you waiting, gentlemen, how can I help you?” he asked, rather nervously I thought. I couldn’t believe that we had been denied immediate access to the president, but decided to be patient.