Prologue: To An

Average Star

The ancient pitted rock had been a lone traveller in near darkness for more than
a million years. Yet it's outward appearence was deceptive. Buried deep within
the stone's heart were sensors that had not fully operated for the last 80
thousand years. Now signals began to bring the object to life and it's pre
programmed codex once again became active. The system computer calculated
within 95 percent probability that artificial transmissions were eminating from
Tegon 11. A base low average star was not considered by the core programming
to be able to support lifeforms, but new adjustments to it's core science matrix
would have to be modified.
The central computer calculated the signal distance of just under 1 light year. It
would take the stone just a few short weeks to cover the distance. Once it had
arrived at the signal source, a determination would be made as which
programming sets would be used, to deal with entities manufacturing the signals.
Within days of first detection, the central core had refined the signal source to
the third or fourth planet in the Tegon system. Based on observations of the
varying signals, the central core had already determined the entities originating
the signals, were not true lifeforms but posed potential problems for the stone's
maker who would soon be expanding into this galactic region.
Terry Mackey sat unmoving for most of the past hour. His attention focused
intently through the eye piece of a 20 inch newtonian reflector he had built five
years ago. At first, his interest had been in deep sky observations of nebulea
and varible stars, but by chance on one exceptionally clear night his interests
would change. He had been looking for a a faint nebulea in the constellation of
Tarus but found instead a much brighter object not listed in the NGC catalogue. It
was still faint by observation standards and he quickly determined it must be a
comet. That night he found the plantery society number from the internet and
reported his observations.
Within two days the newfound comet had been named TMackey. Since that
time Terry had discovered seven comets, and more than 22 near earth objects.
He had seen unusual inter solar objects, but tonight the one he was observing
defied explanation. Since he had first found the object two nights before, it had
undergone dramatic changes. The first observation obeject 12a as he had
labeled it, looked like any other faint approaching comet. But four hours later it
had seperated into three seperate objects, and now it had a bright central core
with a dozen smaller but equally bright companions. Their formation and the
manner in which the seperations occured led Terry to believe no natural breakup
could produce the effects he was seeing.
He guessed the object must be somewhere between Jupiter and Mars, and it
was coming toward the inner solar system at a breakneck speed. He left his
observatory and walked across the snow covered field back to his house , and
made a phone call that would make the day the last normal day on earth.
 Chapter One: The
Spear of The Gods

Doctor Avery Westfield's grey hair and equally grey beard looked unkempt.
His overall apearence was unlike his normal routine. But today and the entire
past week had not been even remotely normal. Avery was in charge of NASA's
deep space Pheonix Array, that scanned broad sections of the Galaxy with Xray
and radio waves, for mapping purposes. Now his and the team's job was to use
the 16 orbital dishes and focus them on the object that was passing Jupiter. His
problem was writting new software, that would allow the array to produce a
incredibly narrow scan that it was not designed for. Their first attempts were less
than expected and it took three more days to get the refinements correct.
That was as far as his concerns were he thought, until grad student Karen
Mitchell brought the first processed images to his office. "Your not going to
believe this sir." was the only thing she spoke but the nervous inflection in her
voiced snapped him into focus. "lets see what we have here." he replied. At first
he was not sure what he was looking at until it became clear that the exterior
surface of the object was simply a shell for an incredibly complex device. Each of
the twelve smaller companions were if anything more intricate and complex than
the main object itself.
" My God!" he exclaimed. " It's a gigantic machine of somekind."
" Have you heard the latest?" she asked.
Avery looked up " Latest?"
" According long range radar, the object slowed down as it passed Jupiter, and
made what they are calling a significant course correction." she answered.
This cannot be happening Avery thought. He had spent years of his life scanning
the depths of the universe, and never once believed aliens could travel the stars
even if they did exsist. He had once ridiculed a student, who strongly believed in
programs dedicated the psuedo science of exobiology. He made her studies so
difficult she broke down and left the university. Now it was he who was the fool.
" Do they why the correction was made." he asked
" It's not certian yet, but my boyfriend works at the tracking station, it looks like it
is coming here." she spoke in a almost whispered and frightened voice.
" I must get these scans to this afternoon's meeting with cabinet. For the moment
try to keep this under wraps. It will eventually get out and some, well a lot of
people will probably panic." he hoped his own voice sounded more calm on the
outside than what fears he himself were begining to feelon the inside. They must
know we are here. Our long range scans and background communications clutter
bleeding of into space would have got their attention. Yet they have made no
attempt to communicate. That was ominous to him.

Crowders
Mountain State Park N.C.

Lisa Parker was out of breath. Her boys John and Jerry were young and faster,
and they wanted to get to the over look before the sun rose. She was now 40 and
although still in good shape, the steep walk up the park trail was challenging. She
stopped to catch her breath, and to take in the cold morning air. Fog blanketed
the shallow valley two hundred feet below her. Although Crowders was in
actuality a hill, it was geologically old by earth's standards, and had steep slopes
along it's 800 ft elevation. The pre dawn sky was begining to brighten in the east
but the brighter stars were still visisble. She stood on one of the many weather
worn granite blocks that littered the hill side and glanced up to see the boys had
gained a good hundred yards on her in less than a minute. She was about to
start again when a faint flash of light speared the sky above her. It rapidly grew to
a hazy ball of multicolored light, and in less than ten seconds fell between her
position and King's mountain a few miles to the east.
What a beautiful falling star she thought and began the climb to reach the boys
and the sunrise. Without warning brilliant blue light filled her entire world. A
moment later came the most deafening noise she had ever heard in her life. The
would mountain seemed to shudder from it's passing. As the light faded she
looked up to see her boys running back down the trail toward her. A huge plume
of wierd blue and yellow smoke towered over the horizon. It took her a few
moments to realize she was looking at a mushroom cloud. Deep red and gold
flames raged along the smoke column's base. She couldn't see King's mountain,
but the south facing side of Crowder's was a buring mess. Several homes that
sat on the edge of the park had been lifted from their foundations and pushed
violently back into the tree line, leaving broken piles of wood and brick. All she
could think of at that moment was to get her children away from the danger what
ever that danger turened out to be.

The
Crater

Deep within the newly formed crater a five hundred foot long tear drop of silver
came to life. To any observer it would have seemed as if the metallic object had
simply melted from the heat. But a complex process was already begining that
had long been pre designed. The micro machines scanned everything within a
thousand feet and quickly began to seize, eliminate and then replicate the
indiginous organisms. The soil based bacteria was something the machines had
never encountered before, and realized in a millionth of a second how effecient
and useful they would be in converting the base organisms of Tegon three. The
first stages of war had begun, and already the unlife forms were losing and didn't
even know it.

National Military
Command Center: Washington D.C.

General Allen Tate waited impatiently for the remaining members of the
cabinet to arrive. " Where is Viki, Miss Shelton." he barked at his secretary. " I
am sorry sir she has not arrived but I will have gate security call here the moment
she arrives." Thank you Miss Shelton. " he responded without enthusiasm. All
hell had broken lose in less than a week. Fisrt the artificial object coming toward
the earth, and now over one hundred reported explosions around the world, with
thirty one on the North American continent alone. At least 15, 000 people had
been killed in the small scale explosions, which were imediately dissmissed as
nuclear weapons. No one was sure what had made the craters and no earth or
space based radars detected the objects until they had penetrated the lower
atmosphere. His worst issue, were the politicians dragging the asses to the
meeting that was to determine the nature of the problem.
Marine Corps General Tommy Bailer put his hand on Tate's shoulder. " Try to
stay that temper of yours Allen. Your wife won't be happy if you keep this up. The
President won't like it either.
" Hell I know Tom but this a critical time and we may be missing something
fundamental to our defense. he replied
" know one is sure we are under attack. Although you couldn't convince me of
that. I'll back you all the way on that. General bailer said.
They walked across the hall into the large mahogony covered conference
room where most of the nation's defense leaders were now gathering. On one
wall was a split screen display that showed a map of North America, and red
points to indicate impact locations. Another simular map display the world in the
same manor. Russia seemed have the second largest number of impacts
followed closely by China. If that didn't send a clear message of intent, Tate
couldn't think of one that would. They ( whoever they were) knew which
countries had the most advanced military systems on the planet. The impacts
were not random, he was certain of that.
Allen Tate had served in the Army since he was 19. He had done his 1st tour of
duty in Vietnam in 1966. He had quiclkly rose in the enlisted ranks faster than
most men ever could have dreamed. He was wounded three times on that 66
tour but he never lost sight of what he believed was important. As the country
spiraled into chaos during the late 60's Allen applied to officer's canidate school
in 69 during his second tour in Vietnam. It took three months before the Army
responded with a tenure at the OCS school at Fort Lee Virginia. From there he
had steadily rose in the officer ranks during 1970 and 1971 and return to his third
and final tour in Vietnam during the last tomultuous year of that war.
Now he faced a threat that was well beyond his normal range of
understanding. The 9/11 attacks had rattled the national defense but even that
was a knowable and fightable threat. Mysterious explosions and empty craters
was not in the national battle plan. He would have not been so concerned if the
events had been located in the U.S. alone but with explosions in Russia and
China had caused great concern among the Joint Chiefs of staff.
Emergency response teams had been dispatched to each site and found
nothing as of yet. Seven more red points appeared on the map in the middle east
two specifically in Isreal and the remaining 5 in Iran. it seemed only a matter of
time before someone responded with force over another nation's territory and
started something that could spiral out of control before the true nature of the
situation revealed itself.