Homeworld occupied homew.., p.1
Homeworld Occupied: Homeworld Series Book 1, page 1
Homeward Occupied
T. E. Butcher
Copyright © 2021 by T. E. Butcher
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
All characters presented are purely fictional. Any resemblance to people living, dead or cloned is purely coincidental.
Created with Vellum
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
A Word from the Author
About the Author
Also by T. E. Butcher
Chapter One
0445 hours, May 19th 2025
I-15 Northbound Between Helena and Great Falls MT
The truck rolled down the lonely interstate. Now that he’d finally cleared the Rockies, Henry had a straight shot to Hell Creek National Park. More or less. His truck certainly didn’t look out of place in Central Montana. A 1978 International Harvester Scout, saved from a rusty death at the hands of an Ohio winter.
The enormous steering wheel felt good in his hands as he worked his way through his fourth bag of sunflower seeds. Yesterday, he’d got off the I-90 eastbound towards Helena and stayed at a Best Western. After almost ten hours in his truck, he needed it.
His eyes stung a bit. Despite having staved off the worst of the jet lag returning from the Philippines, he still felt some of its effects. On the plus side, a rotation to the Philippines helping the local government defend themselves from the New People’s Army terrorists had been surprisingly refreshing compared to back-to-back tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. My Tagalog wasn’t even as rusty as I thought.
As he rolled up on Great Falls, he decided to stop and get coffee and some real food. His well-stocked cooler contained more energy drinks than he could drink in a day, but coffee seemed perfect for the relatively cool summer morning. Besides, as a tourist town, Great Falls probably had a decent coffee spot or two.
After finding a locally owned place on his phone, he pulled into the parking lot. Henry took another look into the trunk space, memorizing the layout of his things so that he’d notice if someone had tampered with them. His suitcase lay against the sidewall, while he’d pushed his bugout bag against the rear seat. Under the rear seat, a civilian version of his weapon of choice, an M417, lay in a case, while he kept his Smith and Wesson 9mm in the glove box.
He’d brought his bugout bag in the event that his leave got cancelled and he had to go straight to the airport. It’d happened before. The day his grandfather died, he’d got the call that they were going into Syria and he had to leave. He shook his head as he walked inside. I have a month and a half worth of leave, and it doesn’t look like anything’s going to happen. I need to relax some.
There was a stereotype with small towns, which Great Falls technically was, that you walked into a diner or coffee shop, the entire room looked at you, and someone said, “you don’t look like you’re from around these parts.” Henry assumed someone who’d spent their whole life in a city had come up with that fantasy. Granted, his jeans, flannel shirt, and boots pretty much mirrored what most of the other patrons wore. His beard and slightly out of regs hair helped him blend right in. Maybe it’d be different if I walked in wearing a Union Jack leotard.
He snickered at his own humor as he took a seat at the bar.
“Something funny, hun?” an older woman behind the bar said with a warm smile.
Henry returned her smile.
“Yeah, my own stupid joke,” he said before explaining why he’d laughed.
She chuckled at the thought of a Union Jack leotard. Henry noticed her name tag said Jackie.
“That’d probably get ya a few stares, but I think most of these folks would mind their business,” Jackie said. “What can I get ya for?”
“Just a regular coffee with cream and sugar,” he said. “And an egg and cheese biscuit, please.”
“No problem, hun, coming right up.”
Henry nodded. “Thank you, ma’am.” During the exchange, his phone buzzed. A quick glance told him it was his brother texting him.
R U on the road? Isaac asked.
Henry shook his head and typed a reply.
I have been. I’m in Great Falls getting coffee and breakfast. Should be there by noon thirtyish.
As he typed, Jackie returned with his coffee.
“So, where ya headed?” she asked as he sipped his drink. “You don’t look like a tourist.”
With a nod of approval, he returned the paper cup to the counter and looked up at her. “I’m actually on my way to visit my brother,” he said. “He’s a grad student at Ohio State, but he’s spending his summer at a dig site northeast of here.”
Jackie lit up at the mention of the dig site.
“Oh, he’s like Sam Neill in those movies,” she said. “What’s it? An archeologist?”
Henry smiled.
“He’s a paleontologist,” he said. When Jackie looked confused, he explained. “Paleontologists are Sam Neill; archeologists are Harrison Ford.”
As understanding dawned on her face, she turned to hand him his still steaming egg and cheese biscuit. No sooner had he taken two bites when the door chimed as someone else entered.
Out of habit, Henry looked over his shoulder to see who it was. A gruff-looking man wrapped in a few too many layers sauntered in. His sunken eyes zeroed in on Jackie as he made his way over to her. His clothes looked worn and old. Henry monitored Jackie’s reaction, as well as the newcomer.
She stiffened as he approached. She knew this man. She knew him and was repulsed by him. Henry’s eyes danced over the man. His clothes were bulky enough to conceal weapons, but he didn’t have any wires or bulky protrusions indicating a suicide vest. He kept his hand in the front of a hoodie he wore under his bulky jacket. He walked right up to the counter next to Henry and leered at the barista.
“Give me some water, Jackie,” he said, his breath reeking of rot and tobacco.
Jackie stiffened her lip.
“Nathan, you can’t come in here,” she said. “Does restraining order mean anything to you?”
“Bitch!” he cried. “You took everything, and now you think you can control me with a piece of paper!”
This has gone on long enough.
“Hey, man,” Henry said. “You don’t need to get in trouble with the police. Just move out smartly.”
Nathan spun on him, sunken eyes filled with hollow fury.
“Mind your damn business, boy,” he said. Spotting Henry’s sandwich, he grabbed the plate it was on and threw it against the wall. The tiny ceramic plate shattered.
Sighing, Henry stood up to his full height. At 6'2", he stood almost a foot taller than Nathan.
“Sir, you should leave,” he said. He was already aware of Nathan’s ruse. He was acting like he had a weapon in his hoodie pocket, but it was just his hands.
The belligerent man’s entire attitude changed when he realized how much bigger Henry was than he expected.
Scowling, he stomped out. “Bitch,” he said one last time before glaring at Henry and leaving.
Henry shook his head.
“I’m sorry about the plate, ma’am,” he said as he began pulling out cash.
She held up a hand as he tried to pay.
“There’s no need for all that, hun,” she said. “But you seem like you want to get back on the highway. Would you like another coffee and biscuit for the road? On the house, of course.”
Henry smiled and nodded. “I would appreciate that very much, thank you, ma’am.”
0900 hours, May 19th 2025
Green Bank Observatory, Green Bank, West Virginia
As she tapped her pen across the top of her monitor, Chloe Matsura frowned at the data. Brushing a lock of electric green hair out of her eyes to get a better look, she scrunched her face as she took it all in. Bouncing her leg, she looked over at her acting station chief. “Uh, hey, Drew, I’m getting some weird readings from near Jupiter,” she said.
The building itself was older, seventies architecture, with modern computer systems and networking tacked on top of it. Chloe backed her rickety chair away from her desk as Drew leaned over her cheap keyboard.
“Did you try cleaning it up?” he asked without a thought. Bags hung under his eyes.
Chloe nodded.
“First thing I did. It’s not like the normal radio bursts from the planet.” She pointed at some of the signals she’d picked up. “It’s longer, for one, and look here, it’s like they’re responding to each other.”
Drew held up a cautious hand. “Let’s not get carried away,” he said. “Could be some weird stellar phenomenon we don’t know about.” He looked over at a station with a series of joy sticks and a snoozing coworker. “Calvin, wake your ass up. Chloe spotted something weird with the forty-meter. Get the big guy on it.”
Calvin nearly fell out of his chair. “What? Oh, cool, big guy. I’ll t
“No,” Drew said.
“Maybe,” Chloe said.
Drew shook his head. Calvin and Chloe both looked at the dusty Station chief as he sighed.
“Look guys, it’s great that we get funds from SETI at all,” he said. “But the truth is, why would aliens bother coming here?”
“Water?” Cal asked. “Maybe their world’s running out or something?”
Drew shook his head.
“Water’s the most abundant compound in the universe,” he said before sipping his coffee. “Why come to a planet with a belligerent or warlike species on it?”
“Biomass?” Chloe said. “Life is extremely hard to find.”
Drew scoffed.
“And risk new and unknown diseases?” he said. “Or spreading theirs here? Unlikely.”
Chloe raised an eyebrow.
“What about a religious or political reason?” she said. “Maybe an alien leader needs a desperate win to secure his position or Earth is a pit stop on some sort of pilgrimage or crusade.”
Drew laughed. “You should write Sci-Fi, Chloe,” he said. “I don’t know which I find harder to believe: that aliens advanced enough to travel the stars haven’t advanced past politics or religion.”
“I mean, she has a point,” Cal said. “People didn’t stop believing in God when cars replaced horses or airliners replaced passenger ships. Hell, the Apollo 11 crew read from Genesis just before landing.”
Drew scoffed.
“Well, more people outgrew it as those things happened,” he said.
Chloe wagged a finger.
“Correlation doesn’t necessarily equal causation. That’s, like, the first rule of statistics.”
Drew shook his head and stood up. “I’m going to refill on coffee. Let me know when the hundred-meter dish gets a better resolution of whatever Chloe’s looking at.” And with that, he left the observation center.
Sighing, Calvin shook his head. “What a dick. I hate getting saddled with him.”
“He’s a douche for sure,” Chloe replied. “But I love the baby pics in our group chat.”
“When’s Brandon coming back from paternity leave?” Calvin asked. “It’s been a month already.”
“He’s still got two months,” Chloe said. “And luckily for us, he’ll be back on the night shift so his wife can go back to teaching.”
Calvin suddenly leaned over his station and squinted. “Wow, hey, get the feedback from the hundred-meter on your screen. I wanna be sure I’m not seeing things.”
Chloe furiously typed and clicked. She brought up the data from the hundred-meter and opened a window so she could compare it to the earlier data from the forty-meter. Like she suspected, multiple radio bursts seemed to be in communication, replying and updating each other. After cleaning up the signals, they determined six sources for them. While Chloe tried to further organize the signals, Calvin went to work on resolving the signals’ sources.
“Are you able to make anything out of individual signals?” Calvin asked.
Chloe shook her head.
“It’s mostly binary sequences, either code or white noise. How’s your end?”
Calvin looked up with a worried expression. “Well, you’re right, we have six objects, and I have an estimate for their size. They’re massive.”
“How massive are we talking?” she asked. “Like Independence Day massive?”
“Five hundred kilometers by five thousand kilometers, cylinder-shaped. The interior mass would be greater than all of Eurasia.” He took a deep breath. “And they’re decelerating.”
Drew returned to the observation room, a mug of coffee in his hand.
“Any updates?” he asked. When Chloe and Calvin told him everything they’d learned, he rolled his eyes. “You guys are being hysterical. It’s probably just a few radioactive objects getting trapped in Jupiter’s gravity well.”
“Their trajectory has them coming from outside of the solar system,” Calvin said. “And they’re in a formation.”
“Your brain is seeing patterns where there are none,” Drew said before sighing. “If I go up the ladder and get Parkes and the APF to take a look, will you two calm down and be reasonable?”
“It’s hard to be reasonable with ET hanging out in our neighborhood,” Calvin said, prompting another eye roll from Drew.
“You’ll probably never see an extraterrestrial with your own eyes, Cal,” he said. “If we found anything, it would be a probe or drone of some kind, you know, like the kind we fling out into the universe. And even if they do discover us, they won’t visit Earth in our lifetime because they can’t overcome the speed of light—nobody can.”
Chloe looked away as Drew went on one of his rants. I swear, if he’s so against the idea of extraterrestrial life, then why the hell did he take a job here? With a sigh, she looked back at the data. “Uh, guys,” she said. “The radio bursts from the objects are getting more intense.”
1200 hours, May 19th 2025
Hell Creek Formation, MT
Henry’s truck bounced down the path, or what he assumed was a path to the dig site. One of the undergrads who still had service had dropped a pin, and now his trusty Scout kicked up dust under a warm noon sun. Henry had shed his flannel, and his air conditioning blasted full tilt. I hope the compressor doesn’t shit the bed while I’m out here.
The scout could more than handle the terrain, though, and before long, he could see what had made the rudimentary path he’d been following earlier. A large camper sat behind a new Ford truck and a handful of tents dotted the area. The other vehicles around the camp site sat somewhere between his Scout and the Ford in terms of age, yet none seemed as well-maintained as his truck. He pulled up to a fresh space and got out.
He grabbed a ball cap off his dash. It was multicam, with a mesh back and an Ohio State patch sewn into the front. Donning the cap and a pair of sunglasses, he got out and began looking around.
The camp sat in a depression formed by a set of low hills ringing it. He thought he could hear voices on the other side of the hill to his west. As he got his bearing, he heard the door to the camper open behind him.
“Oh, Isaac, good. Are they done with the casts?” a female voice with a british accent asked. Henry turned to see a woman in a tank top and cowboy hat step out of the camper and approach him. As she did, she stopped and did a double take. “You’re not Isaac, unless you hit the gym super hard and grew a beard in an hour.” Curls the color of midnight poked out from under the wide brim of her hat. Henry’s weakness.
Henry stuck out a hand. “Close, but no cigar,” he said. “Henry Wells.”
She responded with a smile and firm shake.
“Jessica Howard. Of course, you must be Isaac’s brother.”
“The one and only,” he replied. “So I guess you’re the one in charge here, right?”
She nodded and motioned for him to follow her.
“Once I was done with University, I wanted to come out here,” she said. “Europe has a lot of great sites and good researchers, but this is home of the Tyrannosaurs and Triceratops, so I listened to the little girl in me. Next thing I know, Ohio State wants me to lead an expedition out here with your brother.”
Henry nodded, then tapped the patch on his hat. “That’s good to hear. I didn’t know the college asked for you two, but that’s good.” He smiled as they crested the hill.
“ Isaac said you were involved in some work overseas?”
Henry gestured more or less. “I’m in the Army. They send me all over the world to help governments deal with insurgents or teach rebels how to topple tyrants.”
“Oh,” Jessica replied. “That sounds exciting. I assume you’re bilingual as well?”
“Yeah, Arabic, Farsi, Tagalog, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Pashtu,” he replied. “I can get by in a few others, but those are the ones I’m fluent in.” He waved his hand. “Enough about what I do—there’s plenty of time for that. What specifically brought y’all out here?”
