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Origin - Season Two
Origin - Season Two Read online
Copyright © 2015 Nathaniel Dean James
Nathaniel Dean James is the pen name of author Jonathan Ronnquist, whose right to be identified as the author of this work under that name has been asserted by him in accordance with all relevant copyright laws.
First published in the United Kingdom in 2015 by Millennium Birdhouse Ltd.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored electronically, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior consent of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities between the characters in this book and any real person, living or deceased, or other fictional characters, is purely coincidental. All references to actual persons, places and events appear strictly for the sake of general reference, and are not to be construed as accurate for any other purpose.
All rights reserved.
Kindle Edition
ISBN: 978-0-9928446-4-6
Millennium Birdhouse Ltd
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Note to the Reader
Previously, on Origin
Prologue
Chapter 1: Madison, Wisconsin
Chapter 2: Aurora
Chapter 3: Jangdan-myeon, North Korea
Chapter 4: Aurora
Chapter 5: Phoenix, Arizona
Chapter 6: The Pandora
Chapter 7: Madison, Wisconsin
Chapter 8: The Pandora
Chapter 9: Madison, Wisconsin
Chapter 10: Aurora
Chapter 11: Dubai
Chapter 12: Pyongyang, North Korea
Chapter 13: Dubai
Chapter 14: Washington DC
Chapter 15: Pyongyang, North Korea
Chapter 16: Aurora
Chapter 17: Persian Gulf
Chapter 18: The Pandora
Chapter 19: Beijing
Chapter 20: Persian Gulf
Chapter 21: The Pandora
Chapter 22: Pyongyang, North Korea
Chapter 23: Washington Post Editorial
Chapter 24: Iran
Chapter 25: Pyongyang, North Korea
Chapter 26: The Pandora
Chapter 27: Iran
Chapter 28: The Pandora
Chapter 29: Iran
Chapter 30: Pyongyang, North Korea
Chapter 31: Mumbai, India
Chapter 32: The Pandora
Chapter 33: Phoenix, Arizona
Chapter 34: Nampo, North Korea
Chapter 35: Goa, India
Chapter 36: The Pandora
Chapter 37: Mumbai, India
Chapter 38: Phoenix, Arizona
Chapter 39: Nampo, North Korea
Chapter 40: Phoenix, Arizona
Chapter 41: The Pandora
Chapter 42: Beijing, China
Chapter 43: Phoenix, Arizona
Chapter 44: Mumbai, India
Chapter 45: Aurora
Chapter 46: Beijing, China
Chapter 47: The Pandora
Chapter 48: Washington Post Editorial
Chapter 49: The Pandora
Chapter 50: Ganymede
Chapter 51: Beijing, China
Chapter 52: Nampo, North Korea
Chapter 53: Washington DC
Chapter 54: Tesuque, New Mexico
Chapter 55: The Pandora
Chapter 56: Zurich, Switzerland
Chapter 57: Washington DC
Chapter 58: Aurora
Chapter 59: Qingdao, China
Chapter 60: Phoenix, Arizona
Chapter 61: Zurich, Switzerland
Chapter 62: Arlington, Virginia
Chapter 63: Phoenix, Arizona
Chapter 64: The Pandora
Chapter 65: Newburg, Maryland
Chapter 66: Jangdan-myeon, North Korea
Chapter 67: The Isle of Dragons
Chapter 68: Zurich, Switzerland
Chapter 69: Aurora
Chapter 70: Phoenix, Arizona
Chapter 71: Dandong, China
Chapter 72: The Pandora
Chapter 73: Sinuiju, North Korea
Chapter 74: Phoenix, Arizona
Chapter 75: The Isle of Dragons
Chapter 76: The Pandora
Chapter 77: Nampo, North Korea
Chapter 78: FBI Field Office
Chapter 79: The Pandora
Chapter 80: The Isle of Dragons
Chapter 81: Beijing, China
Chapter 82: Bethesda, Maryland
Chapter 83: Aurora
Chapter 84: Richmond, Virginia
Chapter 85: Nampo, North Korea
Chapter 86: Aurora
Chapter 87: Nampo, North Korea
Chapter 88: The Pandora
Chapter 89: Phoenix, Arizona
Chapter 90: Washington DC
Chapter 91: The Isle of Dragons
Chapter 92: Pyongyang, North Korea
Chapter 93: Aurora
Chapter 94: Nampo, North Korea
Chapter 95: The Pandora
Chapter 96: Beijing, China
Chapter 97: Nampo, North Korea
Chapter 98: The Pandora
Chapter 99: Beijing, China
Chapter 100: The Pandora
Chapter 101: Sunan, North Korea
Chapter 102: Pyongyang, North Korea
Chapter 103: Sunan, North Korea
Chapter 104: The Pandora
Chapter 105: East China Sea
Chapter 106: The Pandora
Chapter 107: 38,000 Miles Above the Earth
Chapter 108: The Pandora
Chapter 109: The Xilin Gol
Chapter 110: The Pandora
Chapter 111: Pyongyang, North Korea
Conclusion
Dear Reader
Afterword
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Appendix A: Cast
Appendix B: Names, Places and Objects of Significance
Appendix C: An Account from the Origin Files
In cherished memory of Leonard Nimoy
March 1931 – February 2015
Note to the Reader
By necessity, Origin is a series that cannot be read out of sequence. I would go so far as to say that it is a single work broken into parts for the sake of practicality, but this is not entirely true either. It is perhaps best compared to a television production in which a specific conflict is resolved inside each episode while also carrying the larger story and cast forward. This was in fact how the series was originally conceived, hence Season Two and not Part II. I mention it here only as a warning to anyone who has come across this book that you would do best to begin with the first volume. Origin Season One is available for free from most online eBook retailers.
As in the first book, I have included two appendixes to help readers find their feet, so to speak. The first is a list of characters in alphabetical order and a short description of each. The second is a list of significant names, places and objects. My only advice to those using the lists would be not to let your curiosity get the better of you and run the chance of premature exposure to events best left to their rightful moment. There is also a third appendix, titled An Account from the Origin Files. These are intended for readers who would like a greater insight into certain events that are alluded to in the story, but do not form an essential part of it. I will do my best to include these where I think they will be of interest in all subsequent books in the series.
And finally, a quick note on the timeline. As you
will no doubt recall from Season One, I include a place/date/time stamp at the beginning of each chapter. The argument for these is that the pace of events being what it is, some readers might find them useful. The argument against is that the use of local time zones can create the appearance of discontinuity. My advice would be to use them if you need to, and ignore them if you don’t. In terms of universal time, the book proceeds in chronological order from beginning to end. Thus, where a chapter takes place at great distance from its predecessor, it may look as if we have gone back in time, but this is only an illusion created by the rotation of our humble little planet.
Previously, on Origin…
When we last left our friends, I believe Francis and Richelle were sharing a moment of quiet reflection on the arrival of RP One. For those of you struggling to recall the specifics, I thought it might be only fair if I recounted them here in considerably less detail.
– – –
In the summer of 2006, Francis Moore, having recruited to his cause the very capable Gerald Ross, breaks into the Federal Reserve Bank of New York with an eye to stealing the files of a secret assassination program called Princip. Once a member of Princip himself, Francis has undergone a crisis of conscience in the years since his staged death and intends to use the stolen files to blackmail the CIA into shutting the program down. Technically, at least, the plan succeeds.
But unbeknownst to Francis, the safety deposit box once rented by a front group of the Agency has undergone a change of ownership in the interim. It now belongs to a man named Jack Fielding. Jack just happens to be in the middle of his own double-cross, only he is not attempting to coerce the CIA, but a far more secretive organization by the name of Aurora.
In a desperate effort to recover the hard drive Francis has unwittingly taken from him, Jack turns to his FBI informant to help him find the thief before the Bureau’s own investigator, your friend and mine, Mike Banner. Jack’s efforts to track Francis lead to the small Vermont town of Morisson where they end in spectacular failure, but not before they bring Jack to the attention of Princip’s chief handler, the shadowy Norton Weaver.
Weaver, ignoring strict orders not to interfere, employs two ex-Mossad agents to track Francis down along with the two local residents now in his charge, Jesse and Amanda. Francis flees with them across the border into Canada and leaves them to fend for themselves while he returns to the US in search of answers.
His inquiries eventually lead him to Mike Banner, and the two of them travel to Florida to see Francis’s friend and mentor, Reginald Styles. Things appear to be looking up when news reaches them of the plight of Jesse and Amanda, who have narrowly escaped death at the hands of Norton Weaver’s henchmen.
In the meantime, Mitch Rainey, Mike’s long-time friend and colleague, is kidnapped after stumbling upon Darkstar, a decommissioned satellite still very much in orbit. Mitch is quietly ferried to Aurora, the organization’s secret facility beneath the Isle of Dragons in the Baltic Sea, to play the role of scapegoat at the hands of Brendan Fisher, aka, the Chief.
When Jesse and Amanda are eventually rescued the quartet leaves the United States for Nassau, where Mike and Francis say goodbye to the young couple and fly to Europe. After a short stopover in London to visit the eccentric Maxim, the pair find themselves in Zurich. It is here that they eventually come face to face with Caroline de Villepin, Chairwoman of the elusive Karl Gustav Foundation, and succeed in arousing her suspicions, if not her trust.
Only after Caroline has them sent to Aurora’s safe house at Utska in Poland, where they meet her sister Richelle, do the pieces finally begin to fall into place. Shortly after their arrival, Utska is attacked by men under the command of Viktor Manin, the Russian ex-general and unwitting accomplice of the plan’s mastermind, Aurora’s own chief of security.
The attack is successfully repelled, but Mike is badly injured. As he is rushed to Berlin for treatment, Francis joins the rest of the crew onboard the Callisto, Aurora’s converted submarine and sole lifeline to the outside world. Understanding that the game is now up, Brendan kidnaps Richelle and tries to ferry her off the Isle of Dragons. Francis succeeds in foiling the attempt, in which Brendan himself is killed.
It is here, within the hallowed walls of the secret underground facility, that both Mitch and Francis finally learn the truth about the existence of Origin, a derelict spacecraft over twelve miles long, trapped in orbit around Jupiter’s largest moon.
We close out the story with the arrival of RP One, a reconnaissance platform sent to Earth by Origin, now sitting inside the hull of the Pandora, the ship purpose-built to house it. And it is here that we rejoin our friends.
Prologue
North Korea
November 1950
Min-jun knelt to pick up her daughter, in spite of her own aching feet, and hurried on. Ahead, the constant sound of exploding artillery shells seemed to grow louder with every step. When she heard the familiar drone of an approaching plane she moved off the road into the dry bed of the adjacent stream and waited, one hand shielding the young girl as if this could possibly protect her, should the pilot spot them and decide to drop his deadly cargo.
For weeks the only word emanating from the American garrison outside the small village near Jangjin had been of a push crossing the Yalu River into China itself. Rumors that it was in fact the Chinese who intended to take the initiative on behalf of their defeated comrades had been dismissed as so much communist propaganda by everyone, including the patriarch of the family Min-jun and her daughter were staying with. Thus it had come as no small surprise when the shells began to fall. Within hours the Americans had begun to retreat. Min-jun, never one to suffer fools lightly, had ignored the advice of her patron and joined them, managing to find space on an outbound cargo truck belonging to the US 7th Infantry Division. When the convoy was attacked from the air only a few miles down the road they had been forced to disembark and wade across a river to find shelter in the hills.
For two days Min-jun had watched from her perch among the trees as the Chinese advanced, a seemingly endless procession of men and machines jamming the road as far as the eye could see in both directions. In the end, desperation had driven them on. They had followed the river until the road grew quiet again, then crossed it and headed south, surviving on the scraps left behind by the advancing hoard. Shortly before sunset on the third day they had reached the top of a steep hill and spotted a village nestled in the valley below. Her caution tempered by hunger and cold, they had set off again, determined to find shelter among the smoldering ruins.
When the unsteady drone of the plane’s sputtering engine faded, Min-jun picked up her daughter again and returned to the road. By the time they reached the first dwelling on the outskirts of the village, she could no longer feel her own legs. The door of the hut had been kicked off its hinges and lay buried beneath a pile of broken furniture and shattered pots. Min-jun carried her sleeping daughter into the smaller room at the back of the house and was relieved to find the beds at least had been left intact. She lay her daughter on one of these and covered her with the blanket she had been using as a coat, then returned outside to see what she might scavenge among the ruins.
She had only made it as far as the adjacent hut when she heard raised voices up ahead. Cautiously, she moved to the back of the hut and made her way along the crumbling stone wall. When she reached the end of the wall she peered over the top, her heart first jumping, then sinking at what she saw. Several Chinese soldiers sat gathered around a small fire in the village square. Suspended above the flames on a crude rotisserie made of branches was the skinned carcass of a small dog. The smell of burning fat made her stomach grumble in protest. Despite the cold, she stayed where she was. When the soldiers finally retreated back inside the house on the corner of the square she made her way to the dying embers of the fire and gathered up what had been left behind.
They ate in silence, picking the bones clean of what little meat remained, most of it only half cooke
d and foul. The child’s pleas for more eventually turned into sobs and Min-jun admonished her to stay silent, lest they be discovered. When this did not work, she had no choice but to cover her daughter’s mouth with her hand and keep it there until the girl, too exhausted to even cry, fell asleep. This final act of cruelty, necessary but no less vile in consequence, broke what was left of her resolve, and she began to cry herself.
She reached beneath her coat and took out the letter, the only one she had received from her husband in the months he had been gone. Tucked inside the sheet of fading yellow paper was a picture of their infant son, smiling at the world in a way only a child who has yet to understand it is capable. She had begged her husband to let her take the boy with them, but to no avail. And so he had been sent to live with an uncle on the outskirts of Pyongyang. Min-jun read the letter again, and marveled at how quickly the world could change. It had been written shortly after the fall of Seoul, its mood jubilant and full of hope for the future. Her husband, an infantry sergeant, promised a swift victory and triumphant return. How wrong he had been. How wrong they all had been.
Min-jun was stirred from these thoughts by the sound of singing. She moved to the window and listened for a moment, her heart lifted by the cheerful tone of the voices. Perhaps the Chinese had been victorious, she thought. She did not believe it, but felt a flicker of hope nonetheless.
It was soon dashed.
The drunken chorus was suddenly interrupted by shouts. A fight broke out and quickly spilled out into the square, where it was cheered on by a drunken mob clearly intent on seeing its pound of flesh. Min-jun left the house and made her way back along the wall. She peered over just in time to see a group of five men round the corner of the house at the end of the row. A short, stocky man of middle-age led the party. Raising the bottle in his hand to his lips, he pointed at the house in front of them and urged the others on with an impatient wave. Two of the men kicked down the door and disappeared inside. She listened as they turned the place upside down in search of what was almost certainly more alcohol. When the men emerged empty handed, the group set off again, stopping at each house in turn.