Homecoming.



Start 9809101913
Working Title: Homecoming (unfinished)

First a preface. In New Zealand there is a place I remember very fondly. It's a place called Dawson Falls. Hunt down a map if you like and have a look for Mount Egmont or now known by it's original and more fitting name Mount Taranaki [pronounced tow (as in TOWel) -run-ack-ee] depending on the age of the map. It's a mountain on the west coast of the north island of NZ. The mountain top is covered by snow all year and it's surrounding area is declared a national park (not sure what you call it, a protected heritage site?). It's remote, beautiful, and the most technology touches it is incandescent light bulbs in the wooden lodge which is halfway up the mountain. No TV, no radio, no nothing. When I was about 12-13, we had a few holidays there with some other families (the lodge was open plan and housed some 20-30 people). Bunk beds, dormitory style. Blindingly beautiful deep blue sky during the crisp cold days, howling winds and rain throughout the even colder nights. The nearest piece of civilisation was a town of some 1500 people about an hour's drive away.

Okay here we go.

"Homecoming"

The transport designated "Phoenix One" - mainly for it's flamboyant atmospheric reentry method - descended silently, cautiously, through 70,000 ft towards it's unseen destination. Onboard intelligence constantly seeking a safe path, making almost subconscious, even elegant adjustments to it's flight control surfaces like an eagle manipulating every feather on each wing while riding a thermal...or watching prey. Cautiously this time not for fear of hostile intent focussed on the craft, on the self, but for it's precious cargo. A personnel transport module of flyers recovering from 72 hours of defending the line. The intelligence grateful for the 12 people it now gently, oh so gently, carried under it's care to the recovery site. It also grieved for the 28 that did not return.

It did not know those lost; the lives they'd lived, the loved ones that would never know the answer to the burning, soul-wrenching question "Why?". All it could do was feel the sense of loss emanating from the 12.

The occupants' names, and those of the ones who did not return, are not known on this planet "Terra" or in this planet's blissfully ignorant context. No ticker-tape parade awaits, no medals of honor, just the chance to sleep, and gratefully so: 72 hours on FlightStim and in desperate combat, is not without it's aftereffects.

The intelligence dwelt with the thoughts of each one of the twelve. A futile exercise: it could do nothing to calm these troubled, tormented minds; so much anguish, so many 'if only's'. Still, it could do no less. It wished for the ability to help, to calm, to soothe by giving the thought 'rest is near, peace is near.'

Phoenix One sought and found it's destination deep in the nightside of the planet. Lower hemisphere, two islands. Closer now. 'Rest is near, peace is near'. It focussed it's attention on the North Island, seeking landmarks it was told - would know - were there. A mountain on the West coast. Descending through 10,000ft now, wings flared slightly, slowing. The intelligence noted lights of each city, of each house passing rapidly below. It felt a brief flash of outrage at these gentle, oblivious people, and restrained the urge to engage it's formidable electromagnetic voice and hijack every radio, every TV, every cellphone in the area and scream of the sacrifice made by so few for so many.

The mountain loomed close, 200km, the transport flared it's wings further, bleeding off more speed and slowing to a 'more civilised' mach 0.9 at 2,000 ft. No windows would be shattered on this run, tempting though it was. It sensed dark silence around the mountain. Here was peace, here could be rest. Halfway up the mountain, the intelligence found the destination. A place few knew about, and fewer still visited, called Dawson Falls. The heat from four incandescent bulbs and two fireplaces were the only marks on an otherwise cold, seemingly foreboding mountainside.

This was the place. It flared it's wings further, then redirected engines to a hover stance. Landing gear (feet?) extended and locked. Quietly, carefully, and with far more grace than one would expect from a 'mere machine', it set foot on the ground outside the lodge. After one final furtive glance from shipboard and orbital sensors, it deemed the area safe for it's charges, and opened the outer door.

Rest is here, peace is here.